by Iain Gale
Polini yelled: ‘Get down! Planes.’
Three Hurricanes dived low out of the sun and Ruspoli bowed his head as their guns opened up. The shells raked the sand around him and tore through two of the men hauling the cannon. The planes circled and then dived again. This time their fire scudded through a dune where three men were sheltering. There was a scream. Ruspoli ran to see who had been hit. Two of the men were dead, their bodies ripped apart by the cannon shells. The third though was still alive. It was Conticello, the baker’s son. Both of his hands were mangled and his left eye had gone. He had obviously put his hands up to shield himself from the gunfire and paid the price. He was staring at his hand and clearly the shock had not yet given way to pain. They managed to make him a makeshift stretcher from a piece of tarpaulin and dragged him along with them.
It was around five in the afternoon that they stopped. Mautino spotted it first. A trench, cut into the desert and built up with sandbags and wooden supports. It was covered with a wooden roof and shreds of tarpaulin and canvas hung off it, giving it the appearance of a street vendor’s stall. A signpost in German pointed to Tripoli in one direction and Cairo in the other.
‘Must have been a supply depot. Petrol and water by the look of all those empty cans.’
‘Pity they’re empty,’ muttered Visconti.
Ruspoli walked across to the position. ‘Better make sure it’s not booby-trapped. You know what these Germans are like.’
Galati laughed. Speda volunteered and slowly, inch by inch ran his hands around the perimeter and then inside the trench itself. At last, after a good half-hour, he emerged smiling. ‘Clean, Colonel. Nothing. We can use it.’
They dragged Conticello inside the small dugout to the rear of the trench and set up a command post at the front. The gun they placed on the left with as many shells as they had been able to carry. And then they waited.
Ruspoli had not expected the British to catch up with them so quickly. But then he supposed that they must have been travelling very slowly and the enemy were mostly in armoured cars and trucks. Now the armoured cars advanced towards them across the plain of the desert. They could see them quite clearly. Ruspoli raised his field glasses and made out the small triangular pennons that fluttered on the aerials: a red rat on a black background. There was a flash and the first of the shells came towards them, falling far short. Ranging shots.
‘Marco. Marco Zianni. Sing me a song, a song from home. Sing for the British. Let them hear how brave Italians fight. We die as we live, to music. Puccini. Verdi, Donizetti. You choose.’
‘Now, Colonel?’
‘Of course now, Marco. When else? There will be no better time than now. Never. Sing for us now.’
Zianni coughed and cleared his throat. Around him the platoon stood and watched as he began to sing. The flawless, perfect tenor voice cut through the noise of battle as the young man summoned every ounce that was left of his strength and courage. Ruspoli smiled. It was a favourite aria of his from La Bohème! ‘Che Gelida Manina’. The words rang out across the baking desert, evoking thoughts of another place, another time. Another tragedy.
Your tiny hand is frozen; let me warm it here in mine.
What’s the use in searching? It’s far too dark to find it.
But by our good fortune, it’s a night lit by the moon, and up here the moon is our closest friend…
Ruspoli listened and for an instant was unable to move. For a moment he almost regretted having asked Zianni to sing, and then instantly knew that he had been right to do so. There was no better time than now. It was all that was left them. A memory of Italy. The joy of music and of life. Love, friendship, passion and sorrow. Tears began to course down his face and he looked across at Visconti, saw that he too was unable to control his emotions. Visconti shook his head: ‘What for, Colonel? Why do we do this? Tell me why?’
‘For Italy, Guido. For our country and our people. For Michelangelo and Giotto. For Verdi and Puccini and for all your film stars too.’
And so Zianni filled his lungs again and opened his mouth and sang of love and loss and life. Sublime music, music, thought Ruspoli, like no other. Divine. Inspired.
The music soared and still the tanks and armoured cars advanced towards them, their rumbling, clanking thunder providing a ghastly bass line to Zianni’s tenor. Above the roar and the melody Ruspoli barked an order.
‘Folgore, make ready. Take aim. Wait for my command. You Zianni, you keep on singing. Don’t stop. Never stop singing. That’s an order.’
He turned back to the company, caught sight of Mautino, Bonini, Conticello and Galati, his hair longer than ever. The old faces. The ones who were left. And with the tears chasing each other down his face, he gave the order.
