by Rhys Bowen
The rain was starting to drip on to him, and Hugo realised he would need to concoct some kind of shelter for himself before the rain got any worse. He used the last of the bandages to hold a pad around his wound and pulled his trousers back up, in spite of Sofia’s admonition. He wasn’t about to be caught by Germans with his trousers down! Then he stood up, reaching for the stick that acted as his crutch. The morphine was working well and he felt only faint stabs of pain as he moved forward cautiously. The first thing he did was relieve himself. After that he felt well enough to fish for the packet of cigarettes and lighter in his bomber jacket. He perched on the broken pew, taking long drags and giving a sigh of contentment. He had nearly a full pack. If he rationed himself he could make them last for several days.
He smoked the cigarette right down to the butt, then stubbed it out. He now felt ready to tackle what needed to be done. He stood in the middle of the chapel assessing the situation. There were certainly plenty of building materials. The whole roof had collapsed, but in the far corner there had been some kind of side chapel built into a nook, with the altar still standing. He hobbled around, dragging pieces of broken wood over to the corner. He placed what must have been a cupboard door on the floor, then leaned several planks against the altar front to make a tepee-like shelter. Then he brought out his parachute. He couldn’t decide whether to drape it over the whole thing as a waterproof tent or to use it as a covering around himself inside. He opted for the latter—at least under those planks of wood it wouldn’t draw attention to himself—and spread it out on the floor. Then he lowered himself to the ground and eased himself in through the gap, wrapping himself in the parachute.
The floor felt horribly hard, but the fine parachute silk did seem to trap his body heat. He wished he’d taken the time to put on his usual canvas flight suit. He was supposed to wear it over his clothes, but the pilots found them bulky. On missions like this he wasn’t even flying high enough or long enough to get really cold. He took out his service revolver and loaded it, retrieved the knife, and made sure they were where he could easily reach them. Then he tucked the pouch that had held his parachute and first aid kit under his head and lay back. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
He must have drifted off to sleep. The morphine was giving him strange dreams. He was on a high mountain, with clouds swirling below it, and angels and devils were wrestling for his soul. The devils had swastikas tattooed on to their foreheads and were trying to drag him down to a place below the clouds. Then one of the angels took him by the arm and lifted him up, and now he was flying.
“Don’t let me fall!” he cried out, looking up at the angel.
“Of course I won’t. You are safe with me,” the angel said, and her face transformed into that of Sofia Bartoli. Hugo opened his eyes and found he was smiling. Then his heart gave a lurch as he spotted a woman’s face looking at him through a gap between his piled planks of wood. Not Sofia—a woman with light hair and a crown. He sat up, banging his head against the altar table and swearing. He peered out.
While he had been sleeping, the rain had stopped, and sunlight was now streaming into the chapel. The rays of slanted winter sun were falling directly on to a fresco on the opposite wall. Parts of the fresco were pockmarked and damaged, but this part was still intact. It showed a picture of the Virgin Mary. He couldn’t tell if she had been holding the Child Jesus, as that part of the fresco had been blown away. Just her face smiled down at him, and he found this extremely comforting—a sign almost that heaven was protecting him.
The thirst had returned, and his head felt woozy from the morphine. He looked down at his watch. Only eleven o’clock. He had a long day ahead of him. He eased himself out of his shelter and managed to stand up. The morphine must have been wearing off because the pain shot through him again and he cried out. He started in fear at a loud noise nearby but then saw that it was only a pigeon flapping away from the jagged wall above him. Pigeons, he thought. Future food, if I have to stay here long. But I couldn’t cook it up here. Maybe Sofia could take it home, cook it, and . . . Stop, he told himself. I can’t put her and her family in danger. She had already told him that a whole village had been executed for helping the partisans. She would undoubtedly suffer the same fate for aiding a British pilot.
I must get away from here, he decided. Maybe hide out for a few days, just until the wound has healed and I’ve made a splint. Then I’ll go south.
He took the battered tin mug, then eased himself along the wall to the front door.
He gasped. Before him a vista stretched out in all directions: hill after hill, covered in thick forest, disappearing into blue haze, and in the distance higher mountains, their tops already dusted with snow. No sign of a big town, but some of the hills were crowned, like the one immediately before him, with a fortified village. It stood out now in clear three dimensions, highlighted after the rain, the houses clinging together as if afraid they might slip down the hillside. He stared at it with appreciation, admiring the faded ochre and green shutters of the houses, the graceful bell tower rising above the terra cotta tiles of the roofs, the crumbling walls built to keep out intruders. Smoke curled up from chimneys into the still air.
The hills close by were a mix of cultivation, neat lines of olives or vines cut out of thick woodland. Wild and tame, he thought. That summed it up. Then his gaze moved over to the west. Where part of the rock had been blasted away he could see the remnants of a track snaking up the hillside to the monastery. He could pick it out through the trees to where it met a road far below in a valley. As he watched, he saw three army trucks driving northward. He picked out the swastika on one of them.
