Between Enemies (11 page)

The one with the Istrian accent said something in German to his companion; then, eyeing the two of us, he shook his head. ‘I love you, I love you,’ he chuckled, and gave a punch on the shoulder to the other, who was gawping at us with two tiny, expressionless eyes and baring all his teeth, few and yellow as they were.

Giulia was a blazing fire, and they hadn’t seen such a woman for goodness knows how long.

I pulled out my cigarettes, and the one from Pola removed his gloves and grabbed the packet, offering it to his friend. But the other jerked his chin towards Giulia: he wasn’t thinking about cigarettes. Whereupon the Istrian put one between his lips, lit it, and at once took his mate by surprise by jamming it into his mouth. ‘Go, go,’ he said, lighting another for himself and putting my packet in his pocket. ‘
Raus, raus!
’

I took Giulia’s hand and we made our way leisurely into the trees. We didn’t look back. Behind us, beyond the woodland sounds, the two German voices were interlocked. The toothless fellow was jabbering hoarsely, while the Istrian tried to calm him down with brief interjections. After a few minutes the woods reasserted their sovereignty with the sudden whirring of wings and the murmur of water flowing beneath the ice in frozen streams.

We walked on for ten minutes or so without speaking. Then Giulia gave my hand a hard squeeze.

‘You don’t know much about women, do you?’

‘Not much.’

‘Liar,’ she said, and laughed that mocking laugh of hers.

It was still dark when Teresa woke me next morning. It took me several attempts to shake the blankets off.

‘There’s an emergency!’

Grandpa turned over with much crunching, but didn’t wake up.

As I got up I realized that I had gone to bed almost fully clothed. I put on boots and overcoat and caught up with the cook.

Waiting for me in the kitchen was a tall man with dark, steady eyes, a badly shaven chin, a dirty cloak, and patched sleeves and breeches. But his smile showed an array of strong, white straight teeth. He was not a peasant, even though he wanted to pass for one.

‘You must come with me, some friends are expecting us,’ he said in dialect. But he wasn’t from the Veneto, though he was pretending to be. On our feet we drank the hot milky coffee prepared by Teresa, who eyed me in silence, without even a little grunt.

‘You have to go,’ she said, speaking for once in Italian. ‘The mistress knows about it, and Donna Maria told me,’ she added, returning to dialect.

The man walked swiftly, but I had no trouble in keeping up with him in the woods, which he seemed to know like the back of his hand. He uttered not a word, and after the first few minutes I saw it was better to say nothing and save my breath for walking.

And walk we did, for many hours, with very few breaks. When we stopped it was always in dense forest, away from roads and clearings. The man would produce a knife and a slab of hard cheese, offer me two mouthfuls – always two, and always the same size – and then hand me a dented flask. ‘Just a sip,’ he would say, for there was a taste of wine in the water. There was a meticulousness about whatever he did that I found reassuring.

We joined Brian and Renato at dusk, in a mountain hut up against a cliff face. I was worn out. I flopped down onto the straw mattress beside the Englishman, who no longer wore the cheerful expression I had come to know. The tall, ill-shaven man saluted Renato and clicked his heels: ‘Major…’

‘Seen any patrols?’ asked Renato, scrambling to his feet and returning the salute.

‘No, but we never left the woods.’

‘You did well, Lieutenant. Back to your duties and…thank you.’

The lieutenant left without a word, and made no gesture towards me or the Englishman. He closed the door behind him soundlessly, as if afraid of waking someone.

I then realized that one of Brian’s legs was in a splint from the knee downwards, his ankle swollen.

‘What happened?’

‘Lucky if the ankle isn’t broken…anyway, he can’t walk on it. That’s why I sent for you. Have a bite to eat, we’re leaving in ten minutes.’

Even though Brian was using a makeshift crutch, in places where the going was tough almost half of his weight was on my shoulders, and that was no feather-weight. Because of his ankle we had to skirt the woods of the Soligo valley without ever taking cover in them. The sky was clear, black, with a half-moon that, though it helped us to see the path, might betray us at any moment.

Within three or four kilometres of the Piave the enemy was everywhere. The cart-tracks, the mule-paths, and the walks along the river banks were bright with a network of fires which patrols of four to six men gathered around. Near them loomed the forms of picketed mules and horses, tents, carts, lorries, and motorbikes and bicycles propped up against the hedges and fences: survivors of the hard-won peace treaty which bound hard-working folks to the world of nature.

