He sat down, ate bread, cheese and salami, drank sips of wine. Almost at once he felt his energy rise. He wrapped the rest of the food in the paper packet, stowed it away in an inside pocket of his waistcoat: he stuffed the bottle into the other. At least he had something to carry water in now. His final act was to lob the basket into the stream, weighted by another big stone.
He still had no idea where he was going: Providence had helped him once, and she favoured those who dared. He was more or less confident that he was going in the right direction: staying by the stream might be risky, but he needed access to water. He would tag along with it for a while.
He moved with deliberate slowness, all his senses open, taking in the insect drone and the chirp of birds, the babble of the brook, the smell of leaf-mould and humus. Total concentration on his surroundings was an art Caine had mastered in the desert: it was a matter of blocking out the chatter inside and letting your instincts work. It must be, he had sometimes reflected, how animals related to the world – they were inside it, not floating away on a current of thoughts and images to some far-off place and time.
The trees here were slim, tall beeches, close-packed through beds of dried leaves, low brambles, lichen-cushioned stones: their trunks, some bent and bow-shaped, others straight as ramrods, were a mottling of dark moss and silver bark, their branches festooned with autumn foliage like spun gold and beaten copper. Sunshine spilled through the canopy in fans and bursts of sheeny light, splayed dappled patterns across the forest floor.
The stream dipped through a rock cutting and turned north: Caine kept to his western path, striking out from the water, until the trees began to thin out around brown fields with grapevines and olive groves. Beyond them stood a small cottage – an oblong of flaking stucco under a pitched roof of fractured ochre tiles, with a weather-beaten door and a tiny shuttered window. The cottage was circled with rambling timber and chicken-wire outhouses: Caine saw two or three scrawny black chickens poking about in the dirt.
His immediate instinct was to give the place a wide berth, yet he was somehow drawn to it. He had resolved to avoid all contact with the Ities, but he also admitted to himself that he had no chance of snatching the countess without help. He didn’t even know how to get to the Villa Montefalcone from here. Intelligence was the key to operations like this and, before he proceeded, he needed as much as he could get.
Caine left the shelter of the trees, crept along an avenue between the vines with his SMG in the crook of his elbow. Suddenly, a dog began to bark: Caine swore, knowing he should have expected it. He stopped crawling, brought the Schmeisser slowly to bear, cursed the long magazine that made the weapon awkward to fire from the prone position. He peered through the vines: he couldn’t see the dog, but he saw the door of the cottage open and a man come out – a lean peasant with a weathered face and keen eyes. He was clad in a garb similar to Caine’s: corduroy trousers and waistcoat, farm-boots: a collarless grey-white shirt and a cloth cap. Caine saw that he was carrying a hunting rifle: he looked as if he knew how to use it.
Caine considered the situation. If he revealed himself, he would be at the man’s mercy: he had no way of knowing whether the chap would help him or sell him to the Hun. He could shoot the chap: he was armed, after all. But he was also a civilian, and Caine had no more desire to kill him than the couple he’d encountered that morning. The man’s alert posture suggested he was quite aware that another human was present: even if Caine managed to get away, he might inform the Jerries. On the other hand, if Caine exposed himself without intending to fire, the chap might put a bullet through his head before he could even explain himself.
He thought of trying to get behind him, take him by surprise, but he discounted the idea: it might cause complications and, anyway, it was time to take a chance. It might be a fatal one, but trusting anyone, especially here, was always going to be a leap of faith.
He laid his weapon aside, concealed it under a grapevine. ‘Don’t shoot!’ he yelled.
The man’s eyes sought out the place the voice had come from: he raised his rifle, his rawhide, grey-stubbled features drawn in concentration.
‘Amico!’ Caine shouted. ‘I’m a friend. I’m going to get up. I’m not armed.’
Whether the Itie had understood him, he didn’t know: the man let his rifle-muzzle drop a tad, though. Taking it as his cue, Caine rose ponderously, with his hands up. The Itie was no more than ten paces away: he raised his weapon again, scanned Caine’s peasant attire and raised hands. Time stilled: Caine realized that his fate would be decided by this man’s readiness or otherwise to shoot a stranger in cold blood. It all depended on how scared he was. The peasant stared at Caine’s face: Caine saw the end of his mouth twitch, saw the rifle drop, let out a long breath.
