Up For Grabs

by Max Hennessy

  Caccia coughed and hurriedly changed step. ‘Arturo. Arturo Caccia.’

  They talked desultorily in Italian for a while as the others strolled towards the vehicles. One of the Bedfords took a lot of starting and Rafferty lifted the bonnet and pushed his head inside, the others grouped nervously round him, their eyes flickering about them for signs of hostility, Morton in the middle, tall, straight and good-looking, alert in case they were questioned. After a while Rafferty lifted his head and Morton swung round to wave to the bar.

  The girl eyed Caccia as he turned away. ‘Quando ritorna Lei? When are you coming back?’

  ‘You want me to?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Caccia smiled. ‘I’ll come. Ciao.’

  As they left, a string of German trucks halted on the asphalt strip edging the beach and dusty men from the desert jumped down. NCOs barked at them and they formed up in three lines. Another bark and they began to undress, neatly fold their clothes and place them on top of their boots, until finally they stood naked, still in three rows facing the sea. A final bark and they broke ranks to run towards the water.

  ‘Our lot,’ Rafferty observed admiringly to Dampier, ‘would have made a shambles of it.’

  The Germans were all in the water now, yelling, splashing and leaping about like little boys in a swimming pool. From the Humber Rafferty eyed the piles of clothing, all placed in neat rows. It was almost dark and suddenly Dampier’s idea didn’t seem quite so silly.

  ‘Lots of German caps and coats lying about loose,’ he commented thoughtfully.

  Chapter 5

  By the time the sun rose the next morning, a great pulsing disc in an aura of incredible golden light, it was beginning to dawn on Rafferty that they were safer than they’d thought and Dampier’s idea seemed to grow better all the time. There were dozens of Italian units of all kinds in and around Zuq now and, thanks to the Italian uniforms they had acquired and Morton’s quick thinking, they had got off to a good start. Because of Italian military inefficiency, nobody had even noticed them.

  It took twenty-four hours for it to sink in among the hoi polloi that they weren’t after all going to head off into the bright blue yonder back to their own lines – the group was so small everybody soon knew when anything was in the wind – and they promptly pushed forward to put their oar in. To most soldiers, the order of battle had God and the generals running the world, with the officers and NCOs administering the law somewhere just beneath, hearing everything, seeing everything, missing nothing, while they themselves, with the lance corporals – who didn’t count – hovered in the depths below. It didn’t, therefore, normally pay very well to make one’s opinions too clearly known but, with nothing to lose but their chains, when the personnel of 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit finally found out what was going on there was a considerable amount of muttering.

  ‘Stay here?’ Jones the Song’s high tenor rose almost to a falsetto. ‘Behind the enemy lines, man?’

  By this time, however, even Rafferty was becoming enthusiastic. The idea had started to appeal to his mischievous Irish mind. And, as Clutterbuck had pointed out, they were able to draw rations so long as they had Caccia and Morton handy to answer awkward questions. With Rafferty’s knowledge of procedure and Morton’s knowledge of the Italian army gleaned during his period in Intelligence, they felt they were capable of dealing with all eventualities. All the rest of them had to do was appear to be stupid.

  ‘And,’ Morton observed sagaciously, ‘as the average soldier, British or Italian, is normally expected to be stupid, nobody will bother to enquire any further.’

  They found a quiet place not far from the wrecked warehouses where they had hidden on their first night in Zuq. It was handy for the harbour but out of the immediate neighbourhood of any other units, most of which were near the fort, and, to make themselves look as if they belonged there, Clutterbuck recruited the usual Arab labourers to dig slit trenches in case the RAF came over and bombed them by mistake.

  As it happened, the plan was very nearly abandoned within the first few hours. Having just escorted a convoy of supplies to beleaguered Tobruk not far away along the coast, the Royal Navy, well fed and feeling their oats, decided it was time they did something spiteful to the opposition to make up for the loss of Zuq and Sofi. They arrived off the little harbour in the early hours of the morning and started to bang away with everything they possessed. The first cracking explosions brought everybody at 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit bolt upright in their blankets at once.

