‘So these survivors were picked up and there was another boat, and the Luftwaffe missed it.’Ehrhardt shrugged. ‘According to my sergeant, Herr Major, there were no footprints leading from the beach -- only into the sea -- and he could only imagine, since the boat and the rubber dinghy were missing, together with the weapons -- two light machine-guns and a 20-millimetre cannon by the look of the mountings - that this boat must have been accompanied by the third boat you mentioned, and that when the Luftwaffe had gone, they paddled out and were taken on board with what they could salvage. They’re doubtless now back in Crete.’Baldamus shrugged, nagged by doubt. There was a lot at stake and he felt it was unsafe to assume too much. ‘But just suppose they weren’t picked up?’ he said.Ehrhardt shrugged. ‘There was no sign of them.’‘Even so, we’d be unwise to risk any more men down there yet. It’s just possible, I suppose, that we could be wrong, in which case they’re in those hills with two machine-guns and a cannon.-Not exactly something to argue against.
What do You think about Corporal Cotton's Little War?
