We walk back through the field of flowers.

  I look at Tasos as he goes in front of us, dressed in his loose-fitting German uniform, head bowed as he walks and he looks young; he looks so very young, and for the first time in a long time, a wave of sadness crashes over me.

  This is a child.

  Is it, though?

  I once repeated that there were no children left on Crete, but was I correct?

  I shake my head because there’ll be time for thoughts like this later, I know, thoughts of the lives we could have had, but those lives have been taken, and that’s why we’re here.

  “What is it?” William whispers next to me.

  I shake my head, not wanting to talk about it; not now, and not tonight.

  He doesn’t press me.

  We skirt around Archanes, and we’re sure to give the village a wide berth because of all the Germans there, then come to the road that’s on the south side of it, between Archanes and Irakleio. In Koch’s diary, it said his appointment was to meet a group of other high-ranking Germans officers in Irakleio for a dinner engagement, so this is the route we think he’ll take, and the place we’ll take him before he gets there.

  There isn’t much cover.

  We come up with a plan anyway, though, and one that takes into account the landscape: while most of us will hide in the ditches, Tasos and some younger Greeks, wearing German uniforms, will be walking in the middle of the road and when the caravan sees them and stops to ask what their business is, thinking it’s their own soldiers, that’s when we’ll take them. It’s as good a plan as any, so I don’t fight it, even though it will be dangerous for Tasos. I simply go to him and take his head in my hands and look deeply into his eyes and speak to him with every ounce of soul I can find. “Do not be reckless with your life today,” I tell him. “As soon as their cars stop, run as fast as you can, and get out of the way of the bullets.”

  I’m surprised when he tells me the same.

  “I’ve already lost two brothers,” he says, meeting my eyes with his own, his soul rising in them, also. “I can’t afford to lose a sister, too, and my last sibling on this earth.”

  We normally speak in Greek.

  He’s switched to English, though, and I know why, as behind me William comes and Tasos hugs me first, then William, then all three of us together and we stay there like that, like some sort of makeshift family that’s been born and made out of all this blood and death and war. Then we move apart and take our places. Tasos and the other young men stand in the middle of the road, while William and I hide in the ditch on the eastern side with those that have come with us, and Arnold and the soldiers that have marched with him go to the ditch on the western side.

  We wait.

  The light’s completely gone, and there’s now nothing but darkness.

  I think we’ll have to wait for a while, as we’ve done during so many of the previous ambushes we’ve orchestrated, but we don’t, and it’s not long until we hear the hum of engines heading towards us from Archanes.

  Then not soon after that, we see lights.

  They go around one corner, then another.

  They get closer.

  In front of us, the lead kubelwagen comes around the last bend then begins to slow when the driver sees the soldiers he thinks are countrymen.

  The kubelwagen comes to a stop.

  So do the other vehicles behind it.

  One of the Germans leans out and calls to the boys, and they don’t answer, don’t turn around, don’t do anything.

  This is it.

  This is the moment.

  I tense.

  Before the German can realize what’s going on, the boys scatter and I see the discovery and realization come to the eyes of the Germans as they have one last moment to recognize what’s about to happen.

  We rise first.

  We rise and fire as one and a dozen Germans die, then we duck back into the ditch as the British soldiers on the other side rise and fire while we reload, and even more Germans die.

  It looks to be half of them in the initial volleys.

  The other half duck back behind the cover of their kubelwagens and pour out of them now and fire back at us as the entire valley echoes with gunshots because we fire again, too, at hands and feet and eyes that peer around and try to get more shots off, and some even do, and one of the Greeks on our side is hit with a bullet in his shoulder, but we still fire.

  More Germans fall in the road.

  We concentrate on the kubelwagens that are both in front of and behind the car where we know Koch rides, between the kubelwagens that escort him.

  Gunfire comes from the car.

  We return fire but are careful only to aim for the front seat, where the driver is, and not the back and the passenger that’s there.

  Soon gunfire starts to dissipate.

  I move closer towards the car, and Koch, and catch glimpses of the back seat.

  Polished boots, a pressed uniform, an iron cross.

  They’re familiar.

  I see them again, the same as on that day at the harbor in Chania, and I see them once more in front of me.

  So there’s only one thing for me to do.

  I jump from my hiding place in the ditch.

  “Maria!” William yells.

  But I don’t listen to him.

  I carefully pick my way between drifting smoke on the road and the lights from the kubelwagens, and bullets explode around me as I run to the car.

  “Maria, stop!” William yells again.

  He’s too late, though.

  I get closer.

  I’m to the side of the car and see a man coughing, trying to catch his breath, and I see his slicked blond hair, cruel blue eyes, and the Knight’s Cross that hangs at his neck.

  I sling my rifle over my back.

  I take my pistol from my belt.

  Behind me, I turn to see William trying to make his way from the ditch and through the chaos of the battle, but he won’t.

  Not before I do this.

  Around me, there’s still intermittent gunfire.

