Up For Grabs

by Max Hennessy

  ‘Make sure they’re not leaking,’ Caccia advised. ‘British petrol cans always leak.’

  Barbieri smiled. ‘One or two. Here and there. But the floor of the shed’s covered with shavings from the furniture factory so there can be no sparks. They absorb all the noise.’

  ‘They’d make a nice bonfire, too,’ Caccia observed.

  Avvocato Carloni, who’d been having a quiet talk with Rosalba, announced that he was ready and they lined up in front of him. Rosalba gave Caccia a possessive glance, then shyly lowered the lace shawl she wore over her head so that it covered her eyes. Their fingers touched and Barbieri reached across to hand over his own wedding ring for the ceremony. After they had signed the register, they headed for the church for the blessing. The end of the building had been hit by a bomb and part of the wall had fallen across the altar, but the priest had rigged up a makeshift arrangement with a square slab of marble from the top of an old-fashioned washstand on a pile of sandbags, with a flapping linen cloth spread over it and a couple of brass candlesticks – one badly bent – gleaming in the sun. Behind the ‘altar’ a picture of the crucifixion rested against a scarred wall, white against the deep blue of the sky.

  As they reappeared in the street, Barbieri was weeping with emotion. Rosalba looked radiant with happiness and Scarlatti made a little speech, telling her she could keep the dress as a wedding present. He even took a photograph which he promised to hand over to the happy couple as soon as he could persuade the Photography Unit of the Regia Aeronautica at the airstrip to develop it.

  ‘And now,’ he said, fishing in his car and producing a bottle. ‘The champagne! Perhaps the bride and groom would like to ride with me.’

  They shot through the town in a cloud of dust followed by Clegg and Morton in Dampier’s car.

  ‘I reckon this is the best performance the Ratbags have ever given,’ Clegg grinned.

  The Bar Barbieri had been so decorated with coloured paper and ribbons it looked as if it had been made ready for a children’s Christmas party. The food consisted of hors d’oeuvres of pilchards on German black bread but from somewhere Barbieri had also managed to acquire a little Parma ham and a few biscuits.

  As Scarlatti was ushering his driver inside he waved to Morton. ‘Bring your driver in, too,’ he suggested magnanimously. ‘Numbers will add to the gaiety.’

  Morton could just imagine what sort of gaiety it would be if Scarlatti started asking questions of Clegg, whose Italian amounted only to the few words he’d learned for their sketches and a few he’d picked up since.

  ‘He’d better stay with the vehicle,’ he said with a grin. ‘He’s not very bright and given half the chance he gets drunk.’

  ‘Thanks, pal,’ Clegg said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘For nothing.’

  Scarlatti was clearly enjoying himself and after a few glasses of wine insisted on making a speech which he followed with a song. Barbieri produced drink as if there were no tomorrow and Teresa Gelucci began to make eyes at Morton because he was the best-looking man there and she’d heard he was a count. When he ignored her, she turned her attention to Scarlatti, who had already twice tried to pinch her behind. As the party began to grow noisy, Morton decided it was becoming relaxed enough to be dangerous and started pushing everyone out of the room. ‘Work to do,’ he said loudly. ‘Both for us and the bridegroom.’

  ‘But we’re just waking up, count,’ Scarlatti insisted.

  Morton looked at his watch. He could just imagine what would happen if Erwin arrived at 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit when there was no one there who could speak Italian.

  ‘I have seven vehicles coming in,’ he pointed out firmly. ‘All have to be serviced before the move forward.’

  ‘You are devoted to duty, count,’ Scarlatti said. ‘Sometimes, I think you must like the desert.’ He pulled a face as he headed for his car. ‘Personally, I wish I were back in Milan.’ He’d had plenty to drink and, with the heat working on it, there was a catch in his voice. ‘Soon everybody will be back in the desert. I’ve been ordered to prepare to set up a new dump along the coast at Sofi. The journey will be awful and doubtless that swindler Ancillotti will continue to remain in comfort in Derna.’

  Morton pushed him into the car and, pushing the grateful Teresa in after him, watched it roar away. When he re-entered the bar, Rosalba and Caccia were clutching each other while Barbieri pretended to look the other way.

