Love's Obsession by Judy Powell Page A

need be held against him’. Also personal characteristics were noted: ‘[he] is unfortunately married to a woman who was formerly a common prostitute. ’ 24 The comments reflect the paranoia of an English administration uneasily governing a population grown weary, often downright outraged, with colonial rule.
    Jim’s opinion of the regiment was more sanguine. After the war he argued that any blame for the regiment’s activities should rest with their officers. Commissions were, he argued, often granted to men from Greece or elsewhere, a ‘mercenary’ class only attracted by higher pay and prestige.
    There was thus introduced an element which had no vested interest in Cyprus and the Cypriots, and no prior acquaintance with the island and its people … The majority of British N.C.Os attached to the Regiment were rejects from line battalions [and] … if unsuited for their rank in British units, they were doubly unsuited for what could only be a more difficult task. 25
    While he acknowledged that the rank and file were also attracted by money and ‘volunteered for the high pay or because their own employment—especially mining—had been obliterated by the war’, Jim did not hold this against them. These men may have had little incentive beyond personal gain, but in the absence of ‘inspiration from their officers’ they should not, he felt, be unfairly criticised.
    The Pioneers were stationed in Egypt and Jim joined them at Alexandria. The mood of the men was poor and morale low. After many months in Libya their promised leave in Cyprus had evaporated, and instead they were being sent directly to Greece. Jim was appalled that so many regimental officers remained in Cairo or manoeuvred for ‘safe jobs’ in the Sudan or Somaliland, although much of this bitterness reflects his experience of events that followed.
    Italy invaded Greece in October 1940 and ‘few military campaigns have been undertaken so carelessly’. 26 Sloppy military actions were not, however, exclusive to the Italians and the Allied campaigns in Greece proved disastrous.
    Britain’s support for Greece was born partly of sentiment and partly of strategy. The code breakers of Bletchley Park warned Churchill about German military movements to the north of Greece, as Hitler moved to protect German oil supplies in Romania. Churchill attached a British Military Mission to the Greek Army, but Major-General T.G. Heywood, whose reputation was built on his failure to recognise the defects in the French armies, now refused to see any weakness in the Greek defence. The Byzantine nature of Greek politics did not help. Although the right wing Greek dictator Metaxas famously said ‘No’ or ‘Οχι’ to the Italians in October 1940, only three months later he was dead of throat cancer. The Greek King George was a political actor and Royalists, Venezelists, 27 Fascists, and Communists would all play out their animosities over the next few years, while divided resistance organisations, an alphabet soup of acronyms—EDES, EAM, ELAS, EKKA—waged war against the invaders and each other. Ordinary Greek soldiers, on the other hand, fought with determination and courage. In November they defeated the Italian 9th Army in fighting as fierce as that year’s winter in the mountains of northern Greece.
    In Egypt, General Wavell was preoccupied with Rommel’s movements in North Africa and thought Greece an unwelcome distraction. But Churchill’s promise to the Greeks must be honoured. Together with thousands of other troops, mostly from the Dominions of New Zealand and Australia, Jim embarked ‘for an unknown destination’ on 5 March 1941. A month later on 6 April, Germany invaded. Greece would be the only country in Europe to fight both Axis powers on its own territory.
    For nearly two months Jim served in Greece. In Thessaly he found time to collect pottery