Legacy of Sorrows

by Roberto Buonaccorsi

  The man they spoke to appeared very nervous and stuttered out his answers. The lead partisan took some time in examining the man’s identity documents before asking him, ’why are these papers so new looking comrade?’ The man went white with fear and took a deep breath before answering him, ‘my papers were lost when my home was destroyed in the bombing. These are new papers from the Allied Military Government in Rome.’ With a shaking hand, the man pointed to his photograph on the ID card. The partisan looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why leave Rome at this time to come into a conflict zone.’ The man answered hesitantly, ‘my family live in Lucca and I hope to find some work on one of the farms near there in the Garfagnana.’ The partisan stared at him without speaking for some time, which had the effect of making the man even more nervous. The partisan noticed this, ‘You appear to be very nervous friend, are you not feeling well?’ The man stood up and furtively looking around him, made a dash for the station entrance. One of the partisans lifted his Lee Enfield rifle, took aim and fired. The shot hit the man in his back and he fell to the ground screaming in agony. In seconds, the blood from his wound had turned his shirt colour bright red. Two partisans walked up to him, kicked him a few times in his side before lifting him up and carrying him to a truck parked close by. They lowered the back down and without ceremony, threw the man in. No medical aid was offered to the man, but Sergio reasoned that he was as good as dead anyway.

  His screaming and shouting for help could still be heard after the shooting, and continued for a while until two partisans left the group and jumped into the rear of the truck. A shot rang out and the screams stopped. Sergio wondered how many other bodies lay dead in the truck.

  He watched all this without comment. He noted how the partisans appeared quite detached about the whole affair, and how they carried on their search for fascists as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Sergio picked up his briefcase and carefully draped his overcoat over it to hide the fascist emblem. It would have caused problems with the communists if they caught sight of it. He crossed over to a platform near the centre of the station where he knew he could usually catch the train to Lucca. He wanted to move away as far as possible from the shooting. He felt anger at the way these communist bastards moved so openly and with such authority. How different it was under the Duce when they were put in their place. He reflected that Mussolini was never given the credit he deserved for saving Italy and much of Europe from the dangers of this vile creed.

  It was only a few years ago, that The Italian Communist Party had made plans to invite the Red Army into Italy with the aim of setting up a Communist state, but Mussolini had soon put paid to that. When he came to power, he set in place a crackdown on all opposition to the fascist party. Yes, there were a few beatings and arrests but when you looked at the broader picture, was it not worth it? Even Churchill had praised Mussolini before the war calling him ‘That Roman genius,’ and ‘that magnificent Roman law giver.’ Men of vision and influence had come to Rome to meet him; he thought how different it was now. However, Sergio reckoned that with the correspondence he was carrying he now held the key to people realising once again how great a man the Duce really was.

  Patiently he waited in line for the expected train. He knew that the Allies had ceased bombing the train tracks a few days earlier and that there had been lot of activity from the provisional authorities in attempting to repair them. The railways were now trying to run a limited service and with luck, there would be a train today.

  He heard loud shouting from a group of partisans on the platform facing him. Sergio looked up in time to see them dragging a man out of a carriage. ‘Fascista bastardo’ they cried out as they threw him to the ground. ‘You must be mistaken’ shouted the man, in a frightened voice to anyone who would listen. ‘There is no mistake ‘said their leader, ‘You are Antonio Renaldi, Mayor of La Spezia and fascist secretary of that town. You are accused of ordering the deaths of up to forty partisans, and as such you will be tried for those crimes.’ He gave a wave of dismissal with his hand and three partisans led a struggling, sobbing man away to certain death at the hands of a firing squad. The man, still protesting his innocence, fell to his knees and pleaded for mercy. ‘I was only obeying orders comrades, I didn’t want to do it.’ he sobbed. ‘If I hadn’t obeyed orders I would have been imprisoned myself.’

  The oldest of the partisans turned on him and hit him with his rifle butt two or three times in the head until the man was unconscious and collapsed to the ground. Sergio noticed a large dark bloodstain spreading from his head. The man lay there motionless as if dead. No one came to his aid or even to see if he was still alive. Around the station, people looked away or busied themselves elsewhere. No one wanted to interfere in case they also became the focus of attention from the communist militia.

  The partisans picked him up by his arms and legs and carried him to the truck parked a few metres away and threw the body into the back of it as if they were handling a sack of corn. One of the partisans remained behind to stand guard over their grisly cargo, while the others joined their comrades in their continuing search. They laughed and joked together with no apparent thought to the murder they had just committed. Sergio noted that there were several more bloodstains on the station floor and wondered how they got there.

  He realised that the same fate awaited him if the partisans found out who he was. All over the north of Italy, partisan squads were committing the most brutal acts of reprisal and murder against anyone even suspected of being a fascist or having fascist connections. It was not just the partisans who were involved in the killings, but also the local people were now taking up arms against them following the collapse of fascism.

  Sergio had probably escaped their checklists because he was not a prominent figure in the fascist regime; he was just an aide, a non-important cog in a very large wheel. He consoled himself with this thought and turned his attention to the sound of an approaching train. A ticket collector standing close by shouted out, ‘due to track repairs this will be the last train to Lucca for two days; please wait until all passengers have disembarked before boarding.’ People moved closer to the rails to make sure they got a seat.

