“Don’t know, chum. When we see him, I expect.” Arthur was reading a Belgrade newspaper that had arrived mysteriously during the day. Now he threw it down in disgust. “Lot of nonsense in that paper,” he said. “Ever read The News of the World? London paper that is.”
“No, I’ve never seen it. Is the Sergeant in Greece or Albania today?”
“Albania?” Arthur laughed, but, as George opened his mouth to ask another question, he went on. “You were asking what happened to us when we packed up fighting. We were up near the Albanian frontier then.”
“Oh, yes?”
Arthur nodded reminiscently. “You ought to have a look at Mount Grammos if you ever get the chance,” he said. “Wonderful scenery up that way.”
The Grammos massif had been one of the first strongholds of the Markos forces; it came to be one of the last.
For weeks the brigade’s position in the area had been deteriorating steadily. The trickle of deserters had become a stream. There came a day in October when important decisions had to be taken.
The Sergeant had been on his feet for fourteen hours or more, and his hip was paining him, when at last he gave orders to bivouac for the night. Later, the officer in charge of an outlying picket caught two deserters from another battalion and sent them to brigade headquarters to be dealt with.
The Sergeant looked at the men thoughtfully and then gave orders for them to be executed. When they had been led away, he poured himself a glass of wine and nodded to Arthur to do the same. They drank their wine in silence. Then, the Sergeant refilled the glasses.
“Does it occur to you, Corporal,” he said, “that those two men may have been setting their brigade commander and his second-in-command a good example?”