21
Sunday, 25 July 1943. The shelling had been heavier that morning, the Allied guns targeting German positions with renewed vigour. More aircraft had been overhead too. Despite this, Francesca had gone to mass with Cara. She was not sure she believed in God any more but she had grown up a good Catholic girl, saying her prayers, going to mass and confession, accepting what she was told about God’s mercy and the love of Jesus Christ. But could God really let these terrible things happen? Church, though, was a part of life, especially in a small town like Motta Sant’Anastasia, and people would mutter if she did not go. At her school, church was also an important part of the children’s education, and as a teacher, she knew she had to set an example.
Afterwards, as they emerged from the church, Salvatore Camprese drew alongside her. ‘Francesca,’ he said, ‘have you heard?’
‘Heard what?’ she said.
‘Fascism. It’s all over, thank God. Mussolini has been given the boot.’
She stopped and stared at him. ‘My God. Really? Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. Last night the Grand Council voted to turn command of all our armed forces over to King Victor Emmanuel. In effect, it was a vote of no confidence. He’s been given the push, Francesca.’
Francesca put her hands to her face.
‘You’re the first person I’ve told,’ he said, beaming at her. ‘Mark my words, they’ll arrest Mussolini and it’ll be broadcast later today.’
‘But what about you? You’re a Fascist mayor.’
Camprese laughed. ‘No! I may have a tessera but I’ve never been a Fascist. Well, maybe a Fascist in name, but nothing more. No, Francesca, my loyalties lie elsewhere. Believe me, I’m as happy as anyone that Fascism has gone. Mussolini – he’s a piece of turd.’ He laughed again.
Francesca looked at him. So it’s true. He is Mafia.
‘And I’m sorry, Francesca, for what I said the other day.’ He took her hand. ‘Forgive me.’
Suddenly a huge explosion erupted: a vast, deep boom that made the town shake as though an earthquake had struck. Francesca stumbled, Cara cried out, and Camprese’s eyes widened in horror. Francesca could barely think. What had happened? Where? Then a giant ball of flame was rolling and swirling high into the sky from the direction of the station, at the new town below.
‘Holy Mother of Jesus!’ said Camprese. ‘Quick, run!’
People were screaming, diving onto the ground and running in panic, but Camprese led Francesca and Cara across the small square to her house. Inside, the Germans were shouting and Kranz barking orders. He paused when he saw Francesca. ‘Are you all right, Signora?’
Francesca nodded.
‘They hit an ammunition train.’ He looked pale, shocked. ‘A whole train of shells – all gone.’
‘You’ll be gone soon, too, in that case,’ said Camprese. ‘You know Mussolini’s been kicked out? It’s all over for Fascism.’
Kranz shook his head. ‘You Italians,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve been nothing but trouble from the start. God knows why Hitler ever decided to help you out in Greece. He should have left you to your folly.’ He took a step towards Camprese. ‘You should watch yourself, Signor Mayor. Maybe we will be gone soon enough, but we’re still here now, and we Germans do not like being taunted.’
Camprese smiled. ‘No, Leutnant. This is my town. You’re the one who needs to be careful.’
Tuesday, 3 August 1943. It had been eleven days since Tanner had taken command of the battalion. Eleven hard, attritional days in which the Yorks Rangers had remained stuck in the plain, moving positions first south of the Simeto river, then back north again. Throughout, however, there had been little chance to relax as German gunners continued to shell British positions. The Primosole Bridge, so hard-fought for, had been hit repeatedly. Sappers had patched it, strengthened it and added defences, but on at least three days it had been impassable. Three days when supplies had not been able to get through to the eastern section of the bridgehead.
And all the while the sun had beaten down, the temperature gradually rising as July gave way to August. The plain stank: of death, excrement, smoke and cordite. The men were filthy: filthy shirts and denims, filthy hair, filthy hands, filthy everything. They were covered with mosquito bites, and some had even been stung by scorpions, little black ones that were not dangerous but painful all the same. The lack of proper hygiene had led to sores and dysentery, which, along with daily cases of malaria, had depleted the battalion further. The Yorks Rangers, after just over three weeks on Sicily, were now at a little more than half strength.
