Up For Grabs

by Max Hennessy

  ‘You’re suggesting we actually do repairs for the Italians, Mr Rafferty?’ Dampier asked.

  ‘If we say we’re a light aid unit, somebody’s going to ask for light aid.’

  ‘But, dammit, Mr Rafferty! Putting Italian vehicles to rights!’

  ‘Can you think of anything better, sir?’

  Dampier did a bit of huffing and puffing but he couldn’t.

  Rafferty nodded. ‘At the very least we ought to have a few more tents. One for the office, for instance, and one for the officer.’

  ‘We can get tents easy enough,’ Clutterbuck said.

  They swung round on him. ‘How?’

  ‘Half-inch ’em. Pinch ’em. I could get you a tent easy as winkin’. I know ’ow. They was always liftin’ ’em. I once saw a ’ospital marquee got down in an hour. Next day it was sails on a dhow on the Nile. They didn’t even find the tent pegs.’

  Dampier looked at Rafferty then back at Clutterbuck. ‘It occurs to me, Clutterbuck,’ he said soberly, ‘that at the moment, despite our different ranks and positions, we’re all in the same boat and in grave danger of becoming prisoners. We could do with a tent or two to make us look more official for a few days and, if you pull your weight and we make it back to our friends, I’m prepared to forget the circumstances in which we met.’

  Clutterbuck eyed him warily. ‘Straight up?’

  ‘I’ve given my word. We might need every man. We might even need what few skills you seem to possess.’

  ‘I’m good with Lancias, I say it myself.’

  Dampier coughed. ‘I was thinking more of knowing how to live unofficially as long as you did without getting caught. If we wish to reach our lines in safety, we might have to rely on you occasionally and it’s no time to have to wonder if you’re going to bolt.’

  Clutterbuck stared at him for a while. ‘Gawd knows what Dow and Raye’ll say.’

  ‘Dow and Raye might well prove more unlucky than you. They might already have been picked up by the Military Police.’

  Clutterbuck considered for a few moments. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘Sir,’ he added for good measure. He paused. ‘I’ll need some money.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Arabs. Nobody like Arabs for gettin’ things done. They’ll need bribin’.’

  Dampier fished in his pocket and produced the roll of notes from the Italian officer’s jacket. ‘Do we trust you with it?’ he asked.

  Clutterbuck’s smooth ugly face split in a grin. ‘You’ve got no option,’ he pointed out.

  * * *

  As they watched Clutterbuck drive off in the Bedford with Clegg and Caccia, Dampier’s eyes were narrow.

  ‘God knows what we’ve done, Mr Rafferty,’ he said. ‘We’ve just given him a great deal of money and a British army vehicle. We’ll probably never see him again.’

  ‘Clegg and Caccia’ll watch him, sir.’

  ‘Clegg’s a music-hall comedian. Caccia was a grocer.’

  It took two days for them to return – two nervous days when everybody was on edge; then on the third day just as it grew light they heard a vehicle approaching. As they turned out to see who it was, they realized it wasn’t the Bedford. It wasn’t even one lorry, but two, both Lancias. Clutterbuck, in the cab of the first, stuck up a thumb.

  ‘Easy as eatin’ your dinner,’ he said.

  They had been to Derna, fifty-odd miles away, and not only had they managed to exchange – unofficially – one British vehicle for two Italian vehicles, they had also acquired an assortment of light hand tools, among them screw cutters, tin cutters and wire cutters, and a marquee and two tents.

  ‘We can ’ave as many lorries as we like now,’ Clutterbuck said cheerfully. ‘Once we’re in business, they’ll bring ’em to us.’

  ‘That man’s growing ambitious, Mr Rafferty,’ Dampier observed darkly. ‘He’ll land us in trouble.’

  Clutterbuck had also found out exactly what the dump at Derna contained and exactly where things were kept.

  ‘Everything we want,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Artillery wheels, cavalry sabres, pistol ’olsters, rifle stocks, anti-aircraft cannon barrels, gas cylinders, acres o’ mule saddlery, Mercedes Benz engines – even a ’orse’s gasmask.’

