Private Angelo

by Eric Linklater

  The canopy of the sky was wearing thin. The moths had been there, and through it in prickle-points shone the brilliant vacancy beyond. Nothing was real, thought Angelo. They were ghosts on a sterile sea, and there were holes in the sky. This mad adventure was certainly unreal, for only in the fantasy of a dream could he have embarked upon it. He listened to Simon with the accompaniment of a running prayer that he might wake up.

  But in the morning, at Anzio, he had to admit the reality of the scene, though it was different from his expectation of it. The sun shone brightly on a calm sea and about fifty soldiers, stark naked and as brown as chestnuts, were noisily bathing in the clear boulder-strewn water on the outer side of the breakwater. The little harbour was full of strange craft, and men were shouting, working, hurrying to and fro, with unceasing busyness. Inland the view was screened by a wall of artificial smoke, and a rumble of gunfire came from the invisible hills beyond it. The tall painted buildings along the water front, scarred and torn by shellfire, looked calm and decorative among their companion-trees. Though vibrant with activity, the scene was unexpectedly peaceful.

  Simon marched his little company up the cobbled wharf through part of the town, and into a scrubby wood. The wood was thickly populated and strewn like the floor of a gigantic customs-shed with military stores in great variety and vast abundance. Wherever they went they saw little dumps of oil and food and ammunition. Shells here, cheese and pickles over there. Elsewhere blankets and barbed wire, pick-helves and canned peaches and more ammunition, and grenades in wooden boxes. The air also was crowded, and full of odours. It smelt of a sickly vegetation, of sweat and leather, of acrid smoke and dung. There were soldiers everywhere, working or sleeping, smoking and brewing tea and eating ration beef out of the tin. Many wore nothing but khaki shorts, and the sun had burnt their shoulders to flaming red or polished brown. Their common expression was a tough indifference, and their language was shocking.

  Simon was shown a small unoccupied area in which his party might bivouac, and after he had given some necessary orders he walked idly towards Angelo, who was standing deep in thought at the edge of a large hole. A German shell, falling by chance on a store of ammunition, had exploded it and opened an untidy crater; and now in the loose earth of its circumference a border of scarlet poppies bloomed.

  ‘After the last war,’ said Simon, ‘they took those flaming weeds for a symbol of remembrance. But the poppy is the flower of oblivion, and the poppy did its own work in its own way.’

  ‘There are always poppies at this time of year,’ said Angelo. ‘I wasn’t thinking about them, but about the Emperors Nero and Caligula, who were born here. In Anzio, I mean.’

  ‘Had they any voice in the matter? They could no more choose their landfall than the soldiers who are here today.’

  ‘Of course not. But in such a time as this it is refreshing to think about the lives of wicked Emperors. They sinned for their pleasure, and in good style.’

  Ambulance-jeeps, laden with wounded men, came slowly down the road from the front of battle. The troops so long confined in the narrow acres of the bridgehead had now broken their perimeter and were fighting their way through a gap in the Alban hills to the Via Casilina. American soldiers from the main front, advancing through the flooded Pontine Marshes, had joined the beleaguered garrison in Latium, and both were striking tumultuously at the Germans’ seaward flank. For the next few days Simon spent most of his time observing the battle at close quarters, but Angelo put off several invitations to join him, and passed the time in wistful melancholy on the sea-shore.

  North of Anzio there are low cliffs of a soft stone that breaks easily into caves. Some of the caves had been enlarged, and soldiers were living in them. They spread their washing on the rocks, and the shore had something of a domestic look. Lying on the warm sand or swimming in the mild sea there were always soldiers, free from duty for a little while, making a brief holiday of opportunity. Gunfire seemed no more than thunder in the hills, and Angelo would swim out to sea and wish that he might meet a friendly dolphin. In classical times, as he had learnt at school, it was no uncommon thing for a young man to win a dolphin’s regard and be carried on its back to some delectable island. But he wished in vain, and searched to no purpose the silver-sprinkled sea. The character of dolphins, like that of Emperors, had presumably suffered a change.

