Luciano's Luck (12 page)

It was an ornate brightly coloured picture of a young man hanging by his ankles from a tree. 'The Hanged Man,' she said. 'Interesting. No such symbol exists in orthodox Christianity. Equal for man or woman. The individual is torn between two selves, the same and yet not the same. Symbol of a sacrificial victim since pagan times. You suffer for others, that is your destiny.' Maria stood up. 'Goodbye, Katerina Scorza. I don't think we shall see each other again." She went inside and Luciano and Savage moved to the table. Luciano took the cards from her and said to Savage, 'A very superstitious people, we Sicilians.' He counted out seven cards and turned the last one over. It was a six-spoked wooden wheel, a crudely drawn dragon above it. 'The Wheel of Fortune,' she said. 'The symbol of inner order. You have cast yourself free from the bonds of society.' 'Seen through the bars of a prison cell, of course.' Luciano turned to Savage. 'If I was paying Gypsy Rose in a tent at Coney Island, I'd really think I'd had my money's worth.' Savage said, 'What about me?' Looking up at him, Katerina's eyes clouded and there was an unwillingness that Luciano sensed, if Savage did not. 'I'm tired,' she said. 'One can give only so much.' 'Just tell me whether I'm lucky in love,' he said. 'That will do.' She hesitated, then took the pack and counted, turning over the seventh card long enough to glance at it. She put it back on top of the pack. 'Great happiness results from a marriage or birth. The Three of Cups in an upright position.' soi 'Here, let me look.' He reached for the card and turned it over. Two ornate birds perched on the rim of a golden goblet, each holding a smaller cup in a claw. He laughed excitedly. 'Well, what do you know? Can I keep this? There's someone I'd very much like to show it to.' He slipped it into his breast pocket and said to Luciano, 'If it's in the cards, it's in the cards, isn't that so?' He was smiling excitedly as he went back inside. Katerina reached for the pack and Luciano grabbed her, wrist, twisting until she opened her hand disclosing the' card she had palmed. It fell to the table between them. Death stared up, crudely depicted, a skeleton, scything no field of corn, but a crop of human bodies. In the living room, Carter stood by the fire confronting Luca. 'Is there no way I can persuade you, Don Antonio?' 'Those friends of yours in Cairo or wherever it is, must -be very stupid. Did they really think that the sight of my grand-daughter coming in through the door would make me change my opinion in this matter?' He poured himself a glass of Zibibbo with great care. 'Why, that in itself would be enough to make me say no, even if I had not intended to in the first place.' 'Don Antonio, men will die,' Carter said urgently. 'A habit they have,' Luca told him. Carter turned angrily to Luciano, who lounged in the window. 'A waste of bloody time, the whole thing, just like you said. We might as well get going. The sooner we return to Bellona, the better.' He went out and Luciano helped himself to wine. He sniffed the bouquet approvingly. 'Hate and love - it's a thin line. You should remember that.' 'Not for her.' 'A remarkable girl. I thought that when I first met her 8O8 in that convent in Liverpool. Since then, she's parachuted into enemy territory by night, faced death many times, been hunted through the mountains ...' Don Antonio said. 'So she's my grand-daughter. Half a Luca, whether she likes it or not. Blood of my blood and she can't escape that, whatever she thinksof me, but I will not do what Carter's people want. This war is not my war. It will pass as the wind passes. Sicily will be free again and things will be as they were.' Maria said from the doorway, 'We're ready to move, Mr Luciano.' Luca sat there, no expression on his face, no emotion. Luciano put down his glass and moved to the door. She started to turn and he said softly, 'He's an old man. He may think otherwise, but without you, there is nothing.' She stared up at him for a moment, then something moved in the eyes. She turned and crossed to Luca and knelt in front of him. Her words, when they came, were pure Sicilian, a ritual as old as time itself. 'I go on a long journey, grandfather. I seek your blessing.' Luca was transfixed, his iron features dissolving. Almost as a reflex, he placed a hand on her head and replied with the same ritual words. 'Go with God, go in peace, go with my love and return in safety.' She stood up, leaned forward and kissed him gently on both cheeks, then turned and walked out, brushing past Luciano. Luca sat there, staring blindly into space, tears in his eyes. Luciano went forward and kissed his right hand as a mark of respect. Luca whispered, 'Can it be that she still loves me in spite of everything?' Luciano put a hand on his shoulder. 