by John Harris
Checker grinned. ‘Okay, son. If the bastards drop a bomb on us we’ll be buried in bones. Christ, what an end!’
Outside, the streets were filling with people hurrying for the shelters. Women with wailing babies screamed as they ran. Stern-faced policemen directed them. A man was dragging a mule by its halter, cursing in purple phrases as it refused to hurry. Military vehicles bolted away and the street was full of the clatter of running feet.
The walls of the ante-rooms they had to pass through to reach the galleries of the catacombs were covered in painted designs. They were in excellent condition considering they had been there for centuries, and they gave the impression of enormous altarpieces with pictures of saints and martyrs. As they entered the catacombs proper, the chattering voices became silent.
Almost at once they found themselves facing what appeared to be a huge catafalque covered with a rotting pall decorated with death’s heads. About it, walls painted to represent marble curved behind faked alabaster pillars up to sculpted ceilings of simulated gilt lattice-work. Bronze statues on corner pedestals and suits of armour in niches, surrounded by the spiky military bouquets of swords, banners, breast plates, drums and trumpets, proved to be nothing more than painted high-relief plaster mouldings. Mock mirrors threw back counterfeit images of the opposite walls in weird optical illusions, and even the worn stone floors showed where they had once been painted to represent ancient mosaics. Here and there patches of damp had damaged the painting, occasionally gilt had flaked from a corner or rats had eaten a hole in the wainscoting, but the general effect, shabby, ornate and grotesque, still remained of a huge, over-decorated family tomb.
Beyond, in a deeper gallery, there were rows of what looked like small chapels, each cut one above the other in the walls and all crammed to the ceiling with skeletons.
‘Holy Jesus Christ,’ Checker said. ‘Where do they all come from?’
‘They don’t bury them,’ Pugh explained, ‘they rent a wall niche for ten, twenty-five or fifty years, but less than ten if they haven’t much money. Then the body’s removed and buried, the coffin broken up and burned and, after a further four years, they dig up the bones and shove ’em in here.’
Checker looked awed. ‘Holy Jesus Christ,’ he said again.
‘Most of these,’ one of the monks said, ‘are plague victims, placed here after the earthquake and plague at the turn of the century. Many also come from sixteenth-century outbreaks.’
Checker picked up a skull. ‘Alas, poor Yorick,’ he said and one of the monks behind him snatched it angrily from him.
The American reacted with a burst of bad temper of his own. ‘Have there been Germans in here?’ he snapped.
The monks answered evasively, in a way that made them feel sure there had.
‘What about now? What’s in here now?’
The monks shrugged, saying they thought something was there but they didn’t know what, and in the next gallery they found a stack of suitcases piled against the wall.
‘Bring those lights over here.’
The suitcases were locked but an American sergeant forced them open one after another. They were crammed with penicillin, in solution and as powder, and phials of morphine.
‘Christ,’ Checker said. ‘A thousand guys could die for want of this goddam stuff!’ He gestured at the sergeant. ‘We’ll be making a search afterwards and we’ll be wanting to interrogate every goddam man who ever came in here, monk or no monk. We’ll have the goddam Pope if he’s guilty.’
They closed the cases and left a couple of men to guard them, and there was a brief silence as they wondered which way to go next. As they waited, there was a sudden rattle ahead of them in the darkness, and a cry, then briefly they saw the flash of a torch.
‘There they are, the sonsabitches!’ Checker yelled.
‘Wait! Wait!’ The two monks seemed horrified. ‘There are terrible dangers! You must not hurry!’
It seemed that in the close bone-crammed galleries beneath the city there were dozens of side turnings, each with many dark vaults, in any of which the men they were seeking could be hidden. As they paused, wondering what to do next, they heard a thump which seemed to come through the very bones of the earth and the faint thud of guns. They all looked at each other nervously.
‘Bombs,’ Jones said. ‘Jerry’s arrived.’
