Orthokostá by Thanassis Valtinos Read Free Book Online Page B

getting any out. I was wearing some Greek Army leg wraps. I took them off, we tied them together, and we tied a kerchief at one end. The one we had wrapped the lamb liver in. We lowered this until it was soaked through, then we wrung it into our mouths. Then Chrístos remembered he had his wallet with him. I made a ring around the top with twigs, and fastened them with some string. It was like a small bucket. And we’d lower it, we drew up a lot of water, we drank and drank. We were very thirsty. The following day we left there. We came to a clearing. So we wouldn’t be too close together and be an easy target we said we’d follow different footpaths. Some Germans appeared up above coming down from across the way. There would be Greeks with them, for sure. Did they see us? Or didn’t they? They started machine-gunning. They started throwing hand grenades. At which point it was every man for himself. I call out to Stavróyiannis, we threw ourselves into a ravine. There were some shepherds there. But they didn’t bother with shepherds. After that we lost track of Chrístos. I think he stayed there during the skirmish. They found him there, killed. Who found him, I don’t know. We looked for a way to escape. We headed for the Sítaina woods. West of there were some high rocks; we climbed them. We found two rebels hiding there. With the sun beating down on us all afternoon. And not a drop of water to drink. The four of us agreed, finally, to slip out of there during the night. To look for a way out, to escape from the Germans. But things turned out differently. In the evening, as we were leaving, a patrol heard us. They fired two flares; we hit the ground. We waited. One rebel comes over, he points his pistol at us. You stay right here, he says, or I’ll kill you. So we wouldn’t cause any trouble. They knew their way around. We didn’t. Okay, we’ll stay here. And we spent the night there. We were parched. We would put out our tongues and lick at the rocks to get a little moisture. Day broke; the wells were above us. The Germans had taken possession of them. Yiánnis and I decided to surrender. We got up, we raised our hands. Luckily for us, they must have been Austrians.
Kom, kom
, they say to us. We understood that they wanted toknow where we were from and all that. We say to them, From Kastrí.
Nichts Kommunist
, I say to them.
Nichts. Nichts Partisán
. We asked for water, they brought us a bucketful. We drank till we burst. Then they took us away. They didn’t give us food. A platoon picked us up, we said, That’s it. We saw a place where mules were urinating, there were flies swarming around, we thought they had killed people there. At any rate, we kept walking. Them with their machine guns and us up ahead. We spent the night in Sítaina. The next day they took us to Kastánitsa. That’s where their headquarters was. And there they interrogated us. Yiánnis didn’t have his police ID with him, he had lost it. Mine was in order, it had been officially stamped and approved in Hoúria. Yiánnis didn’t have his. Why don’t you have it? We left in a hurry, he said. That was the excuse he gave. Then the verdict was announced. We would be taken to Vrésthena, and they would release us there. One more rebel had been added to the force. The same platoon escorts us. On the way the rebel is up ahead. Up ahead with a mule, like a guide.
    And at some point he gives them the slip. He leaps down a cliff, there was a ravine below, he runs in there, he disappears. They started strafing the area with their machine guns. They come over to us. A brother of yours? A cousin, says one of them to me.
Nichts
, man, I say to him.
Nichts
cousin of mine. Me from Kastrí,
andere
from Barbítsa. The other man. I was talking about that rebel. But they didn’t do anything to us. We arrived at Vrésthena. They tell us, We’ll eat, and we’ll let you