‘And now,’ said Telfer, ‘let us each drink a little brandy. You have a splendid voice, it keeps me wide awake. – Drink up, and sing on.’
‘Libiamo, libiamo ne’ lieti calici,’ sang Angelo, and then he sang fragments, large or small, of Aïda, Otello, and Un Ballo in Maschera. He sang a couple of songs from Falstaff and most of Rigoletto. His throat grew rough but his memory did not fail him. Telfer praised him judiciously and encouraged him as though he were a horse. They finished the brandy.
Dawn rose slowly with a grumbling wind, and when the sky about the eastern mountains was no darker than a grey goose-wing, and Angelo had no more voice than a goose, they heard in the distance a rattling noise on the road, and presently a Bren-carrier came in sight. Because Angelo was stiff with cold he had difficulty in getting to his feet and raising his arms in recognizable surrender; and for a moment or two he was in some danger of being shot. Then one of the carrier’s crew came forward, covered by its gun, and as soon as he heard Telfer’s voice appreciated the situation correctly and signalled to his comrades.
Within a few minutes the jeep had been set on its wheels, and a tow-rope attached to the carrier. One of the soldiers took the steering-wheel and the jeep was hauled on to the road. With clay-cold limbs and a face as grey as an old sandbag Angelo sat huddled in the back seat, and as well as he could supported Major Telfer, who was colder than he and white as marble. Slowly, for the steering-gear had been damaged, they drove southward. It began to rain again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAJOR SIMON TELFER of the 2nd Carabiniers (The Duke of Rothesay’s Dragoon Guards) was a healthy young man, tall of stature, with a lean face that grew a large fair moustache, who had originally joined the Army in order to play polo for his regiment. He quickly achieved his ambition, and when war broke out he had a handicap of six goals and grave anxiety about the cumulative products of concussion, from which he had suffered a good deal. Two years of arduous campaigning in the Desert, however, had done him a world of good, and he was now – save for the effects of severe exposure, a broken collar-bone, a sprained ankle, and a lacerated temple – in excellent shape and spirit.
He had lately transferred from his own regiment to a less formal body known as Force 69. There were several such irregular formations in the British Army, and all who belonged to them were regarded with greenest envy by the disciplined majority that remained in regimental employment and were subject to a constant supervision, standing orders, and regular administration. The members of Force 69 were, from time to time, required to risk their lives in strange adventure. They made perilous voyages to hostile islands in fragile craft that amateur sailors navigated; they had reconnoitred, by routes that camel-ribs signposted, the farthest Libyan oases; they dropped by parachute on mountainsides in Albania; they drove their jeeps through the enemy’s lines to join Partigiani in the Apennines – and so on and so forth, but they never drilled, they avoided contact with senior officers, they grew beards if they felt inclined to, they rarely returned a parade-state, they cocked a long snook at the bureaucracy, and in a world of dour obedience congratulated themselves every morning on the freedom they enjoyed, while their friends with equal regularity complained loudly of the chicanery and favouritism by which they had won it.
To join and remain in Force 69 it was necessary that an officer should be naturally brave, uncommonly resourceful and know a great number of people by their Christian names. In common with all other civilized armies the British Army used many thousand tons of paper to promulgate its orders, instructions, plans and policies; but that was merely to conform with modern practice and provide a livelihood for elderly majors and disabled captains in areas remote from battle. Operations in the field were governed otherwise, and decisive action was taken only in consequence of something that General Oliver or Colonel Peter had said to Dicky This or Nigel That. The executive order usually wore the look of a friendly suggestion, and the officer who loosed the fury of a barrage or led his squadron to death and glory was almost certainly responding to the syllables that had dripped upon his infant face with the water of baptism, or with which he had been labelled in the Lower Fourth. Battles were fought and won by Christian names – and many privileges were granted to those who knew them.
Simon Telfer knew at least three hundred, and as in addition to that good fortune he was brave without effort, and unusually resourceful, he had been allowed to join Force 69.
