by Alan Evans
She paused then and Smith guessed what was coming. She went on, no longer dispassionate but bitter, ‘Edward was killed. I never saw him again. He was twenty-two and knew nothing of war but he rushed to volunteer like all the others.’
Smith said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He was, though he had said it and written it too many times.
Her fingers tightened around the mug. ‘That’s what the letter said, or something like it. “It is with deep regret” —’ She stopped and sighed, said, ‘Anyway that’s why I bought the yacht and the car and rented the house in Venice; because of Edward. I wanted to do something for the ordinary soldiers and sailors, the men who actually do the fighting, something to ease their hardships. The Italians have done practically nothing for their fighting men, there are no canteens such as the British Army has. So in Sybil I cruise up and down the coast to the men dug in there and I have a car on the mainland at Mestre that I drive up to the front line inland. Wherever I go I take chocolate and cigarettes and hand them out. It’s not much but I think — I hope — it helps.’ She smiled, self-mocking. ‘That’s why they call me an angel of mercy, and I think the soldiers gave me the title of Contessa because I always dress up a bit. It would probably be more sensible to wear old clothes and boots. Silly, isn’t it?’
Smith looked at her. ‘No. I think you are probably worshipped, and the name they have given you goes to show it.’ Contessa? She would be a vision of beauty to a man coming weary, filthy and shocked from the line, a sign that another, better world still existed outside the trenches.
Something of that must have shown in his face. There was an awkward silence. Then Helen Blair said quietly, ‘That strange boat — it’s to do with your orders, whatever they are?’
‘Yes.’
‘You aren’t going back to Venice.’
‘No.’
‘What about returning the ammunition barge there?’
‘I don’t know.’ He had not thought about it. He was surprised that she was alert to such details. With a shrug he said, ‘I’ll have to leave it.’
‘We’ll tow it back.’
‘You think you can?’
The girl said with forced lightness, ‘We’ve an engine because I’m a lazy sailor; we never use the sails. And my crew are — experienced. We can tow it.’
‘Well — thank you.’ At least they would not be able to charge him with the loss of the barge. He grinned at himself for worrying about one empty barge with what lay ahead of them.
The girl asked, ‘When — when will you be back?’
‘In about thirty-six hours.’ Their heads were very close, leaning over the table. He told himself that tonight she was just showing ordinary courtesy towards him, that she was really as distant from him as ever. Just the same, he felt…
Helen Blair sat back from the table and said quickly, ‘I must make some coffee for the men.’
Smith was reluctant to leave her but that was an obvious hint. He rose to his feet, bent again under the deckhead. ‘I’ll go and see how Balestra is getting on.’
She smiled at him and he left the warmth of the cabin, climbed back on the jetty and went to the Flying-Fish. He found Zacco and Balestra had transferred one of the
torpedoes from Zacco’s MAS and now we’re working on the other. There was nothing Smith could do.
He became aware again of the flashes tearing at the night sky, the vicious cracking of the field battery just north of the river. And there was a light above the river — that would be at the end of the bridge. He could just see the bridge and movement on it. Curious, he walked back along the jetty through the swarming ammunition party. It was raining still, a light rain but very cold on his face. It made the timbers of the wharf greasy so the men handling the heavy shells and charges from the barge to the waiting wagons slipped and skidded and swore. A loaded wagon rumbled over the boards of the jetty and he followed it as it bounced on to the dirt track at the end of it. The track wound between the houses, silent and dark, then came out on a narrow road where a wooden bridge crossed the river. The wagon turned left, forcing a way into the crowd that shuffled along the road, heading south. Smith stared after it, wondering because the front was to the north.
Close by Smith at the end of the bridge a lamp hung and beneath it stood a group of carabinieri, military police with rifles slung over their shoulders, their cocked hats worn across their heads and gleaming wetly in the lamplight. They looked suspiciously at Smith. The light spilled across the road and washed yellow over the crowd passing over the bridge, a river of people flowing slowly to the south under the rain. He stared, suddenly sick at heart.
