Although the ground cut into him savagely, Lockhart could not feel a thing. It was only when he had reached some stone slabs that he realized how rough the going had been. As he paused on their cold surface, with the sound of gunfire all around him, his mind drifted back to another life. He looked at the slabs closely, slowly realizing they were slab stelae, erected over Minoan tombs as markers. The irony. He appeared to have made an archaeological discovery in the middle of a gun battle. What he hadn’t noticed, during this reverie, was a grenade about to land fifteen yards ahead of him.

The andartes in the ditch were fighting well, but Manoli knew that there would come a point when they would have to flee. The Germans were fighting back ferociously, and were making steady progress up the hill. When they got within grenade-throwing range, that would be the time to go. To wait for Lockhart and the others would result in death or capture. That was what logic told him, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave his comrades.

The Germans were within fifty yards of where he had seen Lockhart go to ground. Through the binoculars he thought he could see a dim shape moving through the undergrowth, but he wasn’t sure. He could only look for a few seconds at a time—the German fire was constantly raking the top of the ditch. As he ducked down, Manoli heard the explosion.

He thought his eardrums had burst. Even though it had not landed that close, the force of the grenade smashing into Lockhart’s body momentarily deafened him. For a few moments he lay there, not daring to open his eyes, his brain trying to evaluate what had happened and whether there was any damage to his body. He couldn’t tell if he had lost a leg or merely suffered a scratch. Shock was shutting parts of him down, and his rational side fought against it. He had to keep moving, he told himself, but his brain wouldn’t let him.

He lay in suspended animation for several more seconds, his hearing gradually returning. Gunfire and shouts crept back into his brain, reminding him where he was. He knew there would be more grenades, and he wouldn’t be so lucky next time. Slowly, he brought himself up into a low crouch—his body still seemed to be working. He ran as best he could, trying to keep at the same level as the scrub. To have continued crawling would have been too dangerous—he now had to get away from the grenades.

Manoli kept his head down for a few more seconds after the explosion. Then he tentatively got up and scanned the battleground. A small cloud of dust and smoke hung in the air, and it was hard to make out if anybody had been hit. He trained the binoculars on the slope and noticed someone running. It looked like Lockhart. He searched for Niko and Christos, but of them there was no sign. Perhaps they had been hit, or were lying low. He looked back to Lockhart. There was nothing. Manoli scoured the scrub frantically, but there was no movement. Where had he gone? The firing started again. Perhaps it was time to run.