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ Clegg demanded.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ Caccia said. ‘It’s the RAF again.’

  ‘That’s not bombs, old comrade and boon companion. Listen. There aren’t any aircraft engines.’

  Caccia sat up again. Clegg was right. Whatever was being flung at them wasn’t coming from above. Then, as the coastal batteries began to hammer away, it dawned on Clinch what was happening.

  ‘It’s the navy!’ he screeched. ‘They’re making a raid! They’re putting troops ashore!’

  All thoughts of being heroic by remaining in Zuq were forgotten at once, because if there really were a naval landing there was a good chance of being picked up. To hell with winning the war on their own, they thought – even Dampier agreed – and, dressing hurriedly, they scrambled for the trucks, eager to be first on the deck of a warship. They were just sorting themselves out when they realized they were wearing Italian uniforms.

  ‘They’ll fuckin’ shoot us!’ Clutterbuck yelled, and they all scrambled out again to collect their British uniforms so they wouldn’t be shot at by the Eighth Army as it swarmed ashore.

  In fact, by the time they reached the town, the navy’s spitefulness had worn itself out. The ships were a long way from base and, with the Luftwaffe commanding that particular stretch of sea, it wasn’t a good idea to be caught around it in daylight; and, after a few salvos, the warships had bolted. Arriving in a panic, 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit scrambled from the trucks aware of a sinking feeling in their chests.

  ‘The rotten bastards have gone without us,’ Caccia said bitterly.

  They stood staring out over the indigo sea, all the sour things they’d heard about the navy churning in their minds. Then, as they turned away, it dawned on them that in the town they could hear cries of rage; they realized that two or three of the navy’s shells had struck the furniture factory on which Zuq depended for so much of its prosperity. It wasn’t a particularly big factory and didn’t employ many craftsmen but it gave work to a lot of people and there was a large woodyard next door. As town major, both the factory and the woodyard came under Scarlatti’s wing.

  The fire brigade had turned out in a rush with their single rickety fire engine, a dozen scared Italians and Arabs clinging to the sides. But the appliance had a semi-flat tyre, the hoses were perished, and a bucket chain had to be formed from the sea. Half the town and half the Italian garrison was involved, men in uniform standing in line next to women and teenagers and Zuqi Arabs who depended on the factory for a livelihood. For a while they seemed to have the blaze under control and an attempt was made to salvage some of the produce, so that the streets around were full of dark figures hurrying away under the weight of chairs, tables and sideboards.

  They were just winning the battle when the wind got up and started to fan the blaze and in no time the place went up properly, because, in addition to wood, the factory contained paint, thinners and varnish which fuelled the flames so that they roared skywards, drawing in gusts of air like a furnace to drag in loose sheets of paper, dust, leaves and scraps of rubbish. The fronds of nearby palms streamed out, the trees themselves bending towards the blaze. Finally the RAF appeared and started to bomb the fire. It wasn’t exactly a good night for Scarlatti.

  * * *

  With Zuq a little more battered than it had been, its white walls scorched and scarred, and the charred remains of the furniture factory stark against the sky, 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit returned to thei
r camp a little depressed that they had not been swept to safety.

  Though they didn’t know it, they had been lucky because it hadn’t been a good night for Faiani either. One of the last shells that had landed had destroyed what had once been the office of the Director of Harbour Control.

  Faiani heard about it as he and Scarlatti worked over the returns to find out what damage had been done. Disappearing on the excuse that his leg was giving him trouble and he needed to see a doctor, Faiani headed for the harbour.

  The whitewashed building that had housed the police was a pile of wreckage, with the remains of office furniture still smouldering with the papers which had once been records and were now fluttering in the hot breeze among the debris. There was no sign of any of the occupants.

  ‘Shell,’ one of the men clearing a path past the ruins told Faiani. ‘Last night.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  The soldier shrugged. ‘I don’t think they were killed,’ he said. ‘I saw them being pushed into an ambulance.’

  Climbing into the little Fiat he drove, Faiani headed for the hospital, only to find that Captain Bianchi had already been put aboard a ship for Italy, and he limped slowly back to his car, deep in thought. It was going to take a day or two before anyone else was appointed to take Bianchi’s place and another few days before his successor could set himself up with a base and an office and a squad of men. By that time the group calling themselves 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit might well have disappeared.

