“Go on,” he said encouragingly. “We won’t shoot you.” The Italians hadn’t understood his words, but they caught their meaning. They went, with a haste so precipitous that even the sergeant-major looked somewhat amazed at the five rifles stacked in his arms.
Lennox felt an emotion which was almost pity. It isn’t pleasant to see men realise that they are trapped and helpless, that now it’s their turn to be kicked about. And then he was telling himself to keep his pity for those who deserved it. None of these guards had ever done a spontaneous, decent thing for any of the prisoners: their occasional kindnesses had been granted when the payment—in food from the prisoners’ boxes—had been exorbitantly extracted. Humanity had been lowered to the level of barter and grab. Even now none of the guards had volunteered to fight along with the prisoners: now they were only thinking of how to save their own skins and property as they scrabbled their way through the kitchen-door. Let him keep his pity for those who had practised pity.
There was a movement as if the prisoners had decided something too. The mass of men came to life. Even those who were ill, who had propped their bodies against the tables in the room, watched with eager eyes. They were waiting, ready.
Miller, talking urgently to Johann, had now started to tell the sergeant-major the boy’s suggestion. It had sufficient possibilities, because the sergeant-major nodded and selected five men. Johann, it seemed, was to be entrusted with a gun; he and the five men were already leaving the room by the kitchen-door. Lennox edged his way to where Miller stood.
“What’s the idea?” he asked, more quietly than he felt. Fool, he was thinking, to sacrifice a gun to Johann... What good would that do?
“They will reach the courtyard through one of the kitchen-doors. There are three German lorries under guard in the courtyard.”
It wasn’t a very perfect explanation. Miller was too busy trying to persuade the sergeant-major that he could use a rifle as well as the next man. But the word “courtyard” caught Lennox’s ear. In the courtyard was the guard-house, where other weapons, including machine guns, could be found. The five men would march in good order across the courtyard, as if they had been detailed for some camp duty. If the Germans guarding their lorries were to turn their attention on the prisoners, then Johann, armed and in correct uniform, would give the authentic touch of control to the scene. The Germans were strangers here and ignorant of the camp’s routine.
“What about the Italians in the guard-room?”
“Gone. So Johann said.”
Lennox’s mouth twisted. “So Johann said,” he mimicked, but Miller had followed the others, who, realising that the remaining guns could only arm four men, were now invading the deserted kitchen. Quickly they passed out to the mess-hall any choppers, pans, ladles, rolling-pins, they could find. Ferry was testing a carving knife thoughtfully; Miller had compromised on a meat mallet. Lennox refused a Chianti bottle and made his way into the kitchen to choose his own weapon. He came back into the dining-room gripping in his left hand a length of iron chain which had once held a soup-pot suspended over the kitchen fire. He knotted it loosely at the end, and a slow grin came over his tight mouth as he tested the chain’s weight. He glanced at his taut wrist. His watch said it was now thirty-five minutes past six. Johann had brought the letters at six twenty-six. Nine minutes had passed. Nine minutes against seven months. Seven months of worry and sweat to prepare for an escape. And here it was in nine minutes, flat.
The sergeant-major held up his hand. He was standing at the hall-door, ready to swing it open.
To the three sharpshooters he had chosen he said, “I take the captain. You, the man to his left. You, the man to his right. You, the German at the top of the stairs. After that, pick off the nearest. You others, start rushing when we stop shooting. When I give the signal everyone yell his bloody head off. Ready, boys?”
The men nodded, and tightened their grasp round their weapons. Those who had nothing but their bare hands, gathered together in a solid mass behind the crudely armed spear-head.
The sergeant-major held his hand raised. He’s waiting, Lennox guessed, for the courtyard: the men who had marched towards the guard-room with Johann should have taken possession of the machine guns by this time. He glanced quickly at the tense, waiting faces around him, and then at his watch. Another minute and a half had gone. His muscles tautened, and he felt a drop of perspiration trickle over his upper lip. He stared at the door as the others did. Each slipping second could spell disaster.
