‘Sounds like a ruddy travelling circus to me,’ muttered De Wiart under his breath as he strode off towards his room, a little more vim in his step now than when he had struggled down for breakfast an hour earlier.
*
For the several days before Flight Lieutenant Leeming left the Villa Orsini with the advance party on the 23rd, the big house was full of bustle and purpose. The generals and brigadiers packed, repacked and constantly discussed the impending move, chattering like excited holidaymakers who were about to leave on a pleasant vacation. After so many months of staring at the same walls and gardens, the same distant mountains and the same faces, it was almost as if they were being released, such was the level of frenetic excitement. There was so much to arrange, so much to sort out and pack, and so many lists and timetables to prepare. The other ranks prisoners hurried around assisting the senior officers, while Colonel Mazawattee for once did not interfere. The commandant was all smiles, for he was not to accompany the prisoners to the castle. Finally relieved of a responsibility that he had found both overbearing and loathsome from the start, Mazawattee was almost giddy with delight at the thought of bidding farewell to the difficult British prisoners, probably Boyd and Neame in particular, those two having proven to be exceptionally barbed spines in his side.
Everyone was happy to hear that Gussie Ricciardi would be accompanying the generals to the castle, where he would serve as adjutant to a new commandant. But in their enthusiasm and impatience to be gone from the overcrowded villa, the prisoners didn’t take notice of the fact that two of their senior guards had in fact asked for transfers, unable to face the reality of where the prisoners were headed. It was an ominous sign that unfortunately was not noticed by the prisoners at the time.
*
Leeming sat in the back seat of an Italian army car alongside Sergeant Baxter. It had just driven through the gates of the Villa Orsini on its way to Sulmona station. Leeming turned and looked as the car passed through the portal. He couldn’t see much. It was 3.30am on 23 September 1941 and still pitch dark. Beside the driver sat Second Lieutenant Ucelli, a rich young officer whose well-connected family had wangled him a transfer to guarding prisoners instead of fighting at the front in Libya. No one thought much of Ucelli, who was lazy and refused to live at the villa with the rest of the staff, instead having a taxi drive him up the hill to work each day from his rented digs in Sulmona town.
Motoring along behind Leeming’s car was another identical khaki-coloured vehicle containing two more British other ranks – Sergeant Price, a Welshman from the Rhondda Valley, and Corporal Blackwell – escorted by the young and harmless Fascist ideologue Sergeant Conti.
Leeming felt overjoyed to be out of the villa. He would not be returning, for he was commanding the small advance party that was going to Vincigliata Castle one day earlier to prepare the building for the arrival of the senior officers and the rest of the men. He would remain at the castle to meet the generals and brigadiers and the orderlies, and hopefully would have managed to sort out their accommodation in the limited amount of time that had been afforded him by the Italians.
Leeming settled back in his seat. The roof racks of both vehicles were piled high with suitcases and boxes going to the castle, and the ever-vigilant Baxter held a neat clipboard containing an inventory of the prisoners’ property across his knees, a stub of pencil tucked behind his right ear. Neither man spoke much, but both were thrilled to be going on such an adventure after so many months of imprisonment. There was also the added bonus of the possibility of a blitz escape, a lightning attempt, should the opportunity present itself. Although it had been decided that escape attempts would be put on hold until they were at the new location, the prisoners all accepted that if a golden opportunity were to arise they should seize it.
After a few minutes the two cars pulled into Sulmona station, where a detachment of steel-helmeted guards armed with Mannlicher-Carcano rifles stood waiting in the darkness. They stiffened to attention as Ucelli climbed out of his car. The prisoners and their baggage were loaded aboard a waiting steam train, Leeming and Ucelli in their own compartment, with Conti and the three British non-commissioned officers in an adjoining compartment. Armed guards patrolled the corridor outside the compartments to deter any thoughts of escape.
The sun rose, and Leeming and the others stared out of their carriage windows at the green countryside that flitted by. Their guards were also in high spirits, enjoying the journey and the break from the dull routine at the villa. In many ways, the guards were as isolated there as the prisoners, and as bored.
