by Robert Ryan
‘Did you find them?’
‘We found you. He said the living were more important than the dead.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘Apologise to him.’
‘All right, it is settled then,’ snapped Fausto. ‘I will get a message to your special forces. Tell them the news.’
‘What news?’ Kirby asked wearily.
‘That you are our new BLO.’
Kirby didn’t say anything. It probably wasn’t a good start to admit he had no idea who or what a BLO was.
‘What are you thinking?’ asked Francesca.
I had finished the whisky, and she topped me up. ‘That it seemed to have happened to someone else. A young lad. I didn’t even know what a British Liaison Officer was.’
‘We knew you didn’t know.’
‘So why give me the job?’
‘You know why.’
Fausto wanted someone not in thrall to men like Lang. Someone whose only agenda was getting weapons and killing Germans, not playing Whitehall or Washington politics with the future of Italy. I wasn’t the first downed pilot to join the partisans, not the last. By the time the Italian campaign drew to its messy close in April 1945, there were Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans and Kiwis, mostly aircrew, who had thrown their lot in with the Resistance.
‘How did you meet Conti?’
‘After the war. I couldn’t spend my life mourning Fausto.’
‘I didn’t say you should.’
‘Listen, you have to understand what I mean when I say this, but you British had it easy.’ She raised a hand to stop my protests. ‘Not in the war, the battles, I know. You were bombed, the Blitz, V-weapons. I have read about it. But after the war, you all shared one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Being on the same side. Oh, there were a few traitors, but you hanged them, didn’t you? You were never on the wrong side, never invaded, never starved the way we were. Here, the unspoken question for men and women of a certain age is—what did you do in the war? Fascist? Collaborator? Partisan? It is a stain we cannot remove. So, I stopped asking people, a long time ago.’
‘So you don’t think individuals should pay for what they did then? People like Eichmann?’ It was only two years since Israel had kidnapped the cultivated monster, put him on trial and then executed him for his part in devising the Final Solution.
She turned on me, her face clouded. ‘Riccardo was no Eichmann.’
I realised I had overstepped the mark. Adolf Eichmann had been party to the murder of six million. ‘No. I’m sure. I didn’t mean to suggest …’
She folded her arms and turned her head away to indicate the discussion was over. I walked across the hallway, over the scarred terrazzo, still pocked from the bullets twenty years previously, and into the salotto. The window was sealed by rusted serrande—metal roller-blinds, which moved reluctantly as I turned the handle. The map was still on the wall, mildewed with age, torn at one corner, but showing the traces of Fausto’s tactical marks from when they had raided the Italian SS division en route to Chiasso. We didn’t destroy the division, far from it, but Gruppo Fausto got themselves enough weapons to arm a large band of partisans to help in the liberation of Domodossola.
Fausto had fought fascism for a decade; he had been in Spain—which is why he used a Labora, his souvenir of that conflict—and at one time he had been a Communist, but the Soviet-German pact of 1940 had disillusioned him. Even when the Second Front opened and Stalin claimed it had all been a bluff, he stayed away from the official Communist forces. In fact, he hated his former colleagues as much as he despised the fascists.
‘Seen enough?’ asked Francesca.
I turned and found myself within inches of her. ‘I’m sorry I was so tetchy.’
‘It is difficult after all this time.’ Francesca gave her best forgiving smile. ‘You should have come back sooner,’ she said softly.
The kiss didn’t last anywhere long enough for my liking before she started to close up the house again.
While she was doing that I cleaned out my gun and walked up the hill to shoot some perfectly innocent trees, just for the hell of it, just as I had all those years ago.
Jack Kirby followed Fausto up the hill from the house, looking back as the lake shrank to the size of a large puddle, his breath hurting his throat. Ahead of him, the dirty-blond head of Fausto bobbed from side to side as he tackled the stony path like a goat. Slung over his shoulder was a large black bag, the contents of which were clinking enough to let Kirby know it must be heavy. It didn’t show.
