I was called up in 1938, and finished my military service about 2 years later. I was discharged on a Thursday, it was on October the twenty fourth or fifth, something like that. And the captain said to me, "Come in on Monday to get your discharge papers. Hand over whatever you have – your weapons, your sword, your helmet – whatever - but you can stay in uniform. And since I was administrative staff and the captain was really busy, I agreed to go in on Monday.

Come Monday, I hear the sirens wailing.

"What’s that? What’s that?"

"War. Against the Italians."

"War! Well, well, well."

So I jump out of bed and get over to the captain at regimental headquarters – we were in the 1^st Regiment …where the American Embassy is now. I got over there - "You’re here", he says, "You took your time? What took you so long?" "I came as soon as I heard", I said.

"So, you’ve come for your discharge papers."

"Well, that’s what you told me to do, isn’t it?"

"Well", he says, "this is no time for discharges, there’s a war on!" And I say "A war. What can we do?" And he says, "Get over to the quartermaster’s store – remember, I was administrative staff – and fill 2 trucks with uniforms, weapons, helmets - everything a soldier needs - and get over to Chalandri. Back then, Chalandri was out in the country, lots of pine trees, no houses, not even any roads… anyway, not much of anything – and I went over and kitted out all the reservists. But the captain said, "When you’ve finished, do me a favour, pick up this bit of shopping and drop it off at my house on your way down" …he lived in Ambelokipous and he had two kids, a boy and a girl. I said "OK, captain", and when the job was done and the drivers had driven off in the trucks, I did the shopping and went round to his house with it. His wife was there with the children, and I said, "The captain told me to bring these round" – "Thank you" – "No problem", and then I went back to the barracks.

I went back to the regiment, but there was nobody there…they’d all gone. "What’s going on?", I asked myself. And I go in and see people I don’t know - complete strangers…there was a colonel, some captains…they were the reservists…they’d been discharged and now they were back. I present myself, I say this and that, and I tell them which regiment I’m in.

"They’ve gone", he says.

"Where’ve they gone?"

"They’re on their way to Piraeus to get on the boat."

And I set off for Piraeus – there was the railroad then – I go to Piraeus, and just as I get into the harbour I see the boat, and it’s leaving. And I say – well, I shouted - "Captain! Captain!"…whatever…"It’s Sklavos"…and a boatman says, "What are you shouting about?" And I say, "That’s my regiment. Do me a favour and take me over." "Go home, you idiot", he says, "That lot are going to war." And I told him, "They’re my regiment. What can I do. I can’t help it. Will you take me?" "No", he says, "I won’t." "Come on!", I says…and I don’t know whether you remember, but the ships didn’t actually dock back then, we had to be ferried out to them in little boats…well, I asked him one more time, and then what could I do except go back to the regiment. So I go to find the colonel, the new one who’d just arrived, salute him, and tell him what’s happened, "Colonel, I was stationed here and my regiment has left. What can I do?" "I see", he says, "You’ve got a bicycle" "Yes", I tell him. "Well, you’ll stay here. Since you’ve got a bicycle, you can be my runner. OK?", he says. "OK by me", I told him.

So I stayed there for around 20 days, a month maybe, and I’d deliver letters and orders, I’d go here and there for him, I was really useful. One time an order came saying I was a deserter. And the colonel called for me, "Come over here, Sklavos. Did you know you were a deserter?" "What, me?", I said, "Yes you", he says. I said "What do you think?", and he said, "Of course you’re not, since you’re here with me." "So?", says I. "Are you fit for active service?" And I said…we had insignia - a red flash - blue meant you were auxiliary and didn’t fight, but I was a combatant. And he said, "I have an order to arrest you and put you into the guardhouse." "Don’t tell me!", I said. "Yes", he says. "Then put me in the guardhouse." Well, to cut things short, some other officers showed up at the guardhouse, herded us up, took us all to Larisis Train Station, and put us straight onto the train on platform 1. And we arrived in Koritsa. The Italians had just left Koritsa…they’d just cleared out and we went into some abandoned houses and found colognes, guitars - all sorts of stuff - nice woollen blankets…they’d just abandoned them and ran. And we made ourselves very comfortable.

