The Sword of Fate (22 page)

On the Thursday morning Gonzaga came to have another talk with us, but all his arguments and the fact that we had had neither supper nor breakfast failed to move us.

Without meals or exercise to break it that Thursday proved a long and dreary day, which was broken by only two excitements. The dull rumble of the distant guns had been there for many hours past whenever one chose to listen for it, and the comparative silence was rudely shattered soon after Gonzaga’s visit by a terrific explosion.

It was followed by others and the building rocked. Evidently British bombers were somewhere high up in the heavens above us and dropping their ‘eggs’ on Fort Capuzzo. The raid went on for over half an hour, and from the tinkling glass on the floors below us we knew that a number of windows had been shattered.

Our other excitement only caused us to laugh, although in a way it was pretty sinister. From having said very little since his capture Paolo suddenly became loquacious. He let himself go upon just what he meant to do to Bannister and myself when we were forced to give in. It appeared that he had plenty of friends in high Fascist circles, and he swore that if it was the last thing he ever did he would see to it that our lives were made a living hell for months on end in the worst political prison that Italy could boast. Whatever the sentence which the court martial
passed upon us for having physically maltreated an Italian officer, he swore that we should never live to complete it.

At first it was rather amusing to listen to his blasphemous invective, but it got rather wearisome so eventually I cut him short by saying:

“Since that’s your plan, Tortino, it seems there’s only one thing for us to do. If we’re forced to throw in our hand, rather than submit to imprisonment while leaving you alive to urge your gangster friends to kill us by inches, it would obviously be better for us to face a firing-squad for having killed you first.”

After that he piped down, and we had no further trouble with him until late that night, when there was another air raid. This time the bombs fell much closer, and we could hear them whistle over the building. It was damnably unpleasant, and both Teddy and I felt pretty shaken, but Tortino lost all control and began to scream to the guards to come and shoot us and let him out.

They came along, but I told them that if there was any shooting to be done I was going to start it, and I pressed the barrel of the pistol to Tortino’s sweating neck, upon which he begged them to go away again. They offered to take us down to the air-raid shelter, but we knew that to accept meant chucking up the sponge, and we were now determined to stick it out.

After midnight the bombing eased a bit, and we all began to realise that we were distinctly hungry and thirsty. The unfortunate Paolo was in an even worse state than Teddy and myself, at least as we had had two sparing drinks out of our carafe in the course of the day.

Having remained quiet for a bit, he apparently decided to try to induce the guards to give him some water. For long spells he argued with them or yelled alternate pleas and threats while they reiterated that no water was to be furnished to anybody in the cell without the Governor’s order; but at last he persuaded them to go and rouse Gonzaga.

The ex-head waiter arrived, tousled, ill-tempered and clad in a flamboyant silk dressing-gown. It was quite impossible for him to ignore Paolo’s pleas, and he agreed to one small cup of water being fetched to slake the lieutenant’s thirst, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with that.

“Oh no,” I said. “Not one drop of water goes down his gullet unless the same quantity is given to Mr. Bannister and myself. From now on we shall share and share alike. If Tortino drinks we drink, and if Tortino feeds we feed. Talking of which, all three of us could do with a good hearty meal.”

“Zen you canna damn’ well go ’ungry!” Gonzaga snapped. “Water, yes, zat I giva so da
tenente
do not die; but food, no, I see you damn’ first. For da
tenente
I am sorry, but eff you maka ’im share wiz you not one zread of vermicelli do I give.” He stalked indignantly away, and after that we got a few hours’ sleep.

Soon after dawn on the Friday we were roused by a fresh series of crumping detonations, and at first we thought it was another air raid; but the explosions had a different sound from bombs and seemed heavier than even the thousand-pounders, which were the largest that we were then using. Preceding each, too, there was a prolonged rumble as though a train were passing overhead, and after a few minutes I felt certain I knew what it was. Some of our capital ships must have come up the coast and were flinging shells from their big guns into Fort Capuzzo.