‘Now. Fire!’
The entire battalion, what there was of it, barely a halfcompany opened fire with whatever it had. The bullets flew across the desert and most pinged harmlessly off the armoured cars. A few though found their targets and British soldiers began to fall as the Folgore fought their last battle.
The shots rang out again and now another noise had joined the music and the gunfire. Somewhere across the front one of the enemy was playing the bagpipes. So they were Scots attacking him, thought Ruspoli. Here then was the final irony. To meet his end at the hands of the men of his ancestral homeland. At least they were men he respected, men of honour. A proud race from the mountains, men like him.
They had all fixed bayonets, all who were capable. Even most of the officers had chosen to fight with a rifle and bayonet today, although many also carried sidearms and knives. They all stood alongside Ruspoli now and they all knew what was expected of them. Ruspoli brushed away the tears. Then, as the armoured cars continued to advance, their machine-guns spraying out their hail of death he began to climb out of the trench and the men followed their commander. Ruspoli turned and looked at them, caught their faces in his mind. Then he looked to the front. He called to the bugler: ‘Zampetti, sound the charge.’ The notes rang out loud and clear above the machine-guns and the tanks. Above Zianni’s beautiful tenor voice which still rang out as he had been commanded by his colonel.
Then Ruspoli raised his hand in the air and shouted one word, at the top of his voice: ‘Folgore!’ And with that he leapt from the trench and up on to the sand. Immediately, he felt himself being pushed back hard as if by a steel hand as the first of the bullets cut through him. But he did not fall. He managed to steady himself and walked forward. He knew that the men were up with him now and could hear the sickening thud as more bullets struck them. They were falling all around him but Ruspoli continued onwards.
He saw Gola, the battle too close now for his beloved mortars, lead a bayonet charge only to be cut down by machine-gun fire. Marozzi, the painter, was standing with a cigarette hanging from his mouth firing round after round into the advancing infantry and died as an armoured car cut him down with its blazing guns. On his right Visconti was leading a charge with flaming petrol bombs against two armoured cars. He saw one explode and then there was a burst of fire and Visconti and his men just seemed to fall over and lie still. He was aware of Marcantonio stumbling back towards him with blood streaming from his head and his hands clawing at empty eye sockets and of Speda, lying somewhere close by, staring at his severed legs.
And then he was hit again. And again. And then he could not really see where his men had gone. He heard Mautino’s voice: ‘Folgore. Italia,’ and he stretched his body as far as he could, reaching his hand to touch the heavens, his thin frame silhouetted against the azure sky. There was no pain, only shock and the realization of death. He had an image in his mind of a saint in a renaissance painting in their private chapel at Castello Ruspoli. A saint, a soldier-saint, painted by Andrea Mantegna. A saint so lacerated by cuts and arrows that he was scarcely recognizable. Yet a man who so transcended mortality by his suffering that he became Everyman. A man whose death atoned for all the sorrows of humanity. Ruspoli felt the bullets tearing at his flesh lik
e arrows. Surely, he thought, this is enough. Surely now the killing must stop? We are beaten. Another rattle of the gun and Ruspoli felt himself falling. For ever it seemed, until his face hit the ground. But he felt no pain. Only sadness and a sense of release. And before he closed his eyes, he looked along the sand and off into the far distance where the land ended and the cloudless sky began. Off into the shimmering haze that hinted that what they said really might be true. That however many empires and tyrants and kings might rise and fall, the desert went on for ever.
FORTY
2.00 p.m. Kidney Ridge Douglas
It was as clear to him as it was to the high command that the new offensive had not been a total success. There was talk in the mess that Monty had expected ‘one hundred per cent casualties’ and Douglas wondered whether he really did and if so quite what he meant by it. The Highland Division and the New Zealanders had gone in. It seemed to Douglas that Monty was always using the same troops, the same divisions, brigades and regiments. They appeared to have taken the casualties but reports from Division were that they had not secured their objectives. Another stand-down, he suspected and then with a logic that he now knew to be typical of the army they were given new tanks.
