by Greg McGee
39
They worked through the low hills behind Artegna, turned at the first flash of fire as the bridge went up, then heard the roar. They stood there for some time in awe of their work.
‘Fergie’ll be pleased,’ said Harry and they pushed on through scrub that dropped snow when they brushed against it, as they moved round the mountain behind Gemona and began climbing towards Monte Canin.
In the early hours they saw a couple of recently burnt-out houses ahead. They’d learnt that the safest place was often where the fascists had just been, so they circled the house that seemed to have the least damage. The roof was still smouldering but Luca thought the stone walls would hold and they’d be safe enough.
The bodies of the families who had lived there lay in the snow by the stalle wall. There were eight of them, two men, two women and four children, the oldest about ten. The men had had their voice boxes cut out as a sign that they had talked, or hadn’t. Joe asked himself what they could possibly have known or done, but then, in this war, there was no logical cause and consequence. Whispers in the right ear were enough to decide who lived and who died. It had become a charter for pay-offs, for settling scores, even for coveting thy neighbour’s goods.
The animals had been incinerated in the stalle and the smell of burnt flesh was pungent. They couldn’t be entirely sure that it wasn’t also human. The fascists had cleaned out the cupboards and meat safe but the heat from the embers was some comfort and they lay down under the huge table in the centre of the family room, making pillows of their ammo packs. Sleep came quickly for Joe but so did the nightmares of El Mreir and the Nino Bixio. The sky was aflame with metallic fire and roaring like a lion when he woke to the roof collapsing in on them. The burning rafters hit the floor above them first and that gave them enough time to dive out into the snow.
As dawn broke they climbed higher towards their rendezvous with Major Ferguson, and came across another destroyed house, drawn to it by their hunger. This one was still burning and they guessed that the fascists weren’t far ahead of them.
About a hundred yards away Harry stopped, so Joe and Luca did too. They’d seen enough to trust Harry’s instincts: he was often aware of danger before anyone else. Once it had been a squad of stormtroopers waiting for them in the bushes on a track they often used to get back to the Bonazzon farm. Like here, there’d been nothing to see or hear. If Harry saw and heard things that others didn’t, Joe reasoned it was because he was more alive. As Joe and Charlie got worn down by living like hunted animals, Harry was in his element. He saw himself as the hunter, never the hunted, happy in a war with no boundaries, no hierarchy and very few rules.
Joe and Luca watched Harry circle the farmhouse like a dog, and step back sharply when the front door was pulled open from the inside. A tall, slim Republican lieutenant came out, carrying a kitbag. He’d probably seen something valuable when his squad was setting fire to the place, put it aside and come back to get it. He pulled the drawstring on the bag, threw it onto his back and then staggered a couple of steps under the weight. By the time he’d regained his balance Harry’s hands were at his throat, and he went down on his knees like a lamb. The bag was full of dried meats and cheeses, treasure indeed here in the mountains where starvation was insidious. Maybe that was all the bodies lying in the snow had been killed for.
When the lieutenant regained consciousness Luca cross-examined him, sitting in the snow. Name, number, battalion, all this would be useful to the major waiting up the mountain. A big part of what Donatella did on her bike was recording division insignia, giving Ferguson a picture of who was moving through the pass, to and from Austria. The lieutenant, who must have been a bit older than Joe but younger than Luca and Harry, told them he’d like to join the partisans, that he’d often helped them when he could, that he’d been pressed into service with the Republicans. As the Allies got closer, this was a refrain they were hearing a lot.
Luca was a good listener. As the man told them he’d tried not to do any harm to anyone, Luca didn’t interrogate him about the trail of dead and tortured contadini they’d followed across the side of the mountain. When the lieutenant asked what would happen to him, offering to help them in any way he could, Luca turned away, picked up the kitbag.
‘Stai tranquillo,’ Harry said. ‘Potresti aiutarci, certamente.’ You’ll certainly be able to help us.
