How I Won the War (13 page)

We were now alone in the valley and a rugby referee would have been useful to get the mud out of our eyes. Captain Demoli was sobbing impotently to himself as we
made our way up the hill towards the Guards command post. Sergeant Transom met us half way to report that the
available
Solferino had been broken into suitable parties and the take-over was almost complete. Sitting the captain on a convenient rock out of earshot I took the opportunity to point out to Sergeant Transom how wrong he had been to lose his temper and swear at our cobelligerents. Not only was such abuse of our new Allies in direct opposition to
Government
policy but, had my plans not been laid with such special attention to inter-Allied relations, it might well have ruined the whole take-over. I know that he took my advice to heart because I distinctly heard him, as he walked away, asking God to give him patience. And he was not, normally, a religious man.

By 02.30 hours all positions had been inspected and I settled to sleep in my headquarters cave. Suddenly, as though through some vast amplifier with echo box attached, the night was filled with a chorus of booming, one-foot-in-
the-pub
-door baritones singing “Largo al Factotum.”

“Stand-to!” I cried. “Turn out the guard! It may be some devilish German trick.”

“If it is,” said Gripweed, my batman, “we should be all right. They’ve all had a skinful.”

He was right. As we came out of the cave the glee club soared up with the bleary vibrato of Naafi-type Nellie Deans.

The source of the song was away over on our left flank where the cliff softened and Corporal Dooley with two
sec
tions
of Twelve Platoon commanded the only possible path to the river. The number of singers seemed to grow strangely less the nearer we got to the position.

“It’s them Wops,” gasped Gripweed as we scrambled on. “They’re singing in Italian.”

At which the curtain came down on the
Barber.

“Anda now,” rolled drunkenly up from below, “We singa for Tommy
Inglesi
…”

And the gorge of the Garigliano, already made fearful by Figaro, rang from wall to wall with the plastered tumult of a pidgin-English “God Save the King.”

“There’s only one of them, sir,” said Corporal Dooley. “He’s got down in the gorge somewhere and it’s the echoes building him up like a choir.”

“If he don’t belt up soon,” said Private Spool, “Jerry’ll give us a stonk just to put us out of our misery.”

A bottle smashed somewhere below, and for his fourth chorus the singer moved up to alto and Our Gracious King was interceded for in the drum-piercing tones of Jerry Colonna.

“Who on earth is it?” I asked.

“I tella you who it is,
tenente.
” Captain Demoli,
mud-brown
as a bear, came panting up with two midshipmen. “He’s gotta hisa name written red-hot ona my heart…. He try to make madness for his
capitano
…. Allaways he getta drunk … allaways he singa Figaro …
Figaro
qua,
Figaro
l
a
…. And allaways he say very sorry,
capitano,
never do again,
capitano
…. But thisa time he go too far, thisa time with my own bare hands when I catch him …”

He screwed the head off an invisible hen.

“Who is it,
mon
Capitan
?
”

He clenched his fists to his chest and stiffened his lips to help face the words.

“Isa Nicolo Pellochi. He steala the chianti. He hidea down there …”

And followed by his midshipmen he set off down the rocks as the voice wailed into a last heart-breaking “God Savea” and applauded himself rapturously.

“Und
nun
,” he boomed gutturally.
“Musica
for
Tedeschi
…
Bella,
bella
Lili Marlene …”

As the sad sweet song came lilting up, the rain lifted, the moon broke through the clouds and far away to our right we could see the brooding whiteness of Monte Cassino.
Everyone
suddenly thought of home and Twelve Platoon were softly, ruefully joining in the chorus when, just as he came underneath the lamplight for the third time, their soloist was abruptly stricken to silence. It was then, I judged, that his
capitano
caught up with Nicolo Pellochi.

The Boche had beads on us from all angles and movement by day was strictly forbidden. The Solferino late-comers arrived the following evening and, together with equal
portions
of onions, raisins and coffee beans, were distributed around the positions.

By the third night, we had everything shipshape and I was quietly engaged in making notes for my Memoirs when Captain Demoli, with his bodyguard of midshipmen,
effervesced
into the cave.

“Scusi,
tenente
,
”
he panted. “Isa life and death. The
Tedeschi!
He crossa the Garigliano! He massa for the
attack
!”

“Where? We’ve heard no gunfire.”

With shaking hand he poured himself a drink, tossed it down and spat it straight out when he found he’d made free with my blood mixture.

“Not attack yet,
tenente.
They come across the river. They hide up in the trees. My bravea Commando section do the nighta patrol, makea sure all clear on our front. Creepa like redskin…. Ssh! … No makea no sound …” He shuffled forward like Juniper in his Quasimodo period. “Lie quiet as puss-cat, listen like hawk…. They heara
Tedeschi
talking …
Donner
und
blitzen
…
Komm’
hier,
geh’
da
…
Jawohl,
mein
herr
…”

“How many Germans are there?”

“Molto,
molto
Tedeschi
.”

“Where are they? Show me on the map.”

He spread his hands apologetically.

“I dunno know where on map. My Commando officer stay watcha the enemy. Send back with message the heart of the lion who found the
Tedeschi
,
the ears of tiger who hear them
talk, the bravea hero of the Solferino who will lead us there—Nicolo Pellochi!”

“I thought he was your archenemy?”

He wriggled his head sentimentally.

“Ah! That Nicolo. In peace, the rascal. In war, the Garibaldi!”

Urgent investigation was obviously necessary. Sergeant Transom was touring the positions. I left a message for him, put on my leather jerkin and set off with my faithful batman. It was a long and tortuous way through the woods that the Commando had patrolled. We twisted and turned all ways in the darkness, scrambling among rocks, crawling through scrub, wading knee-deep in streams.

