The focus of the raid appeared to be on the outskirts of the city. The night was mild and I got my dressing-gown to watch. Some other people were doing the same, but presently the ack-ack fire grew more intense and a big gun opened up in the gardens opposite. People melted away rapidly as pieces of shrapnel began to fall.
In the corridor voices were raised. A man shouted, urging the others to “take shelter in the trenches!” Another was shouting something quite different, and an argument and hysterical voices grew up. Then close above us came the fierce drone of an aeroplane swooping low and climbing away again. When it had gone the voices had stopped. I looked out and saw a magnesium flare burning whitely on the tramlines.
In the corridor a woman screamed: “Per vergognal Non lo posso tollerare di piu!”
After a few minutes things died down. The searchlights were still sweeping the sky and the fire still burning but the guns had stopped. Their first salvoes must have wakened me. Since I had slept through any air-raid warning there might have been, I waited to see if there was an all clear. But in half an hour the distant drone of planes could be heard again. During this second attack I sat on the bed and smoked a cigarette. Although this brief raid was nearer, I felt no fear. I expected, perhaps, that the bombs would be able to discriminate on whom they fell …
I tried to guess the number of planes from the sound. I should have estimated about six or seven in each flight. I decided to get dressed, for pyjamas are not the best sort of shelter suit. Then I smoked another cigarette.
The gun-fire ceased, this time it seemed for good. I waited twenty minutes, then began to untie my tie. As I did so the telephone on the table rang. I took off the receiver thinking it likely to be some inquiry reassurance from the management.
“I wish to speak to Captain Bonini,” said a voice.
I hesitated. “Captain Bonini is not here.”
“Who is that?”
“Captain Bonini’s private secretary.”
“Where can I get in touch with him?”
“He is in Venice. Who is that, please?”
“Professor Brayda’s secretary. I understood Captain Bonini was in Milan.”
Professor Brayda. The man whose work I was to have the privilege of … “He is travelling up by the early train in the morning. Can I give him a message for you?”
There was a pause on the wire and it seemed to go dead.
“What is wrong?” I insisted. “ I am completely in Captain Bonini’s confidence.”
This time I could hear whispered voices at the other end.
“Hullo.”
“Hullo.”
“This is Professor Brayda’s secretary. Why is Captain Bonini not in Milan?”
“He had business which kept him in Venice. He is coming by the morning train. What is your message?”
“It is not a message. Professor Brayda’s house and laboratory have been destroyed by a bomb. We are anxious to get in touch with those who were to have attended the conference.”
Who were to have attended? “That is tragedy!” I said. “ Is Professor Brayda safe?”
“No. Seriously injured. Good-bye.”
“One moment!” I said sharply.
“Well?”
“I shall be glad to come myself. Perhaps I can be of use.”
“You can be of no use. Professor Brayda wishes only to get in touch with the principals. Thank you.”
“I was to have attended the conference,” I shouted, “ I am fully empowered in every way … Hullo!”
The line was dead.
In the distance aeroplanes were droning again.
I groped a way downstairs into the wide vestibule of the hall. The light of the moon falling through the big glass porch showed the hall grey-white and deserted. The guns were firing again but raggedly as if more from routine than from conviction.
A figure moved suddenly in the shadows behind the counter, and I saw it was the porter, a lithe dark elderly man with greying sidewhiskers and sleek greasy hair.
“Madonna!” he exclaimed. “I thought everyone was sheltering in the basement, signore.”
I wondered what his business was behind the reception desk.
“Are the trams stil running?”
“Trams, signore? No, no.”
“Would there be a taxi to be found?”
He made a face. “Most unlikely. Why should anyone wish to go out in this? You should go into the basement like the rest.”
“I have just heard that a great friend of mine has been seriously injured. I must go to him at once.”
He clicked his tongue several times. “I feel as you feel, signore. But why become a casualty yourself?”
“The air-raid is over. Is there a hotel car I could hire?”
“There is the hotel bos. But I have no authority to loan you that. If you were to ask the proprietor——”
“There is no time. This is most urgent. Have you the authority to drive me?”
The whites of his eyes showed. “If I had the authority I should not have the inclination. Thank you.”
“There would be a hundred lire for yourself.”
He turned his head and listened. “Perhaps the air-raid is over. I will go amd see.”
I waited. He came back. “I will pick you up at the front door in three minutes.”
Another wait in the warm grey hall. There was no one else at all about. The faint purr of an engine among the other noises took me down the steps. An old Fiat with a box-shaped body to convey guests to and from the station.
Searchlights were sweeping the sky, circling the face of the moon. I climbed in beside the man.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Where would they take air-raid casualties?”
“Oh … it would depend on the district. The Ospedale Maggiore. Or even the military hospital.” He stopped and stared at me in the dark. “But signore, do you not known where your friend is?”
“The people who telephoned rang off before I could ask.”
“Do you tell me we are to go from hospital to hospital inquiring, while overhead——”
“No, we’ll go to his house. That is close to the Fatoni works. You know the way?”