They waited, listening, as more thumps occurred. They appeared to shake the earth around them and after one, which sounded particularly near, several bones slid from a shelf to the ground. Checker began to grow irritable.
‘We musn’t hurry,’ the monks said again. ‘We must move carefully. And by the map.’
‘Jesus,’ Checker said. ‘I wouldn’t like to be down here if my torch battery gave out.’
The thought seemed to start a train of thought in his mind and he ordered half his men to switch off their lights, just in case.
They were in a chill, damp vault with an earthen floor now. On one side skulls were piled neatly in long rows two feet high, on the other was a great barricade of leg and arm bones held in place by a tangle of vertebrae, broken pelvises and shoulder-blades. A wall had collapsed at one end and the remains of generation on generation of Neapolitans lay in tumbled heaps.
There were chapels full of bones, all that was left of thousands of people, all carefully dismembered, assorted and even arranged into designs as if they were beads. Here the walls were lined with pelvic girdles, laid one on another like tiles on a roof, there ribs were fashioned into bowers, and femurs into crucifixes, with the vertebrae arranged like mosaics, like rosettes, flutings, chains, twining hearts.
‘Holy Jesus Christ,’ Checker said once more. ‘What sort of mentality was behind this lot?’
One of the monks sniffed. ‘It is our purpose to remember that we must die,’ he said. ‘We wish to remind all who come here of our own mortality, of the futility of life on earth.’
Checker stared at him as if he had crawled out of a hole. In his greyish robe, in fact, he looked like a mole, grovelling under the earth among human bones for the glory of God, and it occurred to Pugh that the Neapolitans, living in constant intimacy with death – one only had to see the daily parade of hearses across the city to know it was never far from their minds – didn’t much need reminding of mortality.
For what seemed hours, they crept about among the bones, constantly coming upon new designs of rib bones and skulls. Round every corner there was something fresh. They had been awed into silence by now and not a sound had been heard for some time, then, with shocking suddenness, there was a long burst of fire from what appeared to be a light machine gun. The noise echoed and re-echoed, clattering about them like thunder.
One of the American soldiers yelped and fell, then a whole avalanche of bones came down as a shelf collapsed and swept them aside. Flinging himself down among them, Pugh half expected them to smell, but there was only the scent of dryness, dust and age. As they rose warily, the machine gun fired again and they flung themselves down once more, indifferent to the remnants of mortality about them.
‘Keep those goddam lights down,’ Checker snarled as the lamps swept round, making the grinning death’s heads seem alive. Sure enough, there was another burst of fire that brought plaster and fragments of stone down on them. A falling skull clonked on a steel helmet. Then, as the lights were doused, leaving them all in a thick darkness, they waited with thumping hearts – wondering what lay ahead.
Behind them, the American soldier, who had been hit in the thigh, was being laid out on the floor. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t leave me here,’ he was begging.
As they held their breath, they heard running feet and, as they pushed the bones aside and the lights were dragged forward and switched on again, they saw Tasker moving in erratic fashion ahead of them. Just behind him was the shadowy shape of the owner of the O Sole Mio and another man. As the lights caught them, they turned, and for a second their faces showed white and startled.
‘Halt,’ C
hecker yelled. ‘Stop right there!’
The faces vanished as the hurrying figures turned away again, and Checker yelled, ‘Get the bastards!’
But, as he shouted, there was a crash and a clatter, followed by a long surging sound as tons of bones slid forward. They saw Tasker turn again and open his mouth in a scream, then he was swept away as the piles of human debris smashed into him. There was another crash, then a huge puff of dust like an explosion, and they heard him cry out, despairing, almost shrieking. A rumbling sound followed, then a moan, and then silence. For a long time they remained still, their faces lit by the lamps they carried, as they stared in awe at each other.
The dust seemed to hang in the gallery for a long time, a huge, grey-yellow cloud, filling the air and making them cough and choke and spit as it filled their mouths and eyes. As it subsided and the gallery slowly became visible again, Pugh pointed ahead.
‘Take care,’ one of the monks said. ‘Something has given way.’