The jeep that he had capsized he had taken by piracy, only a few hours before, from a German officer who had captured it in ambush from a British patrol on reckless reconnaissance. Simon had been returning from a mission to partisans in the Abruzzi, and though he had used great caution during most of his journey, the taking of a jeep had filled him with exuberance and exuberant driving had lifted him off the road. Good fortune, however, had not wholly deserted him, for he soon discovered that the carrier patrol which came to his rescue belonged to a battalion commanded by an old friend called Michael. The battalion was at present holding a slight salient not far from Alfedena, and shortly after their discovery Simon and Angelo were brought safely to its advanced headquarters.
Their appearance created no particular surprise, for Michael, a lieutenant-colonel at twenty-seven, had long since grown accustomed to the unheralded entrances and sudden exits of his fellow-actors in the war. Simon’s broken collar-bone was quickly set, and he was given what comfort could be provided in a ruined village in the mountains. Angelo received equal hospitality because Simon loudly proclaimed that he, with his singing and his brandy, had saved his life. The Intelligence Officer of Michael’s battalion, moreover, regarded him as a welcome guest, for Angelo was willing to talk at great length about the Germans’ battle-positions and life in their army.
A little after noon on the following day, in a wintry sunshine, they were sitting outside the house in which Michael had established his headquarters. It was a house of two storeys, painted salmon-pink. The front of it was splinter-scarred, an upper window had been raggedly enlarged by a shell, a chimney knocked off by another, and the roof holed. It wore the dumb and sorrowful expression of a man who had been beaten by hooligans.
While Michael and Simon were casually gossiping, and the Intelligence Officer corrected a typewritten copy of the information that Angelo had given him, Angelo sat and regarded them in grave perplexity. A pause in the conversation gave him the opportunity for which he had been waiting.
‘Excuse me, please,’ he said, ‘but do you no longer wear uniform in the British Army?’
They turned and gazed at him with mild astonishment. ‘Of course we wear uniform,’ said Simon. ‘What sort of stories have the Germans been telling you?’
‘I have heard no stories,’ said Angelo. ‘I have been looking at your trousers.’
Michael and Simon wore sheepskin jackets, the Intelligence Officer a fisherman’s blue jersey. Tied round their throats were brightly coloured scarves. Michael was bareheaded, Simon wore a bandage, the Intelligence Officer a stocking-cap of rakish pattern. All three wore corduroy trousers: Simon’s were grey, the Intelligence Officer’s green, and Michael’s a dark brown tucked into gum-boots. With a transient curiosity they considered their own and each other’s small-clothes.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Michael. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘We do dress informally at times,’ said Simon, ‘but comfort is the main thing, isn’t it?’
‘It began in the Desert,’ said the Intelligence Officer.
‘In Africa,’ said Simon, ‘one felt a resurgence of individualism.’
‘I would give a great deal to be there now,’ said Michael.
Simon agreed with him. ‘There’s a lot to be said for Libya.’
‘It’s ideal country for a war,’ said the Intelligence Officer. ‘You can’t do any damage there, except to yourself and the enemy.’
‘One had a lot of freedom in Libya,’ said Simon, ‘but the landscape needed colour to give it variety: that’s where we began
to wear chokers.’
‘It’s a pity we had to come into Europe,’ said Michael. ‘I enjoyed myself in the Desert.’
‘One had so many Mends there,’ said Simon.
‘Everybody knew everybody else,’ said the Intelligence Officer. ‘Of course it was uncomfortable from time to time, but on the whole –’
‘At its best,’ said Simon –
‘Taking it all round,’ said Michael, ‘it was good.’
For a full minute they sat in silence, revolving behind reminiscent eyes nostalgic thoughts of quivering heat, engulfing dust-storms, and immensities of barren soil; till Angelo, in a voice hoarse with amazement, interrupted.
‘Excuse me, please,’ he said again, ‘but are you truthfully saying that you enjoyed the war in Libya?’
‘In a way I think we did,’ said Michael. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘It was fearful, it was horrible!’ cried Angelo with passion. ‘I hated every single hour of it!’
‘What bad luck,’ said Michael.