  The day came when they must go forward with their adventure, for now the fall of Rome was imminent. For their transport Simon had procured two half-tracked German vehicles, captured from the enemy, and a sufficiency of soft, long-snouted caps, such as were worn by the Africa Korps, to give his party a rough disguise. At sunset they embarked with their vehicles aboard a sheer-sided ungainly craft with a blunt bow, and put to sea and headed to the north under the rising moon.

  Their landfall was a point on the coast some twenty miles beyond the mouth of the Tiber, and they made it in the darkness between moonset and dawn. A pair of partisans, with two dim lanterns in line, guided them in. Their vessel grounded on a shelving beach, the door in the bow was lowered, and Simon’s party in their vehicles drove ashore. The partisans led them through a minefield and a wood. A couple of miles to the south there was much excitement on the beach, for the Germans had discovered what appeared to be an attempted landing. Two motor-gunboats had caused the alarm to divert attention from Simon’s invasion, and after manoeuvring off-shore at high speed and firing several thousand rounds of coloured ammunition, they drew away and set their course for Anzio again. Simon’s party, by this time, was motoring comfortably towards the farmhouse where he proposed to go into hiding.

  The vehicles were concealed, the soldiers brewed-up and ate a hearty meal, then most of them lay down in a barn and went to sleep. A guard was inconspicuously posted, and Simon with one of the subalterns set off to an appointed rendezvous. They had not long to wait. Within half an hour two excited Italians appeared, who at once declared that the Germans were in full flight from Rome, and that Allied aircraft were now bombing their transport on the main roads north of the city.

  They knew nothing about the bridges over the Tiber except that they were strongly guarded. The rumour was still current that they had been prepared for demolition, but now a counter-opinion declared that the Germans had no intention of destroying them. A story was also to be heard that some of the bridges had already been blown-up, and both the Italians said they had been alarmed during the night by loud noises that must have been demolitions of some kind. – So much they told, with great pleasure and volubility, constantly interrupting each other and repeatedly breaking their narrative to describe with animated and expressive gestures the weary, hang-dog, and shamefaced air of the retreating enemy. What a contrast, they exclaimed, to the arrogance with which the Tedeschi had entered Rome, their bands a brazen triumph, their great boots thumping the road, and their stupid faces starched with pride!

  Simon put many questions without getting much more information, and after some thought he said to his subaltern, ‘I think we had better start.’

  ‘I believe you’re right,’ said the subaltern.

  They returned to the farm and roused the soldiers. Simon said to them: ‘We’re going to start in half an hour. So far as I can learn, the Hun is pulling out of Rome as fast as he can, so we haven’t any time to lose. I think our two half-tracks, going as fast as they can in the opposite direction, will have a good chance of getting through. You look quite ugly enough, in those caps, to be mistaken for Germans, and till we get on the main road we’ll take turns in leading so that we can all get a good coating of dust. We shan’t fight unless we have to. If we’re held up, we’ll try to bluff and run. If we get separated, we’ll continue independently to our rendezvous on the outskirts of Rome. Then we’ll go to ground again until we’ve done a further reconnaissance. Is that quite clear?’

  The soldiers briskly began to wash in the green water of a long stone trough. They propped-up fragments of mirror and shaved. They were quite calm, but their lan
guage, as they discussed their prospects and their commanding officer, was shocking. They themselves, it appeared, were shocked. Not by their language, but by Simon, who asked too shocking much from them, they said. But they took pride, as it seemed, in being so deeply shocked, and no one had a word to say against Simon himself. Not a shocking word. It was just the shocking demands he made.

  ‘Shock me,’ said a tall brown fellow with long hairy arms and a long lean jaw, screwing his mouth to tauten the skin for scraping, ‘shock me if that shocker gives a shock for any shocking Jerry that ever shocked. I’ll be shocked if he does.’

  ‘What about the shocking tea?’ shouted another. So they brewed-up again, and quickly ate another hearty meal, then climbing into their open vehicles sat there as primly upright as if they had indeed been Germans.