From the courtyard there came the sharp, uneven rattle of a machine gun. The diversion had begun.
The sergeant-major’s arm dropped. Someone knocked the door’s latch free, someone swung the heavy mass of oak wide open. The four sharpshooters were already taking aim as they entered the hall. The men surged forward. They were shouting. The haggard faces were alive once more.
3
In the hall the German captain had placed six of his men in a well-spaced line to flank the curve of stairway. Their guns were pointed towards the row of officers, still waiting patiently, expectantly. Two other German soldiers guarded the head of the staircase. Their guns pointed too, but their eyes kept glancing sideways along the upstairs corridor, in which the angry voices of the two remaining Germans were combined with the sounds of a rough-and-ready removal.
The captain, standing at the foot of the staircase, was obviously angry. His fury increased as his patience evaporated. He fingered his revolver. Another minute of this impudence and he would order his men upstairs to shoot. If only these damned Anglo-Saxons would make one move then his men’s guns would have an answer for them. But they gave no appearance of mutiny, no excuse for shooting. They just sat and stared at him calmly. Impudence—that was it. Some of them were even smiling: that American up there was grinning broadly. Damn these Italians and their lax discipline. If only they had had their full quota of guards when his party had arrived here; the rooms upstairs would have been ready by this time. And if only the damned Americans hadn’t bombed the Brenner railway line yesterday the damned train carrying the prisoners wouldn’t now be held up at Bozen until the damned line could be repaired. He glared at the Italian Commandant. He’d tell this fat bucking jackass a thing or two, once they had the prisoners all safely locked up.
The Commandant fingered the decorations on his tunic and cleared his throat. But the German’s angry face silenced the beginning of an apology. The Commandant even stopped fingering his decorations. This captain wouldn’t let himself notice the row of medals. This captain hadn’t even treated him as an officer of superior rank. The smothered apology turned sour in his mouth. With stilted dignity he walked over to the wall, and looked at the mass of foreigners with distaste. Two years ago everything had been so different. The tears filming his eyes as he thought of that change dried in alarm. He had suddenly remembered that he still had to explain to this German that the Italian guards, now away from the camp, were absent without leave. Deserters...he hadn’t dared mention that word. He sighed wearily. He wished he were upstairs in his pleasant room, listening to his wireless set: he might have learned by this time if this afternoon’s rumours were true or false. Then he would know what to do. He glared at the smiling Allied officers. His heart suddenly twisted as he thought of his country at the mercy of barbarians. His eyelids drooped. He held his weakening underlip rigid with his teeth. He studied the floor at his feet, as if he could read there why his Italy should suffer such unhappiness, such injustice.
There was the sudden rattle of a machine gun in the courtyard.
All heads turned sharply to the entrance-door of the hall.
“Watch the prisoners!” the German captain shouted. “You there!—anyone who moves will be shot. Meyer, Hofmann, with me!” He started smartly towards the courtyard. Probably only an Italian trying to desert, he thought, and his pace hesitated. The Commandant’s eyes lifted and met his, and the German saw the same thought in them. There was fear, too, and shame.
Perhaps
there was more than one deserter, the German thought, perhaps that was why this fat fool had acted so strangely ever since the unexpected arrival of prisoners in this camp. Perhaps there was a lot of trouble here to be settled. He was staring with increasing suspicion at the Italian, and so he did not see the broad thick door of the mess-hall as it opened. But he saw the Italian’s eyes dilate. He heard the beginning of a shout, and turned, and fell. The Yorkshire sergeant-major had aimed well.
The Commandant stared at the German captain’s body, lying so still and now forever humbled. The two soldiers who had followed the captain had crumpled on to the paved floor. Blood trickled slowly. The Commandant stared incredulously. Other shots crashed through the hall, deafening, terrifying. He was scarcely aware that the staircase was a seething mass of officers, that the hall was filled with sweating, cursing, ragged men. He stared at two bodies falling from above, as if two sacks of flour had been thrown over the balustrade, and then remembered the two Germans who had guarded the head of the staircase. He could not hear the hard thud of their bodies on the stone floor so near his feet: the volume of noise in the hall was smashing into his ears, puckering his face with fear and pain. These yelling savages swarming towards him...these answering yells from upstairs, telling that the last Germans had been dealt with...
