Burning Island: Absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction Read online

  ‘I hope you don’t mind mucking in and doing menial tasks,’ Ben said when we’d downed our drinks. ‘We all have to be prepared to turn our hand to everything and anything to keep the business going.’ He turned to his dark-haired wife, glowing in the seventh month of her pregnancy. ‘Even Eleni here. She cooks, but she’s more than capable of refurbishing the villas or picking up a paintbrush if needs be.’

  Eleni laughed and pushed her still-full shot glass towards her husband. ‘And Ben, he thinks he can do everything himself, but he can’t. He is not, how do you say, the Jack of all things.’

  ‘Jack of all trades, you mean,’ I said. Eleni smiled and snapped her fingers, as if to say So close. ‘And nor are we,’ I went on, ‘but we’re both more than happy to try and help in any way we can. We’re just so excited to be here.’ So far we had helped with spring cleaning, checked sun beds for rust, swept terraces of fallen leaves and cleared branches from driveways. We’d rolled paint over walls, drained swimming pools and cleared dishwashers of broken glass and washing machines of lone socks. We’d collected abandoned lilos from pool houses, discarded snorkels from cupboards and forgotten sex toys from the back of wardrobe drawers. Nothing was too much trouble.

  ‘You both have clean driving licences, I take it?’ Ben said. ‘Because once the season starts I might sometimes need you down at the airport, meeting and greeting, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Holding up a placard,’ James laughed. ‘Like taxi drivers at Heathrow?’

  ‘Exactly. You’d be very good at it. I can see you now, doffing your cap.’ Ben gave James a friendly shove on the shoulder. ‘But seriously, when we’re in the middle of the season it’s manic. You might need to go to the airport, you might have to step in and help clean on a changeover day if the maid is sick or I might need a hand settling newcomers into the properties. You won’t believe how busy it gets, all of a sudden.’

  ‘That’s all right, mate,’ James laughed. ‘We can do whatever you want.’

  ‘Well, I think that calls for another drink then,’ said Ben, reaching for the bottle again.

  It was one of many friendly dinners, lunches and meetings. As the holiday season got into full swing, there was less time to socialise and we all had to work flat out. But that spring we got to know the layout of the island, especially the north-east coast where the majority of Ben’s holiday villas were located, and we began to know characters we would never be able to forget.

  Chapter Eight

  7 June 1944

  Georgiou is waiting in a rough wooden shack beside the road, at the very top of the narrow stony track that zigzags through the neglected olive groves clinging to the steep hillside. Only someone born on this rocky coast knows that this treacherous path leads to a hidden bay of plenty, where there are fish in the sea and abundant vegetables in a fertile garden. And so far, Georgiou crosses himself, the Germans have not ventured away from the main road and discovered his secluded house surrounded by olive and fruit trees, overlooking the clear waters of the sea.

  In the good days, before the war, the simple shelter where he waits was used as a communal collection point for the area’s olive harvest. Here they weighed the fruit each smallholder gathered in nets spread beneath their trees, so everyone would have the correct allocation of precious golden olive oil to see them through until the next harvest. Then the olives were all taken to the Batas press near Nissaki.

  Georgiou has known and trusted the Batas family since he was a boy, sailing and fishing in the bay with the lad who became a respected doctor and who has continued to visit every summer, when the waters are warm and the peaches are ripe. And when the doctor asked if he and his wife Agata would help to hide two children, if their fears about the Germans were proved not to be unfounded, he readily agreed. Children would make Agata happy, whatever their origin.

  In the old days, before each person left the roadside weighing station after delivering their olives, they would say a prayer at the nearby shrine dedicated to St Spyridon, who has saved the island from plague and other disasters four times, according to local legend. Much good he is doing us now, Georgiou thinks. Prayer alone could not save us from the Italians, and certainly not from the Germans.

  He peers out of his shelter and down the main road. Is that a car he can hear? Every night since he received word from Dr Batas a week ago, he has waited up here, trying to sleep on the rough floor on a thin bed of sacking and straw, waking with a start every time he thinks he hears a sound. Usually it is the chiming call of the scops owl, but now he is sure he can hear the low whining of an engine and he sees a faint arc of light sweeping across the winding road. Please let it be him and not a German patrol.

  And then the familiar car appears, its lights on half beam, and as it slows down, Georgiou steps forward to greet the doctor. ‘You have them with you?’

  ‘They are still fast asleep, my friend,’ Batas says. ‘With luck they will not wake until you have them safely in bed.’ He jumps out of the car and opens the roomy boot. It is hard for Georgiou to see them properly, but he and the doctor each pick up a sleeping child, bundled in a blanket, then gently place them on a cushioned bed of straw in the handcart waiting beside the shack.

  ‘Are you taking them down to your house all by yourself?’ Batas asks.

  Georgiou shakes his head. ‘I have help. My donkey is grazing a little further down the path. I keep him out of sight of the Germans. They do not care what they use for target practice. I can pull the cart myself for a short stretch and he will take us the rest of the way.’

