Where the Hell Have You Been?

by Tom Carver

  Slowly, the sun began to penetrate the canopy of trees and warm their stiff bodies. Below them they could still hear the occasional crackle of the German sentry’s radio. They wondered which direction to take. Then an explosion of noise, and a boy burst through the undergrowth a few feet away. He stopped, panting heavily, and sobbing. It seemed impossible that the German sentry had not heard him.

  In the noise and confusion, Jim and Richard had recoiled like animals, scrambling back into the brambles, trying to disappear. The boy seemed too preoccupied to notice. Then a few seconds later, another bigger figure appeared, holding a hunting rifle. Richard thought for a moment that the man intended to shoot the boy, but then he saw them move together, whispering. They were debating something – the man was clearly trying to calm the boy down. The two of them knelt in the undergrowth.

  Richard and Jim lay there unable to move, listening to them argue as if they were watching a play. The boy looked no more than fourteen years old, his face rigid with panic. Suddenly, they stood up, having clearly decided on a course of action. As they started to move off, still talking, the boy tripped on Richard’s left foot.

  Being taller than Jim, Richard had been unable to get his whole body inside the bramble bush. The boy stared at the strange army boot for a moment as if he had forgotten something, then grabbed hold of it and pulled fiercely. “Get up, get up,” he whispered. “Who are you?” Instantly the man lifted the hunting rifle and aimed it at them, his finger on the trigger.

  “Siamo inglesi,” said Richard rapidly. “We’re English officers.” Jim and Richard stood up fast, shaking off the boy’s grip, to show they weren’t armed.

  “We’re prisoners of war, we’re trying to get home.”

  No one spoke. The two peasants eyed the fugitives warily.

  “There is a German patrol coming down this path,” said the man rapidly as he lowered the gun. It was all he had time to say for, as if conjuring them up, the outlines of three German soldiers appeared on the track twenty yards above them. Richard realised they were pushing a large reluctant pig ahead of them. They were waving a stick in the air to keep the pig moving forward.

  The four of them immediately crouched down, Richard and Jim squatting while the two Italians knelt.

  “That’s our pig,” fumed the teenage boy. “The bastards stole it and we’re going to get it back.” Despite his bravado, the boy was shaking.

  Richard sucked in his breath and glanced at Jim; it was clear he was on a suicidal mission. The boy whispered rapidly into the ear of the man, who raised the rifle once more to his shoulder, this time aiming it up the track at the Germans. The three young soldiers continued walking slowly towards them, slipping on the loose chalk, urging the pig on in German and chatting.

  Richard shut his eyes, sickened. Having survived all this time, and just when he was so close to the end, his fate rested in the hands of a teenage boy. He had thought perhaps he would get captured and sent to Germany or shot while trying to escape, but never thought he would die in the crossfire over a stolen pig.

  The Germans were now less than twenty feet away. Richard could see the insignia clearly on the collars of their jackets and their young faces under their helmets. Their |attention was taken up by the pig, as it waddled from one side of the track to the other, pulling at any green leaves it could find and doing all it could to delay the journey.

  As the soldiers reached the bend where the four of them lay hiding, Richard and Jim lowered their heads into the brambles. Richard could see Jim stealthily adjust his position to get ready to run and did the same.

  They heard the clanking of the Germans’ heavy backpacks and rifles as they herded the pig around the corner. Any moment now. Richard braced himself for the shot. But none came. A few seconds later the Germans had vanished. Slowly, Richard and Jim lifted their heads and stared at the two Italians in confusion. The man lowered his gun and stood up carefully.

  “Mi chiamo Antonio,” he whispered softly and stuck out his hand. Richard took it, shaking it dumbly. The man laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “And this is Alfonso,” he said, “my brave nephew.” The man smiled and Alfonso looked a little sheepish, still panting from the adrenaline.

  Richard and Jim smiled back in relief. No explanation was offered as to why they hadn’t opened fire.

  “Come to the farm this evening,” Antonio whispered, “and we will feed you.”

  He pointed back up the track to a farmhouse just visible at the top of the track on the left. There was a burst of radio static from the German sentry post and the two Italians slipped away.

  “Jeez,” said Jim in his flat Cape accent. “That was bloody close.”

  *

  Richard and Jim retreated to a more protected spot and debated whether to take up Antonio’s offer. To stay and wait for nightfall meant a whole day sitting in damp woods. On the other hand, any movement by day was clearly risky now. They decided it was better to rest and perhaps find out more about the German positions from the family since they had clearly reached the front line.

  When they went to the farmhouse that evening, however, to their disappointment the family told them little they didn’t already know. The family consisted of an elderly bedridden father, an active mother with a severe stoop and three sons: Giovanni, Donato and Antonio – the one with the gun. In addition to them, Giovanni’s wife Maria and their three sons were living with them – one of whom was Alfonso, the boy who’d tripped over Richard in the woods. Donato had one son too. In all, ten people were crowded into just two rooms, struggling to survive.

