The Devil's Pact (2013)

by James Holland

  ‘When do we go, sir?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘You’ll be leaving in three days’ time, when the moon is a little more full.’

  ‘And does this mean we’ll be invading Sicily next, sir?’

  ‘Maybe, Captain, maybe. Our planning teams are considering a number of options. But, as I said, getting Italy out of the war is our main objective. This mission could go some way to achieving that. It’s important. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be asking you to do this.’

  Afterwards Tanner had berated Wiseman. ‘I thought you’d enjoy a little adventure like this, Jack,’ Wiseman had retorted. ‘Honestly, it’ll be fine. You heard those guys. I know it sounds crazy but, really, the risks are quite small.’

  ‘That’s what’s bothering me,’ Tanner had snarled. ‘When people say something’s going to be a cake-walk, it’s usually anything but.’

  ‘Nothing you and I can’t handle, Jack.’

  ‘What if it’s a trap?’ Tanner had asked.

  ‘Then we’re screwed, and we have to use our wits to get the hell out of there. But it isn’t a trap. D’you think I’d be willing to put my ass on the line if I thought this was a sting? Sicily’s not like the rest of Italy, you know. I tell you, Jack, get this right,’ Wiseman had assured him, ‘and the invasion will be a whole load easier.’

  In the intervening three days, there had been parachute training, including a practice jump, briefings from Spiro and Simpson about Sicily and the current political situation in Italy, detailed ground briefs of Villalba, the villa there to which they were to proceed and the surrounding countryside, as well as their planned route to the coast. Maps were provided, with aerial photographs. Spiro instructed both Wiseman and Tanner in basic Italian. Tanner had been impressed by the thoroughness. He remembered heading to Norway a little over three years earlier and what a fiasco that had been; he wondered how different things might have been had they prepared with the same kind of thoroughness. The Allies had evidently learned something during this war.

  And yet Tanner could not shake the unease that had been growing inside him these past few days. Over the years he had come to trust his gut instinct. His father had been a gamekeeper and had told him as a boy to regard instinct as a sixth sense. It was, he’d said, an essential attribute for any gamekeeper, and Tanner had found it even more important for the soldier in war. He’d never forgotten it and, he knew, it had saved his life on more than one occasion. Yet he also knew that instinct improved with experience. He was not one to criticize the inexperience of the Americans – some of the fighting he had witnessed on Hill 609 had been as brave as any he’d ever seen – but it worried him now that this venture had been planned by men who were all too new to war. Carter was a major general, and Simpson a colonel, but their over-confidence troubled him. These people know what they’re doing, Wiseman had assured him. They know a hell of a lot more than you or I ever will.

  Maybe, Tanner thought. He hoped so.

  The door to the cockpit opened and the crew chief emerged. Using the static line that ran down the centre of the cabin for balance, he felt his way towards the rear door. Tanner watched him remove it, a sudden blast of whistling air gushing in as he did so. Tanner’s mouth had gone dry. The day before he had stood by the hatch as he had prepared for his first jump. A feeling of intense helplessness had swept over him, and then a hand had pushed him hard and he had been hurtling through the air, his body rigid and his mind unable to function, until somewhere deep within him he had ordered his hand to pull the ripcord. Moments later, the chute had unfurled and blossomed out, yanking his shoulders and enabling him to drift to earth. Relief at touching hard ground once more had been no greater than the momentary terror he had felt as he’d been pushed from the plane. This second jump, should, he knew, be easier. There was a static line that pulled the chute from its pack almost immediately; he would need to operate the ripcord only if his main pack failed, which was unlikely. Even so …

  A red light came on.

  ‘Stand and hook up,’ said the crew chief.

  Tanner did so, staggered as the Dakota hit turbulence, then, following Wiseman’s lead, clipped his ripcord to the static line and moved towards the open door. All three wore their normal uniforms; there was to be no pretence at being Italian, after all. For Tanner this meant denim battledress trousers, shirt and Denison smock, an item he had filched from the quartermaster’s stores before Alamein. On his head he wore a dark wool hat. He had a pack of ammunition and explosives on his back, food and more ammunition in a pack on his front, and around his waist, a water bottle, a knife, and a Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol. A further handgun, a German Sauer, was in his pack. Around his neck was his Italian Beretta sub-machine gun. His rifle, which he had carried through mountains, across oceans and deserts and had never yet lost, he had been forced to leave behind for fear it would get tangled in his chute. He felt naked without it.