At 10.00am the train pulled slowly into Rome. After living in an isolated house in the country for so many months, the bustle of a big city was almost overwhelming, and the thrill of passing close by the Forum and Vatican City was palpable.
Leeming and the others disembarked, Baxter supervising various guards and porters as they offloaded the prisoners’ baggage. Baxter carefully checked off each item on his clipboard before it was loaded on to trolleys. The Florence train was not due till after midday. Ucelli and Conti had both made arrangements to disappear to visit their fiancées in Rome, but, not trusting their conscript guards, Ucelli had the Britons locked in the station ticket office under the watchful eyes of several busy clerks.
Leeming saw immediately that there was a good chance of escaping. Though he was dressed in full RAF uniform, his pilot’s wings above his left breast pocket, he thought it worth a try.
Leeming would aim for Vatican City. The distance to St Peter’s Square from the station was just over two-and-a-half miles on foot. He would remove his cap and his tunic. If he wrapped his cap in his jacket, he could probably stroll through Rome with the most obvious parts of his uniform tucked under his arm, just wearing a shirt and his blue RAF trousers and braces. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but he should only be on the road for less than an hour, taking into consideration finding his way in an unfamiliar city and avoiding any police guarding the approaches to Vatican City.
If he could make it, Leeming would almost certainly find sanctuary at the British Mission, led at the time by the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary Sir D’Arcy Osborne. The spry and trim 58-year-old Osborne, who would inherit his second cousin’s title of Duke of Leeds in 1943, was secretly involved with providing sanctuary to escaped Allied prisoners of war and Jews, using his own money to help finance these illicit activities. Osborne, codenamed ‘Mount’, was working closely with Irish Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican’ who was already known to several of the generals from the Villa Orsini, and French diplomat François de Vial and between them they managed to conceal almost 4,000 people from the Italians and later the Nazis. Pope Pius XII, who in 1940 had publicly condemned German atrocities in Occupied Europe, largely turned a blind eye to such shenanigans. Vatican City had been recognised as a neutral state in 1939 and, though tiny (only measuring 110 acres), Mussolini left it alone, fearful of upsetting the Italian population by a direct assault on the heart of Roman Catholicism. Protected by a small military force consisting of the Noble Guard, Pontifical Swiss Guard, Palatine Guard and the Gendarmerie Corps, slipping into Vatican City was not difficult in 1941 as the Italian police lightly patrolled the borders, and St Peter’s Square was easily accessible with just a white line painted on the ground marking the frontier. For Leeming, it represented a real chance, if he could shake off his guards and get clear of the station.
*
‘Gabinetto?’ said Leeming in Italian to one of the clerks, asking for the lavatory. The man nodded and escorted Leeming to the men’s room beside the platform, waiting outside. Leeming quickly strode over to the stall that was beside a window set high in the wall. He felt excited. Italian military incompetence at leaving prisoners of war under the supervision of civilian railway workers had presented Leeming with an opportunity. He planned to simply climb through the lavatory window and walk off.
Locking the creaking wooden stall door
behind him, he stepped up on to the toilet bowl, gingerly levered open the grimy window, and peered out. But at that moment his high hopes were cruelly dashed. Directly below Leeming bobbed the heads of two Italian workmen. They were sitting on a bench against the toilet wall, eating their lunch and chatting. He wouldn’t get far climbing down in front of these men, who would report him immediately. He also couldn’t hang about for too long in the lavatory before the ticket clerk started banging on the stall door. Cursing silently, Leeming pulled the window shut as quietly as he could and stepped down from the bowl. He stood in the stall for a few seconds, torn. There was nothing for it but to return to the ticket office. Perhaps another opportunity would present itself before they arrived at the castle. As a consolation, Leeming and his men took the opportunity to filch all the official-looking forms, notices and chits that they could manage under the noses of the clerks, who were mostly concerned with serving customers through iron grills. There was always the possibility that this material could be used for future escapes.
