by Max Hennessy
Schwartzheiss seemed to be laughing to himself. ‘I think you’re lying,’ he said mildly. ‘I think he’s not even Italian.’
‘He’s my cousin! I have proof! In the house is a picture of him with me, taken when we were children!’
‘It’s the picture of my cousin Ansaldo,’ she murmured to Caccia as she headed for the bar. ‘But he’s so stupid he’ll never know the difference.’
By this time several Italian soldiers were watching with interest and amusement, and it was clear that with every second they stood there arguing it was going to be more difficult to get away. Barbieri, who had reappeared cheerfully from the shed to slam a bottle of brandy into Clegg’s hand, had taken in the scene at a glance and was clutching his fat cheeks in horror, his eyes as huge as saucers.
His mind moving swiftly, Morton was wondering where the LRDG men were. ‘If you’re in trouble,’ they’d said, ‘we’ll be there.’ They ought to be here now, he thought, like the man on the white horse, with the reprieve tucked into his gauntlet. But there was no sign of them, and bitterly he assumed the bastards were looking for something to blow up. As he stared about him, his eyes moving desperately, Clegg, big, square, long-jawed, looking like an amiable drayhorse, was standing near Schwartzheiss, holding the bottle of brandy and shrewdly assessing the histrionic possibilities of the situation.
‘I think you’d better come with me,’ Schwartzheiss said cheerfully. ‘All of you.’
Clegg watched carefully. Most of the Italian and German that had been spoken had passed over his head but it had dawned on him from Schwartzheiss’s manner and the expression of horror on Barbieri’s face that what was happening looked, unless it was stopped, as if it were about to develop into a right old upsadaisy. He was still a little tipsy and, as always when he’d had a few, was ready for anything. As Schwartzheiss turned to summon help, he took a good puff at his cigar so that the end was glowing red, then, taking it from his mouth, calmly tossed it into the open door of the store shed. Schwartzheiss was just pointing at the Italian soldiers to demand their assistance when someone shouted.
‘Fire!’ The cry came from in the crowd. ‘Il capannone è in fiamme!’
The flare of the flame in the darkness lit the faces of the gathering crowd as they all swung from Schwartzheiss towards the blaze.
‘Santa Maria, madre di Dio!’ Barbieri moaned. ‘The petrol!’
Even as he spoke, the shed disappeared. There was a tremendous whoof, the roof seemed to lift into the air, and blazing petrol shot in all directions. As they picked themselves up, Italian carabinieri appeared from nowhere, shrieking with fury.
‘Put that fire out,’ they began to yell. ‘The British bombers will come, and the army’s on the move!’
Someone turned to the standpipe just down the street and buckets appeared. Civilians and Italian soldiers formed a line, all shouting instructions at once. Rosalba was standing in the shadows among the trees near the bar, screeching blue murder and, red in the face with fury, Schwartzheiss was shouting orders at anyone who was near enough to hear. But the petrol had gone up in one great sheet of flame and no one took the slightest notice of him in the panic.
There was a good blaze going now from the remains of the shed. More buckets appeared and they seemed to be getting the flames under control when Clegg stepped into the line and did his Will Hay fireman act. Switching hands, he sent the empty buckets back to the fire and the full ones back to the standpipe. As they were passing them automatically, it was some time before anybody noticed. Then a yell went up from the fire.
‘È vacue! Le secchie sono vacue! The buckets are empty!’
‘È piene! Le secchie sono già piene.’ Almost as if in chorus, another wail went up from the standpipe. ‘The buckets are already full!’
The fire brigade had arrived by this time, the ancient vehicle rattling noisily into the street, manned by firemen in shining brass helmets.
‘Aprire la strada! Aprire la strada! Clear the way!’
The hose was hitched up and run out but the leaks still hadn’t been repaired and water shot into the air like miniature fountains. The shouting increased to hysteria. Then, in the middle of it all, someone yelled that he could hear the RAF coming back.
