Cheese and Chalk: A tale of love forged by war

RICHARD 'CHALKY' WHITE is at school with a friend, GODFREY JENKINS, whose younger sister, LIZZIE he meets as a boy. He is one of those fearless adventure seekers ideally suited to feats of great bravery. In World War II he has his opportunity when, as a soldier, he is introduced to the irregulars fighting behind the lines before and after the Germans oust the Allies from the Aegean island of Leros in 1943.

Lizzie has a youthful dalliance with Godfrey's young German friend, ROLF, on an exchange visit to England and runs away from home to try to find him after he returns to Germany. A cool German lady, IRMA SCHULTZ befriends her on the journey, confirming that Rolf is in Spain, fighting against the government. She persuades Lizzie to return home.

A brilliant scholar, Lizzie wins a place at Oxford to study Classics. In her gap year she visits Paris and meets Irma again. Young and impressionable, Lizzie allows the older woman to seduce her.

As War looms, Lizzie returns home. Postponing her degree course, she joins the WAAF, serving in a radar station.

Chalky serves as a soldier in France, escapes at Dunkirk and is posted to Crete. Wounded, he meets a young Greek man, TASSOS SPIROU, in Alexandria, also recovering from his wounds. Chalky is recruited by PATRICK LEIGH FERMOUR to return behind German lines in Crete. As an accomplished climber, he is sent to Lebanon to train members of the Long Range Desert Group who, after El Alamein, are being trained for action in the Balkans.

There he meets Godfrey and they are posted to Leros. Godfrey is killed during the first German attack on the island but Chalky escapes after the long battle. He is invited to join the Levant Schooner Flotilla, a small band of brave men tasked with harassing the enemy in the islands. There he meets his friend Tassos, now sailing a Greek caïque under the noses of the German invaders.

Lizzie, meanwhile, is recruited into the SOE and dropped into occupied France. There she is recognised by Irma, now an SS officer. She is arrested and imprisoned. As the Allies advance towards Paris, the Nazis despatch Resistance heroines to concentration camps. Still with feelings towards "her Lizzie", Irma sets her free. Outside the prison, Lizzie is captured by French "tricoteuses" who, believing she is the worst kind of Nazi collaborator, torture her before she is freed by the intervention of a French Resistance officer.

After the war, Chalky settles down to a humdrum life working for his father's company. There he meets and is seduced by SALLY, his assistant. They marry, but Sally proves to be a dishonest cheat who leaves him, deep in debt.

Lizzie has returned to Oxford and adopted a mannish persona as protection from her psychologically bruising memories.  She meets Tassos, now an archaeologist on a dig on the island of Delos. Subsequently he attends an archaeological conference in Oxford and invites Chalky to meet him there. At a College dinner, Lizzie hears them speaking Greek and joins in.

Recognition dawns and Lizzie and Chalky fall in love. Lizzie drops her mannish disguise and marries him. Twenty years after the Battle of Leros, they visit the island to lay their ghosts. They discover his old caïque and decide, with the help of Tassos, to move with their young children to Leros and restore the boat.

Tassos is captured by the Greek military Junta and transferred to the prison in Leros set up for intellectual captives. He appears at their house after being released under curfew on the island. He moves in and takes over the teaching of the children while Chalky and Lizzie charter their boat to take students on tours to visit the archaeological sites on the islands.

Finally, stricken with cancer, Chalky dies peacefully, sitting on the terrace of their house, reminiscing as he watches the sun set over Leros castle. Lizzie finds him there. "Oh Chalky" she whispers, as she sits beside him.