The next day we started marching…we went on and on…"Where are we going?"…and we got to a mountain…snow everywhere, fog, night falling…"What are we going to do?" And he says, "We’ve got orders to stay here and set off in the morning." "And where are we going to stay?", I say. "Here." "Here, where?", I ask him. "Here, in the snow", he says. "Oh no!", says I. Anyway, what could we do? There was a guy next to me, a journalist called Pefanis, and I said, "Come over here. Let’s put one blanket on the ground"…because we had one blanket each…"and the other one on top of us both. Let’s sleep together to keep warm." We had a one-man tent…we’d make a tent like this and climb in…and we put that on the snow, too, and covered ourselves with the blanket.

In the morning, reveille, bugles. I try to get up, but I’ve sunk into the snow up to my waist. The snow had heated up and started to subside. I get up and what do I see? Perfect imprints of my body and the other guy’s side by side in the snow. Anyway…we march on and on and on, all day and all night, and all the next day. And we get to the bottom of a steep hill. And I says, "Well, boys, what have we got here?" And a guy, who’d been up there for longer, says, "What have we got here? This is the front line." The Italians are on the other side of that hill." "The Italians? And what if they come over here? How are we going to fight? We don’t have any weapons, or helmets. We don’t even have any Swiss Army knives!" So we go to the captain and tell him this and that. "We haven’t got a thing", we say, and he says, "Yes, you have." "What have we got?" "Listen. As soon as we start running", he says, "shout ‘aeraaa!, aeraaa!". And I said to myself, "What is he on about? We’re going to get through this on thin air?" "Yes, but as soon as one of them goes down", he says, "near you, or as soon as we take some Italian prisoners, you’ll get his gun, his bayonet, his helmet. That’s the only way." "That’s great", I said. As we were talking we heard someone shouting for help up near the top of the hill. One of our lads had climbed up…he was curious to see what was behind the hill…and they’d shot him in the legs. Everyone started shouting. None of the boys who’d been around for a while would go up – they knew better – but I was still green, it was my first time. So I ran up and got him, put him over my shoulder like they’d trained us to…and, anyway, I brought him down, the medics took him, and that was the last we saw of him.

And we started marching again the next day. They kept retreating, and retreating, and retreating…and we kept walking, walking, walking. We must have walked for 6 or 7 days non stop…no food, no water, no nothing. We’d just put a little snow in our billy cans, heat it up over some newspapers we had until it melted, and we’d drink a little water. …This is what had happened. This guy that was bringing us the provisions was on his way with 10 or 12 mules – he had the lot. Anyway, he kept coming and coming, but we kept advancing, and since his animals had nothing to eat, they started dying. He’d put their loads on the other animals…as much as they could carry…but they kept on dying till there were none left. What could he do? He took a sack and put 5 army loaves in it along with some cigarettes, brandy, olives, wine, raisins…whatever they’d given him…and set off on foot with as much as he could carry. He’d find a regiment, "Hey, boys, where’s the so and so regiment?", and they’d tell him where it was. But by the time he got there, we were long gone. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it took him 7 days to bring us the food.

I remember one day as we were moving along, it was dark, and we fell into a…into a creek. It was something like a stream…I mean there were 40 centimetres of water in there, and we started…"Halt!" "What is it, captain?"

"Stay where you are. We’ve come the wrong way. There’s no river on our route."

"But it’s not a river. It’s not deep."

‘There are no rivers on our route, however shallow."

‘What are we going to do?"