  Giovanni showed Jim and Richard the hole that they had dug in the garden to hide their food from the Germans. Inside was a pitifully small pile of dried pasta, pearl barley and wheat and a few glass jars containing tomatoes. That night, however, there was no suggestion of turning the visitors away. The De Gregorios, like most contadini, had no desire to see the Fascism of Mussolini replaced by a German occupation. They insisted their two guests sat in the chairs closest to the fire in the kitchen and were served first. Supper was a single ladle of pasta with a small quantity of tomato sauce.

  Richard tried out his Italian with Donato, who appeared to be the most educated of the brothers and, Richard sensed, the most willing to help. Donato explained that he lived in Naples. Nervous of being conscripted by the Germans, he had come back to the family farm, bringing his seven-year-old son with him, though leaving his wife behind. It had clearly not been an easy decision to make.

  “There’s more food here than there is in the cities,” he said.

  “If you want to rest, you are welcome to stay here until the Allies arrive,” Donato offered, implying that it was only a matter of sitting in this warm farmhouse for a few days until the Allies walked up the track. But when Richard asked him about the German presence he was less sanguine.

  “Every day more German troops arrive in the area,” he conceded.

  After supper, Richard and Jim conferred about what to do and decided that they could not afford to stay there if the Germans were building up their troop levels in the area. Every day increased the chances of capture. Richard thanked Donato for his offer but explained that they had decided to “make a bid for it” that night. When Richard got up to say goodbye, as he had done so often before, he hoped it would be the last time they had to beg a meal.

  Everyone accompanied them to the door. To Richard’s dismay, the sky had cleared. The De Gregorios’ tiny farmyard was filled with moonlight, throwing deep shadows under the apple trees. Richard stared at the family’s handcart; he could make out every rivulet in the paintwork. The chalk track the Germans had pushed the pig down that morning burned a bright phosphorescent white. They set off but it wasn’t long before their confidence wavered; it seemed foolhardy to attempt a run to the front line in such conditions.

  We hadn’t gone far when we decided that it was taking too big a risk… so regretfully we turned back to Donato’s house to accept his kind offer, beli
eving that it would only be for a few days.

  When he and Jim reappeared at the kitchen door, Richard could see the look of fear on the De Gregorios’ faces. Though they had all heard Donato’s offer, they had all clearly hoped it would be declined. The family had lost their only pig that day and now, as Alfonso’s mother Maria muttered bitterly, “We have to find food for two more adults.”

  If the Germans found them sheltering Allied officers, the farm would be burnt down and the family would lose everything. Donato was the only one who seemed genuinely delighted to see them again.

  “Tonight you can sleep in the barn,” he said, “but tomorrow you must go to the woods. You can sleep here at night but it is too dangerous for you to stay here in the day.” The next morning they were woken by the sounds of a fierce argument. Assuming it was about them, Richard and Jim tried to make themselves inconspicuous in the small kitchen, but as he listened more, Richard realised that the family was arguing about the pig. It was Maria who had ordered Alfonso and Antonio to recover the pig. It seemed she’d been willing to risk the life of her fourteen year old son for a pig, not out of affection for the animal but out of desperation. One large pig could keep a family in salami and bacon all year, but more importantly, this pig had recently produced a litter of eighteen piglets. She was clearly very distressed that they had failed to recover the animal.

  “The babies will starve without their mother,” said Maria. “One of you is going to have to go to Roccascalegna and tell the Germans that we must have the pig back.” It turned out that the Germans had been collecting livestock from the surrounding farms for several weeks and bringing it to the nearby village of Roccascalegna where they had set up their headquarters. They had put up a makeshift slaughterhouse and some kind of mobile canning plant which they had brought from Germany.

  It was said that after the meat was canned, it was sent back to Germany where it was passed onto the divisions stumbling through the Russian snows on the Second Front.

  “They will have killed it by now,” mumbled Giovanni, her husband. “It’s too late to do anything.” Maria was clearly not convinced; she turned on the men, berating them for not having the guts to get it back. Then she began pulling on her coat.

  “If you are all too scared to go, I’ll go,” she said. No one stopped her. She marched past Richard and Jim without even acknowledging them and disappeared out of the door.

  After breakfast, Alfonso said he knew a cave in the woods where he’d played where they could spend the day. The idea made Richard’s heart sink; he thought of all those POWs he’d encountered sitting in caves waiting to be rescued.

  The boy raced in front, rejuvenated by his new mission. Ten minutes later he was calling softly to them from the top of an outcrop of rock. The “cave” turned out to consist of six giant boulders which lay one on top of the other in a ragged pyramid. In between, where saplings and brambles had grown up, was a dark slit of an opening which could only be reached by clambering up the side of one boulder and peering over the lip.

  The slit slanted down a steep angle between the boulders, appearing to go right into the heart of the pyramid. High bushes obscured the entrance so that it was invisible unless you actually knew what you were looking for. Above it stood a small promontory of rock which rose out of the trees like a bulbous forehead.

  Cross-section of the cave, drawn by Richard

  As they pushed their way in, Richard and Jim realised the slit did a sharp left turn around a boulder. They could see daylight at the other end; if needed perhaps they could get out that way in an emergency by clambering over a thick bush. The disadvantage, as they soon discovered, was that the cave was not waterproof. The limestone rock was porous and during heavy downpours water would drip through in several places as well as pour down the sides of the boulders.

