Jackals' Revenge by Iain Gale

Author:Iain Gale [Iain Gale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

10

Sitting in his new command post, behind a low dry-stone wall, on the edge of an olive grove in the valley on the forward slopes of Pink Hill, Peter Lamb considered the situation. The entire floor of the valley was covered with parachutes. They filled it, like so many huge mushrooms, mostly white but with other colours too. He could see the enemy paratroops running between them, zig-zagging to avoid incoming fire, collecting weapons from the containers that had split open like pea pods. Occasionally one of the men would fall, crumbling like a paper doll as he was hit by gunfire. But as far as Lamb was concerned there was absolutely nothing he could do. The enemy were out of range. Behind him, dug in, was the Petrol Company, the New Zealand hotch-potch of Service Corps men, drivers, mechanics and the like under Captain Macdonagh. Lamb had his men around him, Eadie on the left, Wentworth on the right, with a total of about thirty. Valentine was somewhere to his rear with the Greeks, and he hoped that his training of them had been enough. He knew too that Michael Hathaway and his band of partisans were in Galatas. It was clear to him now, though, that the Jerries had taken Cemetery Hill. A few minutes ago his position had been raked by machine-gun fire from the heights. They had taken no casualties, but it had put the wind up the men and been enough to tell him of their presence. Since then there had been nothing. The enemy were clearly weighing up their chances.

Lamb reasoned that, if the Jerries were up on Cemetery Hill, in all probability they must have taken the prison and made that their base. Any fool would have done that – any fool but whichever Allied commander had taken the decision not to defend it. Time and again Lamb had thought over the past week that the prison would have made an ideal strongpoint, with its large, windowless buildings and high walls. A company of infantry could have held out there indefinitely. But whoever had had the option had not installed even a token garrison, and now it must be in German hands. The paratroops would have gained their first foothold on the island. However, now was not the time to apportion blame. That would surely come later, as it always did.

Anyone could see that Pink Hill was the gateway to the Galatas heights and that whoever controlled the heights controlled the entire area. Pink Hill also denied the village of Galatas itself to the enemy, and from it fire could be brought down on the surrounding area, in particular the vital artery of the road from the south. He had no idea whether the northern flanks down to the sea were still intact. Closest to the coast were the Royal Marines and on their left flank the 4th Field Regiment, artillerymen fighting as infantry or ‘infantillery’ as one wag had put it. It was anyone’s guess how they would do when attacked by German paratroops.

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