  A glance out through the open door. Air rushing in. Mountains, hills, fields, olive and citrus groves bathed in dim, milky light. Wiseman looked at him, grinned, then clasped his shoulder. Tanner glanced around him. There was Spiro, next to him, looking sick. Ahead a town, a mile or two off. Then the green light went on, the crew chief shouted, ‘Go!’ and Wiseman flung himself out.

  For a second, Tanner stood there, frozen. Then he saw the crew chief’s hand rise to push him and jumped, felt himself tumble through the cool, sharp air and then, thank God, the parachute ballooned, he felt the straps yank his shoulders and he was floating, drifting, down. He looked up. There was Spiro above him, silhouetted against the moon, while droning on, away to the north, the Dakota was nothing but a dark shape, a moment earlier so big but now the size of a bird.

  Silence from below, apart from a dog barking somewhere a little distance away. He saw Wiseman land, his chute crumple, then a few seconds later the ground was rushing towards him, and he bent his legs, felt them pound painfully into the ground, and rolled over, the smell of herbs and soil filling his nostrils and the cooling billow of the collapsing chute falling around him.

  Quickly, he unclipped his harness and struggled free of the cords and silk. He had landed in a field of young green corn. No more than a mile or so to his left a town stood on a rising promontory, dark against the sky. Villalba? He hoped so. Where was Spiro? And Wiseman? He glanced up, saw Wiseman crouching, gathering up his parachute, then behind him spotted Spiro, tangled in the cord and silk and battling to free himself.

  Tanner was about to hurry over to him to help when suddenly, away to their right, from where the dog was barking, he heard something and saw dark shapes moving. Instinctively, he gripped his Beretta, but it was too late: more than a dozen men, weapons silhouetted against the sky, were running to where Spiro was still desperately trying to free himself.

  ‘Eppure, ci sei!’ shouted one of the men.

  ‘Mani in alto!’ called another, now swinging around towards Tanner and Wiseman and bringing a sub-machine gun to his shoulder. Tanner thought for a moment. Should he open fire? He could probably hit them all with one carefully directed burst, and with the wooden butt of the Beretta, which fitted snugly into his shoulder, that was easily achievable. But could he avoid Spiro? Probably not. And without Spiro, the mission would fail in any case.

  ‘Mani in alto o sparo!’

  Tanner did not need to speak Italian to understand that. Hands up or I’ll shoot. Several men ran towards him. Tanner dropped the Beretta and, still kneeling, slowly raised his arms. ‘Damn it,’ he muttered to himself, lowering his head. ‘Damn it to Hell.’

  And when he looked up, he could see, standing above him in the pale moonlight, long black leather boots and the dark, perforated steel of a Beretta barrel pointing at his head.

  2

  Seventy miles away from Villalba, as the crow flew, lay the small town of Motta Sant’Anastasia. At one in the morning, much of the town slept, its streets still and quiet, the only movement from prowling cats and scurrying rodents. Perched on a hilly outcrop o
n the lower slopes of Mount Etna, the town stood out on a limb from the plain of Catania, which stretched below to the coast, on the eastern side of the island, and the ring of towns further up beneath the volcano.

  Oil lamps still burned in the doctor’s house. The doctor had died the previous year, aged only sixty-one, collapsing with heart failure. Most who had known him suspected that in fact heartbreak had killed him. The house was both large and prominent, perched at the tip of the promontory on which the town had been built, and the townsfolk muttered to themselves that it was far too large for a young girl still in her twenties and her small daughter. Some supposed she was waiting for the right man; others blamed her solitude on the uncertainty of war.

  That night, however, Francesca Falcone was not alone, for her brother, Captain Niccolò Togliatti, was visiting, and the two were talking late. Remnants of the evening meal still lay at the far end of the kitchen table, while at the other, brother and sister sat opposite one another. The high French windows were open, allowing not only an early summer breeze to flow into the room but also the fresh, sweet scent of earth, olives and animal dung.