The man’s name was Cesare: he spoke some fragments of English he’d learned in the navy before the war. He didn’t invite Caine into the cottage but made him sit behind a clump of bushes outside. Caine decided to tell him as much of the truth as he dared: he explained by gestures and in short phrases that he had escaped from a convoy carrying prisoners from the Jesi prison camp. He didn’t mention his trustee status, nor the BFC uniform, now submerged in the stream.
Cesare nodded gravely. ‘Si, ho capito. There is partisan attack on road yesterday. Some people are escape. The tedeschi search for them.’
Caine stowed away the information: enemy behind me, enemy ahead.
‘You have been at the Jesi camp?’ Cesare enquired.
‘Yes.’
The man’s eyes dropped: his features grew heavy. For a moment Caine thought he was about to burst into tears.
‘They take mia figlia to that place,’ Cesare said. ‘Hanno detto che lei è una staffetta. They say she is with the partisans.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Caine said. ‘And was she? With the partisans, I mean.’
Cesare shrugged narrow shoulders. ‘È molta coraggiosa, mia figlia. She is too brave. I tell her no do it. The tedeschi shoot you, I say. But she not listen to her father.’ He sniffed. ‘Non so sepossa vederla ancora. I don’t know if I see her again.’
There were tears in his eyes: Caine couldn’t help but feel the man’s distress: what must it be like to have a daughter arrested by the Nazis? Rage kindled inside him, helped cement his determination to carry out his mission.
‘Diciasette anni,’ Cesare went on. ‘Seventeen years old. She is good girl, Lucia. She work at the Villa Montefalcone from the time she is small. The countess love her.’ Caine’s neck-hairs prickled. Surely it couldn’t be the same Lucia he’d encountered at Jesi? The girl Amray had given him as a reward for joining the Nazis? Lucia must be a common name. Seventeen years old. It seemed too much of a coincidence.
Caine felt his cheeks flush. The Nazis used an innocent young girl as a sex-slave, and I went along with it. Or had he? He recalled Lucia lying naked in his bed at the Jesi camp, but as far as he remembered, he’d never touched her. She was still a child – he’d never have taken advantage of a child. Or was this denial: just his guilt making its case?
He became aware that Cesare was staring at him: he scratched his chin-stubble. Perhaps the man sensed he was holding out.
‘There was a girl called Lucia . . . at Jesi,’ Caine said. He made the shape of her page-boy haircut with his hands. ‘About seventeen. They said she’d been arrested carrying messages for the partisans.’
Cesare’s eyes lit up: he nodded. ‘Lucia? You see her? You see her, yes?’
‘Yes. She’s . . . all right. They haven’t hurt her.’
Cesare crossed himself. Caine felt a lump rise in his throat. You can do what you like with her, old man. Shag her front and behind, all the way till morning.
A child. How could he have taken advantage of a child?
For a moment he wished he could go back, break Lucia out, get her away from her captors. But that was beyond his capabilities. There was another woman in jeopardy, at the Villa Montefalcone. Better to stick to what was possible. Was it
possible to rescue the countess, though? Was it any more than a madcap, kamikaze plan hatched in the half-demented mind of Bunny Butterfield? How was he going to take on a whole SS platoon with half a mag of rounds and no back-up?
He wadded his fists. ‘I’m going to do it,’ he said.
Cesare opened his eyes wide. ‘You do what?’
Caine told him that he was heading for the Villa Montefalcone: his plan was to rescue the countess, he said. Spoken out loud like this, his words had a vacant feel: it sounded like a half-baked, hopeless quest.
Cesare looked impressed though. ‘Sarà difficile,’ he said. ‘The villa is guarded by many Cabbage-Heads. Getting out will not be a problem. Il problema principale is to get in.’
Caine blinked, wondered what he meant.
‘The villa is full of hidden passages,’ Cesare said. ‘One passage come out at door in woods. But door is strong. Is lock from inside. You escape that way, maybe: but how you get in? You don’t have gun even.’
