CRETE: The Goat

Capitano Volanis was a short man, but fierce, handlebar mustaches and shoulders like an ox’s made him look ominous. Over 70, he could still clamber goatlike among the mountains of Crete, could still spring on a wild goat and throw it with his bare hands. That was why they called him “The Goat,” this notorious leader of the out lawed Venizelists, who wanted no kings in Greece & Crete.

But last year Fate brought Greece worse enemies than kings. The Goat knew they might even swarm over the sea to Crete, where weary-faced Greek and British soldiers were trying frantically to prepare for them. The Goat knew, too who the Man was that the English brought one night to his mountain cottage. Next morning he pointed down toward the valley; it had sprouted parachutes, brilliantly red, green and white. The English said they must take the Man at once to a secret rendezvous where a warship was expected. So the Goat guided them over crooked goat tracks only he knew, crawling through crevices where no low-circling Nazi plane could spot them. After two days & nights they reached the rendezvous; then the Man enbraced the Goat and urged him to come with them on the warship. The Goat shook his head said he preferred to stay and fight, though he knew the Man was King George II of the Hellenes.

Last week news came to King George II’s entourage in the U.S. that the Nazis had caught the Goat and shot him. Said young John Tsouderos, the Prime Minister’s son, who had been in the party the Goat guided: “Capitano Volanis was a good, good man. Now he is dead That is the New Order.”