by John Masters
Peter had carried an Italian carbine throughout, and fired at once at the torch. The light went out, and a man screamed. Peter charged forward with Gerry at his side. Down the road to the right the headlights of another convoy flared up, and the only sounds were the high whining of the gears and the man screaming. Then there was a face under Peter’s, and he fired again. Cammarota was there, and strangers were among them, and the two guides were plunging into action as though this were their normal trade. Gerry was there, his face suddenly lit, livid and taut, by the rifle flashes. Peter could feel the skin drawn back over his own teeth in a snarl.
Everything was quiet. The trucks had stopped moving. ‘Did we get them all?’ Peter asked.
Major Cammarota said: ‘Yes. Five. I didn’t see anyone get away.’ He stood up from the dead man he had been kneeling over. ‘It was a party of criminals being taken back under escort.’ Peter bent down and saw that three of the men were chained together, their hands locked. Cammarota said bitterly: ‘They were probably Italians, conscripted and trying to desert over to us. Well, they would have died anyway.’
Gerry muttered: ‘Oh, God---‘
Peter dismissed it from his mind. It was an accident of war, but it had happened and the men were dead, guards and prisoners alike. He turned urgently to Cammarota. ‘Quick! What would partisans do if they had done this?’
Cammarota said: ‘They would take the rifles and ammunition off the guards. But---‘
Peter could hear shouting from the woods this side of the road leading to the ammunition dump. The headquarters of the dump were in an old farmhouse there, about half a mile away. An enemy patrol would take ten minutes to reach them if it hurried. But it wouldn’t. He said: ‘Well, we must take these, then.’
‘Is it necessary?’ Cammarota asked in a low voice.
‘Of course it is,’ Peter said. ‘If we don’t, the Austrians will suspect that a patrol has been over as deep as this.’
‘Does it matter?’ Cammarota asked. ‘They can’t move the dump.’
‘No, but they can send out a few hundred Jaegers to prevent us getting back. You’ve insisted a dozen times that our presence must not be suspected. For Christ’s sake, get a move on!’ Gerry said: ‘Peter, the Austrians will think the villagers up there have done it.’
‘That’s exactly what they must think,’ he snapped. ‘Otherwise we’ll never get back.’
Damn them for a pack of treacle-witted cowards! He knew perfectly well what was on their minds. The wretched villagers were going to be descended on, tortured, a few shot. He knew that, had faced it, and decided what mattered most. Did the lives of those villagers matter more than the lives of the soldiers who would be killed--or saved--through what they discovered? Were the soldiers any less innocent of starting the war?
Cammarota said: ‘Take their rifles. Empty their cartridge pouches.’
It was done, and they moved off. The investigating patrol was some distance off, firing at shadows. Cammarota shot Peter one look of pure hatred. Peter thought: That will show you, you miserable bastard. The major had learned that he wasn’t as brave as he thought he was, and that the stories about Peter Savage were truer than he’d believed. He’d thought Peter was all bombast, and that this reconnaissance would have him eating out of his hand before it was done. Well, he’d learned differently.
They marched all night, heading along footpaths and occasional cart tracks and over open meadows, towards the Julio Pass. They spoke only four times, when Cammarota pointed out various places where the advancing Italians would have some small difficulties. Otherwise it was a good route: quite passable for troops with pack transport, and that was all that was needed.
At last they stopped, when the sun was rising over the mountains. It had rained twice during the night, but now the clouds were gone and it was a glorious, fresh July day. They lay down, and the birds began to sing, and the flowers smelled sweet where Peter’s body crushed them.
They were to move on again early in the afternoon, so that they should reach the northern approaches to the Julio Pass by dusk. Peter awoke at noon and saw that Gerry was already awake, lying there a few feet away, his pistol in his hand, looking at him.
Gerry said quickly: ‘I’m just cleaning it.’
