For those who don’t run.

  THE ESCAPE APRIL 23, 1941

  I raise my eyes and look up towards the bright and fractured light.

  The explosions have shaken the ground and sky and thrown me from my feet and the place I stood only moments before. I land heavily in the dirt where displaced earth falls around me in uneven and staccato waves. As the churned and burnt soil returns back to where it once rested, I squint through the haze of unnatural precipitation, holding my hand up to shield my view, and this is what I see: the soldiers I travelled with from Thermopylae are all dead, bodies lying between and amongst the rocks of the mountain we’ve defended, and the young Greek resistance fighters we met along the way are in retreat, heading farther up the mountain to run south across the rest of the Attic Peninsula and on towards Athens. I’m the only British soldier that’s left. I’m the only one from my entire company that’s still alive. The women and children we saved from the orphanage have gone ahead of us, to try to get to Athens, to Piraeus, and the sea, to be able to evacuate to the islands, or Africa, somewhere that’s still safe and free, and we’ve stayed behind to fight the Germans to give them time. We’ve done that now; we’ve fought the Germans that march south, and delayed them, so it’s our turn to try to get to Athens. As I rise from the ground where I’ve been thrown by the force of the explosions, that’s the only thought I have, the only one that’s still left. Rise. Rise. We have to go.

  I stand.

  I wobble on unsteady feet as I look north and west, towards the advancing Germans, coming up the mountain through the swirling storm of dust they’ve created.

  Then I turn and begin to run south.

  My legs work slowly at first, but after a few paces they start to stretch and loosen, and I begin to sprint along with the young Greek fighters. We run to the top of the pass we’ve defended as the air around us explodes with bullets and mortars. The ground shakes even more, and the young, dark-haired, dark-eyed Greek that runs next to me falls. He must have tripped, I think, but when I glance down, I see that he didn’t trip at all, and it was more than that. There’s blood on his shirt, near his stomach. I’m about to reach down to help him but his friend comes first, the one who used to talk around the campfire in the moments that were silent and full of fear and doubt, and who told me in accented English his name was Costa. So I turn back towards the Germans, instead, and raise my rifle and fire blindly into the dust and swirling wind where I know they march. I’m trying to help hold the pass just a little bit longer, to give Costa and his friend more time to stand, and keep going, but Costa holds his friend’s head in his lap and I realize I’m not giving them time to stand, but for something else, instead.

  I hear words.

  I hear passionate and important words with deep and labored breaths in-between, and they come from the soldier that Costa’s holding, the one that’s dying in his friend’s lap in these wild hills north of the city and the sea.

  Promise me.

  Raise him to honor his grandfather.

  It’s beautiful, it’s all beautiful.

  I hear the words, and I feel them, too.

  I feel what these two have gone through together, and endured, and what they’ve fought for and what they still fight for—what all in this country still fight for—and it’s why we need to keep going.

  So, after a moment, we do.

  It’s hard to leave him there.

  It’s hard to leave him with empty eyes staring up at the clear, blue, and endless sky, but we have to, and there are only two of them now, only two Greek fighters left out of all that stood with me and fought against evil under the warm and late spring sun. We start to run again, together, faster, then I hear one more bullet and as soon as I do, there’s a searing pain in my thigh and I fall in another shower of dust and dirt that powders my face and rushes into my throat and lungs to choke me.

  The Greeks whip their heads around.

  They stop running and come back to me.

  They try to pick me up, to help me back to my feet, but I shake my head.

  “Oxi,” I tell them. “No.”

  It’s one of the only words I’ve learned in the weeks I’ve been in this country, and when I say it, they understand: they still have to get to Athens before the Germans, and they won’t be able to do that if they have to wait for me, if they have to travel with someone who’s been injured and can’t run.

  They look at each other.

  “Go,” I tell them and hope they can see in my eyes that I want them to, that my word is more than just a word, that it’s a prayer, too, and a wish.

  There’s another moment.

  Then they nod, each in turn.

  “May God watch over you,” the taller one says, in thicker and more-accented English.

  “Thank you,” the second answers, the one I’d seen cradle the head of his friend who has just died. “Efcharisto.”

  There’s one more moment, and one more look.

  Then they turn and begin to run again.

  Like Pheidippides, I whisper, barely even a whisper, more breath than words that pass between my lips as they sprint into the distance, quickly over hills and grass and dirt, on and towards the ancient city and capital.

  After they’re gone, I turn and look around.

  I have a pistol with only two rounds, so that won’t be much use in defense, and there’s nowhere to hide, really, but the sun is beginning to set and soon the light will be gone, and it’ll be night. I see a small grove of low bushes. I make a decision based on fading light and last chances and crawl towards it. The land here is dry and dusty—too dry and dusty, on this part of the peninsula—and dirt cakes to my legs, arms, and face as I crawl, and I let it. I let it come and stay wherever it will on my skin to help disguise me, to make me and my body part of the earth and this peninsula, too.

  I get to the bushes.

  I look behind me, where I just was.

  The Germans are cresting the mountain pass, cautiously coming to the top and then peering over to the other side, the southern side, where I am, looking behind rocks, around trees, searching for any place more resistance could be hiding to continue to shoot at them as they advance.