After thirty minutes, they reached a small rock-strewn plateau where the trees had retreated and left fat, grey-green grass. Fausto threw down the bag, and Kirby was pleased to see a slight flush on his cheeks. He was not superhuman after all.
‘OK, Jaaack?’ He protracted the vowel, as he imagined an American would. Kirby suspected there was something sardonic about it, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.
‘Yes,’ he gasped.
‘Ankle OK?’
Kirby nodded. It was indeed all right now. Three days previously he couldn’t have done that climb. Now it only protested with a dull ache.
‘Good. Walk with me, Jaaack.’
They started to circle the clearing. Above them was a saw-toothed mountain range and below a forty-five-degree slope to a few houses, and beyond them the serenity of the lake. The summer sun lit up the whole scene.
‘So. How do you like Francesca, eh? How do you like my woman? You want to fuck her?’
Kirby turned and as he did so he felt Fausto’s leg scythe into the back of his calves, whipping them from under him. He went down, air blasting from his lungs, his spine bruised by a large stone.
‘Shit!’ he managed to yell. ‘What the hell?’ A boot landed on his chest. Fausto was over him, and he had a Luger pistol in his hand. Kirby swallowed hard as it was pointed at his face.
‘Stupid,’ said the partisan slowly. ‘So stupid.’
Kirby shut his eyes. He knew that Italian men, as a race, tended towards jealousy—his mother had told him as much—but this was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if the man was clairvoyant. Was he? ‘I haven’t done anything. I didn’t touch her.’
‘No. I know.’ He pulled Kirby to his feet and dusted him down. ‘That was too easy.’
‘What was?’
‘Catching you off guard.’
‘Off guard?’ he blustered. ‘I thought you were my friend. Why should I be on guard against some ludicrous accusation?’ Kirby put genuine rage in his voice, careful not to betray the fact that, for a few seconds, he thought Fausto had been reading his mind.
Fausto produced a cigarette and lit it. ‘There were lots of Italians I thought were my friends who pulled worse than that. I surprise you a little by saying something about Francesca and there you are, off balance.’
‘I thought I was among friends.’
Fausto grabbed Kirby’s cheeks and squeezed. ‘Then stop thinking that, Jaaaack.’ He stretched the name even longer. ‘We can’t treat you as a friend.’ He let go, but Kirby could feel the imprint of the fingertips on his face. ‘You represent the British. But BLOs are a fact of life. No BLO, no drops. And I want you to stay alive, not like the last fool. So, I must train you. That was your first lesson. Trust nobody.’
He walked over to the black bag and unzipped it. As he did so Kirby noticed the knots of muscles in his forearms. He up-ended the holdall and a variety of weapons—French, Italian, British and German—fell out onto the grass. ‘Nobody will hear us up here. We must teach you to shoot with something other than an airplane.’
‘Has confirmation of my role come through yet?’
‘Well, we had a message from Bern saying they would prefer to send their own man.’
‘What did you say?’
Fausto gave a lopsided grin. ‘I told them to go fuck their mothers.’ Kirby hoped Bern were as conversant with the cut and thrust of Italian conversation as he
was becoming. ‘We got you, we’re keeping you. Right, pay attention. Sten gun. A piece of shit, but a useful piece of shit, if you know how to get the best from it.’
He let off a short burst of fire that shredded the bark of the nearest tree, making Kirby jump. The clearing filled with the smell of cordite.
‘The best way to take the Germans is from the high ground—shooting down on them. A man having to fire up …’ he raised the still smoking Sten ‘… his arms get tired, his accuracy goes. You must be up the slope in this country, never at the bottom of it. Understand?’
‘Surely you can be more exposed on higher ground.’
He snorted dismissively. ‘Bullets coming from above always disorientate. Now that was the Sten on automatic fire. Better to use it on single shot. You select like this …’
Kirby wondered what Fausto had meant about Francesca, and why he had chosen her to distract him, but after a while it faded from his mind, chased away by the hammer of firing pins on cartridges.
