by Anthony Paul
–
There is still snow in the beech forest above them. They are killing time. In the mornings the captain teaches them the tricks of mountain war: retreating at a signal and leading one’s pursuers into a barrage of fire over the next ridge; using a single sniper on the far side of the valley until the enemy takes up his positions to fire back and then firing down into his ranks from behind; making sure both sides of an ambush are firing down, to stop you shooting each other. The tricks of sabotage: always leave something behind to suggest that it isn’t sabotage, shrapnel from a bomb. Always make sure that the enemy’s field-telephone lines are cut, so that he cannot summon help.
In the afternoons the men play cards while the captain scouts the mountains and Salvatore slowly cooks their food on the fire they will stoke up for warmth as the cold moist evening falls.
Animal tracks have started to appear in the snow in the runs through the forest as the animals slowly rise from their hibernation. Salvatore and Bruno are hunters from childhood and trap the occasional squirrel or rabbit for the beanpot that simmers for days on end. In the evenings they exchange hunters’ tales of deer and foxes and wild boar. ‘Oh yes, there are wild boar on the mountain. They’re big things, and fierce, and they move fast, faster then you’d imagine for something so big. My father came upon one once. He couldn’t turn and run because it would have run him down and thrust its tusks into his backside. He had to stand still and wait for it to lose interest. It took ages, and did he need a drink when he got home! Wouldn’t it be good to find one now? It would be worth a rifle shot, even if the Germans heard it. It would feed us all for days. Good meat too. Better than these squirrels for giving a man his strength again.’
Vincenzo has found a second hut to rebuild for the more young men who are sure to come as the weather improves, but the captain remains concerned about too many men being in the same place. As often or not he slips back to his hide to sleep, fearing another German dawn attack. It is far colder in the hide, but his feet are warmed by the Golvis’ cat. Dismayed as only cats can be at not being fed, it had left the family that had sheltered it as a kitten and set off in search of better service. It had seen the captain on his leaving of Vincenzo’s house and followed him up the mountain. Once again his feet are warm at night.
–
‘When will this god-forgotten spring come?’ sighs Vincenzo. ‘You’ll see the change in these lads when the trees are out in leaf. It’ll be easier to hunt, easier to hide on this mountain, easier to fight, and the Germans will be on the run and we’ll be free again.
‘You’ll see, Roberto, they’ll all be starting to look at the girls again. They’ve no time or energy for it now. Too much of a distraction. They’re too busy concentrating on staying alive. But as soon the Germans are gone they’ll all be wanting to get married, to have babies to bounce on their knees. So will the girls.
‘But how many of them will be able to have children after a winter like this one?’
30
Sometimes when he looks down from one of the higher spurs to the village in the sun the area around and beyond the bridge looks like an ant colony. The bombed buildings in the distance are yellowish-grey cones rising from a base of the same colour, edged by the green of the water-meadows. The villagers are black dots scrambling around, in and out of the ruins.
Today a column of ants is moving across the bridge to the railway station. More ants are moving from their hills on the far side of the bridge, all converging on the station. In the siding are some goods wagons, like a child’s model, surrounded by black specks.
A wagon is separated from the train and pushed backwards down the track by the seething black mass.
Then the ants suddenly radiate outwards like the rings on a pond into which a stone has been thrown.
The crack of a rifle volley comes up the mountainside, followed by echo after echo from the cliffs across the river.
–
‘Word went round that the train was full of food supplies’ said Ugo. ‘Soldiers were seen unloading bags of flour. What did they think would happen in a village that hasn’t seen a loaf of bread for weeks? Everyone in the village was there within minutes, hoping it was for the people. The soldiers unslung their rifles, told them to keep back. “Give us food. We’re starving” people shouted out. The mayor was called, told to tell the crowd the food was needed for the gallant soldiers defending Italy. “We’re starving” the people cried again.
