The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [32]
Out on the main square, he was mobbed with well-wishers. First the children came and ran off to get their parents. Mothers and daughters arrived from their cottages, and men dropped their plows and came from the fields. The square teemed with excitement.
And Michael Morrison, the cynic, the scoffer at sentiment, was deeply moved by it all. He tightened his grip on Eleftheria’s shoulder and smiled and she made no attempt to hide her pride as a nurse.
Another two days passed and Mike felt his strength returning. He increased the distance of his walks with Eleftheria, who was beginning to lose some of her shyness.
The village of Paleachora lay peacefully on the slope of a hill within sight of the island-dotted Aegean Sea. It was very much like any other village in the province. A narrow crooked dirt road or two which wove in and among white-washed, thatched-roofed little cottages.
The Church of the Prophet Elias stood apart on a small knoll on which herds of goats and sheep grazed quietly under the watchful eyes of barefooted young shepherdesses.
Pine forests covered the hills, and the landscape was a peaceful tracery of vineyards, wheat fields and olive groves.
The quiet was occasionally broken by the thump of a crude wooden plow on the earth or the outcry of an infant lying in the shade of a tree while his mother worked in a nearby field or the grinding of the mill wheel or a bleating from the flock.
The village of Paleachora was at the northern end of the province of Larissa on the endless eastern coast of Greece.
Mike and Eleftheria would walk hand in hand past the Church of the Prophet Elias to a stream which flowed past a clearing thick with pine needles. In the peace and serenity of the pastoral scene he often found it difficult to concentrate on his Greek lessons. She would throw her head back and laugh at his efforts to pronounce the S and the Z with proper softness. But Eleftheria never laughed unless they were alone and out of sight of the curious eyes of the villagers. Mike would suddenly find himself patting her olive cheek, or, when he put his arm about her waist, he noticed that her childlike face acquired a sleepy feminine look. They would be silent for long periods. Then Mike would damn himself for being lulled by the loveliness of this girl and for letting his mind stray from his mission. After a third visit to the forest he knew he would have to make a decision.
He had little occasion to say more than “hello” to the two British escapees in Paleachora. Mike studiously avoided the transients who hid out in the church. He did get trapped into several conversations with an Australian who called himself Bluey. Bluey stayed with a family just a few cottages away from Christos’. His one claim to fame was a constant gas pressure on his stomach. Most of his sentences were punctuated by belching. Bluey, aside from repeating the story of his escape from the Stalag at Corinth, did reveal something of interest to Mike. It seemed that many wealthy Greek families in Athens had provided boats for British soldiers to escape to North Africa. Mike filed it as an ace in the hole should anything go wrong in his attempt to contact Dr. Harry Thackery.
For the most part, however, Bluey spent his time denouncing the English....
“Leaves us stranded in this ruddy place, they did. Where in ’ell is the bloody Royal Navy, I asks you, Jay? Nothin’ but one bloody Dunkirk after another...
“Not that I gots anything against the Greek people, Jay. They’re as fine a lot of blokes as you’d come across anywhere, and the sheilas... But I tells you if it wasn’t for us diggers, the Anzacs and the rest of the bloomin’ Commonwealth troops the bloody Hun would be in London, that’s wot—and they strands us ’ere. Who’s goin’ to do their bloody fightin’ for ’em, I asks you?”
As a “New Zealander” and brother “Anzac,” Mike was compelled to agree.
“You missed the ’ell ’ole at Corinth,