They looked at him curiously. They tried to be sympathetic, but they were puzzled by his attitude and disappointed in him. Simon had said he was one of the best fellows alive. ‘He carries Spanish brandy and his voice doth murder sleep. He sat in the mud and sang to me all night, and saved my life.’ That was what Simon had said, and now Angelo was talking about their war in Africa with embarrassingly bad taste. Foreigners were full of complexities and self-contradiction, they felt.
Then Simon’s attention was taken by a pair of newcomers. ‘Who,’ he asked, pointing to the end of the village street, ‘are your enterprising friends?’
The farthest houses had collapsed into grey mounds of rubble, and in a space between them, as if in a small ravine, stood two soldiers of savage and repellent aspect. Their faces were blackened, they wore stocking-caps like the Intelligence Officer’s, their battle-dress was dark and filthy, over their shoulders were slung tommy-guns, and one had a long knife in his belt, the other a bludgeon. Each carried, dangling to the ground, a dead goose and a turkey.
‘They’re two of my battle-patrol,’ said Michael. ‘Corporal McCunn and Private O’Flaherty, I think. – Come here!’ he shouted.
The two soldiers, as though overcome by a sudden shyness when they saw their Commanding Officer, had halted between the ruined houses; and now, with an assumption of careless ease, were retreating in the direction from which they had come. They stopped reluctantly when they heard the Colonel’s voice, looked round, and with a philosophic acceptance of the situation marched towards him.
‘Sir,’ said Corporal McCunn.
‘Where did you get those birds?’
With a far-away look the Corporal thought for a moment and answered, ‘From an old farmer.’
‘In a small farm on the hill beyond,’ said Private O’Flaherty. ‘He was very grateful to us, sir.’
‘For liberating him and his family from the Germans,’ said Corporal McCunn.
‘He was that grateful,’ said Private O’Flaherty, ‘that he told us we could liberate as many as we needed of his geese and his turkeys, sir.’
‘But we weren’t wanting to be greedy,’ said the Corporal, ‘and we couldn’t easily carry more than the two apiece.’
‘So we just liberated the four of them, and that’s the whole truth of it,’ said Private O’Flaherty.
‘I see,’ said Michael. ‘Well, I’m glad you weren’t greedy.’
‘If we’d happened to have any money with us,’ said Corporal McCunn, ‘we’d have been glad to pay for the birds.’
‘Now don’t overdo it,’ said Michael. ‘Your story, I mean, not your goose. A goose like that needs to be cooked for about an hour and a half.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I am very fond of those two,’ said Michael when they had gone. ‘I have a good battalion, and my battle-patrol is quite excellent. In private life Corporal McCunn used to sell children’s toys in a shop in Glasgow, and O’Flaherty was a steward in a passenger-ship. After earning their living by cosseting people, and persuading people to buy things, they find spiritual refreshment in their present occupation – which gives them a chance to assassinate people.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Angelo, ‘but when I went to school in Siena, I was taught that to liberate means to set free. Is that so, please?’
‘It is,’ said Michael.
‘And in September we were told that you and the Americans were coming to liberate Italy.’
‘And now we have come,’ said Michael coldly.
‘But those soldiers, who said they had liberated the turkeys and the geese, had taken a most drastic way of giving them their freedom. I do not deny that turkeys and geese, especially in winter, lead a very dull and disagreeable and apprehensive life. So do many human beings, however, and if the Allies have decided that all who are unfortunate can be liberated only by wringing their necks –’
‘I’m afraid I can’t spend the whole day gossiping,’ said Michael, and stood up. ‘I have work to do.’
‘So have I,’ said the Intelligence Officer.
‘I usually take a short drink about this time,’ said Simon.
Angelo was left alone with his troubled thoughts. He got up and walked slowly down the village street, then stopped to look at a house which had been hit by a bomb. It had been a good house, with a portico and pillars and well-proportioned large windows, but now, cut diagonally in two, a half of it lay in a heap of untidy masonry as though it had been caught and melted by a draught of infernal flame, and run to waste. On the remaining fragment of an upper floor stood a carved armchair upholstered in wet red velvet.
A passing soldier of Michael’s battalion, a burly man with a great red face, also stopped to look at the wasted house. He gave Angelo a cigarette, and said, ‘It makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘It does,’ said Angelo.