By now it was lunchtime and the prisoners had had nothing to eat since departing from Sulmona some time before dawn. Second Lieutenant Ucelli, who had by now returned to his duties, arranged for food to be provided for Sergeants Baxter and Price and Corporal Blackwell by the clerks, then turned to Leeming and asked him whether he would care to join him for lunch in the station restaurant. Leeming was genuinely taken aback, but happily agreed. It was a professional courtesy, one gentleman to another. It was all a little surreal, Leeming following Ucelli towards the restaurant through the crowds of travellers in the station. It was very strange to sit down and eat a proper meal, served by white-jacketed waiters, and to be surrounded by men, women and children all doing likewise.
‘I was in Air Force uniform, the uniform of a country that had been at war with Italy for more than a year, yet we strolled into the crowded restaurant in Rome, and not one person showed the slightest distaste.’4 Apart from a few embarrassed glances by fellow diners and the occasional nod or smile, Leeming and Ucelli were treated quite normally. In fact, his waiter was delighted to be serving an Englishman again, and even apologised for the poor quality of the coffee that was served, secretly topping off Leeming’s cup with some brandy. However, when he wrote about his adventures a few years later, Leeming was at pains to point out that all this occurred at a time when Italy was winning.5 Such magnanimity cost Ucelli and the Italian Army nothing, and parading a captured British officer in full uniform through a very public place was in itself an exercise in demonstrating to the Italian people how well things were going.
*
Florence railway station was crowded with numerous officials waiting to meet the British party when the train juddered to a steamy halt on the platform after the journey from Rome. They seemed keen to get Leeming and his men on their way to the castle, but the unloading and itemising of the prisoners’ baggage held up the proceedings, as Sergeant Baxter, armed with his trusty clipboard and pencil, dutifully checked everything off and safely aboard yet more cars. Ucelli’s previously equitable mood now deteriorated and his spoiled and indulged nature, so familiar to the prisoners at the Villa Orsini, once more reasserted itself over the issue of the baggage. The stoical Baxter completely ignored the shouting, gesticulating Italian soldiers and officials who were deeply exasperated by the British NCO’s methodical approach; nothing on earth would move him until he had finished.6
Baxter finally finished, tucked the clipboard under his left arm and marched smartly over to Leeming, slamming to attention before him. ‘All present and correct, sir,’ bellowed Baxter as he snapped out a parade-ground salute.
‘Very good, Baxter,’ replied Leeming, returning his salute. He turned to Second Lieutenant Ucelli.
‘We’re ready for you now, Mr Ucelli,’ said Leeming, as if inviting him in for tea.
Ucelli, who had worked himself up into a red-faced rage shouting at Baxter and at his own men, glared at Leeming with ill-concealed loathing.
‘Avanti, Flight Lieutenant, we go … now!’ Ucelli pointed at the two green-painted army Fiats that were now fully loaded.
Baxter got the passenger door open for Leeming before climbing in himself. Ucelli marched up to the car and stood by the passenger side door waiting for one of his men to open it for him. When no one did, he wrenched the door open and threw himself into the seat, his face by now a shade of puce. He slammed the door so violently that the window slipped and half opened on its own.
*
Within fifteen minutes the two cars had sped out of the pretty streets of Florence past churches and other impressive buildings – though the prisoners were unable to get their bearings or pause to admire the architecture – and begun to climb higher. They were soon in the countryside, the drivers struggling to nurse the overladen cars up twisting mountain roads that led through a thick forest of tall cypress trees. Occasionally they passed by babbling brooks and giant rocks, the road growing ever more tortuous as the elevation continued to increase. They passed vineyards, then empty villas, whose British and American owners had fled or been dispossessed when Italy entered the war on the Axis side. Another belt of trees, this time olives, passed quickly by before the vehicles cut once more into cypress forest.7 Then, suddenly, Leeming’s car, which was leading, rounded another hairpin bend and he spotted something huge atop a tall hill further up. It was a castle, a huge menacing grey stone castle, its crenellated walls looking impossibly high from below. Two large towers, dotted with narrow archers’ windows, rose high over the walls. Leeming leaned forward, trying to catch a better view as the car twisted around another bend in the road.
