by Robert Ryan
‘Are you glad he is dead?’
‘Glad is too strong a word. It suggests I care.’ I cared he might have bled on my floor, though.
‘Do you own a gun?’ he snapped.
‘No.’ I did, but someone took it off me. Shit, what if … no, that was too ridiculous. And how could they connect any gun to me anyway? But suddenly I was scared. Here I was mouthing off at some unreconstituted fascist who very likely thought the Domodossola Republic was an aberration that fully deserved to be crushed, not a blow for Italian freedom. My ribs began to throb. ‘He was definitely shot, then?’
‘We’ll know when we get the pathologist’s report. But you saw his face?’ I nodded. ‘You are familiar with gunshot wounds?’ I had to agree I had seen one or two in the past. ‘Is it true that the victim killed a friend of yours?’
I didn’t answer.
‘The partisan leader Fausto,’ he pressed.
‘You are well informed.’
He smiled at me.
‘Nino said it was in self-defence,’ I told him.
‘Was it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then tell me—’
‘I don’t know what it has to do—’
He thumped the table hard and I jumped, despite myself. ‘Tell me!’
‘Can I get a glass of water?’
‘After you tell me.’
‘I need the water. My throat is dry.’
He relented and asked the guard in the corridor to fetch a drink. While he stood scowling and tapping his well-buffed toe, I had a feeling it was the last victory I was going to enjoy for a while.
I sipped the medicinal-tasting water as I told Zopatti the story. ‘It was a sight I will never forget. Nobody who was there will. We had been fighting for two weeks. We had the railway, we had the hills, we controlled the power and the border crossings. There were 3,000 partisans in the hills, and Fausto had 400 of them loyal to him. We were well armed, mainly with Italian and German weapons from the raid on the SS convoy, we were well motivated and the opposition knew it.
‘Priests were sent in to negotiate an armistice with the Germans, if they wanted it, and we were surprised when they agreed. There were five hundred of them, German and fascist, and we gave them safe conduct out of the town. Some people told me it was raining that day, but I just remember bright sunshine. The Germans assembled in front of the railway station, while we stood on the steps, roofs, at windows, and watched them go. There was no cheering, not at first. Just the crunch of their damned hobnailed boots as they marched to their vehicles.
‘The party started the next day—dancing in the streets while the council read out the manifesto.
‘So we had what we wanted: we had a whole free section of Italy. We arrested what fascists were left and locked them in one of the railway stores. Treated them well, mind. The schools were re-opened, but the fascist curriculum was torn up, trains started running with partisan guards on them, right up into Switzerland.
‘Money was short, food was short, but the Red Cross sent supplies. The Italian military attaché in Bern, loyal to the King, sent commanders to unify us. Huh. Like that worked. Then the British Special Operations people arrived to tell us how stupid we had been …’
Major Archibald Lang found Kirby with Fausto, trying to organise an effective defence of the town around the football stadium to the east. He had a face like thunder. Apparently, he was the same with all the BLOs—there were six at that point, all attached to different partisan bands. He reserved his greatest wrath for Kirby, though. He dragged him back into town to the hotel where the Special Forces had set up their HQ. The two of them sat on a torn and dusty sofa in the tatty remnants of what had once been the lobby, amid half a dozen other people who studiously ignored them.
A lame child, thin and rickety from eating nothing but chickpeas and polenta for too long, came in to beg but was quickly hustled out. The joy of freedom was being replaced by the reality of being isolated and surrounded by hostility.
‘You know who was on that Liberator?’ asked Lang.
Kirby slumped back into the sofa, and felt the springs shift. One of them dug into his leg, but he stayed put. It might keep him alert. ‘No.’
‘Jimmy Morris.’
Kirby shook his head to show the name didn’t mean much.
‘You know who he was?’
‘My replacement.’
‘Your replacement. He’d never have let this shambles happen. He was worth twenty of you.’
Not dead he wasn’t, Kirby wanted to say. He had a feeling Lang would argue even that point. His voice was quivering with barely controlled rage as it was.