'Old friend, she never stopped.' i6 Detweiler's body was racked by convulsions as he bucked and twisted, heaving against the chair to which he was tied. It took three of the Ukrainians to hold him still. Meyer said, 'I'll ask you again. Where did you get the American weapons from?' Detweiler's eyes bulged and there was froth on his lips., He tried to speak, wanted to tell them everything, but the words wouldn't come. Meyer said, 'Give him another ten cc's.' 'I'm not sure if he can take it, Major,' Suslov said. 'I've seen them like this before. It's like a dam building up. The , heart...' 'Get on with it,' Meyer said impatiently. Suslov jabbed in the needle. Detweiler went into another convulsion, lost his balance and fell over, still strapped to the chair. 'For Christ's sake 1' Suslov said angrily and kicked him in the body. And the dam finally burst inside Detweiler in a great aching scream and he cried out in English, 'No more 1 No more!' Meyer turned from the window, thunderstruck. 'He's American.' Suslov and his men had Detweiler upright in the chair again and Meyer leaned over him, shaking him by the shoulders. 'Who are you?' he asked in English. Detweiler sat there, eyes glazed and Meyer turned to the desk and quickly refilled the hypodermic. 204 Suslov said, 'Another shot will kill him, Major. I've never known anyone survive such a massive dosage.' Detweiler seemed to calm down after the final injection. He sat there in the chair, head slumped on his chest and Meyer waited. Finally, he leaned forward and tilted Det-weiler's chin up. 'Now then, who are you?' he said again in English. Detweiler tried hard, something moving in the eyes. The mouth parted and he said hoarsely, 'Sergeant Joseph Detweiler, Ranger Division, on detachment from the Twenty-first Specialist Raiding Force.' Meyer pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. His voice, when he next spoke, was soft and gentle. 'I see, Sergeant. That's very interesting. Tell me more.' Twice on the way to Agrigento, Koenig and Guzzoni, travelling in the general's staff car, had to take shelter in trees at the side of the road when military convoys, en route for the coast, were strafed by RAF Hawker Typhoons, whose cannon inflicted severe damage. Before reaching Agrigento, they called at the coastal defence command post for the section of the coast bordering the Sicilian Channel. Koenig waited in the car. When Guzzoni returned, he looked glum. 'Not good,' he said as they drove on into Agrigento. 'They're hitting harbours and airports hard and Messina has taken a real pasting. They estimate five thousand tons of bombs at least. Something's up, that's obvious.' They were driving along the coast road and Koenig looked out to sea. The waves were already lifting into white caps. 'Well, if they're coming, I don't envy them. Hell in those landing craft in this weather.' 'On the other hand, how far would you say you could see out to sea at the moment?' Guzzoni asked. 'Six or seven hundred yards? There could be an armada out there now ready to pounce.' Koenig said delicately, 'Do we assume that the enemy must succeed with his landing?' Guzzoni said, 'That is quite impossible, I assure you. Mussolini has ordered us to wipe out the invader before he can break through inland.' 'Indeed?' Koenig said drily. 'Yes, I believe the phrase was, as he takes off his bathrobe and before he has time to get dressed.' 'The enemy or the Duce?' Koenig enquired. Guzzoni laughed heartily. 'That's really very good. Have a cigarette,' and he offered his carved ivory case. It was long after lunch and the officers' mess at the Agri-gento barracks was empty when General Guzzoni and Koenig went in. The barman hurried to serve them and they took a corner table and waited while he opened a bottle of Chianti. ' Rudi Brandt came in, glanced around quickly, then approached and saluted smartly. 'My apologies, Colonel, but might I have a word?' Guzzoni waved his hand. 'Carry on, by all means.' Koenig walked to the window with Brandt. 'I saw you come in, Colonel and came straight over. There's something going on to do with that prisoner. The suspected partisan.' 'I gave orders that he was to be left alone until I returned,' Koenig said. 'I don't know what happened but he's dead. I was tipped off by one of the attendants from the infirmary mortuary. But more than that, Major Meyer's left instructions that I notify him the moment you arrive.' There was a quick step in the doorway and Meyer appeared. He carried a folder in one hand. Koenig said, 'I told you that the prisoner brought in the other day would be dealt with by me on my return. I now find he's lying in the infirmary, dead.' gj| in 206 Meyer offered Guzzoni the folder. 'Read that, Hen-General, and see who has behaved in the most responsible manner. Me or the Colonel.' Guzzoni, frowning, opened the file. He scanned the first page and his eyes widened. He looked up. 'Is this true?' 'Most certainly.' Meyer turned to Koenig. 'This ragged peasant who you treated with such consideration, Colonel. Do you know who he was? A sergeant in the American Ranger Division.' Koenig turned to Guzzoni, who nodded. 