  But there’s no more resistance left.

  There’s only me.

  I pull myself into the bushes.

  I position the branches and leaves so they partially cover my body, then reach down to my leg and look at the wound that’s there. The bullet passed through the flesh of my upper thigh, tearing muscle, and blood has seeped out and through the cloth of my military-issue pants. I know what I need to do. I grab onto my leg. I take a deep breath and even though the pain is excruciating, beyond anything I’ve ever felt in my life and infinitely more painful than the bullet itself, I squeeze my leg as hard as I can so more blood comes. When it does, I put my hands into the blood, then reach up and smear it in uneven streaks across my face, chest, arms, nearly every inch of my body so that it’s everywhere on me, and then I lay still.

  I don’t move.

  I stay like this in the same spot, in the same way, and I close my eyes so I don’t see them.

  I can hear them, though.

  They keep walking, down the mountain, coming very carefully.

  They get closer.

  Soon I can feel the ground rumble from their tanks and hear the soldiers that walk alongside and in front of the tanks speaking, shouting, answering each other in foreign words I don’t understand and a language I wish I’d never heard. I smell gas and oil, too, as they get closer. This might sound strange, but I can smell evil, as well, amongst the smell of everything else. I can feel it. It comes with them.

  A soldier walks near me. I hold my breath.

  His leather boots crunch on small rocks as I silently compose a prayer in my mind that he continues, that he doesn’t stop at the grove here where I hide. But he does. He comes even closer and then I feel him directly above me, looking down. This is it, I realize. I make a quick calculation. I still have my pistol resting in my outstretched hand, on my palm, and I could bring it up and get one shot off and still have one bullet left after that, so if I’m to die, I could still kill one of them and bring one with me. That’s it, I think. That’s what I’ll do. It will be my death, but it will be one of theirs, also, and just before I go to make my move, I feel the pistol gently taken from my palm and so I remain as I am. My eye cracks ever so slightly and I see a young German soldier—probably no more than eighteen years old, by my guess, one that doesn’t need to shave yet—and he looks at the pistol he’s just found. He opens the chamber and sees the two bullets that are in it. He nods once, satisfied apparently, then closes the chamber and reaches back down again. I can feel my body tense. I don’t want it to, but it does. He wipes the blood that’s on the handle back onto my uniform, then stands and tucks the pistol into his belt and turns to jog back towards the tanks and other Germans.

  I wait until he’s away, until he’s far enough away.

  Then I finally exhale.

  In the distance, the sun sinks even further until it’s almost gone, and I watch from the bushes with slitted eyes as the Germans continue on and into the distance, light and color reflecting off them as they head farther south, closer and closer to Athens with each step they take, with each revolution of the tracks on their tanks. The sun finally leaves altogether, and sets, and with it the warmth leaves, too; it gets very cold this time of year when the sun’s gone, so I shiver now, also, and I wait.

&nb
sp; I need to be sure.

  When I am, I stand again.

  The muscles in my injured leg have begun to tighten and lock, and any way I try to move the leg is incredibly painful, but it will have to be, and I will have to endure the pain if I want to leave, and if I want to live.

  I do.

  I do want to live. I need to.

  I try to think beyond the throbbing in my leg as the soldiers that just passed will now make it to Athens before I ever could, even if I wasn’t injured, and soon this entire area where I stand will be controlled by Germans, so I have to find another way. I think back to the map I studied while I sat in the bright Egyptian sun at Alexandria and waited for the ship that would bring me and the rest of the British troops here. The Germans will have taken Chalcis already, I know, so I’ll go south of Chalcis and find somewhere smaller, somewhere they don’t care about and won’t conquer until later, after they take Athens. I rip a piece of uniform—a strip of cloth from around the hem of my shirt, near the waist—and I tie it above my thigh. I pull firmly on the fabric to cinch the knot as tightly as I can, and the bleeding stops, or at least slows to something manageable and I begin to drag myself through night and darkness. I say drag because that’s what I have to do with my leg, to make it obey the commands from my body it can’t obey on its own. I have to reach the coast before the sun comes, so I pull myself and limp through the entire night and am nearly there when light starts to peek above the hills in front of me. It rises higher in the sky, and exposes me again, to any enemies that might come or be near.

  It’s a chance I’ll have to take.

  I keep going, faster now, as fast as I can.

  Fresh blood starts to come but I ignore it, then smell salt on the breeze, and that’s how I know I’m close. I crest the last hill in front of me and then do more than smell the sea, because I see it now, too, calm and spread before me to the east. I see a small house near where sea meets land, and I begin to walk towards it. As soon as I’m there, even though the sun has only just begun to rise, a man emerges with a rifle pointed at me and I quickly raise my hands into the air. My uniform is bloody and torn, but it’s still what it is, and belongs to the nation it belongs to, and he sees that and recognizes who I fight for and that I’m a friend.

  “British,” I say to him. “Anglia.”

  He lowers the rifle.

  “Nai,” he says, nodding. “Kalo.”