Here and there was a donkey-drawn cart piled high with furniture and bundles, women and children perched on top. Some were pushing or pulling barrows loaded with their belongings but most trudged along under huge loads slung on their backs or over their shoulders. Old men, women, children, their backs turned to the guns that hammered in the north, their faces set to the south and blank with misery.
Smith realised he was seeing refugees; this was the people of a countryside in flight. He had heard the word but never witnessed the reality. There were soldiers among the slow flood washing past him, soldiers tramping weary-legged and plastered with mud, heads down and thumbs hooked in the shoulder straps of the packs and the slings of the rifles.
He stood there a long time watching the stumbling procession, silent but for the occasional weeping of an old woman, the fractious crying of a weary child. And this was just one road. The scene must be repeated at this moment on every road across the fifty or more miles of front stretching from the sea into the mountains.
He forced himself to turn away and walk back to the jetty. There was nothing he could do for these people. Their fate was just one more of the curses of war.
When he walked out along the jetty he found Helen Blair among the men at work there. A group of them clustered around her, passing their mugs for the girl to fill from the big coffee-pot she carried. One of the two Swiss stood by, beaming, holding a basket filled with chocolate bars and packets of cigarettes. Helen Blair saw Smith and called, ‘Is there a road up there? Any soldiers in position?’
‘Not in position but there are soldiers and — and refugees.’ Even the word was strange to him.
Helen Blair nodded briskly. ‘I’ll go there later.’
Smith said, ‘Remember we’ve got to be clear of this place before it’s light.’ He passed on, thinking that the Contessa might bring some cheer to the people he had seen on the road. Buckley appeared before him and Smith halted.
‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I’ve got you a blanket and there’s some o’ that canvas in the corner o’ the cockpit. You can get your head down for a bit.’
Buckley was talking sense. Beyond the MAS lay the Flying-Fish and Balestra and his men were still busy aboard her. She was not ready for sea yet. If you had any sense you slept when you could. He said, ‘Thank you,’ climbed down into the cockpit of the MAS, and settled himself in a corner on the pile of canvas that had been part of the disguise of the Flying-Fish. It smelt of salt and petrol. He pulled the rough blanket around him, said, ‘Call me half an hour before it’s light,’ and closed his eyes.
For a time the sounds of the night around him kept him awake, the boots trampling and squeaking on the wharf, hoarse voices, the field battery still firing. But then they became submerged in the lapping of the river against the hull of the MAS and he thought about Helen Blair and then he slept.
Buckley woke him, crouching over him, a huge looming shadow. ‘Light in half an hour, sir. An’ they’ve shifted all that ammo an’ Mr Balestra reports he’s ready for sea.’
Smith rubbed his eyes with one hand, propped himself up with the other and grumbled, ‘Well, you move back a bit. I can’t see a damn thing.’
Buckley edged back. ‘Fetched you a drop o’ summat.’ Smith took the mug and gulped hot coffee laced with —? ‘What’s in this?’
‘Brandy, sir. Compliments o’ Mr. Balest
ra.’ Buckley paused and Smith heard a voice lifted in song further along the jetty. Buckley said, ‘He’s a cheerful young feller, sir.’
‘Tell him to tone it down a bit. This isn’t the bloody opera house.’ Smith handed back the empty mug.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Buckley disappeared and moments later the volume of the singing dropped.
Smith got to his feet, laughed quietly as he rubbed his unshaven chin, and climbed on to the jetty. Darkness still covered everything. The jetty itself was empty now, deserted, not a soldier to be seen. He realised suddenly that the field-guns so close to the north had ceased firing and the gunfire now rumbled distantly inland. He shifted uneasily. It was time they were out of this, before dawn came and the Austrian artillery found both them and Hercules still lying off with the other two MAS boats.
He strode quickly along to where the yacht, Sybil, was moored. One of the Swiss was in the well but the other had just climbed on to the jetty and stood peering upstream. Smith asked, ‘Is Miss Blair ready to sail?’
The Swiss nodded. ‘Ready, ja. But she —’ He pointed at the bridge. ‘The peoples.’
