Members of Kreipe Abduction Team: Georgios Tyrakis, William Stanley Moss, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Emmanouil Paterakis, Antonios Papaleonidas | via Wikicommons user Gabriella Bullock

Over the centuries, the mountain caves of Crete have afforded refuge to brigands, sheep-rustlers, anti-Ottoman revolutionaries, and even the infant Zeus, hidden in a cave on Mount Ida to protect him from Cronus, who had a nasty habit of snacking on his own children. But never have these caves been more curiously occupied than in the early 1940s, when they were the haunt of British members of SOE (Special Operations Executive), all trying their best, with their mustachios, island finery, and stabs at dialect, to pass as natives. Like the Philhellenes of Lord Byron’s day, they were lovers of Greece intent on thwarting and ultimately expelling her invaders, who now consisted of Germans and Italians rather than Turks. Their success in doing so, however, hinged on the tireless support of many actual Cretans. Between the two groups a powerful cooperative chemistry took hold. Side by side they fought, sweated, froze, went hungry, and slogged across some of the steepest terrain in Europe, but also drank themselves silly, sang, quoted poetry, and gorged when they could on greasy hunks of mutton; they became friends.