She was waiting for me as I came down the track. I could see the cigarette smoke curling from behind the corner of the house. I slowed, padding as softly as I could on the first fall of crisp autumn leaves. She was leaning against the brick, face turned upwards to catch the sun, her neck long and inviting.
‘Can you still shoot straight, Jack?’ she asked, without moving.
‘I was just seeing if I remembered what Fausto taught me.’
She turned her head. ‘He said you didn’t need much teaching. Said you were good.’
‘He never told me that,’ I said.
‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’
‘No, I suppose that wasn’t his way.’
She looked at me as she took another drag on the cigarette. I liked to watch her smoke. Unlike many of my compatriots in the war, I never really picked up the habit. Just now and then, when the moment demanded it or it seemed churlish to refuse.
‘Want one?’
I hesitated and nodded and then we were both against the wall, letting the rays warm us while we inhaled tobacco and watched the beams slice through the curls of smoke.
‘Don’t judge me too hard, Jack.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Let me tell you a couple of things. After what happened at Domodossola I felt sure you’d come back. Write. Call. You didn’t.’
‘I sent a message.’
‘Not a message, Jaaack.’ She let my name stretch out the way Fausto used to, and we both smiled at the memory. ‘I’m not talking about messages through official channels. “Are you OK? Stop. Me fine. Stop.” I am talking about proper letters. I was sure you’d come back.’
‘So was I,’ I said, truthfully. ‘But somehow, it all slipped away. I wasn’t sure what was between us. If anything.’
‘An Italian man would have come to find out.’
‘You loved Fausto.’ I tried to give it a finality, but there was a ghost of a question mark at the end of the sentence.
She took out a pair of thick black sunglasses and slipped them on.
‘At my age I have to watch the sun. On my eyes. You know what he was like. Fausto consumed you, you couldn’t help yourself. Like a whirlpool, you circled round him until you were pulled in. It made knowing your true feelings difficult. You were sure I loved Fausto, were you? Even then? If so, you knew more than me.’
I shook my head, wondering if the hollow in the pit of my stomach was simply hunger, or something much worse. ‘I wasn’t sure of anything,’ I said quietly.
A silence settled over us, as we both thought back to our messy parting, and before I could ask about the aftermath, she volunteered: ‘After he was gone, what could we do but surrender? We released Riccardo Conti and before the Germans could institute reprisals, he allowed most of us to slip away. There were some examples made, but not many; a few to save face. Mostly Communists. It could have been like Val Grande.’ This was a complete rout of partisan forces in the mountains in June 1944. Most of those captured had been tortured and executed in hideous ways, even the alpigiani, the mountain men, just because the partisans used their meadows and forests for shelter and rest.
I knew all this, but I couldn’t resist saying: ‘So they didn’t matter, the Garibaldis.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Sorry.’
‘After the war, I ran into him again in Milan. Riccardo. This was after 1946, when there was an amnesty for all fascist actions, except the most extreme cases. I see him coming towards me. Well dressed, prosperous, handsome. Still, I cross the road to avoid him, but he crosses as well. He insists on coffee. For some reason I say yes. And that afternoon, Riccardo, he tells me about how he plans to make amends. The Hope Foundation—you know it?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s a little like your Cheshire Homes. Care for servicemen, no matter which side they fought on. That was the important part. Then the Hope Houses, for orphans, something like your … er …’
‘Dr Barnados?’ I offered.
‘Yes. They were also his idea. Part of the rebuilding, the healing process. Riccardo asked for my help, fund-raising and so on. He himself put in a lot of money.’ Now she turned to face me to emphasise the point and I watched her mouth work, hardly hearing the words. ‘A lot of money, Jack. Like I said before, you British don’t understand that part. It was like trying to heal a family after a bitter feud. Resentment flares up all the time. Riccardo managed to work through all that. He was a good man. Is a good man.’
‘And he was here.’