  ‘A horse’s gasmask, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I saw it.’ Clutterbuck’s sly smile appeared. ‘The bloke told Caccia and we went and looked. There’s face powder—’

  ‘Who in God’s name uses face powder?’

  They had also seen sugar, scent, cosmetics, corsets, uniforms, cameras, Lee Enfield rifles of the latest mark, which the British army hadn’t yet received, soap, dress swords, male and female civilian clothing, ski boots – ‘Ski boots, for God’s sake!’ Dampier said. ‘In the desert?’ – boxes of guidebooks on Italy and Sicily, several of which Clutterbuck, with a surprising amount of intelligence, had managed to steal, coffee, tinned meat, wine, and British cigarettes by the thousand. They had also noticed a general’s dress uniform, complete with polished field boots, silk shirt and hat, all being carefully preserved for its owner’s return from the desert, to say nothing of a patent-leather holster which contained not a real weapon but a child’s toy pistol, as if the general hadn’t enjoyed supporting the weight of the real thing. There was even a register of the prostitutes in Tripoli and Derna, each name followed by revealing photographs, measurements and various other intimate details.

  Dampier gasped. ‘I’m thinking of the mass of base clerks they’ll need,’ he said.

  ‘Sure, sir,’ Rafferty pointed out, ‘I’m thinkin’ that it’s obvious why the Italians never win their wars.’

  Clutterbuck had also brought back coffee, tinned milk – British, from the disaster at Mechili – a crate of beer, and cartons of assorted tinned foodstuffs from the dump at Zuq.

  ‘How did you get inside, man?’ Rafferty demanded.

  ‘Drove in.’ Clutterbuck didn’t seem to think it odd.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, there’s this Arab, see—’

  ‘Which Arab?’

  ‘This Arab what organizes papers and things. He’s a printer. He’s got a nice little business goin’.’

  ‘In Italian?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Caccia talked the lingo, and ’e knew what to do, anyway, because ’e’s done it afore. ’E fixed us up with passes and identity papers for workin’ in the dump. All ’is pals ’as ’em.’

  Dampier was concerned that Clutterbuck might have gone too far, but Clutterbuck wasn’t worried.

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘’S nothin’ to worry about. ’E’s runnin’ a racket ’isself, anyway, isn’t ’e?’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Scarlatti. There are several of ’em at it. ’E must be fillin’ ’is pockets.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw four Lancia engines with the numbers filed off, didn’t I? You know what that means.’

  ‘He’s stealing them.’

  ‘Exact. Well, you know what they say: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If ’e can do it, so can we.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better explain,’ Dampier said coldly, feeling he was on the slippery slope to perdition.

  Clutterbuck obliged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if we run rackets on our side of the line, so do the Italians, don’t they?’

  ‘Except that we don’t speak Italian,’ Rafferty pointed out.

  ‘Two of us do. And that goes a long way. Them Italians the police picked up workin’ in Cairo didn’t speak much English. There was even one who got a job in a senior officers’ mess where ’e ’eard army secrets discussed.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘’E told me, din’t ’e?’

  ‘You’d better give me the name of the mess,’ Dampier said.

  ‘It wun’t do no good. ’E ’opped it to South Africa. Got on a ship and went through the Sewage Canal. ’E didn’t like the war much.’ Clutterbuck smiled. ‘I’ve got a contact who’ll ’elp. Found out I did a bit of business with a mate of ’is in Cai
ro. That’s the best of bein’ able to speak the language. ’Ad a girlfriend there, see.’

  Dampier eyed Clutterbuck’s oily face. He’d often heard it said that the best way to learn a language was in bed from a girl.

  ‘These fellas ’ere is workin’ a fast one,’ Clutterbuck went on. ‘So, if we threaten to tell on ’em, they’ll ’elp us, won’t they? So long as we ’elp them, too, and let ’em ’ave their fair share.’ He paused and grinned. ‘There’s also an Italian lorry in that dump what don’t work any more,’ he added.

  ‘Did you disable it?’

  Clutterbuck grinned again. ‘Them Italians is careless buggers. They never guard nothin’. I peed in the petrol tank. That’ll stop it. Probably miles from anywhere, too. It’ll give ’em a right laugh.’

