[coyotespike]

Completely agree. Paddy Fermor wrote beautifully, and with a vocabulary informed by his polyglot abilities (he knew, at least, Greek, Latin, several dialects of German, and French, with smatterings of a few more).

Because he took Greek at school (high school), he was sent to a Greek isle during WW2 where he wound up kidnapping a German general and spiriting him across the mountains to Allied control. He is perhaps best known for this exploit.