  ‘You’ve got until dark,’ Morton said bluntly. ‘I expect it’ll be long enough.’ He looked at Rosalba. ‘What about the map? Don’t lose it in the celebrations.’

  Clegg was waiting by the Humber, a bottle in his fist. He looked remarkably cheerful, his eyes dancing with mischief.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Morton demanded.

  ‘Barbieri considered it unfair,’ Clegg said, ‘that I should be sweating out here while you lot were in there wetting your whistles. It arrived with a lecture on what a lot of shits Italian officers are. He didn’t feel it was right for me to be ignored.’ He grinned. ‘Come to that, old comrade and boon thing, neither did I.’

  Chapter 4

  Dampier was sweating with nerves when Morton reappeared.

  ‘You’re late,’ he accused.

  ‘He’s not come?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’m not late,’ Morton said coldly.

  Checking that Jones was ready, he noticed that Clegg was beaming all over his face and looked drunk. But he knew he was a complete professional and, drunk or sober, if Jones’s voice failed him, he’d probably go into a song and dance routine to keep the show going. Clutching in his tiny hands the song book Scarlatti had found for them, Jones was on edge with nerves.

  ‘I think I’ve got a headache coming on,’ he wailed.

  * * *

  Morton was waiting by the tent when Erwin’s car appeared. As it stopped, Erwin smiled.

  ‘Everything is ready?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything, excellency. There’ve been one or two small problems but we’ve overcome them. There is one thing, however, for which I need the general’s permission. Our singer is shy. He’s never sung in public before. He wishes to remain out of sight.’

  Erwin shrugged. ‘So long as he’s not so far away we can’t hear him.’

  ‘He’ll be just over the brow of the wadi. The general will hear perfectly. And Soldato Cleghi will accompany and play in the intervals while Soldato Iones gets his breath back.’

  Erwin smiled. ‘So long as we have music. Very soon the only music we’ll have will be the music of the guns.’

  As the car moved off down the wadi, Morton looked at Clegg and Jones. Jones gave a nervous grimace that was supposed to be a reassuring smile, his lips moving as he went for the thousandth time over the Italian words of ‘Santa Lucia’.

  Erwin’s celebration was more of a success than they’d believed possible. At six o’clock Morton drove down the ravine with Jones and Clegg, pushed them out of the car where they couldn’t be seen, then continued to where Obergefreiter Bomberg had placed a folding table on the sand. Erwin and Captain Stracka sat alongside it under their umbrella, straw hats on their heads, toying with their food in the heat. Wine glasses in their hands, they were staring at the two easels set up a few feet away and discussing their work.

  ‘I’ve acquired something of the light there,’ Erwin was saying critically. ‘And that patch of pinkish gravel on the right brings in a dramatic touch of colour, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think, Herr General,’ Stracka commented, ‘that perhaps the pink should be a little deeper to offer a greater contrast.’

  Erwin frowned. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Stracka,’ he agreed. ‘Perhaps the light’s going. We’ll come here one last time to finish it off. Tomorrow night at the same time, so that the sun’s in the same position. We shall just have time before we have to leave.’ He became aware of Morton standing nearby and rose to his feet. ‘Please join us in a drink, tenente.’

  As Bomberg poured th
e wine, Morton noticed that there was no chair for him. Typical of the bloody Germans, he thought. The arrogant bastards expected him to stand.

  As he lifted his glass, the first strains of Clegg’s piano accordion came with Jones’s soaring voice:

  ‘Sul mare lucia

  L’astro d’argento—’

  Erwin swung round and smiled. ‘I can see nothing,’ he said. ‘Your shy Soldato Iones has chosen his spot well.’

  ‘Barchetta mia

  Santa Lucia—’

  Jones the Song was in good voice and Erwin nodded, pleased. ‘I always think the Neapolitan songs are the most melodious in the whole world,’ he observed cheerfully. ‘I expect you know “Torna a Surriento”, tenente?’