Then, suddenly, put of the mass of noise and movement, he saw one of his prisoners run towards him. He felt naked in his helplessness, alone with savages. Savages. His muscles obeyed him at last. He ran from the prisoner, from the swinging piece of chain. He ran towards the entrance. Out there in the courtyard the Germans would help him. They’d machine-gun these savages. They would cut them down like ripe hay.
The door opened as he reached it, and he saw men advancing towards him out of the courtyard. The light from the hall gleamed on a machine gun. A sob of relief rose from his tight throat. And then he recognised them... They were Inglesi.
Another figure came running out of the darkness.
“Schichtl!” the Commandant shouted. But as he saw the boy’s face his sudden hope died.
Johann raised his arm and fired his gun. The Commandant’s face was blotted out. He hadn’t even had time to wonder why such injustice should be happening to him.
Johann stepped over the Commandant’s body. “Come on,” he said to the three Britishers. “Come on.” His tone was even and urgent.
One of the men gave a low whistle of admiration. “Make up your mind quick, don’t you?”
“Come on.”
But inside the hall there was no need to set up the machine gun. All resistance had ceased. The irrepressible man gave another whistle. “Like Christmas night in the workhouse,” he said cheerily.
No one spoke. Some men were picking themselves up from the floor. Five—including the sergeant-major—were wounded badly. Two were as motionless as the Germans. The rest just stood and stared. After the uproar of the last two minutes the silence was like death itself. Then someone raised a cheer. It was a thin, pathetic effort. But the others joined in, and the cheer swelled almost to a shout. Then everyone was as suddenly silent again, looking sheepishly at one another, beginning to move round the hall. One of the American Air Force officers said, “We’re a funny-looking bunch all right,” and a laugh began. Men laughed for no reason at all.
But the American had spoken the truth. They were a strange collection. They had been civilians in countries as far distant from each other as they were from Italy. They had become soldiers. Craftsmen, workmen, business-men, professional men, had learned how to march and shoot and drive a tank, how to handle artillery or a parachute or an aeroplane. They wore the faded, stained uniforms of the veteran. Their bodies were thin, their faces were gaunt. But the look of the prisoner—the desperate, self-tortured look of the forgotten man—had vanished. They were laughing for no reason at all, but they laughed like free men.
* * *
Peter Lennox didn’t laugh. He was kneeling beside Miller when Johann came up to him.
The boy’s excited face became grave too. He bent down and touched Miller’s brow. He drew back his hand quickly, and his mouth became set. He said nothing. He straightened his back and stood quietly there, looking down at the dead man’s face. There was a band of white flesh at the edge of Miller’s hair, where even the desert sun hadn’t managed to reach the skin. You saw it clearly now, as he lay with his head thrown stiffly backward. The blue eyes stared up at the damp stone ceiling.
Lennox glanced at Johann Schichtl’s broad-boned face, impassive and yet somehow all the more expressive. The boy kept his silence. Miller had been right, Lennox thought. Miller had liked and trusted this boy. And this boy had really liked Miller. Johann suddenly looked at him, and Lennox felt ashamed of his initial distrust, of his unreasoning dislike of the boy. He looked quickly down again at Miller, and tried to straighten his friend’s body into a decent sleep.
“Who’s this?” an officer was asking. His voice was hard, his hand was on Johann’s shoulder.
4
“Who’s this fellow?” the officer repeated. His faded insignia showed he was a captain in the Tank Corps.