  Chapter 6

  By the end of the afternoon, the newly acquired lorries’ numbers and signs had been changed, their engine markings filed off and, smeared with grease and dirt, fresh numbers stamped on in their place.

  With the new additions, they now had acquired enough vehicles to indicate a unit of some importance. No self-respecting repair unit, whether Italian, German or British, would have been seen dead without spare vehicles to ride about in. As Dampier, who had been working to bring an end to this very problem, well knew, it just wouldn’t have looked right.

  Unfortunately, older than the others and unused to hard labour, Dampier was also beginning to suffer from the effects of the heavy work they’d done at Scarlatti’s dump. His twisted back had given way to something suspiciously like lumbago and he could hardly move.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Clutterbuck said cheerfully. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

  Heading into Zuq with Caccia in one of the Lancia trucks he’d acquired, he returned the following morning trailed by Caccia driving yet another Lancia.

  ‘No need to get alarmed,’ he said. ‘Nobody’ll find out. I never take ’em from the same place twice.’

  He had also brought back timber, inner tubes, a complete set of carpenter’s tools, two stretchers and a set of pillows, and, with the help of Micklethwaite, began to build a bed frame which he stretched across with cut-up inner tubes.

  Covering the inner tubes with blankets, he placed a pillow at the head and as they lowered Dampier on to it, he couldn’t help letting out a long sigh of relief.

  ‘’Ow’s that?’ Clutterbuck asked with concern. ‘Comfortable?’ He disappeared and returned with a motor inspection light, which he strung to the tent pole.

  ‘So you can read in bed,’ he pointed out. ‘I brought you some books, see.’

  Clutterbuck’s idea of literature turned out to be a set of what were known to the Merchant Navy as ‘Blue Books’, pornographic publications, some in Italian, some in English, some in French, produced by Arab printers in North African ports before the war for the delectation of frustrated passing seamen, and their contents made Dampier, a stickler for propriety, go hot all over.

  Clutterbuck quite failed to notice his shocked expression.

  ‘Fancy a bit of music?’ he asked. ‘I can get you a wireless set if you like.’ He paused. ‘I peed in the tanks of two more lorries today,’ he ended. ‘Doin’ me bit for the war effort.’

  By the following day they had acquired yet another light truck complete with changed signs and engine numbers. With it came a small lathe and an electric drill, for which, unfortunately, they had no generator. Nevertheless, it all looked very impressive and it had all arrived by kind permission of Corporal Clutterbuck and had the effect of making them look more like what they claimed to be. By this time Dampier was looking a little bemused. In effect, and although it concerned an army that was not his own, he was a party to the sort of stealing he had only recently been trying to halt, and moreover using the skill of an acknowledged deserter and thief. His guilt troubled him.

  So that no questions should be asked, Clutterbuck made a red-cross flag out of a sheet and erected it outside Dampier’s tent. Outside the tent which Morton claimed should be his as senior officer were the Italian flags they’d stolen, flanked by the portraits of Victor Emmanuel and Mussolini. Though neither Victor Emmanuel nor Mussolini, as Morton was well aware from the prisoners he’d interviewed in the past, was every Italian’s cup of tea, to an outsider the little post represented the summit of Italian patriotism. If not patriotism, perhaps, then the cynical pretence of patriotism they’d noticed in a great many Italian prisoners.

  Lookouts were organized to warn of the approach of anybody unexpected, with instructions to dig Morton out at once, and they all stood back to admire their handiwork, feeling reasonably safe from anything but too searching an investigation. And, since all armies had small detached units scattered about the desert and the Italians had plenty in and around Zuq, there was no reason why anyone should investigate them too closely.

  ‘After all,’ Rafferty pointed out, ‘if those Italians they picked up in Cairo could get away with it behind our lines, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get away with it behind theirs.’

  ‘All the same,’ Dampier said, ‘it troubles me, Mr Rafferty. You and I are surrounded by some very strange people. Actors. Singers. Deserters.’

  ‘Sure, it takes all sorts, sir, to make an army, and it takes all sorts to win a war.’

  ‘We’ve certainly got all sorts here.’

