Ill Met By Moonlight

William Stanley Moss' account of his exploits in Crete during World War II makes fitting reading for Memorial Day. Operating in occupied territory, with the help of local anadartes, Moss, and a small team of special operations commandos, managed to kidnap a German General and, somehow, spirit him off the island. What ismost interesting about the story is that almost all of it is taken from a journal written by the author as events unfolded. There is a startling immediacy about the language. Several times the author relates that he has to stop writing because the light is failing, or because a local shepherd has just brought the band something to eat.

Two things struck me:

First, I was appalled by the senseless violence of some among the occupying force. In one incident, a Gestapo officer has to swerve his car on a country road and stop in order to avoid hitting a shepherd boy crossing the road with his sheep. Seeing that his car has sustained a slight scratch, the officer beckons for the shy child to come to him. When he does as he is told, the officer promptly breaks the boys arm across his knee as punishment.

Second, and in contrast, the story contains a remarkable sense of shared humanity between combatants. The General, although obviously shamed by his capture, only rarely demonstrates the haughtiness of his office. A classical scholar, the son of a pastor, he is able to exchange Greek aphorisms with his captors. He shares the same bottle of raki, and pulls at the same blankets to escape the cold. He may be a patriot, but he is not an idealist. He serves his country, not the Party.

This is the sadness of war. Often, the only thing that separates the soldiers of opposing armies is the color of their uniforms. In one, telling, incident, Moss and his villanous band of Cretan resistance fighters celebrate Easter Day in the mountains, singing songs of resurrection in several languages (and, one suspects, several keys). Surely this is a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven, where every tongue sings praise to the Lamb, and war shall be no more.