  Faiani frowned. It seemed to him that the best thing he could do was make the investigations himself. He’d had the training and, with that idiot Scarlatti sending supplies as if he and the man who called himself Count Barda were bosom friends, it wouldn’t be difficult to look around occasionally. In the meantime, he would try to find out something about the so-called Barda. He could, he realized, be wrong and could easily make a fool of himself. And if he did, then he could be in trouble. People with titles had influence and he could well be making a rod for his own back. But Faiani was a dogged young man who had grown up in a poor home in Naples and had a chip on his shoulder that prevented him ever being too fond of people who were fit and whole and wealthy. He decided he would move with care. The first thing would be to contact some old colleagues in the police department in Naples and get them to send him some details about Count Barda, because he still had a feeling that the man he’d spoken to wasn’t Count Barda.

  * * *

  As the day wore on, Dampier’s group began to recover their spirits. They hadn’t been hurt and no one had so far shown any interest in them, and they settled themselves once more to wait. Nevertheless it occurred to Rafferty that near the harbour wasn’t exactly the best place to be and he found a new site at the other side of the town alongside an old Arab cemetery with its curious coffin-like graves carrying a stone at both head and foot. There were one or two palms nearby and a few spiky-leaved cacti, with here and there bunches of whitened thorn trees and scrubby bushes bearing an aromatic scent. Though they missed the cooler breezes from the sea, it was far from unpleasant.

  Their nearest neighbour was a nomad Arab encampment among the dunes, a dozen low, square black tents with dogs, asses, camels, chickens, goats and sheep. The children all had flies round their eyes and nostrils and Dampier’s group saw sleeping babies with their faces covered with them. The women peeped shyly at them from behind the men, who came on their flat horny feet to exchange midget-sized eggs, fruit and goats’ cheese for coffee and sugar. It was noticeable that inside the Arabs’ tents on the usual dusty rugs there were one or two surprisingly new armchairs, a little scorched perhaps but serviceable nevertheless, and that their owners were keeping their chickens in what appeared to be wardrobes that looked very much as if they’d recently been part of Scarlatti’s furniture factory.

  Rafferty was more than satisfied with their new site. ‘There’s just one thing,’ he pointed out. ‘We need some equipment.’

  ‘Equipment?’ Dampier’s head jerked up. ‘Why do we need equipment?’

  Rafferty was very patient. ‘If we’re intendin’ to stay here, sir, it’s going to be for several days at least now, and in that case we have to have a reason for bein’ here.’

  ‘A reason for being here?’

  ‘Sir’ – Rafferty’s patience slipped a little – ‘we’re not part of a cup-final crowd. If anybody asks us what we’re doin’ here, what do we say?’

  What he was getting at finally penetrated. ‘So what do we say?’ Dampier asked.

  ‘We tell ’em who we are, sir,’ Rafferty indicated the crude notice Dampier had erected to disguise them. ‘Unità di Riparazione 64,’ he said. ‘That’s who we are, sir. So, I reckon we’d better start looking like one. A bit better notice, for a start, I’m thinkin’. Somethin’ a bit more professional. And a line underneath indicating light vehicles only, so there’ll be no nonsense about being asked to repair tanks.’

  The nearby desert was full of small units supporting the fighting troops – workshops, mechanical, electrical and radio; supply dumps; petrol dumps; food dumps; and a little airfield with its old wreckage of Savoias destroyed at the end of 1940 and its new squadron of Fiats, which had been moved in for the present advance. There was every kind of unit to make an army function – all tucked away in the valleys between the dunes or anywhere they might get some shade, all operating individually, all drawing and cooking their own rations, all with their own discipline, all minding their own business and interfering with no one else’s.

