Eye of the Needle(30)
“Fuck me it’s slipping!” someone shouted.
Bloggs scurried out from under with Christine held tightly to his chest. As soon as he was clear the rescuers let go of the rubble and jumped away. It fell back to earth with a sickening thud, and when Bloggs realized that that had landed on Christine, he knew she was going to die.
He carried her to the ambulance, and it took off immediately. She opened her eyes again once, before she died, and said, “You’ll have to win the war without me, kiddo.”
More than a year later, as he walked downhill from High-gate into the bowl of London, with the rain on his face mingling with the tears again, he thought the woman in the spy’s house had said a mighty truth: It makes you hate.
In war boys become men and men become soldiers and soldiers get promoted; and this is why Bill Parkin, aged eighteen, late of a boarding house in High-gate, who should have been an apprentice in his father’s tannery at Scarborough, was believed by the Army to be twenty-one, promoted to sergeant, and given the job of leading his advance squad through a hot, dry forest toward a dusty, whitewashed Italian village.
The Italians had surrendered but the Germans had not, and it was the Germans who were defending Italy against the combined British-American invasion. The Allies were going to Rome, and for Sergeant Parkin’s squad it was a long walk.
They came out of the forest at the top of a hill, and lay flat on their bellies to look down on the village. Parkin got out his binoculars and said, “What wouldn’t I fookin’ give for a fookin’ cup of fookin’ tea.” He had taken to drinking and cigarettes and women, and his language was like that of soldiers everywhere. He no longer went to prayer meetings.
Some of these villages were defended and some were not, Parkin recognized that as sound tactics—you didn’t know which were undefended, so you approached them all cautiously, and caution cost time.
The downside of the hill held little cover—just a few bushes—and the village began at its foot. There were a few white houses, a river with a wooden bridge, then more houses around a little piazza with a town hall and a clock tower. There was a clear line of sight from the tower to the bridge; if the enemy were here at all, they would be in the town hall. A few figures worked in the surrounding fields; God knew who they were. They might be genuine peasants, or any one of a host of factions: fascisti, mafia, corsos, partigianos, communisti…or even Germans. You didn’t know whose side they would be on until the shooting started.
Parkin said, “All right, Corporal.”
Corporal Watkins disappeared back into the forest and emerged, five minutes later, on the dirt road into the village, wearing a civilian hat and a filthy old blanket over his uniform. He shambled, rather than walked, and over his shoulder was a bundle that could have been anything from a bag of onions to a dead rabbit. He reached the near edge of the village and vanished into the darkness of a low cottage.
After a moment he came out. Standing close to the wall, where he could not be seen from the village, he looked toward the soldiers on the hilltop and waved: one, two, three.
The squad scrambled down the hillside into the village.
“All the houses empty, Sarge,” Watkins said.
Parkin nodded. It meant nothing.
They moved through the houses to the edge of the river. Parkin said, “Your turn, Smiler. Swim the Mississippi here.”
Private “Smiler” Hudson put his equipment in a neat pile, took off his helmet, boots and tunic, and slid into the narrow stream. He emerged on the far side, climbed the bank, and disappeared among the houses. This time there was a longer wait: more area to check. Finally Hudson walked back across the wooden bridge. “If they’re ’ere, they’re ’iding,” he said.
He retrieved his gear and the squad crossed the bridge into the village. They kept to the sides of the street as they walked toward the piazza. A bird flew off a roof and startled Parkin. Some of the men kicked open a few doors as they passed. There was nobody.
They stood at the edge of the piazza. Parkin nodded at the town hall. “Did you go inside that place, Smiler?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Looks like the village is ours, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
Parkin stepped forward to cross the piazza, and then it broke. There was a crash of rifles, and bullets hailed all around them. Someone screamed. Parkin was running, dodging, ducking. Watkins, in front of him, shouted with pain and clutched his leg. Parkin picked him up bodily. A bullet clanged off his tin hat. He raced for the nearest house, charged the door, and fell inside.
The shooting stopped. Parkin risked a look outside. One man lay wounded in the piazza: Hudson. Hudson moved, and a solitary shot rang out. Then he was still. Parkin said, “Fookin’ bastards.”
Watkins was doing something to his leg, cursing. “Bullet still in there?” Parkin said.
Watkins yelled, “Ouch!” then grinned and held something up. “Not any more.”
Parkin looked outside again. “They’re in the clock tower. You wouldn’t think there was room. Can’t be many of them.”
“They can shoot, though.”
“Yes. They’ve got us pinned.” Parkin frowned. “Got any fireworks?”
“Aye.”
“Let’s have a look.” Parkin opened Watkins’s pack and took out the dynamite. “Here. Fix a ten-second fuse.”