  Slowly the train pulled into the platform and came to a shuddering halt at the buffers. Sergio waited until all the passengers had alighted and the people waiting on the platform had boarded and found seats. He wanted to see if there were any military types in the carriages and if there were, he wanted to avoid any contact with them. After satisfying himself there was none, he entered a carriage and sat opposite a young girl and her mother. He reckoned it would be safer to talk to them if he had to than some of the other passengers. He was surprised at how empty the carriage was. He reasoned that the uncertainty of the military situation had prevented people from travelling by train.

  After what seemed like a long time, but was in fact only a few minutes, the train gave a jolt, and slowly began to move out of the station. Sergio visibly relaxed and smiled at the little girl. He put his head against the window, moved the briefcase under his legs and settling down in his seat he prepared for his journey. He knew it would take around four hours to reach Lucca. Apparently, the tracks in some places were only temporary and the trains could only move very slowly over them.

  Some time past and he felt hungry. He reached inside his overcoat pocket and pulled out a salami. He cut off a few slices with a small pocketknife and ate some. He looked at the little girl and seeing her eye the salami hungrily, he offered a few slices to her. She looked at her mother for some sign whether or not to accept. When she was sure it was all right, she put her open hand forward and said ‘Grazie, signore.’ Sergio smiled at her and cut off a few more pieces for himself. He said ‘what’s your name?’ She answered ‘Carla.’ She took the Salami and shoved it all into her mouth in one go. Sergio watched her eat it and realised how hungry this little girl was. He offered her mother the remainder of the Salami, saying ‘please, take it, I’m not very hung
ry’. She accepted it with an embarrassed smile. After a while she said, ’Are you travelling far, signore?’ He paused for a moment before answering her. ‘Not too far, I’m travelling home to my family outside Lucca.’ She nodded to him as if in agreement, ‘So am I, signore. My family lives in Galliano. We have been travelling for two days to get this far.’ She paused to cut off a slice of Salami and hungrily ate it. ‘The Germans took my husband before they retreated from Firenze. They shot him for suspected partisan activities and we had to leave the city very quickly before they took us as well.’ She had tears in her eyes as she continued. ‘I couldn’t even bury him; I left him lying in the street like a dog.’ She dried her eyes roughly with the sleeve of her coat before continuing.

  ‘The partisans came to our door one night looking for food. What could we do, they had guns and we were helpless. We allowed them into our home and we fed them what we had. One of our neighbours, a fascist, saw them and reported us to the Germans. The partisans had left by the time the soldiers arrived. They beat my husband with their rifle butts because he couldn’t tell them where the partisans had gone. Then they took him outside. I hid with my daughter in the small field in front of our house and watched them push him to his knees and shoot him in the back of the head. I tried to stop my daughter seeing it, but failed. We saw his life’s blood flow from his wound into the gutter. He did nothing wrong, he only wanted to get by and live in peace.’ She dried her eyes again. ‘Thank you for your kindness signore; it’s the first we have eaten in two days. We escaped with nothing but our lives.’ Sergio turned silently away and faced the window again, leaving the widow and her daughter alone to their grief and tears. Italy is dying, he thought, this is our season for tears.

  Eventually he fell asleep and was only wakened by the train clattering over the tracks outside Lucca. He waited until all the passengers had left the train before he picked up the briefcase and stepped down onto the platform. Thankfully, he knew this station well. This was the main town of his region and he had often used it prior to the war. He made his way to the side entrance and exited onto one of the main streets. He walked along steadily for a few minutes trying hard to avoid eye contact with other people. He was concerned in case he met someone he knew. When he did eventually look up, he saw that others who passed him on the street were doing the same. The sense of fear from them was tangible. Sergio realised that people were scared in case they were labelled as being fascist. Changed days, he thought, as he remembered a time before the war when the whole of Lucca came to hear the Duce speak at a rally in the town.

  He turned left and walked into the local bus station where he bought a ticket to his home town of Borgo a Mozzano. The clerk told him there was a bus about to leave from the stance outside, so he quickly boarded it and waited impatiently for it to leave. He tried hard not to look at any of the other passengers as he settled down lower in his seat.

  Sergio had never told anyone, not even his family, of his involvement with Mussolini, that he was his personal aide. They thought he was merely a Blackshirt in the Rome Cohort and they had no idea how close he was to the Duce. They knew he believed in fascism, but then, before the war, most of Italy did. His family would question him why he had returned home at this time; however, he was prepared for that. He would tell them that like many other Italians, he had become disillusioned with Mussolini and now that the war was nearing its end, he had decided to come home to be with his family and to forget that he was ever fooled by fascism.

  Some other people boarded the bus, shouting at the top of their voices, ‘The partisans have just caught Mussolini. It was on the radio.’ Sergio was stunned. How could this have happened, he thought. Mussolini a prisoner of the communists. His whole world had been swept away with the thought of the Duce being held a prisoner of the partisans.