  Morton did. Who didn’t? It was the one song that every screeching tenor in the army – most of them not a Jones – who felt he could sing, always pounded out at Naafi concerts. Even the Ratbags had had to endure a few impromptu ‘Tornas’ at their shows when some drunken corporal had insisted on getting up on the stage. It was obviously the same in the German army and the fact that Morton knew the song didn’t stop Erwin going on to describe it and his feelings for it. By the time he’d finished, Jones had changed to a different tune.

  ‘Are you an opera lover, tenente?’ Erwin asked.

  ‘All Italians are opera lovers, excellency.’

  ‘The Führer’s favourite is Wagner.’

  It would be, Morton thought.

  ‘Freude durch Arbeit, perhaps.’ Erwin laughed. ‘Joy through hard work. Another of Dr Goebbels’s sayings. There are other German operas, of course.’ He refilled his glass. ‘Martha, by Flotow, who was born in Darmstadt. Beethoven’s Fidelio. And what about Richard Strauss, born in Munich, and Offenbach, born in Cologne?’

  They discussed Beethoven for some minutes, by which time Jones had got through another two songs. Nobody had bothered to offer Morton another glass of wine or to provide him with a seat and at one point he became aware of Clegg’s indignant face peering over the edge of the wadi behind Erwin’s back, clearly wondering if anybody was taking any notice of them.

  In the hope of attracting some attention, they sang ‘Lili Marlene’ because everybody in the desert sang ‘Lili Marlene’.

  ‘Tutte le sere, sotto quel fanal

  Pres so la caserna…’

  But, having discussed German and Austrian composers, Erwin had launched by this time into a lecture on art, with reference to watercolour and in particular to his own watercolours.

  ‘…Con te, Lili Marlene,

  Con te, Lili Marlene.’

  As the voice stopped, Morton could imagine Jones and Clegg staring at each other, wondering why they’d bothered. By this time, he was seething inside himself and his opinion of Erwin had changed considerably for the worse. The German was still happily chattering away, half the time to Stracka, Morton standing alongside like a wet hen, and eventually he became aware that what he was listening to wasn’t Italian any more but Welsh. Indignation that a Welshman should be singing his socks off without even being noticed had led Jones into a brisk defiant run through ‘The Men of Harlech’.

  ‘Wele goelcerth wen yn fflamio,

  A thafodau tân yn bloeddio,

  Ar ir dewrion ddod i daro,

  Unwaith eto’n un—’

  Erwin finally stopped talking and looked up. ‘That is an Italian song, tenente?’ he said, puzzled.

  Morton swallowed. ‘Dialect, excellency. From Stresa. Our dim little soldier is, I think, trying to translate it into German.’

  Erwin frowned. ‘I have been a German all my life,’ he said. ‘But I have never heard that German. Tell him to sing another.’

  As Erwin launched into another diatribe, Morton had a feeling that Clegg at least wouldn’t need prompting. After all they’d put into their act, to see Erwin talking through it was enough to make any professional indignant and, fuelled by the wine he’d drunk, Clegg’s sense of mischief would be working overtime.

  He wasn’t wrong. This time it was a jingle they’d picked up from the South Africans, sung in a broad backveldt jaap accent, also picked up from the South Africans.

  ‘The monkey and the babejaan sat upon the grass,

  And the monkey stuck its finger up the babejaan’s arse.

  And the babejaan said “God bless my soul!”

  Take your dirty finger out of my arsehole.’

  ‘And,’ Clegg’s voice ended indignantly. ‘Up yours, too!’

  Morton’s heart stood still at what might come next, but Erwin had talked through the whole thing and it seemed to be the end of the concert; only silence followed. Erwin and Stracka were still chattering away but, as he became aware that the singing had stopped, Erwin gestured at his driver.

  ‘The wine, Bomberg,’ he said quietly.

  Bomberg produced a bottle of German hock, which Erwin pushed towards Morton.

  ‘For the singers, tenente. Convey my thanks to them. An excellent entertainment. And now, if you will forgive us, we must return to the business of war. We have to go into Zuq. A conference with General Bergonza and the Italian staff.’ He laughed. ‘Our barrier to Cairo.’