There is no way I can escape at this moment, he thought. He was glad that the track had been blown away near the top. No German lorry would try to come back to this point. Thus reassured, he stepped through the doorframe and made his way carefully over the cracked and tilted stones of the forecourt. He found Sofia’s rain barrel full and overflowing and dared to take a long drink, praying the rain had not stirred up whatever might have been breeding in it. Then he looked around at the piles of rubble, wondering if there might be anything that could be of use.
He was clearly standing beside what used to be a kitchen. Shards of pottery lay strewn about, an occasional cup handle or curve of a basin revealing what the items had once been. But there was nothing whole and intact. In his current condition he didn’t dare to go further, to dig and potter among the ruins, but then he spotted a pillow, burned and with the stuffing spilling out of it. It was, naturally, soaking wet, but he carried it back in triumph, hoping it would dry out soon.
Once back inside he was overcome with exhaustion and barely managed to spread out the kapok from the pillow on one of the fallen beams before feeling that he had to sit down or he would pass out. He lowered himself with much grunting and swearing back into his little shelter, lay down, and knew no more.
When he opened his eyes again it was dark—the sort of absolute darkness you find only far away from civilisation. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. She wouldn’t come now, he thought. There was no way she could find her way up through the woods in this darkness. He felt an absurd sense of disappointment. Of course she couldn’t leave her family twice in one day. It would look too suspicious. Then doubts crept in. What if she had been seen? What if someone in the village had binoculars and had been spying on her? What if she had been turned over to the Germans and right now they were on their way to get him?
He broke out into a cold sweat. He had to speak to himself quite sternly to get a grip on his fear. Of course nobody had seen them from the village. When they had come up to the ruins, the clouds had been hanging over the hilltops. He had only just been able to make out the village. Not the sort of day that anyone would take their binoculars and decide to observe the countryside . . . unless you were a German sentry posted as an observer on a hilltop. The fear returned. He knew that he would never feel safe for even a minute, and was ove
rcome with empathy for the inhabitants of that village, never knowing when the Germans would arrive claiming that they had helped a partisan, lining them all up in the village square, and shooting them all.
I should start making myself a splint, he thought, but could do nothing until it was light again. He certainly wasn’t going to use his precious cigarette lighter except for emergencies. And so he lay there, listening to night noises—the creak and crack of branches in the forest below, the hoot of an owl, the distant howl of a dog. It was going to be a long night.
He must have been dozing because he awoke to see a light flickering nearby.
“Signor? Ugo?” He heard the whisper and the fear in her voice.
“Over here, Signora. In the corner.”
He watched the light bobbing closer as he sat up and pushed one of the planks aside. She was wrapped as before in a big black shawl, and he could just see her eyes in the light of the candle-lantern she was carrying.
“Oh, you have built yourself a home,” she said, smiling at him. “How clever. When I did not see you and you did not hear the first time I called, I was afraid that perhaps you had . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. She let the shawl fall over her shoulders.
“Not quite dead yet,” he said, attempting flippancy.
She laughed. “That is good to hear, because I have brought you things to make you strong again.”
He hauled himself out of his shelter, grunting with pain as he did so. She came over, put the lantern on a beam, and squatted down beside him. “See, I bring you food.”
She opened a cloth bag she had been carrying and brought out what looked like a towel. She unwound it to reveal a basin inside.
“Soup,” she said. “I hope it is still hot. It is good. Full of beans and macaroni and vegetables.” She handed it to him. The basin was still hot to touch.
“It’s very warm. You must have come quickly.”
“Oh yes. I did not like to linger in the olive groves alone. You never know who might be there these days. If the partisans are meeting, they would not want to be seen by a woman. I would be in as much danger from them as from the Germans.”
“Look, please don’t come again,” he said. “I really don’t want to put you in danger.”
“Don’t worry. I am careful,” she said. “I did not light the lantern until I was well away from the village. Here. You will need this.” She handed him a spoon and watched as he ate.
“It’s very good,” he said. “I should save some for tomorrow, unless you need your basin returned now.”
“It will not taste so good when it is cold,” she said. “Besides, I have brought you something for the morning. Not much, I am afraid, but it will keep you going.” She reached into her bag again. “Some polenta. A little hard cheese. An onion. Polenta we still have. The Germans do not like cornmeal.”
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“It is nothing.” She gave him such a sweet smile. “When the world has gone mad, we must help each other when we can. Most of my neighbours are good and share what little they have. When Benito snared a rabbit, he gave us some of it to make the good broth you are eating. And when I came home this morning, I passed Signora Gucci and she saw the mushrooms I had found.
“‘Funghi di bosco!’ she exclaimed. ‘I love funghi di bosco. If you can find some for me I will bake bread and biscotti for your family.’
“‘Here, take them now,’ I said, and gave her most of them. ‘I will go out looking every day to find you more.’” Sofia looked up at Hugo. He saw her eyes, glowing in the light of the lantern. “She is quite rich, and she has a son who brings her things from the black market. If I can find her mushrooms, she may keep us supplied. And . . . and I have an excuse now to come up here. She is a gossip. She will tell everyone how diligently I am hunting for her.”