‘Let’s camp here for the night.:

"OK"

What could we do? We had some hatchets and we went to the river bank, chopped off a few branches and put them in the water. We kept this up till we had a whole stack of branches…then we put a blanket on top, unloaded the captain’s things…and the captain slept on top of the branches with the blanket…we crossed whatever water there was first, of course.…And what did we find in the morning? Us in the river, one mountain here, another mountain there. The Italians had camped over on this side, and there we were in the water. We take a good look and creep over to the captain.

"Captain!"

"What’s is it? What’s happening?"

"The sun’s up."

"What is it?"

"The Italians."

"Where?"

"Take a look."

And we looked at the Italians. The whole mountain side was covered in their tents. Lots and lots of Italians. What were we supposed to do? He says "We’re not going to do anything. Just pack up, then climb up and over the mountain." Because we were right there in the gorge, "If they fire at you, attack. If they don’t, hold your fire." And that’s what happened. The Italians packed up their stuff and we packed up ours, no one made a hostile move, and no one fired a shot.

I remember one time when we went into what was obviously an Italian camp, and there was food, a huge pot of macaroni. We dived into it, but the captain said, "Watch out! Don’t touch that – they might have put poison in it!!…and there was us looking at the macaroni and not able to eat anything. "Nothing", he said, "Don’t take a thing." "OK." And as we were talking, the Italians got our range and sent in a shell…whizz bang…straight into the pot. Boom! The macaroni flew in all directions…"Holy Mary Mother of God", I says to myself. "Spread out. Get away from the camp!" They had the range all right and the shells were coming right at us.

Anyway. I remember another time when we got to a place with a hillside over here and the Italians behind it. There was a tree, and the ground was sort of flat. And Pefanis says to me, "Let’s camp here. Lets pitch my tent, and the two of us can camp here." "No", I said, "not here in the flat…they’ll have our range. Let’s go a bit higher up where there’s some cover." "Come on, Sklavos!", he says, "Let’s lie down over there." …By this time, though, some others had taken the spot for themselves. "Do you see that? They’ve got it now." "They’re welcome to it. Come on", I told him, and I set off. I climbed up the hillside. We had a shovel that opened and closed like this, and I dug and I dug and I dug until I’d moved enough earth and it was sort of flat. Then we pitched the tent, laid down the blanket, sat down, and just as I’d finished a whizz-bang came in – Bang! – right where we’d wanted to camp. That was the end of the tent, and the tree, and those others were blown sky high…and he saw what happened..."Aman, Sklavos, that could have been us." "You see", I told him, "they’ve got the range, but they can’t do anything to us here, because we’re right up against the mountain."

That was terrible. It was a total disaster. Anyway, we cleared out of there and marched and marched and marched until we came to a village the Italians had abandoned. It was freezing, snow was falling and it was so foggy that we all had to grab hold of the greatcoat of the man in front so we didn’t get lost. And so we were going along holding onto one another, and we got to the village and he says, "Make yourselves as comfortable as you can, boys. These houses are abandoned."…the Albanians had left and the Italians had taken them over. As I was walking along I saw a figure shouting, "Help!"…he was one of us. "What’s up, mate?" "Help me walk", he said, "I’m burning up with fever." So I carried him into a house, and gathered some wood, lit a fire, and warmed him up right there where he was on the floor. I made him some tea in my billy…I’d stocked up on everything in exchange for cigarettes - tea, coffee, sugar, even needles for sewing. To cut a long story short, I made him a hot drink, rubbed him with alcohol – I had some alcohol and first aid stuff, too - and he was burning up with the fever. He opened his eyes some time the next day. "How are you?" "OK, thanks", he said. "I’d have died where I fell in the snow." Anyway, we started talking, I gave him some tea, we talked some more, and he asks me, "Where are you from?" And I told him, "From Athens." "Where do you live?", he asks, and I told him, "Vouliagmenis 130. I have the Orpheus cinema, and another one in Ymetos." "Good God!", he says, "You’re not Lefteris Sklavos, are you?" "I am", I told him, "Do you know what?", he says, "It’s me that’s suing you!" "What for?", I asked. "A sign fell off the roof of the cinema and broke my mum’s arm." And I said, "So that was your mother!" "It was", he says. "And how am I to blame?", I says to him. He says. "Don’t you worry. I’ll write to my mum right now and tell her to drop the action and everything." "That’s fine by me", I said. And he really did write to his mum. I don’t know what he told her, but we became best buddies, and he never left my side.

