Corporal Cotton's Little War by John Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

flickered from one side to the other.
    ‘I have it hidden,’ he said. ‘It’s best that way. There are a few on this island who don’t like me and they might well tell the Germans that I have helped you, when they come. Enter, please.’
    They pushed into the house, which, despite its more imposing exterior, was sparsely furnished. The hall was empty except for a single cane chair, a small table bearing a wine glass with a solitary flower in it and, above it on the wall, an ikon. Beyond, the back of the house was very different. They could see a dirt yard and chickens wandering in and out, and even as they watched, a goat relieved itself on the doorstep.
    Komis showed them into a room with bare plaster walls and a wooden floor, which was clearly his office. It contained a woven rug, a desk, a dowry chest, an assortment of plants and calendars, a wooden filing cabinet and four chairs in a line with embroidered antimacassars over their high wooden backs, clearly there for those seeking Komis’ favours. The men stood in a group, five of them with the boy, filling the small room with their bulk, all a little awkward and ill-at-ease. The shutters were closed and the room was dark and smelled of the damp which had peeled the tinfoil decoration from the frame of a gaudy religious painting of an agonized Christ facing a paternal-looking God through a circle of heavenly clouds. Komis sat down and gestured at the chairs, but they all remained standing. The woman brought a tray and offered them loukoumi, tsipero and Turkish coffee.
    ‘I shall not come with you,’ Komis said.
    ‘Why not?’ Cotton asked.
    ‘Because it’s not safe to do so. There will be fighting in these islands when the British have gone. There are a few Fascists, and a lot of ELAS who are willing to kill Germans but are also anxious that their own unlovely Communist creed should be brought here.’
    Cotton guessed that the mayor was a Fascist and might even welcome the Germans, but that he was afraid of the Communists and was hedging his bets by offering help.
    ‘They shot up the square of Mandalani on Siphos,’ he went on. ‘They came over and machine-gunned the people. There were seven dead.’
    Whether the mayor was a Fascist or a Communist, he seemed concerned, at least, that no Nazi frightfulness should be visited on Iros, and he was not unhelpful.
    ‘Nico will show you where the petrol is,’ he went on, indicating the boy. ‘It’s in a shed behind the town. There are six drums.’
    ‘I was told eight,’ Duff said. ‘I’ll bet the corrupt bastard’s hidden two for himself.’
    They followed the boy up the narrow street and down white steps between more flat-roofed buildings. Against one of them was a wooden lean-to, timbers and old tyres piled against it. The boy gestured and began to move the tyres until eventually, they saw a padlocked door. The boy took a key and unlocked it. Inside the shed, there were seven drums and several new tyres. The boy banged the drums; one of them sounded empty.
    ‘How do we get them to the boat?’ Duff demanded. ‘The bloody moke can’t carry ‘em.’
    Cotton asked the boy, who vanished, leaving them awkward and uneasy because they were aware of the hostility on the island towards them and didn’t know where the Germans were. After a while the boy returned pushing a small cart. It looked little bigger than a child’s barrow but he began to hitch it to the donkey.
    ‘Let’s have a ramp of some sort rigged up,’ Duff said and they managed, with the timbers that had been leaning against the shed, to build a sloping platform against which the boy backed the cart. Manhandling the drums up, they loaded three of them into the cart and the boy locked the door again and began to pile the timbers up against it.
    ‘We will come back,’ he said.
    The weight of the drums in the cart seemed almost to have lifted the donkey off the ground and Gully eyed it speculatively.
    ‘It’s never going to be able to pull