Wolf on the Mountain (29 page)

‘Maybe.’

‘And as for suggesting you’d ambush the militia, when Alfonso was going to be with them, when he’d been the one who’d told you they were coming….’

‘Just having a bit of fun, comrade. Did you see his face when I said it?’ Vincenzo’s face suddenly lights up with fun, his pale blue eyes twinkling. He slaps his companion on the back, forgetting his strength, sends him stumbling before quickly gathering his elbow and lifting him back into balance. ‘That was good, good news. We carry out your little trick of making the militia think there are only two saboteurs - although it’s going to be a little difficult to find someone to sacrifice his things to them - and then we’ll have the mountain to ourselves until the English come. We can even break out the rest of the guns. Then we’ll be all ready to give the Germans hell. I could kiss your friend Alfonso.’

They are crossing a bare moor where there is hardly any scrub, just rocks and stones on the meagre soil and grass. They have forgotten to be wary of binoculars from the valley below. Roberto remembers and turns to look back. Suddenly a fighter plane swoops down on them out of the sun, its machine guns rattling, fragments of rock spurting upwards in a line running towards them. The two infantrymen’s instincts are still intact. Instead of throwing themselves forward on the ground they leap sideways before making their dives and the line of bullets cuts between them.

They scamper for an outcrop of larger rocks before the plane can turn and attack again. ‘I didn’t think the Germans had any fighters left round here,’ Roberto calls out from rock to rock.

‘They don’t, Roberto. That was a friend of yours.’

‘Porca puttana!’

‘It just shows that we’re going to have to kick the Germans out ourselves. Our allies are getting far too dangerous.’

–

The partisans had taken their appointed positions on the mountain in the cold dew of dawn, all under orders not to fire a shot. Today was a day they could enjoy themselves watching the fascist militia proving their ineffectiveness as troops. If no-one fired a shot the mountain would be theirs as soon as the militia had gone, a safe base for their expeditions. Already the sky was lightening and the best time to raid the camp had gone, but the militia were not yet here.

The first rays of sunlight hit the snowless peaks on the western side of the valley and slowly the shafts of light picked out the features further down the mountain, the collar of beech trees now light green. The mist of a heavy dew hid the floor of the valley. Still no militia. Roberto and Vincenzo looked at each other, each wondering if Alfonso had deliberately misled them, and why.

Then figures began to emerge around the old camp. It was light enough now to pick out their black shirts, to see their carbines. There was no regime to their surrounding the shattered huts. Militiamen took up random positions with no attempt to remain concealed from anyone within. If Vincenzo and Roberto had been close enough, they thought, they could even have heard the fascist heroes calling out to each other.

Then, before all the force were in position, a single carbine shot rang out. The trap sprung, the militiamen rose from their crouches and rushed the buildings, firing from their hips as they ran. One fell to the ground, clearly shot by a companion from the other side.

In seconds the brave rush was over, the militia in clear control of the field. The cooking pot came flying over the wall, was used as a football by two of the men. Smoke rose from behind the stones as the blankets and the timbers used for the makeshift roof were set alight. The last men left the doorway and tossed a couple of hand-grenades inside. They exploded to complete the pointless destruction and the brave band sat down on the damp grass to smoke their cigarettes.

–

‘Poor Ugo,’ says Vincenzo, ‘under orders not to fire at them. They’re so useless that we could rush them now and kill the lot; and after what they’ve been doing in the village these past few years they don’t deserve anything else. And it would make our men feel a lot better, too.’ Roberto starts to intervene. ‘Don’t worry, Roberto. We’re soldiers. Let them go and tell their German masters there were only two saboteurs up here. They won’t come up any further, what with that wounded man. They’ll just take him back to Sannessuno, a fascist hero, and brag of their military exploits on the mountain today. And the mountain will be ours.’

‘I hope Alfonso’s not the wounded man.’

‘Why should he be? He knew there was no-one there. If he had any sense he’d have stayed well out of the way.’