He returned her smile. “But how did you manage to get away tonight? Did your husband’s grandmother not want to know where you were going? What time is it, anyway?”
“It’s after nine,” she said. “The old lady and my son are asleep. They think I am in my room, but I climb out of the back window where I can’t be seen.”
“How old is your son?”
“He is three.” She paused. “My husband has never seen him. He was called up and sent off to Africa before Renzo was born.”
“And you don’t know if he is still alive?”
“That’s right.” She stared down at her hands. “I have never had confirmation that he is dead, so I have to believe that he is in a prison camp somewhere. I have to keep hoping.”
He reached out and covered her hand with his, a gesture he would never have done at home. “I am so sorry. It must be awful, not knowing. But then my wife doesn’t hear from me often and knows that I fly bombing missions. She must worry, too.”
“You have children?”
“One son. I suppose he’s nine now, but I haven’t seen him since he was five. I try to picture how he looks all grown up, but I can’t. All I see is a little boy dragging his teddy bear around with him everywhere. A timid little chap, running back to Nanny.”
“Nanny? Your grandmother lives with you?”
“No, his nursemaid.”
“A nursemaid? Then you are rich?”
He hesitated. “We have a big house. Not much money, but plenty of land and servants.”
“You are a milord?” She was looking at him with wonder now.
“My father is. I shall be when he dies. Not a lord, exactly. A baronet. A sir.”
“Sir Ugo. Imagine what they would say in the village if they knew I was speaking with a milord.” She said it with great drama, making him laugh.
“That all seems so irrelevant now, doesn’t it? Lords and chimney sweeps fight side by side and die side by side, and nobody cares what they once were.”
“That is so true. You must miss your poor wife very much.”
He hesitated thinking about this. Did he miss her? “I’m not sure how much. We were never very close. But I miss my former life. How easy it was, having someone to cook my meals, wash my clothes, saddle my horse for me. And I took it all for granted. But you clearly miss your husband.”
“Oh yes. I miss my Guido terribly. I was only eighteen when I met him. I had been raised in an orphanage in Lucca. Raised without love, you know. And when I was eighteen I was sent to be a servant at a big farm. Guido was working in the fields there as a hired hand. Gesù Maria! He was so handsome. And the way he smiled at me—I felt as if I was melting like candle wax. We fell in love instantly, and when his father died we married, and he brought me to his house in San Salvatore. His father had some land—not much, you understand, but enough: the olives we walked through, and pasture for the goats. We had a small flock of them, and we made goat’s cheese for the market. But we had only been there for a year when the war came to us and Guido was taken away.”
“And you were expecting a child.”
“Yes. It was the worst day of my life when I watched him get into the truck with the other men and be driven off. He waved to me and that was the last I ever saw of him.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She nodded, and he could see her fighting back tears. “Still, I must go on for the sake of my son. It is not easy. We pick the olives, then the Germans come and take most of our olive oil. We grow some vegetables and they come and take those, too.”
“And the goats?”
“They were taken long ago. I begged them to leave me one so that I could have milk for my child, who was not well at the time, but they didn’t speak Italian and I didn’t speak their language, so I had to watch my goats being loaded into a truck.” She pulled the shawl more tightly around her against the cold wind that blew in through the door opening. “I should not complain. It is the same for everyone. They take what we have—cows, chickens, even vegetables. All gone.”
“I heard a rooster crowing in your village, so someone must still have chickens,” he said.
“That is
our mayor, Signor Pucci. He pretends to be friendly and helpful and they let him keep a couple of chickens. And one of the farmers still has a few sheep. The Germans do not like the taste of lamb.” She gave him a wry smile. “And so we exist. I am luckier than some. I grow corn and vegetables. I dry the beans from the summer crop. I make cornmeal for polenta. We will not starve, and neither will you, as long as I am here.”
Hugo had finished the soup. He felt its warmth spreading through his body.
“I can’t thank you enough.” He handed her back the empty bowl.
“It is nothing. And see, I have brought you other things.” She reached for the bag and produced items like a conjurer. “A blanket! It will help to keep off the worst of the cold. And an old sheet—it is clean. You can tear it up to make bandages for your wound.” She held up a small bottle. “This is grappa. It will help to keep out the cold. And I found this.” She held up what looked like a spoke from the back of a kitchen chair. “This may work as a splint while your bone heals itself.”
“You’re amazing,” Hugo said. “But won’t these things be missed?”
“I’ll tell you a secret.” She put her finger to her lips even though they were alone in the darkness. “My husband’s family has been in their house for many generations. The attic is full of unwanted things. When I have more time, I shall see what else I can find.”
“You must go now,” he said. “I will be content with food in my belly and a blanket. And tomorrow I may be feeling stronger.”
“Let us pray to Our Lady that you will. And I don’t know the saint of broken legs or wounds. I must ask Father Filippo. He’ll know.”
“Father Filippo?”
“Our parish priest. He is very wise. He knows everything.”
“Don’t tell him about me!” he said, his voice rising.