by Robert Ryan
I turned. ‘Hey, it’s me who should be embarrassed. Look, it wasn’t that you aren’t—’
‘Don’t. Please. I’m not that sort of girl. I don’t even … I was pretending to be someone else—one of my friends back home, who seems to take life a lot easier than I do. She treats men like tissues.’
‘Just call me Handy Andy,’ I said with as much mocking self-pity as I could muster. I busied myself with the magnetos and the fuel gauges.
‘Don’t make it worse.’
Furio’s head came through the door. ‘I think they managed to leave it in one piece,’ he grinned.
‘Yeah,’ I said. I switched the fuel cocks to the front tanks and pumped the primer for the starboard engine six times, just like the manual said. Everything by the book today. I looked at Lindy. ‘You want to forget all that crap and do some flying?’
A smile of relief split her face. ‘You betcha.’
The AT-11 had never needed much of a run at a rotation and we quickly cleared the airfield and were climbing over the southern stretches of the lake. I scanned the instruments rapidly. You can do all the checks you want, parked on the apron, but up here is when the aircraft tells you the truth. Oil pressure was 80 lbs starboard, slightly less port, but that was fine, and the cylinder heads were warming up nicely. The Beech was telling me she was OK, thanks. I turned the heating on.
Lindy shouted: ‘Can you copy his flightpath?’ I gave her a thumbs-up. I had been intending to do that. I indicated she should put the headphones on. Soundproofing in World War Two planes wasn’t a high priority, and I didn’t want to spend the next few hours yelling myself hoarse.
Furio was down in the nose, loading the Kodak film. Infra-red film had been in use since the mid-1950s, and it was getting better all the time. The principle we were working on was very simple, if you stripped away all the Kodak-speak in the manual. Old and young, or indeed diseased, leaves absorb different wavelengths at the infra-red end of the spectrum. So patches of fresh growth should show up as different coloured clumps on the film.
Sometimes you didn’t even need an IR to see it. You can virtually re-create the German barrage in the Ardennes forest in Belgium from the vantage-point of the US monument at Bastogne, especially in autumn when the older trees turn first, leaving the hillsides with perfect dark green circles marking the explosion of 88s. It is a sight as sobering as anything in the many museums in that part of the world.
The Liberator was a big, heavy bruiser of a plane, a Sonny Liston rather than a Cassius Clay: wingspan 110 feet, close to 70 feet long, weighing in at around 50,000 pounds, including the 1,000 gallons of aviation gasoline EH-148 probably still had on board when it went in. Because of its high wing, it could carry more load and more fuel than any comparable plane. It was one of the unsung heroes of the aerial conflict.
If that monster hit a wooded area, the sheer bulk of metal, ploughing into the earth at maybe 200 mph, would cut a mighty swathe through the treetops and then the trunks and the undergrowth. Even after twenty years, we—or our Kodak film—should still be able to pick out the scar. That was the hope, anyway. I had checked with the Italian Forestry Department about logging and forest fires which might give us a false positive and, apart from a small blaze in 1960, we were in the clear.
I kept the Beech climbing as we passed over Arona. Ahead, so close it looked like we could touch it, was Campo dei Fiori—the access road to the mountain’s summit a thin ribbon of black etched in its side. We were already higher than its peak. To the west we could see right over to Como and Garda; south the ugly sprawl of Milan, with the Pirelli tower rising from it like a beacon, but north were the pavlova-like peaks of Switzerland. I hoped Bill Carr wasn’t sitting on one of those, because we were all wasting our time then. The Lib would only appear when the glacier decided to spit him and the plane out, and that could take decades.
I turned the glass nose towards the Alps, heading up the lake, the Borromean Islands already featureless specks, although the wake of the steamers shuttling to and from them could be seen quite clearly. I felt a shudder go through me. I could easily have hit one of the islands when I ditched the Mozzie.
‘He’d be losing height about now,’ I said, as I picked up the road leading from Cannobia towards the Val Vigezzo.
