Up For Grabs

by Max Hennessy

  ‘Have you acquired much new equipment, sergeant?’

  ‘It requires sharp wits, tenente.’

  ‘Especially in our army, sergeant. We have nothing else to sharpen.’

  Schwartzheiss laughed. ‘That’s the worst of wars.’

  ‘They’re always with us. The only way to get rid of them is to have them.’

  Schwartzheiss’s eyes seemed to be everywhere, flickering about the camp as he talked. Apparently hard at work for the Italian war effort, everybody kept their heads down, Rafferty bent over an engine, Dampier busy over the stove, Caccia hiding with Clutterbuck behind the boxes in the stores tent. Schwartzheiss seemed loath to go and, working the accelerator of the lorry he was occupied with, Rafferty kept deliberately drowning his voice as he revved the engine.

  In the end Morton handed over a couple of bottles of chianti and Schwartzheiss seemed satisfied. They stared with relief after the plume of dust trailed by the Kübelwagen.

  ‘Think he suspected?’ Dampier asked.

  ‘He’s no fool,’ Morton said.

  ‘Think he and Faiani are in touch with each other?’ Rafferty asked. ‘’Tis only two hours since Faiani was here.’

  ‘If they start exchanging suspicions we’re in trouble. Especially if they include Scarlatti.’

  Rafferty frowned. ‘I’m thinkin’ neither of ’em comes here just for a change of air,’ he said. ‘It’s time we moved.’

  Almost without orders, almost as if they’d all thought of it at the same time, they started to pack the vehicles, and in a matter of an hour and a half they were heading away from the town.

  Rafferty sought a place that was far from people who might ask questions and eventually settled on a spot on the south side of the town, close to a deep gully called the Wadi Sghiara. The site was not on the main road and the traffic was thin. The wadi itself rose in the hills near the coast and opened southwards into the desert at a point where there were several ridges of sand dunes, one or two of them lifting as high as sixty feet to catch the evening sun. In parts it was ten feet deep and the wide entrance had steep walls of sandy soil marked by scrubby yellow flowers where black-striped hoopoes darted. Further south was only the desert, burning in the sun, the dunes like white sugar in the glare. There were no immediate neighbours but there was also no water, which would have to be brought from Zuq, and the only moisture would be their own sweat, while the flies would be more troublesome than ever.

  ‘This will do,’ Dampier said confidently.

  Rafferty wasn’t half so sure. ‘I’d rather disappear altogether,’ he said.

  ‘In good time, Mr Rafferty.’ Dampier had his eyes on thwarting the Italian attack when it came and a solid British victory resulting from the information he’d collected. He could even see a little glory in it for himself. ‘All in good time. We’ll set up camp here.’

  Because of a nervous feeling that Rosalba was suspicious of him – the same sort of edginess they all felt – Caccia didn’t go into Zuq for several days, but when he finally succumbed she welcomed him with open arms and a flood of tears.

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten me.’

  ‘Never,’ Caccia insisted. ‘Never!’

  She swung on his neck and, because Barbieri had bribed more petrol out of an Italian transport sergeant and was asleep after a trip to Derna, within half an hour Caccia was in her bed and, over the sound of the radio, which was playing martial music from Radio Rome to drown their voices, he told her about Schwartzheiss’s visit.

  ‘All Germans are not bad.’ Flushed and happy, Rosalba was in a forgiving mood. ‘Some are even well mannered. But not many. They think we are an inferior race.’

  ‘I’m not an inferior race,’ Caccia said.

  ‘You should be an officer, Arturo. Have you fought in many battles?’

  ‘You ever heard of Addis Ababa?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I took him prisoner.’

  She giggled and, reaching out a slender arm, poured wine into a glass. Caccia swallowed it at a gulp.

  ‘Amazing how thirsty it makes you,’ he said.

  ‘A pity it isn’t champagne.’ She giggled again. ‘I always wondered what it would be like to drink wine in bed with a man. I think you plotted this all along. From the moment you saw me. Did you fall in love with me at once?’ Rosalba had been brought up on romantic magazines. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t go back until tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t do that. There’s work to do.’