  It seemed to be a gesture of dismissal. Morton clicked his heels, saluted and, clutching the bottle of wine, stalked to the Humber. The self-important bastard, he thought. Treating a bloody Italian like that! As if they were an inferior race! By the time he tossed the bottle on to the seat and climbed behind the wheel, Morton might almost have been an Italian.

  Bomberg, who had been removing all the implements of the picnic one by one, was already placing easels and the last of the painting equipment in Erwin’s Mercedes. As the Germans climbed in behind him, Morton watched the car swing round and head north towards Zuq, then he climbed into the Humber and headed towards the desert.

  He was so preoccupied with his indignation he didn’t notice that Erwin’s Mercedes had stopped. Erwin was sitting twisted round in his seat, frowning as he stared back at the cloud of dust thrown up by the Humber.

  ‘I think that young man should be investigated, Stracka,’ he was saying slowly. ‘His singer, too. I suspect they’re not quite all they seem. I thought there was something a little strange when we first met them, you remember.’ He paused, thinking. ‘And that unit of theirs has grown incredibly swiftly, Stracka. Had you noticed?’

  ‘I had, Herr General,’ Stracka agreed. ‘It puzzled me, too. But, after all, the Italians are re-equipping for their attack.’

  ‘Indeed. But those songs.’ Erwin was speaking half to himself. ‘My English is not good but that last one contained English words, I think. And I suspect I’ve heard the one before. At Dunkirk, when the British prisoners were filing past us. They were singing it then. Defiantly. A whole group of them. It was very impressive. It has a strong melody – almost Germanic in strength – the Führer would approve of it. It remained in my mind a long time. I think we should look into them.’

  ‘This is an Italian military district, Herr General.’

  ‘It’s a German war, Stracka. However, have a word with their parent unit and see if they have also noticed anything.’

  * * *

  Unaware that things were closing in on them, Morton picked up Clegg and Jones the Song at dusk.

  Dudgeon was in Clegg’s very bearing. ‘He talked through the whole bloody programme!’ he said in his raspy comedian’s voice. ‘It was worse than when the show died on us in Wigan and they all got up and walked out. It makes an old pro like me feel like the missing piece of a jigsaw.’

  They climbed into the car and sat stiffly in the rear seat, Clegg muttering to himself about ingratitude, Jones uttering shrill little cries of indignation. Then Jones giggled. ‘In the Welsh, man,’ he chortled. ‘An’ he never noticed.’

  It brought Clegg round a little and Morton listened to their chatter, their delight swamping his anger, and it was only as they reached the end of the wadi that he became aware that a vehicle had appeared in his rear mirror. Almost unconsciously, it regis
tered in his mind as a British three-ton Chevrolet. A Chevrolet, he thought. A Chevrolet? Here? Then, out of the corners of his eyes, he saw Chevrolets on either side of him. They had no windscreens, doors or cabs, and carried spare wheels, camouflage nets and sand channels. They also seemed remarkably dusty and were overfull of dirty, bearded men in shorts, shirts and sandals, bristling with guns. With alarm, he realized that the guns were all pointing at him and stopped the Humber in a hurry. Immediately, the trucks on either side stopped, too. The first truck stopped behind him and a fourth, coming up at full speed from nowhere, swung round and slammed to a stop across his front, barring his path. At once men with long matted hair appeared alongside, gesturing with their weapons.

  ‘Mani in alto! Stick ’em up, you Italian bastards!’ The speaker was a man with bleached hair and eyebrows and the three stripes of a sergeant.

  Clegg glared, still a little tipsy and aggressive. ‘Who’re you calling an Italian bastard?’ he demanded.

  ‘I said, “Stick ’em up—”’ The sergeant stopped dead. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, “Who’re you calling an Italian bastard?”’

  ‘Aren’t you an Italian bastard?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you fucking look like one. Who are you?’

  ‘Come to that, who’re you?’

  ‘Who do we look like?’

  ‘The Long Range Desert Group.’

  ‘That’s who we are.’

  A young officer with a curly yellow beard, eyeballs seared by the sun, wearing a red neckerchief and a peaked hat that looked as if it had been run over by a tank, strolled up. He seemed to be loaded down with weapons but his right hand wielded nothing more dangerous than a blue horsehair fly whisk.