Having come to fight direct from the States, with a short stage through North Africa after the campaign there had ended, Corrado was not equipped to penetrate the rarefied atmosphere that was peculiar to Desert Air Force and the 8th Army. An atmosphere which O’Neill’s squadron epitomised.
The desert war had bred a race of airmen and soldiers such as the world had never known before. Their first unique attribute was cohesion. They worked in a harmony never previously attained. The Great War of 1914-18 had fostered little sympathy, let alone liking, between the Air Force and the Army. Field Commanders of both Services, from the outset of the Western Desert fighting, had been men of outstanding goodwill and good sense. They also had many other fine and rare attributes. In consequence the R.A.F. moved its Headquarters in the desert to be in physically the same place as Army H.Q. and to integrate the two fully. This spirit was spontaneously manifested all the way down the chains of command in both Services, so that mutual trust, sympathy and affection grew quickly. It was the very atmosphere of this unique form of campaigning which bred this spirit. Desert comradeship was strong, enduring and unsurpassed. Desert life was laced with the spirit of adventure. Many factors contributed to this. The hard lying, the vast distances, the featureless wastes, the scoured sun-scorched bleak manliness of the life. Here, where there were no permanent human settlements and men seldom had the chance of any relaxation, the greatest available pleasure was friendship. There was also satisfaction in common achievement, in being part of a team and increasing one’s self-respect and sense of accomplishment. No one who had not been there could gain admission to this brotherhood, and no one who had not shared its experience could fully understand what it meant to those who belonged.
Although final victory in North Africa was won by both the British and Commonwealth Army and Air Force advancing from the east, and the British 1st Army, R.A.F. squadrons, and American land and air forces advancing from the west, it was not equally shared. The 8th Army and Desert Air Force had been fighting this campaign since June 1940 when Italy entered the war. The battles took on a new ferocity with the arrival of General Rommel and his Afrika Korps at the beginning of 1941 and Rommel’s first thrust in March of that year. The 1st Army and accompanying R.A.F., with American land and air forces, did not arrive in North West Africa until November 1942. The last Italian and German troops in North Africa capitulated in May 1943. The 8th Army and Desert Air Force had therefore been two years and eleven months in action. The 1st Army and its associates only seven months. Herein lay the basic cause of the aura of exclusiveness which Maj. Corrado had felt so strongly when he was with the officers of Sqdn. Ldr. Walter Vladimir O’Neill’s squadron of desert veterans.
The trackless sands had left an imprint on their characters with which a few months’ fighting across the fertile lands of Algeria and Tunisia were not comparable in duration, severity or esoteric values and comradeship. If the 1st Army was excluded, no one who had not fought at all in North Africa was even recognised.
Corrado told himself that his visit had been an important step towards providing himself with useful allies and perhaps participants in solving the daunting problem which would confront him as soon as he set foot in Naples. He was scattering his bread upon the water. It made him feel better to think in scriptural terms about what was a most unholy undertaking.
*
From the terrace of his palatial home on a cliff top in the choicest northern suburb of Naples, Dr. Raffaele Bottai stared southward as though his eyes, following his thoughts, could penetrate the darkness beyond the glowing summit of Vesuvius. He listened to the sounds of battle thirty miles away and saw the flash of bursting shells and bombs. He thought about Pietro Corrado. He drew on his cigar, then raised a glass of cognac (a Bisquit) to his lips and inhaled appreciatively before sipping. Mature cigars, old wines and older brandies were some of his most profound pleasures. Another was very young and nubile girls. There was one waiting for him at this moment, in the sumptuous salottino of a guest suite, which so overawed them when first they came to him. It amused him to astonish them with the scale of his opulence before he went to work on them.
It was six years since young Pietro had come to spend a couple of months in Italy, at his invitation and expense. It had been a good investment. The boy had shaped well, always been obedient and never shown any presumption on account of his connection with the Bottai and di Rossoni families. Now they would all benefit from the relationship. Two relationships, in fact, for there was more between them all than consanguinity.
The doctor was tall for a southern Italian, only 3 inches under 6 ft; but hump-backed. In Italy, hunchbacks are considered lucky. People will touch them for luck. Dr. Bottai considered that the Almighty had played him a dirty trick in sending him into the world with this deformity. He had made his own luck. Anyone who had the temerity to reach out to touch his hump was repulsed with a snarl, and always had been, ever since Raffaele was a child. When he grew older he became physically aggressive towards anyone who offered what he believed to be the supreme insult, the greatest possible offence against his person. By the time he reached university he had to some extent compensated for the ugliness of his body by acquiring considerable skill at fencing and horsemanship. His stance with sabre, foil or epee was grotesque, his seat on a horse contorted, but savage pride and determination overcame his handicap. His chest and shoulders grew deep and broad from constant exercise of the old fashioned kind with Indian clubs and on parallel and horizontal bars which his father had installed for him at home. The steely thews of his thin legs could grip a saddle with the force of a bear’s hug. In his hands he could bend a 3 centimetre steel bar.