  ‘Not much. I’ve seen you.’

  Caccia flashed her a startled look and she explained.

  ‘I drove out in my uncle’s car and watched you with binoculars, British binoculars that a German corporal gave us in exchange for wine. He stole them from the dump. That German sergeant followed me but I dodged him. I thought you might have girls out there. I was jealous.’ She began to wheedle. ‘It’s a long way to go back, Arturo. Send a note to say you have a bad back.’

  ‘You don’t send notes in the army.’

  ‘Not even in the Italian army?’ She took the glass from Caccia’s hand and carefully placed it on the dressing table.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Caccia asked warily. ‘I don’t like the look in your eye.’

  ‘Mamma mia, it’s not the look in my eye you should worry about, Arturo Caccia.’

  The old shy Rosalba was giving way to a new saucy one who was more than willing to be adventurous; giving a hoot of laughter, her legs waving whitely in the faint light that came through the window, she made a dive for him that flung him back on the pillows. The bedsprings creaked as she pulled his head down to her bosom.

  ‘Rosalba—’ he began, but his voice came out only as a croak.

  She squirmed under him, running her fingernails up and down his back. His breath coming faster, he pretended to fight her off but – signed, sealed and delivered, a victim of love – he wasn’t over-enthusiastic about it.

  ‘Steady on,’ he said feebly. ‘Whoa!’

  Lying back, half asleep, a dew of perspiration on his body, it occurred to Caccia that Rosalba had been quiet for a long time.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m thinking about you.’ Rosalba lifted herself on to one elbow and stared down at him. Her large slanting eyes, jetty hair and smoky lashes had a deadly effect on him, and as she reached across him for a cigarette, her soft white bosom touched his chest. Her flesh was warm and Caccia drew a deep breath and moved uncomfortably. Then he noticed there was a strange look on her face, puzzled and suspicious at the same time.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked unexpectedly.

  ‘Caccia, Arturo. At your service.’

  ‘Where do you come from? Rome, like me?’

  Caccia decided that if she came from Rome it was better that he shouldn’t. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not Rome.’

  ‘Florence? You’re not from Florence. You don’t look like a Florentine. You don’t speak like a Florentine.’

  ‘No, I’m not from Florence.’

  ‘Then where? You’re not a Sicilian either, I think. Savoia? Trieste? It’s a Trieste way of speaking, perhaps, that you have. Or is it Naples? I think perhaps it’s Naples.’

  His origins were something that had never been brought up before, but Naples seemed as good a place as any. ‘Yes,’ Caccia said. ‘I’m from Naples.’

  She paused, studying him. ‘Where? The Via Roma area?’

  ‘No.’ The Via Roma area sounded as if it might be dangerous ground. ‘Not there.’

  ‘Near the funicular?’

  ‘No, not there either.’ Caccia was busy racking his brains. It wasn’t easy to answer because he’d never been to Naples and was just guessing.

  ‘I know where. Near the Piazza Vanvitelli.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Near the Piazza Vanvitelli.’

  Rosalba beamed, her eyes suddenly bright. ‘Down by the harbour. Close to the sea on the flat land?’

  ‘That’s it. Near the Piazza Vanvitelli close to th
e sea.’

  ‘By the Porto Santa Lucia.’

  ‘That’s it exactly.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t then!’ Rosalba’s eyes blazed and her voice rose. ‘You’re lying to me, Arturo Caccia! Because the Piazza Vanvitelli isn’t near the Porto Santa Lucia! It’s up near the Castel Sant’ Elmo! At the top of a lot of steps! As high as you can get in Naples!’

  ‘Yes, well—’ Caccia was floundering.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Caccia, Arturo. That’s me.’

  ‘I bet it isn’t. Why do you speak English from time to time?’

  Caccia’s heart went cold. He couldn’t remember speaking any English.

  ‘You said, “Steady on! Whoa!” You didn’t notice, I think. But then I remembered. It’s something I heard on the London buses. When they say, “Tickets please. No standing on the platform. Pass down the bus.” I heard it often when the bus started with a jerk. The people who are standing say, “Whoa” and “Steady on.” These are English words.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ Caccia was beginning to feel twinges of alarm. ‘Bed’s a stupid place to ask questions.’

