Picture of Defeat

by John Harris

  ‘They’re so brave and so poor. And I don’t think you approve.’

  ‘As a lawyer protecting your property, I don’t. As a sergeant in Field Security sent to deliver the Detto Bantis to the British Government, I don’t. But as someone who sees a kind heart, you have my full approval.’

  She grinned at him, then her face fell again. ‘What about your officer? Will he not be angry that you have not brought them all?’

  By this time Pugh was convinced that Tasker’s interest in the paintings was entirely personal, and he had been wondering for some time how to keep them out of his sight until he could check on the Government’s interest. He didn’t like Tasker, who, he felt, was merely feathering his own nest. He couldn’t imagine managing to get him sent home in disgrace – much as he would have liked to – but he could at least thwart him. On the other hand, that thought prompted another. If he thwarted Tasker, Tasker would probably seek vengeance and he, Pugh, would probably end up in a foxhole in a jungle somewhere, being shot at by Japanese snipers.

  The nuns were surprised to see them back, but delighted to be of help.

  Sister Domenica, who ran the stables, had no split pins because no one had seen a split pin in that part of Italy since the beginning of the war, but she produced an oak wedge which she promised could be hammered home in place of it, and even offered to help them do it.

  Despite their protests, she passed them over to Sister Angelica, who, hearing Tamara’s wish to make a gift, led them at once to see the Mother Superior, a middle-aged woman with a gently resolute face and a large bunch of keys. As they sat down on chairs of a hardness only the Catholic Church could devise, Tamara had an uplifted look on her face and, as permission was granted for their help to be given, she produced the painting of the Sheep Returning to the Fold.

  ‘We would like to give you this,’ she said.

  The Mother Superior’s eyes widened. ‘That is very beautiful,’ she said, and Pugh decided that she didn’t know a lot about art. ‘We will have Sister Monica frame it and it can be hung in the dining room.’

  ‘No, no!’ Tamara protested. ‘You mustn’t hang it! You must sell it! It has value! It might even be a painting by Boccaccio Detto Banti.’

  Sister Angelica lifted her hands. ‘In that case, it must go on the dining room wall! To remind us of your generosity!’

  ‘No! Please!’ Tamara was growing desperate. She was trying hard to put money in their hands and they could think of nothing else but to hang it on the wall.

  ‘It would beautify the orphanage.’

  ‘But that’s not the point,’ Tamara said. ‘We have found one or two of these pictures. They are the work of my uncle and we are taking them to Naples. And you have been so kind, and you work so hard for the children and do so much with so little, we want you to change it for money. So that you can buy food and clothing for the children.’

  The Mother Superior smiled and glanced at Sister Angelica. ‘I think perhaps, Sister,’ she said gently, ‘that in this case we must accept the gift in the nature it was intended. As an addition to our funds.’ She looked at Pugh. ‘But I know nothing about art. How much is it worth?’

  ‘Over a million lire, Reverend Mother,’ Tamara blurted out. ‘Perhaps four million.’

  The Mother Superior looked shocked. ‘Then we can’t possibly take it.’

  ‘You must! It is mine! I’m giving it to you!’

  The Mother Superior looked at Pugh, who shrugged.

  ‘A lawyer,’ he said. ‘Of sorts,’ he added. ‘And I know about art because I was once a painter. My advice is to take the painting and sell it as soon as you can. Detto Bantis have a value now but they’ll probably not retain it.’

  ‘How do I sell it? And where?’

  Pugh thought of Da Sangalla and De Castro, even of Tasker and Baracca.

  ‘I think I can send you customers,’ he said. ‘Just as soon as it’s possible. But before I go, if you will provide me with pen and paper, Avvocato Tassinari and I will draw up a form of sale.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we can’t guarantee the painting is genuine.’

  ‘Then I can’t sell it as genuine.’

  ‘You must sell it simply as a painting, Reverend Mother, and leave your customer to make up his own mind. Tell him you know nothing of art. That would be honest, and I still think you’ll find that someone will buy it without question. And if he finds he is wrong and it isn’t what he thought it was, he will try to sell it to someone else. So you needn’t fear.’