'According to this he parachuted in with a party two nights ago. He became separated from the others and landed in the wrong valley.' 'Read it, why don't you?' Meyer said. 'Your old friend Carter, a Colonel now, it seems, who you let slip through your fingers last time, and some interesting companions.' Guzzoni passed the file to Koenig who moved to the window to read it. After a while, he turned. 'How did you obtain this information?' Meyer shrugged. 'Does it matter?' 'To me it does. I'd be interested to see the condition of i the body.' Guzzoni said, 'Colonel, the morality of what has occured here is one thing, but the facts are something else again. To speak plainly, there is considerable merit in this plan to enlist Mafia aid on the side of the Americans in the coming invasion. From what Detweiler admitted in his interrogation, the man, Luciano, is dead, but Colonel Carter still has the daughter of Antonio Luca in his charge. Luca holds immense power in Sicily, believe me. If he falls in with their wishes, then anything is possible.' 'Perhaps he already has,' Koenig said. Guzzoni spread his hands. 'On the other hand, they have not had a great deal of time to operate. I suggest we proceed on the assumption that they haven't. This monastery they are using as a base, Crown of Thorns near Bellona. Do you know it?' _ 'Yes,' Koenig told him. 'The Franciscans of Crown of Thorns,' Guzzoni said. 'Now I remember. There was a considerable scandal several years ago. A trial in Palermo. The Mafia monks, the newspapers called them. You could have trouble there.' 'With respect, Herr General, I don't really think so/ Meyer said. 'I can be up there in four hours. We'll be through the front gate before they know what's hit them. If Carter and his people are still here, we'll root them out, believe me.' Koenig laughed harshly. 'You wouldn't get within ten miles of the place before they knew you were coming. Every shepherd on the mountain, every goatherd, is in some way involved with the resistance movement. They have a signalling system from crag to crag. A normal approach would be quite impossible.' Meyer started to protest and Guzzoni cut him off impatiently 'Colonel Koenig, in this kind of soldiering you are second to none, that is a known fact. Is there any way at all, in your opinion, in which Colonel Carter and his party might be apprehended, particularly the lady in question, Luca's grand-daughter, this Sister Maria Vaughan. Her capture is of primary importance.' He smiled gently. 'I need also, I trust, hardly stress the necessity for delicate treatment in her case. We don't wish to offend the Vatican if it can be avoided.' 'But General,' Meyer protested, 'the woman is a spy and as such liable to be shot under the rules of the Geneva Convention.' 'A question of attitude, I suppose,' Guzzoni said. 'We Italians perhaps take a different view of these matters, but then, we are an old race.' He selected a cigarette from his ivory case. 'Well, Colonel?' Brandt, who had stood by silently all this time, stepped so8 smartly forward and gave him a light. Koenig said, 'There is a way, General. A parachute drop.' 'Could it be done?' 'I'm not sure. I'd need some advice on that. With your permission?' Guzzoni nodded and Koenig said to Brandt. 'Get a message through to Colonel Kubel at Otranto Luftwaffe base. Present General Guzzoni's compliments and ask him to get here as quickly as he can.' Brandt turned smartly on heel and went out on the double. 'Excellent/ Guzzoni said. 'Now, as we last ate in Palermo, I suggest some late lunch.' He turned to Meyer. 'And -you, Major, must be about your duties, I'm sure.' 'Herr General - Colonel.' Meyer turned and marched out stiffly. Wolf Kubel was twenty-five and already a full colonel, Gruppenkommandant at Otranto and responsible for three Stafflen. He had seen combat service in Poland and Norway, had shot down sixty-nine enemy aircraft over the Channel and England by the end of 1941. In Russia, he had achieved even greater distinction, adding another eighty-four to his total until a bad crash had necessitated the amputation of his left leg. Not that this had deterred him; he had returned to combat flying within six weeks until he had been relegated to a desk job on Goering's personal order. He had very fair hair, a handsome, rather dashing young man in an old black leather Luftwaffe flying jacket who wore the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds at his throat. He leaned over the large scale map in Koenig's office, a frown on his face. 'Lousy flying country.' 'Could it be done?' Guzzoni demanded. 'Getting there is no problem - no more than fifteen L.L.-H 209 minutes' flying time from Otranto - but it's getting this madman and his men on target worries me. I mean, you want someone to fly up that valley at four hundred feet and drop your men inside the walls of this damn monastery.' He shook his head. 'As good a way of committing suicide as I've heard of.' Koenig said to