Almost immediately the air-raid siren sounded again and there was the crash of an explosion nearby. The crowd scattered like cockroaches before a light, the firemen close behind so that the abandoned hoses, still leaking like colanders, whipped backwards and forwards across the ground like panic-stricken snakes. Schwartzheiss seemed to divine that the performance had been put on for his benefit and now, as the flames roared up again, he got a good look for the first time at Caccia, who had been carefully keeping out of the way.
‘You!’ he roared. ‘Mein lieber Gott! I’ve seen you before!’
He was just dragging his pistol from its holster on his belt when Clegg hit him over the head with the brandy bottle.
* * *
As the German collapsed, Clegg seized him by the seat of his trousers and the neck of his jacket and, with a muscle-cracking swing of his powerful arms, tossed him into the back of the car. ‘After you, Cecil,’ he said.
‘Get in!’ Realizing that Clegg had saved the situation, Morton shoved Caccia aboard.
‘The petrol!’ Barbieri wailed. ‘They’ll shoot me for having petrol!’
Without arguing, Clegg pushed him into the car, too, and, treading on his heels, scrambled into the driver’s seat. With a scrape of gears, he let in the clutch and the vehicle jerked and began to lurch down the street.
Morton gave him a terrified look but Clegg was actually laughing, a deep-throated chuckle coming from his throat.
On the edge of the town, they recognized the LRDG’s borrowed Lancia at the side of the road, and Morton was just about to demand a little help when he realized it was near the warehouse where they’d seen lorries being loaded with ammunition and petrol and changed his mind. As they passed at full speed, Caccia yelling through the din in infuriated incoherence from the rear seat, Coffin and Sergeant Grady appeared from the doorway and started running for their lorry. As they scrambled aboard, they recognized the Humber.
‘Keep going, mate!’ Grady yelled. ‘It’s going up any second!’
As the ammunition store went up, it seemed to give the Humber a shove from behind and they felt the heat as the sear of flame shot skywards. Outside the town, they halted. Half the Italian army seemed to have come to a stop, too. The columns moving eastwards had all ground to a standstill, the crews of tanks and lorries staring back at the flames and whirring tracer rising from the direction of Zuq. Searchlights were probing the sky but the flames had attracted the RAF and they could see the flares and feel the thuds in the bones of the earth as the bombs screamed down.
Clegg was crowing with delight, and it was some time before they became aware of Barbieri’s moans and Caccia’s strangled shouts of fury. As they swung round, they saw his face was stricken.
‘What the hell’s up with you?’ Clegg asked.
Caccia turned on them wildly. ‘You stupid daft silly sod!’ he stormed. ‘You’ve left Rosalba behind!’
Chapter 6
There was no going back into town, Rosalba or no Rosalba. Too many people had seen them and too much had happened. Besides, all Italian traffic was moving south and east now and the Italian military police would be watching for deserters and stopping anything going in the wrong direction. They didn’t even dare stay near the wadi.
‘You can always come back when we’ve won the war,’ Clegg said.
Caccia exploded. ‘In a thousand bloody years’ time,’ he snarled.
‘Is she that important?’ It hadn’t occurred to Clegg that she was.
‘I married her,’ Caccia yelled. ‘That’s important!’
Soon after daylight the Lancias they’d loaned to the LRDG arrived and drew to a stop alongside their own vehicles. The men in them, still dressed in German and Italian uniforms, had handed over Faiani and his me
n to one of their patrols and were now bubbling with excitement because they had since raided the airfield and claimed to have destroyed several Italian aircraft on the ground, together with a few of the lorries parked outside the fort.
‘The stupid bastards never learn,’ Sergeant Grady said. ‘The buggers weren’t even guarded. Because they were fifteen miles behind their lines they thought they were safe. What’s fifteen miles on wheels with us lot about?’
They had had two men slightly wounded but the raid seemed to have been a success. They had destroyed nine aircraft, several lorries and a petrol and ammunition store, and were only waiting to cap the feat with the kidnapping.
They took over Schwartzheiss but didn’t stay long to ask questions. It wasn’t their policy to remain in one place for long, but as they clambered into their vehicles Coffin studied the two halves of the map Rosalba had marked. ‘Jesus,’ he said, awed. ‘She’s got the lot!’
