by Anthony Paul
They sit and spread a meagre picnic of boiled potatoes smeared with tomato paste. Elvira looks deceptively plump in her heavy overcoat, but her features are drawn. She does not eat. It is more important that the young men eat. They are the ones who are going to have to be strong.
Luigi is about to join the elite. He is seventeen in two weeks’ time, military service age. The age at which the mayor’s men will come and take him to serve the fatherland, not with a rifle as a soldier, but with a spade as a slave. He will come up to the camp the night before and join the partisans, in time to help them kick the Germans out of the valley. ‘Oh that Enrico was sent to Russia, oh that he isn’t here to do the same. But Luigi will do the fighting of two brothers. And you’ll keep an eye on him?’
‘If I’m still here’ the captain says. ‘As soon as the beech forest is free of snow, the passes should be clear enough for me to have another go at crossing the lines.’
‘You’ll fail without a guide, and the way things are no-one is going to leave his property behind to take you over the mountains. Don’t take risks. You’re safe with the partisans.’
–
our cat has gone
babbo said we should stop giving it food because we didnt have enough for ourselves
hes been rubbing up against our legs for days mewing horribly
babbo said hed have to find his own food in the fields mice and things like the other cats
tonight he didnt come back
uncle roberto will miss him next time he comes
hes very strange because he likes cats
and the cat liked him
he used to sleep on his blanket when uncle was here
28
The doctor arrives in a cassock and biretta. With his shuffling gait, wheezing cough and spectacles the garb becomes him. He takes it off, hands it and a small covered basket to Vincenzo’s mother, whispers some words in her ear.
‘All is conspiracy now, eh, Roberto? And I am a conspirator with the priest. We need each other now. He needs me to help him tend the injured from all these bombing raids. I need him for protection. I may have, as it were, a price on my head, like you, but all the worthy people of the village need a surgeon experienced in treating the wounds of war. The local doctors are useless even for a migraine, but won’t admit it: show them a shrapnel wound and they’ll faint. So everyone closes their eyes to who I am when I’m dressed as a priest, and so I live most of the time with Don Bartolomeo. It has its advantages: I eat as well as anyone in the village, including the mayor.’
‘Doesn’t anyone tell the Germans? Not even the mayor?’
‘Everyone has a reason for keeping me doing what I’m doing. Ah, the strange alliances of necessity. The church and the communists are co-operating, fascists are consorting with liberals, all just to stay alive.
‘Everyone knows it’s only a matter of time before the Germans go. They’re short of food and ammunition. These bombing raids are destroying their supply lines. Their morale is bad. There are signs up on the roads barring daytime traffic movements. All the efforts of the work-gangs are devoted to digging trenches for their soldiers against air attacks. They’re not building any more defences against land attacks. They know they’ll have to retreat as soon as the last snow melts. So do their fascist supporters. It’s all just a matter of surviving until Roberto’s troops come. And we get this late spring. As if it wasn’t bad enough having the worst winter that anyone in these parts can remember. Who knows if the food will last? So we co-operate with each other.
‘To think that I’m working with the very people who protected the thugs who killed the schoolmaster.’
‘Their time will come’ says Vincenzo.
‘Maybe it will. Maybe not. Not if it starts the new regime off in blood. We’re fighting to change all that. But enough of the war, the time has come for your mother to unveil my surprise present.’
‘Eggs!’ Maria holds up five eggs. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘Don Bartolomeo is providing sanctuary in his crypt to a number of village chickens. His tithe is the eggs, although they’re not producing many. Not enough corn to feed them, he tells the villagers, hoping they’ll give him some, but there’s none to give. As the old saying goes, do what the priest says, not what he does. Priests never change. Always get the best. So much for their vow of poverty. To think that their paternoster was composed as an example to the hypocrites!’
‘How shall we eat them?’
Eggs. Such a forgotten luxury that no-one even dreams of having them any more. A few months ago there would have been shouts of fried, or boiled, or whisked into the soup. Now each is undecided.