She peered at the tight switchbacks coiling up the hillsides, the new concrete bridges spanning ragged gorges and the tiny clusters of grey houses, seemingly carved directly from the stone. ‘It’s beautiful.’
I looked at the rolling hills ahead and the great swatches of pine and, lower down, oak and chestnut, and squinted my way back twenty years. Not when you are flying blind with a storm coming it isn’t, I thought, but I just nodded. ‘You know that traditionally this place produced chimney sweeps.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘I don’t know. But if you met a travelling sweep anywhere in Europe any time in the last few hundred years, chances are they came from Santa Maria Maggiore or thereabouts. The locals also claim to have invented eau-de-Cologne.’
‘Are the two facts related?’
‘Probably. The wives most likely doused themselves and the sweeps when they got back from their rounds. I don’t know whether eau-de-Val-Vigezzo is quite as snappy, though. Whoa.’
We were at fifteen thousand and something swiped us, a rolling parcel of air, causing the Beech to buck fiercely. I glanced at Lindy. Her smile was uncharacteristically thin.
‘Clear air turbulence,’ I said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘What causes it?’
‘Air of different densities.’ We juddered over a light chop. ‘You usually get it higher than this, up around twenty-five, thirty thousand. Except around mountains.’ There were plenty of theories about CAT. I gave her the straightforward one. ‘Around places like the Alps, with extreme temperature gradients, the air moves like waves, rolling over each other. Sometimes you go through a big roller.’
‘Like that?’
‘That was a wavelet,’ I said.
‘I don’t want to meet a wave then, thanks.’
And you don’t want to be caught in the vortices created by a storm. Thunderclouds act like a brick wall to the wind—it has to go round, under or over them. Flying a Liberator low in the mountains, you only have to hit one of those downdraughts, and you can lose enough height to start shredding trees with your props. Or to go right into them.
We were over Domodossola now, the unassuming town sitting on its flat valley floor, the main rail line showing clear until it was swallowed by the Simplon Tunnel which cut through the heart of glacier-topped mountains, soaring to more than 12,000 feet. I kept my distance. I could see clouds of mist and ice at the summits, sometimes blown into long streaks of spindrift. Besides, the border was down there somewhere, wiggling its way along the passes and over the icy wastes. I didn’t want to cause an international incident by flying into Swiss air space. I turned south.
‘Pass me the chart,’ I said. Lindy did so and I clipped it into its holder. I had overlaid the clear sheet with the first search run. I clicked my mike. ‘Furio?’
‘Yes?’
‘All OK?’
‘Ready when you are.’
‘Starting our approach now. Don’t waste film on the bare mountainsides. Not unless you spot anything.’
‘OK.’
I told him our position and he checked it on his own chart. The Beech carried 206 gallons in front and rear tanks, and averaged around 50 gallons an hour, which gave us an operation window of about three and a bit hours, with fuel to spare in case of problems.
I kept her as steady as I could until we crossed the Corni di Nibbio ridge where Francesca and I had sat a few days previously, then told Furio I was looping her about. ‘How’s it looking?’
‘Green,’ he said, ‘with some nice touches of red and orange. Autumn is here.’
‘Ha ha.’ We bumped over Mount Massone and I turned the Beech once more. ‘We’ll go down and do a visual on the same patch,’ I assured
Lindy. ‘Just in case.’
‘Are they inhabited?’ She pointed to one of the rifugi, the stone huts on the high, sloped Alpine meadows.
‘Not now. Up until around forty-three, when the Germans did their big sweeps, you had some montanari, the men who looked after the pastures, perhaps the odd group of smugglers. The Germans took the cattle, ate them and shipped off any men they found for forced labour in Germany. Nobody ever re-populated it. There are plans to re-build them for walkers. For now there are mostly wild animals up here.’ And maybe eight dead airmen; and Jimmy Morris.
We didn’t find anything that day. Nor the next, although we were due to pick up the film from the first day, which held out some hope. Lindy kept smiling, but I could tell she was disappointed. We’d rehearsed the very small chance of finding anything over and over again, but I knew that some part of her had been expecting that we’d pop over the Val Grande and see the distinctive twin tail of a Lib sticking up out of the undergrowth.