So she had gone to the road as she said she would. Smith had hoped she would take one of the Swiss with her. Now he swore anxiously under his breath, then said, ‘I’ll get her.’
He hurried along the jetty. On the shore he passed an abandoned, empty ammunition wagon, the axle broken and the traces cut. He hastened up between the dark houses and came out on the road. The flood of refugees was now a trickle of old people moving slowly up the side of the road. Down the centre of the road marched soldiers, infantry, but in no orderly formation or step. They slogged along wearily under the weight of packs and rifles.
He saw Helen Blair standing close by the carabinieri under the lamp, went to her and took her arm. The basket still hung from it, but empty now. She looked at him. He saw she was crying and he started to say gently, ‘We’ve got to get out of this place before —’
He stopped as the whips cracked like pistol-shots up the road and there came the sound of shouting, a rumble of wheels. Then the first team appeared out of the darkness, the soldiers on the road scattering to the sides to let it pass, the driver mounted on the lead horse cracking his whip and bawling huskily for them to get out of his way. Behind the team came the limber and the field-gun, the iron-shod wheels cutting deeply into the rutted road. It passed, to be followed by another and another, eight guns in all.
The last of the battery disappeared into the darkness. Smith glanced over his shoulder towards the sea and the east, saw the first lightening in the sky there. He turned back to the girl. ‘The guns have pulled out and it’ll be light soon. We must be gone by then.’ She nodded. He looked beyond her to the infantry still plodding down the road. They remained in no sort of order, but they were not a rabble; they still carried their equipment and weapons, he saw none thrown aside nor any man fall out. They were still a fighting force but the faces he saw showed them bone-weary, dead on their feet.
All at once a body of men came into sight, marching steadily down the road. They carried full packs and equipment, rifles slung from their shoulders, bandoliers of ammunition across their chests. They wore flat, round caps and they held up their heads and looked forward. They were sailors. At the head marched two officers, one of them a tenente but the other wore the insignia of a capitano di fregato. He carried full pack, equipment and rifle like his men. When he saw Smith and the girl he stared for a moment then swung out of his place at the head of the column and halted before them.
The capitano said, ‘La Contessa! Miss Blair!’ His voice was hoarse and deep. He saluted and gave a little bow. ‘It is time you went, Contessa.’ He glanced at Smith, his equal in rank but some years younger. The capitano looked possibly forty. He also looked broad and strong and in surprisingly good humour. He said in that gravelly voice, ‘Royal Navy?’
‘Yes. David Smith. Commander.’
‘Bruno Garizzo. Capitano, Regimento Marina! Marines!’ That was spoken with pride and he gestured with one big hand at the marching column, then said, ‘You do not talk Italian.’
Smith shook his head. ‘No.’
Garizzo grinned wryly. ‘The English expect the rest of the world to understand them! But I am a year in London with the Naval Attaché. I talk English good. I learned it in the Ritz bar and the pubs and the music halls. Also from English girls. Very good way to learn.’
Smith smiled. ‘The best.’
But all the time the capitano was eyeing Smith shrewdly, sizing him up. He asked, ‘What ship. Why is the Royal Navy here?’
Smith answered, ‘We brought ammunition. The ship is a drifter, a fishing-boat. Ninety tons.’
The capitano’s brows lifted. He took off his cap and ran his fingers through short, stubbly hair. ‘A fishing-boat?’ He looked down at his legs, the trousers bound with puttees from the knee down and covering the tops of the boots that were shapeless with mud. He grinned at Smith. ‘It is a bad time for naval officers!’ He roared with laughter then looked around at his men, pointed a thick finger at one small sailor burdened down with pack and rifle and bawled furiously, incomprehensibly. Laughter crackled along the marching column and the little man grinned and lifted a hand.
The capitano turned back to Smith. ‘I told him he should get promoted so he could talk with pretty girls while everybody else walked their legs off.’
Helen Blair smiled at the compliment. ‘Thank you.’
Smith said, ‘Their morale is good.’
‘It must be.’ The capitano nodded. ‘That is important.’
