I look at them, all of them.

  So does everyone else.

  Overhead, planes still fly near the coast and there are still intermittent explosions from the areas around Chania and Maleme, and we all know what that means: that the invasion is still happening.

  Anteros breaks the silence.

  “Do we bury them?” he finally asks.

  Stavros who owns the taverna opens his mouth to answer when the valley suddenly explodes again, and a bullet rips through his chest; he’s lifted from his feet before he crashes back to the ground, paces from where he stood before.

  “DOWN!” I yell to both no one in particular and also to everyone.

  I’m surprised at my reaction and the speed of it as I grab Baba and Mana and pull them to the dirt and next to me Giannis does the same with Angeliki and Tasos, who’s rejoined us now. Then more of the air explodes as Chrisoula and Ione both dive for cover, too, and we scramble across the dirt until we reach the safety of our house. Once we’re behind the stone walls, we stand. I peek around the side and see a company of Germans coming from the hills, a group that must have landed farther south, higher in the mountains, and they’re near the cypress now, heading towards the village.

  “How many are there?” Baba asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, as I try to count. “More than ten.”

  But it doesn’t matter exactly how many, because they’re to us.

  I raise my rifle and fire from the corner, and so do Tasos, Angeliki, Baba, and Giannis. I see some of the Germans stumble and fall, and while I’m confident it’s not my shot that’s hit them this time, someone’s has, though they keep coming and they run now instead of picking their way carefully down the hill and through trees. They spill into the village and there looks to be more than a dozen, which is more than I thought. We fire again and I hit one this time, I’m the only one to do so, I think, then the other Germans see us and fire in return as we duck back behind the house and bullets bury into stone. We get off one more round, the Germans duck when they hear the shots, though one more of them is hit by a shot from Giannis and falls. The others come towards us now, and there will be too many to fight against so Baba grabs us and pushes us farther behind the house and then around it and towards the village on the other side.

  “Go!” he yells.

  And so we do.

  He fires one more shot from the corner, then joins us and we retreat from the house and run towards the streets. There’s even more gunfire, echoing between stone buildings that are our buildings and have heard gunfire and seen this type of fighting before, so it’s here that we have the advantage, I know, because this is our village and it isn’t theirs and they don’t know it.

  Baba takes a side street.

  Giannis guards our retreat.

  We make another turn, then Baba stops in the small alley behind Anteros’s cobbler shop and kneels to hide behind a wagon and motions for us to hide behind it, too, and we do.

  We wait.

  We don’t breathe.

  We’re silent, completely silent, then—

  “Where’s Tasos?” Angeliki whispers next to me.

  I look around in panic as we realize he’s not with us, then a group of three Germans walk past the opening to the alley and when we see this, we all stand and fire and while the others miss again, I don’t, and one of the Germans falls. The second and third turn towards us and raise their rifles but Giannis and Baba fire again quickly and their bullets each find their mark and the Germans are lifted from their feet and fall, too. We slowly come from where we’ve been hidden and back towards the larger streets, and see that two of the Germans we shot aren’t quite dead. They’re still crawling on stone, trying to reach rifles they dropped when they fell and Giannis and Baba move their wives and me behind them then go to the Germans on the stone and put bullets in their skulls.

  They lie still now.

  I walk from my place behind my father and stare down at the German I shot, surprised at how many of them I’ve hit since this began.

  Then I look up and search for Tasos.

  I don’t see him anywhere so I take the corner around Anteros’s shop, on my own, and as soon as I do, I stop, because there’s another German standing there at the other end of the alley with his rifle raised and pointed directly at me.

  I have no time to do anything.

  I see his finger start to squeeze the trigger.

  A shot rings out.

  The shot’s not from him, though.

  It comes from the roof and the German looks up and so do I and at the same time we see Tasos there above us, and the German whips his rifle around and fires but Tasos dives out of the way and the bullet misses him, then when the German turns back to me, my rifle is already raised and pointed at his chest.

  I don’t hesitate.

  I fire.

  The bullet covers the distance between us in less than a second and tears into his stomach and I’ve hit another one. The force of it knocks him over and he falls to the ground where he drops his rifle, reaches for it again, like the others did, but I run over and kick it away. Tasos jumps from the roof to the wagon, then the ground, to come stand next to me, and then Baba, Mana, Angeliki, and Giannis all come from the other end of the alley and do, too. Angeliki hugs Tasos and pulls him close. Baba and Giannis try to push me away from this German that’s on the ground, holding his stomach now, blood pulsing between fingers that try to cover the bullet hole, but this time I don’t let them. It will be me. I don’t know why, or why it’s important, but it is. I can feel that it is.

  So I go forward.

  I stand over the German who still holds his stomach as more blood comes and I can see the shadow my body casts across his face, his eyes, blocking him from the sun. He opens his mouth and I don’t speak German and won’t understand his words, but I still don’t want to hear them, so I raise my rifle and once again I don’t hesitate.

  I squeeze the trigger.

  Another shot echoes through the alley.

  His head snaps back, then he lies still.

  There are a few more shots in the distance, through the streets and village, then soon there aren’t any more.