Renato had his unlit pipe clamped between his teeth. Brian was sweating as he leant partly on me, partly on Renato. We slid down into a gorge, sure that that route was not guarded. For
a quarter of an hour we slipped between sheer cliffs covered with moss and lichen, heartened by the silence of the vegetation and the gurgling of water under the crust of ice. Until we were arrested by a sound. We froze in our tracks. A metallic click, like the cocking of a revolver. I turned to look at Brian, and found he had a barrel aimed at his temple. ‘Who are you?’ It was a woman’s voice.

‘Refugees on the run,’ said Renato with a sigh of relief. ‘We’re making for the river.’

It was too dark for me to see the face of whoever was threatening us. ‘Hands up! Above your heads! I want to see them,’ said the woman, moving with a rustle in the dry underbrush.

In less than a minute we were forced into a fissure in the rock not even a metre wide, though after a few steps it broadened out into what might have been the lair of some large animal. At one side was a fire made of a handful of brushwood. Behind us, in the half-light, something stirred. Covered by an army greatcoat, two young girls were lying hugging each other tight, their faces bloodless. They gazed at us with the blank eyes of the blind, and appeared to have lost their wits. The woman with the revolver ordered us to sit down but not to lower our hands.

‘Mariapia, Giovanna, liven the fire up a bit. Don’t be afraid… If they move they’re dead men.’

There was a note of tenderness in that voice. The woman’s face was gaunt, with the same look of desperation as that of the girls. ‘Who are you?’

‘Brian, Royal Flying Corps.’

‘My name is Renato Manca. I’m the steward of Villa Spada at Refrontolo. This lad is the grandson of the owners. You have nothing to fear from us, we are—’

‘At this time of night? Creeping about…’

‘We’re escaping from the Germans,’ I put in, without moving a muscle.

And Renato added, ‘But what are you doing here in this den, madam, with two young children?’

Renato lowered his hands, very slowly, for even in the dim light he had observed the woman’s face: ‘How long since you last ate?’

The woman burst into tears, and the girls got up from under the greatcoat and held tight to her.

Renato stood up, but he saw the pistol barrel rising. It was a Montenegrin revolver. Renato drew a piece of hard tack from his pocket and held it out to the woman. The revolver was too heavy for her skinny fingers, and she put it down on a slab of rock. Then she seized Renato’s hand and kissed it. The girls grabbed the hard tack and started to nibble at it before even breaking it in half.

‘Gently now, Giovanna, Mariapia…gently,’ said the woman.

‘I think I can imagine what has happened to you, madam,’ said Renato, picking up the revolver and lowering the hammer. ‘We’ll take you with us to the Piave. There’ll be a boat to meet us.’

The woman could not stem her tears.

‘What happened?’ queried Brian, who knew nothing of the brutal way the country had been sacked and pillaged.

‘First two deserters, Italian, two bastards from the Second Army, came saying they had lost contact with their company. I asked them in for a bowl of soup while I gave them directions. They dragged me into the bedroom and…at least they didn’t touch the girls…Then came Slavs, five of them…no, six. There were six of them, curses on them! They abused the girls, the filthy bastards! Oh, damn them, damn them!’

Renato turned to the girls: about thirteen, the elder perhaps
a little more. From what was left of their clothing, and from the lifeless but composed look on their faces, they came from a wealthy family. The woman was not the mother. Perhaps she was a governess. ‘Where are their parents?’

The woman looked at the children, who stared back at her in terror. Then, turning to us, she raised her first finger to her lips, while Renato poked the fire.

‘It’s cold here,’ said the woman.

Renato stared into the flames. ‘If this war doesn’t end soon,’ he said, ‘we’ll all become savage beasts.’

Brian, sitting with his back against the rock so as to raise his aching foot a bit, reached out a hand to shift the revolver, which Renato had left too near the fire. But the woman beat him to it, aiming it at him for a moment. But then she gave it to Renato, holding it on the palms of both hands as if offering a dish of food. Renato put it in his pocket. ‘Let’s go. Once across the river you’ll find a doctor.’

The girls got to their feet again. The elder one gave her little sister the greatcoat, who put it round her shoulders, giving her sister the last mouthful of tack.