Guzzoni. 'General, my men are a special breed. Six jumps earns the paratroopers' qualification badge and after that, never less than six a year if he wishes to keep it. We make a speciality of jumping from under four hundred feet. Is this not so, Sergeant?' he said to Brandt. Guzzoni said to Kubel, 'Are you saying that it can't be done?' 'Not at all, Herr General. A Junkers 5a, doing no more than a hundred miles an hour, would be the thing, but they'd have to get out damn fast.' 'A dawn drop to catch them wholly by surprise,' Koenig said. 'Not the best time for flying in the mountains.' Kubel rubbed his chin. 'Which means you're going to need the best pilot I've got.' He grinned. 'Not that I mind. I could do with a little action.' 'Twenty men including myself,' Koenig said. 'No time for more than that number to jump over the target, but it should suffice.' 'And what of my command?' Meyer, who had been standing silently by, asked. 'Leave here in the early hours of the morning, approach under cover of darkness. No more than twenty men. You wait here at the head of the valley.' He indicated the place with his finger. 'Make your move when you see the Junkers pass overhead. By the time you reach the monastery, we should be in control and the gates open;' 'An excellent plan,' Guzzoni said. 'Which seems to cover all contingencies. Wouldn't you agree. Major?' 'So it would appear. General,' Meyer said. 810 � 'Good.' Guzzoni slapped his thigh. 'Well, I've got things to attend to. I'll try and see you off in the morning, Koenig. Until then.' Meyer moved to the door. Koenig said, *A moment, Major.' Meyer turned. 'Well?' 'I am in command of this operation. I use you and your men with considerable reluctance, but for good or ill, they will follow my orders. Is that clear?' 'Perfectly, Colonel,' Meyer said calmly. 'May I go now?' 'Of course.' Meyer went out and Rudi Brandt said, 'You've got trouble there.' 'Never mind that now,' Koenig said. 'We've more important things to consider. You and me, Rudi, which means selecting another eighteen. You can handle that dirty job for me. You won't be popular with the men who stay behind.' 'That's what sergeant-majors are for, Colonel.' Brandt saluted and went out. In the cubbyhole behind the cofiin room at the mortuary, Harry Carter sat at the radio. He finished transmitting and waited for a reply. After a while, he took off the headphones. As he lit a cigarette, the secret door opened and Vito Barbera came in. 'Well?' he asked. "They're on their way.' 'In this weather? It's blowing up a real storm out there.' 'All the better when they hit the coast.' 'What did you tell them?' 'About Luca? Mission a failure.' He started to cough over the cigarette and there was that sudden sharp pain in his lung again. Vito said, 'Half a loaf's better than none, Harry. I'll call a meeting of the district committee for tonight. Father 211 Collura, Verga, those two Reds. Warn every man to oil his guii and be ready to move tomorrow.' 'And Mafia?' 'In the Bellona valley, I speak for Mafia,' Vito said simply. 'Luciano and Captain Savage have taken Maria up to Crown of Thorns. Better you spend the night up there, too, Harry. You're not looking too good. I'll come up in the morning.' 'AH right.' Carter got up and Vito Barbera led the way out through the coffin room. They passed through the waiting mortuary and Barbera opened the door to the street. It was pouring with rain, everything out of focus, the houses, the mountain beyond. He went and untether-ed Carter's mule and led it to the door. Carter was seized with a violent paroxysm of coughing. He leaned against the doorpost, holding a grimy handkerchief to his mouth. When he examined it, he saw that it was stained with blood. He held it out to Barbera and tried to smile. 'Ain't life grand?' 'Come on, Harry,' Barbera said gently. 'The sooner you're up there, the better. Maria will know what to do.' Carter clambered up, sitting sideways on the wooden saddle. He reached for the reins and managed a smile. 'Suddenly I feel tired, Vito, really tired. You know what I mean?' 'I know, old friend, I know,' Barbera said sadly. Carter kicked his heel against the mule's belly and moved away across the square. Padre Giovanni, a large black umbrella protecting him from the rain, was feeding the pigeons on the battlement when Luciano came up the steps. 'How is Colonel Carter?' the old man asked. Luciano stood under the overhanging eaves of the hut' to avoid the worst of the rain and offered him a cigarette. 'Not good. High fever, something close to pneumonia. Maria says he probably needs surgery and he certainly isn't going to get that here.' 'Remember the Americans will get here soon. He'll have the best of treatment then. The finest doctors.' 'If he lives that long.' Luciano looked out at the mountains, shrouded in rain. 'Crazy when you think of it. It's only a few weeks since the guy took a bullet in the lung. He should have been invalided out, back tq that university of his.' 