For King and Country. David Monnery

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      ‘Let’s hope there’s a Lyons Corner House where X marks the spot,’ said McCaigh.

      At first there seemed to be only a bare hillside, and that hardly seemed the ideal place to wait for their comrades, rain or no rain. But then fortune smiled on the four men, lifting a swirl of mist like a curtain to reveal a small chapel set amid a grove of oak trees. From the outside it looked ruined, but inside they found a simple altar set on a stone plinth in an otherwise bare chamber.

      This was as good a place as anywhere to sit out the day, Farnham decided. There were no roads nearby, and the other two would have a good chance of finding them. Best of all, it was dry.

      ‘Cup of tea for breakfast?’ McCaigh suggested.

      He was just pouring the first cup when the door opened and the two Italians walked in.

      The newcomers looked almost reproachfully at the Sten gun that Rafferty was pointing in their direction. ‘Friend,’ the older of the two said economically, in Italian. He was probably in his forties, with greying hair, a weathered face and eyes that even at this moment seemed full of amusement. His companion was a young man barely out of his teens, still apparently struggling to grow a full moustache.

      ‘Enzio,’ the older man said, tapping himself on the chest. ‘Giancarlo,’ he added, pointing at the other. ‘American?’ he asked, offering two open palms to the four SAS men.

      ‘We are English,’ Farnham told him in reasonably adequate Italian. He’d been learning the language on and off since 1941, partly to fill in the periods of boredom endemic to army life, partly to maximize his chances of being selected for exactly this sort of mission. And he had to admit that during the last six months in Italy he had developed a definite hankering to return here when the war was over.

      Enzio beamed at his linguistic proficiency, though Giancarlo seemed a bit disappointed that they were not Americans.

      ‘You are the men who blew up the bridge in San Severino,’ the older man half stated, half asked.

      There didn’t seem much point in denying it. ‘We did,’ Farnham agreed, wondering how the news had reached the middle of nowhere so fast.

      ‘We are partisans,’ Enzio said, as if in explanation. ‘We have people in the town.’

      ‘How did you find us here?’ Farnham asked.

      Enzio smiled. ‘You were seen at San Giuseppe, and followed here,’ he explained. ‘By a six-year-old,’ he added, his eyes almost dancing with amusement.

      Farnham had the grace to laugh.

      ‘But you cannot stay here,’ Enzio went on. ‘This is a holy place, and some people will not understand. You must come to the village, dry your clothes, have something good to eat, and then we can talk about your plans. You will be safe there,’ he added, seeing the look of doubt on Farnham’s face. ‘The Germans are not likely to come, but if they do there will be warning. They cannot surprise us.’

      Farnham smiled. ‘This is very generous of you,’ he told the Italian, ‘but first I must talk to my men.’

      ‘Of course,’ Enzio said.

      Farnham turned to the others. ‘They say they’re partisans. They’re offering us shelter, food and somewhere to dry out. If they’re who they say they are then they’ll be able to help us get to the sea. And if the others don’t turn up they’ll probably have ways of finding out what’s happened to them. What do you reckon?’

      ‘Do you think they’re the genuine article?’ Rafferty asked.

      ‘Yes,’ Farnham said without hesitation.

      ‘Then why not?’

      ‘Sounds good to me,’ McCaigh said. ‘Especially the bit about drying out.’

      ‘We shall be honoured,’ Farnham told Enzio.

      The two Italians escorted them back across the rainswept hillside to the village, and as they walked down the only street the doorways seemed full of curious eyes. Their destination was a large barn that had obviously been built to withstand the winter weather, for inside it was dry and relatively warm. Enzio left them for a few minutes, and then returned with a pile of dry clothes in varying sizes. Not long after that two oldish women arrived with a pot of steaming noodle soup and two loaves of freshly baked bread, all of which left the four men feeling truly warm for the first time since their departure from Salerno three nights before.

      Every now and then the door would inch open to reveal one or more children staring in at them. One young girl, probably no more than six years old, with dark, saucer-like eyes seemed unable to drag herself away.

      ‘But where are they keeping the older sisters?’ McCaigh wondered out loud.

      ‘They’ve probably been locked up for the duration of your visit,’ Rafferty told him.

      ‘Ah, fame,’ McCaigh said dreamily.

      ‘We should get some sleep,’ Farnham said, interrupting the reverie. His instincts told him the Italians were trustworthy, but he wasn’t about to lower their guard completely. ‘I’ll take first watch,’ he added, and it seemed only seconds before the barn was echoing to satisfied snores. Farnham sat with his back against a stall, running through the events of the past twelve hours. He couldn’t pretend he had liked Morgan – he’d always thought of him as one of those men who found it hard to imagine a world without them – but there was no doubting that the man had been tailor-made for the SAS.

      Life was so easy to snuff out. One moment a whole person, in all his or her bewildering complexity, and the next – nothing. Unless of course you believed in an afterlife, and Farnham was pretty sure he didn’t. It would have been nice to believe that a life in heaven had saved Catherine from extinction, but only for his own sake. She would have found it boring.

      The morning went by. Farnham took a brief look around outside – he needed some idea of where they were – but otherwise kept to the safety of the barn. More food arrived early in the afternoon, this time accompanied by a jug of wine, from which he poured four conservative measures. This didn’t seem the time or place for dulling their brains or motor skills.

      Soon after dark Enzio returned, a stern look on his face. ‘The Germans have captured them,’ he said without preamble.

      Farnham’s heart sank but he wasn’t surprised. ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

      ‘They are being held in the town hall. They have been there most of the day – the story is that they walked straight into a German patrol in the darkness.’

      ‘Are they being treated as prisoners of war?’ Farnham asked anxiously. Late in 1942 Hitler had ordered the execution of all commandos captured behind enemy lines, regardless of whether or not they were in uniform. In Africa Rommel had ignored the order, but on at least two recent occasions German commanders in Italy had carried it out.

      Enzio didn’t know. ‘The Army captured them, but the men in leather coats arrived this afternoon.’ He shrugged.

      Farnham’s heart sank again. If they were being questioned by the Gestapo, then torture was a real possibility. That would be bad enough in itself, but both men knew СКАЧАТЬ