The Field Marshal's Pea

"We will get you, even in your bed." Thus the Greek Cypriot underground, in a mimeographed leaflet signed "The Leader Digenis," gave Britain's Field Marshal Sir John Harding its warning several weeks ago. Last week at a luncheon at Nicosia's Government House, an intelligence colonel told Sir John flatly that the underground was plotting his early assassination. Scoffed short, peppery Soldier Harding: "If they do attempt it, they will have to deal with my army, and that is no trifling matter."

While they lunched, dark, handsome Neophytos Sophocleous, newest of the Cypriot servants, was at work vacuum-cleaning the Harding bedroom. Later, Sir John's Armenian housekeeper found Sophocleous standing between Sir John's and Lady Harding's twin beds, rewinding the electric cord on the machine. Why wasn't he vacuuming? Said Sophocleous: "I have done all that is necessary." That night, while his army patrolled the city in Land Rovers with Sten guns at the ready, Sir John slept a round eight hours.

Under the Mattress. Next day Sophocleous did not turn up for work. Her suspicions aroused, the housekeeper reported his odd action of the previous day. Guards rushed to the field marshal's bedroom.

There, sandwiched between the mattress and springs of Harding's bed, they found a small brown-paper parcel that looked as if it might contain a book--except that a small tube protruded from one end. Guard Commander Michael Buckley took the time bomb outside and placed it in a sandbagged dugout. Ten minutes later its gelignite charge exploded with a force that would have demolished half of Government House itself.

The overage World War II pencil-type detonator, which works by acid eating through metal and is normally timed to explode about twelve hours after setting, had taken around twice that time to work. Informed of the bomb, Harding mused: "That's funny. I slept better than usual last night." He added dryly: "I'm told there's a story-of a princess who couldn't sleep for a pea under her mattress. It puzzles me."

Before the Altar. Field Marshal Harding's nonchalance failed to conceal the fact that, two weeks after Archbishop Makarios' exile, his efforts had not yet brought about sufficient orderliness to make Cyprus the reliable military base the British desire. Last week four terrorists, their heads covered by black woolen hoods, walked into St. George's Greek Orthodox Church in the town of Kythrea during a service and shouted to the 40 worshiping villagers: "Stand up and face the wall!" Then, with a single pistol shot, one of the hooded men killed Lay Reader Manoli Pierides while he was in the act of chanting the Gospel--apparently on account of Pierides' British sympathies. A policeman was shot to death in a cafe; two more British soldiers were killed.

And for the first time, Greeks and Turks fell to major fighting. On Kathara Theftera (first day of Lent in the Greek Orthodox calendar), well-wined Greek Cypriots met up with Turkish Cypriots in the village of Vasilia, staged a free-for-all which injured 21 people. Fearful of demonstrations on Greece's issth Day of Independence, Field Marshal Harding put the main towns of the island under curfew for the whole day, i.e., confined 165,000 Cypriot people to their homes. At week's end, while British police were still searching for Neophytos Sophocleous, Sir John Harding discharged his remaining twelve Greek Cypriot servants (many of them with years of faithful service in Government House). The act was symbolic of the widening separation between Britain and her crown colony.

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