Lennox rose to his feet, and unconsciously stood beside Johann. Something in the officer’s high-pitched voice, in his way of repeating the question so insistently, annoyed Lennox. What did he think Lennox was? A blasted idiot? Johann wouldn’t have been alive if he had been an enemy. Lennox remembered Miller’s words that afternoon. He repeated them now. “He’s all right,” he said, and then remembered to add “sir.” Johann’s anxious face was turned towards him. The boy’s light blue eyes were worried as he listened to the English voices. The officer’s hand left his shoulder, and the worried look eased.
“He’s a friend, sir,” the captain reported in his turn to a colonel who was watching the group curiously.
The colonel nodded. “Where are all the guards?” he asked Lennox.
“They left before the fight started, sir,” Lennox answered. He looked bitterly at the officers’ insignia. All that old stuff again, sirs and salutes and sirs. “Johann, here, scared the daylight out of them with the news.”
“And what was that?” the colonel asked quickly.
“The South Tyrol is no longer Italian.”
The colonel half-smiled and glanced at Johann’s face. “And Johann belongs to the South Tyrol?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any other news? We heard rumours of peace on our journey north.”
“The Eyties have surrendered, sir.”
The officers exchanged broad grins. “Better tell the others,” the senior officer said. “And tell them there’s no more fighting to be done here meanwhile. Seemingly the rest of the guards have upped and left us.” He stood watching Johann. “I’d like to see you once we straighten things out here,” he said in very precise German.
Johann looked worried. He answered quickly, and at some length.
“What the dickens is he talking about?” the colonel asked in amazement.
“I didn’t catch all of it, sir, but I think he was saying that he wants to leave now. He says he has proved that we can trust him.”
“Yes, but he’s just the chap we need. Tell him to stay here meanwhile. Better keep beside him. You seem to understand his lingo.”
“I’ve got accustomed to the accent, sir.”
“Well, stay with him. We want to be sure we don’t misunderstand him when we have time to question him.”
Lennox said, “Yes, sir.” He spoke without any enthusiasm. He had a uniform upstairs. He had a map and money. He had his plan. Now would be the time to use them. Darkness was coming, and he could have been far from here by daybreak. He would have managed it, too; this time he would have escaped. It was just his blasted luck, he thought: seven months of planning for nothing. And then, as he saw Miller lying at his feet, his lips tightened, and he stopped grousing about his luck.
The colonel had looked at Lennox keenly for a moment before he turned away to attend to the decisions which
were being carried out. As senior officer, he had much to organise quickly.
The wounded were taken to be patched up in the camp hospital across the courtyard. The dead were carried out of the hall, and the Germans’ weapons, uniforms, and papers were removed for future use. Extra men were sent out to join the two who had remained on guard over the captured lorries. A detail was dispatched to the kitchen and store-rooms to forage for food. Officers were in the Commandant’s office, examining papers and maps. One of them was installed at the telephone: he had taught Romance languages at a university, and could cope with any sudden calls to the Commandant from the town. Another, who had been an advertising artist, was making sketches of various sections of the enormous relief-map which was cemented into one wall of the office. A party had gone down to the blackness of the detention-cells, where they found the gaoler had long left his basement post, and seventeen cold, filthy, and truculent Tommies were helped upstairs. Others searched the castle and outbuildings with care. The guard-room was emptied of weapons and ammunition. The commissary was ransacked for useful equipment. Armed sentries, in German coats, were posted round the camp. The searchlight at the gate was manned, ready to give its usual five-minute sweep, so that any Germans in the town would see its customary watchfulness.
The men and officers accomplished their jobs quickly and efficiently. But there was an underlying cheerfulness which would break out into a laugh, or a quip, or an exchange of good-natured libels. The younger officers were as excited as the men. Only the senior officer, and the two majors who stood talking to him, were grave. Only Lennox and Johann Schichtl, standing together in the hall, were silent. And both were equally impatient.
But when the colonel came over to them once more he didn’t waste much time in finding out what he wanted to know. Johann, in spite of his obvious impatience, answered each question quickly and directly. Lennox translated, when necessary, with equal simplicity. The officers grouped round the colonel watched the boy’s face as they listened to Lennox.
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