‘We’ll have them fried’ Maria says. ‘If we have them on their own we’ll remember them better.’ She takes down from a hook on the wall an old black skillet unused for months, sprinkles oil and tips one egg at a time into the seething pan. All except the doctor crowd round the pan to catch the aroma of the eggs, argue over who should have each one. Vincenzo wolfs his down, his father savours his slowly, painstakingly sucking his tongue of all egg before tickling carefully off the yolk that has trickled down his chin. Finished, they sit in silence, as if a word would make them forget a single sensation in the eating of their egg. Vincenzo belches, to savour it again he says. The others laugh and belch.
–
After their thin bean stew the doctor speaks. ‘To business. These bombing raids are certainly working in destroying the Germans’ power to fight, even the will of their common soldiers. But they’re also losing the Allies the goodwill of some of the people. “Are the Germans that bad?” some of them are saying. “Yes, they steal our food, enslave our young men. But they’re not killing our people, destroying our homes.” Don’t worry, Roberto, I know what you’re going to say’ he says as the captain leans forward to interrupt. ‘Of course we know that the Germans wouldn’t be about to leave if they weren’t being bombed. Most of the villagers know it too. But they’re poor. All their lives they’ve been hungry, sick because of their insanitary living conditions and unable to pay doctors to make them well again. They’re living in homes their families have lived in for centuries, handing down clothes, even the tools they use in their fields, from generation to generation. For no other reason than that they can’t afford to buy new ones. And now your rich countries are coming along to destroy it all because of the Germans, people from another rich country. They can’t believe that anyone would want to destroy such things. “They must be rich these Americans,” they say, “if they think that someone’s home is so worthless.”
‘It’s strange, but when the Germans were blowing up peoples’ homes for aiding the escaped prisoners they almost thought that it was worthwhile, that they’d made a proper sacrifice.’ He pauses but the captain does not react. ‘And that is my point. If there were local people seen to be doing something to speed up the Germans’ departure, they’d all feel some pride in them. It would make their losses seem more worthwhile.’
‘You mean bring the partisans into action, doctor?’
‘Exactly, Roberto.’
‘But what about reprisals in the village? The Germans say they’ll kill ten hostages for every German shot.’
‘People will think it worth it, if it hurries the day of liberation, and they’ll feel that the people of the village are doing something. They’re starving themselves to make sure the young men are fed and fit. They’ll put up with the bombing better if they think they’re doing something about the Germans themselves. They’ll feel proud again. Besides, knowing you the way we do, the way you value human life, we’re sure you’ll find a way of preventing reprisals.’
‘You mean you want me to lead the partisans? I can’t. I’m still trying to get through the lines. Apart from anything else I’d be able to let the Allies know how weak the Germans are.’
‘Don’t go Roberto. You can do more good here. No, the committee don’t want you to lead. It has to be a local. Vincenzo has been chosen, but he needs yo
ur help, your expertise.’
The captain turns to Vincenzo who smiles, nods his approval of action. He had thought of something in his hours on the mountain, hours of frustration at the Allies’ lack of progress, wondering how to make things more difficult for the Germans without provoking reprisals. Perhaps now is the time. ‘There is something I’ve noticed, doctor, something that could be done at little risk. Every time the bombers come the Germans run for cover; and when the bombers go they come out of hiding and repair the damage. Now what if there was more damage than the bombers had done? More telephone lines down? Vehicles that had only been slightly damaged suddenly burnt to a shell? Sabotage that the Germans thought was bomb damage. All we need to do is collect some shrapnel and leave it at the scene of our work. The Germans won’t have engineers scrutinising the damage; they’re too busy elsewhere. They’ll just clean it up. Partisan action. Partisan success. No risk of reprisals.’
‘Very good, Roberto. I like the idea, but it isn’t a message to the local people. If the Germans don’t know the partisans have done it, neither will they.’