New tanks? He wondered whose brilliant idea it had been to supply them with new tanks hours before they were due to go back into battle. They had been out of the line for four days. The tanks needed to be resupplied, a complex job which took some hours as the lorries ran from one machine to another handing out essential supplies: water, fuel and ammunition. The last came in a cardboard carton and Douglas helped the others tear it open and prise out the shiny brass shells with their striped black and white nose cones. They ripped the safety flaps off the machine-gun ammo tins and tore the safety clips from the detonators. And when all the machine-guns had been greased and the radio sets tested out they were deemed ready, although Douglas knew that the crews hardly thought them fit for action.
They moved up to the battle line slowly, along the same dust tracks, as characterless as the rest of the desert landscape, with the crews huddled together in the cramped turrets in a fug of cigarette smoke and sweat, snatching sleep where they could, reading when the light permitted. He had left the turret open to make the most of the air and even as night fell was aware of the white dust that blew up from the road and caked his face and hands.
At first light they found themselves at a gap in a minefield marked by metal triangles hung on wooden posts amid the cut barbed wire. They moved slowly towards the west and there on the horizon in front of them he saw vehicles. Enemy tanks. But decently out of range. The regiment began to close on them and as they did Douglas peered over the side of the tank and saw infantrymen in the ground passing below him, lying in trenches. Most of them appeared to be dead but, looking down into one trench he was met by the face of a man who had momentarily lifted his head. His eyes were filled with despair. Douglas yelled to Mudie: ‘Stop!’
He jumped down from the turret and grabbed a water can before running across to the trench. Kneeling down he held the man’s head and fed him the water before looking to see who he might be: German, Italian or British. In fact he was none of these, but a lieutenant of the New Zealand infantry. When he had managed a few desperate gulps of the rusty water he spoke in a barely audible voice.
‘Can you get me out? I’m hit pretty bad. Been here two days, I think.’
He pointed to his leg, which Douglas could see had been lacerated with shrapnel and was caked in dried blood. Flies were swarming across the wound, which the man had tried to cover with towels and canvas. ‘Two days. Don’t think I can take much more.’
Douglas screwed the top back on the water can. ‘You hold on. I’ll see what I can do.’
He ran back to the tank, which having waited for him had now fallen back from the advancing squadron and climbing up to the turret, clicked on the set to speak to the major.
‘Sir. Nuts Five. Permission to take wounded officer back to RAP. Over.’
The colonel came on: ‘Nuts Five. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But do get off the air, old boy, will you. We’re engaging the bloody enemy.’
Douglas climbed back down and went across to the wounded man. ‘Do you think you could manage it on the back of the tank, with our help?’
‘Anything. Just get me out.’
Together the three of them dragged him out of the trench and hoisted him on to the only area of the tank free to take him, the baking hot plates above the engine. It must have been agony, thought Douglas, but the man said nothing and in a few minutes they had retraced their tracks to a small knot of infantrymen standing guard over some prisoners. Here they left the grateful lieutenant and went back to find their regiment. The tanks were grouped in line just behind a ridge beyond which lay a track which could be made out by the tops of its telegraph poles.
Within seconds a whoosh announced the approach of 88 shells, which flew over Douglas’s tanks towards some unseen objective in the rear. It appeared from the lack of radio activity that they were to remain put and Douglas decided that it might be best to be out of the tank were it to be hit. He climbed down and was soon joined by Evan. Below their feet in the sand he noticed a magazine. An old copy of Esquire. Douglas picked it up. It was stained with oil, damp sand and what looked like blood. He opened it and, with Evan looking over his shoulder, began to turn the pages. It spoke of another world where scantily clad, pouting beauties reclined on velvet cushions and Hollywood stars danced the night away. He was particularly taken with a feature on a white-tuxedoed dandy and his impossibly beautiful girlfriend. He left Evan reading and sat on an upturned ammo box. Then taking a piece of paper from his pocket he looked again at the poem: ‘the easy sun won’t criticize or carp because…’ What next he wondered. Then drew out his pencil and wrote: ‘after the death of many heroes, evils remain.’
He smiled and was tucking the poem back into his pocket when some British twenty-five-pounders began to reply to the 88s over their heads and the radio set in the turret crackled with the muffled and at that distance slightly comical voice of the major: ‘Don’t stop. Get into them. Give the buggers hell. Off.’
Douglas and Evan climbed into the tank and began to drive slowly forward. They had hardly gone two hundred yards when the 88s stopped. The radio came alive again: ‘Halt. Take a rest. Off.’