As they peered over his shoulder, he jabbed a finger at the marked arrows on the squared sheet. ‘Right along the inter-corps line, right between the Bologna Division and the Buckhardt Brigade. Seventh Armoured’s just to the south. If we move ’em up a bit, they’ll run smack into ’em. And that,’ he ended with satisfaction, ‘ought to stop the bastards laughing in church.’
He folded the sheet and stuffed it into his map case. ‘When we put this through, the whole of the Eighth Army’ll be waiting for the poor sods,’ he said with murderous cheerfulness. ‘It’ll be a massacre.’ He climbed into the passenger seat of his Chevrolet and nudged the driver. ‘Okay, George. Take her away and pile on the coal a bit. We’re in a hurry.’ He waved – to Morton, Dampier noticed bitterly, not to him. ‘We’ll be back here at four thirty to pick up your painter pal.’
* * *
The Italian units in and around Zuq were vanishing into the folds of the desert now. But the RAF was on the move, too, and there seemed to be aircraft over them all the time. Fortunately, the attacks were chiefly directed at the bigger groups of vehicles and none of them bothered with the few belonging to 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit.
Then, suddenly, the desert became silent. They all knew what it meant. The Italians were poised for their move forward. The minefield had been opened and their tanks were waiting. Behind them the infantry was ready, with all the support columns eager to follow them.
Clutterbuck had brushed Dampier’s uniform and Dampier was dressed as a British colonel again. His lumbago had improved a little, though it still troubled him; but, if there were to be any fighting, he was determined to be in it dressed as a British officer not as a bloody bottle-washer and errand runner in the Italian army, and had insisted on his proper seat in the Humber next to the driver. They were all anxious to revert to their proper identities, in fact, all save Caccia who sat on his own, still wearing the Italian sergeant’s jacket, his face stony and expressionless.
‘I think he must have thought more of her than we realized,’ Clegg murmured sympathetically.
As they wondered what to do, Dampier became aware of the Australian, Fee, standing beside him.
‘What about my cobbers?’ he was demanding. ‘There are over two hundred of ’em out there outside Sofi, waiting to be shipped to Italy. Aussie isn’t a heavily populated country and two hundred men will be missed.’
‘What had you in mind?’ Dampier asked politely.
‘Rescuin’ ’em.’
‘On your own?’
‘No. With you lot.’
‘Including you, there are eleven of us,’ Dampier pointed out patiently. ‘Eleven, that’s all. And that includes Caccia, who isn’t feeling much like a hero at this moment; Micklethwaite, who’s a civilian; three other men belonging to a concert party, who aren’t trained to fight; Signor Barbieri, who’s a bar owner and belongs to the other side, anyway; Corporal Clinch, Clutterbuck, myself and Mr Rafferty. Out of that lot, only you, me and Mr Rafferty appear to be trained fighting men, and Mr Rafferty and I have been relegated to picking the nits out of army equipment because we’re considered too old to go into battle.’
‘Fair dinkum?’ Fee seemed surprised. ‘Can’t nothing be done?’
Dampier frowned. Fee seemed to fit in very well with the rest of his little group and was as chary at calling him ‘sir’ as everybody else. He was beginning to think, in fact, that, apart from Rafferty, the only one who showed him any respect was the man he’d arrested, Clutterbuck.
‘I have to admit,’ he said, ‘that I’ve been bending my mind to the possibility. I joined the army to fight the Germans and I don’t consider picking up fiddlers and deserters a soldier’s job. We shall do our best to release your friends. Would you be prepared to go back into that camp?’
Fee’s face fell. ‘Jesus, I only just got out.’
‘It might make all the difference to your friends. We need to have them organized, not just swanning off in every direction imaginable. If we stick together, we ought to be able to expect the Eighth Army to be looking out for us. Of course, it may not work, and we’re pinning our faith chiefly in the fact that the gentlemen of the Long Range Desert Group have passed on the details of that map of ours to British headquarters so that the Italians will be defeated and the British army will use the opportunity to follow up the defeat. It seems to depend on you.’
