Free Corporal Cotton's Little War by John Harris

look-out. Uneasily he felt that something was stirring in him that was spiritually connected with this island, as if the place was calling to him; and he realized that when the old man had been talking about Greek courage and bravery, he had even felt a certain amount of pride. It was disturbing, because all his life he’d tried to believe he was entirely British.
    As the sun sank, people filled the cafe, drinking cocoa and wine, and music from a couple of fiddles and a bouzouki started. The sun was setting and the evening was one of beaten gold when the lone Heinkel came over. As it flew off towards the west, they smiled with relief.
    ‘He’s missed us,’ Patullo said.
    But the aircraft returned a few minutes later, grey-green and sleekly streamlined, and circled the harbour about two thousand feet up. Everybody on the wall stared upwards, watching it, men, women and children, holding their donkeys and their fish baskets and their shopping. Then, as the aircraft came overhead again, Cotton noticed that the bomb doors were open.
    ‘He’s going to bomb!’ he yelled, and they all ducked behind the wheelhouse.
    The black crow-like shapes of the women started to run and the wail that went up could be heard over the noise of the engines. Then the yelling was drowned in an iron howling as the aeroplane swept overhead and they saw the bombs drop away. At first they thought they were intended for Claudia but they passed in a descending curve over the boats and landed in the town. Lifting their heads, they saw the explosions puff up in four mushrooms of brown smoke that contained twisting tiles and pieces of wood. Then the aeroplane swept over the town and out to sea towards the north.
    ‘Come on!’ Patullo said, and they started to run down the harbour wall.
    The bombs had fallen among the huddled white houses. Two had gone wide and done no more than dig holes of fresh, pulverized smoking earth in a plot of gardens, but the other two had flung down two of the houses and the Greeks were just dragging out a woman and a child. A donkey lay dead nearby, its blood soaking the earth in a huge sticky pool, and the priest, his face agonized, his hands red, was standing among the rubble muttering a prayer.
    As they lifted the child clear, ominously still, the woman wrenched herself free, her face, her clothes, her hair, white with plaster dust. As she flung herself on the child, wailing, the aircraft passed over the harbour again and released a cloud of pamphlets which showered down to litter the streets.
    Patullo caught one as it fluttered past. ‘ “To the Greek islanders,” ‘ he read aloud so they could all hear. ‘ “Be warned! The Greek government on the mainland, having directed hostile actions against the Greater German Reich and her allies, the Führer, Adolf Hitler, has decided the time has come when the Greek people must be taught a lesson. They have the choice of being ruled by their own decadent and corrupt government, or accepting the German army of occupation - “ ‘
    ‘Same bloody stuff they dropped on France,’ Shaw said sourly.
    The anger of the islanders seemed to have knotted into a bitterness that was directed not against the aeroplane but against the British, and they saw a crowd gather near the end of the mole. The corpse of the child was lying on a slab, the mother still wailing over it. The rest of the village, led by the priest, drew together and began to march towards them.
    ‘I think we’d better go,’ Shaw said. ‘Start her up, Chief.’
    As the engines crashed to life, the crowd stopped dead and only the old man who had talked to Cotton was on the mole to see them off. He seemed to know where they were going and seemed to feel no resentment towards them because there were tears in his eyes as he made the sign of the Cross over them.
    ‘May God go with you,’ he said. ‘May God in his open-handedness bless you with a fine night.’
    Cotton replied automatically as he’d heard his mother