‘With so many people around it was easy for us to slip amongst them. Bruno and one of the other men got underneath one of the wagons and uncoupled it. It began slipping away on the gradient. Some of the villagers saw it happening and in no time the crowd was swarming around the wagon, unloading the flour. It was like chaos, a mass of people fighting each other to get at the flour. Then the Germans fired. Not above our heads, but into the crowd. Three people were killed, many more wounded.
‘Everyone scattered. We got away in the crowd. So did lots of bags of flour.’
‘Three dead, many more wounded,’ said the captain, ‘all for a few bags of flour. Was it worth it?’
‘How many people were killed by each of those American bombs, Roberto?’ asked Vincenzo. ‘People lost food to those bombs, didn’t gain it. Don’t you see that the people were doing something to help themselves? It gave them hope that they could do something. And they knew that we were behind it. It showed them that their partisans were doing something for them, trying to help them, trying to make life more difficult for the Germans.’
‘Didn’t it also tell the Germans that the young men were organised against them? They’ll come up here looking for us.’
‘Why, Roberto? How would they know? So far as the Germans are concerned it was just a riot that happened on the spur of the moment. Why should they think otherwise? No-one will tell them. Just as no-one’s told them about their precious Capitano Inglese. It’s a victory for the people. And a victory for the partisans you’ve been telling to do nothing until the Allies come.’
–
There were twenty jubilant men in the camp that night. A few fired their carbines into the air before Vincenzo could stop them. They tucked voraciously into a meal of rabbit and squirrel stew and spent the evening boasting each other’s role in the raid on the station.
The captain had to admit that their morale was high at last. But it could lead to complacency, and the Germans might well have their suspicions about who had uncoupled the freight wagon. It was, after all, young men’s work. He slipped away to sleep in his hide. The cat was not there. His feet stayed cold that night.
31
The snow at the lowest edge of the beech forest has been melting for two afternoons now. Primroses have started appearing a dazzling yellow amongst the dull leaves of last autumn compacted by the snow. No wind yet to tease them up and skittle them around. As the three partisans walk downhill the sound of water slowly gurgling its way down into the valley is all around them. ‘Soon,’ says Ugo, ‘soon. Let’s go and look at the village.’
Sannessuno in its warming sun is different today, the buildings less grey. Along the river banks the poplars are showing colour, some the reddish tinge that means the buds are shooting, others the orange tinge of their first leaves. The meadows are waterlogged by the water come down from the slopes and not yet drained into the river. On the ground above them the grass is showing patterns of light green growth. Even the lower beech trees below the snow fields on the mountains opposite are showing a purplish tinge that was not there before. ‘It’s coming, at last’ says Vincenzo. ‘Spring. And when it’s here your army will come.’
The valley is so quiet today that they can hear the engine of the petrol tanker truck labouring up the mountain-side to the col on the far side of the valley. Its driver is crashing his gears as he changes down to negotiate its hairpin bends, racing them to maintain his momentum as the engine falls back each time he changes up to try to increase his speed out of the bend and up the hill.
&nbs
p; ‘He’s in a hurry’ says Ugo. ‘He’s got a full load, and he knows he’s a sitting target if an Allied plane comes. What an explosion there’d be! He must be saying his prayers.’ He laughs. ‘Look, Roberto, his passenger’s out of the door, standing on the running board, looking up at the sky. He must be shitting himself with fear.’
The three partisans are also scanning the sky for planes, willing them to come, like farmers willing a cloud to come after weeks of drought. ‘There!’ shouts Vincenzo, pointing to the south. ‘He’s got the sun behind him. They won’t have seen him yet.’ They turn and watch the speck grow larger down the valley, closing on its prey. ‘A Spitfire!’ Already they can hear it clearly, but the men in the truck, deafened by the roar of their own straining engine, will never hear it.