When we landed after the second day’s grid run, Dottore Zopatti was waiting at our parking spot, along with the airport manager, who quickly made himself scarce. As I shut the systems down, the SISDe man lit a cigarette. I took my time making sure the fuel cocks were shut and the magnetos off before I went out to see him.
‘Mr Kirby.’
‘Dottore. Changed your mind about the plane?’
He laughed. ‘No, I haven’t. But someone has.’
Furio chocked the wheels and came over to see if he could help. I waved him away and suggested he should just get on down to the lab with Lindy to pick up the previous day’s shots.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The military have requested the airport withdraw your permission to overfly Val Grande.’
‘Why?’ I spluttered.
‘National security. There is a border.’
‘It’s hardly the most militarised one in the world.’
‘No. But a border is a border. However, you’re a lucky man.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Because you know me.’ He smiled what I am sure he thought was a winning smile.
‘Well, that is a bonus,’ I said, trying to keep the sarcasm below his radar.
‘And because my department is also concerned with national security. We have objected to the objection.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you probably have two or three weeks before someone in Rome makes a decision. Is that enough?’
I had no idea, but I said: ‘Should be.’
‘Good.’
He turned on his heel and, even though it almost stuck in my throat, I said it anyway. ‘Dottore.’ He hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
That was the second time he had been nice to me. I didn’t like it. Zopatti wasn’t really an accommodating kind of guy. Not unless there was something in it for him, and for the life of me I couldn’t think what. And were the military just being jumpy or had someone—and I could guess who—tried to put an end to my gainful employment? Well, sod ’em. Looked like I had friends in high places too. I walked around the Beech one last time, patted the warm engine cowling to thank her for another good flight, and went to find a cold beer.
It wasn’t difficult to locate the villa at Stresa. I mentioned Riccardo Conti in the local bar and they pointed me to a grand ochre building behind high walls, right on the shore. Keeps himself to himself, they told me. Doesn’t like unannounced visitors. I promised I wouldn’t let on who told me how to find him.
It was a nice, expensive-looking house, well kept, with a red-tiled roof, its parapets lined with urns and classical statues. I rang the bell on the column outside and peered through the bars of the gate. The little speaker box remained mute. The house looked firmly shuttered.
Then it dawned on me. They would have gone back to the city. Summer was over, as Furio said, and come autumn the migrants fly back to Milan. I wasn’t sure what I had intended to say to Riccardo, the jealous husband, anyway. I could hardly tell him that I had no interest in his wife, because that wasn’t true. Also, I might have ended up punching him, and that didn’t seem to have got me very far lately. Maybe I just wanted him to know that I knew who was trying to run me out of town, and why.
Once I was sure nobody was coming, I walked away from the gate, kicked the bike into life and headed off for an evening poring over strange photographs of trees.
By day five, it had become a routine. The early-morning inspection, the coffee, the route planning, the buzz of expectation, the dull ache of disappointment at the end of the day, then the optimism miraculously renewed at dawn. It was like playing the Italian lottery every day, but I wondered how we would feel after a month of it.
Today, it was a run up and down an area known as vaso da notte—the chamber pot—a large natural bowl backed by cliffs on one side, with a series of Alpine meadows beneath them. It was a beautiful flying day, clear skies, no wind, not too hot, so there were no thermals or shears off the cliff-face.
‘What are you going to do, once you find him?’ I asked Lindy.
‘I’ll contact his old squadron—’ she began.
‘No. After that. When it is all over.’
‘I haven’t really thought about it.’ Her pretty face was creased by uncertainty.
‘You should.’
Furio came over the phones. ‘Keep her steady, Jack.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You know, I thought I’d wait. Something will come along.’
‘It doesn’t, not really. That’s what I thought. Look where it got me.’
She flicked her hair and pouted. ‘Flying beautiful women around Italy?’ she laughed.
