Oxi Avrio-Tora!

It was dusk when tall, lanky Major Winston W. Ehrgott of New York City turned his jeep into the flagstone courtyard of the Greek headquarters at Komotini, in eastern Thrace. An American adviser with the Greek Army, he had been promised a chance to observe a cavalry patrol that would go out that night against nearby Communist Andartes (guerrillas). Inside headquarters, a beribboned Greek colonel offered him a glass of cognac. A night patrol? Surely the American was joking. The colonel explained: "We never move cavalry at night. Horses fall down; you might run into ambushes."

Ehrgott, the eighth of his family who has served in Custer's old cavalry regiment, the ambush-conscious U.S. 7th, pointed out through his interpreter that darkness was excellent cover, and that if you deployed properly ambushes did not happen.

"I've Got the American Here." The Greek colonel shook his head, put an arm around the major's shoulder. "Look," he said, "why don't you stay here tonight and have dinner with us? We can sing songs and drink and have a nice party." No? The colonel sighed and rang up his intelligence officer. Gasping protests came clearly through the receiver. The colonel cut them off: "No, no, no! Tomorrow will not do. You don't realize what's happening. I've got the American here. All he keeps saying is 'Now!' Listen, my boy, we've got to mend our bad old ways. I tell you things are different with these foreigners around. Report here instantly!"

Three hours later, Major Ehrgott swung up on a borrowed horse and rode out of Komotini with 50 cavalrymen. Ehrgott, as the regulations require, was unarmed. His companions carried rifles, Bren guns and Tommy guns. Amazed inhabitants, unaccustomed to night activity by the garrison, hung out of their windows as the troop jostled by.

"Is That You, Comrade?" As they rode through the gentle, starlit night, Major Ehrgott saw much to depress him: a soldier in the probing point of the column rode a highly visible white horse; there were no security guards riding on the flanks; officers smoked cigarettes, and the men talked loudly. It was a perfect setup for an ambush. But there were no ambushes.

Two hours out, the barking of dozens of dogs welcomed them to the first village. Except for the dogs, it seemed deserted--some peasants had joined the Andartes; some were sleeping in the fields for safety's sake. From one house, however, a light glimmered. A Greek captain knocked. A woman's voice called: "Is that you, comrade?" She opened the door sufficiently to push out two loaves of bread, slammed it shut again. The captain smiled weakly: "She thinks we are Andartes."

The patrol wound on: to Mavromati where, a few days previously, Andartes had carried off 40 men and boys; to Skinia, where the guerrillas had rounded up women and girls. The captain asked one villager if he had given food or clothing to the guerrillas. The villager shrugged: "Do you think I would be alive if I hadn't?" The other Greek officers stared at their boots in some embarrassment. Technically, this man could be arrested for "aiding rebellion." But here, that made no sense.

"Everywhere & Nowhere." The dawn was breaking beyond Turkish Thrace as the patrol, swinging back toward headquarters by another route, clattered into Kalamokastron. Here, the chagrined Greek captain discovered, the Andartes had raided that very night but had left hurriedly when the grapevine--remarkably swift for an area without formal communications--brought news that the patrol was out.

As the riders swung down the last miles to Komotine again, they passed groups of peasants with their belongings hurrying back to the deserted villages. "Where can we find some Andartes to get at?" asked Major Ehrgott.

Shrugged the captain: "Everywhere--and nowhere."

It was not as hopeless as that, though many Greeks felt the way the captain did. The Greek Army, on its part, was learning the phrase which Major Ehrgott and the other Americans liked to use: "Oxi avrio--tora!" (Not tomorrow--now!). The Americans were learning, well before the spring thaws opened up the whole north Greece guerrilla country, that the military solution to the Andartes would involve more than night patrols.

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