The plane banks down into the valley, swings below them to make its pass. They see its pilot through his canopy hood, admire as from above the beauty of its elliptic wings, camouflaged brown and green except for the red and blue roundels. They will it into the steep turn back again to race along the road the truck is on. The Germans have seen it now, stopped their truck, leapt from it, and are running for their lives as far from the road as they can. Puffs of dust rise up in sequence as the pilot’s strafing starts. He misses the truck and swings away from the mountain, arcs away in a steep banking loop, the lines and colours of his plane clear against the snow, and races in for his second pass, his engine throating and whining in turn. He comes in again on a higher line and his cannons once more bark out, dust from the road once more puffs up, and then the truck explodes. An orange fireball leaps into the air and falls back onto where the truck had been and a cloud of blackening smoke starts billowing upwards. The partisans on their spur take off their caps and cheer, oblivious to who in the valley below might see or hear them. No-one will. All eyes in the valley are on the blazing wreck on the opposite mountain-side. All ears are hearing the explosion echoing and echoing off the valley walls.
‘To think,’ says Ugo, ‘that we used to fear those Spitfires. The best fighter planes in the world, swooping down on our columns in the desert. Now that we and the English are on the same side they’re the most beautiful sight on earth. Even if the Germans had any fighters left to defend this valley they wouldn’t stand a chance. Did you see how it turned so tightly, so fast?’ The German driver and his mate have emerged from their cover, are dusting themselves down, looking at the black smoke and shattered metal of their truck. ‘Just think, if we had rifles we could shoot them now and the Germans in the valley would assume they’d been killed by that plane.’
–
That night over soup all agreed that it had been the best day for months. The Spitfire’s victory had cheered them all, and it was more significant that the Allies had now brought fighter planes up to the front. It meant that they were preparing to harry the German retreat, and every mission would mean that the pilot took back information on how weak the Germans were. Maybe it also meant that there would be fewer bombing raids on the villages. And then there had been the first signs of spring in the valley, more animal tracks seen in the snow above the camp, meaning more game to trap and eat. A good day.
The captain asked if anyone had seen his cat. ‘Didn’t you know? It was in the stew the other night. Perhaps you didn’t. You did say the rabbit was good.’
32
The captain is sitting on a spur near the old camp waiting for Luigi. Tomorrow is the boy’s birthday, the day he reaches military age, the day he can be impressed into the Germans’ labour gangs. Today when he brings up the captain’s food he will not go home. He will become a partisan.
Late April. At noon he does not need his coat. The sun between the clouds is warm on his back, piebalds the moorlands yellow and blue. The western slopes of the mountain are clear of snow up to and beyond the highest beech trees. Across the valley on the easterly side, which only sees the colder morning sun, the snow is still a long way down the mountains, but is retreating a little further each day, leaving no more than streaks in the gullies that had filled with the winter’s avalanches. Up here the trees are not yet even in bud but down in the valley it is getting greener each day. Every day it is getting easier for the Allies to advance, each day has longer daylight for their planes. Each night is shorter for the Germans to move their traffic. Hope is growing despite the dwindling stocks of food.
He does not need so much to eat now that it is warmer. Luigi will have no bread to give him, only boiled potatoes, maybe an onion, but it will feed him for another day nearer liberation. He has brought his Ovid to read but cannot concentrate on it. He is counting the days until the partisans move into action. The time for killing time with scholarship is past. Besides, sitting on the spur he has to stay alert for danger.
There is movement below him. Two distant figures are climbing the slope. Why is Elvira with Luigi? As they draw nearer the woman is taller, has a younger step, and the man too is far too tall to be Luigi. Danger? He backs away from the spur, watching behind him all the way, crouches into some scrub lower down the slope and waits for the arrivals to betray who they are.
All is silent for a few minutes. Are the people searching the camp? Then a female voice rings out from the crest above him: ‘Roberto! Roberto! Are you here?’
Isabella. Why is she here? How does she know that he is still around, that she can find him here? Hadn’t Elvira told her he’d left for the lines, never come back?