‘It sure has,’ Checker growled.
Crawling along, groping among the collapsed piles of bones, aware of terrible unseen dangers, they came to the torrent of bones lying like the bricks of a collapsed house. Just beyond it was a yawning black hole. The whole floor in front of them had caved in and fallen away. Creeping gingerly forward, they shone the lights into the hole, but all they could see below them was a pile of ancient rib bones, pelvises, femurs and skulls, from which protruded bricks and timbers.
Checker peered down. ‘Tasker, you bastard,’ he called. ‘You down there?’
There was no sound, and he turned to the men behind him. ‘Microphone,’ he said.
Clambering over the avalanche of the remains of dead human beings, which clattered as if they were loosely stacked coal, someone brought batteries and earphones forward. The microphone was dangled into the hole but the silence was complete.
As they listened, Pugh was reminded of mine rescue films he’d seen. They sat for a long time with ears cocked, listening for the faintest sign of life. But there was nothing, only the empty darkness, a silence as thick as velvet, and echoes whenever anybody moved or spoke.
‘Can we get gown there?’ Jones demanded.
The monks shook their heads. ‘There is no chance,’ one of them said. ‘The whole of this gallery is unsafe. You were warned.’
‘I know we were goddam warned,’ Checker snapped. ‘But we’ve got a job to do. We want to get someone down there.’
‘You would be putting his life in great danger.’
Eventually they came to the conclusion that Tasker was either unconscious or dead, and that it would need more than the equipment they had with them to find out. Checker coughed, clearing his throat as if it were choked with the dust of long-dead people.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s it. We’ll not get ’em outa there in a hurry.’
The air raid had ended when they reappeared in the street. They could hear the grind of ambulances and the wail of their sirens, and over the houses they could see rising columns of smoke where the bombs had fallen.
A guard was set at the entrance to the catacombs and a team was whistled up to question the monks more closely. Eventually ropes and climbing gear were produced and an attempt was made to get into the hole. But then another portion of the passageway crumbled and fell away and the monks again warned that more still could go, so that Checker finally called off the operation.
‘I’m not having my guys hurt to rescue those bastards,’ he said. ‘Not in that goddam morbid necrophilic hole.’
Most of them remained there for the rest of the night, just a few men stationed deep inside, but nothing was reported, no sound, no light, no voices, no movement. The O Sole Mio was silent and dark and Colonel Tasker’s car remained unclaimed and was eventually driven off. The suitcases were examined and assessed and orders were issued to pick up Sansovino and all his associates. Baracca was brought up under escort and Checker tore him off a strip.
‘Paintings,’ he snarled. ‘Drugs from the sick and dying! Did you want every goddam bit of loot in Italy for yourself? Guys like you are getting the US a bad name.’
There had been no more sound from the catacombs and they could only assume that the cry they had heard and the crash and clatter of the avalanche of ancient bones had been the end of Tasker and his companions. No one expected them to reappear.
‘“Killed on active service!”’ Pugh said dryly. ‘That’s how he’ll appear in the casualty lists.’
As the search was called off, Jones drove him back to the office in the Jeep. O’Mara, who had been sent back to hold the fort, said the air raid had been bad.
‘’Twas a terrible hard one,’ he said. ‘They’ve reported over a hundred casualties, and buildings are down in the Capodimonte and Mergellina districts.’
Tired, his face strained and grey with exhaustion, his clothes and hair covered with dust, Pugh started the motorbike and rode slowly back towards the Casa Calafati. As he passed the Via Villari, he noticed the air was full of smoke and he could smell burning, and he decided to stop to see if old Mori and the paintings were safe.
The area was full of rubble. A house seemed to have been ripped apart and the whole façade lay in the street, smoke still seeping through the brickwork. A policeman was keeping people away in case of unexploded bombs, and Pugh rode round the block to approach it from the other side. Another policeman agreed to keep an eye on the motor cycle, and Pugh picked his way through the bricks and pieces of broken masonry, splintered timber, glass, scattered fragments of clothing and fluttering scraps of paper.