This had meant some reorganization. It was not unusual: the battalion had done this from time to time throughout the past few years, when the fighting had been particularly tough. When there was a pause, new men arrived, the battalion miraculously went back to full strength, and they started all over again. With this in mind, Tanner had reduced the battalion to three companies of three platoons consisting of two, rather than three, sections each. Company Headquarters had been reduced to eight men from fourteen. He had merged D Company with B, Ferguson – now recovered from his wound – taking over command. Dawnay had been put in charge of C Company, while Ivo Macdonald, who had recovered from concussion and his slight head wound, had joined Tanner as his second-in-command. Tanner had made Sykes acting RSM, and had also brought Browner and Phyllis to Battalion HQ; Fauvel had accepted this with equanimity. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of them.’ He had grinned. ‘I could do without Browner’s endless grumbling and Phyllis – well, he’s always been more trouble than he’s worth.’
Morale had been low and, with Macdonald and Sykes, Tanner had thought hard about how it might be improved. The situation, he knew, was not unlike that his father had gone through in the last war, with the men spending much of their time stuck in slit trenches and being regularly shelled. The difference was the heat and disease. Static warfare like this wore the men down; they were too inactive so had more time to feel bothered by the conditions.
As soon as they were back north of the Simeto, Tanner insisted on regular patrol work, with fighting patrols at night and static patrols by day. He knew they would have to cross that ground again, and that the stalemate allowed the Germans to build up their defences, with mines and wire. By watching and sniping enemy engineers, they would make the Germans’ lives more difficult, and the men would feel they were doing something, that they were improving their chances of making an easy breakthrough when their attack was finally launched. Tanner had joined several of these patrols himself, taking with him his SMLE and Aldis scope. By night, patrols would creep to the edge of the increasingly flattened cornfield, then fire flares, bathing any sapper parties in light, while Tanner and other sharpshooters would take pot-shots. He had also ordered Bren crews forward, but with the tracer rounds taken out of the magazines. They would open fire sometimes under the light of flares, at others on fixed points worked out earlier. Mortars would be sent over too.
Although rations had been occasionally intermittent in reaching them, Tanner had also made a point of inviting in turn each company’s officers and sergeants for supper. It was, he knew, most irregular for NCOs and officers to dine together, but there was no formality involved: there was no mess here in the plain. As Tanner explained, they were being shelled together and spending their days and nights in the open together, so it did not matter if they ate together too. And so, under the draped camouflage nets of the CP, they consumed basic rations heated over a Primus while Tanner and Macdonald explained the latest situation, told them of the progress of XXX Corps on their left and of the Americans to the north-west, and assured them the net was closing around the Axis defenders. There might have been stalemate in the plain but, Tanner promised them, it wouldn’t be for much longer.
And nor was it, for now, on this stifling evening of 3 August, the brigade were to attack once more. The wait was over.
The Orders Group had planned the assault earlier that day, and Tanner certainly felt c
onfident that, unlike the hastily prepared attack they had made on 20 July, this time the preparation was good. It was around seven o’clock and he had called together all the officers and senior NCOs to brief them. Last time, he told them, the artillery had arrived in position only that day; they had had no time to find their targets properly. Now, though, the guns were dug in, had been working excellently with the RAF, and had clear, identified targets onto which they would be firing concentrations. It was true the battalion was at nearly half strength, but they now knew the ground, which made all the difference in night attacks. ‘You’ve all been out onto it at night,’ he told them. ‘You know where the railway line is, where the dikes are, how the ground gradually rises through orange groves beyond. There will be no surprises.’
It was still stiflingly hot. Tanner could feel the sweat running down his back. The men sitting in front of him were filthy, their shirts crusted with lines of salt where the sweat had dried. The desert had been tough, but at least it had been dry and essentially clean. Here there was water and mud; hygiene had been harder to maintain. They hadn’t washed properly since Melilli.