‘In the olden times, before people like you and me were educated and enlightened,’ said the soldier, ‘they used to go to war to capture towns, and when they had captured them, they enjoyed them. There was drink, there was loot, and there were women. The victorious army went into winter quarters and had a good time. But nowadays we’re fighting for something fancier than towns. We’re fighting for ideas about freedom and justice, so we despise mere stone and mortar, and consequently knock it to bits. So the wine runs down the gutters, and the women pick up their skirts and scuttle, and the conquering soldiers don’t find any winter quarters. We’re living in uncomfortable times, and you’ve got to admit it.’
‘Would you say that this village had been liberated?’ asked Angelo.
‘Oh, properly liberated,’ said the soldier. ‘There isn’t a roof left in it.’
‘It makes me sad to look at such destruction,’ said Angelo. ‘I am Italian, you see.’
‘You ought to have a look at Coventry,’ said the soldier. ‘It was a big town, as towns go in England, and they laid most of it as flat as a plate. That’s where I come from: Coventry.’
‘And surely it made you very sad to see your native town in ruins?’
‘Sad?’ said the soldier. ‘Don’t you believe it. I’m a bricklayer by trade, and as soon as this war’s over, and I get back to Coventry, I’m going to be worth my weight in gold.’
‘You Englishmen are very practical,’ said Angelo in a melancholy voice.
‘Yes and no,’ said the soldier. ‘We’re more practical than many, I grant you, but we fall short of perfection, there’s no denying that. Now I’m a bricklayer, as I’ve just told you, and consequently I’m not only valuable but important. But is my importance recognized? No. Would I myself live in one of the houses that I built before the war, or that I’m going to build after the war? No. And why not? Because they were shoddy, and they’ll be shoddy again. I used to live in a house that was built in seventeen-sixty, when people built well because they thought it important to build as well as they could. – Now take my wife’s eldest brother, he’s a different case. He was a farmer, and
he went to live in New Zealand. Why? Because he was a good farmer, and in 1930 England didn’t believe that farmers were important, so England lost him. – Then there’s a nephew of mine, he was never fit for honest work because of his kidneys, but he learnt to play the fiddle, and he played it well. And what’s he doing now? Playing the sort of stuff that makes you sick to listen to, and earning thirty pound a week in a dance band. – Now you see what I mean, don’t you? As a people we can still hold our own, because in my opinion nobody’s much good nowadays, and everybody’s going down hill; but we’re going slower than the rest. But I often feel we’re not as good as we used to be, or as good as we ought to be, and the reason is that our feeling for what’s really important is part-worn, and most of us don’t know why it is important anyway. And nobody’s really practical who doesn’t recognize at sight that some things are valuable, and other things are trash. Here, have a cigarette.’
Angelo spent the rest of the day in solitary thought, and an hour or two before dusk was rescued from so depressing an occupation by a sudden storm of shells and mortarbombs that fell upon the village. Ten minutes later the Germans made a small but resolute attack, which was energetically repulsed, and for some hours there was intermittent gunfire and sufficient excitement to put a stop to intellectual exercising. Shortly after midnight the noise diminished, and Angelo slept.
In the morning Simon Telfer decided that he was able to travel. His captured jeep had been repaired, and it was tacitly assumed that Angelo would go with him. Simon had not only taken a liking to him – despite his heretical views about the Libyan campaign – but acquired a possessive pride in Angelo’s singing voice and his knowledge of English. With his broken collar-bone, moreover, he needed a driver. So Michael lent them a spade, and they set off soon after breakfast.
Only twice had Angelo to dig deeply, to extricate them from snowdrifts, and without untoward incident they reached a village near Piedimonte d’Alife where a detached company of Force 69 was then quartered. Simon immediately discovered that he was no longer a major. During his mission to the Abruzzi partisans a senior officer had arrived from England, and Simon in consequence had to revert to the rank of captain. But he had long since recognized that promotion in war-time was like a greasy pole, or a game of snakes-and-ladders, and was philosophical about the change; though Angelo was indignant.
Private Angelo Page 9
