Noose – Chapter 5

Noose – Chapter 5

To death for the throne of General Markos.

“Stupidity is eternal, but immoral,” said Socrates, "we will understand it as part of human existence, but it always must be resisted.”

1.

We were sinking in growing fear, afraid of even our own footsteps; it felt like we were putting our heads into a noose. The world was preparing to welcome the new one thousand nine hundred and forty-seventh year and we were making war. It was Monday, December 24th and no one was thinking of how we were going to attack the city. It seemed like we were invincible, trusting our revolutionary strength, feeling like no one could surpass our might, thinking that there had never been revolutionaries like us in the history of the world. The barking of the dogs was very loud. The night was black; like a black stone. We were on our toes ready to run. We moved under the umbrella of darkness. The moustaches on the older men were freezing from their breath. From time to time we heard the quiet voices of our commanders barking out warnings: “Pay attention! Don’t talk!” A little later we came upon the shimmering lights of a guardhouse, which in the dark looked like a lake of lights. We continued to be cautioned as we approached the city which we could see from the distance. Our hearts were pounding. Most of us had never been to a city in our entire lives and now here we were ready to conquer one. The city with its lights looked huge in comparison to the villages of Gramos. As I was going down the goat path, spontaneous memories of my village, of my home flooded my mind… Finally, we had reached the end of a long journey, leaving behind forests and streams of an exceptionally hilly country rich in trees. An unpleasant nagging north wind was blowing, freezing every drop of water and chilling us to our bones. All the pools of water we passed by were frozen and the ice creaked as we gently walked on it. Our faces were crab red from the cold. Commander Arianos was one of those people influential in the Party and should have learned that in politics it is not crucial to be brave (scatterbrained). Now we the fighters had to pay for the lessons he never learned. Dressed in the uniform of a captured high ranking government army officer, Arianos wanted to charm us with his military speech and with his orders. He said that today we were pledging our lives for a better tomorrow. Andonis, who always had a question and liked to make remarks or offer his own suggestions, said nothing. He did not respond at all. He did not try to change the tactics or oppose the officer; he simply nodded his head and kept quiet. We were all amazed as to how he had managed to say nothing in this kind of situation when he had never been ready to so easily put his own life on the line. Andonis whispered in my ear: “For this kind of smooth style the basic food is attention and compliments. You can have peace with this kind of person if you feed his narcissism. He constantly wanted to abuse us in the trenches and if we refused him he would hold a grudge and resent us. He takes it very hard when you challenge him in front of others...” Tired, wet and frozen from the long march we simply could not operate our weapons. Then Arianos got this “brilliant” idea to send us (demolition experts) to clear the way. In our fiery rush we literally almost blew ourselves up. In all this, unbeknownst to us, the Burandari (opposing forces) were monitoring our movements and kept a close eye on us. We advanced under the Commander’s idea that we needed to kill all those who did not obey orders. Soon we found ourselves at a fork in the road and took the side leading down a long set of stairs towards the streets of the old part of town. As we descended and took to the wet and narrow lanes, we noticed that there were no people. The situation started to frighten us. Arianos told us that: “A great perspective of a new life was unfolding before us.” And how will that happen? That was the job of the strategists; our job was to be brave and do our job. He told us, “You need to be proud of your courage and bravery.” Then, at that very moment, our suicidal fury began to unfold and we couldn’t help but ask ourselves: “Was there really a new life, a new society unfolding before us?”

2.

There was a lot of shooting; I could hear the sound of whizzing bullets flying by. But my comrades and I, the “minerati” (demolition-ners) as they called us, were more concerned with the cold. Life was not just nothing. I was cold and I wanted to walk around to warm up, but I couldn’t because sticking my head out would have brought me closer to my death. At that moment my hopes and fears were tightly connected. Snipers were constantly shooting at us, placing us well into their sight. Several of us had already been killed and were now gone forever. The rest of us, bundled up in clothing that we had not changed in months, had been ordered to move forward. Step by step we tramped through the snow in our wet boots, tight up against our legs. We were entering Konitsa square. We could hear crying, explosions and firing of weapons everywhere. The citizens of Konitsa, committed to their duty to defend their city, had taken up arms. We were near the most prominent building in the city. It was a magnificent building, a long right-angled church with a domed roof and lined with round columns on all sides on the outside. As we walked the streets, with

every step we took we knew that this might be our last night, we saw the moon appear behind the winter fog.