  Before he left, Alfonso pointed out the German signal cable, the same one that Richard and Jim had stumbled upon, running along the bottom of the valley less than a 100 yards away.

  “It’s the Germans’ main communication between their front line and the rear area on this part of the battlefront. And it’s well guarded,” he warned, “though the sentry seems to have gone.”

  Glumly, Richard and Jim moved in.

  “I hate the idea of staying still,” said Richard.

  “It’ll only be for a couple of days,” Jim reassured him, “until the moon has waned.”

  14.

  “SO BEGAN THE long and tedious period of waiting…” Richard wrote. The next few days passed very slowly. Richard missed the Dean and his easy stream of chatter and observations. Though he felt sure that Jim wouldn’t hesitate to risk his life for him if he had to, he showed little interest in wanting to talk. The floor of the cave was full of rocky debris, leaving limited space to lie down. Jim spent hours crouching silently on his haunches, either meditating or asleep under his army poncho. The Italians called him “basso” due to his short stocky frame and were amazed at how he continued to wear shorts like a South African farmer on all but the coldest days.

  Every evening they would go up to the farmhouse, where they were given supper by the family, before walking across the yard to the barn to fall asleep. Donato gave them some paper and pencils that he had kept from Naples to while away the time in the cave. Richard wrote lists: everyone he was with in camp, everyone he could remember from Charterhouse, all the books he had read, all the saints he knew. When he had exhausted that, he invented crossword puzzles which he would offer to Jim to solve.

  Jim’s favourite game was to draw up categories of things and choose a letter and write down birds beginning with R or capital cities beginning with S. Jim always won the nature questions while Richard won history and current affairs.

  Years later, I would come to know this as “the geography game”: pieces of paper would be handed round the family every Christmas time, and everyone would take it in turns to suggest a category, then someone would open a book at random and with eyes closed, put their finger on a letter. We had fifteen minutes to name as many plants, trees, countries, rivers, mountains, prime ministers as we could. My father seemed to have a limitless supply of names of rivers; only later did it occur to me that he might have learnt them from Jim. Once I suggested football teams as a category but was firmly told that was inappropriate.

  *

  The days passed monotonously and with little incident. Sometimes they saw Allied planes pass overhead and the German guns round about would open up. Sometimes they heard bombing or artillery coming from the Allied lines. They had only one book in English: Aunt Bulley’s New Testament that Richard had faithfully carried in his knapsack from camp.

  In the evenings, Donato came and took them from the cave back to the farmhouse, where they would get warm by the fire and have a good meal of minestra, then smoke and chat with him until retiring to the barn and their bed of straw.

  Gradually the family adjusted to the presence of the men. On the third evening they noticed, when they went to bed in the barn, that the old sow had reappeared, surrounded once more by her large squealing litter. Maria had a broad smile on her face. Astonished, Richard asked what had happened. Maria, good as her word, had walked to Roccascalegna and demanded an audience with the German commander. She had explained that his soldiers had taken a pig that had just given birth to eighteen piglets and if he returned the pig, she would be able to give him not one but several pigs in the next few months to support the brave troops fighting in Russia. The German commander accepted the undeniable logic of the proposition and ordered the pig to be released.

  Richard and Jim never made a conscious decision to stay in the cave – it just happened incrementally. Each day brought another reason not to move – bad weather, reports from the village of large numbers of German troops manoeuvring, radio reports showing that the English army had been unable to advance across the Sangro.

  The De Gregorios did not possess a radio but they would bring news back of the Eighth Army from listening to Radio Bari i
n neighbours’ houses. Richard often wondered if Monty had any idea where he was. A year had passed since he had disappeared. And he assumed that, while Monty had known that he was in Fontanellato, he may now no longer believe he was alive.

  In fact, Monty was doing all he could to find out what had happened to his stepson and had a pretty good sense of what was going on. He had set up his headquarters at Paglieta on the southern bank of the Sangro, which was ten miles by crow’s flight from Richard’s cave. A slow trickle of POWs continued to arrive there from the north. And Monty had given orders that all Allied POWs who came across the front line be questioned about his stepson’s whereabouts.

  “I have had several bits of news from escaped prisoners about Dick Carver,” Monty wrote on 20th November 1943 to the Reynoldses. “I think there is no doubt he is at large and is hanging about waiting for our advance to overrun the place he is in. If my information is correct he is somewhere just north of the Pescara River, he must have walked a long way as I think his camp was up somewhere in northern Italy in the Po valley. It would be a grand thing if we can rescue him before Xmas. You might let Mrs Bailey know the above news; also Mrs Mather.”

  *

  As time went on, Richard became increasingly fond of Donato. Having lived in Naples, Donato had a much broader understanding of the war and the world than most of the contadini. Richard looked forward to each evening when they could walk up through the woods to the farmhouse and sit by the fire. Donato would tell stories about Naples and sometimes sing Neapolitan stories in a soft tuneful voice.

  Donato was very good company, Not deeply religious but a sincere liberalist and humanitarian. Though a native of Abruzzo he talked beautiful Italian.