  I ignore it.

  What can it do?

  It can do nothing, it can’t kill me, because I’m already dead.

  I reach for the handle of the car door but as soon as I touch it, I’m shoved aside and Peter, Evelyn, and Arnold Lawrence are there and reach in and grab Koch, who’s still coughing, and he struggles against them.

  Koch blindly tries to reach for his pistol.

  Evelyn rips the weapon away.

  He still struggles, so Peter punches him in the jaw once, then again, and his body finally starts to slacken and they’re able to pull him out and onto the road.

  I look down at him.

  He’s at my feet.

  He looks up and meets my eyes and I’m devastated when I find there’s no recognition in them; no moment of regret for what he’s done, and that now he’ll pay for his crimes against me and my family, and I realize it’s because he’s done it so often and to so many that how could he be expected to remember a single woman and her family when he’s destroyed and torn apart so many?

  It doesn’t matter.

  I take Demetrios’s dagger from my waist.

  He sees it.

  Light glints and reflects off the blade, as it’s caught in the headlights from the kubelwagens that illuminate this road and crisscross our faces in jagged patterns of shadow and light.

  I bend down on top of him.

  He opens his mouth, about to say something, but then I’m grabbed from behind and roughly hauled up and away. I expect it to be William who’s grabbed me, but it’s not; he’s some paces away with Tasos, who fights and struggles against a German in hand-to-hand combat, and just as the German gets the upper hand on the younger, lighter, and less experienced Tasos, William sprints and tackles the German to the ground. They both quickly stand, but William is faster and raises his rifle then crashes the butt of it down against the German’s head, and the German falls again.

  But then there’s another.

  He comes from the darkness and grabs William from behind, choking him and moving his hand upward to start gouging at his eyes, and as soon as he does, Tasos pulls his father’s dagger and he plunges it into the small of the German’s back.

  He stays there like that, for a moment.

  Then the German screams and falls to the ground, next to the other.

  And that’s also when I turn.

  I see it’s Peter that’s grabbed me, and Evelyn, as Arnold hauls Koch to his feet and then Tane and Abdel come, too, and they all stand there and hold Koch between them.

  “Tie him up,” Peter says.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I yell at them. “We came here to kill him!”

  “We’re taking him alive.”

  I understand now.

  I understand why Peter wanted to wait until the later date and not tell me, rather than take him earlier, when we easily could have.

  There’s a rendezvous.

  Where?

  It doesn’t matter.

  “You know what he did,” I say to Peter, pushing myself through the others and to his side.

  “I do,” he nods.

  “So let me kill him.”

  “He’s worth more to us alive, with what he can give and tell us. Either way, he won’t survive this war. He’ll never be free again.”

  “As long as we get him to the beach in time,” Arnold adds.

  “That’s right,” Peter nods. “As long as we get him to the beach, and off this island.”

  “The beach?”

  “Yes.”

  I look between them.

  I look to where Koch stands and doesn’t struggle anymore, just glares back at us, his captors, and I realize he doesn’t speak English and doesn’t know what we’re saying, but since he’s still alive, I’m sure he understands the gist of it. Behind me, Tasos takes his pistol and silhouetted by the light from the kubelwagens, points the barrel down at the German he’s stabbed with his father’s dagger.

  “Danke,” I hear the wounded German whisper.

  Then Tasos fires.

  The pistol recoils in his hand.

  The German is gone.

  A boy’s now gone, too.

  William comes to stand next to me as Tasos takes his dagger back from the dead German’s body, and I look at William as he takes in Koch, and realizes what’s happening.

  “You knew,” I say to him, and it’s an accusation.

  “No,” William shakes his head. “But it will be for the best. In so many ways, it will be for the best.”

  “Not if we don’t get him to the coast,” Evelyn interrupts us. “If we don’t get him to the beach, then it will all be for nothing because we’ll be dead, and he’ll be free again.”

  “So this is where we leave you, then,” Arnold nods.

  “What?” I turn back to him, not understanding any of this.

  “We all know every Nazi in Irakleio and on this island is going to come looking for this bloke,” Arnold tells us. “Especially after the racket we’ve just made here. You’re going south, right? So we’ll take the vehicles and go north, and make them think that’s where he’s gone, too, and where we’ve taken him.”

  We all look back at him.

  It’s an unbelievable sacrifice.

  “I’ll go with you,” I hear, and turn to see Owain limping towards us, one hand over a wound in his side where he’s been shot and is losing blood. “I won’t be able to make it south.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Tane says.

  “Me as well,” Abdel nods.

  I look around, between all of them.

  Peter nods.

  So does Evelyn, and Arnold.

  “So it will be,” Arnold says.

  They go to the kubelwagens to start getting them ready to drive again, and I think while they’ll take most of them to the north, we’ll take one south, but we don’t.

  Peter tells us we’ll walk instead.

  “No lights in the darkness,” he says. “No way for them to find us, just as they haven’t.”

