by Robert Ryan
The sun was behind the mountains, streaking the sky with its dying rays, and the lights on the waterfront at Luino across the lake shimmered on the water. I walked down the stony beach to the edge and tossed a pebble out into the gathering darkness, waiting for the plop.
Jimmy Morris. His legend was well known now, but the name meant little to me back then. I hadn’t heard that he had a record stretching back to France, Crete, Yugoslavia and mainland Greece. That he was the man you sent in when the Resistance had fractured into a dozen warring factions. Jimmy was the man to bang heads together, to get them all pulling in the same direction. Lang and the others thought I was too soft, not able to impose the will of Britain on the partisans. That might have been the case, but there was another factor. Sometimes, Whitehall’s agenda and the partisans’ aims didn’t match because the Italians were right.
Jimmy never made it, of course, so we never got to see the clash of the Titans that would have been Morris versus Fausto. He was out there along with eight brave crewmen, lost in the mountains and valleys. It was possible that he’d turn up alongside Bill Carr. Or maybe not, because there was still a chance that the Liberator was elsewhere or entombed in a glacier and we would never find it.
I heard footsteps behind me, but I didn’t turn, not wanting to speak to anyone right now. It was a mistake, because I was unprepared for the pain that exploded in my kidneys as a fist drove itself home and I staggered into the water up to my ankles.
There were three of them, facing me in a rough semi-circle, none of them kids. I sized them up as quickly as I dared. The man in the middle was dark and bulky, with a heavy monobrow that gave him the look of a primate. The one on his left was blond and lithe, the other stockier, with the beginnings of a gut, but that was also dangerous because he would have some weight behind him.
I should have gone down immediately, of course, and stayed down, but my thick leather jacket had helped deaden the blow, and when you’ve been riding bikes as long as I have, you get used to pains in the kidneys. In fact, you get used to pain. So I heaved myself up and let my anger burn bright and hard.
These guys clearly hadn’t seen enough movies, because they were supposed to come for me one at a time so I could dispatch each of them in turn. Instead, ungallantly, they all rushed me at once.
I got a solid and satisfying blow into the throat of Blondie, but something hard cracked across my temple and the stars came down to earth. I managed a stiff finger in the eye of the Gutbucket, an elbow on his nose, a hefty kick to the knee, the steel plate on my heel making a good connection, and he was down in the water, out of it.
As I turned to the Monkey Man, I felt the weight in my jacket. I still had the Colt. I reached for it, but the Primate caught me with a short, sharp punch, right up into the solar plexus, that lifted me out of the six inches of water. Then he backhanded me with the short length of wood that had clipped my temple moments before, and I was staggering.
I managed to clear the weapon from my jacket, but the blond one, recovered from my earlier punch, kicked me in the ribs. I lost count of the hits they got in. My head was in the water, my face being pushed into the silt, the air from my lungs bursting from the corners of my mouth. I felt the Colt torn from my grasp.
A hand grabbed my hair and pulled me free and I rolled onto my back, holding myself clear of the water with my elbows as my chest heaved. The three were on their feet, staring at me, and at least they were breathing hard. I’d made them work for this.
Monkeyman had my gun, levelled at my head. How many shots had I used on those trees? Six? Seven? The .38 carried nine rounds, one more than the standard .45 auto. So they had either two or three bullets left. At this range, though, he would only need a single shot.
Gutbucket was the first to turn and leave, followed by Blondie. Now there was just the gunman, arm outstretched, showing me the business end of my own weapon. I thought about closing my eyes, but I had a feeling that was all he would need to pull the trigger, a sign of acquiescence, and I kept staring at that simian brow until he bent over and smacked me across the face with the barrel, spinning me into the deeper water, where I lay, listening to him splash off and into the night with my gun, until the only sound was the wheeze of my lungs and the lapping of waves against my side.
