The Hounds of Samaria by Nigel Patten

Author:Nigel Patten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Strategic Book Group

April 1942

George Ghikas

Be warned, my friend. Stealing and banditry are considered a way of life in the White Mountains. Doctor Iatros’ words are fresh in my mind as I start out on my second journey to Samaria in the heart of the gorge. I have learnt from Yannis of the lawless customs initially aimed at the Ottoman invaders. Every shepherd goes armed and boasts of his skill with powder and shot. He rustles his neighbors’ goats, abducts his bride and lives locked in deadly feud with members of his own family for decades. In short, the mountains teem with scattered bands of desperate outlaws, armed with rifles and pistols and silver–scabbarded daggers. Many of these feuding villagers are members of Yannis’ own family, which greatly amuses him. He relishes every occasion to tell me lurid stories of vendettas that have lasted for generations.

Spring has finally found its way to the coastal mountains. The slender bright green needle–shaped pine leaves and pendulous cones sigh softly in the warm west wind. Clusters of yellow flowers cover the maple thickets that line the torrent, interspersed with the occasional dark green shining cypress or a blunt–leaved juniper. The stoutly–corded twigs are now covered with the closely pressed scale–like leaves. Far above the vertical walls of the gorge the sun shines on the snow–covered slopes and limestone summits, where the shy agrimi shelters in secret hollows and secluded canyons, far from the trodden paths of itinerant shepherds and hunters. A familiar band of bar–tailed buzzards circles high above the towering cliffs. Their mournful mewing echoes among the scree–fanned chines and ravines that erode the mountainside.

After an hour I reach the Portes, the Gateway, where the narrowing cliffs only leave enough space for the stream to surge through. Swollen with melting snow from the Omalos plateau, the raging waters now cover every inch of the boulder–strewn stream bed, and I remember Yannis’ tales of shepherd boys swept away out to sea. I remove my boots, roll my Cretan pants up above the knees and wade into the rushing torrent. The icy water rapidly numbs my feet. I slither and slide on the slippery stones and then step into an invisible hole. The water surges up to my waist and I just have time to cling to a rim of rough rock in the cliff wall and save myself from being swept off my feet.

* * *

The icy shock is enough to trigger the inevitable asthma attack. But am I to allow a little snow–melted water deter me? I turn and wave weakly at the farther shore. On the lakeside my aunt and two cousins wave at me to turn back, but I have decided to accept the bet and swim all the way across the alpine lake. At fourteen my servitude to the recurrent asthma crises begins to oppress me even more than the attacks themselves and when I finally crawl from the freezing water in my sodden underpants, blue with cold and struggling for breath,

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