by Tim Pears
May 23
THEIR PASSAGE NORTH remains impossible. Jack Farwell fumes. Captain Wilson tries to distract him with a visit to the small section of Partisan artillery, Italian 75mm mountain guns. Sid Dixon plays cards under a lean-to in the garden with the British Mission’s Slovene bodyguards, hands of poker for shots of plum brandy, the quality of their bluffing deteriorating through the afternoon.
Jovan pays a visit. He is armed, with a sub-machine gun. ‘I have a gift for you,’ he informs Tom. ‘It is Italian.’ A Beretta Modello 38A. 9mm. It has a lovely wooden butt and stock, looks and feels far more comfortable than Tom’s Sten. Heavier, too – some ten pounds in weight, he reckons – but not burdensome. The magazine jams into the breech from below, and there are two triggers. ‘One for single shots,’ Jovan tells him, ‘the other for automatic fire.’
They go into the orchard, where Tom empties the magazine into the trunk of a dead tree. He can’t shoot without scrunching up his eyes and ears. The noise brings Sid and the bodyguards staggering around the house from the garden. Seeing there is no danger, and shielding their eyes from the bright daylight, they stumble back to their cards.
Tom slings the Beretta over his shoulder. He has not yet got used to the idea of owning a murderous weapon – but how beautiful it is. And Jovan has given it to him, not to Jack. ‘Thank you,’ he says.
Jovan smiles, nods. ‘The Italians may not have been the best soldiers, Tom,’ he says, ‘but they had both the smartest uniforms and the finest weapons.’
For Tom Freedman, these are days of language acquisition. He studies his book of Slovene vocabulary, mercifully less extensive than English. He listens to people speaking and goes over his own pronunciation with Pero. Abundant inflections, odd places in a sentence where stress falls, or is absent, become rapidly familiar to him. People address each other with the familiar singular, Ti, or polite, plural, Vi, just as in French.
The lack of definite or indefinite articles; grammatical gender signified by the ending of a noun; the passive form – ‘he went in the house’ becomes ‘house was being gone into by him’ – these lose their oddity. Tom gives the language as it emerges from the mouths of men his quiet attention and after a certain point it begins to offer itself to him. And he speaks it, tentatively, haltingly, at first. People struggle to understand him. They frown and grimace in response.
‘You are doing very well,’ Jovan tells him, one evening, as they walk in the fruit orchards around Semic. ‘We speak a sort of mixture of south Slavic languages. Serbo-Croat-Slovene. That is how I more or less understand them, and they me, though some of the younger Slovenes resent anything other than what they see as a pure Slovene spoken on their soil. In this part of their country the Italians have suppressed the language for twenty years now. In the north the Germans have resumed a suppression practised intermittently for centuries.’
‘I think it’s fascinating, Jovan,’ Tom says, his eyes bright. ‘I can’t wait to tell my tutor. He wrote a brilliant monograph on how language fosters a people’s sense of themselves, particularly a minority, whose language and human rights were suppressed. His examples were Breton, Basque and Welsh, which are related. It’s a tremendously exciting area for research, and I doubt very much whether anyone’s been here.’ He nods to himself. ‘Perhaps I might come back afterwards.’
Tom looks up. He sees Jovan smiling at him, and feels suddenly self-conscious. He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, blushing. ‘I was back in the cloistered world I come from. I miss it, rather, but it’s small, I know. And long ago.’
‘No, no,’ Jovan says. ‘I like your enthusiasm. Actually, I was also involved with words, you can say. I published half a dozen short stories in Belgrade magazines before the war.’
He offers a cigarette, which Tom accepts out of politeness, expecting it to be rough and tarry. It is excellent: smooth and with a delicate but distinct flavour.
‘You like it,’ Jovan says, pleased. ‘Morava. It’s Serbian.’ They each inhale, hold the smoke in their lungs, savour it on their palates, before exhaling slowly. ‘It is not the best Yugoslav tobacco, though, which comes from my part of the world: Herzegovinian tobacco was prized at the courts of both Vienna and Istanbul.’