  We all look at each other.

  “Carefully,” Giannis warns, and we understand.

  We move as silently as possible, in a calculated and careful manner, back through the street and towards the center of the village. We see no more Germans. Then once we’re close and finally get there, we see bodies in the town square and I recognize three of them: the first is Nikos, who also worked in the taverna, the second is Ismini, who was married to Stavros, who was already killed, and the third is Georgiana, the wife of a different man in the village named Giannis who is of the Daskalakis family and had been recruited to go to the mainland. We were all surprised when the letter arrived for him, because he was nearly fifty, but he’d just put away his fishing equipment, his wife had told us, reached for his boots, then kissed her and left with all the others.

  Those are the only three Greek bodies I see.

  There are other bodies around them, but these bodies I don’t recognize, because the rest of them are German.

  We stand there.

  We all stand together, and we’re silent.

  Then Father Thiseas comes forward, his black robes torn and stained red and he walks through the square until he comes to something on the ground. He bends and picks it up, and as the light hits it, I realize it’s the large gold cross he wears around his neck, only now the chain is snapped and broken. They must have grabbed for it and tried to rip it from him. He picks it up anyway, and holds it in one hand while the other makes the sign of the cross as he walks amongst the deceased and begins to chant a prayer, for all of them, both Greek and German alike, as next to us Anteros whispers.

  “The women, too,” he swallows. “My god, they killed the women, too.”

  There are more gunshots in the distance.

  They echo, and in the way that they do, it tells us they come from the far side of the valley, and we all know what’s there.

  Elaionas.

  “Ikaros,” I whisper.

  Then I start to run.

  Tasos runs with me, and Mana and Baba call to us, but we don’t listen, so they start to run, too, down the same path, and so do Giannis and Angeliki, but they’re all old and Tasos and I are young, so we’re in front of them and they follow behind.

  They try to go faster, but they can’t.

  There’s soon more and more distance between us and we slow as we get close to Elaionas, and see a similar sight to the one we just left: there are both Greek and German bodies, and amongst them, in the center, I see Anastasios Magarakis standing with two rifles crisscrossed on his back, more old muzzleloaders from the Turkish era. There is a group of men standing next to him; they’re either older, like he is, or much too young to be doing this, like Tasos, and here it is, another village that’s had to be protected by the old, and young, and women of Crete, since all fighting-age men are gone.

  I turn to the dead.

  I quickly scan their faces and don’t see Ikaros amongst them.

  I’m relieved, and then feel shame because of all the death in front of me, as I look up to the living and finally see him behind Anastasios and next to the girl I know is named Kyriaki, who’s there with her older sisters, Efimia and Iona, as well as her younger brothers, Errikos and Kyriakos, both holding muzzleloaders, the same as their father.

  Ikaros turns.

  He sees us.

  He swings his rifle across his back then runs through the village and all the people and embraces me, first, then Tasos, before he turns back and meets my eyes.

  I know what they ask.

  “They’re fine,” I tell him.

  “All of them?”

  Then as if in answer to his question, Mana, Baba, Giannis, and Angeliki appear from the distance, sweating and breathing heavily, but when they see Ikaros next to me everything else is forgotten and they’re whole again, or at least almost whole, as they still have another son that’s missing and hasn’t yet returned home.

  “Thank God,” Angeliki breathes.

  Ikaros goes past me and Tasos and hugs his parents, too, the same as he did us, then he hugs my parents, also.

  There are more distant explosions.

  We turn towards the noise, and that’s then when we see them.

  Soldiers.

  A whole company of them.

  They’re to the south and east, coming from the soft and rolling hills at the base of the White Mountains, stepping over wired fences where the shepherds of Elaionas keep their flocks. They continue on and towards us. The soldiers are German, and there must be ten dozen that have landed then reformed and they’re all armed to the teeth. I still have my rifle, and my family have their rifles, too, and Anastasios Magarakis and his sons and a few other men of Elaionas are armed with muzzleloaders, but there aren’t many of those. Most carry Cretan daggers, some have kitchen knives, and I even see a man with a bow and arrow that would normally be used only for hunting in the mountains.

  Primitive.

  Everything we have is a toy compared to what they have, so if we fight, it will now be a massacre.

  Anastasios and Giannis look at each other.

  There are no words and I realize this might be the only thing in the history of their two families they’ve ever agreed on, and they don’t even need to speak to agree on it, I realize, as Anastasios slowly slips the muzzleloaders from his shoulders.

  Giannis does the same, taking his Enfield from where it’s been strapped to his back.

  A man from Elaionas pushes his way through the crowd.

  I can see the anger in his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” he asks Anastasios, with venom and poison. “We don’t surrender. No one from Elaionas ever surrenders. We die on our feet, the same as our fathers did.”

  “No, Nikos,” Anastasios answers. “We do die, but right now I’d prefer to live, because that’s how we’ll eventually kill our enemies, no matter how long it takes. And if we don’t lay down our arms now, then no one in this valley will be able to do that. If we die here today, then we’re conquered. If we stay alive, we never will be. Do you understand?”

  There’s a moment.