Some of what the lieutenant was telling them might be the truth and Joe felt sorry for him: as soon as he’d seen his impeccable uniform and height, he knew the man was dead. As the man relaxed, Harry carefully removed the black cap from his head and almost tenderly touched his temple.
‘Hai visto questo?’ he asked. Have you seen this? Harry produced a Feldgendarmerie gorget that he’d taken from the neck of a German military policeman he’d killed on a bridge roadblock months before. It was Harry’s most precious trophy, a linked necklace in machined steel holding a breastplate or brooch of an eagle caught wheeling in flight, displaying swastika tail feathers. He’d told Joe it reminded him of the hawks from home. Joe suspected the gorget might have killed more fascists than Harry’s Mauser in the time he’d had it. Now he dangled the gorget before the man like a snake charmer.
The lieutenant must have had some acquaintance with the Feldgendarmerie, for there was a moment of recognition and fear, before Harry put the swastika’d eagle against the man’s Adam’s apple and tightened the steel chain, forcing it back into his throat. As he slumped backwards into his killer’s embrace, Harry was already unbuttoning the man’s pristine tunic so that he could strip him before the corpse stiffened in the snow.
40
They found Major Ferguson in his eyrie on Monte Canin, a large cave that had been his first refuge when he’d been dropped by parachute at the beginning of winter with, from what Joe had seen, a kilt, a rifle and a radio. Since then he’d consolidated his position with further drops of men and munitions.
By the time Luca and Harry and Joe got there, Fergie’d already had radio reports from photo-reconnaissance aircraft that the bridge had been knocked out, blocking rail traffic north and south along the flats of the Tagliamento, the main corridor between Vienna and Venice.
Fergie was of the same ilk as Harry and Luca, a tough bugger even to have survived that first couple of weeks up here on his own, and a man of few words, particularly when it came to praise. ‘You boys deserve a gong for this wee bugger,’ he said. They’d split the contents of the fascist lieutenant’s kitbag with him. Joe wasn’t sure whether Fergie was referring to the bridge they’d knocked out or the salami the size of a bazooka barrel he was holding.
They knew the major and his unit didn’t stay up here, that like them he moved between the safety and rigour of the mountains and the food, warmth and danger of the plains. He never volunteered information on where he was, only the co-ordinates for their next rendezvous, mostly up here on Monte Canin, where the cave had become a safe storehouse for arms and explosives. Fergie had never asked exactly where they lived either. The fewer details they knew about each other, the safer they all were. But from what he let drop they knew that when he wasn’t up on Monte Canin, he went to the area around the town of Nimis, one of three villages, with Attimis and Faedis, which had been burnt to the ground by Cossack troops under the direction of Il Pazzo.
Fergie had made it clear to them shortly after his arrival that he was there to assist them with behind-the-lines sabotage and intelligence gathering: he wasn’t there to get them out. Charlie had asked if he could let Allied Command know that they were still alive so that their families could be told, but Fergie had refused to broadcast their names on his radio because it was ‘too risky’.
As usual, over a cup of tea made out of boiled snow, he gave them an update of how the Allies were progressing. He’d cheered them recently, particularly Charlie, with news of the US 1st and 3rd Armies winning the Battle of the Bulge. Luca had drawn satisfaction from the Soviets
taking Warsaw, even though he’d fought against them as a sergeant in the elite Italian Alpine Division at Kharkov and been horribly burnt by rocket artillery from a Katyusha. For him the Soviets were the vanguard of the new communism, and he gloried in their success.
The progress of the Italian campaign always seemed more problematic. The German army hadn’t ceded one yard of territory easily and Italy’s terrain made for natural defensive lines that were difficult to breach. Fergie reckoned the Italian campaign would end up taking more infantry lives than any other action in the west. In deference to Luca, he was careful not to include the Russian front in the comparison.
It was through Fergie that they knew about the hard slog of the Div through Cassino and across the Sangro River. Florence had been taken last August, just before Fergie was dropped in. He’d told them about the running fight between Shermans and Tigers across Tuscany. The Kiwi Shermans had knocked out at least five Tigers during the advance, but casualties were huge.