CHAPTER TWO
Into the Third Reich
May 26
A ROUTE HAS been decided. The British trio, along with Jovan and a small armed escort, strike out for the north, led by Pero, the young courier. The radio and two heavy batteries are hauled in packs by Partisans. Jack Farwell, Sid Dixon and Tom Freedman each carry a rucksack, stuffed with his kit. Major Farwell wears his field uniform, with peaked cap and Sam Browne belt and strap. Tom has purloined a felt cap from Wilson. Sid Dixon, much bothered by perspiration on the march from the drop point, has a green kerchief tied around his neck.
‘Glad to see you wearing proper country yokels’ attire,’ Jack ribs him.
‘Sorry, sir, didn’t realise we was going to be on parade.’
‘To be expected from the ranks, I suppose,’ Jack tells Tom. ‘At least you haven’t borrowed a commie cap off your Red friend.’
Tom blushes. Jack has already discerned his and Jovan’s friendship. He wants to say something in response, but he’s never been much good at such banter; he suspects Jack employs it to cover his nerves, to pretend they’re simply a group of carefree hikers setting off on a jaunt.
They walk through lush pastures stained yellow with patches of buttercups that have flowered overnight, a beautiful rash on the skin of the earth. After a while the amblers coalesce into a single file, sharpening as they thread their way forward from the safe area around Semic through green lustrous valleys, becoming more like soldiers as they do so: solemn, alert. Passing by nettles, Tom notices for the first time in his life the musky scent they give off. It seems he is less the single unified personality he’d thought of himself as, than a wireless receiver of signals that he’s gradually becoming attuned to.
The Partisans are armed with German rifles – some captured here in Slovenia, most in north Africa and dropped by Allied planes. Jovan carries a Schmeisser machine pistol.
They pass a section of single-track rail line. It is being repaired by men under Partisan armed guard. Jack pauses when he realises from their dirty uniforms that they are German prisoners: he finds this amusing, considering what his team aim to do further north. ‘No doubt the Hun will use forced labour to repair whatever we manage to destroy,’ he proclaims.
Thin, pale cows graze in a leisurely, deliberate manner, as if to make clear to anyone watching that it will take more than war to make them hurry. On some south-facing hillsides are vineyards. The small, twisted plants look like they’ve been on their terraces for a thousand years. Green buds push improbably out of the gnarled joints.
Walking through a wood, they come across a hollow full of sheep, where they surprise two uniformed men lounging by a tree. At the sight of Tom’s group, the men break into a run. Jovan runs after them, shouting, ‘Ustavi ali bomo ustrelil!’ He lifts the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, but before he can raise it, another soldier has taken aim. There are three loud cracks. One of the fleeing men halts and throws his arms in the air. The other staggers, and rests a hand against the trunk of a beech tree. He appears to ponder his predicament a moment before coming to a decision: to sink to the ground, and then roll on to his back. Tom stumbles over after Jovan. The wounded young man has a downy moustache, the sort that is barely worth shaving. He is gasping for breath, staring up through the leaves of the tree above him. A bullet that entered his back has come out of his chest.
The day is warm but the other youth is shivering. He seems to be trying to swallow but cannot do so, his Adam’s apple shifts weirdly at his throat. Jovan looks at him angrily. ‘Why did you run?’ he demands. The youth can only shake his head.
The boy on the ground stops panting.
‘Where do you live?’ Jovan asks. The youth points a trembling arm. ‘Go,’ Jovan tells him. He gestures to the dead boy. �
��Get some help to take him home.’
By the sheep they find two rifles with cartridge belts, leaning against a tree. The young members of the Home Guard had been milking the ewes. The Partisans offer their English guests the milk. Tom’s shaking hands will not hold the bucket still. He tries to drink, milk spills down his front. The Partisans, laughing, take the pail from him and pass it round amongst themselves. When it is finished, they set off again.
So that is it, Tom ponders, as, walking, his breathing gradually returns to his control; that is what death looks like. A vital youth becomes a carcass, in seconds, and it’s all over.
‘It’s shit, innit, sir?’ Sid Dixon is walking beside him. ‘Some kid. Younger’n my little brother.’ For a moment Tom thinks that Dixon has come to offer him his support, and is touched, and indignant, but then he looks across and sees that Sid is trembling slightly as he walks. Tom reaches over and puts his hand on the corporal’s shoulder.
‘Bloody awful,’ he says. ‘I can’t imagine that a person could ever get used to it.’