  ‘Let’s all drink to the brave comrades who caught that murdering bastard’ one of them said, as he pulled a bottle of grappa from a bag at his feet. Everyone on the bus took a drink from the bottle before passing it on. When it was handed to him, Sergio took the bottle and held it to his lips without drinking from it. He fixed a smile on his face and clapped his hands in time to the singing that had started. When the other passengers sang the partisan anthem Bella Ciao, he joined in with them even though his heart was breaking.

  ‘He was dressed in a German Army overcoat;’ said one of the new passengers to no one in particular. ‘A partisan brigade under Count Bellini Delle Stelle stopped a German convoy near Lake Como heading for home; they searched it for escaping Italians. They saw one soldier wearing a German overcoat with Italian red striped Generals trousers hiding in the back of a truck, and when they checked him out, they found our beloved Duce. The Germans didn’t want to give him up, but they were given the choice of surrendering him at once and being allowed free passage home, or fighting their way out and perhaps dying in the attempt. They soon saw sense.’ They all laughed at this before giving out another chorus of Bella Ciao. Sergio sat out the remainder of the journey in a stunned silence. He just couldn’t comprehend an Italy, or indeed a world, without Mussolini.

  After about an hour, the bus reached Borgo a Mozzano, Sergio got off, holding the briefcase close to him. He walked along the familiar streets for a few minutes before he saw in front of him the curved outline of the Devil’s Bridge.

  His family had told him the story of how it was built. In the eleventh century, the townspeople had tried to build the bridge themselves, but were stopped by bad weather. The Devil volunteered to finish it for them if they would give him the soul of the first person to cross it. The townspeople agreed. The next morning they sent a pig out first to cross the bridge. The Devil was thwarted and the town had their bridge.

  He walked onto the narrow bridge, stood in its centre, and gazed upwards to the wooded hillside beyond to get his bearings. Over many years, the steep hillside had grown denser with vegetation and trees. He had first come here as a little boy playing with his friends and he was familiar with the area. The sun was now at its highest in the sky and the glare from it filled the surrounding countryside bringing the colours of the leaves and shrubbery all around to life.

  Shielding his eyes from it he eventually saw what he was looking for, a large oak tree standing on its own just set off to the right of the bridge on the crest of the hill. Still holding the briefcase, he made his way up the hillside in the general direction of the tree. He found the steep incline testing, especially as he now felt very tired and hungry. The branches from the trees whipped against him and the thick undergrowth impeded his progress. He stopped and watched a family of rabbits scurry away to his left. How lucky they are, he thought, they don’t know the whole world has gone mad. He had always enjoyed listening to the birds up here singing in the trees, but today their songs went unnoticed.

  After some twenty minutes of walking, he reached the tree and sat down on the grass resting his back against it. He spent some time looking around to make sure he was alone before he opened the briefcase and reverently took out one of the tightly packaged papers.

  He read the first one, a letter from Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain to his most Gracious Excellency Benito Mussolini, Duce of the Italian Fascist Party and First Duce of the Italian Empire.

  Downing Street

  1st June 1940

  My Dear Duce,

  In continuation of my last letter to you, and after consultation with others in power, I am now in the position to offer you new lands to add to the growing Italian Empire. These lands were former colonies of the French, however with France itself now an occupied territory their ownership can be easily transferred to Italy.

  I have also spoken to His Majesty King George and have some agreement with him that he would be willing to resign, as reigning Monarch in favour of the Duke of Windsor, who as we all know would be more acceptable to Herr Hitler. His majesty feels that he would be willing to abdicate if it was the catalyst needed to placate him. The Duke, who is a man of right w
ing views, is well known to be open to the Nazi philosophy.

  All that remains to be done is for you to mediate on our behalf with Herr Hitler and to persuade him that it would not be in the best interests of our two great nations to attempt to invade our sovereign domain. Influence him to understand that the cost in men, machinery and money would be too great a price for him to pay at this time and that he should delay invasion until Germany and her allies have consolidated their present gains. This will give us the breathing space we so desperately need at this time. I also urge you Duce not to enter this conflict, but to stay neutral, as General Franco has already done, and I can assure you that in the long term it will prove to be the best policy for Italy.

  Please be assured of my undying friendship.

  Yours faithfully,

  Winston

  Sergio was amazed at what he had read. Now he understood that if these letters fell into the hands of the Communists they would never see the light of day. The Communists would try to conceal the fact that Mussolini was not the mad Dictator they made him out to be, but a great political leader who had influenced world events and was a benign influence on Hitler.

  He realised that these letters were invaluable to the right and the left wing parties and could, after the war, influence the result of local and national elections. He put the letter back in the briefcase and was about to close it when he noticed a smaller bundle tied separately. He took it out and opened it. It consisted of photographs of Mussolini taken in private with various people. He recognised some of the faces: one was of the Duke of Windsor sitting with Mussolini at a dinner table in Rome. The Duke had his right arm raised in the fascist salute and a glass of wine in the other. Another photo was of Churchill, also taken in Rome. Churchill was standing alone with both his hands around a bust of Mussolini, kissing it. Another photo showed Mussolini and Churchill standing together, cigars in their left hands and their right arms raised in the fascist salute. There were probably another twenty photos in the package.