  ‘Their mother gave me this as well,’ Batas says, handing over another bundle. ‘Clothes and shawls, I believe. I hope there will be enough to keep them warm if this goes on through another winter.’

  ‘We shall do our best. There will always be a meal for them and Agata will find a way to clothe them. Have the parents left yet?’

  ‘They’ll round them up very soon. Maybe tomorrow, with the older sister, unfortunately. The Germans are telling everyone they will be going to work in the East. But I fear the worst. Since they confiscated all the radios we cannot know for sure, but there are rumours of extermination. Those taken from Salonika have not yet written home about their good fortune. Thank God we have rescued these little ones at least. Now go, before they wake and cry.’

  Georgiou shakes the doctor’s hand and begins pulling the cart down the steep path. Before he disappears out of sight, he turns and salutes, saying, ‘God go with you.’

  Chapter Nine

  July 2006

  James

  I well remember the first time I met Greg. It was Ben’s fault that we met. I find myself attributing some element of blame to everyone connected with that time in our lives, and Ben was responsible for the idea of us having a financial backer.

  We were chatting late at the very end of a particularly busy day in early July, when the season was already in full swing. Flights from the UK had been delayed, so introductions at the airport, car handovers and the delivery of the welcome hampers included in the villa rental had all collided with each other. Amber had already gone back to the apartment to catch up on sleep before yet another early start, Eleni was settling the new baby and Ben and I were sitting in a corner of the restaurant terrace with cold beers, drunk straight from the bottle. One of the regular waiters was standing on the jetty smoking a cigarette, its tip glowing in the dark, while a second waiter was shooing away a stray cat hunting for crumbs, as he swept underneath the empty tables. A small group of diners was still lingering over coffee and glasses of limoncello, but most of that evening’s guests had left to walk back to their nearby villas in the warm dark of the evening, the crunch of their steps on the stony path harmonising with the sound of whirring cicadas and the soft swish of the sea on the shingled beach.

  ‘I’m beginning to realise,’ I said, ‘that the kind of place we can afford is going to need a considerable amount of work. Anything up to spec is way beyond our budget and thriving restaurants simpl
y don’t seem to come onto the market.’

  ‘Those sorts of properties tend to stay in the family,’ Ben sighed. ‘And you’re not about to marry into a local family, like I did, are you? That’s the only other way in.’

  ‘I don’t think Amber would like that idea,’ I laughed.

  Ben roared with laughter, and we clinked bottles. ‘I think what you could do with,’ he said, as we recovered from our gusts of hilarity, ‘is talking to someone with a bit of an inside view on managing a project.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone who knows their way round, knows what might be coming up and maybe could even be interested in helping you get the business going.’

  I leant my chair back against the balustrade around the terrace and stretched out my legs. ‘I wasn’t planning on going into partnership with anyone else. Amber and I were thinking it would be just the two of us.’

  ‘Of course. But here you are, new country, different customs, it could help. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘Do you have any suggestions?’

  ‘If I had the time to help you, I’d do it myself, but seeing as I don’t, and Eleni would kill me if I took my eye off the business here for even a second, I think I should introduce you to Greg Richards. He’s been coming here for years, he’s dabbled in a few local enterprises quite successfully and he’s built his own house here. He pretty much knows what’s what and he’s a sociable kind of a guy and likes helping start-ups get off the ground.’

  ‘Greg Richards? The name kind of rings a bell. He’s a very successful entrepreneur, isn’t he?’ I sat up straight, suddenly interested.

  ‘That’s right,’ Ben nodded. ‘He eats with us here quite often. You should’ve met him by now, but he’s been away recently. I’ll introduce you next time I know he’s coming over.’

  We met briefly a week or so later. Greg was shorter than I’d imagined. He must have been in his early sixties, maybe even a little older. He had a good head of silvery hair and was slim – from regular games of golf and tennis, so I was told. His wife, Pam, had probably always been blonde, but had grown more platinum with age. Her figure was sturdy but still attractive in a turquoise sequined tunic over her white trousers.

  They were meeting friends for dinner, so Greg invited us to join him and his wife for lunch on our day off. Amber and I usually liked to use that day for swimming and relaxing, but when I explained that Greg might be a useful contact, she was happy to join me.

  I was anxious to make a good impression, so we allowed plenty of time to find the villa and actually arrived about ten minutes early. The turning off the main road led down a steep lane through groves of olive trees. The large barred gates to Ocean View House were open, surprisingly, and we turned into a long, gravelled driveway lined with pink and white oleanders, which stopped a couple of hundred yards short of the house. A jeep and a white Mercedes were parked in the only shaded areas, so I had to leave our dusty Citroën in full sun, hoping that by the time we’d finished lunch some cool shade would have fallen across the car.

  Amber and I made our way down to the house. We’d visited a number of beautiful villas on the island since we’d started working for Ben, but this was far more luxurious than anything we’d seen to date. For easy maintenance, most of the holiday properties had stony, sparse lawns and very little ornamental planting. But here, small lemon trees stood as sentinels in swagged stone urns along the path, classical statues posed in shaded niches and a fountain in the shape of a gilded dolphin splashed into a marble bowl set in a carpet of lush grass. A gardener was even sweeping leaves from the far side of the lawn. Clearly no expense had been spared on the property or its surroundings.

