The Athens Assignment by David Boyle

Author:David Boyle [Boyle, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Quill
Published: 2018-03-06T22:00:00+00:00

5

Athens, May 1941

Two days! How could she wait two days? She and Fleming both had their reasons for wanting speed, but it was not clear to her now, how to make things develop faster. If the radio operator was going to take two days to arrive then, well, there was nothing to be done but wait. But she could see a bit more of occupied Athens for her other job.

“Come on then,” said Betty. “I’ll show you the city.” They were in her home at 14 Odos Patriarchou Joachim, and it was Xanthe’s first taste of it – the flat seemed to be full of people. “They cancelled me again at Deutsches Athens, where I broadcast from, so there’s nothing to be done. I’ve told Paul. So come on – get a move on: Athens is a beautiful city, as long as you don’t look too closely at the swastika flying above the Acropolis.”

The two women wandered down to Piraeus, sat in a café there and listened to the stories that seemed to come from all directions.

“It’s a journalist’s paradise,” said Betty. “As long as you don’t feel homesick – then you get to feeling kinda trapped.”

“Tell me about it!” said Xanthe, but she had realised – if she had time – this was something she could write about, even if it had to wait until she was back in London.

She had been staggered, as they walked down the shopping streets, to find most of the shops open but almost no food on sale at all. Betty told her that the invading troops had confiscated all the canned goods and any farmyard animals. A friend of hers had a cow that was about to give birth. When the soldiers came to shoot it, they begged them to let it live until it had given birth. It gave birth that night, but the next day the soldiers were back – they shot the cow and the calf died too because it had no milk. “It really is a tragedy. The whole thing. Greece will die,” said Betty sadly.

As they walked back through the city in the heat, they were passed by lorry after lorry, driving fresh troops down to the docks or the airfield. In the other direction, they saw large numbers of wounded troops going towards the city hospitals. One lorry was emitting groans of agony from inside. Clearly, the battle was now in full fury in Crete.

As for the locals, those who had not been arrested still crowded into the cafés, though they had nothing to supply their customers with. Betty explained that even those who were a bit better off were also suffering because the main effect of the occupation marks was to cause rampant inflation.

The same seemed to be true of some of the new arrivals. They saw soldiers in their uniforms, going door to door, begging for food and alcohol. They saw Austrian soldiers singing The Blue Danube, drunk on ouzo. And they saw small groups of Greek civilians, singing instead, their own satirical song, Coroido Mussolini.

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