My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More) (23 page)

‘What do you mean? First they tell us we're useless recruits that they couldn't do anything with in Germany, and now they've changed their minds?'

‘Well, you might come in handy as support staff for the artillery. You could do your apprenticeship on the job. With the carpet-bombing underway, you'd learn all the faster … unless you get blown apart first.'

‘Bloody marvellous! We've got our arse in parsley again!' burst out Marco Bianchi, and I added: ‘Hell, what a cock-up! Is there a way out this time?'

‘Get the hell out! Desert,' was Bellosguardo's advice.

‘Desert!'

‘Yes, but cover your backsides. I mean, get yourselves a cushier number with a safer corps.'

‘Which one?'

‘The paratroopers at the Tradate training school. Look, in this folder there's a pamphlet asking for people to join up. They're looking for volunteers to go on the paras' course, nose to the wheel for forty days until you get the licence. One of our guys, Sergeant Paludetti, applied last month and they accepted him on the spot. That way, he managed to avoid the move to Dusseldorf.'

‘OK, it went all right for him, but suppose they take one look at us, turn us down flat and throw us back into the arms of the Germans? That would really be great!'

‘Yes, it's a risk, but it's the only card you have in your hand. If everything goes well and they take you on at Tradate, you're in the clear for at least another month and a half, and nothing can happen to you meantime. This bollocks of a situation has to end sometime! The British and the Americans can't stay behind the Gothic Line forever. They'll have to decide to get on with it, otherwise what kind of liberators are they?'

‘All right,' the two of us accepted almost in unison, ‘let's put in this damned application for the course in Tradate and be done with it.'

‘By the way, will we be expected to throw ourselves out of an aeroplane?' asked Bianchi, and I came out with the comment, ‘Damnation, I never thought of that!'

‘Listen,' the miracle-worker cut off further discussion, ‘if you feel your buttocks tightening at the idea of jumping into mid-air with a parachute, the only alternative is to ask a convent for hospitality: just up the road, you'll find the convent of the Nun of Monza, and who knows, you might even have some kind of erotic thrill thrown in.'

‘All right, you've made up our minds for us. Let's write this application.'

‘Application for the paratroopers or the convent?'

‘Yeah, very funny.'

‘In any case, my advice is not to send this letter by mail: it's better to hand it over in person.'

‘Why?'

‘What's wrong with you? Do you trust the mail? In this situation, in the state we're in, the application might get to Tradate on the day the war ends. And anyway, once you're actually at the training school, they might take you on there and then!'

At that moment, the trumpet call for grub sounded, and Marco and I went off to the canteen. We managed to find a table in a quiet spot. He confided: ‘You know, ever since they packed us off here to Monza, I've been thinking of hightailing it: first, I was thinking of heading for Switzerland, of slipping over the border even if it means getting shot at by the Krauts. But then I discovered that for the last six months the Swiss frontier guards have been tossing people out like old brooms: they won't let anyone in any more. I even thought of joining the partisans, but after the last round-up, nearly all the groups have retreated above inaccessible peaks, like Alta Val Sesia, beyond the Scopello pass.

‘So we're like rats in a trap, where the only exit opens on to a void. We've no option but to jump and hope that at least the parachute opens!'

‘Our friend Bellosguardo says we should get moving at once.'

‘Yes, and all things considered, it'd be better to post our enlistment applications and take a copy with us, duly stamped by our regiment.'

‘Come on, do you really think the officers are going to endorse our applications?'

‘Well, we have devious ways of making them do what we want.'

‘But the whole thing would be thrown out by the Germans. They're the real bosses in the camp now, and if everything is not signed and sealed by them, we're done for.'

‘Exactly, so what then?'

Bellosguardo appeared behind us, and interrupted in his no-nonsense way: ‘Relax, you're going to get your passes.'

‘But how?'

‘Forge them!'

‘So who's going to do it?'

The miracle worker gave me a slap on the back: ‘No time for false modesty. I've seen how you churn out forged seals and stamps, you're a real master.'

