Wolf on the Mountain (19 page)

The captain remained silent.

Elvira’s sister’s house had been destroyed in the bombing. Her family and its surviving furniture and things were being dispersed amongst the kin in the village. The Golvis’ dining room, with its polished wood table and chairs, its sideboard with its family photographs, had become a storeroom as well as the captain’s ward.

He was lying on a pile of mattresses, set against the wall, still recovering from his wounds. It had been five days since his capture and escape but, despite the family’s denying itself food in order to rebuild his strength, he was still passing the days lying down. Outside it was beginning to snow. Alfonso Giobellini was passing the afternoon talking with him, detailing the bomb damage in the town, speculating on what was happening in the war beyond the mountains, a matter for only rumour now.

‘You’re alive. You’re still free. You shouldn’t fret about those bits of metal.’

‘Don’t you see? Those tags were part of my staying alive. They proved I’m English, that I’m covered by the Geneva Convention. Otherwise I can be shot out of hand.’

‘Just like the rest of us.’

‘It’s not just that. You know what they’re for, your father was in the army; if you’re killed in battle, one set is taken to prove your death, and when you’re buried on the battlefield, they leave the other set on your body so that when the war is over and you’re dug up and moved to a cemetery there’s proof of who you are. You can be buried in a marked grave. So I’m not about to die fighting with the English army, but if I died on one of those mountains, or in one of the minefields trying to cross the lines, and I had those tags around my neck at least the Germans would notify the Red Cross, and they my family, of my death. And then my family would have a grave to mourn for me by.

‘I’m not just like the rest of you. You’re not trying to cross the lines through those minefields. You’re not venturing into those passes. You have families here, kinsfolk in other villages, people who know you, who’ll bury you, who’ll know where you’re buried. I’m a stranger. I’d be just an unknown body, buried in an unmarked grave. My parents deserve better than that.’

‘Perhaps it’s a message. That you should stay with your friends, rather than trying to cross the lines. It’s nearly April. The Allies will soon be here.’

The captain paused, frustrated by those words again, and in the pause they heard the noise of Elvira Golvi arguing with someone as she came up the stairs. They had been too preoccupied to hear any activity in the street outside, to hear a knock on the front door. They strained to hear what was happening. Elvira’s voice was loud, shrill, angry. The voice came and went, as if sometimes she was labouring on the steep steps from the hall, sometimes pausing to emphasise her point. Who was she arguing with? Her sister, still annoyed that the family was sheltering the Englishman? They could not hear the other voice. Alfonso crept to the door to try to hear what was being said.

He turned in panic, said one word - ‘Carabinieri!’ - and gestured the captain to follow him as he ran tiptoe across the room. He opened the door onto the cloistered balcony and, with a quick downward glance, sat on the rail and swung himself over and onto the balcony of his own house.

But the captain was too weak, took too long to lever himself up, felt dizzy. As the landing door opened he rolled back down between the mattresses and the wall, dragging his blankets down over him, scattering the cat onto the floor.

It soon became clear that this was not another search for the fugitive of five nights ago. The carabinieri had been sent to look for goods looted after the latest bombing raid. ‘Why not look in the German barracks?’ Elvira asked angrily. ‘They’re the only thieves around here.’ The silence which followed the question suggested a shrug of police shoulders before the unconvinced explanation of orders. The captain strained to hear what was being said, to hear footfalls in the direction of his hiding place, to imagine the movements accompanying the words. He had always imagined the carabinieri as peacocks, more concerned with their appearance than their jobs, not really a threat to prisoners-of-war on the run. Wasn’t it that way in the army? The more flashy the uniform the less effective the soldier? For sure the carabinieri had flashy uniforms: scarlet stripes on their dark blue breeches, black knee-boots, jackets tight-waisted, black and white leather belts, scarlet lined capes. He imagined them standing stiffly in front of Elvira, their caps with their large silver grenade emblem tucked under their arms in deference to good manners, trying to do what their masters had ordered, staying polite in the face of Elvira’s impatient indignation, the cat rubbing against their calves to distract them further.