  ‘Bed’s an excellent place to ask questions,’ Rosalba snapped. ‘My mamma told me so. She always questioned my father when he’d been out late and she always knew what he’d been up to. Why did that man speak to you in English?’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘The Arab. When you climbed into the car the first time you came back here. He said, “Jesus Christ, look sleepy.” Why did he speak to you in English? And why did he tell you you looked tired?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me I looked tired. He told me to—’

  She gave him a shrewd glance. ‘You see? You understood what he said. You understand English well, I think. And why do you ride in cars with Arabs? Italians don’t ride in cars with Arabs. They kick them out. It is pride of race. What the Germans call “Rassenstolz”. And why do you speak Italian differently from me? Perhaps you come from the Argentine. There are many Italians in the Argentine. The patriotic ones came to fight for the Duce. The sensible ones stayed where they were. Are you a patriotic Italian from the Argentine?’

  She was throwing questions so fast Caccia was bewildered. Snatching up Dampier’s revolver which he’d brought as usual and laid on the dressing table in case he needed it, she pointed it at him.

  ‘Why do you carry an English gun?’

  ‘That’s not an English gun.’

  The revolver waved under Caccia’s nose. ‘I know about guns. I’ve been surrounded by soldiers for two years and I know what an English gun looks like.’

  ‘I got it from an Englishman,’ Caccia said desperately. ‘You know how it is. You capture them. You take their wristwatches and their guns.’

  He managed to get the revolver off her but she was far from finished with him. Sitting up, stark naked, she lifted her hand and made a circle with her forefinger and thumb. ‘Why do you make this sign?’ she asked. ‘That isn’t an Italian sign for a beautiful girl. It is this.’ She closed her fingers to a fist and made a sign with her forearm that was obvious in any language.

  ‘There’s much that puzzles me about you,’ she snapped. ‘Why do you possess a wig? Italian soldiers don’t carry wigs in their packs.’

  ‘There are some funny things in the dump here,’ Caccia said weakly.

  ‘Are there football shorts also?’

  ‘Football shorts?’

  ‘Germans don’t wear football shorts. They’re too busy winning the war. Italians don’t wear them either. That oaf Mussolini never thinks they might want to play football. He dresses them in uniforms that are too big or too small or too out-of-date. Only the English and the Australians and the South Africans and the New Zealanders wear football shorts. They think more of playing football, I think, than fighting the war.’

  ‘I got them—’

  ‘—from an Englishman!’ She snorted. ‘When you captured him. Like the revolver and perhaps the sign and the wig.’

  Caccia was staring at her like a rabbit mesmerized by a snake.

  ‘You have shared my bed,’ she said. ‘You’ve done to me things which should only be done to a wife. I’ve allowed you to because I thought you loved me. Tell me the truth! Do you learn all these things you know in the two months you worked as a waiter? And why only two months? You must be a very bad waiter, I think, to get the sack after only two months.’

  Caccia tried to protest but she brushed his objections aside. ‘You know about Waterloo Station and Trafalgar Square with the statue of Admiral Nelson on top. You know about the Marble Arch, about Dean Street and Harrods and of this Uncle Bob they talk about. I didn’t discover so much in the time I was there. But maybe you are cleverer than me, eh, soldato? Perhaps you’re a spy!’

  Caccia began to grow alarmed. She’d have him in front of a firing squad before long. ‘I’m not a spy!’ he bleated.

  ‘Then you’re a fascist agent and you’re about to arrest me and accuse me of saying dreadful things that I’ve never said, of insults that I’ve never uttered, all the things that people would like to say and daren’t about that fat-bellied goat, the Duce.’

  Caccia was wildly reminded of the British sergeant who had once roared out to a neglectful soldier on church parade, ‘You silly bugger, take your ’at off in the ’Ouse of God!’

  ‘I’m not a fascist spy,’ he insisted.