‘Is that where we’re going, Ucelli?’ asked Leeming, tapping the young Italian on the shoulder. Ucelli turned slightly in his seat, his lip curling into a contemptuous smile.
‘Si, that is where you are going,’ he said, pointing at Leeming. ‘It is the Castello di Vincigliata.’
‘Stone the crows, sir,’ muttered Baxter beside Leeming on the back seat. ‘Looks like something out of a ruddy fairytale.’
‘Or a nightmare, Sergeant,’ added Leeming slowly, a knot of apprehension curling in the pit of his stomach as he stared at his forbidding new home.
CHAPTER 6
___________________
The Travelling Menagerie
‘From what we hear we are going to live in a medieval castle, which luckily was inhabited until a short time ago when the owner died. I believe it will be comfortable and it is said to be in lovely country.’1
Brigadier Edward Todhunter
A lion crouched on its haunches and stared at Flight Lieutenant Leeming, its snarling mouth open, revealing rows of gleaming teeth. Leeming, looking around with a feeling of dread worming its way through his stomach, reached out and touched the lion’s cold head. The stone felt smooth beneath his hand, worn by many years of use.
‘Follow me,’ said Second Lieutenant Ucelli curtly behind him, the young Italian officer striding past Leeming towards a set of doors beside a large stone staircase whose balustrade ended with the impressive stone lion. Leeming had a horrible feeling that he was entering the lair of the beast as those metal banded and studded doors creaked open before him.
*
Minutes earlier Leeming and the other three prisoners had arrived before the main gate of the castle. Up close, the fortress was even more forbidding then when viewed from the winding road below. The two cars had driven over a bridge that crossed a dry moat in front of the castle’s massive entrance gates.2 Stepping down, Leeming glanced about. The castle’s high walls stretched away on each side, the tops broken by crenellated battlements. The grey stone was worn and weathered and here and there tufts of vegetation clung tenaciously to its vertiginous sides. The main gates, as tall as cathedral doors, swung slowly inwards, creaking and protesting.
‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Sergeant Baxter at Leeming’s side, ‘Castle Dracula.’ Leeming smiled thinly and without conviction. Baxter was making light of the situation, but al
l that was needed to complete the Gothic nightmare quality of the building were a few lightning bolts and the rumble of thunder. Sergeant Price and Corporal Blackwell dumped their kitbags at their feet and lit up cigarettes. Both eyed the gates suspiciously.
Several Italian soldiers armed with slung rifles struggled with the heavy studded doors, pushing them fully open. Ucelli led Leeming and the three British NCOs through the portal, Leeming noting grimly that the wall appeared to be about six feet thick, into a small inner courtyard. Facing them was the stone staircase and balcony with the stone lion at the end of the elaborate balustrade.
‘Puts you in mind of Trafalgar Square, doesn’t it?’ murmured Blackwell, nodding towards the lion.
‘Somebody’s idea of a joke, if you ask me,’ replied Sergeant Price in his broad Welsh accent.
Adjacent to the staircase, and below the balcony, was another set of armoured doors. These were drawn back and Leeming and the others walked into a gloomy compound between the castle’s massive defensive walls and the tall inner keep. Leeming looked around, noting the narrow archers’ windows set into the keep, its tall battlemented towers and broken statues and worn carvings. He glanced up at the outer wall, judging it to be at least fifteen feet high. Running around its top was a wooden walkway.
‘Company, sir,’ said Blackwell quietly, nodding towards the top of the perimeter wall.
‘I see them, Corporal,’ replied Leeming.
Several Italian sentries looked down at Leeming’s party from their lofty position on the wooden walkway. The distance between the keep and the wall was only about twelve yards, meaning that anyone entering or leaving the castle’s central bastion would be seen immediately by the sentries above.3 The contrast between the gloomy, Gothic castle and the light and airy Villa Orsini was stark.
‘Here comes the welcoming committee, sir,’ said Blackwell, dropping his cigarette and stubbing it out with the toe of his boot.
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