He jumped. “Mother of God! You ask me to drive just where they are dropping the bombs? You can keep your hundred lire!”
I grabbed his arm as he moved to get out. “Two hundred for a successful drive. It is nothing. The raid is over.”
“I do not know the direction by night,” he said sulkily.
I smiled unpleasantly in the darkness. “All you have to do is make for the fire.”
We sat together in silence. The last gun had ceased. A great silence reigned.
“Very well, if you insist. I do not know what the manager will say, risking his bus.”
We drove off. The man used only sidelights and mainly stayed in third gear, with his foot hard down on the accelerator and his finger on the horn. On any straight road we went flat out. Even in the moonlight there was much that was deceptive.
We roared through deserted streets, tyres screeching at corners, horn blaring our coming. We narrowly missed an ambulance and a fire-engine. At least it seemed unlikely that anyone could possibly follow us. Unless, sneaking fear, the message was a decoy.
We flashed into open country, whirred between vineyards down a wide white autostrada, cleft with a sensation of impact the next mound of shadow. We were among villas again. Ahead lay the straggling bulk of the great Faroni works. On the right was the fire.
A steel-helmeted policeman barred our way. We squealed and jerked so a standstill.
“No way through. Make a detour by way of——”
“Professor Brayda’s house!” I shouted. “Which way is that?”
“Professor Brayda’s house has been bombed. You can’t come through.”
“I must see Professor Brayda at once. Is he still here?”
The policeman cocked a wary eye at the sky. “ They’re coming back again. What is your bus
iness?”
“Urgent message from Captain Bonini of the Naval Staff.”
“Very well. Go on. Sharp right at the next turning, and then on the left twenty yards from where the road is blocked.”
My chauffeur lifted an eyebrow at me as we drove on. “ Is it true? About this Captain you know——”
“Of course it’s true. Careful!”
We passed a group of people and then, turning left as directed, came on imposing gates, of which one was open. My driver was inclined to stop, but I prodded him to drive on, and no one came out to interfere. The blaze was over on the right; a group of buildings was burning separate from the main factory. Ahead were more houses.
Our car came to another screeching halt. “ We cannot go on. The road is thick with glass.”
The drone of aeroplanes. I gave the man a hundred lire note and got out. “Draw in to the side and wait for me. I’ll not be long. If bombing starts shelter under the car.”
He began to protest but I left him there, ran across to the houses, the glass crunching like ice underfoot. Two of the houses were not much more than heaps of rabble, a third had the roof and one wall missing.
Fireman carrying a length of hose: I caught his arm. “Professor Brayda’s house?”
His face gleamed yellow in the fire-glow; he nodded without speaking to the third house. I ran towards it. No one about. Now the guns were opening up afresh; it would soon be unhealthy out of doors. The last house on the left was undamaged except for broken windows. A mas answered my heavy knock.
“Can you tell me where they have taken Professor Brayda?” I asked.
“He’s here. What do you want?”
Lack. “I want to see him.”
“Nobody can see him. He’s badly injured.”
“But I am here at his special request. You telephoned me.”
Hesitation on the man’s face. “Are you one of the scientists? We couldn’t get hold of them.”
“I represent Captain Bonini. I was to have attended tomorrow’s conference on behalf of the Admiralty.”
“Oh, well.” A piece of anti-aircraft shell hit the railings near us with a clang. “You’d better come in.”
I followed him down a long hall to the foot of the stairs. “ I will inquire,” he said.
Why had they wanted so urgently to get in touch with the scientists to-night? Instead of waiting I followed the man up the stairs.
At the top he was talking with a man who had a stained bandage round his head. They both stared at me. Before they could object I again said who I was. “I was given instructions to take all responsibility for Captain Bonini, just as if he were here. When someone telephoned me——”
“I telephoned,” said the wounded man.
“When you telephoned and suggested I should come——”
“I? I suggested no such thing. You——”
“But you did. Did you not say——”
“Oh, there is some mistake.” The man turned away wearily. “Anyway, since you had the courage to come, see Professor Brayda If it pleases you. It can do him no harm.”
“In here,” said the man who had admitted me, opening a door.
Large bedroom, pleasantly furnished in a style fashionable before the First World War. Six people. On the edge of an easy chair a stout elderly woman sat weeping, her hair hanging in grey wisps. Sitting beside the bed was a man whose tonsure showed that when properly dressed he would have worn a csssock; his eyes, nearly closed, showed a thin slit of pale iris; he was intoning in Latin. The sound went on without a break all the time I was in the room.
“Yes, gentlemen,” said a voice. ‘But there are graver potentialities in this than you’d think … If someone can demonstrate … after-effects are quite clear …”
It was the man on the bed who spoke, in a weak slurred voice. Handsome, about sixty, with an imperial and a short moustache. His eyes were open, but there was no comprehension in them. Professor Brayda, the man for whom I had come the length of Europe.…
No one paid attention to me and I approached the bed.