One time, I saw that they’d captured an Italian battalion…they had them there and they were waiting for something. We went a little closer, and I sees an Italian alpine trooper, with a helmet with feathers on it. He had nice boots, too…they were just fine…while the soles were coming off mine and they were sopping wet…you couldn’t …you just slipped. Listen to what had happened to me! The day before, I’d seen my captain limping around. "What’s up, captain?", I asked him, and he said, "My boots are too tight…"What size do you take?" "41", he tells me. "I wear 41s as well", I told him, "Try mine on." And I took my boots off and gave them to him…he tried them on…and says, "They’re OK. They don’t rub at all." "OK", I said, "these are fine on me. I’ll keep them." But after a day I was in the same position he’d been in, and was limping about. "Look at what I’ve gone and done!", I said to myself. Anyway, the minute I saw the Italian, I told him, "Take your boots off. The skarpinia", I said, "The skarpinia." He looked at me…and they’d given us one of those big, round army loaves, and I cut off half the loaf and told him, "Take it and give me the boots." He wasn’t sure….but he was hungry…so he takes off his boots – I’ve got them here, this knapsack’s from the war. I’ve even got a can of food left over from the war. These are the Italian alpine troop’s boots. Take a look. They were a bit tight here... Look, they were like tanks! and look what they’re like now. I could walk across the snow without slipping, I was just fine. The laces broke and I used some wire instead – what could we do, we were fighting a war. They were a bit tight here, they were, so I made a hole and I put them on. They were a little too big, so I put on two pairs of woolly socks – one pair inside and one pair like this, and my feet were warm, and I didn’t get frostbite. The nails fell out of everyone else’s boots and the soles came off…and they only had their uppers left and they’d walk on the snow in their bare feet, and there’d be blood where they stepped, bloody footprints. They’re feet were a mess underneath, and they all got frostbite. I was saved.

So, one day, if I remember correctly, the captain called for me and he says to me…"Ah, this is my bayonette. I took it from an Italian. Do you see it? I didn’t have a weapon, we had to wait to take a prisoner or find a corpse to get one…so we could fight. We didn’t have any. And we didn’t have any because me and the others had handed them in. Anyway, these are the cigarettes they gave us - we used to call these cigarettes "stukas"…there were 4 cigarettes inside…I’ve kept a packet. I had a knapsack like this, and I’d put them inside. And I’d swap the cigarettes for roast chick peas, raisins, hazelnuts, almonds… whatever. I had everything.

I remember arriving at a village one day. We’d been fighting and advancing, not only… we didn’t have any weapons in the beginning, and we’d shout "Aeeeraaa!!" all the time…we really did! The Italians had some hand grenades, they were red and your cigarettes fitted inside them nicely, so we used to disarm them and make them into cigarette cases. Even if they only had cigarettes inside them, if we held them like this and shouted, as soon as the Italians saw the grenade, which was red and such like, they recognised it and whoof! it would be up with their hands and “Buοno Greco, buοno Greco” and “Una faccia, una ratsa”, and all of that. If they’d fought like we fought…