They climb up from the valley floor to skirt the town of Zuzemberk. Jack Farwell asks who’s down there. The town holds a skulking garrison of Slovene Home Guard – domobranstvo – Pero tells them: locals recruited by Germans to defend the church and conservative institutions against the evil of communism, an appeal that found a response among the traditional Catholic Slovenes. Jovan gives Jack his field glasses to study the castle overlooking the Krka river. A medieval fortress with seven bastilles, only one of which still has its coned roof.
‘We set the castle on fire while the Italians occupied Zuzemberk,’ Pero explains. ‘After they left it was reclaimed by the Home Guard. There are a few Germans there with them, as well,’ he says. ‘The Home Guard venture out by day, if they are feeling very brave, and retreat before nightfall.’
Jovan says nothing. He too seems shaken by the shooting of the young shepherd, though he is tight-lipped, less upset than angry. Tom walks beside him, and asks if he is all right.
‘I cannot stand unnecessary death,’ Jovan tells him, quietly.
They walk on and see no trace of occupation or battle. Sleepy villages, livestock grazing. A dog barks in the distance: at them, Tom feels, as if it is aware of intruders in its land. A man hammers a post into the ground. Only once does Tom hear the sound of a motor engine, a distant whine that at first he’d thought to be an insect. He recalls being told in training that the inhabitants of countries under occupation keep their heads down and get on with their lives with as little alteration of routine or comfort or safety as possible. A small number rebel. A small number collaborate. When an occupier is weakened, Tom remembers, and begins to show signs of withdrawal, then the people invariably rise up to chase him out. They just need a little encouragement.
They stop at dusk at a farmhouse, eat lamb stew mopped up with heavy bread, down glasses of a rough red wine. One of the Partisans asks the Englishmen when the second front will open.
‘Soon, actually,’ Jack Farwell says, with the air of someone privy to inside information. ‘Very soon.’
Another Partisan, a stocky young peasant, opens his mouth, as if to speak. To Tom’s surprise, out comes not speech but song. He has a fine voice, high and melodious, almost feminine. ‘Tece mi tece,’ he sings. ‘Flow, river, flow.’ The others listen carefully, occasionally nodding at the words, as if he were explaining something they’d not fully understood before. Sometimes others join in, perhaps during a chorus, Tom can hardly tell. He is dropping off where he sits, eyelids closing and blinking open. They are led like drowsy beasts to a barn, lie one beside another in the straw, and sleep.
May 27
AT FIRST LIGHT they set off. The Englishmen, their muscles aching, walk stiff as old men. You feel it most, Tom notices, in your buttocks. Gradually your sinews elasticate. He can feel pain in places, parts of him, he’d not known existed. Pain gives him knowledge, a map forming, realms of muscle like a rippling, burning matrix that is his body, himself.
It is a little warmer than the day before. One or two of the Partisans wear items of clothing the Englishmen have given them, packs lighter for their generosity. Each man carries a blanket, and an Italian waterproof sheet.
Soon they skirt another garrison town, Trbnje. Jovan pauses to study it. He passes Tom his field glasses while he makes notes. There are streets with terraced houses painted in bright colours, similar to those in Semic. Tom can see neither soldiers nor guns. Only some old men – generals? – clad in no apparent uniform, studying something; battle plans, perhaps; the movement of troops. One of them steps forward and positions an artillery piece here; another – predicting their enemy’s response? – moves a body of men there.
Jack takes the glasses, fiddles with the focus. ‘Ah,’ he exclaims. ‘Wouldn’t mind a game of chess myself.’
Outside peasant farms stand neat woodpiles, the trunks and branches precision cut before being split with an axe, so that the face of each stack is flat as a section of dry stone wall. In an orchard a wooden ladder leans against an apple tree, as it must have leaned since autumn.
They hitch a lift for their packs on a peasant wagon, for a couple of miles along a track. Sid scratches the ox behind its ears, then walks beside it, in companionable proximity. The drover does the favour with no sign of curiosity or satisfaction: when they veer off into the woods Tom watches him roll on along the track with not a backward glance.
They pass by a small, derelict castle, so covered with ivy that it looks like it is being dragged underground. Sid pauses to light a cigarette and Jovan immediately tells Jack Farwell to order him to put it out.