“Concentration of one to a million, with something like a thirty minutes’ exposure. You will see from this …”
I glanced at the weeping woman. This was the lowest common denominator of war. Weeping women all over the earth. This was the final insanity. Nationality did not count for much when it came down to individuals. We all had the same measuring stick of sorrow.
“Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea, quare me repulisti? Et quare tristis incedo dum affligit me inimicus??”
One of the three men near the bed suddenly said to me: “ What is it that you want?”
“I represent the Admiralty. Professor Brayda is …?”
“Nothing at all can be done. The wall fell on him.” The speaker turned again to the dying man, taking his wrist between thumb and forefinger. “I am needed urgently elsewhere,” he said, relinquishing the wrist. “ Signora Brayda, you understand? As there is nothing, nothing to be done here I cannot afford to stay. In other circumstances, of course …”
The woman nodded without speaking.
“And I must go too,” said one of the other men. “Listen to that! They are bombing again. They shall pay for this! Have no fear, Signora Brayda, they shall pay for this! You shall be revenged. Their cities shall be burned to the ground!” He followed the physician to the door, “ You are staying, Dr von Riehl?”
I glanced sharply at the third man, who now nodded. “A little while longer,” he said in awkward Italian. “ Outside there is nothing I can do.”
“Very well. I will return, Signora Brayda. God give you strength.”
They went out. The German folded some sheets of paper on which he had been writing and put them in his pocket.
“Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum,” came the priest’s low voice. “Sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.”
I stared sidelong at Dr Amadeus von Riehl, that highly-placed representative of the Third Reich, who was to have attended to-morrow. A man of middle age, tall and big boned, with a flushed colour, hair so close cut as to merge into baldness, spectacles half moon shape. In his button-hole was an Ehrenzeichen, a Nazi long-service badge of honour.
The priest stopped his mutterings. “He wishes to speak.”
At once Signora Brayda was beside the bed, wetting the sheet with her tears. Von Riehl was on the the side; I stood at the foot.
But Professor Brayda was now too far gone to recognise us. He was talking, but they were disconnected sentences, quite rational in themselves but out of context. Sometimes it seemed he was beginning a lecture, part of the address he would have given to-morrow. Sometimes he was instructing an assistant. Presently he was silent, and I thought he was gone. Dr Von Riehl, put away his pencil.
But then Brayda began again. He was back with to-morrow’s lecture. It seemed that he expected a certain amount of criticism on ethical grounds. He apologised that his conclusions were incomplete, but with Italy at war he felt it necessary and patriotic that his researches so far should be given this airing. The scientist was the uncommitted explorer; what he discovered might be truly put to the service of the state; but in its first stage it was no more and no less than the detached activity of the humanist brain directed towards no specific end-product. One worked, one found, one published or stated the findings: it was for the nation or the state then to decide if or how those findings should be used.
“Our distinguished visitor, Dr von Riehl,” said the injured man, and waited, as if expecting applause. “Representing our comrades in arms, the great German nation … with whom … shoulder to shoulder …”
“This is a great tragedy.” I said in an undertone to the German. “How did it happen?”
He looked at me as if I were an impertinent servant. “As you would expect. Incendiaries on the laboratory fell. Professor Brayda and his chief assistant went to put them out. A high explosive bomb dropped, killing the assistant outright, and Brayda was crushed b
y a falling wall.”
“Hush,” said the priest. “He is going now.”
The professor’s wife leaned forward. His lips were working feebly, but not with any loving message of farewell. I caught the words: “Vesicant … less arsenic content … cannot be used … intended to occupy … impregnation … uncalculated after-effects.” Then he said: “.… et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris …”
His lips fluttered and he gave a deep sigh and was still.
The priest crossed himself, and we all followed suit.
“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi …”
Strange the silence that had fallen. It is the inexplicable silence of death. I turned away. There was nothing more here that concerned the war or the whims of dictators or the vagaries of patriotism.
I quietly left the room.
As I got to the head of the stairs there were voices at the bottom, and I saw Professor Brayda’s secretary talking to a self-important but pleasant faced little man in—of all things—a morning suit.
“I ventured out as soon as ever the worst was over. Though even yet it is not safe, and, Santa Marie, to drive for six miles with bombs raining down on the roads! … Let me go up, I may be able to help him.”
“I think it is too late,” said the secretary.
“Well, where are the others? You did not tell me over the phone that Emilio Brayda was dying!”
“Three of the others are not yet in Milan and four have not come. Captain Bonini’s secretary came; and Dr von Riehl, who was staying near, was hare almost at once …”
“The German? Where is he, then? I will meet him.”
They saw me. The secretary explained who I was. “Professor Brayda is dead,” I said.
Nobody spoke. The newcomer shook his head. “ Oh, the loss! Oh, the loss for Italy!”
The man who had let me in was near by and said: “So far we have gained nothing out of this war. Not even Bizerta! Only bombs.”
“Hush, it is not your place to criticise! The rewards of endurance will come later. I greatly regret my distinguished colleague’s death. If Dr von Riehl was present …”
Night Journey Page 8