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and who will shoot the birds, if they find any. After debating for a
few minutes and asking the sun above for advice, Nicolas decrees that
Eteocles and Manolis will handle the flashlights while the older boys,
Antony, Yanni, and himself, will do the shooting. Everyone agrees to
this plan, and they follow Nicolas into the first cave, which is the
deepest of the three. In fact, people say this cave has no end and that
one can walk in it for days without getting anywhere. There are other
scary stories too, like the ones about the ghosts of German soldiers
who were killed in the war and now haunt this cave, and who don’t
like Cretan kids coming in and disturbing their sleep. These stories
keep the boys on edge as they take their slow, careful steps, one by
one, deeper and deeper into the cave, with Eteocles and Manolis
pointing their flashlights all over. Every time a bird is spotted perched
on the edge of a rock either Antony or Nicolas shoot their slingshots
and until they have more than half a dozen dead birds.
Suddenly they all freeze. There is an unfamiliar sound rising
from the depths of the cave from a point they have never reached up
to now, a sound that makes them stand stock-still and stare at each
other, unsure whether to take to their heels or not move at all. Finally,
their fear tells them it is time to run for the mouth of the cave, and
so they all at once do exactly that, only to decide, when they are safely
outside in the sunlight again, that there was no need to be so scared
after all. They congratulate themselves on their catch of eight birds
but wonder if they have missed a chance to get a lot deeper inside
this cave, and they resolve to visit again some other time.
Happy as gems now, they saunter back to the village and split
their catch in four, two birds for Yanni, two for Manolis, two for Anthony
and one each for Eteocles and Nicolas, since they are brothers.
They grin at their good fortune not have been caught by any dead
German soldier whose ghost they imagine must have made those
eerie sounds that stopped them in their tracks, at least this time.
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