  Anastasios has spoken loud enough for all to hear him, not just Nikos, who clearly doesn’t agree, but the rest of us do.

  We all do.

  From the hills, the Germans shout.

  They get closer and wave to us and shout more foreign words which we don’t understand, but we know what they want, we all know what they want, and what they demand.

  This is how fast our lives change.

  Anastasios puts his rifle down.

  Next to him, so does Giannis.

  I put mine on the ground, and the rest of us do, too, my family and brothers and all the villagers of Elaionas drop what few rifles and pistols they have along with their bows, daggers, kitchen knives, and everything else they’ve used to defend themselves. Then they hold their hands out in front of them, palms upward, to show the advancing Germans what they’ve done.

  They see our empty palms.

  But then there’s trouble and more talking amongst them as they get closer because they see the German soldiers that are dead in the middle of the village, and an argument breaks out between them. There are two leaders, both dressed the same way and with the same insignias on their lapels, which I know must mean they’re of the same rank. It’s clear what they each want. One wants to kill and punish us for what we’ve done, and he yells and points at the bodies. The other argues and keeps pointing south, towards Maleme and Chania. I understand. This isn’t just one company, but two. The officer that wants to kill us finally pulls a pistol and points it at his counterpart’s head, and I think that’s how this will end, but then there’s something else.

  An explosion erupts fifty paces north of us.

  There’s one, then another, and then another after that.

  I’ve never heard a grenade before, but I have no doubt this is what we’ve heard and what a grenade sounds like and we reach and cover our ears. Or at least I do. The Germans all whip around and we’re not their focus anymore because this new threat is. They form up again and start to move towards it and as the smoke and dust and dirt clear, they see there’s nothing there.

  I see the same thing.

  There’s a moment of quiet, calm, as they inch forward.

  Then there’s more.

  Elaionas is nestled on the far side of the valley and while bordered by the White Mountains to the south, it’s bordered to the east by a dense forest of pine and oak, and it’s those trees that now light with gunfire that tears into the Germans where they’ve gathered to examine the explosions that I now realize were just distractions.

  Beautiful, brilliant distractions.

  Is it the British?

  It has to be the British, right, finally honoring their oaths and promises of protection, coming to deliver us from the Germans?

  More shots follow.

  The Germans try to return fire, then I see my father.

  He’s next to me.

  I watch as he reaches into his trousers and takes one of the grenades that Giannis gave him, pulls the pin, then throws it directly into the middle of the German company.

  It rolls against an ankle, and a soldier looks down.

  Another does the same, and sees it, too.

  Their eyes go wide, but it’s too late.

  The grenade explodes and Germans fly into the air and the ones that don’t fly are cut down by bullets from the trees and bullets from us now, too, as we all reach back and take our rifles again and fire at our enemies—both modern and ancient weapons together now—and the Germans all fall, then there’s silence.

  We turn to the forest.

  Soldiers start to come from the trees.

  It’s not the British, I see that immediately.

  Then I see who it is.

  I start to run.

  Some that come go to the fallen Germans and shots ring out as they dispatch those not yet dead, but I don’t pay attention to that anymore. Instead, I cover the distance faster than I’ve ever covered any distance before. Then when I’m there, I jump and I feel him, and I smell him, too, for the first time in so many months, and I smile wider than I’ve ever smiled before in my life because it’s my Demetrios that’s finally come back to us, with the rest of the 5th Division behind him, and still coming from the trees.

  * * *

  I hold him, and he holds me.

  Though Anastasios Magarakis and Giannis had agreed on the best course of action when the Germans first came, they don’t agree now. Anastasios wants to continue to Chania and keep fighting. Giannis doesn’t. He says we should stay in our villages to protect them from any more Germans that might come, and not go marching into a situation we don’t know and trying to fight where our enemies are stronger and have the advantage. Let the British fight them in the cities, Giannis says. We’ll fight them in the hills, and mountains, where we have the advantage. In the distance, more planes fly over the island and more paratroopers drop from them, but they’re all near Chania now, where there are still more explosions yet. “But we have the 5th with us now!” Anastasios yells, waving his arms at all the young and armed men that have returned.

  “No, you don’t,” Demetrios finally speaks.

  “What?” Anastasios turns and raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Here you are.”

  “There is no more 5th,” Demetrios tells him, very evenly. “Our unit was dissolved in the Peloponnesus, during our retreat, so we’ve come home simply as Cretans to return to our villages. We’ve earned that, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re no longer soldiers. We no longer take orders or answer to anyone but ourselves and our families.”

  “You’re going to stop fighting?”

  “Did I say that?” Demetrios answers, meeting the older man’s eyes.

  “You said there is no more 5th, but yet here you are in front of me, dressed as a soldier, armed as a soldier, and we—”

  “The Greek army is finished, Anastasios,” Demetrios cuts him off. “All that’s left now are Greeks. That’s all that we are, and it’s also how we’ll win this war. We’ll win by fighting in the mountains and the hills, as my father has said, and fighting against them in our way. The ancient way, not the way of the army, which is the way of our enemy. That’s what broke us on the mainland, and if we try it again, it’s what will break us here, too.”