  In any army – the Italian army as well as the British army – units kept very much to themselves, whether they were regiments, brigades, divisions or merely companies or platoons. Every man lived within his own small outfit and beyond that within the larger family of his regiment, brigade or division. It didn’t matter whether they were artillery, infantry, supplies, maintenance and repairs, or whatever, and the fact that 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit had been accepted as part of the Italian army was recognized at once, as they began to receive visits from Italian soldiers on the scrounge for food. At first Morton tried to discourage them but, as Dampier began to compile a long report headed ‘Italian troops, Morale of’, he was finally ordered to encourage them.

  Wretchedly equipped in their baggy trousers, puttees, vast yellow boots and ill-fitting, board-stiff clothing that chafed the skin without offering much in the way of protection, the Italian soldiers had few comforts and fewer luxuries and were over the moon at the British rations captured at Sofi – chocolate, ham, cheese, tinned fish, the Three Threes Cigarettes instead of their own hated Nazionalis. But they were quiet men on the whole, frugal, disciplined and patient, with a deep sense of injustice, and it didn’t take Morton long to discover that they belonged mostly to the Longhi Brigade, so known from its commander, one Colonel Giacinto Longhi, whom they saw occasionally strutting about with visiting officials from the Fascist Party in Rome. In the manner of most Italian units, they bore in addition the more virile title of the Lupi di Longhi – Longhi’s Wolves – but it also didn’t take Morton long to learn that they’d run away so often all the other Italians called them the Lepri di Longhi – Longhi’s Hares.

  Unlike the confident, sturdy men of the Alpini and the Bersaglieri, their favourite reading was Tradotta Libica, Libyan Troop Train, which was a soldiers’ magazine in which grievances were aired; and they lived only for what they called the Shopping Bag – the convoy that brought their rations, the few luxuries they were allowed and the red wine they drank from their mess tins. They were old hands for the most part who had little time for the politicians in Rome with their corruption and inefficiency, or for the authoritative and energetic generals who tried to ape the Germans with their clicking heels, salutes, medals and the passo romano, Mussolini’s version of the goose step. The new recruits, who had arrived to fill the gaps in their ranks, were even mere boys, badly trained, poor in spirit, lacking élan and initiative and with none of the soundness of the men who had been lost in
Wavell’s advance in 1940/41; and their chief fear was of being caught in a brewed-up vehicle and becoming what they called ‘soldati fritti’. They were so concerned with their private woes they barely noticed the oddities that existed about No. 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit.

  ‘An’ after all,’ Rafferty explained, ‘’twould be natural enough for a vehicle repair unit to be in Zuq.’

  ‘There are disadvantages,’ Morton pointed out. ‘Italians eat a lot of pasta. It’s something we’ll have to get used to.’

  Rafferty smiled. ‘They also drink a lot of wine, boy,’ he said. ‘That’s something we’ll also have to get used to.’

  Their first visitor not seeking food was Sottotenente Faiani. He arrived in his small, battered Fiat and claimed he’d come to make sure they had all they needed. It didn’t take Morton long to decide he was also more than a little interested in him personally.

  ‘I haven’t always been a rear stores officer,’ he pointed out. ‘I was a front-line man, count, like you. My company was almost wiped out trying to hold the British near Bardia during the winter. Have you been out long?’

  ‘As long as most people,’ Morton said brusquely.

  Faiani smiled, not in the least put out by Morton’s lofty manner. ‘I was convinced you were shorter than I am,’ he said. ‘Strange that I had a totally different impression of you.’

  ‘You seem to have had a lot of strange impressions,’ Morton snapped.

  As Faiani disappeared, Rafferty stared after him, his eyes narrow. ‘I reckon,’ he said slowly, ‘that he’s noticed we aren’t quite what we seem. We’re short of equipment and he’s spotted it. Light aid units have oxyacetylene gear, weldin’ gear, a portable generator, a fixed drill. Normally, they also have a truck with a crane, a stores truck, sometimes a six-wheeler with a girder and a pulley for liftin’. They’d have hand tools, gasket sets, tyres, stencils for div. signs, numbers, letters and a stipple brush to use with ’em. They’d have a collapsible bench, a vise, taps and dies, a block and tackle and some sort of sheerlegs, to say nothing of the Italian equivalent of an Aldershot shelter so we could work out of the sunshine and dust.’