For a few minutes before Peter awoke he had been in that half-land between sleep and waking, and had been reaching a decision. In the moment of awakening the decision became as hard and inescapable as the bulk of Monte Michele towering up to the south-west over intervening ridges. He said: ‘We must have a look at the Michele Pass, Gerry.’
Gerry turned the pistol over slowly in his hands. Peter saw that it was loaded. A thought, sudden and ugly as the act itself, darkened his mind--that Gerry had been going to use the pistol. On himself--who else?
Gerry’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his face had a dull, greenish pallor. It was the prisoners he had killed, and the thought of what must happen to the villagers back there, that had driven him to the cracking point. Being Gerry, he felt these things more acutely than many who talked and wept about them; perhaps even as much as Peter himself did, but without Peter’s defences of reason and ultimate end.
The only thing to do was to pretend that he had noticed nothing. He could not, in enemy territory, tell Gerry to unload his pistol. So he merely told him of his decision, that they must cross back to the Italian side via the Michele Pass and have a good look at the approaches on the Austrian side while they were at it.
Gerry put the pistol slowly back into its holster. He said: ‘Didn’t you mention that to Cammarota once before, and he said we couldn’t?’
The guides were up, building a tiny fire to make coffee. The two Italian officers lay at the far side of the clearing and seemed to be still asleep.
Peter said: ‘Yes. But now we must. The operation across the Saraco and Julio Passes probably is not now feasible, because the Austrians seem to be ready for it. But supposing we could cross the Michele. It would be a wider, deeper hook, and it would cut off still more of the Austrian Army up the Saraco. Suppose they’re proposing to attack us over the Michele. Either way, we can’t go back without finding out.’
He got up, fastened his buttons, and walked over to Cammarota. The major awoke as soon as Peter’s shadow passed over him. Peter said at once, sitting down beside him: ‘I think we must return over the Michele.’ He repeated the reasons he had just given to Gerry.
Cammarota was no fool. He was wideawake in an instant. Perhaps he had been expecting this. Fraschelli was sitting up in his blanket, his eyes heavy with sleep, looking now, unshaven for four days, extraordinarily like a nervous weasel. Cammarota decided to try irony. ‘Ah, you are a fire-eater, Major Savage,’ he said, smiling thinly. ‘But I think we discussed this before. Our orders are to return when we have completed this mission. They are definite.’ That was true.
Peter said: ‘We must disobey the orders.’
Cammarota said: ‘Agents can get any necessary information about the Michele more easily than we can, though, as you were assured by our General Staff, it is not worth while. The approaches to it on our side--which means the exits from it if the Austrians decide to attack--are absolutely impossible for the support of any major advance.’ He was on his feet now, and they were facing each other at the edge of the clearing, Fraschelli behind Cammarota and Gerry behind Peter, and the two guides quietly cooking, a dozen yards off, and the high sun beating down on the forests and the mountains and the glaring ice of Monte Michele.
Peter said: ‘Agents are not soldiers--certainly not British officers. What is called impossible at one time may have to be made possible at another. You’re a mountaineer. You know that.’
Cammarota said: ‘And some places cannot be made possible, Major Savage. Any attempts to do so only result in needless loss of life. You know that. At all events I must assure you that it is out of the question. You will recall how you insisted that the partisans be made to suffer for our actions last night in order that we should be able to g
et back with our information. That is the vital point, I agree. Hence, I cannot agree to the great risk of returning by this long circuit.’
‘A day,’ Peter interjected.
‘In country about which we know little, and of the enemy-- nothing.’
‘Then you refuse to take the patrol back over the Michele Pass?’ Peter asked politely. This felt better. Cammarota’s eyes were beginning to blur and he was finding it harder every moment to retain his mask of good breeding and military impersonality.
Cammarota said: ‘I regret it, Major Savage. Yes. I refuse.’
Peter said: ‘Will you allow me to ask Staldi and Carana if one of them will volunteer to come with me?’ He was cold as ice then, and quite ready to shoot Cammarota and take command of the party if necessary.