They were not being easily convinced. ‘But there are six mattresses there. They’re not even being used. They must have come from one of the bombed houses.’

‘Of course they have, you wooden-head. They’re my sister’s mattresses. You know my sister, the one who lives by the bridge? Or did, until those American planes came. Her house was destroyed by the bombs. These things are hers. We brought them here to keep them
from
the looters. Come and look in the kitchen. We’ve got her pots and pans as well. She’s collecting things from what’s left of her home even now, as we speak. We’ve had all her family living here since the raid. They’ll have to live here with us from now on, unless she can find room with a relative in another village. Isn’t it bad enough having your house destroyed, having to live ten to a house, without the carabinieri then trying to confiscate your beds?’

The cat leapt up onto the mattresses and hissed at them, opening its paws for the pounce, as if it understood and was determined to defend its own property. The argument continued, the captain marvelling that the policemen weren’t using the time to rummage amongst the bedding rather than contenting themselves with debate. At last, with words that they were behaving like Germans, Elvira convinced them to leave. She slumped into an armchair and swore at the virgin, then rose, went to the open window and shouted again at the carabinieri retreating down the street.

Behind her a quiet voice said ‘Not like Germans. The Germans would have found me.’

She turned to see the captain’s head emerging above the mattresses and fainted.

–

The last bottle of herb liqueur had been taken from its hiding place for the second time in days in order to steady Elvira’s nerves. Her sister had been retrieving her secret stocks of food and wine from their hiding places in her ruined house. The Golvis’ nooks were full and for the first time since January there were supplies of food in the cellar. If the food could not be hidden it should be eaten before it was confiscated, particularly as they had their different escapes from death to celebrate. So eleven people sat down for their largest meal in weeks, a thick soup of sliced mountain sausage and beans with flask after flask of wine.

By now Elvira had known that the captain was behind the bedding when the carabinieri had come into the room. She had known that she was arguing for her life rather than her sister’s things, had deliberately distracted them with her fury. Country cunning had saved the day, arguing so furiously about something as unimportant as a mattress. Carlo swung his eyes impatiently upwards and sideways and his sister-in-law glowered at the captain for being so weak as not to escape and save her sister’s life.

‘I’ll go back to the mountain tomorrow, before dawn. With your sister’s family here there’s no room, and I can’t ask the Giobellinis to put me up while there are searches going on all the time. It’s getting too dangerous.’

‘How will you do for food? Have you any up there?’

‘I have a pot, and there’s water and firewood. If I could have some beans.’

‘Have some of mine’ said the sister.

‘Luigi can bring things up as well. But it’s still snowing up there. You’ll freeze to death, you poor boy.’

‘I’m used to it by now. But if you could spare a blanket…’

‘Have one of mine’ said the sister.

–

The next morning he sets off with his blanket and his new provisions in a sack over his shoulder and climbs through the snow to his hide. At least it is still snowing as he makes his climb, the new snow obliterating his footprints after him, the blizzard covering his laboured movement up the mountain from any binoculars below. A man moving against a white background is so easy to see.

The snow stops, fortunately by the time he is out of sight of the valley. It is deep and powdered and each step is up to his knees. He struggles on, buffeted by crops of snow suddenly too heavy for the fir tree branches and thudding down onto his shoulders and down his neck, his feet slipping off the sides of rocks hidden in his path, willing himself up the mountain, leaving a trail a recruit could follow. At least the Germans will be preoccupied with clearing the snow and the bomb damage in the village for days to come. If he survives that long.

He finds his hide and crawls inside, not bothering with his normal camouflage as he does so. The Germans won’t come up here now. He wouldn’t care if they did. He wraps himself in his sacking and his new blanket and shivering like a dying man falls into a deep exhausted sleep.

Each day of isolation on the mountain is another day survived, another day nearer the spring. On most days he can endure the hunger and the cold, the drenching in the rain showers, simply to be on his own on his peaceful timeless mountain away from the wars and betrayals of men.