  ‘It sounds dishonest.’

  ‘The art world is ruthless and often less than honest. You will be doing nothing dishonest if you say nothing, and if, as I suspect, the people who will try to buy it are dishonest, then it will be their loss, not yours.’

  The Mother Superior smiled. ‘I think you know a great deal about the business of art, young man.’

  ‘I wish I did, Reverend Mother. I’ve just seen the way it operates. And, if I might say so, if you could manage to frame the painting it will look very much better.’

  The Mother Superior looked at Sister Angelica. ‘We have the picture of the Adoration of the Magi,’ she said. ‘It is not very good. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s very bad. I think we’ll have Sister Domenica take it out of its frame and replace it with this. Then’ – she beamed at Pugh and Tamara – ‘then we’ll wait for customers.’

  Outside, Tamara turned to Pugh with huge delighted eyes. ‘Oh, Piu,’ she said. ‘Buono, gentile Piu, I think you are splendid. So simpatico. So helpful.’

  Impulsively she reached up and kissed him. Then she blushed and turned away. ‘One of these days,’ she said, ‘God will punish me for my impulsiveness. Non è vero?’ She paused. ‘Why did you take such care with the document of sale for the Reverend Mother?’

  ‘It would be pointless giving them a picture and then having someone swindle them for it.’

  ‘You not only told her the price to ask – and not to move from – you also wrote a document which would prevent a buyer demanding his money back if the picture were found to be a forgery. Do you think it is a forgery?’

  ‘It hasn’t been seen by an expert yet.’

  ‘And if it is?’

  ‘Then, if the Reverend Mother offers no promises or advice or suggestions, no one can claim she has swindled anyone. I also told her to make sure that she has the priest from Moccino present, together with Sister Angelica and Sister Domenica, so that she has witnesses to what is said.’

  She looked at him shrewdly. ‘I think you are expecting someone dishonest to try to buy the picture.’

  ‘I think I am.’

  ‘And that he will try to buy it at a knock-out price?’

  ‘Knock-down’s the word. But, yes, that’s true.’

  ‘But he will be someone who is shrewd enough – or shall I say crooked enough – if he finds he has paid too much for it, to be able to sell it again at a profit.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘To someone who will think he has got a bargain.’

  ‘You have it in one.’

  ‘Who is this so dishonest buyer?’

  Pugh smiled, thinking of Da Sangalla, De Castro, Baracca, Tasker, and doubtless a few more too. ‘There are a lot of them around,’ he said.

  Part Two

  One

  The nuns gave them a map and marked off what they knew of the German positions. The Italian Church had seen so many invaders in its long history it had learned how to be realistic about war.

  ‘They are along here,’ Sister Angelica said, her finger running along the sheet. ‘And here, in these barns. But there are still none in Bagnano. We know, because we take great care to learn where they are. They killed one of our sisters by mistake when they first came. It was growing dark and they thought in her habit she was a marocchino. They apologised and the officer sent us money and food, but we’ve been very careful ever since.’

  They repaired the wheel and set off again in the afternoon. By
the time they approached Bagnano it was growing dark. The weather had changed and the croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets, normally so deafening, had suddenly become muted. The wind began to whip coldly along the mountainside, and below them to the right, where a stream tumbled over a bed of large white pebbles, they could hear the hiss and clatter of the water over the stones. Sagging from the sky were dark clouds, trailing wispy tendrils into the valleys.

  Fiorello was moving in fine style, slapping down his great feet as if he were enjoying himself, but they were all tired and dirty and looking forward to a rest. On either side of them they could hear the thump and mutter of guns, and occasionally a Very light soared into the blackness. But the area was quiet, as though the Germans, having returned to it, were beginning to regret their hasty action and were considering retreating again. A machine gun tapped in the distance.

  The village of Bagnano was deserted. It seemed unbelievable that no one was there, but there were no lights and they could only guess that the villagers had left and that neither the Germans nor the Allies had yet occupied it. They stopped for a while in the main street in the shadow of the church, and Pugh passed round a bottle of brandy the nuns had given them. It was raw stuff and caused them to catch their breath, but it warmed their stomachs and seemed to take the bite out of the wind.