They wait for the militia to retreat down the mountain and then return to their camp. Runners are sent in all directions to break out the weapons hidden in sheds and lofts in all the surrounding area. All afternoon the weapons are checked and oiled, the ammunition counted out and every partisan told he will have to account for every bullet every evening until the Germans are gone. As the sun goes down on their optimistic day Roberto and Vincenzo barely succeed in stopping a volley into the air to proclaim the free republic of the mountain.

Roberto has not seen the doctor for weeks, since the night of the eggs, since Vincenzo moved up the mountain. All his instructions have been coming through Vincenzo. Why does he want to see him now? Is it about his spats with Ugo and the tension in the partisan camp? Perhaps not: he has been told to bring his map. He arrives early at the appointed place, the pine grove behind the spur. The doctor is not yet there, so he goes down to look at the village.

The sunshine makes it look less desolate, its honeyed colour less disconsolate. The bombers have not returned of late and people have been able to patch up some of the buildings, although with the young men still in hiding none of the heavier repairs have been done. Some streets, the ones in the lee of the mountain, are almost unscathed, give a sense of normality, as if they are the current village and the bombed-out buildings are ones abandoned in an earlier migration and left to collapse. And amongst wrecked buildings and level piazzas where there were once houses the main church stands proud and undamaged as a monument to a civilisation that once was.

He returns to the grove, takes out his map, opens it to its usual folds and is toying with new places for sabotage as the doctor arrives.

‘Good news, Roberto. The Allies have taken Monte Cassino.’

‘When?’

‘Three or four days ago.’

‘What’s the latest news?’

‘That is the latest news. It’s taken that long to get it here. And it’s the last news we’ll get from there because the Germans will be fighting a rearguard action all the way up the Sacco valley, trying to put off the time they have to withdraw north of Rome. We have to work out what happens next ourselves. That’s why I asked you to bring your map.’

He takes it from him and kneels to open it fully out on the carpet of pine needles. Roberto remains standing. For weeks he has only opened it out to the area around Sannessuno as he and Vincenzo have planned their sabotage. It is bemusing to see all of central Italy there and the doctor’s finger targeting Cassino, then dragging north, then swinging out, reminding him of the valleys and ridges which will determine what happens next. ‘Come on, Roberto, I need your help. What happens next?’

‘How should I know?’

‘Porca puttana!’ He slaps his temple. ‘I can’t believe this. Capitano Inglese, captain of infantry in the all-conquering Eighth Army, has to ask a surgeon in the Italian medical corps what happens next? You’ve been a partisan too long.

‘Look’ he says, pointing to Cassino. ‘The Germans no longer control the entrance to the Sacco valley up to Rome.’ His finger drags up the valley. ‘So their winter line is broken. They’ll have to retreat, won’t they? How?’ Roberto remains silent. ‘Porca miseria, Roberto, have you forgotten everything your military academy taught you before it sent you off to command your troops in battle? You were retreating to Tobruk when the Germans captured you. You must remember how it was done, how you feinted, tried to draw them into traps. We need you to start thinking like Capitano Inglese again.’

‘It’s been so long. So much has happened.’

The doctor senses his mind wandering, like a non-plussed schoolboy’s. He tries a teacher’s ruse: ‘So let’s think of something more recent, more easily remembered. Think back to the last time you saw the front line, down on the Sangro. Why couldn’t your army get across the river?’

‘Because the Germans were well dug in.’

‘And?’

‘Because the Germans held the higher ground.’

‘Higher than the ridges on the other side of the valley? Which meant that they were shooting down instead of up and could see where their enemy was? Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘So the Germans have to withdraw to the next ridge where they have that advantage again? Come and look at the map.’ Roberto kneels beside him. ‘So where is it? I don’t need to look. Anyone who remembers his Latin histories knows the answer. If Luigi had given you Livy rather than Ovid you’d know the answer. Central Italy is easy to defend. Ancient Rome kept its power for centuries because of its natural barriers: the mountain spine protected it from the east; the line the Germans held last winter from the south; and the ridge north of Florence protected it from the north.’

‘The Germans were building massive fortifications north of Florence when we came through in the autumn.’