‘And the war?’
‘Because of the war. The news is bad. We come from the Tagliamento. The army has fallen back from there. Now we are ordered to hold a line along the river Livenza.’
So that was why the ammunition wagons had headed south. This was the army in retreat.
There was a shifting among the carabinieri under the lamp. Garizzo glowered at them and said something rapidly and loudly. They looked away. He growled under his breath and then grinned at Smith. ‘They look for deserters. I told them there were no deserters from the Regimento Marina.’
Smith asked, ‘Are there deserters?’
‘Deserters! Disasters! Lines broken and flanks turned and companies, whole regiments surrounded!’ Garizzo glared his exasperation. ‘I think maybe the defences were not lined back deep enough, not enough reserves in support and in strong positions. We were caught not ready. And that German Fourteenth Army, it swung the balance against us.’ Then came the quick grin. ‘Never mind, English. It is always the last battle that counts and this isn’t the last, not for me, not for the Regimento Marina.’
He looked over his shoulder at the marching column then out to the eastward where the light was growing. He said quietly, ‘You should get away now. There’s only the rearguard behind us and not very far.’ Smith nodded and the capitano saluted the Contessa then turned on his heel and strode away quickly, moving faster than the marching men and working his way up towards the head of the column.
Smith turned the girl around and led her back to the jetty and the yacht. She said only, ‘Those poor people.’
He saw her aboard the yacht and into the cabin where she sat at the table and laid her head on her arms. He turned to the two Swiss in the well. They looked grim and he told them, ‘Take that barge in tow and get out of here. Quick! Schnell! Understand?’
They nodded. ‘Tow, Ja. Schnell.’ Smith returned to the MAS and Zacco took the Flying-Fish in tow and headed out to sea. The Sybil followed close astern, towing the barge, but as Hercules came in sight from the cockpit of the MAS the yacht turned southwards. Smith went aboard the drifter and while the anchor was weighed he watched the yacht quickly disappear from sight. The day had come now and she was barely a mile away but the mist that came every morning lay thick on the surface of the sea and hid her. It hid them too, mercifully, from the Austrian guns.
He had learnt a little more of the girl, Helen Blair.
He had seen a warmer side to her character — pity and compassion. He remembered the grief in her face as she watched the refugees, how she had laughed and joked with the working-party on the jetty.
His mind went back to the weary column of marching men. The line on the Tagliamento river had been broken and now they were retreating to the Livenza. Could such exhausted men ever make a stand? If they failed it would be disaster, for Italy and the Allies.
He turned away. He had to think of the night and Trieste. He glanced astern at the Flying-Fish, now towed by the drifter — as were the three MAS boats, to conserve their fuel — and said, ‘Pass the word for Mr Balestra.’ They had to make a plan of attack.
Later in the morning the mist cleared and disclosed to him the north-eastward horizon. A line of black cloud hung along it, dark and foreboding. Behind it lay Trieste, Salzburg and Voss, and there lay his objective.
8. Assault on Trieste
Smith stood in the wheelhouse of the drifter Hercules and stared out into the weeping darkness. The sky was heavily overcast with lowering cloud that shed a steady downpour of rain. This was the weather and the night they needed. Old Fred Archbold was at the wheel, his cold pipe clamped between his teeth. The boy Menzies stood beside him, the glow from the compass binnacle lighting their faces.
Smith said, ‘Stop her!’
Ginger Gates worked the handles of the engine-room telegraph. Hercules slid on, slowing as the screw ceased to turn, then stopped and lay barely rolling in a near calm sea. Now the engine’s thumping had ceased Smith could hear Balestra singing sotto voce where he stood in a corner of the wheelhouse. The singing ceased and he smiled at Smith, said softly, ‘Luck is with us. A calm sea and very dark and rain.’
Smith could feel the excitement that always came before action gripping him now. He thought that although they would need more than luck to sink Salzburg they’d get nowhere at all without it. He only said, ‘Dead reckoning puts us a mile from the booms.’ He turned on Archbold. ‘Hercules is yours till I get back. You know what to do?’