  Francesca watched her brother finish his wine, put the glass on the table, then lean back and sigh. ‘Perhaps it is time for bed,’ she said, after a moment’s pause.

  ‘No, stay up a little longer. Let’s have some more wine.’

  ‘Are you trying to make me drunk?’ She laughed.

  He shrugged. ‘Why not?’ He stood up and took another bottle from the tall dresser that leaned against the far wall of the kitchen. ‘What could be nicer?’ he said, swaying slightly before sitting down again. ‘I’ve missed you more than you can know, my little Cesca. There were times in Russia when I thought …’ He paused, straining to pull out the cork. ‘That I’m here at all, my darling sister, is a miracle.’

  Francesca said nothing, but took his hand.

  ‘I have never felt so alone,’ Niccolò said, lighting a cigarette. ‘Or so cold or so full of despair. To die out there – to be left, frozen, for the dogs and the crows. My men were extraordinary. Their bravery was …’ He tailed off, blinked and rubbed his eyes. ‘Sorry.’ He tried to smile. ‘Look at me. A grown man and about to cry.’

  Francesca gripped his hand. ‘You’re safe now, Nico.’

  He smiled. ‘Right now, yes.’

  ‘I remember when we heard the news,’ said Francesca. ‘We’d had nothing from you for so long, and then the telegram arrived saying you had been wounded. Poor Papa – if only he’d known. He was never the same after we left Palermo, but he worried so dreadfully about you.’

  ‘It’s been strange returning here and finding him gone. I wish I’d had a chance to speak to him although, to be honest, I thought I’d never see any of you again. But I was lucky, you know. A graze, really, that was all. But it’s a miracle you got any news at all. Russia – it’s so vast, Cesca. We were all constantly amazed that any post got through. There were long gaps sometimes, but we always had our mail eventually. If it hadn’t been for that – that link to home … It was very important to us.’

  ‘And then nothing more until the fourth of April. What a happy day that was. You were back in Italy – alive and well.’ She laughed, remembering.

  ‘The fourth of April.’ Niccolò smiled. ‘I’m touched, little sister.’

  ‘I prayed for you. I prayed so hard. Cara too.’

  Niccolò drank some wine, then leaned back. ‘Well, someone was watching over me. If not God, then who knows?’

  They were silent a moment, then he said, ‘But what about you, my Cesca? You’ve barely told me anything. Cara looks well – as beautiful as her mother. The same straw-coloured hair and blue eyes.’

  ‘She’s fine. We’ve been safe here. We can never escape the war but here we have carried on with life as best we can. Catania has been bombed but not us.’

  ‘Seriously, Cesca, who could ever resist those eyes? She’s going to break hearts, that one.’

  ‘Beauty – that’s all men are interested in. I fear for her, Nico. Having the kind of face and eyes a man likes is a curse.’

  Niccolò frowned. ‘What can you mean?’

  She ran her hands through her hair. ‘Ever since Papa died, there have been men, you know, sniffing around. Trying to get me to marry them. I know what they’re thinking. That girl, she’s pretty, she has a big house. She would be a good match.’

  Niccolò smiled. ‘But quite flattering?’

  ‘No!’ said Francesca. ‘Annoying. Sometimes I feel I can’t breathe.’

  ‘But who are these people?’

  ‘Oh, there’s another doctor, but he’s over fifty and I think he got the message. There’s a young boy who was wounded and has come home, and there’s Salvatore Camprese. He’s the worst.’

  ‘Camprese, Camprese,’ said Niccolò. ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘He’s the mayor. He’s not quite forty and not bad-looking, I suppose, but he makes my flesh crawl. He thinks he’s a big shot in town. I’ve heard rumours that he’s part of the Society.’

  ‘Not here, surely. What about Mori’s reforms? I thought the “Iron Prefect” had all but stamped it out.’

  ‘So now Salvatore plays the good Fascist. It’s a game. Look,’ she said, a note of irritation in her voice, ‘I don’t know. It’s just a rumour I heard.’

  ‘Maybe he really is a Fascist and when they go he’ll go too.’

  ‘No, men like him change with the wind.’

  ‘Do you want me to talk to him? Ask him to leave you alone?’

  ‘And be in even more hot water once you’re back with your men? Don’t you dare. He’s harmless at the moment, I suppose, but I know what he would be like. He’d want to own me. He reminds me of Giovanni.’