‘Yes, of course. Their general will be trying to make that his next winter line, because he can’t allow the Allies to get into the Po valley and use its airfields. But there are plenty more ridges before then that he can make a stand on to delay the Allied advance.’ His finger crosses the country two, three times, all north of Rome.

‘What about here?’ asks Roberto, his memory of tactics reviving. He points to the ridge at the head of the Sacco valley, the last before Rome. ‘He has the high ground here, and he still has the spine and the Gran Sasso to protect his left.’

‘He can’t.’ The doctor points to the coast just south of Rome. ‘The Allied force on the beachhead at Anzio’ he points just south of Rome - ‘could break out and attack him from behind. Or at least cut off his next retreat.’

‘A beachhead there? The Germans will have to retreat now.’

‘That’s what the Allies thought when they landed it. But it’s been tied down since it landed in January.’

The doctor immediately appreciates his mistake. Roberto is distracted: ‘January?’ He slaps his forehead in frustration. ‘January? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I could have tried getting through there.’

‘No, Roberto. We didn’t know about it for weeks. Remember that we lost our electricity and our wirelesses in that bombing raid in January. Anzio was why we lost them. That bombing raid was intended to stop the Germans moving troops from Pescara to reinforce their defences at Anzio. Remember that panzer division that came through the village? And remember those troops going over that pass when you went down to the gorge the first time? By the time we found out about that landing it was trench warfare over there, as it has been ever since. No-one stood a chance of crossing those lines. You’d have had a better chance in the minefields on the Sangro.’

‘Wasn’t that my decision?’

‘If someone should have told you, I’m sorry they didn’t. It didn’t matter. Even the party’s best operatives could get nowhere near that line. The trenches were yards apart, barbed wire, mines, machine guns. It was like the Great War all over again. You’d have had no chance of getting through. Forget it. What matters is what’s happening now. So let’s assume that the Germans already know that Rome is indefensible. What is going to happen on our side of the mountains?’

‘Why should it matter? The Germans have still got the Gran Sasso behind them.’

‘Porca puttana, Roberto, you have forgotten everything? Outflanking? Remember that word? And communications? Remember that they’ll always need road communications between their left and right flanks. They’ve got to retreat at the same rate along the entire front.’

‘So we’ll be free in days.’

‘No, Roberto. They need to make the Allies fight for every mile into Rome and every mile afterwards, so that they can make that line north of Florence their next winter line. But we’ll see no fighting here. The Allies will concentrate their efforts on the coasts, where the terrain is flatter. As soon as they advance on one coast, the Germans will retreat to their next line on the other coast and in the centre as well. But the Germans can’t make it too easy for them. They won’t retreat en masse. They’ll feint every inch of the way, pretending they’re still defending every sector, buying time.

‘They’ll move their heavy equipment at night, when there are no Allied fighters to spot what they’re doing, but leave field artillery behind to keep firing away and keep up the pretence of a heavily-defended line. Then as their rearguard falls back they’ll go a ridge at a time, destroying every bridge and railway line as they go, mining the roads. They’ll be moving troops and equipment through here for days. One fine morning there’ll be no artillery barrages to the south, no more of them coming through the valley and we’ll know they’re gone for good. Surely you remember all this, Roberto?’

‘It’s coming back.’

‘Good,’ says the doctor. ‘You need to remember it for when you see the priest. Don Bartolomeo wants to see you.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s afraid of a blood-bath when the Germans go. He wants to talk to an English army officer about it.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow evening, in the church.’

–

Roberto spent the evening with his map, rehearsing the movements of armies, distracted by thoughts of Anzio.

In all its centuries the church has never been so dark. Never have candles been in such short supply and there is no incense left to conceal its damp and musty smell. It is evening, the cold of the air shuddering Roberto’s shoulders. He is dimly aware of statues of the Virgin and the saints, of religious pictures on the walls, of niche altars, of stations of the cross.

The doctor and he kneel as if in prayer, hear a door open and close to one side and the priest’s footsteps shuffling into the still-echoing nave. His cough precedes him as a portly figure in black cassock and biretta lightens into view, sits in the pew in front of them and turns with his elbow over its back.