‘Who is in overall command of the military defence?’ Lang asked.
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘You don’t know? It is five days in, man. Who is co-ordinating everything?’
Kirby was dog tired. Nobody was in overall control, because nobody could agree who it should be. The Communists—irritated at being excluded from the original surrender negotiations—thought that Fausto was a British agent. He thought the Communists were no better than bandits, mainly because in the past they had re-supplied themselves by raiding other partisans. The constant bickering by men with loaded guns was very hard on the nerves.
‘I want you to come back to Bern with me.’
‘No.’
‘I’m not asking, Kirby.’
‘He can’t go with you.’ They both looked up. It was Francesca, cigarette in her mouth, face looking every bit as drawn as Kirby’s, dressed in green overalls three sizes too big, cinched in at the waist with a leather belt from the German stores. She crunched over the broken glass towards them and stood at Kirby’s shoulder.
‘And you are?’ asked Lang.
‘I am a lieutenant with Gruppo Fausto. As you know, Fausto doesn’t speak English. We need Kirby.’
‘I can get you another Italian speaker.’
‘Fausto wants him. The men trust him now. He has killed Germans with them.’ Mainly by firing down at a helpless convoy in the dark, but it was a start. ‘You want to do something useful, Major, get us an airborne division to help defend the town.’
Kirby thought Lang was going to explode. ‘You think we’ve got an airborne division to spare on you people?’
‘We people,’ she said with beautiful, drawn-out sarcasm, ‘have expelled the Germans. If we keep them out, Italians will know it can be done.’
Lang took a deep breath. ‘And if your town here and its post-liberation organisation’—his turn to lay on the scorn—‘is a paradigm for what will happen after the Germans have gone, I would say you can expect civil war and chaos for Italy, my dear.’
‘Lieutenant My Dear,’ she corrected. ‘And he comes with me.’ She grabbed Kirby by the shoulders, hauled him to his feet and ushered him outside. The last thing Kirby heard was Lang yelling about putting him on a charge.
‘You’re a bunch of clowns,’ came the drawl from behind them as they walked down the street. Kirby turned. It was Hirschfield, an Office of Strategic Services man who had been another of the motley chorus advising against liberating the town. He fell in next to them. Kirby noticed he had an overnight bag in his hand. ‘I told you, if you don’t succeed, they’ll hang you out to dry.’ He veered off towards the station.
‘Where are you going, Captain Hirschfield?’ called out Francesca.
‘Back to Switzerland, to tell Dulles you’ve got a circus here. Regular Barnum and Bailey.’
‘Maybe,’ she spat after him. ‘But at least it’s our circus.’
Hirschfield was still laughing when he disappeared from view.
Zopatti listened intently as I recounted the whole episode.
‘He was right,’ I said, much as I hated to admit it. ‘Lang was right. The OSS guy was right. The Communists and the non-Communists could never agree. There was no single central command. Meanwhile, infuriated by the temerity
of the partisans in taking a whole swathe of the country, the local German commander based here, at Novara, ordered Domodossola to be re-taken. It was—by armoured cars, tanks, mortars and artillery. We held out the perimeter as long as we could, but there was no way of moving men or supplies to where they were needed most. There were shells exploding over their heads and still the commanders were arguing about rank and authority! Anyway, the Germans were on the outskirts, moving into the town when we were at the railway station, ready for some sort of Alamo last stand. It was then I saw Nino Leone kill Fausto.’
Twenty-One
Italy, 1944
KIRBY FELT THE AIR judder as it compressed even before he heard the whistle of the artillery round. ‘Get down!’ he yelled. A dozen men and women fell to the earth as one, hands over their heads. The 88 shell landed in the centre of the string of cafés on the far end of the railway piazza, sending glass, tables and chairs spiralling into the air, then crashing around them. When the smoke cleared, there was no front to the building that had housed the cafés. Kirby could see a body on the upper floor, gun still in his hand.