‘Roberto!’ her voice rings out again. ‘Don’t worry. Signora Golvi sent us. I’m here with Alfonso. No-one else knows we’ve come. Roberto, are you here? Please answer. Something terrible has happened.’
He slinks back up the slope to join them, watching for danger all the way. Alfonso is looking nervously around, clearly relieved by his arrival. Isabella, oblivious to her brother’s fear and released by the end of her climb to worry, is sobbing. ‘Luigi’s been taken by the Germans.’
‘But his birthday’s not until tomorrow. What happened?’
Alfonso speaks as his sister starts to cry again: ‘They came just before dawn. Obviously they were afraid he’d run away today. Some Germans came with the carabinieri, afraid they’d make a mess of things, leave the back of the house uncovered. We heard them hammering on the door, then the carabinieri apologising to his mother, but orders were orders, they were sure she would understand. While they were talking Luigi hopped out of a window at the back, straight into the arms of a couple of Germans. All that for one sixteen year old boy.’
‘But they can’t take a sixteen year old boy.’
‘If the Germans tell them to there’s nothing they can do. Signor Golvi went to the mayor and told him it was against the law. The mayor told him Luigi wouldn’t be required to work today, so it wasn’t illegal. The things we’ve come to! When the fascists came to power it was all about law and order. That’s why my father supported them. Now they kidnap sixteen year old boys. Something must be done.’
‘I never thought I’d hear you say those words. You know what they mean?’
‘Of course I do. They’re the anti-fascists’ slogan. That’s why I said them.’
‘In your fascist militia breeches?’
‘I’ve told you before, they’re my safe conduct pass when the Germans are around. How do you think I got out of the village in broad daylight? Mind you, they’re hardly a safe conduct pass in these mountains.’ He looks up to the peak behind the captain, scanning the rocks.
So Alfonso knew that there were men with guns up here, or at least assumed it.
‘Unless you’re my safe conduct pass up here?’ Alfonso adds enigmatically.
Is he joking or fishing? ‘You can’t expect me to respond to that.’
‘Still as cautious as when we first met, Roberto? I’d have hoped you’d have known us better by now.’
Joking or fishing? It was a silly thing to joke about in the circumstances. He turns away and looks out over the valley. ‘Suppose you’re right,’ he says distractedly, ‘and we’re surrounded
by a hundred armed partisans, with their carbines levelled at us? Where does that put me, talking to you in your breeches, betraying them to a fascist?’
‘Oh stop it, you two!’ Isabella snivels. ‘Can’t you see he’s only joking, Roberto?’
‘What’s so important about the fascist militia?’ Alfonso huffs. ‘They’ve done nothing in the village since the Armistice. The major’s a coward. He’s afraid of being strung up by the communists when the Germans go. He’s the partisans’ best ally. Whenever the Germans ask him if they’re still around he tells them no. They didn’t believe him last December. They didn’t even tell him they’d found out about the camp. When they raided it he told them he’d heard a rumour the day before about some deserters and was about to come round to them to tell them the very morning of the raid. It’s a spent force. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Then why do you wear the breeches?’
‘I told you why.’
‘But the locals still remember what the militia used to do. I feel sick looking at those black stripes. They’re a provocation, particularly to the people you obviously think are up here. I can’t believe you’re wearing them.’ He turns and looks up to the rocks above them. ‘Perhaps we should sit down. It’ll make us a smaller target.’ He flops to the ground, leans back on his palms, scans the higher rocks.
‘Stop it!’ shrieks Isabella. She falls to her knees, pinching the backs of her hands between them. ‘Even if you’re joking, Roberto, it’s not fair. We’re your friends.’ She starts to cry again and wipes her eyes on the toe of her scarf.
‘I’m sorry, but it wasn’t a very good joke of Alfonso’s. I’m hardly living like a king up here. It’s dangerous as well as hard. Surely he realises that there are things it’s better not to know?’