‘What do I have to do?’
‘Get back into the compound, get hold of everybody who has authority such as NCOs and warrant officers, and inform them of what we intend to do. The Italians will be busy, I expect, but we’ve got to get to that compound before they move those friends of yours away, as they undoubtedly will when they start to retreat. But they’ll also be rather busy with their battle so there shouldn’t be many of them running the place and, with the aid of the LRDG, we ought to be able to overwhelm them. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘Your people must do as they’re told.’ Knowing the Australians, Dampier didn’t have much hope that they would, but it was worth a try. ‘They’re to form up in an organized group, so we can handle them, not scatter all over the desert. Think you can make them understand that?’
‘Yeah. I reckon I can.’
‘How will you get in?’
‘Same way I got out. Dig a hole under the wire.’
‘I think there’s no need for that,’ Rafferty put in quietly. ‘We can supply you with a pair of wire-cutters. By permission of Major Scarlatti. Clutterbuck pinched ’em. They were our first proud acquisition.’
* * *
The LRDG’s vehicles reappeared in the middle of the afternoon. Coffin’s face was full of smiles.
‘The message’s gone through,’ he announced. ‘They’ll act on it, have no fear. They’ve learned to rely on our lot. Now for our German friend. We’ll be near the end of the wadi. Think he’ll come?’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Morton said. ‘He’s enough of an artist to insist on finishing his picture.’
When Dampier mentioned the freeing of the prisoners, Coffin was all in favour. ‘Oh, Christ, yes,’ he said. ‘We’ll help with that. Two hundred Aussies are always worth rescuing. They’ll fight anything – even their own side – and they’ll be so bloody mad at the Italians for capturing them you’ll only have to shove rifles in their hands and they’ll go through ’em like a knife through butter all the way to Tripoli.’
They surveyed the wadi carefully and Coffin chose a point where he could park his vehicles without them being seen, but where he could see the lip of the desert from where Morton was to give the signal that Erwin had arrived.
When Erwin appeared, they saw he was in a single car and with only Stracka to accompany him. There were no luxuries this time, no sign of the hamper or wine, just the easels sticking out among the equipment stuffed into the rear seat. As the car moved down the wadi, Morton gestured to Clegg. ‘This we must see,’ he said.
Moving further down the wadi, they saw Erwin’s car reach the open end. Then, as the valley widened, the Mercedes put on speed and began to hea
d for the patch of pink gravel. As it did so, two Chevrolets, hidden until that moment by the ridge, came into view, one on either side. Putting on speed, they appeared alongside the Mercedes, and Morton and Clegg saw Erwin’s head turn quickly to right and left. Then another Chevrolet appeared and, a second later, a fourth shot ahead of the whole group and swung in front of the German car, exactly as it had when it had stopped the Ratbags. The Mercedes slid to a halt and they saw Erwin rise to his feet in the rear seat. Stracka rose, too, then they saw them slowly lift their hands above their heads.
By the time Morton and Clegg reached them, the Germans had climbed out of the car and were standing together, their hands on their heads, covered by a plethora of guns. Coffin was just scrambling from his truck and walking back to join Grady.
Erwin saw Morton and frowned. ‘You are in on this?’ he said.
Morton smiled cheerfully. ‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed. ‘I’m on their side.’
Coffin had stopped in front of Erwin now. He looked puzzled. ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded.
Clegg smiled proudly. ‘Erwin.’
‘No, it isn’t. He’s taller than Erwin.’
‘That’s Erwin,’ Morton insisted. ‘Ask him.’
‘It isn’t bloody Erwin!’ Coffin snapped.
‘It’s the only Erwin I know.’
‘Well, it’s not our Erwin.’
‘Which bloody Erwin were you expecting?’
‘Uncle Erwin. Rommel. The commander in chief of the bloody Afrika Korps. The big boy. We’ve been fighting the bastard ever since March.’
‘We haven’t,’ Morton said. ‘We’ve been singing to him. And you didn’t say “Rommel”. You said “Erwin”.’