  To begin with they drove along a country road where there was little chance of meeting traffic. Two of the partisans had volunteered to go with them. On the landward side the country was lightly wooded, but towards the sea it fell gradually in broad uncovered slopes. They could see where they were going, and drove with confidence. But the country road led to the main road, the Via Aurelia, and they must use that for some three or four miles. Then, if they were fortunate so far, they could turn inland on a vagrant lesser route that served a rural traffic only, where they might hope to avoid interference and circumvent such minor obstacles as they would encounter.

  A little distance from the Via Aurelia they halted under cover, and Simon with a sergeant went forward to regard the scene. – A German convoy was moving northwards at high speed, with long intervals between the lorries, and a battalion of infantry, immensely elongated, was on the march. Two staff-cars came in sight, travelling fast, and in succession overtook a heavy-laden lorry. The footsoldiers made way for them. Then quite suddenly, as if they had that instant crystallized in the bright air, three white-starred aeroplanes appeared at no great height above the road, and sped along it in a swift assassin’s flight, and left behind them the roaring wash of their propellers, and dead men tumbling on the verges, and burning wreckage. Both staff-cars were hit, and leaping from the road turned somersaults into a field. The marching infantry scattered like minnows in a pool, save the sluggards who lay still. And a canvas-hooded lorry slewed sideways and stopped abruptly, then toppled over and palely flowered into shimmering grey-tipped flame.

  Simon and the sergeant ran back to their vehicles, beckoned the drivers to start, and mounted quickly. The heat of the burning lorry scorched them as they passed it, and two soldiers bending over a wounded comrade looked up and shouted angrily. An officer who had belatedly brought a light anti-aircraft gun into action held up his hand against them, but Simon made a sweeping and dramatic gesture that persuaded him to stand clear. Half a mile farther on they passed three lorries, halted close together, and a corporal who stood on the road and abused the drivers. He also signalled them to stop, but Simon repeated his gesture with good effect.

  They crossed a bridge that engineers were preparing for demolition. Red cakes of explosive lay on the parapet. Here they excited suspicion and three men pursued them for a few yards, one of them firing his revolver. Road and railway now ran side by side, and more engineers were tying small cutting charges to the rails. An officer stood at the roadside, in argument with another, pointing furiously at his watch. These also turned and stared with suspicious curiosity at Simon’s troop, but did nothing more than stare. Ahead of them, marching wearily, was another battalion of infantry, but before they reached the leading files the partisan who sat by Simon pointed to the left, and with barely moderated speed they turned into a side road. Three soldiers at the corner were laying mines in the verges.

  For some distance ahead the lesser road was empty, and all of them felt in their muscles a small but pleasant relaxation. All but Angelo, that is. Angelo, sitting with his eyes tightly shut, was praying that he might die without pain. His refusal to observe the situation was due to his realization that in no other way could he endure it. He had not opened his eyes since leaving the farm, nor did he open them when, some few miles from the Via Aurelia, the two vehicles came abruptly to a halt.

  They were on a curving road with a wood to the right of it and a high bank to the left. Round the corner towards them, moving faster than their custom, came a herd of thirty or forty cattle. They were the great white cattle of the Tiber valley, standing as high as a Guardsman at their tallest, and immensely horned. They filled the road, and within a few seconds the vehicles were two islands, close together, in a turbulent milky sea. The partisan beside Simon stood up and exclaimed, ‘They are being driven!’

  Simon also stood up. ‘Germans,’ he said. ‘I can see eight of them, and there may be more behind.’

  He gave his orders: ‘Two men and the driver stay in each truck. The rest of you get into the wood, quickly, and we’ll take them from the flank and rear.’

  Nimbly the men leaped out, and Angelo, buffeted by their movement, but with his eyes still grimly closed, asked faintly what the matter was.

  ‘Just a little parcel of Jerries,’ said someone.

  The word was too much for his resolution. He could not sit and wait for death, but while strength to run was in him, he would run. He laid his hand upon the rail, and scarcely looking where he might land, jumped out.

  His descent was negligible, for he fell astride the tallest ox in the herd. He pitched forward, and to save himself grasped the loose hide over its withers. The ox in great alarm struck sideways with its mighty horns, goaded a cow into movement, and found a space ahead of it. It made a ponderous and futile attempt to buck, then broke into a lumbering trot. Angelo held tightly on.