Joe had managed to find his voice to say that his brother Dan would be in one of those Shermans. Did Fergie have access to the published casualty lists? Fergie said he didn’t, and that was the end of it. Maybe he didn’t want to take up valuable radio and battery life with such stuff, or maybe he didn’t want to risk rocking their boat with bad news, but Joe had had to hold his tongue and accept that until the war ended his name wouldn’t be on any Red Cross list of prisoners and that if Dan had somehow survived those Tigers, he would probably think Joe was dead.
Even before Fergie arrived the Garibaldis and other partisan groups could feel the Germans being compressed into northern Italy by the Allied advance, an angry scourge of black ants being pressed back into the plains and mountains of northern Italy and scouring the land for vengeance on partisan scraps.
This war of shadows was so different from the war he’d seen in North Africa, vicious and brutal and almost as arbitrary, but somehow preferable. Joe got no comfort from the men and women and children he’d seen killed but he could at least remember every person he’d shot and why. That seemed important. It seemed more honest and human than what had happened in North Africa when impersonal metallic fire burned legions to cinders. At least he’d thought so until he saw Charlie cut down from behind.
Joe noticed that Harry no longer talked about getting back to the ‘real’ war; he seemed perfectly content with the one he was in. This war had no hierarchy, few orders to follow, no rules of engagement, no hanging round waiting for British tanks to turn up. This, he told Joe, was exactly the sort of war Kiwis were made for. No more following orders from dickhead generals into suicide assaults like Sidi Rezegh and Ruweisat Ridge. Harry was comfortable taking orders from Luca because, despite all his communist rants, he was a warrior who’d been tempered by fire, and despite his horrific wounds he still showed the same fierce joy for the conflict as Harry. ‘Fuck all that communist stuff,’ Harry told Joe, ‘true brotherhood is forged under fire.’
In this war, Harry knew exactly where the enemy were — dappertutto, everywhere — and that seemed to suit him. Joe was tired of being hunted but that had never been how Harry saw it. In his view, he was the hunter because he knew where the enemy was, but they weren’t sure where he was. Though the Germans certainly had their suspicions.
Il Pazzo had heard something and put one and one together. The Gestapo had reissued the poster of the capitano neozelandese and his off-sider with the scar, and put a large figure beneath it, which kept changing. It had gone from 350,000 lire to 500,000 to 750,000, a lot of money for peasant families struggling to the end of a long winter. And they had Harry’s new name. Rico.
Luca had done his best to make sure any local fascisti kept their heads down, but much of the talk wouldn’t have been from them. ‘Rico’ was fast becoming a local legend through word of mouth. Though Luca was the boss and had learnt to operate a tommy gun one-handed, he did nothing without Harry’s okay, because out in the field Harry was in charge. He could read contour better than any local and his sixth sense about the location of the enemy was infallible. And when the bullets began to fly Harry became calmer, if anything. Dan had been a boxer and had told Joe that anyone could be a clever mover in front of a punch bag. Dan had given boxing away because he couldn’t think straight once the punches started hitting him.
Today, over the cuppa, Fergie told them that the British 8th, with the Div and the US 5th, Charlie’s old outfit, which had spent the worst of the winter dug in along the Gothic Line just south of Bologna, were just weeks away from the last big push. ‘I’m nae a betting man,’ said Fergie, ‘but I’d be prepared to make a wee wager that this will be your last winter here.’
He talked about their next target. The Gemona marshalling yards had one steam locomotive left and if that was taken out the German troop movements would be severely compromised. Fergie acknow-ledged that Il Pazzo was a mad dog and taking terrible reprisals, so his demise wasn’t an order but more of a wish.
Joe waited for Luca or Harry to tell Fergie that Charlie had been killed, or for Fergie to ask why Charlie wasn’t with them. The subject never came up. So when Luca and Harry went into the cave to load up with explosive and detonators Joe found a moment with Fergie and told him they’d lost Charlie Farinelli at the bridge.
‘Poor bugger.’ Fergie didn’t seem surprised at the news.