To cut a long story short, we arrived in a village and the captain said, "What have you got to give us?" "Nothing", they said. They had cows, so the captain says, "Bring us 10 cows!" "But….", they started, but he says, "We’ll give you a piece of paper saying we took your cows, and you can take it to the Greek army and get paid." So we took the cows and slaughtered them, and they gave each of us a hunk of meat weighing 2-3 kilos…a piece each. "What are we supposed to do with this?’, we asked. "Roast it", he says. "Where?", we asked. Anyway, they gave us a piece of meat each and we had some "skewers", and we put the meat piece by piece onto these skewers - rifle cleaners they were– lit a fire, put them over the fire, cooked them like kebabs and ate them. And a guy comes up to me and says, "Give me a cigarette, and I’ll give you some meat", and piece by piece I must have collected about 10 kilos of meat. I cooked all of it, packed it tightly into my knapsack – a piece here, and a piece there - and when the hunger started again the next day, I’d chew it slowly slowly. I’d do this – I’d take a piece of meat out and chew it. Pefanis comes up to me, "Sklavos", he says. "What is it?", I say. "What are you chewing?" "Quiet!" I tell him. "What are you chewing?", he asks. And I go like this and take out a chop for him –

"Take it!"

"What is it?"

"Shhh! They’ll eat us alive, not just the meat, if they find out about this!" And we got by like that.

I remember another time when we arrived in a village - because we kept advancing and advancing – and there were some schools and other places, but they soon filled up and I didn’t have anywhere to sleep. I went from place to place but they were packed in like sardines everywhere...there wasn’t even room to sit down. So there was this stable, and I went in and there were some cows and a long trough, from here to here, with cows on both sides eating their hay from the trough. So I went in and lay down in the trough, all wet as I was, and fell asleep. And the cows were eating the hay from under me…and the more they ate, the lower I went. They’d pull some hay out and down I’d go.

Later on, I saw an Albanian come in. He stood on the trough I was lying in - there were some planks of wood like this and a tent up in the eaves – took a look up there and left. He was back again in half an hour…he stood there, climbed up, had a look, and left. He did this 2 or 3 times and I says to myself, "He’s got something hidden up there." He didn’t see me where I was lying, so as soon as he left I gets up, has a look, and sees some white bags, like pillow cases. I go like this… "Gun powder, the little devil! Gunpowder!", I says, and I pull one down, throw it into the trough, open it up, do this, take a look…it’s trachanas! "Ah!", I says, "We asked you to give us something and you said there was nothing. Now I’ll show you." And I took the sack, filled my knapsack, and went to where they were all asleep. "Anyone want some trachanas to cook?" "Trachanas? Where’d you find it!" "Shush! If you’ve got a cigarette, give it to me. If you haven’t, never mind." And I gave everyone a billy can full of trachanas, and they all lit fires and started cooking it. Later, the captain asks, "What’s going on?" "They’re lighting fires", someone says. "What is it, boys? What’s up?", asks the captain. "We’re cooking trachanas." "Cooking trachanas? The Italians will figure out we’re here with all those fires you’ve lit. And where did you get the trachanas, anyway?" "It was Sklavos." "Sklavos?" "Yes", and he tells him the whole story. Anyway, we ate trachanas that night, and I had a knapsack full left for myself.

One day, we heard "The Germans!" "The Germans? On no! First it was the Italians, and now we’ve got the Germans as well." Retreat. An order comes to retreat, because their planes were mowing people down. We were in charge of the trucks, and we took them, filled them, and started driving down towards Athens. One of the trucks broke down on the way. We knew about trucks, so we stopped to see what we could do to fix it. "Fix it? We don’t have time", says the captain, "The Germans will kill us." So we abandoned the trucks and took to our heels.

And we got to a railway station. There was a train there with about 10 coaches attached, and we got on. And more and more people kept getting on until they had to climb onto the roof because there was no more room. And just after we set off, the stukas, the planes, came down and started firing at the train. And the train was full, remember. So the driver stops the train and gets out…and there were wheat fields on both sides, and everyone ran into the fields to save their skins. The machinegun kept on firing – and there wasn’t just one plane, there were 5 or 6 of them – the machineguns kept on – chaos – and they kept firing at us. They could see the soldiers in the wheatfields and they fired…and I…there was a little bridge over some water, and I waded into the water, and as they fired I dived under the surface. I could hear the bullets whistling through the water – chif, chif, chif - and right then, I tell you, my whole life flashed before my eyes just as if it was a film – my mother, my wife. Loula…she was my fiancée back then…and I said to myself, "You’re going to die here", and I dived into the water and waited for the bullets to stop.