Thirteen
Italy, 1944
MAJOR RICCARDO CONTI STOOD in the marshalling yards at Brescia and stared across at the locomotive which had been flung across the tracks by the Allied raids as if it were a child’s toy. Elsewhere he could see huge craters, with the rails either thrown up towards the sky by the blasts, or pummelled into the earth. It was the same story right across the massive complex: more and more damage. No trains were going to be moving in or out of Brescia for weeks. It was mid-morning now and still there was chaos. When Knopp had told him that ‘units’ of the 29th Waffen-SS Division were re-fitting and moving out, he had imagined the usual slick German war machine. Not so. A full division should have around 200 tanks, 150 heavy guns, 300 half-tracks, 60 armoured cars, and hundreds of trucks. Instead, he doubted there were ninety vehicles in all. There were barely a dozen tanks, mostly Panzer IIIs, all on ugly low-loader transporters, perhaps nineteen armoured cars, ten Kettenkrads, the tracked motorcycles, and a motley assortment of lorries, mainly requisitioned Italian models. It looked as if the 29th—or this brigade of it at least—was down to using the dregs of the motor pool. He hoped that the armoured units already in place to the east of Pisa, dug in for the winter, and the Nachschub, the supply regiment, which had gone on ahead by road, were better equipped.
The men, too, were far from the finest SS tradition. They looked tired and ill-motivated or young and very frightened. Nor were the Grenadiers before him all Italian, as they had once been—heavy losses had been made up with Croatians and Romanians.
Conti looked at his watch. The 29th should have pulled out by now, but there were still clumps of soldiers standing near their trucks, waiting for fuel, and frantic activity around the radio truck. An Opel lorry arrived, towing a trailer full of fuel canisters, and the sullen troops snapped into life, grinding out cigarettes before jostling for the cans to strap to their vehicles.
Almost unnoticed by the others, three Henschel trucks pulled into the yard and parked some distance away. Each of them had a Grenadier on the running board, who stepped down smartly and took up a position at the rear of the soft-sided lorry. Sturmbannführer Karl Knopp stepped down from the lead Henschel, spotted Conti and walked over.
‘Ah, Major. You have my report?’
Conti handed over the morning’s summary of partisan activity along the 29th’s proposed route. Motorcyclists had run down it at first light, checking for the kind of roadblocks partisans liked to leave overnight. An engineer unit had followed, sweeping for mines at potential flashpoints.
‘Nothing,’ said Conti. ‘I personally organised an Alpini sweep last night, fifteen kilometres either side.’ He smiled. ‘A few strays were taken care of. Nothing substantial.’
‘Good.’ Knopp quickly flicked through the pages and then pointed at Conti’s staff car. ‘Tell your driver to meet us at Chiasso.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You are coming with us, Major. You tell me there are no partisans, I want you to put your arse where your mouth is.’
Conti tried not to look too concerned. ‘I have other duties—’
‘You have a duty to the Reich.’
This is for the Reich? he thought, but said: ‘Sturmbannführer, you have my word—’
‘You can ride with me in the first truck, Major.’ Knopp indicated two of the armoured cars. ‘We shall get those KFZs to flank us. Just in case your word isn’t good enough.’
Knopp walked away to arrange his protection and Conti removed his cap and scratched his head. This wasn’t going the way he expected at all. He walked over to his staff sergeant to tell him there had been a change of plan.
As Jack Kirby set up the Bren gun on the ridge, looking down at the ro
ad below, he heard a movement behind him and Rosario dropped a bag of ammunition next to him. ‘Don’t worry, tomorrow you will have an MG42,’ he said.
The German gun was acknowledged to be better than the slow-firing Bren. ‘Is it heavier?’ asked Kirby, rubbing his bruised shoulder, and Rosario laughed.
The sun was setting now, the light fading to a soft dusk, and he could only just make out the shadowy figures on the opposite side of the road; like him, positioned high above it. Fausto’s maxim was being employed to full effect—always fire from the high ground.
‘Where’s the Boss?’ asked Kirby.
Rosario pointed down towards the road to the south of their position, where he could just make out some activity at the verge. ‘He’s setting the charges over there. Take out the armour. Timing is everything.’