Cammarota said: ‘I regret it, Major Savage. No. I will not.’ Obviously he thought that Peter must give in then, because anyone could see that Gerry was near the end of his tether. Apart from the nervous tension and the tragedy of the prisoners, he could not have been physically as fit as he thought he was before they started, and there had been strain in London--about the white feather, wanting to be a doctor, and Emily’s pushing him. Cammarota also knew Peter could not go by himself because what he saw might not be given full credence, and because problems of mountaineering and minor tactics would require at least two men. He had a grin hidden just behind his big, hard face.
Peter said: ‘Then Lieutenant Lord Wilcot and I will go by ourselves.’
Cammarota stiffened. He said: ‘Lord Wilcot? In the state he is in?’
Peter said: ‘Yes.’
Cammarota said: ‘You will disobey me? I am the commander of this patrol, Major Savage, including you and Lord Wilcot.’ His voice was choked with fury and disbelief.
Peter said: ‘I hereby remove myself and Lord Wilcot from under your command. We will move off as soon as we have eaten.’
Cammarota snapped: ‘I will prevent you. I will---’
‘Shoot us?’ Peter said. ‘I do not think that will be a good way to get British reinforcements to this front.’
He waited a moment to give the major time to realize that he must now either carry out his threat, which he couldn’t, or shut up. Then he said: ‘I expect to cross the Michele Pass during tomorrow night. Please have word sent to the local commander.’ Cammarota got a grip on himself, managed a stiff bow, and turned his back. He still could not trust himself to speak.
Peter walked back to his own side of the clearing. Gerry said: ‘We’re going alone, then--you and I.’
He said: ‘Yes,’ rather curtly. It was a scandal that Cammarota should have forced him to take Gerry, when Staldi or Carana would have come willingly and been twice as useful. But he had, and when a man has to drive himself beyond what he believes to be his limit it is a help to know that collapse will not elicit any sympathy. It has something of the same effect that knowledge of the sea’s impartiality has on a drowning man--because he knows he will get no help from it if he gives up, he does not give up. All the same, it hurt to do it, because Gerry was looking so strange.
Peter said, still curt: ‘Come on. We’ve got no time to waste.’
They began eating. Staldi brought coffee and then returned to Carana. They were looking worried and muttering to each other. They knew what had happened, and Staldi could not bring himself to think that it was right, under any circumstances, to desert his signores. He went finally to speak to Cammarota and got snapped at.
Peter said: ‘Eat up, Gerry. Who knows when you’ll get another square meal.’ He unslung his carbine and checked it briefly.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Gerry muttered.
Peter made him keep his scraps, which he had been about to throw away. Then they got up.
‘We’re going now,’ Peter said to Cammarota as they passed by him.
‘Good fortune,’ Cammarota said coldly. ‘I am sure you will get another medal.’
Chapter 24
‘Alone again, at last,’ Peter said after they had been going for an hour and the woods had long since swallowed up all trace of the Italians. He felt eager and full of a kind of febrile energy.
‘Yes,’ Gerry said. They were walking in single file, heading fast across the grain of the ridges to drop into the narrow valley that ran down from the Michele Pass to the Saraco, joining the latter about ten miles behind them.
When Peter glanced round he saw that Gerry was walking along with his hand on the butt of his pistol. He said: ‘You needn’t hang so tight on to the revolver yet, Gerry. There won’t be any enemy until we get down into the valley, if then.’ Gerry’s nerves must be jangling like broken piano strings. Peter turned his back on him and marched on.
He breasted a rolling crest and stopped. He knew from his map that the Michele Valley lay below him. The trees obstructed the view but he could see, far down, touches of pale green, which must mean grass or crops. The map showed no road in this valley, only a cattle-path by which the villagers from the Middle Saraco would take their flocks and herds up to the high pastures under Monte Michele in late spring, and down again in early autumn.
He led on down. If the Austrians had any hopes or fears of the Michele Pass, the signs of it would be here.
