The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [18]
Not many minutes later the Slamat was blown to hell by Stukas.
Morrison saw the Aussie Captain and the Palestinian Sergeant walking in his direction. He ducked behind a tree, but he heard their voices as they passed.
“Have you heard the latest report, Sergeant?”
“What report, sir?”
“The Germans have entered Athens.”
TEN
THE FULL WEIGHT OF the news crashed down on Michael Morrison. He was filled with self-pity. It was not his war, he protested silently, why should he be trapped in this thing that was not his doing?
The Germans would regroup at Athens, and a day, maybe two, would find them rampaging down the Peloponnesus. The enemy in the sky would not be the only menace now.
A motor convoy of thirty trucks came to a halt on the dirt road a quarter of a mile from the wooded area. All organization seemed to disintegrate. The soldiers poured from the woods and boarded the trucks. They needed no prodding from the NCO’s to hurry.
Mike had to make his choice quickly. It was simple... stay or go. Stay? Then what? Walk into the face of the German Army? He’d never get to Athens now. If he did—what good would it do? They’d have an airtight watch on the Embassy. They would be in command of the rail depots—the highways... They’d have every American in Athens under scrutiny....
Mike watched the soldiers scramble aboard the trucks. They pulled out one by one....
No choice but to join them. Take the ever-narrowing gamble that Mosley and the little man would not find him. Take the slim, slim chance the British might yet escape.
He hustled through the woods to a point where the road ran close. The trucks sped by. As the last truck bore down he stepped into its path and waved. The vehicle slowed enough for him to race around back. A half dozen reaching hands pulled him in.
Mike looked around quickly. Mosley and the little man were not aboard. In a moment a cloud of dust was churned up. He’d be safe—for the moment.
Near the highway junction below Nauplion the convoy joined another larger convoy. Hundreds of trucks jammed with men of the escaping B.E.F. These were men from the British, Australian and New Zealand divisions which had been in action north of Athens at the pass of Thermopylae. Outflanked, when the Greeks failed to move the majority of their army back from Albania, the British were forced to retreat below Athens. They had fought stubbornly and bravely against crushing odds from the sky and on the ground.
There were rumors that they withdrew mainly to save Greece from further ravage.
The divisions raced back into lower Greece, leaving an expendable rear guard at Corinth in hopes it could seal off German entry into the Peloponnesus while the bulk of the forces escaped.
Out of dozens of small ports and inlets in Southern Greece ships of the Royal Navy and of the British and Greek Merchant Marine worked a desperate evacuation of the fifty thousand trapped British troops. Harassed from the air and now pressed on land by the Germans, they worked to salvage their men from the doomed country. They evacuated by night, but many of the ships met the fate of the Slamat. Other ships escaped with their precious cargoes to Crete and to Lybia in North Africa.
A thousand rumors flew the length of the convoy. The King of Greece had escaped by flying boat.... The Greek Prime Minister had committed suicide.... The British had won a naval victory over the Italians.... The bulk of the Greek Army was captured in Albania....
Then, heartening news. Most of the B.E.F. was being successfully evacuated. There was hope!
The long convoy grew at each junction. Eventually it switched from the vulnerable main highway onto a treacherous mountain road.
The trucks rattled, twisted and snake-turned along the nearly impassable route. They alternately