There was a grunt from below. Mudie: ‘Bloody hell. Make yer bloody mind up.’
Douglas spoke: ‘All right. Let’s brew up.’
They had just climbed out of the tank and had started a fire in a sand burner when their attention was caught by a noise. A rumble, which could only be an approaching Sherman. But it was only when it came into sight that they stopped what they were doing. For the advancing tank which was heading straight for them appeared to be on fire. Through the driver’s aperture the interior was lit by a red glow. A tongue of flame licked up from inside the open manhole of the turret. But still the tank came on.
Evan spoke: ‘Bloody hell, sir. Who’s driving that?’
Douglas could only think that when the tank had been hit the driver must have fallen on the accelerator. For surely there could be no living being inside it. Then the tank stopped about forty yards from them and to his amazement a figure climbed out of the driver’s hatch. Although the man was jet black Douglas recognized him as a brother officer: Lieutenant Nick Davidson of C Squadron. He staggered towards Douglas. ‘I say, old boy. Could you give me a hand? Put the fire out, that sort of thing?’
They rushed towards the blackened, swaying officer.
‘It’s quite all right. I’m quite well really, just a bit hot. Do I smell tea?’
They sat him down and poured him a mug. Douglas stood up. ‘Come on, Evan. Mudie, you stay with the lieutenant.’
Followed by the reluctant gunner, Douglas ventured over to the blazing tank armed with their fire extinguisher.
Evan spoke: ‘Sir. You do know that there’s probably about thirty HE shells in there and a thousand rounds
of MG ammo that’ll go off any minute like Guy Fawkes night?’
‘Yes, I was aware of that fact.’
‘Well, don’t you think this might be a bit, well, dangerous?’
They continued towards the tank.
‘Yes. I take your point.’
Evan shook his head and muttered something that Douglas chose not to hear and together they climbed up on to the tank and poured water from the cans strapped to the fuselage down the turret. It hit the flames with a loud hiss and produced a plume of steam and oily smoke. Evan whistled: ‘Well, if Jerry couldn’t see us before he will now.’
The fire still burned. Douglas pushed the trigger on the fire extinguisher and the liquid shot out. Within a few minutes the fire had become a smoking ember. They climbed down and walked back to their own tank. A voice came through the commander’s earphones that were dangling over the side of the turret: ‘Nuts Five. Rendevous on a track six miles in the rear. Off.’
Douglas looked back to the Sherman and saw that a red glow had begun again inside. Evan said: ‘Lot of fuckin’ good that was.’
They all climbed back into the tank and the lieutenant, scorched though incredibly not badly burned, sat in the aperture. Douglas spoke through the intercom to the driver. ‘Mudie. Bring her round. We’re off back to join the regiment.’
They raced along as fast as they could go with the lieutenant in the turret and Douglas prayed that he had got the direction right. For miles there was nothing but wrecked machines and groups of corpses, abandoned weapons and other debris of war. And then he saw it, shimmering in the haze. A massive, magnificent spectacle. An entire tank brigade drawn up in column of battle.
Evan was impressed. ‘Bugger me, sir. Look at that. Makes you proud.’
Douglas had to agree it did make you proud. He drove into the Brigade, deposited the lieutenant with the MO and at length discovered his regiment among the lines. The sun was going down as they pulled into the squadron leaguer. They had drawn up in three rows of squadrons and that was how they were to attack. In close order formation, three columns, one behind the other. Douglas’s troop, now three tanks strong, had been detailed to cover the flank, which they did in echelon, travelling fast – thirty miles an hour – over the flat landscape. They had not gone far when two lorries appeared laden with Italian troops. One of the tanks broke ranks. Douglas saw it was Tom Philips’s, a lieutenant in A Squadron. It chased after the Italians. Douglas decided to follow and caught up with Philips just as he was disarming one of the lorries. The Italians did not seem too upset to be ‘in the bag’ and were handing over their rifles readily. They looked all-in and were dressed in a motley collection of clothing, some of it captured British issue, some of it German. Douglas saw that for all the Italians’ evident enthusiasm to become prisoners the other lorry was getting away and Douglas was about to tell Mudie to pursue it when the colonel’s voice came over his headphones. ‘Nuts Five. You’d better let that one go to ground. We’ll find it again.’