When they reached the valley it was nearly dark, and he decided to rest under cover for at least the first part of the night. The next day they would reconnoitre up the valley towards the pass and, if conditions were suitable, cross over either late in the evening or during the hours of darkness. They moved back a hundred yards into the heavy forests and lay down under a tree, without eating, and went to sleep.
They slept late. The morning broke in dull and cold for the season. The wind sang uneasy songs in the tree-tops, the great branches of the oaks thrashed around, and the limbs creaked. It was going to rain again soon. That would probably mean snow on the Michele Pass. It was going to be a miserable day, for they had no shelter and no adequate waterproof clothing; but the same conditions would serve to keep in their huts or tents any soldiers who might be here, and make it easier to wander about unobserved. They set out and began to walk south towards the pass, keeping in the edge of the forests, just above the narrow, level floor of the valley.
Towards midday the rain began. By then Peter thought the head of the valley could not be more than two miles away, and he knew that something was--or had been--going on here. Twice in the lowering banks of grey cloud that swept up the valley they waded the little torrent and crossed over to the other side. The cattle-path had been worked on so that it would take carts now, and there were wheel tracks and the hoofprints of shod horses and mules, and a single telegraph line. It seemed impossible that the track could ever be improved enough to take motor traffic, nor was there any sign that this had been attempted, but something had been done. Once they followed a short spur which led from the path into a clearing among the dripping woods. There they saw a pile of road metalling and a small wooden shelter with smoke curling from its chimney. There were a few small stacks of something, covered by tarpaulins, but Peter decided it was not worth the risk of being discovered to go forward and find out what was hidden there--probably nothing more exciting than fodder for the transport animals, some of which would obviously have to be based up here.
A little later, sheltering beneath a streaming pine--they were climbing all the time--while the rain hissed in the tree-tops a hundred feet above and the clouds swirled in the trough of the valley and water ran in a stream down the back of his neck, he tried to make out what the Austrians could be doing here. The cow-path had been improved--but that had involved so little work that it would have been worth while to do it if nothing more than a company was kept at the head of the valley, and the purpose might only be to ease the problems of maintaining the soldiers there. The dumps--very small. Signs of troops: empty tins of jam and sausage, toilet paper, empty cartridge cases--blanks. Blanks meant training, not operations.
‘There’s someone coming down the path,’ Gerry muttered.
Peter moved quickly round the trees and dropped slowly to one knee. You could not see more than two hundred yards at the best today, seldom that much. There were three men, carrying rifles--no, two with rifles and one apparently unarmed. Probably had a pistol. Couldn’t tell their rank. They were huddled in big army capes, high shako-type hats bowed forward, not looking where they were going, just longing to be back in shelter. One of those things was not a rifle, though. It was--a surveyor’s tripod, legs closed, carried over the shoulder. They were fifty yards away now. A surveyor. He had to have that man’s papers. Blame the partisans again.
‘You take the front one,’ he whispered.
‘But--’ Gerry said.
‘Don’t argue, man.’ He crept ahead, so that Gerry and he would be separated by a few steps and the firing would come from both sides of the men, who trudged on. There was hardly any need to hide, for their faces were bent down. The unarmed man had a theodolite slung in a heavy case over his shoulder. Now they were level. Peter shot the last man dead, the one with the rifle. Before the smell of cordite had drifted into his nostrils he fired again and shot the second man, the one carrying the theodolite, dead. ‘Fire!’ he yelled at Gerry and ran forward. Gerry was standing there, his pistol raised, staring at the man with the tripod. Peter fired, but the man was already running, and he missed. Gerry fired and missed. Peter stopped, fired carefully. The man jerked his hand. Again--but he was behind a tree now. Gerry fired twice. Peter began to run after the man. He’d thrown his tripod away. No chance. The man would be a fast runner at the best of times, and explosive fear had given him the speed and sure-footedness of Mercury. Peter felt very tired. In a few seconds the gleam of the wet cape fluttering and flickering among the dark trunks of the trees had gone.