  ‘A German spy?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then if you’re not a German or an Italian you can only be—’ She paused and stared at him, her eyes growing wide. ‘You’re—’ She stopped dead again and when she spoke once more she spoke in English, slowly and with emphasis. ‘You must be Inglese. You are Anglish? Of course! You speak Italian like an Anglish!’

  She was looking scared, then the look changed to one of anxiety. Finally, when Caccia was just wondering when she’d call the police or her uncle, and which of them would shoot him with Dampier’s revolver, she suddenly began to look awed.

  ‘I have it!’ she said. ‘You’re one of these people who frighten our soldiers so much – what do they call them? – the Far Distance Desert Gruppo.’

  She was actually smiling, excited and interested, and Caccia, who was quick to spot a green light if there was a glimmer of one around, was unable to resist.

  ‘That’s it—’ He, too, had switched to English now. ‘Long Range Desert Group. There are a lot of us about.’

  To his surprise, she flung her arms round him and hugged him. ‘If I was a good Mussolini Italian,’ she said, ‘I should take your revolver and shoot a shot at you. But I am not and you have come to rescue me.’ Her grip loosened enough for him to breathe and she stared intently at him. ‘Why did they pick you? Because you speak Italian? Because you’re an Anglish Italian perhaps. Like my cousin’s husband?’

  ‘Yes.’ Caccia began to talk about his family and his words came out in a babble. ‘My grandfather was Italian. We still speak Italian.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘At home. Not in the shop.’

  ‘You have a shop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A big one?’

  ‘As big as Max Donatello’s.’

  ‘You know him! You know my cousin Cecilia’s husband?’ She clapped her hands delightedly. ‘Magnifico! Meraviglioso! What do you sell?’

  ‘Food. Italian food. Peppers. Sausages. Pizzas. That sort of thing.’

  She was eyeing him shrewdly. ‘You have many brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Three sisters. All married. One to a feller who runs a restaurant in Dean Street. One to an importer. Food and that sort of thing. One married to a feller who’s got a warehouse.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘Your family has much food?’

  Caccia grinned, at ease again. ‘We know what’s good for us.’

  ‘And you have no brothers?’

  ‘Just me. I was just starting to run the business when they called me up.’

&nb
sp; ‘And when the war is over’ – she sounded awed again – ‘the business will be yours?’

  ‘The girls don’t want it. They’ve got plenty of money and they never enjoyed serving in the shop.’

  ‘I would,’ Rosalba said fervently. ‘I would always enjoy serving in a shop. Especially a food shop.’ She flung her arms round him again and hugged him. ‘Come. Let us go and tell my Uncle Barbieri.’

  Caccia backed away in alarm. ‘He’ll hand me over to the army!’

  ‘Not he! He hates the army. He served his time with the class of 1899. He fought on the Piave in the other war. He hates the Duce. He hates all Italian governments. They made him fight and they make him pay taxes when he doesn’t want to. He hates many people.’

  ‘He won’t want you to fall in love with an Englishman, then.’

  ‘He loves England!’ She flung her arms wide. ‘He speaks Anglish also! He worked in England. For many years. Many Italians did. Because we were allies in the last war. It’s only because Mussolini’s mad that we aren’t in this one. He always wanted to go back and when my aunt died he was going to. But it was too late. The war started. Come! He will look after you.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Caccia was finding things were moving too fast for him. ‘Hadn’t we better put some clothes on first?’

  * * *

  Barbieri appeared from the room behind the bar. He was wearing only a shirt, under which his vast belly stuck out, and he was scratching at his beard.

  Rosalba flung a pair of trousers at him. By the time he’d put them on he was more or less awake. He suddenly became aware of Caccia.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ he demanded.

  ‘He has been in my room,’ Rosalba said defiantly in English.

  Barbieri’s eyes widened and he replied in the same language. ‘Teresa? This is Teresa?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘She has changed, I think.’ Barbieri made 36-24-36 movements with his hands.

  ‘No, no. He has not changed shape.’

  ‘Then I think Gaspare Gelucci must have been under a misapprehension for many years. I wonder if he knows she shaves.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ Rosalba pounded on his chest with her fists. ‘This is not Teresa. This is my man. I love him.’