The bombardment lasted for over half an hour, during which we could hear the cascading roar of brick buildings as they collapsed, the whine of great shell splinters as they whiszed through the air, and the cries of the wounded Italians outside; but the prison was not hit.

The day passed uneventfully except for two more air raids, but by evening it was over forty-eight hours since any of us had had anything to eat and we were feeling absolutely ravenous.

On the Saturday our distress was added to by Gonzaga’s arriving at midday with a wicked little smile on his chubby face, and two army cooks behind him carrying trays of steaming savoury-smelling food. These were put down outside the cell for our inspection, and he spent half an hour in trying to wheedle us into surrender as the price of this excellent dinner.

Paolo had to be forcibly restrained, and to us it was a sore temptation, particularly for the first ten or fifteen minutes, but as the food grew colder and the sauces began to congeal on the plates, resistance to it grew easier and we managed to survive the ordeal.

There were more air raids that day and the following night; six or seven at least, but after the fourth I lost count. It was now over three days since we had eaten, and the pangs of hunger were playing the very devil with us.

At what should have been breakfast-time on the Sunday morning, Teddy and I began to wonder how long it would be before we should have to chuck up the sponge. Heavy fighting was still going on somewhere to the east of us, but we agreed that
the gunfire did not sound a mile nearer than it had the previous Monday when we had first arrived at Fort Capuzzo. We knew that, both numerically and in armoured vehicles, the Italian Army was infinitely stronger than our own, so although the British had initiated the battle and succeeded in penetrating the enemy’s lines to a considerable depth, it was hardly reasonable to expect that they would be able to advance very far once the element of surprise had ceased to give them any special advantage.

We both felt ghastly, and the trouserless Paolo, with a four-days’ growth of bristly stubble on his blue chin, now looked a most repulsive object. In the last twenty-four hours he had taken a very different tone, begging us hard to see reason and end this wretched farce. He swore by all his gods that if only we would let him go he would undertake to fix it that there should be no court martial, that we should continue to be treated as ordinary prisoners of war, and even receive preferential treatment on reaching Italy; but I felt dead certain that we couldn’t trust the little rat so I didn’t believe one word he said, and neither did Teddy.

At midday Gonzaga turned up again with more tempting dishes. Our mouths positively watered, and Paolo, straining at his bonds, knelt on the floor gibbering like an animal. The food looked more delicious than anything we had ever set our eyes on but we could not smell it as, owing to lack of sanitary accommodation and the fact that we had now been confined there for so long, the cell stank to high heaven. I think we might have given in then if it hadn’t been for the fact that pride forbade us to do so spontaneously. Teddy and I owed it to ourselves to talk matters over first, and see if we could secure some sort of terms from Gonzaga before we actually confessed defeat to him.

That afternoon we did discuss it, but during the morning the guns of Fort Capuzzo had been in almost constant action and British shells of comparatively small calibre had been whining and cracking into the great desert citadel; so we felt that our troops must have advanced for another few miles at least.

We had often heard that the cravings of hunger are at their worst for the first three days, and it certainly seemed to us that the gnawing in our insides had lessened just a little since the previous night. There was no danger of our suffering from thirst, as each morning and evening the guards brought us a plentiful supply of cool refreshing well water. In consequence we determined to try to complete a week, feeling another three days to be about the maximum time that we could possibly resist Gonzaga’s
blandishments if the old devil had fresh varieties of tempting food brought to us.

On the Saturday and Sunday he had confined himself to inflicting on us only a lunch-time temptation, but on Monday morning, after a night during which guns thundered and bombs crumped hour after hour without intermission, we found to our distress that an increased strain was to be put upon our powers of resistance. Gonzaga appeared soon after we wakened and was himself carrying a large tray which held a big coffee-pot, a basket of rolls, butter, honey and something on a hot dish under a big cover.

Instead of setting it down outside the cage he called to the warder and made him unlock by hand the gate of our cell. Then with the tray thrust out in front of him he walked right in.

“Hi! Get out!” I called in sudden alarm, grabbing up the automatic and levelling it at Paolo’s head. “Halt, I say! Or I’ll blow the
tenente’s
brains out!”