‘Back to work!’ yelled Fausto. He had sandbagged a crescent in front of the station and lined up his only field gun at the main street leading north. The air was full of the crackle of small-arms fire, with the occasional thump of a mortar round. On the outskirts were German armoured cars and half-tracks, picking their way through the defences. The main railway line had been cut at Varzo by Alpini. The only way out of Domodossola now was to Ascona, just outside Locarno, so a column of wounded were being loaded onto the small, blue electric train that ran through the mountains to the lakeside towns. Soon the power to that line would be gone.
Already scores of civilians had left for Switzerland, women and children mostly, with partisan escorts, trying to make it up hills hit by squalls of icy rain, then over passes filling with early snow. Kirby wondered how many of them would reach the border.
Pavel, Ragno, Francesca, Rosario and the others each chose a spot from which to make their final stand, positioning their weapons in a hollow at the top of the sandbags. Kirby looked up as he heard an aero-engine. A little Fieseler Storch spotter plane wobbled its way over town.
Fausto examined the defences and nodded, as if satisfied.
‘One tank will blow this all away,’ Kirby said.
‘If we had anti-tank weapons …’ Fausto began.
‘Well, we haven’t,’ Kirby snapped back, tired of this constant refrain. ‘And if someone had co-ordinated blowing all the bridges, they wouldn’t have got tanks and armoured cars up here!’
‘You are beginning to sound like your Major Lang.’ Most of the outsiders, including Lang and his team, had pulled back out to Bern days previously, feeling fully justified that their dire warnings had come to pass. The Germans and fascists couldn’t leave Domodossola free. It had to be destroyed, as an example.
Francesca came over and spoke in Fausto’s ear, and he nodded. ‘She is right. You must go.’
‘What?’ Kirby retorted.
‘We will fight until we get an armistice like the Germans did. An honourable surrender. But you, you are a foreign spy. They will shoot you. Prefect Vezzalini has warned there will be reprisals.’
Another shell landed up by the municipio, its spot marked by a twisting column of smoke. ‘I’ll take my chances.’
Kirby felt the gun on the back of his neck. He could smell the oil. It was Ragno, with his brand new Sten.
‘Get on the train to Ascona,’ said Fausto. He pointed at the blue carriages. Its klaxon sounded as if in encouragement. ‘We don’t want to have to worry about you.’
‘So you’ll shoot me?’ Kirby asked Fausto, brushing away the barrel of the boy’s Sten.
‘You are not wanted. It’s our fight now. The British let us down. Everyone let us down.’
Kirby shook his head at the naivety of this. ‘They were never going to send an airborne division—’
Fausto’s face twisted into hatred. He made an effort to calm himself. He had honestly believed there would be an airdrop. ‘Go. Leave this to Italians.’
Kirby looked at Francesca, but she lowered her eyes and nodded.
‘Come with me,’ he said to her suddenly and Fausto snorted. Now she shook her head. ‘You said yourself the fascists have promised reprisals. This is madness,’ Kirby pleaded.
The Excelsior Hotel seemed to shudder as an artillery round went in through the roof. There was a pause before the centre floors dissolved into a flower of masonry dust. The heat of the blast swept over them. The little Storch came back and Kirby raised his pistol and fired three ineffectual shots. He, more than anyone there, knew just what a waste of time and ammunition it all was.
‘Get on the train, Kirby,’ said Fausto. ‘I have business. I can’t waste any more time with you.’
He made a signal and Ragno grabbed his sleeve and pulled Kirby down the platform towards the train. As he went, he saw the figure of Nino emerge from the smoke drifting along the avenue to the north. Fausto hopped over the barrier of sandbags to meet him.
‘Hear that?’ asked Ragno, a tremor of fear in his voice.
Kirby stopped and listened. There was a faint squeak of tank treads, just audible above the whine of rifle shots. Rosario and Francesca came across to make sure Kirby didn’t do anything stupid and helped usher him down the platform. ‘This isn’t fair,’ he said to them.
‘It’s very fair, Jack Kirby,’ said Rosario. ‘You did your part.’