‘I've seen them too. You did some for me!' Bianchi testified.

‘Not so fast! What you're talking about were stamps printed on passes for evening leave. No sergeant on guard duty was going to stand there poring over them. But in this case, in addition to our own official ones, I'd also need to forge Wehrmacht stamps, as well as the Krauts' signatures.'

Marco took me by the shoulder and gave me a shake: ‘My dear boy, look me in the eye. It's true that if they find we're hopping it with forged documents, they'll throw us in jail and put us on trial for attempted desertion. And the chances are that at the next round of reprisals, they'll put us up against a wall with the other folk they're going to shoot. So do you think for one moment that if I were not more than certain you could do it, I'd be betting my skin on your abilities as a forger?'

He had me cornered. Bellosguardo got hold of pre-printed forms with our applications already typed out: ‘The undersigned requests transfer to the Parachute School at Tradate…' etc.

‘Hold on one moment! If I am to reproduce the concentric circles you need for the stamps, I need some metal tops from small and medium-sized jars. Then, obviously, I'm going to need a few original documents, even if they're out of date, with all the various headings and signatures.' I set to work, crushed the lead of a copying pencil to a fine dust, added a few drops of alcohol, mixed them together and … hey presto! an excellent forger's dye.

I took a couple of very fine sable brushes from my box of water colours, and set to work. The first stamp that came out was a mess: my fingers were sweating … I put my hands under cold water and tried again. The second stamp might have done, but it was not yet perfect. At the fifth attempt, I pulled it off: a masterpiece! ‘Better than the original!' my two satisfied admirers commented.

I could not sleep that night. When finally I managed to drop off, I found myself playing the lead role in a terrifying nightmare. The German guards had uncovered the fraud, had collared us and were dragging us over to a wall. They fired at us with a twenty-bore machine gun, then took us to hospital. We were covered with bullet holes, but still alive. They extracted the bullets, took care of us, gave us treatment and then put us back against the wall and turned the guns on us once again.

The following morning, accompanied by Sergeant Bellosguardo, we turned up at the exit gate where there were both Italian and German guards on duty. Each of the two of us had a light bag. We handed over the documents and the passes. Our guard scarcely gave them a glance before giving the two sheets of paper to his German colleague. At that moment, a car horn started hooting violently: the car belonged to the Komandant, who wanted out. The German guard needed his hands free of the documents, so he handed them back to our duty officer, and rushed to open the gates. The sergeant gave the documents back to us and ran to give him a hand. Bellosguardo pushed us bodily away from the checkpoint. Proceeding like two stupefied robots, we walked on I don't know for how long, holding the passes tightly between our fingers. When the station was in sight, we were able to relax and look each other in the face. We burst into loud, liberating laughter, exclaiming at the same time: ‘My God, talk about brass neck!'

Then we started to run. It seemed as though we were in a sequence of a comic film by Max Linder: there were never any dead moments. Everything went hell for leather, without a pause. We arrived at the platform, the train for Milan was standing there, we got on and it set off. There was a great crush of passengers, but we found two seats next to two girls who immediately smiled at us as though we were a pair of dandies on holiday instead of a couple of scruffy simpletons. A conversation was struck up, we offered them cigarettes, they took out of their bag a loaf of bread made with flour so dark it looked like rye, and offered us a piece each.

At the Sesto San Giovanni station, we had to change train. There was half an hour to wait. ‘Listen, Marco, I'll go and post our letters to the Tradate headquarters.'

‘Oh yes, our requests to enlist … they had completely slipped my mind!'

The post boxes were outside the station, on the other side of the piazza. I went out … crossed over … in the middle of the piazza I bumped into a crowd of people. There, in an avenue of plane trees, they were gathered in a circle around a man lying full length on a small grassy patch. He had a sign on his chest: ‘Bandit'. I asked for information and a woman in tears replied: ‘They killed him half an hour ago. They said they surprised him as he was distributing subversive leaflets.'

Someone else added: ‘It seems he was a worker from Breda, a partisan.' I stood there petrified, observing that dead man with his arms outstretched. His mouth was open as though he were about to cry out.