  Still driven by the Germans behind, and excited by the soldiers in its midst, all the herd was moving more quickly now. The great ox thrust its way to the front, and by example and contagion increased the general pace. The herd stampeded.

  In comparison with the half-wild cattle of the South American pampas, or fighting bulls on a Spanish ranch, its speed might have been considered slow; but to Angelo it seemed a wild and furious progress. He was tossed and shaken as if he had been abroad on some wild ocean. On either side of him, like the billows of a stormy sea broken to white, were galloping shoulders and tumultuous pale haunches. Long gleaming horns were the naked spars of tall ships running before a gale. The broad beast under him rolled and plunged as though it were meeting confused and contrarious waves. He began to feel slightly sick, but as he was heaved further forward on the ox’s back, he took a new grip on a loose roll of skin, and grimly kept his seat.

  The great ox began to outstrip the rest of the herd, and turning suddenly from the road it entered the wood by a narrow path. Low branches struck cruelly as they charged beneath, and brambles tore at Angelo’s legs. He lowered his head and shut his eyes again. All his muscles were aching with the effort to maintain his seat.

  How long his ride had lasted, and how far he had travelled, he had no notion when at last the pace grew slower, the gallop became a trot, and the trot a walk. Angelo sat up and opened his eyes. They were approaching a farmyard, and in a cartshed two men and a woman were watching them. Spouting its steamy breath out of distended nostrils, foam dripping from its mouth and vast flanks heaving, the ox stood still. Angelo dismounted, and on failing knees tottered to the cartshed.

  One of the men there was broadly built, with a fat unshaven face and a swollen paunch. He wore a soft black hat, black trousers, a white shirt fastened at the throat with a brass stud, and red braces. He carried his coat over his left arm. His voice was an over-ripe, husky bass.

  ‘So you have joined the cavalry?’ he said. ‘When you left us at Reggio I realized that we of the infantry were too slow for you. Have you had a good ride?’

  Angelo wiped the sweat from his eyes and recognized him. ‘Sergeant Vespucci!’ he exclaimed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A COUPLE OF HOURS later Angelo and Sergeant Vespucci sat facing each other across a table on whic
h were scattered the fragments of a substantial meal. Flies buzzed and fed upon the gravy smears, on cherry-stones and breadcrumbs. An empty fiasco stood among the plates. From another, half empty, the Sergeant was pouring red wine with steady care into Angelo’s glass. His own was brimfull. In the wrinkles below his eyes the sweat glistened like seed-pearls, and his leathery cheeks shone with a general moisture. Great dew-drops stood upon his forehead, and his shirt clung damply to his chest.

  He set down the flask and said, ‘So that’s how I became a Distributer.’

  Angelo looked at him with admiration. Sergeant Vespucci was a veteran of his own regiment who had served in Africa, and it was good to meet an old comrade again and learn that he was doing well in life, not only for himself but for his country. They had told each other all their adventures, and Angelo had listened with deep respect to the Sergeant’s tale. How prudent he had been, and how successful!

  When the retreat began at Reggio he had rescued from the administrative chaos some two dozen pack-mules which would otherwise have fallen into the enemy’s hands. He had promptly set up as a carrier, serving refugees who were anxious to save their household goods, and loading other beasts with produce of the countryside. He had led his caravan through the Sila, through the mountains of Lucania and Campania, all the way to Naples, keeping ahead of the Eighth Army and avoiding the Germans. Some of his refugees travelled only a short distance to village relatives, but there were always others who needed accommodation, and the traffic was lucrative enough. So was the sale of country produce, for the usual means of transport had vanished, and when goods were scarce people would pay fancy prices for them.

  In Naples he had thought of settling down, but the typhus epidemic frightened him, so he had sold his mules and gone to Rome. There, with the useful capital he had acquired, he purchased a motor lorry, permission to move freely, and a forged certificate that entitled him to acquire petrol from the military authorities. In favourable circumstances he developed the business he had begun by chance, and buying produce where it was abundant, carried it to some neighbourhood in which it was scarce and sold it at an agreeable profit.