Weston travelled south to see the withdrawal route. He found that the traffic along the road to the mountains made the route impassible, The traffic was from Suda, including gunners, base troops, men and from "improvised" infantry units that had been near Suda. While there were units with their weapons marching as units, the traffic was mostly a disorganized mass of men who qite often had disgarded their weapons. There were many thousands of unarmed men, including Cypriots and Palestinians. Freyberg seems to have been shocked by the complete disorganization.
Lieutenant Stephanides wrote later that it was obvious that he was in a retreat. He thought that it bordered on being a route. There were discarded rifles and uniform pieces along the road. You could see open boxes with rifle ammunition and even grenades. Occasionally you would see officer valises and a few open suitcases.
Eventually, Cairo replied to Freyberg's message about the situation being hopeless. The message from Cairo said that Major-General Evetts would be arriving to function as a liaison. They suggested that the units fron the Suda-Maleme area should moce to Retimo with the plan being to hold the eastern prt of Crete. Freyberg thought that the Cairo group had no idea of the situation on Crete.
This is based on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long
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