He has come to appreciate the soughing wind, despite its covering of sounds of danger, because it also silences the guns on the front and the bombs in the valleys. He almost relishes the days of low cloud because it hides the horizons which imprison him. And the still days are the ones when he can relax, confident that any danger will sound from far away. Although each change of weather brings its different threat, it also brings a different relief. As he has come to know his mountain better, its sounds and smells and feel, he has grown more confident of his sense that something is not quite normal, that therefore danger threatens. It has become a known, more comforting place.

–

Today something is different. There are other people up here. His instincts had told him so long before he had seen their footsteps in the grass and mud, thawing slowly out, around the spring. Not the marks of German boots, but six different sets. The prints of people being careless.

He heads for the shepherd hut and finds six men moving building stones. They straighten as he arrives and cease their chatter. Five short, wiry men in old grey clothes and flat black caps. It is easy to spot the bigger man as their leader, a man whose height is a constant reassurance to the captain, making him a more plausible Italian in these mountains of short men. ‘How did you know we were here?’ Vincenzo asks, stretching the muscles of his back.

‘You’ve left footprints all over the mountain. The most stupid German private could see there were six of you up here. And you’re making too much noise. I’ve been circling this place for the last half hour, checking if anyone else was watching you. Did any of you see me, or hear me?’

‘The Germans won’t be up here today. They’re too busy clearing up the mess those American bombers made. And besides, it’s going to snow again. We’re going to have to stay up here for a while. There’s nowhere to hide in the village at the moment. We’ve got to get this hut weatherproof today.’

Two of the men return to labouring with a large stone, one at each end, trying and failing to lift it back into its place in the wall. ‘Give us a hand, Vincenzo you ox, we’ll have it finished sooner.’ Their leader walks over, spits on his hands, leans through them to take it by the sides, takes the weight and with his thigh swings it into place. ‘Have you ever seen a man so strong, Roberto? One day in the autumn, when there were still sheep around here, he picked up a ewe under each arm and ran down to the spring and back again, all for a bet. He’s crazy as well as strong.’ ‘The crazy one is the man who bet him. Do you remember when he picked up that donkey that refused to budge and then dropped it? It soon got moving then.’

The captain is surprised by Vincenzo’s strength, that he can still move such weights when he is hungry. The stories of his bravado are unsurprising. He remembers him firing his rifle in the air, shouting insults to the Germans, as he led Mike and him up the mountain for the first time in November, how he had frightened them with that seeming recklessness at the time. The memory reminds him of his worry that Vincenzo will need to be more cautious this spring. But how can you fight any war without men with spirit? He himself needs to find his optimism again. He has been doing no more than survive for too long. Maybe a common sense of purpose with these men will be the spur.

He sets to work. He is still weak from his last escape, but he helps as best he can. He is not used to the movements and strengths needed to build a rough stone wall and Vincenzo and his fellows, stronger than he and used to the skills, release him to collect brushwood and bracken for insulation. By midday the walls are back to their former height and they stop to eat. Their mothers have sent them up the mountain with bread and nuts and wine, and as they eat Vincenzo describes the roof that he and Ugo have planned and chopped down the timber for. By dusk the roof joists and the cross timbers have all been cut to size and wired in place. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t snow tonight,’ Vincenzo says to announce the end of work for the day, ‘or we’ll all get wet.’ They eat a stew of beans and potatoes Ugo has spent the afternoon watching as he has worked on the roof, nimbly hopping from joist to joist. As soon as they finish the food they lie to sleep together, huddled for warmth, in their new house under a starless sky.

–

The next day they complete the roof with slates from the old camp and pile boulders on it to keep the slates from lifting in the fierce winds which will blow around the mountain until the spring. They build bunks with stakes driven into the earth floor, nail planks to them to shape the beds, lattice the frames with wire and rope and pile bracken on the top for mattresses. The captain goes back to the old camp to cover their traces while Vincenzo and two others build a cooking grate against the inside wall with a window grill retrieved from the old camp.