'He is an exceptional man, I think.' Padre Giovanni said. 'For some people, moral decisions come out of a personal evaluation of what is right against what is wrong. Frequently, circumstances modify their actions.' 'What you mean, Father, is they won't do what's right if it looks as if it might prove unhealthy for them.' Padre Giovanni nodded. 'Colonel Carter, on the other hand, does what he does because he can do no other.' 'Here I stand,' Luciano said. 'Isn't that what Martin Luther said? People like that can make life damned uncomfortable for the rest of us.' The door opened in the small courtyard below and Maria came out. She had on an old raincoat over her shoulders and looked tired as she came up the steps. 'How is he?' Luciano asked. 'Not good. Medical supplies in the emergency kits we carried are limited. I've given him morphine for the pain and the monastery clinic was able to supply me with quinine. I've given him a heavy dose of that. It should help reduce the fever.' 'Will that be enough?' 'No. In my opinion, the lung is ulcerated. I suspect the original wound didn't get a chance to heal properly, mainly because of a lack of any kind of convalescence.' �'I'll go and sit with him for a while/ Padre Giovanni said. 'That would be a kindness, Father.' The old man went down the steps and Maria and Luciano stood there under the eaves, looking out across the valley as evening fell. 'So here we are,' Luciano said. 'A hell of a lot of effort that seems to have added up to a considerable waste of time.' 'Perhaps,' she said. The wind dashed rain across the pantiled roofs. Luciano said, 'A long way from Liverpool and that convent of yours.' 'Oh, yes,' she said. 'Too far to go back.' There was an expression of infinite sadness on her face when she looked up at him. 'I know that now.' Luciano couldn't think of a thing to say. He stood there, watching her go back down the steps to the courtyard and disappear through the door. By four o'clock in the morning, under cover of darkness, Meyer and his men in an armoured troop carrier and three kubelwagens had taken up position in the pine forest at the south end of the valley some five miles from Crown of Thorns. Suslov joined Meyer beside the front vehicle, glancing at his watch. 'They should be taking off in one hour exactly at five o'clock.' There was a paleness in the sky beyond the mountains and Meyer looked up at the monastery through Zeiss night-glasses. 'Is this going to work?' Major Suslov asked. 'Of course it is,' Meyer said. 'I don't like Koenig, I make no secret of the fact. I don't think he's a good German and I have heard him make remarks which indicate a certain contempt for the Fiihrer, but he is also a soldier of genius. If anyone can pull this off, he can.' 'And afterwards?' 214 Meyer turned and smiled coldly. 'Oh, that, of course, is quite another matter.' At the Otranto Luftwaffe base, rain swept across the tarmac in solid sheets, but the three engines of the Junkers 52 were already ticking over. Kubel leaned out of the cockpit window and raised a thumb. The men, in Brandt's charge, were already on board and Koenig stood beside the open hatch with Guzzoni. He wore a paratrooper's camouflage smock in the SS pattern. A machine pistol was suspended across his chest. Guzzoni said, 'It would appear he thinks it's still on in spite of this wretched weather. You really think you can jump in conditions like this?' 'They jumped at Maleme, they dropped into Stalingrad. They'd jump into hell if I told them to.' Koenig saluted. 'And now, I think, Kubel is getting impatient.' Guzzoni grasped his hand warmly. 'What can I say?' 'Nothing, I suspect, would be perfectly adequate in the circumstances.' Koenig placed the end of his static line between his teeth and climbed into the Junkers. The hatch was closed and Guzzoni stepped back. Kubel increased engine revs and the Junkers moved away into the rain and darkness. The flare path had not been lit due to the ever-present chance of an Allied air-strike. The lights switched on now for the final run only. The roaring of the engines filled the morning as Kubel boosted power and the Junkers skimmed along the runway, rain spraying up in great waves on either side. Guzzoni watched it lift above the trees and fade into the grey morning. He shivered, pulling his cloak around him, and turned away. At the monastery, Carter slept fitfully, his hands clutching sheets that were drenched in his own sweat. Maria, on the chair beside him, slept the sleep of total exhaustion. The blanket she had wrapped around herself had slipped to the floor. Luciano, sitting in the window seat, crossed to her side, picked up the blanket and covered her. The wind moaned eerily around the battlements. He lit a cigarette and stood, peering out through the window, suddenly uneasy. Savage was so tired he hadn't bothered to undress, simply lay on the small bed in one of the monks' cells and was instantly asleep. He couldn't remember when Rosa joined him, but when he awakened, just before dawn, he found her lying in the crook of his arm. She stirred sleepily, 'Savage, is that you?' 