‘I don’t think you should stay here alone,’ he said.

Then the door opened and Rosie Yellenberg walked in.

‘Go get ’em, tiger,’ Cara Parks said, with a surprisingly warm smile.

He left the women to it.

‘Shit!’

Mavros ducked as a Messerschmitt 109 with Luftwaffe markings screamed overhead, only a few metres above the electricity poles. He watched as it streaked towards the airfield, where a Junkers 52 troop carrier was manoeuvring in a cloud of dust.

Mikis had left him at the entrance to Maleme aerodrome and gone back to the resort to talk to his father. The security guys on the gate let him through when he showed the plastic-covered card he’d been given by Alice Quincy.

‘Where’s Mr Jennet?’ he shouted, as the fighter came back to make a second pass.

The guard pointed to a group of people at the far end of the runway from the modern buildings. ‘You can wait for a lift or take a papaki.’ He indicated a row of ‘little ducks’ — Honda 50s.

Mavros hated all forms of mechanized two-wheel transport, but in this case he was prepared to make an exception. It was hot and he didn’t want to wait in the sunlight. Mounting the contraption, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he remembered how to start it and even change gear — like every Greek boy, he had messed around with them before becoming heartily sick of the racket from shot exhausts.

He made it to the crowd in a few minutes. There was a large amount of equipment spread around — not only cameras, but generators, screens and numerous other things he didn’t know the name or purpose of. Then he saw a line of chairs under sunshades, as if an impromptu cafe had been set up. Rudolf and Hildegard Kersten were at one end, while David Waggoner was at the other. Between them were members of the film crew, some working on laptops and others arranging equipment. Alice Quincy saw him and came over.

‘Hello, Mr Mavros,’ she said, struggling to make herself heard above the sound of the taxiing Ju52.

‘Alex,’ he shouted back. The noise reduced as the plane headed away.

‘Can I help you?’ The young woman was in jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt that must have made her uncomfortably hot.

‘I want to talk to Mr Jennet. Is he available?’

‘If it’s about Maria Kondos, he knows you found her.’ She shaded her eyes as dust gathered around them. ‘The runway’s concrete, but we’re throwing up dust to make it look like it was back in the war.’

‘Art’s all about the little things,’ he said.

Alice Quincy wasn’t sure how to take that, which was his intention.

‘If you don’t mind, I need to sign off with Mr Jannet. He was the one who hired me, after all.’

Irritation flashed across her face, then she nodded. ‘You’ll have to wait. He’s arranging the next shots.’

Mavros shrugged and went over to the Kerstens.

‘May I join you?’ He signalled to the old man to remain seated. Hildegard gave him a soft smile.

‘Of course,’ Rudolf said. ‘I hear you found Maria Kondos, Alex. I’m so glad.’

There were bottles of water on the table and Mavros helped himself after offering the others. He was still plagued by thirst. He wondered what it must have been like for the soldiers.

‘Did you have enough water during the battle?’ he asked.

Kersten was watching the Ju52. ‘ TanteJus, we called them,’ he said. ‘Auntie Jus. I don’t know why they had that affectionate nickname. They were slow, cramped and highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. To answer your question, no, we never had enough to drink. Most of us drained our bottles within minutes of landing.’ He looked over his shoulder to the trees in the distance. ‘It may look well irrigated now, but I can assure you that back then there was very little water on the ground. We survived by taking dead men’s bottles.’

Hildegard had turned away, as if mention of the fighting was abhorrent to her.

‘Look at that,’ Rudolf said, pointing to the group of men in wartime jumpsuits and parachutes outside the now stationary Ju52. ‘I’ve told them several times that they should hold the end of their cords between their teeth as they climb the ladder. Only one of them paid attention.’

‘Did they use Maleme for jumps after it was captured?’ Mavros asked, puzzled.

‘No, they’re pretending this is an airfield outside Athens. I boarded during the night, but it’s true there were later waves. The producers didn’t see any need to film on the mainland as well.’

Mavros watched as the men finished clambering on board and the plane taxied to the other end of the runway. He noticed that there were cameras mounted on pickup trucks all around, presumably to give many different angles to the flight.

‘This morning they filmed inside the TanteJu,’ the old man said. ‘They could only fit six men in with the cameras and other equipment. Now they’re going to record the drop, both from inside the plane and from the ground.’

There was an increasing roar as the plane’s three engines were gunned and it started down the runway, dust rising in its wake. Pickups kept up with it, the cameras pointing at the dun-green fuselage. The black crosses on the side and swastika on the tail gave Mavros a bad feeling, but he told himself to get a grip. It was only a movie.

The Ju52 moved sluggishly down the runway, eventually pulling into the air not far in front of the hangars. It headed out to sea, followed by a pair of smaller and more modern planes that filmed it from above, below and alongside. Eventually the troop carrier turned and came back towards them, the engines pulsing more powerfully now. Mavros felt hairs raise all over his body. From what he remembered, there had been dozens of planes in each wave. It must have been the most incredible sight for the defenders — awe-inspiring and terrifying. He leaned forward and looked over at David Waggoner. He was watching through binoculars, his jaw set firm. What memories was this bringing back to him?

The Messerschmitt made another pass, diving over the airfield. Lights flashed from its machine-gun slits — Mavros assumed that the sound of firing would be added at the editing stage. Then the TanteJu came over the land, only a few hundred feet above them. Cameras all around were trained on it, as the door was pulled back and a man appeared.

‘They are Greek paratroopers,’ Kersten said. ‘I have spent many days instructing them in the jump and landing positions that we used. Now we will see if I was successful.’ He gave a rueful smile.

Mavros watched as the man launched himself into the air with his arms and legs extended in the shape of an ‘X’. A few seconds later, another man dived out, then another and another. Their parachutes sprouted into inverted white cups at what seemed far too close to the ground. Mavros felt his palms sweating as the men came down fast. They hit the ground and rolled forward, then started pulling in their chutes. The last man shook in his harness and then hung limp for as long as he could before making a different kind of landing.

‘They didn’t shoot so many of us in the air,’ Kersten said. ‘That was Allied propaganda. A man falling at that speed is not an easy target. But they certainly did kill hundreds in the trees and on the ground before they reached the weapons canisters.’ His eyes clouded and he turned away.

Hildegard was immediately on her feet and at her husband’s side. She spoke to him in German, before turning to Mavros.

‘I told him this would be too much for him. He didn’t need to be here today. His work has already been done.’

‘No,’ the old man said, his eyes damp. ‘It is good that I saw it. Now I understand what it was like for the Cretans, seeing the invader come in with all his hubris and conceit.’ His wife wiped his face with a tissue. ‘We had no right,’ he said, his voice wavering. ‘No country has the right to invade another. But the Cretans had every right to fight us with everything they had.’