  As we neared the house, we could hear raised voices and we hovered briefly, wondering if we’d come at an awkward moment. I was holding a particularly heavy potted geranium Amber had insisted was an appropriate gift, while she was carrying a couple of bottles of good wine. But after a minute or two all seemed quiet, so we continued our approach and made our entrance.

  ‘Hello,’ I called out. ‘I hope we’ve come to the right place. Sorry we’re a bit early.’ We stood on the edge of the wide terrace, which was shaded with the grapevines common to all of Corfu’s houses, but here there were also colonnades and sculpture, and the charcoal-grey rattan chairs and sofas were spread with plump white cushions with not a single rusty sun lounger in sight. However, the pristine limestone paving was littered with pieces of timber. Greg looked red and cross, Pam flustered.

  ‘James, Amber,’ Pam greeted us with open arms, then stopped when she saw we were burdened by the plant and the wine. ‘Lovely to see you both. We’re all ready for you, aren’t we, darling?’ she said, turning to Greg, whose face suddenly adopted a wide smile.

  ‘Just got to clear this mess up.’ He gestured at the pieces of wood and used his foot to slide them to one side of the terrace.

  ‘Getting on with a spot of DIY?’ I asked. ‘I’m quite partial to doing a bit of woodwork.’

  ‘Really?’ said Greg, looking alert and pleased. ‘Tell me what you think of my idea, then.’ He took the potted plant from my arms, placed it in a corner of the terrace near other similar pots of geraniums and roses and steered me to one side. I looked over my shoulder to see Pam taking the bottles from Amber, then guiding her inside the house, where a maid hovered in the doorway with a tray of glasses.

  Greg and I stood at the edge of the terrace, facing the sea. ‘That’s why I built this place,’ he said, waving at the sparkling blue bay of calm water with a distant view of Corfu Town. ‘You can keep your effing sunset on the other side of the island. Too bloody obvious. The moon and the dawn, that’s what this place is about. Until that effing freak show erupted!’ He pointed at the towering white hotel a little further down the hillside. I could see bright umbrellas, an infinity pool and flat roofs studded with air conditioning vents.

  ‘What a marvellous spot.’ I shaded my eyes as I gazed at the view. ‘Can you get down to the sea from here?’

  Greg pointed to a wrought-iron gate on the far side of the villa’s swimming pool, where large urns on all four corners were filled with trailing geraniums and a satyr trickled a cornucopia of water onto the pool’s placid surface.

  ‘Through the gate,’ he said. ‘Goes right down to a private beach. Well, it would be private if the effing government and effing police didn’t insist that every inch of the coastline was public property. There’s another locked gate at the bottom though, so the bloody tourists can’t get beyond the rocks.’ He laughed. ‘I’ve made damn sure they can’t come ashore easily anyway. If there’s nowhere for them to moor their bloody boats they go away and pester some other poor sod.’

  ‘So you don’t keep a boat down there yourself?’

  ‘Nah, why would I want to? Without a decent jetty the ruddy things are too hard to board. And jetties aren’t permitted either and if they were, they’d get wrecked every winter with the storms. No, we nip along to Kaminaki or Nissaki if we want a boat when we’ve got people staying.’

  He drew breath and seemed to be contemplating the view. ‘Until they built that sodding monstrosity, I had it all to myself. Wouldn’t have built this place here otherwise.’ His face was red again, not with the heat of the day, but with anger.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I muttered, not sure how much to say at this stage.

  ‘Too right it’s a shame,’ he spat, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth in his vehemence. ‘It shouldn’t bloody be there. And if you think it’s an eyesore now, you should hear it at night. Discos, karaoke. Effing birdie song and chirpy chirpy cheep cheep shit for hours on end.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very upmarket,’ I said – it was the only thing I could think of saying, but I felt inclined to agree with him. I hate intrusive noise.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. ‘Bloody lawyers are useless. I’ve got to put up with it or sell up, they say. Well, I’ve got other ideas. And then we’ll see how they like it.’


  I didn’t hear any more at that point as Pam and Amber came out of the house, followed by the maid bearing dishes of salad and bread. But I did hear about it later, when I got to know Greg better.

  Chapter Ten

  July 2006

  Amber

  ‘What a pair of terrible show-offs,’ I blurted out when we were a safe distance from the house after lunch. ‘Have you ever seen anything so ostentatious?’

  ‘They aren’t that bad,’ James said, switching on the car’s air conditioning, then shutting the door so we could wait outside in the shade while it cooled down. ‘Some of the clients we had at the agency were far worse.’

  ‘But all those statues? Surely you could see they were just expensive reproductions and they’re in such bad taste. And you didn’t even see inside the house properly. It was just as bad. Huge gaudy paintings on the staircase, hideous chandeliers and every kitchen gadget you can think of, none of them ever used, I bet. They’ve spent a fortune on that place. There’s even a cinema in the basement. Honestly, why would you need a cinema when you’ve got such a wonderful view?’