Renato led the way out, the revolver in his fist. To be found with a weapon on you spelt death.

‘Are you wounded?’ asked the woman, noticing his limp.

‘No, I’m not, but the Englishman has a badly injured ankle.’

‘Where will we be crossing the river?’

‘Falzè. They’re expecting us there with a boat.’

‘I know the way, I’m from these parts. But it’s going to be a long haul with your limping friend.’

‘Then lead on…madam.’ There was a catch in Renato’s voice.

Leaning on me, Brian reached his side in two hops: ‘Can we make it?’

Major Manca made no answer.

Holding the hands of both girls, the woman went on ahead. ‘I know how to avoid the enemy troops,’ she said, her voice now clear and strong. ‘And I know where to find a cart, too.’

Eleven

I
T WAS AN ARMY STOREHOUSE THE ENEMY HAD REACHED
before our rearguard had had time to set fire to it. Its southern side was scarcely more than a dozen steps from the wood, and was unguarded.

In a whisper Renato asked the woman where the horses and mules were.

‘Behind the store.’ That woman knew her onions. ‘The men here are always drunk. They go inside and drink themselves silly.’

I followed Renato to the building. There were four sentries. Only one was awake, smoking.

‘Wait for me among those carts. I’ll lay my hands on a horse.’

I slithered into the ditch. Several minutes passed. No sign of him. The carts were really a heap of wrecks, but two were serviceable. I inspected the wheels, the axles. I crawled in under the one with a bench nailed to the floorboards. I was thinking of Brian’s ankle.

Renato joined me half an hour later. He had a horse, and the others were with him. The Englishman let go of the woman, who was hard pushed to support him, and grabbed on to me. He was sopping wet and dead on his feet. Maybe he had a fever. He smelt of hay and decay.

The girls climbed onto the cart while Renato backed the horse between the shafts.

He then had to help me with Brian, who lay back on the boards with his throbbing ankle up on the seat between the two girls.

The woman got up on the box with Renato and me, and took the reins from him.

‘I know how. Falzè?’

‘Falzè it is.’

The horse was a bay, iron-shod carthorse. It moved off at the merest murmur from the woman, her head now covered with a piece of sacking.

‘She knows horses,’ whispered Renato in my ear. He was tense, but relieved.

We slid off into the darkness. After nearly an hour the woman drew up beside a haystack. ‘We need to get some hay. Over that hump there’s a bridge, and it’s guarded.’

Renato looked at her for a long moment. He turned towards Brian. He was asleep, or maybe he had fainted. ‘All right, let’s get a move on.’

I dismounted with him and the elder of the girls. In a few minutes the cart was piled with hay. We all scrambled under it except for Renato, who rubbed a bit of soil over his face and into his hair, and then climbed back on the box beside the woman. ‘I’d better take the reins now. I’m your husband, a woman carter would look odd.’ She handed him the reins without a murmur.

The first, slow moments of daylight. The horse’s hoofs clattered on the cobbles and the hay bulged out over the sides of the cart. In less than ten minutes we reached the bridge. I poked my head out. No one there. A hundred metres away on the left was a sleeping encampment. I saw a fire burning and three men warming their hands at it. One of them, the only one wearing a helmet, raised his head to look in our direction, but he lowered
it again almost at once and lit his pipe. I could make out from even that far away that it was a large, curved pipe. Work was beginning again, but the intense cold made the men too lazy to be interested in what was on a cart.

As daylight grew the roadside pickets thinned out. Every so often there would be some mechanical carcass blocking a ditch, and a patrol surrounding it wielding spanners and hammers, and the occasional soldier looking up at the cart. As for Renato, he observed everything. Those infantrymen had a well-fed look to them; the sacking of the Italian army stores and the houses was still boosting their rations. ‘But not for long,’ he said, pushing my head back under the hay. ‘They’re getting indigestion now, but food shortage is going to come, and it will be long and hard, for everyone.’

In the warmth of the pungent hay I nodded off. I dreamt of Villa Spada, I dreamt of Giulia who was giving herself to me, until I was woken by a jolt. I heard Renato’s voice: ‘Only Schützen.’ I peeped out again. He was lighting his pipe and speaking to the woman: ‘No Germans here.’ He turned round. ‘And you, Paolo, pull your head back under!’