‘Move, move. On your way!' A group of the Black Brigades pushed us away from the avenue. I made my way back to the station, sick at heart, my face grey. I found Marco. It took a terrible effort to tell him about the shot partisan. I could not do it. I had continual bouts of vomiting.

Early in the afternoon, we arrived at Tradate. We went up to the castle where both the squadron HQ and the training school were billeted. We handed over our documents to a young officer, who ushered us into a large room.

‘Come forward,' we were ordered by a medical officer behind a desk, ‘take off your rags and throw them on that bench.' I found it hard to move: I was still stunned and could not get the image of that appalling act of violence out of my mind. We stood to attention, totally naked, in front of the desk.

‘You're a disgrace!' exclaimed the paratroopers' medic. ‘OK, the final debacle is at hand, but derelicts of this sort have never crossed my path before.' End of the comic film. The grotesque, with sniggers, was about to begin.

‘Sorry, boys, I didn't want to mortify you, but stand in front of that mirror.' He pointed to a big, opaque sheet of glass which still contained the remnants of the decor of a piece of antique furniture: our reflections appeared as though reproduced through a cloud of steam. We did not make an edifying spectacle. ‘Where have you come from?' As he spoke, he was leafing through the documents the sergeant had handed him.

‘We're from the barracks at Monza, well, first we were at Mestre,' we started, breaking in to give each other a hand. ‘We got caught up in a blitz, we ended up eating like dogs and both of us caught dysentery. Twice we came close to being dispatched to Germany … in four months we lost as much weight as if they had given us three tapeworms and oysters to swallow every day!'

The medical officer laughed: ‘Well, at least you've not lost your sense of humour. Put your underpants, trousers and all the rest back on. You can go, there's no point in going on with the examination. You are not suitable.'

‘What!' we stuttered.

‘I'm sorry. I like you but you are too thin and underweight. This is a heavy course. It would knock out even an athlete from the Gallarate Sports Club.'

‘But we used to go to the Gallarate Sports Club!'

‘You? Are you making a fool of me?'

‘Not at all. Until a couple of weeks ago, we were training with Missoni in the four hundred metres. We've raced with Siddi and Paternini.' The medical officer whispered into his assistant's ear something which sent him speeding out of the room. Then he got to his feet and came over to us, and almost mockingly felt our biceps, pectoral muscles, calves and buttocks.

‘Yes, well, not too bad as regards toning, enough to make Volta's breast-stroke squad envious. To get you into minimum shape, you'd need to undergo fattening-up therapy, maybe with force-feeding through a tube, the way they do with the
paté de foie gras
geese. But we'll soon see if you're a couple of chancers or champions down on their luck!'

There was a knock at the door, and a muscular youth in shorts came in: ‘Here I am!'

‘Let me introduce you to the high-jump champion from the Gallarate Sports Club. Sergeant, cast you eye over these two. You recognise them?'

I try to turn towards the newcomer. They stop me. ‘No, who are they?'

The medical officer points his finger at us: ‘Enough of this shit, pair of bloody shysters!' The assistant is about to take us out, when I shout out: ‘Enrico! Bloody hell, do you really not recognise me? It's Dario, from Porto Valtravaglia … four hundred metres sprint.'

Enrico is thrown for a moment, he looks at us with a little more attention. Then he points to my comrade in misfortune: ‘And you're Bianchi. Yes, now I remember. My God, you're all skin and bone. What's happened to you?'

‘All right, all right,' the medical officer cuts us short. ‘Keep the hugs and pleasantries for a later date. Get your kit off once again, you two, and we'll complete the examination.' End of Round 1.

Now it is time for the grand finale: test of courage and aptitude. They escorted us over to a field behind the castle where there stood a large, iron trellis-work tower, over fifteen metres high.

‘Come on,' Enrico Ferri encouraged us, ‘climb up.'

‘Right up to the top?' we asked, our hearts in our mouths.

‘That's right, then you've got to jump off.'