Caine had left the Schmeisser hidden in the vineyard: he’d wanted to avoid presenting a threat. He considered Cesare’s words for a moment. ‘I’ll get in by stealth,’ he said at last. ‘Will you help me?’
Cesare narrowed his eyes, weighed it up for a moment. ‘I help, but you get my daughter out.’
It was too steep a price, Caine thought. A fully armed SAS troop might liberate the prisoners from a camp as heavily defended as Jesi, but even that was uncertain.
‘I can’t do that on my own,’ he said. ‘I can only promise to report it to my command and urge them to take action.’
Cesare wrinkled his face in an effort to understand. ‘Is all right,’ he said finally. ‘A man do his best.’
He gave Caine precise directions to the villa, telegraphing with his hands, drawing with a twig in the dust till Caine had memorized the details. He asked what Caine needed, offered him provisions, a rope, a knapsack, a poncho, even weapons. He told Caine to stay put while he went into the cottage to get things ready.
Caine watched Cesare go in through the cottage door, realized he had no way of knowing if there was an exit at the back. How could he be sure the man wasn’t about to report him to the Nazis? He shifted tensely: if there was a flap, he was unarmed except for the half-empty wine-bottle inside his waistcoat: that wouldn’t get him far. He itched to retrieve the SMG from the vineyard, longed to get out of there. He didn’t have a watch: the minutes seemed to tick past endlessly. He stood poised on the balls of his feet. He was tempted to walk over to the door, wrench it open, peer inside: he was prevented only by the thought that the old man might see it as a breach of trust. But am I behaving like an idiot? The chap could be taking advantage of my trust to turn me in? Fritz pays well for that kind of thing. Maybe he needs the money.
He didn’t move. Instead he scanned the brown fields, watched flies wheel, watched bees home in, took in the burnished colours of the vine-leaves, the olive trees with heads like matted hair, tilted away from the prevailing wind, the beeches on the forest purlieus where schools of rooks roosted. The skies were pale azure, laced with flimsy trimmings of cloud: he watched a falcon spin out of its spiral, drop towards the forest-edge, saw rooks take to the air in cawing squadrons.
He wasn’t sure how long Cesare had been gone: it seemed a while, and he was feeling uneasy. Sometimes you had to rely on intuition, and his intuition had been to trust Cesare. But intuition could be wrong. The chap wouldn’t stab me in the back, surely? Not after the Nazis arrested his daughter. But Caine hadn’t been able to promise that he’d get her out: maybe that was the problem. Maybe he thinks he can do a deal with the Nazis: Lucia’s life for an escaped British saboteur.
He stood up: he couldn’t wait any longer. Assuming Cesare had told him the truth about the villa, he now knew how to get there. He would just pick up the Schmeisser, beat it, sharpish.
He was still wavering when the door creaked and Cesare toddled out. He’d brought Caine a much-patched rucksack of canvas and hide, with neat packets of bread, cheese, fresh olives and grapes, an oilskin poncho and a shepherd’s knife that looked razor-sharp. He laid this bounty down, unslung two firearms from his thin shoulders, showed them to Caine – the hunting rifle he’d come out with previously, and a 12-bore shotgun.
‘Which you want?’
Caine thought guiltily about the SMG hidden in the vines. A second ago he’d been half convinced that Cesare was about to trade him in for his daughter: now the man was offering him what must be his most treasured possessions.
He was reluctant to accept, but his mission was life or death and he couldn’t afford to grope in a gift-horse’s mouth. A hunting rifle would be good for long shots.
He took the rifle, hefted it, jacked the cocking-handle, checked the breech: a round popped out. He picked it up: it was small-calibre – .22. Ten-round magazine, he thought.
‘You got more bullets?’
Minutes later he was crossing the fields with the 100-round box of .22 ammunition Cesare had given him stashed in a rucksack pouch. He came across the place where he’d left the Schmeisser, bent and scooped it up in a single movement, kept it tight to his chest. He was grateful for Cesare’s gift – more than grateful – but at close quarters an SMG would come in handy, too.