His face had suffered the same blight as his figure. The lower part was well-favoured: the jaw firm and dimpled, the mouth pleasantly sensual, with lips curving upward at the corners. His nose was patrician and handsome; for half its length. The bridge suddenly flattened, to meet his brow as though the bone had collapsed. His forehead bulged hideously over his nose, seeming to overhang the lower portion of his features like a cliff on the brink of a landslide. It was his eyes which betrayed the depravity of his nature. They were simianly wide apart. The right eye was dark brown, almost black, and of unnatural brilliance, staring at anyone to whom he talked with the direct beam of a spotlight. His left eye was wayward. It was what is well described as “lazy”: the lid permanently drooping half-shut. First time beholders of the doctor were shaken by an apparent failure of their own sight. But what they thought they saw was authentic; his right eye was not level with his left. Both eyes had very long lashes. In colour the left one was much lighter than his right, and lacked lustre.
Dr. Bottai’s feet and hands were disproportionately large for his body, but the latter were in keeping with his thick arms.
Although he was healthy, his complexion always had a grey tinge and was frequently marred by eruptions and pustules. Chickenpox had left a huge imprint in the centre of his forehead, which gave him a somewhat Cyclopean appearance and unnerved simple people. His ears were large and pointed and the lobes hung like a spaniel’s dewlaps. The final shock to anyone seeing him for the first time was a bright red strawberry mark which sprawled from his left cheekbone past the corner of his eyes and around the top of his ear.
Among this compendium of disfigurements, the beauty of his voice was as astonishing as a concert organ pealing from amidst some scabrous slum ruin. He spoke with warmth and vibrancy; and sang, for his own pleasure and that of the girls whom he pursued so relentlessly, in a baritone that could have made his fortune.
Through his mother and his wife he was related to the di Rossoni family. His wife had married him because she was plain and he was not only rich but also aroused her most charitable sentiments. They had three unmarried costive-looking daughters, one of whom was a nun; and a son of nineteen at the University of Florence, where Dr. Bottai had sent him for safety: Rome, Florence and Venice would, he knew, be declared open cities and spared from bombardment.
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At sixty-five, Dr. Raffaele Bottai’s sensual appetites were little diminished. From his estates to the north-east of Naples he obtained an uninterrupted supply of girls aged from twelve to sixteen to keep him amused. Sometimes he acquired them in the great city of vice itself. He had neither affection nor respect for any of them; indeed, his family pride made him contemptuous of them. They served but one purpose. His wife was still his only female friend and confidante.
He went to an open french window and called her.
“Yes, Raffaele, what is it?”
He linked his arm in hers and drew her into step at his side, slowly pacing the tiled terrace and speaking to her in the voice like warm, scented chrism which still made her spine tingle.
He gestured with the free hand which now held both his balloon glass and cigar. “Over there... somewhere... young Pietro is on his way to us... very close now. A lot depends on the speed with which we can arrange matters. My information is that Pietro has become friendly with some R.A.F. officers, which is intelligent of him: it will help to remove suspicion from us, although God knows how carefully I have avoided being implicated with the Fascisti. You must prepare to entertain them here, my dear. And so must Stefano. A title has its uses, and he has a bad record to set right: no one could call him an ardent Fascist, but he had too many friends in Mussolini’s circle. He should have been more discreet. If he had still been in the Air Force, he would have had the opportunity now to go over to the Allies; if he could have got away from Rome before the Germans arrested him. From what I hear, the Germans have rounded up our officers ruthlessly, to prevent them going over to the Allies. General Student actually dropped parachutists on General Headquarters (in Rome) and captured thirty Generals and 150 of the Staff officers. The same kind of thing has been going on all over the country.”
“Disgraceful.”
“Perhaps the ones who were captured were the lucky ones; not all have got away with their lives. Even at General Headquarters the parachute drop did not go all in the Germans’ favour: many of the Staff officers and their men fought hard and some escaped.”
“We Italians can fight well enough when it is for a cause in which we believe.”
“Such as saving our own skins,” the doctor agreed cynically. “Anyway, Stefano di Rossoni was already safely out of it and the price he must pay for that fortunate evasion is to put himself in as good standing as possible with our new invaders.”
Signora Bottai rubbed a cheek against her husband’s, as they leaned over the balustrade. “I am worried, Raffaele. With so many billion lire worth of treasures to get rid of, and so much in the way of arms and ammunition to get hold of... there are so many things to go wrong.”
“The treasures are safe for the time being. And don’t think in terms of lire, my dear; our hoard means sterling and dollars and Swiss francs. As for the arms and ammunition, think of them as insurance, security; for the future. Think of them as power. They will be easy enough to get our hands on once the confusion of battle spreads some more. All I have to do is manipulate those whom I intend to help us dispose of the one and acquire the other. As I have always manipulated Stefano di Rossoni, among others. And as he and I will have to manipulate our new friends, when we have made them. And Pietro Corrado is already taking care that we shall.”
Chapter Thirteen
By the time the Italian Government which had seized power from Mussolini sprung the news of its separate armistice with the Allies on the nation and the Germans, Sgt. Ferugino and his friend Sarti had travelled far from the place where they had gone ashore at the tip of Italy’s toe.