Gonzaga halted, but his face was wreathed with smiles. “No need,” he said. “Et is feenish. You win, Meester Day. Fort Capuzzo ’ave surrender. You eata da good breakfast and taka me prisoner now so zey treata me good.”

For a moment we thought that it was some new trick that he was trying on us; then we realised that the guns of Fort Capuzzo were no longer in action, and that such firing as we could hear was further away to the west.

It was the 15th of December. I had been a prisoner of war for a month and five days and it was eighteen days since the date that had been fixed for my marriage to Daphnis. I felt then that had I allowed myself to be sent to Tobruk and Italy that marriage might never have taken place, but by my own determination I had won my freedom and thus ensured that the marriage upon which I had set my heart could not, after all, be long delayed.

I was so relieved and overjoyed that, having thanked Teddy Bannister a score of times for having stuck so loyally by me, I even allowed Paolo to share the magnificent omelette which was under the cover on the tray that smiling Gonzaga set before us.

As a matter of fact it was not really our fortitude which saved us but Gonzaga’s foresight in deciding to insure himself against possible eventualities. The cheerful old villain told me afterwards that if he had pretended to be sorry for us on the second or third day, and given us food without making any conditions, he could easily have first ordered the doctor to put some drug in it. Since we had not thought of that I am quite certain that we should have eaten it and could then have been overpowered during our drug-induced sleep.

But, as he said, by the third day of the offensive Sidi Barrani had been captured, and by the fourth the British had taken twenty thousand prisoners. Reports were coming in from all sides that our tank columns were moving with incredible swiftness and turning up in the most unexpected places; so by the 13th, Fort Capuzzo having been entirely surrounded, the wily old bird had formed the conclusion that it might well be forced to capitulate under threats of further devastating bombardments from the British Mediterranean Fleet. In consequence he had privately decided that Teddy Bannister and myself had now become valuable personal hostages to him, since, provided he did not treat us unfairly, we would put in a word for him if he in turn became prisoner, and he had already made up his mind to give us that breakfast on the Monday morning whether Capuzzo had capitulated by then or not.

Unfortunately neither Teddy nor I was in a situation to do much for him by the time a crowd of lusty young Australians entered the prison, and with terrifying yells drove all its guards into a corner at the point of the bayonet. After starving for four days that rich and luscious omelette had proved too much for us. We two and Paolo were sweating with agony and rolling about with acute stomach-ache. However, when an officer came to our cell, where Gonzaga was doing his best for us, I pulled myself together sufficiently to explain that we had not been poisoned or maltreated, and that the Governor had proved a good friend. Later I wrote to Essex Pasha telling him the story of my capture and asking that the ex-head waiter should have any little amenities granted to him which might ameliorate his captivity.

Paolo, Teddy and I were carried away by the Australians to
the prison infirmary, where we spent the next two days in bed recruiting our strength after the privation which we had suffered. My first act, naturally, was to write a long letter to Daphnis, telling her all that had happened to me and that I was applying for leave immediately in order that we could celebrate our postponed wedding. My second was to make a formal application for leave on the grounds that it was now long overdue. Teddy Bannister also put in an application, although he had been on leave just before his capture, on the grounds of his imprisonment and that he was to be my best man.

The result was far from what we had expected and bitterly disappointing to myself. His leave was granted whereas my application was rejected.

An intelligence officer had taken statements from us both on the Monday afternoon, and it was through him that we had put in our applications for leave. On the Wednesday morning he came to the infirmary again to break the bad news to me personally.

“You see, Day,” he said, “all you interpreters have had a darn’ easy time so far during this war. But now we need every Italian-speaking officer we’ve got to tackle the prisoners. We’re roping in thousands of the blighters every day, and even by working from dawn till dusk we can’t question one in ten of them properly; so you see you can’t possibly be spared. It’s hard luck that being taken prisoner forced you to postpone your marriage, but the Brigadier is quite adamant about it. He says that you shall have your leave as soon as it can be managed after the situation becomes static; but as long as the offensive continues it will be useless for you to renew your application.”