Kirby turned and watched Francesca struggle up the hill behind them, carrying a sack of grenades and a Mauser rifle. He raised a hand and she smiled before nestling down 300 yards away in her designated spot, as dictated by the map on the salon wall where they had been briefed the previous night by Fausto. Jack wished the leader was up with them rather than planting bombs in the culverts. The group felt directionless when he wasn’t around.
‘You know what to do?’ asked Rosario, as if he had read his mind.
Kirby nodded. ‘I wait for the flare.’
‘Right. No matter what happens, you wait for my flare. Good luck, eh?’
Kirby watched him go and shivered. It was much easier playing at war from 30,000 feet.
It was early afternoon by the time the convoy had formed up and left the yards at Brescia, heading north-east for the rail terminal at Chiasso. Progress was slow. The tank transporters were lumbering, temperamental beasts, and there were frequent stops for repairs. Those in open-topped half-tracks scanned the sky nervously, waiting for Allied planes to find them. Rocket attacks on convoys by marauding RAF Typhoons were not unheard of. However, the only plane they saw was a tri-engined Sparviero, re-painted in Luftwaffe colours.
Conti was sitting on the passenger side of the lead Henschel truck, with Knopp between him and the driver. He followed the route oil the map, ticking off the villages, noting the high degree of damage inflicted by the nightly bombing raids. Whole hamlets had disappeared, leaving only the church, perhaps, or a school-house intact. They skirted Bergamo, a town also scarred by bombing, and with a large partisan population, and carried on north-east. The countryside was now dissected by a succession of long low ridges. At first the roads, which only dated back to the 1920s, went over them, straining the transporters, but after a while the construction crews had decided to cut through the hillsides.
There were fluffy vapour trails high in the darkening sky and, far to the south, a smudge of smoke on the horizon. Another daylight raid on Milan.
At around six o’clock, they pulled to a halt outside Calco and Conti got out to stretch his legs.
Ahead, one of the tanks was being rolled off its crippled transporter. It was going to have to make it under its own steam. It would bring up the rear, because its tracks would chew up any road surface, and there was no time for the engineering corps to make running repairs.
Conti walked around to the rear of the truck and lifted the canvas flap. He jumped as a face peered out at him. ‘Yes, Major?’ It was a Feldwebel, toting one of the MP40 machine pistols that people mistakenly called Schmeissers. In fact they were made by Erma, Steyr or Haenel. They were good weapons, reliable, accurate and well made. The partisans prized them highly, because they enabled them to ditch their crude Stens.
Knopp appeared on the far side of the lorry. ‘Nothing to see, Major. Just crates. Lots of crates.’ He offered Conti a cigarette, which he took.
‘We won’t make Chiasso by dark at this rate.’ It was perhaps forty kilometres, but progress was desperately slow.
‘No,’ said Knopp. ‘But there is a garrison at Bebbio where we can spend the night if need be. The trains don’t depart until mid-morning tomorrow.’
Conti looked up at the dispersing streaks in the sky left by the bombers. If the trains run at all, he thought. The raids were becoming more accurate, more destructive, and it wouldn’t be long before there was no rail network left. ‘Why don’t we just go on ahead. These trucks are faster than some of this shit.’ He indicated the crippled transporter.
‘Safety in numbers, Conti.’
There was yelling from up ahead and a variety of barks and coughs as engines were re-started and the trucks juddered into life.
They drove past the tank, which waited until the last vehicle had gone before taking up its position at the rear of the convoy. Conti watched in the mirror as it slid further and further behind.
Darkness began to shroud them as they passed through the deserted village of Anzano. A lone dog snarled at them, but there was no sign of inhabitants, hostile or otherwise. The houses shook as the machinery rolled by.
A motorcyclist began weaving down the line issuing instructions for the overnight stop at Bebbio. The road was running through a series of rocky hills, and again it had been carved through them, rather than going over. The cliff faces sloped up at forty-five degrees, and were topped by sparse tree cover.
‘Hungry, Major?’ Knopp asked.