'Who else would it be?' She smiled, still half-asleep, then raised her head. "What's that? I thought I heard something.' 'The wind,' he said. 'Just the wind. Go back to sleep.' She closed her eyes again and turned her face into his : shoulder, smiling. S I Flying at one thousand feet the view was spectacular in the dawn light in spite of the heavy rain. Chains of mountains, peaks and ridges on every hand, the valleys dark with shadow. Sitting beside the hatch, Koenig looked down the line of his men, anonymous in the dim light in helmets and camouflaged jump jackets and parachutes. No bulky equipment this time, no supply bags. Each man carried a Schmeisser across his chest, ammunition pouches, grenades. 'How many times have we done this, Rudi?' he asked Brandt, who sat next to him. 'God knows,' Brandt said. 'Narvik was the first, I know that, but in between is a blur. Too many good men gone.' 'Yes,' Koenig said. 'Sometimes I think that's all we have, our dead.' 'No, Colonel,' Brandt said firmly. 'We have each other. We have the Regiment. We have you.' My God, Koenig thought. Is that all we're left with after so much suffering? Is that what it was really all about? He looked out of the window and saw the jagged peak of Monte Cammarata, the western slope. They started to descend rapidly. A jagged ridge seemed to bar their way, the Junkers lifted as Kubel eased back the stick, the spine of rock no more than fifty feet beneath them as they slipped over it. And there was the Bellona valley below them, the river runing through pine trees, the rain and mist so heavy that 317 it was impossible to see Bellona itself or Crown of Thorns at the other end of the valley. Kubel swung into the wind, the tip of his starboard wing breathtakingly close to the rock face. Koenig got up, moved along the fuselage and leaned in the cockpit. 'What do you think?' 'I think it stinks. If you want to go through with it, I'll play along, but you only get one chance, remember that, and when you go, go together and very fast or you'll miss the target altogether.' 'Understood.' "Right - you've got approximately two minutes.' Koenig moved back along the line. 'On your feet and let's get ready.' Brandt opened the hatch as they stood and clipped on their static lines, each man checking his neighbour. The Junkers descended even further and then everything happened at once. As the light flared above the hatch, they roared across the village and Wolf Kubel banked to starboard. There was Crown of Thorns, the road snaking up the side of the valley to the great gate. 'Now I' Koenig cried, even before they'd reached the outer wall, and Brandt went out through the door, the others following him so fast that they seemed to be falling on top of each other. Then it was Koenig's turn. He plunged out, aware of the courtyard directly below him, the red pantiles of the roofs and then his parachute cracked open. He glanced up to see the Junkers fading into the rain, looked the other way and saw his men to the left and beneath him, drifting in over the wall. The essential difference between the parachutes used by the Germans and the English and Americans was that the German variety caried no shroud lines, which made any kind of manoeuvring by the parachutist impossible. This 218 explained the popularity of drops at a very low level by German forces. But the system had its disadvantages, especially in a case like this. Koenig saw two of his men vanish on the other side of the wall, a third land badly on the battlements above the gate, then fall headfirst to the courtyard below. Others had already landed in the courtyard itself, parachutes billowing, and then the red pantiles at one of the higher levels were rushing up to meet him. He braced himself for the shock, folding his arms and landed hard, smashing right through the roof. From the pine trees, Meyer watched through fieldglasses as the parachutes drifted down. 'He's done it!' 'Fifteen, by my count,' Suslov said. 'The rest are somewhere outside.' But Meyer didn't seem to hear him. 'Mount up,' he cried. 'And let's get out of here.' He nodded to the driver of his kubelwagen and they drove away rapidly. Luciano, unable to sleep, went out on the battlements just after dawn and found Padre Giovanni standing there under his old black umbrella, enjoying the first cigarette of the day. 'So, you couldn't sleep either?' he said. 'No, I guess not,' Luciano replied. 'Holy Mother of God 1' Padre Giovanni said, the smile wiped clean from his face. Luciano swung round as the Junkers appeared from the rain like a grey ghost and roared down the valley towards them at four hundred feet. And as the first paratrooper plunged into space, all became horrifyingly clear. Padre Giovanni pushed him towards the door. 'You must leave, you and the others, as quickly as possible and 219 take