The Germans, realising that the main invasion of the Italian mainland must be made where the most suitable beaches were, yet had to be within the range of fighters based in Sicily, to give cover, had logically identified Salerno as the most likely site. At the same time, they suspected that landings to the south and east of there would probably be attempted also: as, indeed, was done at Reggio, in the toe of Italy on 3rd September. And on 9th September, simultaneously with the landing at Salerno, another was made near Taranto, on the heel.
The airfields in the area of Foggia, more than 100 miles north of Taranto, where the Gargano Peninsula makes a large spur behind Italy’s heel, were an obvious target for early Allied assault. It was there that Ferugino’s regiment was sent and re-equipped with guns.
During the few days before the Taranto landing, Ferugino had been full of grumbles. “What a place to send us. Foggia! Look at it: the bleakest, flattest, dustiest place in the whole country. Even the girls look like crows. The wind has bent the trees to look like old witches; and no wonder, the way it must howl across this flatness in the winter. And it’s going to be the most dangerous place in Italy, too, very soon. Wait till the British and the Americans start bombing us, and their fighter-bombers come in during the day to knock out all the Italian and German aircraft on the ground. And then will come the parachutists. Porca Madonna! We don’t want to get caught up in all that.”
“You could have stayed behind safely in Sicily,” Sarti reminded him. “As I suggested. But no, you had to come here. It’s too late to regret it now.”
Ferugino kicked him peevishly. “Who says I’m regretting it? Are you calling me a coward? Listen: any fool can get himself killed. It’s a wise man who knows how to look after himself. Dying for a good cause is one thing, being sacrificed to... to make a Roman holiday is quite another. If we die here we won’t be giving our lives for Sicily. We’ll be sacrificing ourselves for the Germans and for these stupid mainlanders.”
Pte. Sarti earned himself another kick by saying, “But you said we’d soon give up and let the damned Germans carry on fighting if they were so keen on it... Ouch! Damn you, Salvatore, what’s that for? I’m only repeating what you said.”
“And I was right, I bet you. I’ve heard the officers talking. They’ve got no heart for this war any more — not that any of us Sicilians ever had much — and they’re talking about capitulation. I tell you, Gennaro, the most important thing is to be ready to shove off the minute an armistice is declared. If we don’t get away at once, the Germans will round us up to stop us going over to the British and Americans. They’ll probably ship of us off to Germany or Russia, in their Labour Corps. That would be as good as a death sentence.”
“How do you suggest we get ready?”
“Collect food, a spare pair of boots and keep a haversack packed close at hand.”
In consequence, when their Commanding Officer announced the Italian-Allied armistice, Ferugino and Sarti were on their way to freedom within minutes.
Trudging south-westward, Sarti said, “It’s all very well to say we’ll head for Commandante O’Neill’s squadron, but how can we find out where it is?”
“When we make contact with the British or Americans we will soon find out. I have a paper... what they call a genealogical tree... signed by the mayor, at home, to certify I am the cousin of Tommasso Pienze, born in Chicago, and now a sergeant in the 975th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the American Army.”
“That may be useful, but what has it to do with finding this Spitfire squadron?”
Ferugino looked even more sly than usual. “I took the risk of asking Tenente Yule to write me a note certifying that we had saved him from capture by the Germans, giving time, place and date...”
“You never told me that.” Sarti was outraged.
“There was no need. I took a big risk, carrying that paper about with me.”
“Where did you hide it?”
“In my prayer book: the only inviolate place in a soldier’s equipment; in this Army, at any rate, where your own comrades will steal the boots off your feet while you sleep.”
They walked for ten days, following a devious route, frequently hiding, sometimes spending whole days in concealment, moving mostly by night. Sometimes they begged food at lonely farms, sometimes they stole a chicken or some eggs or milked a cow. Occasionally they bought food in a village shop or cafe.
Every comely peasant girl was the object of Ferugino’s immediate interest and a target for his suggestive badinage, conducted as much with the hope of an immediate conquest as with a commercial eye to the future. Any young woman who showed a flicker of interest in exchanging her life in the country for the delights of the city was memorised for a possible future offer of employment. The occasional one who actually succumbed to his blandishments in some sheep pen, village alleyway or barn was recruited on the spot with the promise that he would send her the fare to wherever he happened to settle presently.
He remarked to Sarti, “Even if we don’t get a job from Commandante O’Neill, we’ll have a stable of at least three of four tarts to earn us some sort of steady income.”
Sarti had to move nimbly to avoid the kick that was aimed at him when he retorted, “Isn’t that beneath the dignity of a big shot who refused to stay behind in Sicily because such a great destiny awaited him here on the mainland? I thought you were confident of making a fortune on the black market, I didn’t suspect all you had in mind was some small-scale poncing.”
When the sergeant had recovered his humour, he explained forbearingly: “We need something to tide us over until I can get into some really big racket, that’s all. And don’t forget the special perks in running a string of girls. You don’t mind having your share, I know.”
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