“The Solferino lot may be all right out on the Mare Nostrum,” whispered Gripweed after an hour of blind
crosscountry
, “but tonight they’ve either been playing Hampton Court Maze or getting plain lost.”

I had tried to follow our route on the map but its
convolutions
soon defeated me. From the way we kept doubling back, Maigret might have been on our tail.

“Psst!” hissed Captain Demoli as we burrowed a channel through a featherbed of compost. “We are near.”

The Commando officer, who wore two pearl-handled
pistols
, a girdle of grenades, a dagger at his hip, and dirks in either sock, led us forward.

“He’d have a knife in his moosh,” breathed Gripweed, “if he hadn’t got false teeth.”

We stopped under a long overhang of rock and listened. For a minute all was silent. Then, right above us, I heard stealthy movements, the rustle of leaves and guttural
Teutonic
whispering…. It was the Boche, all right…. Maybe just a patrol … maybe lying up for a dawn attack…. First thing was to fix their position … If I could get a bearing on Cassino or some other land mark…. Carefully I lifted myself up under the rock until I could see the horizon.

“Hände
hoch!”
rasped a voice behind us…. Bayonets pushed out from the bushes ahead…. Machine gun muzzles poked down from the rock above…. There was a scurrying among the trees where Pellochi and the midshipmen had waited and then our hiding place was surrounded by a dozen
soldiers with woollen hats, blackened faces, and wearing camouflage jerkins.

“Gawd!” said Gripweed. “We’re in the bag.”

Demoli and his lieutenant burst into fountains of placatory Italian.

“Steady, chaps,” I said. “Remember, name, rank, and number only.”

Resistance was clearly useless and I led them out from under the rock. I don’t speak German but I had consigned to memory a few phrases suitable to such a situation.

“Ich
bin
ein
Owzier.
Bitte,
nehem
mir
an
dein
Komman
dant
.”

“
Hände
hoch
,
”
repeated the enemy in reply.

They closed around us, jabbing their guns in our backs and marched us up a goat track. I decided as we clambered towards captivity that I would study law while in prison camp. After making every possible effort to escape, of course. After ten minutes we came to a farmhouse built into the mountainside. They pushed us through a door and into a candle-lit room where a giant of a close-cropped Prussian sat at a map-strewn table. He was wearing a brown sweater and the flickering wax-light threw up the sabre-scar on his cheek.

I took off my jerkin to
show the pips on my shoulders. The Boche respect strength of character so I decided to show my mettle from the start.

“My name,” I snapped, “is Ernest Goodbody, my rank is substantive Lieutenant, my number is 131313.”

“And I,” said the Prussian in purest Oxford, “am Major Jan Kapolowski of the Warsaw Regiment, the Third
Carpathian
Division of the Second Polish Corps. Sorry my men mistook you but few of them speak English, and these two chaps with you are in very strange uniforms. And if you really want to bring your patrols back through our lines, it would be safer to let us know.”

The Poles had not been in Africa and I’d never met one face to face before. I had no call to be doing so now since, according to the map, there were one company of the
Musketeers
and half a battalion of Black Watch between my right flank and the nearest clump of Carpathians.

I quickly explained that my inexperienced Italian
foot-sailors
had lost themselves on patrol and that, on locating them, I found that the only practicable way back was to lead them through the Polish lines. The major was utterly
charming
about the whole affair and ran us as far towards home as his jeep could make it.

As we plodded back up our approach track, Captain Demoli steadily cursed the name of Nicolo Pellochi.

“… Why that dam-a-fool not listen? He singa Lili
Marlene
, don’t he? He know when
Tedeschi
talking…. Is nota imbecile, is nota baby in arms…. Then why he come back say Polish soldiers speak like
Tedeschi?
… I tella you why … because he wanna make big fool out of his
capitano
, thatsa why. He wanna revenge, that Nicolo Pellochi, for when I choppa him down at sing-song…. Thisa time, that lousy sonofabitch, he go too far. Thisa time with my bare hands …”

He broke off as small-arms fire burst out on our front. We were still half a mile away but could see the bright swoop of tracer beating down from the machine guns of the central Italian position.

“To battle stations!” I commanded. “At the double. We’re being attacked after all.”

We made all speed the mud would allow and as we came in the back door of the stone barn, Sergeant Transom dropped through a side window. All the Italians, urged on by their officer with drawn cutlass were lining the forward wall and blazing away for dear life.

“Stop!” yelled Sergeant Transom. “Cease fire!
Niente
tiro!
Silenzio!”

I wondered at first, as he lay about the defenders, pulling them back from the loopholes and kicking their guns to the floor, whether he had gone over to Hitler.

“Steady, Sergeant,” I said. “You’ll have us overrun.”

He wrenched our last firing defender from his post and now the only gun fire to be heard was coming from the attackers. It was a solitary machine gun firing half-hearted bursts.

“Listen to that,” said Sergeant Transom. “A bloody Bren. One of ours, I’ll lay a dollar. We’re fighting among our
flamingselves…. Come here, Captain Demoli, and yell out through this loophole who you are …”

As the captain shouted the Bren stopped firing and
answering
cries of liquid Italian relief came up from the enemy.

“Madonna
mia!
Isa my own Commando section coming back. The firsta bullets we fire, we shoot ourselves. Idiot!
Traditori!
Why you not usa your brains?”

He turned on his expostulating platoon commander and cuffed him out of the barn with the flat of his own cutlass.

“All-a-ways the mistakes. Never no
gloria
d’
I
talia.
Why nobody tell him the Commando go out on patrol? Why don’t he say halta-who-goes before shooting everybody? Why don’t I killa myself like a Japanese? …”