‘I think you’ll find a way of letting them know.’
‘Couldn’t there be the odd German shot by the planes at the same time?’
‘Too dangerous, doctor. No risk if he’s killed, but if he’s only wounded the surgeon will take the bullet out and find it’s the wrong calibre and know it was done by someone local. Ten people shot for nothing gained. We can’t risk that yet, not until the Germans are too preoccupied with other things to detail an execution party. But we’ll get the men trained. Where are the guns, by the way?’
‘You don’t need to know that yet, but there are enough for a hundred men. Ugo’s in charge of that. The Gestapo couldn’t make him talk last time, so I think we can rely on him.’
‘So you want me to train them without guns?’
‘I think it’s better. Some of them would want to be firing them all the time. You wouldn’t want the Germans coming up to investigate the shots, would you?’
‘They’ll be coming up anyway, at least as soon as the weather’s better. They know their workers have been escaping. They’ll suspect they’re up on the mountain, and they won’t want them harrying their retreat when it comes. Besides, they’ve got an Allied radio operator to look for.’
–
The doctor left soon afterwards. The next morning, after a bowl of the cow’s warm milk, they struck up the mountain at dawn.
‘You shouldn’t talk too much to the doctor about reprisals, Roberto. He knows all about them. When the Germans killed a hundred people in that village to the south the doctor’s wife and his baby daughter were there. She was helping a cousin with her childbirth. The Germans burst in with machine guns and killed everyone in the house, even the new-born baby.’
The captain remembered the doctor’s suppressed tears the first time that he had met him. So it was not just political dreams that drove him on.
For the rest of their climb he was lost in thought, trying to remember something the doctor had said the evening before. He wished he knew what he was trying to remember. Was it something that was explained by what Vincenzo had just told him? Or was it something else? Last night his sleep had been disturbed by a sense that he had missed something that was significant.
They were followed up the mountain.
29
They are on a different mountain watching for bombers. They need to know the pattern to their raids so that they can be in place for their sabotage. A clear cold sun is throwing shadows in the valley still in hibernation. The trees by the river are still bare, their shadows barely noticeable against the bare yellowish soil. On the mountains opposite the brown beech trees, still retaining their last year’s leaves, are stark against the snowfields. There is no traffic on the light grey roads, not even an ox-cart.
Then little white puffs, like cotton wool, appear against the blue sky over the mountains to the south, followed by the lightly drumming sound of anti-aircraft fire. They hold their hands against the low sun and slowly a flock of black wings appears against the sky like crows. The wings get bigger and take the shape of planes remorselessly approaching. The anti-aircraft fire stops. As they reach a town to the south black dots fall from all the planes, all at the same time. The planes fly on. Seconds later it is as if the town explodes as bombs detonate within split seconds of each other, sending mushrooms of smoke and dust into the sky. Then the sounds of the explosions rumble down the valley and up the mountainside towards them.
‘Porca puttana’ says Vincenzo. ‘To be under that!’
‘Carpet bombing,’ the captain says. ‘Maximum destruction.’
The planes continue down the valley and pass beneath them, lowering their run now that they know they are unopposed. Enormous khaki planes with great engine pods on their wings, red flashes on their tails, silver stars on their fuselages. The nearest one flies so close to them that they think they can see the face of its pilot, a free man on the captain’s side, clinically plying his trade. The planes swing to starboard and out of sight. A minute later the sound of bombs exploding in Sannessuno comes up to them. The ground seems to vibrate below them. Then the bombers appear again over the spur as they climb, still in tight formation, over the ridge to the north to carry on and drop another stick of bombs on the next town or village.
‘Americans’ says Vincenzo. ‘It was as if we could reach out and touch them. So much power.’
‘No anti-aircraft fire except when they first crossed the lines. No fighters attacking them the whole way. It’s so easy for them. Not even a ninety-ten risk.’