  Unexpectedly, it started raining. As they halted by a fork in the road it was falling in black cascades and Tassinari, Marco and Foscari climbed inside the hearse and lay down alongside the coffin. Pugh tried to make Tamara join them but she refused.

  ‘If you can endure it, Piu,’ she said, ‘so can I.’

  By this time they were close to the line and Pugh was worried someone might have heard them, might even be laying an ambush. As he flipped the reins, the old horse leaned against the harness and the hearse began to move again.

  Every moment, he expected to run into German soldiers with guns or trenches or barbed wire, but nothing appeared. Then he began to worry about land mines and insisted on Tamara climbing into the back of the hearse with the others. If the old horse trod on one, at least there would now be only one victim – Fiorello. On the other hand – the thought frightened him – if the old horse’s great plodding hooves missed the mine and it was a wheel that ran over it, the ramshackle wooden hearse would save nobody.

  As the door slammed, a figure appeared alongside him. It was Foscari. ‘I have decided to accompany the Signore Sergente,’ he announced.

  As they set off again there was an explosion over on their right somewhere. It made Pugh jump and he felt the tug on the reins as the horse’s head jerked up.

  Immediately four more explosions occurred and each flash seemed nearer than the last.

  ‘A salvo,’ Foscari said. ‘The tedeschi are trying to find the road. They will come again.’

  A machine gun had begun to hammer nervously, and another Very light appeared in the sky, making the rain look like slanting silver rods. The firing soon stopped, though, and Pugh jerked at the reins so that the old horse began to step out again. But the bangs had made him nervous and he was tossing his head and snorting. Sitting in the silence, unspeaking, both Pugh and Foscari were on edge, waiting for the crash of an explosion or the shattering sound of a Schmeisser.

  ‘I wonder how much longer, sir?’ Foscari said unexpectedly.

  ‘How much longer what?’

  ‘How much longer everything. This. The weather. The war. Che desolazione! Santissima Madonna, I think I’d give a lot to be snug indoors listening to the rain beating on the window.’

  Without speaking, Pugh passed him the brandy bottle and he took a swig from it and passed it back.

  ‘We must be nearly through by now,’ he said. ‘We’re well past Bagnano.’

  Pugh had a much vaguer idea of where they were but he let the horse find its own way forward through the darkness. If they had managed to proceed in a straight line, he decided, they must surely be somewhere near the Allies’ outposts. Perhaps they ought to give some warning of their approach or they might get a gutful of Bren bullets.

  ‘Hallo!’ he yelled. ‘Hallo! Anyone ahead?’

  Unexpectedly Tassinari’s old thin voice joined his from the back of the hearse. ‘Hello, English,’ he was shouting. ‘Please not to shoot at us. We are your friends!’

  They had just reached the brow of a low hill with a long winding road sloping away below them, and for a moment they waited, listening for a reply. Instead they heard a distant thump and a whistle.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Pugh said, and the next second there was the crash and flash of an explosion.

  The old horse, already nervous, leapt up in the shafts, almost fell on its side as it came down on all fours, and started to whinny. A split second later there was another explosion, much nearer, then another and another, and Pugh felt grit whipping against his skin and smelled the cordite. The last shell seemed to remove his hair, then he was clinging to the box seat as the reins were wrenched from his hands and the old horse set off at a gallop down the slope.

  Yelling at Foscari to hang on, he became aware that the darkness was lifting. The stars were fading in a pale sky and the rain was stopping as the clouds moved round the mountains. A few objects were becoming visible as they clattered past. A tree. A broken building. A low stone wall.

  Fiorello was well into his stride now. From the back of the hearse they could hear Tamara shrieking and the shouts of Marco and old Tassinari. The shelling had stopped but another Very light was hanging in the sky. The machine gun had started hammering again and they could see the tracers shooting past like coloured rockets. They seemed to be aimed at the hearse.