‘Can you get word to someone? Now that he’s dead, his name doesn’t matter, does it?’
‘No can do,’ said Fergie.
Joe grabbed his sleeve as he went to turn away. ‘Get me out of here, sir. Please.’
Major Ferguson looked surprised at the request. ‘You can’t go yet, son,’ he said. ‘There’s work still to be done. But you’ll be out soon enough.’
* * *
With ammunition from Fergie, they retraced their steps down the mountain and spent the night in another house abandoned to the stench of burnt flesh. They’d got a bottle of red from the major and shared it over a feast of cheese and sausage warmed by a small fire on the kitchen flagstones. Joe ate and drank and said very little, which wasn’t unusual, so Luca and Harry continued teasing each other with the debate they’d begun shortly after meeting nearly eighteen months ago. Luca was fighting for a better world; who or what was Harry fighting for?
This time Joe didn’t even feign interest. He didn’t care any more about their rationales for what they were doing. After the attack on the Orvenco bridge, Harry had swapped his sub-machine for Charlie’s rifle. The bullet Charlie took in the back of his neck was from his own rifle. Luca had colluded. Harry may have fired the shot but Charlie’s execution had been planned by both of them.
Fergie had said this would be their last winter here. It was those words and Charlie’s death that had forced Joe’s hand onto the major’s sleeve. Before that moment he hadn’t considered leaving.
He remembered last September seeing the first golden leaf flute in the air. He’d watched that leaf all the way to the still-warm earth and his heart had fallen with it. It wasn’t just the prospect of a third northern winter. It wasn’t just the way the Nazis and fascisti stepped up their rastrellamenti and seemed to want to burn houses and spill blood to keep themselves warm. That first leaf had fallen just as he’d learnt that his love for Donatella was hopeless.
After they’d eaten their fill of meat and cheese and drunk the wine they slept under the table again. In his sleep Joe inhaled burnt flesh and fumes of cordite from old dynamite and detonators. In his nightmare he saw the first leaf from last September fall right through the fiery sky of El Mreir and land gently on Charlie’s face.
Next day they dropped down to the plains and waited until dark before following the path that took them to the back of the Bonazzon farm. They never went straight to the houses when they came down from the mountains, but unloaded the gear and explosives into the cave they’d burrowed into the side of the hill up in the vineyard and spent the night there.
> It wasn’t until next morning that they saw Charlie swinging on the meat hook in the entrance arch to the farm.
41
Bepi’s face seemed to have been drained of blood. Il Pazzo himself had come to turn them over. It had been a rastrellamento unlike any other they’d suffered. After going through the hayloft and stalle with bayonets, the Gestapo had taken their frustrations out on anything in front of them — the mattresses on the beds were ripped apart, the bedsteads broken, dressers tipped over, drawers kicked to pieces, and in the kitchen they’d snapped every stick of furniture and smashed every piece of glass or crockery.
‘They told us not to touch Carlo,’ said Bepi. ‘They said they’d be coming back for him.’
Donatella asked them if Charlie might have said something to the Gestapo before he died. Joe felt absurdly relieved at her question: it confirmed she hadn’t been in on Charlie’s execution. Joe realised that was also why the rest of the Garibaldis hadn’t been there covering the bridge: Harry and Luca had decided to kill Charlie and they didn’t want the rest of the brigade in on it. Luca at least was honest and said there was no chance that Charlie had told Il Pazzo anything.
They were clear about the message The Madman had left them. ‘Lui sa,’ said Bepi. He knows. He said Il Pazzo had asked detailed questions about where the one-armed son was. Bepi had told them he was with a girl. When they asked him what girl, Bepi said he didn’t know, that a son Luca’s age who has served his country in North Africa and on the Russian front does not tell his parents too many details of romantic entanglements. Harry thought it probable that the stormtroopers on the bridge had caught a glimpse of Luca’s empty left sleeve as he and Charlie had opened up on them. A man shooting a tommy gun with one hand was a fairly obvious idiosyncrasy, which is one reason Luca had stayed in the background of any firefights until now.