‘The smoke can drift,’ he says. ‘An enemy might not see us but may sniff the cigarette.’
Pero, the guide, walks thirty yards ahead of the next man. However vigilant his attention, Tom assumes, he might meet an enemy patrol, by chance, at any moment.
In the pine forest Tom waits for Jack to reach him. ‘Can you hear voices?’ he asks.
‘Where?’
Tom is unsure. He struggles to convince himself it is only wind in the leaves; branches scraping against each other with a sound like someone singing.
Would he notice so much around him if he were not alert to danger in the first place? He becomes aware of something at the far left of his field of vision, and turns. Deep in the forest, there is a figure watching. He draws his Beretta from behind his back and raises the butt to his shoulder. He holds his breath and aims.
‘Stoj!’ a voice exclaims. A hand grabs and lowers the barrel of Tom’s rifle. He looks and sees the figure drop onto all-fours and lope off into the shadows. Tom stares after it, breathing hard.
‘It is bad luck to kill a bear,’ Pero says. ‘Very bad. They leave us alone, we leave them alone.’
They stay that night in a farmhouse. After a thin stew and a hunk of coarse bread, they are given scrambled eggs, followed by honey and cream.
‘Make the most of it,’ Jovan tells the Englishmen.
Sid Dixon sets up his wireless, and relays news: the Allies are advancing on Rome. But Marshal Tito’s HQ in Drvar in Bosnia – to which there are British, American and Russian Missions attached – has been attacked by German forces.
The Partisans crowd round, asking for details, desperate to know more. All are worried for Comrade Tito; their faces betray an intimate, selfless concern.
May 29
THEY WALK ALL morning and reach a village just short of the border, where they rest, and eat. They have reached the northern extent of the area in which the Partisans can move, with relative safety, in daylight.
‘From now on,’ Jovan informs the Englishmen, ‘we are to travel only by night.’
The half-dozen soldiers who’d escorted them have slipped away. They are joined now by a new, much larger group, including some with British Bren light machine guns. A fresh guide is to lead them.
‘If we run into a German ambush or patrol,’ Jovan says, ‘you must let our Partisans engage them, an
d guide us around the obstacle.’ Their priority – with which, Tom notes, Jack fortunately agrees – is to get themselves and their radio safely into the Fourth Zone.
They wait in the middle of the safe village. Jack smokes a cigarette, stubs it out, lights another. ‘Which do you prefer, Freedman,’ he asks, ‘partridge or pheasant?’
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten partridge,’ Tom confesses.
‘Not to eat, man,’ Jack says. ‘I mean: to shoot.’
‘I’m not much of a hunter, to be honest, Jack.’
‘What, not at all?’ Jack asks. ‘Not even foxes?’
‘I never seen a hunt,’ Sid Dixon joins in. ‘We don’t have ’em round where we are,’ he says. ‘Our little hills and valleys is too crooked. You wouldn’t get much of a ride round our way, sir.’
‘What do you do about foxes?’ Jack asks him.
‘Leave ’em alone, mostly. You get the odd one’s a nuisance. There’s a couple of dogs in our village to deal with they.’
At dusk they set off in single file towards the border. Moonlight imbues the forest with a silvery gloom. The only sound is the crackle of their boots on brittle twigs. After ten miles, shortly after midnight, they pause. A new guide appears; the first one turns back. They press on. Within a mile they reach the edge of the forest, and look out.
The physical frontier is a double barbed-wire fence, with a cleared area a hundred metres wide either side sewn with anti-personnel mines. Sporadic watchtowers house lookouts. An advance party has already cleared a narrow path through the minefield, removing each mine by hand, and cut the wire. The Englishmen are each told to follow the man in front precisely, and they set off, crouching to minimise their silhouettes, packs bumping against their backs. The night is cold but Tom can feel sweat sliding down his skin. How narrow exactly is this tightrope of a path between the landmines? He’s seen amputees. He imagines the explosion, his toes, a foot, ankle blown to bits, the meat and the blood and the gristle of his own flesh. He must not funk it. He concentrates fiercely on the Partisan in front of him, trying to see in the moonlight the outline of earth he has placed his feet upon, his eyesight keen and nocturnal.