  Sliding from one end of the driver’s box to the other and back again as the hearse rattled round the corners, Pugh couldn’t make out how they stayed on the road. The surface was dreadful, full of stones and pot-holes, so that the vehicle leapt and swayed, and there seemed to be a permanent space between the box and his behind. Foscari was yelling with fright and they could still hear the screams from behind them.

  ‘Whoa, you bastard!’ Pugh roared, only half expecting any result, but Fiorello’s head was up and he looked as though nothing but a six-inch shell would halt him. Fortunately, there was no more firing, but how the swaying hearse negotiated the corners it was impossible to say. Then the reins, falling across the horse’s lifting hindquarters, suddenly flipped up and Pugh managed to catch them. Dragging on them, he yelled to Foscari to help, and the two of them leaned back, heaving with all their strength.

  At first it seemed to make no difference but gradually the pace began to diminish and the corners became less dangerous. The last one seemed to be particularly tight, however, and as they approached it, they heard a voice shouting a challenge. There was the flash of a rifle, and a bullet struck the box just below Pugh’s backside. As it did so, the old horse seemed to swerve, and the hearse’s wheel bounced from the surface of the road into a pothole, jumped out, then slid into the ditch so that the whole contraption subsided half on its side. Still holding the reins, Pugh and Foscari rolled off the box into the ditch.

  As the noise stopped, Foscari seemed to be sitting on Pugh’s head. Pushing him aside, Pugh heard querulous shouts as the back of the hearse emptied. Foscari sat up, rubbing his elbow.

  ‘Holy Mother of God,’ he said.

  ‘God damn the bloody horse!’ Pugh said in loud indignation. ‘I didn’t think it could run that fast!’

  To his surprise a voice answered him.

  ‘Who the fuckin’ ’ell do you think you are?’

  ‘Pugh!’ Pugh’s voice was shaking with relief, and from the ordeal of the wild dash down the hill. ‘Sergeant Pugh! Field Security! With four Italian civilians!’

  ‘And a fuckin’ ’orse an’ cart, by the sound of it. What the Christ are you at?’

  Pugh stared about him. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Never you mind. Just you stay where you are, mate, until we can ’ave a look at you.’

  As they scramb
led to their feet they saw the old horse, lathered with sweat and foam, its flanks heaving, trembling in the shafts of the hearse. One of them was splintered but otherwise, apart from the fact that Foscari’s coffin lay half out of the rear door, the vehicle seemed intact. Tamara appeared, helping Tassinari, then Marco, running down the hill.

  ‘I fell out,’ he explained.

  A moment later, figures rose out of the ground round them and a rifle was poked almost up Pugh’s nose.

  ‘You’re not a sergeant,’ the owner said. ‘You’re a bloody civvy.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, old son,’ Pugh said breathlessly. ‘I’m as much in this war as you are.’

  After pushing the coffin back in place, they were taken to a sergeant wearing the armband of a military policeman. He was in a broken-down house, sitting at a table with a hurricane lamp.

  ‘They say they’re our lot,’ the sentry said. ‘They’ve got an hearse out there wi’ a fuckin’ coffin in it.’

  The sergeant looked up, his eyes suspicious. ‘What’s all this then?’ He sounded like a London bobby confronting a burglar.

  His manner irritated Pugh and his quick temper rose at once. ‘What’s it look like?’ he said.

  ‘It looks like a funeral. You’ve got a hearse and a coffin. But people don’t usually ride inside with the corpse.’

  ‘There isn’t a corpse,’ Pugh said.

  ‘So why have you got a coffin?’

  ‘Because it contains something I was sent to collect and this was the only way we had of transporting it.’

  The sergeant looked suspicious. ‘What are you doing in civvies?’

  ‘It happened to be part of my job.’

  ‘I’ve heard that one before. I expect you’re adrift. Let’s have your name, rank and number.’

  Pugh gave them.

  ‘Unit?’

  Pugh produced his papers and the warrant card that allowed him to conduct investigations wherever he wished. The sergeant studied it silently for a while.

  ‘Okay,’ he said sourly. ‘So you’re Field Security. But what are you doing? What you got in that hearse?’