Before Conti could answer, there was a detonation behind, then the screech of metal and, in the mirror, he saw a stream of red flame across the road. The driver stamped on the brakes. Ahead, a triple flare—red, silver and blue—arced into the night and began its lazy descent to earth. There came the crackle of machine guns, and three, four, five more explosions. Hand grenades.
‘Don’t stop!’ yelled Knopp at the driver. ‘We’ll be a sitting duck here. Keep moving.’
Guns chattered nearby, and muzzle flashes dotted the hillside around them. Knopp turned to Conti, his face twisted in fury.
‘You stupid bastard! You told me this was clear.’
The truck rocked from the impact of an explosion on the road beside it. Careful, Conti thought, or we’ll all go up. A column of orange flame punched into the sky ahead. He’d thought those twenty-gallon petrol drums strapped to the armoured cars looked vulnerable. Another went up, and another, spewing black smoke into the twilight sky.
The cab of their truck was illuminated by the sparking of an MG42, raking the hillsides from the back of the half-track ahead. They felt the concussion of a grenade and the glass in the windscreen split with a sharp crack. The gun fell silent.
‘I lied,’ said Conti. He shot Knopp and the driver in the head in quick succession, wincing as a cloud of blood and bone washed over him. He clambered across the bodies, ignoring the rattle of air from dead lungs, and pushed the driver out of the door. He looked for the guards who had been on the running boards, but they were nowhere to be seen. Ahead, someone was yelling at him. A stray bullet splintered another part of the windshield, causing him to jump back in the seat. This was too close for comfort. But then, he wasn’t meant to be here in the first place.
There was the deep boom of an 88mm from one of the tanks, but he knew the Panzers wouldn’t be able to elevate their guns high enough to be a danger to the attackers, and the majority of them were trapped where they were stopped, still clamped to their transporters. The convoy was doomed.
Conti decided he’d worry about the sergeant in the rear of the truck later. He revved the engine and crunched into reverse, backing away from the beleaguered column. He wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, then tore at his jacket buttons with his free hand as he skirted a disabled armoured car. He hoped his men had managed to take the other trucks, too, otherwise all this was a waste of time and lives.
Fourteen
THE ITALIANS DON’T LIKE drunks. It isn’t easy to cut a bella figura when your system is overloaded with booze, so they tend to drink moderately, at least in public places. Which explained the look I got when I staggered back to the hotel wet, bleeding and dishevelled. Fortunately, Maria, the daughter of the owner, knew I’d imbibed
a very modest half bottle at dinner not an hour before, and she guessed that it took more than that to reduce me to this state.
I supported myself against the wall, leaving a dank stain on their gold wallpaper and a dark puddle on their marble floor, and explained in a loud voice that I had walked into a construction piling at the building site down by the shore and, concussed, had staggered into the water.
Maria tutted and took me through into the kitchen, where she sat me down next to a free sink and carefully sponged away the blood with a cloth among the clatter of dishes and pans as the washing-up brigade, composed of a variety of young cousins—cugini—earning pocket-money, finished their shift.
‘You want me to call a doctor?’ she asked as I winced at her dabbings.
‘No.’
‘The police?’
I raised a painful eyebrow at the question. ‘I walked into a piling.’
She touched my cheek. ‘A piling that was wearing rings, perhaps?’
‘Maria.’
‘Signor Kirby.’
There was a questura, a police station, in town, but I didn’t want some young bumbling polizia coming across to ask dumb questions and deciding I had beaten myself up. If I were to report the attack it would be to the Carabinieri who, despite the jokes about their intelligence, were better trained than the regular force and less corrupt. But the nearest caserma, barracks, was in Stresa. Besides, I’d have to spend hours filling in forms, producing my permesso di lavoro and passport and pilot’s licence and generally adopting the subservient, forelock-tugging tone—there is even a word for it, ruffiano—Italian cops expect, even when you are the victim. No, thanks.
‘Let’s skip the police. Please.’
She nodded reluctantly. ‘Your shirt is ruined but the jacket will dry, I think. You should see a doctor.’
‘I’ll be OK,’ I tried to reassure her from behind the dull thud in my head.