Reluctantly he stepped into the first carriage, finding a place among the outstretched legs of the wounded, his eyes drawn back to the town, now wreathed in a haze. Up in the hills, he could see muzzle flashes. Mortars were falling on the football stadium now, and fires had started. He heard the deep whumpf of an 88 shell nearby. The tank was firing.
‘Come with me,’ he said again to Francesca, but again she shook her head. ‘You don’t want to die. He’s a fool.’
‘He’s my fool.’
‘You said this was your circus—look how it’s ending.’
She stared at her feet, and he couldn’t see the expression on her face.
‘Come with me.’
‘Her place is here,’ said Rosario irritably. ‘And nobody is going to die.’
Kirby took out his Colt, checked the safety was on and tossed it to her. She caught it with her right hand and smiled her thanks. ‘Good luck, Kirby,’ she said.
‘You too, Lieutenant.’
‘Come back.’
Before he could answer he heard the sound of shouting, just as the little train jerked into motion. The partisans turned and watched the same scene as Kirby did, except his view was receding rapidly.
Out on the square Fausto had Nino by the lapel, his Labora machine pistol under the lawyer’s chin. He was yelling in his face, and Kirby imagined he could see the angry spittle flying from Fausto’s mouth. He pushed the barrel up into the fleshy folds of Nino’s throat.
The shot was lost in the noise of the train and the detonations of ordnance, but just before they rounded the first bend into the railway yards, where the fascists had broken free from their sheds and were jeering the trainload of fleeing partisans, Kirby saw Fausto stagger back, clutching the stomach wound from Nino’s pistol, and fall into the gutter.
Twenty-Two
‘BUT YOUR FRIENDS SURVIVED,’ said Zopatti when I had finished.
‘With Fausto gone, the fight went out of them. As you know, Domodossola was unusual in that there weren’t wholesale reprisals. In other places, thousands of partisans and civilians were executed. Not there.’
‘And you?’
‘When we arrived at Locarno, everyone was interned except Swiss citizens. After a few weeks, I was transferred to Basle and debriefed. I got back to Britain eventually.’ I never flew serious combat after that, though. They had me ferrying replacement aircraft around Europe, doing the odd high-altitude photo-recce. Nobody ever shot at me again in anger. I sort of missed it.
/> ‘Why didn’t they kill Nino?’ asked Zopatti. ‘Your friends at the railway station?’
‘I don’t know. I was too far away. Fausto had a gut wound, they were trying to save him. More shells fell. It was just chaos. Nino slipped away.’
‘Or perhaps they did kill him for Fausto after all.’
‘What?’
‘Perhaps they did take revenge for the death of this Fausto, but twenty years later. They see him at the commemoration, they follow him, bang. Is that possible?’
‘It is possible.’ I could imagine Rosario or Pavel doing it. The loyalty they felt towards their leader made it believable that, even after two decades, they wouldn’t blink at murder. ‘Although why they’d put him in my plane is anybody’s guess.’
‘Why would he take the risk of coming back at all?’ mused Zopatti.
‘Beats the shit out of me,’ I said.
One of the guards arrived with a note and Zopatti frowned at it before he screwed it into a ball. ‘Your lawyer is here.’
‘He took his time,’ I said as casually as I could. I didn’t have a lawyer, as far as I was aware.
‘Yes. It was probably the sex change that did it. They take a while.’
It was a she, then. ‘Am I free to go?’
‘After you have signed a statement, yes. But you are not free to leave Italy.’
‘No. Of course.’
The chair scraped along the concrete floor as Zopatti rose, but something occurred to him that made him sit back down. ‘You know, even though we were on opposite sides, I always thought the partisans who took Domodossola were very brave.’ From his inside pocket, he produced an envelope and threw it on the table. ‘And, it transpired, very resourceful.’
I didn’t open the envelope there and then, I was too wary about it being a stunt for the cameras. An hour later, I was presented with a transcript of my conversation with the Dottore, which I read carefully to make sure they hadn’t inserted the line: Then I killed Nino and hid him in my plane and forgot all about him until I opened the door, but I couldn’t find it anywhere so I scribbled my initials on each page and left.