  Rafferty smiled. ‘And, thanks to that chap Morton, we’re using ’em to good advantage, sir.’ He eyed Dampier’s bed. ‘You seem to have a rare comfortable perch there, sir,’ he added slyly.

  Dampier frowned and avoided his glance. ‘Has it occurred to you, Mr Rafferty,’ he asked, ‘that we are suddenly in a unique position? We can pinpoint for the RAF or the navy the Italian supply dump, the refuelling depot and the ammunition compound. Moreover, with Corporal Morton—’ He paused and Rafferty could see that Morton’s behaviour still stuck in his throat a little. ‘—With Corporal Morton on excellent terms with Scarlatti, the town major, there might also be a few other things we might discover which would have value behind our lines.’

  * * *

  There was something in what Dampier said because almost every day brought fresh supplies and fresh troops into Zuq, and, with a constant stream of vehicles moving in and out of Scarlatti’s dump and Scarlatti issuing equipment as if there were no tomorrow, it didn’t require an expert to realize that the rumour about a follow-up attack was genuine. Notices indicating the road to the east were being erected and desert-worn units were arriving in numbers to re-equip.

  In the hope of recouping some of their losses of the previous winter, the Italians were putting everything they’d got into the planned attack. As the ships arrived under cover of darkness, what they brought was never in the quantities the Italians needed to feel safe, but units were building up their strengths again and it didn’t take much effort on Morton’s part to confirm that they’d been told to prepare for another move forward.

  And with the continuing build-up, it was obvious that every lines-of-communication officer in the area was busily taking advantage of the fact to expand his own unit as fast as possible. There wasn’t an officer or NCO in the Italian army – or any other army, for that matter – who wasn’t aware that an increase in his establishment could mean an increase in his chances of promotion: so many more underlings and a corporal became a sergeant, a lieutenant a captain, a major a colonel. The confusion of the desert war made it even easier and Scarlatti was as eager as anyone for promotion.

  He arrived in the Lancia, trailed by Faiani in the little Fiat, and he produced forms, indents and inventories, to say nothing of a bottle of captured whisky for Morton, tins of pilchards, a box of grapes, a case of captured British beer. Faiani seemed less eager to please, and his eyes were constantly flickering about the still somewhat threadbare set-up that was meant to represent a light aid unit. By this time they had got rid of all their vehicles except the Humber, and in their places were Lancias of various weights.

  ‘I see you’ve lost your British veh
icles, count,’ Faiani observed.

  ‘Sent to Derna,’ Morton explained. ‘For examination and appraisal.’

  ‘What a pity you didn’t bring them to me.’ Scarlatti sounded faintly reproachful. ‘As it is, I expect Colonel Ancillotti will extract one or two for his own use, probably even sell them quietly in the Arab quarter. He’s like that, isn’t he, Faiani? I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’ His dark eyes moved about the camp. ‘It’s strange, count, that you don’t have the honour of commanding a fighting unit.’

  Morton smiled. ‘My hobby before the war was motor racing,’ he said. ‘We all do in war what we did best in peacetime. Perhaps you, too, with your storekeeping.’

  Faiani’s glance went to Morton’s face and he smiled to himself, but Scarlatti wasn’t sure whether the comment was meant to be praise or a snide remark. Because his connections were with an unglamorous family business in Milan, he changed the subject hurriedly before they could go too deeply into a background that couldn’t hope to match that of a count and a racing driver.

  Faiani interrupted. Naples had come up with a few of the details he’d been wanting and he was all set to catch out the man he felt sure was an impostor. ‘I expect you used to practise on your estate, count,’ he said. ‘Did you have a circuit near your home? In the Alban Hills, isn’t it?’

  Morton glanced sharply at Faiani. Fortunately he knew his facts too well. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said briskly. ‘It’s north of Florence.’ For good measure he offered a detailed rundown on the place both inside and outside, with a mention of all the neighbouring villages and a brief description of the surrounding countryside. Because he’d more than once visited the real Count Barda’s home, there was no hesitation.

  Faiani looked crushed but he was far from beaten. ‘The Bardas have a good reputation, count,’ he said.