Looking for dead men, I almost added.
‘You could do worse,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I could do worse.’ I would remember those words when, indeed, things did get very much worse.
Twenty-Nine
THE BALL HUNG IN the sky, allowing Jack Kirby enough time to get under it. As the crude leather football plummeted towards him, he thought better of heading it. Instead, he stepped back and took it on the chest, the impact almost winding him, and trapped the ball dead under his right foot.
He looked ahead at the makeshift goal at the end of the field where they were playing. Ragno was in between the pair of tree branches forced into the grass. In front of him were Pavel and a couple of partisans he hardly knew. Behind him, he could hear Rosario shouting for the ball, but he kicked off and began a sprint for goal, flicking the misshapen sphere from one foot to the other as he went, happy with his turn of speed. Ragno crouched down, anticipating the attack.
He sensed someone at his shoulder. Ignoring him, he swept round a clumsy Pavel, then stopped suddenly, letting his follower run on, ready to feint past him. But Fausto turned with him and barrelled through to take the ball, using his weight to push Kirby aside.
Kirby stumbled backwards, felt his ankle go once more, then he hit the rough grass hard. ‘Foul!’ he cried. He looked up in time to see Fausto score at the other end with a strong left foot.
Kirby limped over to the edge of the meadow.
‘OK?’ shouted Fausto.
‘Bloody foul that was,’ he said and the others laughed.
‘You run like a girl.’ Fausto mimed legs flailing to the side. ‘It was a fair tackle.’
‘Yeah, right. I’d hate to see an Italian foul then.’
Kirby sat down near the treeline and helped himself to some water. It was early morning, not yet seven, and they felt safe enough at this time to come out and play a game of soccer. It was letting off steam. In three days, Fausto claimed, they would move against Domodossola, starting the dominoes falling that would result in the liberation of all of Italy.
He squinted in the harsh light at the two figures approaching from the hamlet. One was Francesca, he would know that swing and stride anywhere. The other was taller, a willowy man in civilian clothes. Francesca led him around the edge of the
game until they were walking towards him, and Kirby struggled to his feet. The football match stuttered to a halt as the partisans became aware they had an unexpected visitor. Kirby noticed Rosario walk over to where he had laid his machine pistol.
Francesca said: ‘This is Flight Lieutenant Kirby. Our BLO.’
The newcomer smiled. He wore rimless glasses, had a face so thin you could imagine the skull under it, and a floppy fringe of blond hair. ‘Captain John Hirschfield. Office of Strategic Services.’ OSS, the American Special Operations people. ‘How do you do?’
‘Fine, apart from the ankle. Still gives out.’
‘Glad to see you guys can find time for football. Aren’t you a little, uh, exposed out here?’
‘The Captain is with the Green Flames south of here,’ explained Francesca.
‘You have more Germans down there,’ Kirby said. ‘Football might be trickier.’
‘So it would seem.’
Kirby looked for evidence of the disapproval he was sure the man intended, but the tone was flat and neutral. Still, he suspected the Captain thought that soccer and war didn’t mix: if you had time for one, you couldn’t be pursuing the other properly.
‘Can I have a word?’ he said to Kirby. ‘In private?’
Kirby nodded and the pair of them walked away from Francesca.
‘You all right?’ the American asked as he noticed Kirby’s limp.
‘Yeah, it’ll be OK soon.’
‘Is that why you never went over the mountains?’
‘That and the fact they needed a BLO who spoke Italian.’
‘Maybe. They didn’t need you, Kirby. An ingenuita.’
Kirby stopped in his tracks. ‘What?’ The term was an insult, implying gullibility.
‘This is a job for professionals now. Advisers who can advise.’
‘Or instruct?’
‘If need be. This hare-brained scheme—’
‘Look, Captain, I think they are a little browned off about being told by people like you that their ideas are hare-brained.’
The American hesitated. ‘My outfit and your boys are concerned.’
‘My boys being Lang?’ Kirby knew someone must have briefed the OSS man.