–
‘We were on patrol in the desert, sent out to check if the Germans had moved into a particular area. One day you’re in the area, the next day they’re there, and neither of you has seen the other. So I’d been sent out to check if the Germans were there.
‘We’d driven about thirty miles, had reached the area we were supposed to check, driving behind the ridge along the south side of a wadi, one of those channels that suddenly become rivers if there’s rain. It’s hard to believe it ever rains in a place that’s all grey-yellow sand and grey-purple rocks, but it obviously does because those wadis can be difficult to drive in. So we stayed behind the ridge to one side of it, stopping every so often so I could check the horizons with my binoculars for Germans.
‘Once, when we stopped, we caught the sound of a vehicle behind the ridge on the other side of the wadi. Another time we saw it for a split second, a British truck. It seemed strange that our superiors had sent out two patrols on identical missions, but you sometimes wonder what mistakes they’ll make next. The officer on the other side of the wadi must have seen us and was probably thinking the same thing. And looking at our maps we knew that the wadi came to an end a couple of miles further on, the ridges would flatten out and we’d meet up and have a good laugh at the folly of our senior officers.
‘We were in a captured German half-track vehicle, the kind with tank tracks instead of rear wheels, so you can move easily on the sand. In hundreds of miles of desert, with no water holes, there’s no such thing as lines unless you’re in a pitched battle. Vehicles get captured and, because you’ve never enough transport in a place like that, you just paint out the enemy’s colours on them and substitute your own. Or they get abandoned because they’re broken down. If your mechanics can fix one the Germans have left behind, despite the sabotage they’d have done to it, well suddenly you have a British army lorry made in Germany.
‘We came round the end of the ridge at the same time as he did, three or four hundred yards apart. I ordered my driver to stop so that I could check him through my binoculars. He did the same. I saw a black cross painted on his British army truck at the same time as he saw British insignia painted on my German one.
‘Each of us ordered his machine gunner to cock and aim and then held out his arm to hold the fire as he studied the other through his glasses.
‘Then the German officer took his
right hand from his glasses and saluted me. I saluted him back. Together we ordered our gunners to relax and gestured our drivers to turn round. Then each of us drove back to his base.’
‘Why didn’t you open fire, Roberto?’
‘That’s just what my major asked when I got back, Ugo. I said that I’d been ordered to find out if the Germans were there, which I’d done. He now had the intelligence report he’d wanted, which he wouldn’t have had if I’d been shot up. That if there’d been a fire-fight and the German had won, then the Germans would have had better intelligence than he had. As it was, both sides knew that the other was only at the stage of recce’ing the area, rather than the Germans knowing the area was free to move into and us knowing nothing.’
‘You mean you worked all that out, Roberto, while you were deciding whether to open fire?’
‘Of course not. All I knew was that I’d been taken by surprise to find out he was German, that therefore I’d no more than a chance of surviving a fire-fight. As it turned out, although I didn’t know it at the time, it was exactly fifty-fifty because he was equally surprised to find out that I was English.
‘That’s what I mean when I say that, if you have the choice whether or not to fight, never take the chance unless it’s at least sixty-forty in your favour.’
‘I can’t believe a German did that’ says Ugo. ‘They like killing. You’ve only got to look at what they’ve been doing round here.’
‘It’s different around here. Out in the desert there’s no place for partisans, no civilians who might be carrying arms or supplies or information to them. There aren’t even any civilians. There war is fought to the old rules, like a game of chess with guns. Here the Germans see every civilian as a threat to their ability to fight. And he is.’
‘Why are you sticking up for them, Roberto?’
‘I’m not. I’m telling you how they think. If you don’t know how they think, how are you going to outwit them? And my story tells you something else as well. The Germans work to the same rule of sixty-forty. They don’t want to die. And now that they can see they’re going to lose the war, the ordinary German soldier wants nothing more than to be at home with his family again, or back on his farm. That will work in our favour as well if we remember it.’