3.

The pine trees that surrounded the city square were bent from the weight of the heaped snow, looking like they were mourning. “Ognian, what is happening? Damn it, you will kill us all!” yelled my Captain Giorgi Kalkov. “Everything is okay now Captain,” I said as I picked up my backpack filled with explosive pieces and flammable materials. I had just accidently dropped it. I heard something crack. Maybe something broke. Damn it, I may have broken the mine detector or the binoculars. The same thing happened to Stase Rimpapov and to a few others from my unit. Angry at myself I continued to walk down the road. Then Rimpapov let out a sudden sharp yell and fell to the ground. There was a puzzling look of pain on his face. His left cheek looked like it was going into spasms and was shaking. “Can you stand up?” I frantically asked as I leaned slightly forward over him. “No… Yes,” he replied. I helped him to his feet. Captain Giorgi Kalkov also ran over to help. He was shot in the neck with a poisonous seed by a silent sniper. Suddenly he fell over on his back, his knees straightened and his body stiffened like it was cramping all over.His head hit the pavement with a loud thud. The stiffness lasted several seconds and then his arms and legs began to quiver, shake and go into spasms. He lost control of his bladder and a puddle of urine formed under him. “Lord God!” I yelled and so did Kalkov. Then I cried out: “O grim truth!” as Stase sank into darkness. I thought of his mother and her suffering. Oh, what pain, I wanted to shout out and distance myself from this place. Stace suddenly kicked his legs out and experienced another episode of cramps and spasms. Then his body began to twist back and forth. He stuck his tongue out and retracted it again. His eyes were partly open. I thought that he did not know what was happening to him because he tried to say something. But his effort was wasted, no words came out. I grabbed hold of his head and tried to calm him down. My hands were soaked with warm blood seeping out of his neck. Then, just as I looked at his face, I saw him bite his lower lip, sinking his teeth deep into it. Blood began to gush flowing down his chin and neck. I could see that he was begging for help through his tears. I squeezed his hand and he again bit on his lip even harder and let out his last sad cry. “Stase was dead. May god bless his soul,” I said. Captain Giorgi Kalkov who was responsible for us Macedonians also said the same thing. There was no hatred in my heart, only horror. Yes, I would have killed his murderer, but I did not hate him. “Don’t hate a rabid dog,” my grandfather used to say. Stase may have still been closer to a child than to a man but he knew how to share love and how not to hate. Before we had left on this excursion, now under the command of Kalkov, we never did finish singing the song “Aber doide, Donke” (a message came, Donke). Blood was flowing all over the streets and little by little we were losing our strength and becoming ineffective. We were mobile at the will of our commanders. We were too young and, according to them, not capable of contributing anything of importance, only our cruelty towards the enemy. As I walked on the blood, bled from my friends, I told myself: “O grim truth, we are sinking in blood and darkness, with our parents and family unaware!”

4.

Deep, wide universal fear began to grow all around us as the number of dead kept climbing. Everything was in decline and rapidly falling. How could one measure the anxiety of a common person? Who would determine and tell the truth about what had happened here? “Surely there will be someone decent still left alive,” said Leonidas as his tears ran down on top of dead Stase Rimpapov. At that moment I was reminded of his words, “Do not kill! Do not cause harm! Do not carry out violence!” These were expressions of gratitude, my 17 year old peer and friend in arms used to say when we, along with 320 other children, were mobilized in Macedonia and sent to General Markos’s army to turn us into soldiers and killers and to have us sacrifice ourselves here in Konitsa. In the whole madness of expecting a victory in the city Konitsa, we went up a narrow and dark street. Until then I had never walked over so many corpses; a sight that would cause a sane person to go into shock, that would make a grown man cringe and lose his guts and make his bones shake. “This is another black cloud over many mothers,” said Kalkov as we covered the dead bodies with frocks so that our comrades in arms that followed us would not be so shocked. Fear and mistrust grew stronger in us. Our experience created negative feelings in us especially towards our opponent who shot at us and ambushed us from his bunkers. And as we took to the winding streets and dark alleys we all knew that we were walking into a trap expecting that at any moment now we would be blown to bits by the explosives deliberately placed there. We were walking to our death, as if deliberately attempting to sacrifice ourselves and bring about our own demise.