  “Where are we meeting the SOE?”

  “Near Rodakino. There’s a beach just west of the village, and they’ll be there at dawn.”

  I’m silent.

  It’s a long journey, but we can make it if we walk quickly, through the entire night.

  And if Koch cooperates.

  I turn to look at him.

  He doesn’t look back at me, just stares out and at no one in particular as his lips are turned up very slightly and there’s a blank look on his face and it’s the look of one incapable of emotion, I realize.

  “I know what you’re feeling,” I hear Arnold’s voice, next to me. “Don’t ever let it control you, but don’t ever forget it, either, or let it fade.”

  I turn to look at him.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “There are too many that feel nothing. Never be one of them. But harness the wind, Maria. Harness the wind, and once you do, bend it to your will in the way that only you’ll know how.”

  His words are soft, meant only for me.

  I nod.

  “Someone very close to me once wrote that all men dream,” he continues. “They just don’t dream equally.”

  “Was he from Oxfordshire, too?”

  “Yes, but he travelled very far and did a great many wonderful things in the war before this one.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “He’s gone. I ask myself why every day, why the world would take my brother and in the way that it did, but even though he’s gone, and I’ll never get over the anger or injustice, his words are still with me, and they’re with you now, too. Such is their power, right?”

  I nod again.

  I look back at him, and understand what he’s telling me, or at least I think I do.

  “Efcharisto,” I tell him.

  “Parakalo,” he smiles, then turns to the others.

  “So this is it,” Peter says to him.

  “Perhaps a tea in Oxfordshire, or something stronger, when all this is over?”

  “Of course,” Peter nods. “When all this is over.”

  “Send an invite my way, also,” Evelyn adds. “I know you like the countryside, but London’s not too far.”

  “Indeed,” Arnold smiles, then tips his cap. “Until then, chaps.”

  Then without anything further, he turns and walks to the lead kubelwagen and gets inside.

  Abdel helps Owain limp towards the same kubelwagen and get in the back seat, and Tane goes with them, too, and all the rest of the British that came with Arnold and that we met amongst hills and flowers.

  We watch them.

  They all get in the kubelwagens and car that Koch was in, then I look back towards the lead vehicle.

  It’s about to start driving.

  Tane hangs his head out the window, and so does Abdel.

  They raise their hands, in farewell.

  So do we.

  There are no words, because what words could there possibly be for all we’ve done together, and all we’ve endured? So we say nothing with our mouths, only our eyes and our hearts, and I hear Arnold put the vehicle into gear and start to drive, and the others follow. We stand and watch as they go, towards the lights of Irakleio in the distance, but they won’t go all the way to the city, rather turn somewhere before it with as much noise as they can so Germans will come and follow them, and then what will happen?

  In front of us, all that’s left is a dull noise.

  Then that disappears, too.

  We all know what will happen, and it will do us no good to think of it now, or further, so we don’t.

  Instead, we turn.

  “Ready?” Peter asks.

  “Ready,” we all nod, then begin to walk, in the opposite direction, heading south and through the dark night, on and towards the opposite coast and the justice that will wait there when dawn arrives.

  32 MAY 7, 1944

  I’m surprised that Koch doesn’t resist.

  In fact, he doesn’t struggle at all, but rather walks along with us as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, and I wonder why. Is it because he knows he’s been taken prisoner, but thinks Germany will win the war, and he’ll be freed? Does he think his soldiers will get to him before we reach the coast, and he’ll be saved in that way? Or is he just one of those men, as Arnold alluded to, that feels no emotion at all, one that simply exists and whether it’s kindness or cruelty he inflicts, it all feels the same, and that’s how his life is defined.

  A perfect criminal.

  A perfect soldier, for those who don’t care about rules, honor, or goodness.

  But we do.

  Here, on this island, those are three of the things that most greatly define our lives.

  We continue to walk.

  Once again, I don’t lead us because I don’t know this part of the island as well as the men from Rethymno, and we head west towards their city, first, then south to the coast, and I walk with my rifle slung over my back while William, next to me, holds his close and ready, in case any enemies might appear.

  We walk in silence.

  Ahead of us, Tasos picks at the hem of his shirt that’s stained with crusted blood, trying to wipe it clean.

  The blood stays, though, just as blood always does.

  “What are you thinking?” I hear next to me.

  I turn to look at William as we walk.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “I’m thinking about what he said to me.”

  “Who? Koch?”

  “No, Arnold. The words he gave me from his brother that made it seem as if he understood us, and this island. I wonder who he was.”

  “His brother?”

  “Nai.”

  “You don’t know? His brother was T. E. Lawrence.”

  I look back at him.

  I just shrug, because the name means nothing to me.

  William smiles.

  “He was one of the heroes of the first war.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He helped unite all the Arab forces in the Middle East to fight against the Ottomans, and they eventually won, small against large.”

  “It sounds like he would fit in here on this island.”

  It’s William’s turn to raise his eyes now.