  ‘Giovanni?’ Niccolò looked confused. ‘I was so sorry when I heard, Cesca. You must miss him, though.’ He leaned forward again and took her hand. ‘Do you mind me asking?’

  Francesca thought a moment. ‘No, I don’t mind. You never really knew him, did you?’

  Niccolò shrugged. ‘I suppose not. I was away so much. It’s ten years since I left Sicily, you know. He seemed like a decent fellow.’

  ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘Cesca?’

  ‘I’ve shocked you.’ She ran a finger around her glass. ‘He wasn’t interested in me at all. I barely saw him. I was nineteen and alone in Bologna, while he spent all day and night, it seemed, with his friends and God only knows who else.’

  ‘He was unfaithful?’

  ‘Aren’t all Italian men?’

  ‘Papa wasn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps not Papa. But few have his principles. His morals.’

  ‘But Giovanni gave you Cara.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he did.’ She sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cesca. I had no idea.’

  ‘No one did. I’ve never told anyone what I’ve just told you. I often wonder if I ever loved him. I’m not sure I did. I think I loved the idea of him. I was young, he was handsome. His prospects were good.’

  ‘A lawyer, no less.’

  ‘And I so wanted to escape Sicily. To escape what had happened to Papa. To escape the filth and poverty of this town. My God, after Palermo! Remember what a backwater it seemed?’

  Niccolò smiled.

  ‘Goodness knows,’ Francesca continued, ‘it still seems that way. Fabia had already left – she had her prince in Rome. You had joined the Army. I wanted to escape too. This place …’

  ‘And now it seems magical. I never want to leave. Papa may have been drummed out of Palermo, but Motta Sant’Anastasia seems the most beautiful place in the world to me. I don’t care that it’s backward and dirty. This house is not.’ He stood up and went out of the French windows onto the balcony. Francesca followed. The moon shone brightly, the landscape bathed in pale light. Etna, towering, magisterial, rose up to their left, while ahead lay folds of green, solid and undulating where once there had been flowing lava. Beneath them was their own small farmstead: the barn with the goats, th
e pigs and their cow, and beyond, the orange and lemon trees, the almonds and olives. This small domain had ensured they had never gone hungry like so many Italians since the outbreak of war; like so many Sicilians in their daily struggle with life.

  ‘Look at this, Cesca,’ said Niccolò, as she joined him. He was leaning on the balcony, the smoke from his cigarette blown into darting wisps by the faint night breeze. ‘It’s so beautiful.’ He smiled, then kissed her cheek. ‘I’m so glad to be back, to be home at last.’

  Francesca hugged him tightly. ‘I’m so happy to see you, Nico. Thank God you came back to us.’

  Soon after, Francesca took herself off to bed but, despite the late hour and her tiredness, sleep eluded her. She thought about many things, her brain a whirl of activity. She thought of her brother when they had been children. He was three years older than her, and had teased her mercilessly when they were little. She remembered how she had prayed to the Virgin Mother to help her, to get him out of her life, but it was not until he was seventeen and gone to university in Rome that the teasing had stopped and she had grown to adore him; he was her beloved handsome older brother. She had cried when he had gone, and cried again when he came home one summer to announce that he was joining the Army. Even as a seventeen-year-old she had known what that would mean – that he would most likely end up fighting. She had seen the expression on her father’s face too. And so it had proved, although never had she imagined Italian troops dying in Russia.

  Her husband had escaped such a fate, but had been sent to North Africa. Given a commission, he had returned one day in the uniform of a lieutenant and, almost the next, that of a captain. When he had gone, she had felt relieved, free of his overbearing presence that had swept into their apartment in Bologna. There had been his drunken love-making – little love was involved: rather, she had grown to feel violated every time he climbed on top of her. He had hit her only once, a back-handed slap across the face, but he had bullied her long before then. It was the contempt he had shown her, his lack of interest in her life, her feelings, the way he had used her as an ornament, a sexual object … She felt tears well now as she thought about him, and about how miserable she had been. Giovanni had offered an escape: a handsome, clever man with a home and prospects in the northern city of Bologna. But she had been a mere girl, whose head had been too easily turned.