  “Nai,” I repeat, also nodding, then see his wife and two young children come to the doorway behind him. He notices my leg and gestures because he knows I need help, but I shake my head again to tell him no, oxi, there’s no time. “I need a boat,” I say instead. “Skafos.”

  “Skafos?” he asks, eyebrows raised now.

  “Nai,” I nod.

  He waits for a moment, then looks back at his wife and motions for her to stay with the children. He starts to walk. I follow after him. We go down a rocky path and he goes slowly, in front of me, so I can keep up. I soon see another house in the distance, one that’s nearly the same size and shape as his house.

  “Skafos,” he says, and I look to where he’s pointing.

  There’s a dock below us that extends into the sea and a small fishing boat tied at the end of it, bobbing gently in the soft waves.

  “Doesn’t he need it?” I ask.

  “Aftos einai nekros,” he responds, shaking his head.

  I know what the man has told me even without knowing the words, and I still want to pay him or somebody for the boat rather than just take it, but I can’t, as the only thing of value I have is the ring I wear on the second finger of my right hand—the ring I’ve worn and never taken off for a day in my life, not since I turned sixteen—and I’d rather die than give it away.

  I stand there and look back at him.

  This is his friend he’s talking about, I know, and whose boat he’s giving me, probably his lifelong and childhood friend, and I finally nod, slightly.

  So does he.

  “God bless you,” he says in heavy, accented English.

  Then without any more words, he turns and begins back up towards his family.

  I go in the other direction, and down towards the boat.

  I soon get there and to the dock, quickly untie the boat, toss the rope inside, then climb over the edge myself and to where I can sit on the wooden bench and take the oars that rest against the sides. I use one of them to reach out and push off from the dock. I begin to float out, into the Aegean, through the silent and calm morning that is of course anything but those things. I spin the boat so my back is to the south, the direction I need to travel, then dip the oars into the salty, wine-dark, and ancient sea, and I begin to pull.

  * * *

  It’s not very long until the storm comes.

  I keep the land to my left, the still-rising sun to my right, and follow closely along the coast, as closely as I dare. As the sun begins to climb even higher and warmth begins to return, the coast narrows to a point, then ends altogether, and I sail past it and continue between intermittent islands of all shapes and sizes and whose names I don’t know. I wonder what they are. I wonder what their histories have been, and what they’ve seen, and what stories live there. I sail around and past them, not sure what I’d find if I stopped, as most don’t look inhabited, and I need to get to Crete; it’s the southernmost and largest of all the Greek islands and where the Greek government and royal family have fled, and where they’ll set up another government and continue to fight, and I’ll join them there, and I will, too.

  I pass by more islands, and more time passes, also, as I dip the oars and pull them through water, then soon it becomes dark.

  The sun sets in the distance in a way I’ve never quite seen before, a majestic spectacle of burnt oranges and soft yellows, juxtaposed against the clear azure of the water and craggy pieces of land, then once the light is gone, I follow the stars.

  The temperature drops even more.

  Even for this time of year, it seems unnaturally cold, and I can feel the pressure begin to change in the air, all around me.

  The wind picks up.

  And then, after the wind comes, so too does the rain.

  Based on the calculations I’ve made of how long the journey from Attica to Crete should take, I must be close, I think—somewhere south of Santorini, and north of Irakleio, my destination—but I’m not close enough to reach Irakleio before the full brunt of the storm gets to me. The wind begins to whip even more and waves get bigger. The swells are small at first, then larger, and that’s when the wind begins to change, too; it’s swirled for the last few minutes, but then starts to blow uniformly, in the same direction, and it blows west. I’m confused by this because west is the direction in which weather usually comes, not goes, but there’s been nothing normal or natural about any of this, not anything that’s happened over the last months of war and death and men killing men, all in the name of power, prejudices, and lies. And that’s why I’m here, after all, isn’t it? That’s why I’m here and it’s what we’re fighting against. I don’t know how long the storm lasts, but it seems to go on forever, and so does the rest of the dark and cold night; wind and swells only increase as it drags on, and waves crash over the side of the boat and fill my mouth with salt and foam and water.

  Then as the waves and wind increase, even more, the boat starts to fill.

  It’s small at first, just a little bit of water, then there’s more.

  One of the oars is ripped away by a wave, then soon the other is, too.

  I cup my hands together.

  I try to scoop as much water from the boat as I can, but it’s no use, there’s too much, and the waves only get bigger, crashing over the edge with more strength and determination and frequency. I shiver violently, freezing in the cold Greek night but there’s nothing else to do but try because the alternative is death.

  How far am I from Crete?

  How far am I from land, from any of the islands, even one I’m not trying to reach?

  It’s dark so I can’t see anything, but I sit higher, then stand to try to see further, too, over the waves, and that’s then when the biggest one comes—the biggest wave yet—and I lose my balance and the boat starts to tip and then flip and I’m thrown from it as it’s launched up into the air on the back of the great wave and I plunge down into the cold and dark water. I hold my breath then quickly push myself back to the surface and I get there in just enough time to see the boat coming back down again and straight towards me and where I tread water. It strikes me squarely on top of the head, and as it does, my arms go limp, and I feel water rush into my nose and mouth and it burns, and so does the top of my head, and I slip back beneath the waves.