Krousonas

This guide to Krousonas, a mountain village on Crete, follows Kapetan Satanas, the village's moustached chieftain, and his friend John Pendlebury, a British archaeologist turned intelligence officer, as German paratroopers fall over Heraklion in May 1941. It traces how the two men met at British headquarters and split up, each heading for Krousonas by his own route to strike the German lines from the flank, and it lingers on the plane trees, stone fountains and nine small churches of the square they meant to defend.