‘Look, I know we’re all sick to bloody death of this stinking plain,’ he told them, ‘but we’ll be out of here tonight. The Yanks are pushing hard along the north of the island, XXX Corps are gaining ground on our left flank, and however grim it’s been for us, it’s been a hell of a lot worse for Jerry, because we’ve got loads more guns than him and plenty more aircraft. Just as Jerry gunners like firing at us, our boys have been having a good time firing at them.’
The plan, he told them, was to attack on a two-battalion front alongside the Yorks and Lancs, with 17th Brigade on their right. 13th Brigade had been temporarily attached to the 51st Highland Division, but their own 15th Brigade still had four battalions. ‘The boys in Seventeenth Brigade are going to strike north towards Misterbianco, while our objective is Motta Sant’Anastasia and the lava hills around it. Then once we’re there, the Green Howards and KOYLI will pass through and push on towards Belpasso.’ He pointed to the various towns on the map that Sykes was holding up.
‘So what happens once we reach Motta Sant’Anastasia, sir?’ asked Fauvel.
‘Hopefully, we get a wash and scrub. One thing’s for sure – none of you’ll get lucky with any signorinas smelling like you do.’
The men laughed.
‘Speak for yerself, sir,’ said Sykes. More laughter.
Tanner then outlined the plan of attack. There would be no barrage, although the artillery would continue with counter-battery fire. There would be mortar support and a number of sappers, equipped with mine-detectors and Bangalore torpedoes for mine- and wire-clearing. Each company would have its own team of sappers and would follow the gaps the sappers made.
‘The most important thing,’ Tanner told them, ‘is to make sure we keep in line. So, when we reach the railway, we will pause there until all three companies and HQ Company are in line. We need to mutually support each other.’ They would also be in regular R/T communication. ‘It’s going to be night,’ said Tanner, ‘so it’ll be dark. Don’t be afraid of getting on the net. We’ll achieve more if we talk to each other.’
He paused, looked around. ‘We might be down on numbers, but I have a good feeling about this attack. We’ve got lots of support, lots of ammo, we know the ground.’
‘Creer’s been given the chop!’ called out Lieutenant Shopland.
Tanner could not hide a slight smirk. ‘That’s enough, thank you, Jimmy, but I will say this. I’m coming with you. I’ll be fighting those Jerries alongside you. By sticking together, by fighting together, by helping one another, we’ll break out of this bloody plain and Sicily will be ours for the taking.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We start at twenty-two hundred. Good luck.’
From her bedroom, Francesca could hear the shelling, could feel the house tremble, and could even hear machine-guns chattering away somewhere on the plain, but since there were no aircraft overhead and the siren was silent, she had not woken Cara or made any attempt to take shelter herself. Instead, and with the Germans still occupying her house, she had gone to bed at around eleven o’clock.
For a while she had lain there, staring at the ceiling, the night sky flickering intermittently as though an electrical storm was about to break. She had been terrified the first time the bombers had come but, over the past fortnight, had become strangely used to living in a war zone. It was, she thought, incredible how quickly the abnormal became normal, and how it was possible to become inured to the sound of guns booming and shells falling, even when they were landing quite close. She suddenly remembered her father mentioning much the same about his time in the last war, when he had been a doctor at the front up in the Alps. He had barely ever talked about it but he had once said he had learned to sleep through anything, even artillery fire. She could understand that now. It was evidently the same for Cara, for when she had looked in on her before going to her own room, her daughter had been sound asleep.