5.

With every passing moment we were threatened with short-lived torment or with death. Emotionally we were all tense and looked very strange. Andonis Theodorakis and I were the first to walk through the frozen snow, which crunched under our feet, sounding like it was talking to us, telling us something very scary. Andonis spoke: “How long are we going to be fighting? Have we got something to fight over and to divide?” “Everything is clear with our destiny,” I replied. Then I remembered the verses by Aleksandar Tvardovski.

“A coast to the left, a coast to the right, Cannon fire roars in hell, A holy and righteous battle is waged, A battle is waged, not for glory, A battle is waged, for life on earth.”

There was no one in front of us. We were ordered to refrain from opening fire. We were to avoid placing our finger on the triggers of our guns until we reached our objective. But it was not the same for the other side. They constantly shot at us. Behind us, my comrades from the “minerite” and “free shooters” and those from the Infantry Battalion who were in the front line, with eyelids heavier than zeal for sleep and rest, had given their lives for a piece of peaceful sky. We were marking where the “Telermine” type mines were planted. Some we could not find because they were well camouflaged. We did not have the proper equipment to find those. We needed proper working “detectors”. The enemy was well deployed throughout the city and was shooting at us from rows of bunkers and even from house windows. We staggered, crawled and inch by inch made progress. Finally we began to assemble in the first beautiful, white and warm houses. We staggered in darkness, going through the houses, unsure if someone was there and if they were going to shoot us. At any moment now someone from inside was going to spill our guts with a strong burst of gunfire or with a hand grenade. That’s how it was. Every fight was a balance between attack and defense. If you’re not fast enough and if your opponent is faster, you will die. Manolis, in reprisal, said: “We are at the bottom, but the bottom is not a place where one can continuously stay without being depersonalized, without losing colour, smell and taste and without becoming inhuman. We are those who are required to die for the generals?!” They were still shooting at us, defending their city, their homes, and had nowhere to flee, and we did not partake in the thought of killing. We wanted them to peacefully surrender the city so that we could declare it the seat of the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece. In other words, the Government of Markos’s Partisans.

6.

December in Epirus was usually dry with clear skies, full of blue, but on the north side cold waves brought snow from high up Golio Kamenik Mountain. The next day we returned to the bunkers, from where the enemy had shot at us with lit rounds of bullets which we could see flying above our heads. We did not know the streets of this city, but we decisevly approached the bunkers. As we turned a corner a group of soldiers appeared before us at the exit of the street, prepared for a frontal attack. We pulled back and went into a completely empty street single file, Jovan, Spiros, Gerasimos, Kalin and Andonis all following Kolio. “Let the dying die and the living live!” shouted Gerasimos running towards the gun hole of the large bunker facing us and throwing a hand grenade at it. Someone with irony then said: “Let the Generals and the Party live!” Then Andonis whispered: “I don’t want to die!” At that very moment several of our fighters arrived and took the badly wounded fighter and left with long faces. Afterwards we found out that the wounded fighter belonged to the Second Unit which was attacking from the left wing. After many unsuccessful attacks, it took us until dawn to finally capture some waist-deep shallow trenches. We noticed that the entire place was dug up with trenches. All of us were wondering, “How was it possible for the enemy to dig so many trenches in so short a time?” Who knows for how long they had known that we were coming. We placed guards at both ends of the trench but the cold was unbearable. A strong fire appeared at one end of the dugout, flames flew high up in the air but there was no explosion. The flames were due to bottles filled with flammable liquid being thrown at us. We sounded the alarm then ran towards the flames but at the same time we feared that the fire might be bait for an ambush. The entire sky was filled with a low cloud, some was from the smoke of gunfire and the rest was cold winter fog. We spent the night shaking cold and jumping at every bit of noise. When they were not shooting at us, we ate our canned food and felt like we were free from violence, malice and hatred. We ate and immediately experienced immense relief and bliss. Then we thought how fantastic it would be if we could really manage to install General Markos and watch him sit on his throne. We imagined how we would cry out: "LONG LIVE GENERAL MARKOS! LONG LIVE THE PRESIDENT OF THE INTERIM DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT OF FREE GREECE! HURRAY! HURRAY! LONG LIVE OUR NEW CAPITAL OF THE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND OUR GENERAL MARKOS! HURRAY!”