While the sun shone down, a Cretan holiday ground to a fuelless halt, writes Kilian Doyle
"THERE'S NO petrol. Welcome to Crete."
Thus was my welcome when I arrived on the idyllic Mediterranean isle last week. Greece's truckers were on strike. Deliveries of everything had stopped.
Crete was worst-hit. Kilometre-long queues of irate locals had formed at the few petrol stations with stocks. Fuel was being rationed mercilessly. Tourists - bottom of the pile in this post-apocalyptic nightmare - were getting nothing.
Car rental firms were reportedly giving unsuspecting visitors juiceless cars. Harold and Maud from Doncaster would get to the motorway and shudder to a halt. Beware Greeks bearing car keys.
We were lucky. Our rented Micra still had half a tank of petrol. Which I guarded with my life.
Staying in the villa beside ours was a German family, whose patriarch was an odd fish, to put it mildly. While I'm loath to identify him for reasons that will soon become apparent, his name - translated literally - was John Angryman. I kid you not. Angry by name. . .
His persona was not helped by the fact he was an identikit of Heinrich Himmler. Tuft of hair, round glasses, unnerving stare.
Angryman arrived at our door one night with a Masterplan. "We vill siphon ze petrol from all our cars, put it in one and zen drive to find ze fuel!" he exclaimed, like this was the greatest idea since the wheel. I reckoned it was the stupidest plan since I ploughed all my savings into opening a tanning salon in Kinshasa.
"I see a fatal flaw. What if you, with a full tank, find petrol? What do you put it in?"
"Ah, it's okay. I have a Jerry can." I politely declined his offer and shut the door.
Angryman returned the next day. "You haff fuel?" he asked, eyeing the Micra suspiciously. He was evidently on the edge. "No, we don't," I lied. Shut door again. I could hear him pacing outside for hours afterwards. Muttering.
From then on, I - with the key to the Micra's petrol tank under my pillow - barely slept a wink. I imagined Angryman bunkered down in his villa, sticking little flags into a map of Crete's petrol stations, plotting his next move.
I dreaded the knock on my window, feared being frogmarched into donning camouflage gear and joining him on a siphoning raid of local teenagers' mopeds.
Eventually, word trickled through that the strike was over. I tore down to Angryman's house.
"Der strike is verbei!" I announced, expecting him to break down in floods of grateful, relieved tears. Instead he squinted at me, interrogatorially. "What proof of zis have you?"
I explained it was on the radio, deliveries would resume within 48 hours. He didn't believe me. I left him to stew.
The following evening, he arrived at our door. Triumphant. "I have queued zis morning for four hours. I got €15 fuel!" He was so giddy I thought he'd drunk half of it. I was dumbfounded. He'd driven 40 kilometres each way, wasted precious hours and petrol, and for what? Crete would be swimming in the stuff by morning.
I inched my way back into the house, slowly. Locked the door. This was getting out of hand. I began to fear for his family. And mine.
Next morning, he was back again. "I haff fuel! I was at station at 6am!" he barked (He said everything with exclamation marks).
What a genius. It didn't open until nine. Was there anyone else there?
"Nein. Just I!" he yelped, delighted at his little coup. You'd think he'd just annexed Crete singlehandedly. He marched off down our driveway. I swear there was a bit of a goose in his step. I never saw him again.
The whole sorry episode taught me two valuable lessons: We're all screwed when the oil runs out. And angry Germans are best avoided when it happens.