But we did arrive at the station that night, and there was just one train there, the last hospital train. An English train. There were no more. The others had left and just that one was left, and they were collecting the wounded and putting them on it. We tried to hide in the storage cars, others tried elsewhere, but they threw us all off. They didn’t let anyone on. And it was the last train. "What can I do now? What can I do?" Our legs were covered with what we called gaiters…they were just like the swaddling clothes you wrap babies up in…and each one must have been about 5 or 6 metres long. So, "What can I do?"…I got in under the train while it was still in the station, and there were some pipes under there for the brakes and the rest of it…and I went to those pipes, and tied the gaiters from here to here – like this – like a hammock for a summer’s night…or a swing. And we had some cleaners we used to clean our rifles, and I tied them in, too, and hung up my bag and my gun – I tied it up underneath - and I climbed into it ever so slowly, and lay down…I lazed around under there, I lay there just like a spider and waited for the train to leave. From time to time I saw the feet of the people who were throwing the others off the train, and then the train left with me underneath. And I said, "Wherever it goes, so do I. I’m saved. And since it’s an English train, it’s a sure thing."

And miles and miles down the track, I see a guy lying on the train’s running board – you know what those running boards were like - and I says, "Hi there, mate, make sure you don’t fall off." "Where are you?", he says. "Underneath the train", I tells him. "You’re all right", he says, "I’m not going to fall, I’ll hold on tight." When we got to a bridge – Papadias Bridge, they called it…a high bridge over a deep ravine – I saw him fall asleep and fall off. Luckily, he fell onto the top…the beginning of the slope…and he fell, and fell, and fell right down to the bottom. Did he make it? I don’t know. All I know is that he fell right from the top, and that was the last I saw of him. The train moved on and I didn’t see him.

So we go on, and after a while we hear planes. There are mountains on both sides of the track, and that the train comes to a standstill between them in the gorge. And everyone got off - some from this side, some from the other - and went into the fields. I got out, too…"They’ll target the train and blow it to pieces", I said to myself. And the machineguns start up – rattatattatat! – and they give us everything they’ve got and fly off without dropping any bombs and blowing the train sky high. The people started getting onto the train again. But how was I supposed to get on… because I’d come out of my hiding place, too, so as not to be…How was I going to get back down there? And I moved down towards the end of the train… to where I’d made my nest… and I went 5 or 6 metres further back – maybe more. I saw the wheel – there was one wheel here and another there, and I counted 1, 2, 3, 4, before the next wheel came along… 1, 2, 3, 4, and the next wheel passed me. So, I count - 1, 2 - one wheel passes me and bam! I roll in under the train and grab the pipes. I get dragged along the ground, but I manage to pull myself along from one pipe to the next and climb up into my nest. "Thank God!’ I said. "The train could have sliced me in two, the Germans could have killed me, or I could have been left behind." And we arrived in Athens after a lot of discomfort, and…

I remember one time at the front, there were all four of us brothers – Michalis, Stamatis, Georgis the officer and me - and we met up in a camp where all the regiments had gathered to collect food supplies. We sat down, all four of us brothers together, and ate. One of us had got hold of some eggs, and we cooked them in our jerry cans and ate them…we were all in different regiments, but we’d just happened to all meet up! We were all over the moon! Here’s a letter…these were the letters us soldiers sent… there was a picture of the king on them – Pavlos: do you see him? We sent the letters to our mum in Athens. We wrote a couple of lines to our mum here…"Tell mum we’ll be back soon, all of us together and victorious."