She must have drifted to sleep soon after because she was dreaming. Nico was there, talking to her. She was worried and scared, and he reassured her, his hand touching her cheek. But then it wasn’t Nico, it was someone else, she wasn’t sure who. She turned away, trying to escape, and then she wasn’t dreaming but awake and conscious of someone leaning over her very close. Her heart lurched, she wanted to scream – Who was it? – and then another shell exploded and, in its flash, she saw it was Kranz, his face inches from hers, his hand stroking her cheek. Eyes wide, she stared at him, her brain addled with panic. His closeness was powerfully oppressive and overbearing, his touch a violation that made her cringe with fury and revulsion. She wanted to scream, but what would that achieve? She was powerless, lying there, restrained by her sheet, his greater strength obvious. And, in any case, a scream would wake Cara. If Kranz was about to rape her, she did not want Cara to witness it. My knife. It was under her pillow, but how to reach it? Her arms were by her sides, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, pinning down her right side, and with an arm resting to her left, restricting her there too.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, hoping her voice did not betray her fear.
‘I had to say goodbye.’
‘You’re leaving?’ A glimmer of hope.
‘Tonight. Now. We are pulling back.’
He stroked her face again, then ran a finger down her neck. She felt herself stiffen. Get away from me! Get away!
‘You are very beautiful. I – I hope one day we might meet again, that …’ He let the sentence trail, and pulled the sheet down, over her chest. Her heart was racing, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her breathing shortened. Panic. She had to stay calm. Then his hands were running down her nightdress, over her breasts.
‘So beautiful,’ he muttered, then pulled the sheet down further. She lay there, frozen, his hands now on her breasts and her stomach. Francesca closed her eyes, bit her lip and, tears pricking her eyes, moved her arm. She felt under the pillow and found the knife. Her heart hammered.
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Please stop.’
‘But this is our one chance.’
‘No. Leave me. Leave me alone.’ She gripped the knife in her hand.
But Kranz was not leaving her alone. Rather, he was climbing onto her bed, his hands now pinning her arms, his legs astride her.
‘I’m sorry, Francesca, I’m sorry, but you are so beautiful … I may be dead tomorrow. Please …’
His grip was strong, as he leaned forward and kissed her neck and then her chest.
No, thought Francesca, tears running down her cheeks, I can’t let this happen. She could not move her hand – it was pinned to the bed, still holding the knife under the pillow, but useless. Utterly useless.
‘Please stop,’ she said again, ‘for Cara’s sake. Please.’
‘Stop saying that!’ he said. ‘You want it too … We must! This is our only chance, don’t you see?’
He was kissing her chest and no
w her breasts, his breathing quickening, his hands tighter on her arms. Please, God, she thought, help me. Help me, please. Suddenly he let go with his right hand and began fumbling at his belt, and in that moment Francesca rammed her knee into his groin. Kranz cried out and she rammed again and now her hand holding the knife was free, and she swung it into his upper arm. The force of the blow knocked him off the bed.
Leaping clear, she saw him writhe on the floor, then struggle to his feet, pushing himself upright using the wall as a support.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry … Please forgive me.’
She stood before him, half crouching, holding the knife, as he leaned against the wall, doubled up, gasping and clutching his arm.
‘Get out!’ she said. ‘Get out now!’
Slowly, he staggered to the door, opened it and left.
Francesca stayed there, frozen, for several moments, her mind racing. Then she lit a lamp, went to the door and listened. Movement down below, voices, Kranz yelling orders: ‘Raus, raus, schnell!’
Slowly, she opened the door and walked out onto the landing. Cara. Quietly opening her daughter’s door, she looked in. Thank God. She was there, her face peeping out over the sheet, which rose and fell rhythmically. Another clatter from below. Cara stirred, and Francesca gently closed the door again and looked down. Kranz was there, ushering the last of his men out through the front door. Then he looked up, clutched his arm and stared at her with anguish and sadness.
‘Arrivederci, Signora,’ he said, then was gone.
Away to the east, more shells exploded. Outside, a truck’s engine opened up, the throttle growled, and the vehicle rumbled off. She waited a moment, listening, then hurried downstairs, ran out into the night and drew a bucket from the well. Filling a ewer, she stripped and, standing in the yard, as shells continued to crash and explode around the lower slopes of Etna, the air heavy with the smell of battle, Francesca scrubbed herself, weeping.
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