‘It’s always an advantage.’ She stubbed out her cigarette and stepped away from the wall.
‘I’m here now,’ I said, rather feebly.
She laughed and shook her head, arching her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Twenty years too late, Jack.’
‘Story of my life, Francesca.’
I felt a deep sadness in my bones, a sense of promises not kept, hands not played, of missed opportunities. It didn’t lift when she slid her arm through mine and walked me back towards the bike, hair brushing my shoulder, our time alone clearly over.
Twelve
ONCE I HAD DROPPED Francesca back at her car, I returned to the hotel where there was a message from Lindy Carr saying she would meet me after the ceremony in Domodossola. It came with a parcel, which I took up to my room. I ordered lunch from room service—a bottle of wine, bread and cheese—and sat at the metal table on the small balcony overlooking the steamer jetty and studied the documents she had sent across. It was all that she knew about the crew of EH-148.
After a few hours in their company, learning about them from their official files, and their letters to and from relatives, wives, children and lovers, they were no longer just eight anonymous men who got caught by the capricious mountain weather.
Bill Carr himself may have been the son of farmers, but he was university educated in economics. He had had job offers from several public utilities in Australia, when he decided that his career could be put on hold while he went off to fight. Before he did so he married the woman the newspaper clipping called his childhood sweetheart. He trained with the Australian Air Force and came to England via Canada, eventually ending up attached to an SAAF squadron at Foggia.
At twenty-six, Carr was considered an old man by his seven comrades. Also on board were Flight Sergeant Reginald Lisle, the co-pilot, a South African from Durban aged twenty-two and bomb-aimer Michael Leonhart, also twenty-two, another South African from Cape Town. Sergeant Air Gunner Donald McRae, from Nevis in the West Indies, was just twenty. Two other Sergeant Air Gunners, David Herrington, twenty-one, and Ron Walters, twenty, were Australian and South African respectively. Nineteen-year-old Derek Dawson was an anomaly: the radio man and air gunner, he came from Chorley in Lancashire. An Englishman. The observer/navigator was Jon DeWitt, a Rhodesian, the only son of a tobacco farmer. The letter from his father told how the twenty-two-year-old was meant to come back from the war and carry on the farm. Now there was no one, the father was ill, and it was
to be sold.
Every single man left a story of a calling missed, a girl never married, a son or daughter never seen. When those eight went down on EH-148, it broke the lives of many more people across the globe. Lindy was just trying her best to put the pieces back together. Yes, it was crazy and probably doomed to failure but, after reading the documents, I had a sense of what was driving her. Not least, the seven other families who had offered money, best wishes and assistance in the quest. They wanted to know, too.
There was one other document listing the eight men. It was a page from a pre-flight log, outlining the mission, the crew and the scribbled addition: plus SN. Supernumerary. There was a passenger on board that night. I leafed through the documents again, but found no mention of his name, no letters from friends or families. Just SN. It was this man who made it a White Stocking, a drop of personnel into enemy territory. Ah well, it didn’t matter. I already knew who had been in that plane, squeezed between the Liberator’s waist gunners, ready to make the jump. It was Jimmy Morris. On his way to relieve me of my post.
I had dinner in the hotel, alone, mulling over the mess I had got myself into. Employed by a young girl to find the remnants of a plane which could be anywhere in an area the size of Wales. Then there was Francesca. So much was left unsaid there. Why hadn’t I come back sooner? Because falling in love with her had cost too many lives last time.
I always had trouble reading her signals, then and now, and I wasn’t sure whether she was basking in warm memories or inviting me to … no. That was just a fantasy on my part. It was over as clearly as the war was. Closed. Nice to see her and all that, but it was time to move on.
By the time I finished eating, my head was pounding and I needed some air. I fetched my jacket from the room and turned right out of the hotel, walking past the restaurants with their terraces packed with loud German tourists and over the rickety bridge spanning the river to where they were building a new Swiss-financed holiday complex, complete with marina.