Agente di Pompe Funebri Mori was standing in the street with Foscari, his face grey with weariness. He was standing by his cart, his old horse, Urbino, dozing quietly in the shafts. Across the white plaster dust that covered his face were runnels where the tears had coursed.
‘All gone, Signore,’ he said. ‘All gone!’
‘They killed Fiorello,’ Foscari said, pointing.
The old horse lay on its side, half-covered with rubble, its eyes glazed with a faint blue film, dried blood round the open mouth from which a large pink tongue lolled.
Poor old Fiorello, Pugh thought. The horse had served them well. It was a pity he had had to die from a chance German bomb that was probably aimed at the docks.
‘È solo la forza del destino.’ Foscari’s optimism was strong, his courage uplifting. ‘We’ll rebuild. I’m young and I know how to lay bricks. And there are plenty about for the taking. I have my tools. We still have Urbino and we’ll soon find another hearse.’
Pugh whirled. ‘Another hearse? What happened to the one we’ve got?’
‘It’s gone,’ Mori mourned. ‘Your secrets have disappeared.’
Foscari pulled a face. ‘I think everything we did was for nothing,’ he said slowly.
He gestured to Pugh to follow him. All round them were black charred beams and scorched bricks and stones. A wall had fallen, hiding the yard, but as they picked their way past, Pugh saw Ciasca’s old hearse that had carried them all the way from Vicinamontane. It was standing in the middle of the wreckage among blazing furniture and crackling timbers that had once been a roof. Through its plate glass sides, Pugh could see the coffin. His heart sank and he felt suddenly numb, as though everything had been drained out of him. Everything they had struggled for was disappearing before his eyes.
Because of the searing heat it was impossible to approach nearer than ten metres and, rubbing his eyes against the smoke, he fell back with the others as a fresh burst of flame lifted. The whole interior of the hearse was smoking now, the black varnish running down its sides. The solid rubber tyres on the tall rear wheels had already melted, and suddenly a plate-glass panel cracked with a report like a pistol shot and one of the corner lanterns flopped over and began to change shape. The coffin started to burn furiously.
As he watched, a low warning rumble came from the heart of the fire and the few watching people drew back. The whole front of the building
began to lean forward slowly, as if it were bowing, then it crashed down, burying the hearse under tons of blazing rubble. A column of fire lifted in a huge billow of orange towards the sky, then the fallen masonry and woodwork settled into a shapeless pyre.
As old Mori and Foscari clung to each other, staring at the rearing flames and the smoking rubble, Pugh stood on his own, motionless and indifferent to the heat, staring at the smouldering shafts of the hearse, all that could be seen, all that was left of Tamara’s legacy, all that remained of Bocco Detto Banti’s paintings.
Twelve
Tamara was in bed when Pugh reached the Casa Calafati. Her face lit up as he appeared but, seeing his expression, she silently rose, put on a dressing gown and started to prepare food for him. By the time it arrived he was sprawled in a chair with a huge whisky, his eyes blank.
‘What has happened, caro Piu?’ she asked. ‘Did things not work out?’
‘Yes,’ he nodded, his face expressionless, his mind still busy. ‘They worked out. We’ve recovered a haul of drugs and arrested the ringleaders. One got away, but I don’t think he’ll trouble us again.’
She watched him, worried. ‘But something is wrong, Piu?’
His mind was still full of the picture of the burning hearse and he was wondering how to break the news to her.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’
‘But you don’t smile.’
He wanted to draw some comfort from her sympathy but he didn’t wish to worry her, and he knew that it was he himself who should be giving sympathy. He poured himself another whisky and she stared at him, a puzzled expression on her face.
‘Tomorrow, you will look like the monster in the play they put on in the puppet theatre,’ she said.
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘Perhaps your Captain Jones has discovered I am sharing your room. Your bed also.’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘Then there is nothing to worry about.’