When he reached the trees he paused and turned back. The old man was still standing motionless by the cottage: Caine waved: Cesare didn’t return the salute.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Villa Montefalcone, Le Marche, Italy
9 October 1943
The forest remained thick almost to the villa itself: there was no wall or fence, and Caine was able to move to the edge of the trees for a close target recce. The size of the place was stunning: it was like a country mansion set in the remnants of an old castle, an ornate central block under tilting tiled roofs and nests of towers: a crumbling girdle-wall of stone slabs with a chapel built into its structure on one side. The buildings seemed to shift endlessly into the background in a warren of high terraces, balustrades, alcoves, cupolas, windows, interlocking roofs. Caine wondered how he would ever find the countess in this labyrinth: she might be anywhere. And how the hell was he going to get in?
It would have to be a night-op, that was obvious. He spent the rest of daylight hours making a full reconnaissance, boxing around the building, lurking in the woods, sprinting across open patches, crawling from one bush to another. Sometimes he stood still among the brindles of sunlight, letting the chiaroscuro break up his body-outline. He watched SS prowler units stalking around the villa – fit-looking, apple-faced men, alert and efficient. On one occasion he was almost near enough to touch them.
There were eight guards on patrol at any one time: two pairs prowling around the villa in one direction, two in the other. They were staggered at intervals of roughly ten minutes: Caine counted the beats between their appearances from various positions, worked out the shortest interval he was likely to get in between. There were several doors around the rim of the place, but the only one that appeared to be functional was the front door, standing at the head of a short flight of stone steps on the eastern side. Fritz had mounted a deep-sandbagged machine-gun nest there, with a three-man crew.
Quartering the woods, he came upon the gravel drive leading to the front of the house, guessed it joined the main road from Jesi, along which his convoy had come. There was no gate: no guards were in sight. A limb of forest divided it from the house: he backtracked through the trees, found a grassy dell in undergrowth sparse enough for him to keep an eye on the front of the villa. He sat down, ate bread, cheese and olives, drank water. He was tempted to smoke a cigarette, rejected the idea: the SS guards would certainly smell the smoke. The results of his recce weren’t encouraging, he thought. The prowler units were well-organized and the house was well-defended. The only way in was through the front door, and that meant getting past the Spandau team.
He’d had plenty of experience of slipping into enemy bases: it had been the bread-and-butter of SAS sa
botage ops in the desert. He thought wryly of the el-Gala cock-up in Egypt the previous year, when they’d infiltrated an airfield only to discover that the enemy had been waiting for them. The aircraft were dummies: the Ities had bumped them on the way out.
But, unless they were sound asleep, slipping past that Spandau crew without being clocked would take a miracle. He was confident that he could get near enough to bump them, but that wouldn’t do him any good: the gunshots would immediately forewarn the rest. He didn’t know how many Krauts were billeted inside the house: alerting them would mean having to fight his way into the villa, and he didn’t even know where the countess was being held.
Force wouldn’t work: it had to be stealth or nothing: it all came back to that damn’ M42 covering the door. He thought briefly of using the knife Cesare had given him to slit the crew’s throats, dismissed it. It was hard enough to cut one guard’s throat, let alone three. He was fast all right, but it only took one of them to start bawling, and his goose would be well and truly cooked.
Caine sensed movement at the front of the house, heard the drift of voices. He peered through the foliage, saw a woman walking away from the building towards the drive. She wore a long peasant’s dress and a dark shawl: she seemed oldish, but Caine couldn’t tell for certain, because her face was veiled in the folds of a black headscarf. This couldn’t be the countess: she had to be a servant of some kind – someone who worked here and was allowed to come and go as she pleased.
The woman’s arrival gave him an idea, reminded him of the Runefish op, in Libya, when he’d snatched Betty Nolan from behind Axis lines. On that mission, he and his oppo had gone in disguised as Senussi Arabs and, though they’d used force, the disguise had allowed them to get close to the enemy. The only way he was going to get through that door was by adopting a similar approach. Maybe the woman could help him: in any case, if she was a domestic, she’d be a vital source of inside information: she would certainly know where the countess was being held. Caine watched her, saw her vanish around the bend in the drive. He rose to his feet: at the very least, she’d be an ally. He had to talk to her.
Code of Combat Page 13
