The Thing Itself (19 page)

The Panzer fired a 75mm shell point-blank at the theatre.

I fell back a good five yards as part of the front wall gave way in a great billow of dust and smoke. When I scrambled to my feet again, coughing and deafened, I looked into the foyer and saw that at least six men were down. There was another roar, a deafening concussion and more of the wall fell in. The landing on which I was standing lurched away from the wall.

I scrambled off it and halfway down the stairs to the foyer. Another dozen men lay wounded or dead in the rubble and the billowing dust and smoke. Choking, I pulled my neckerchief up round my mouth.

From the foyer I could see the square fill with more tanks: Mark III, Mark IV and Mark IV Special Panzers. They opened fire and the building juddered as shell after shell punched it. The concussion deafened me.

I was scarcely able to breathe because of all the dust and smoke billowing around me. I fired on a German paratrooper who had climbed on to the turret of a tank as it tried to batter down the theatre walls. I couldn't hear my own gun firing. When Spandau and rifle fire ripped around me, I realized that the wall I had been sheltering behind no longer existed.

I ducked back and returned fire.

At nine in the morning the theatre had somehow withstood the bombardment but there were only a handful of us left alive. We were in the Dress Circle, surrounded by rubble. I was coated in dust and dirt that filled my mouth, my nostrils, my eyes, my every pore.

Then the Germans blew a huge hole in the side wall of the stalls. Soldiers swarmed through it and up the stairs towards us. Not one of them reached the Dress Circle.

They didn't try that again but the bombardment was relentless. At ten, the roof came down on us. I watched aghast as bricks, slate, plaster and beams crashed on to our heads.

Buried but still alive, I lay blinded as well as deaf. I could smell fire. With a massive effort, I struggled free of the wreckage. I couldn't see anyone else near me. I had two grenades left in my belt. I stumbled across to the jagged hole in the wall and hurled the grenades through. I followed and fell into a side street.

I tried to suck in air but my nostrils and throat were clogged. I looked down the street. A tank blocked it. I looked the other way. A dozen infantrymen were pointing their rifles at me. I lowered my weapon to the dust.

I was hurried through the streets to a villa near the
rocca
. I stumbled often. I coughed and spat up the filth I had swallowed in the theatre. At the side entrance of the villa my identity disc was taken and I was handed a pitcher of water. I glugged it eagerly, spitting and snuffling to unclog my throat and nose. My ears rang but at least I could hear again.

I was taken into the villa and down a dimly lit corridor that led into a flagged kitchen. The only light came from a broad-shaded lamp hanging very low over a long table. It obscured the three people who were sitting on its far side. They all stood, but one of them stepped to the side. It was a beautiful, raven-haired woman.

‘I am the Contessa di Bocci, Captain Tempest. Allow me to introduce my husband, Count Alfonso di Bocci.'

I nodded to the count – a ruddy-faced, stout man of middle height and middle years – and he to me. She indicated the third person.

‘And this is—'

The middle-aged man standing erect on the other side of the table thrust out his hand.

‘I'm—'

He still looked how I might look in twenty years' time.

‘We've met, actually,' I said to Eric Knowles.

W
atts was reeling and not just from the whisky he'd consumed. Years ago he'd read his father's first book, based on his heroic journey across Europe to get back to England after escaping from a Nazi concentration camp. But he'd never heard his father talk about his wartime experiences and didn't think he'd written about them. He felt an unexpected gush of pride about a man he in many ways despised.

But more astonishing than that was the mention of Chiusi. What kind of coincidence was it that Jimmy Tingley had been in this very same town to have dealings with the same family his father had been sent to protect?

Everything is connected, he murmured to himself, dialling Tingley's mobile. It went straight to voicemail.

‘Jimmy, call me when you get this or when you can. Stay safe.'

He put his phone down on the table beside the whisky bottle, now two-thirds empty, and reached for the next exercise book.

After the introductions I was taken to a room in a cellar where I fell on the cot and slept until evening. When I woke, I drank from a pitcher of water and coughed and spat for ten minutes. Then I stripped off my clothes and washed as best I could in a bowl of freezing water.

I ached in every bone and I was covered in cuts and welts and bruises. A suit, a clean shirt and a pair of tennis shoes had been set on a chair whilst I slept. I put them on. They weren't a bad fit, although I felt slightly ridiculous in the plimsolls. But then I felt I had gone through the looking glass. This wasn't the usual way captured enemy were treated.

Someone must have been watching me, because no sooner was I dressed than the door opened and an Italian militiaman escorted me back to the kitchen. The three were sitting at the table as if they had never moved. As if, indeed, they only came alive when I came into the room.

‘My suit fits you well enough,' Knowles said. ‘I thought it might be tight on you.'

They ushered me to a seat on the other side of the table and food and a glass of wine were placed before me.

‘Perhaps I should explain that the count arranged that any prisoners be brought to him first. He is on good terms with the Germans and the German commander is clear-sighted enough to see that the count will have to come to an accommodation with the Allies when the occupying force withdraws, as it will inevitably do. But then to stumble upon you, Captain Tempest, the very man sent to protect him. Well . . .'

‘You knew I was coming?' I said, inhaling greedily the strong smell of the food set before me.

‘But, of course,' Knowles said. ‘I have been negotiating for the arrival of someone like you for some time.'

‘Let Captain Tempest eat,' the contessa said, laying a hand on that of Knowles for a moment.

I thanked her and picked up my fork. I was ravenously hungry. I ate quickly, washing the meal down with the rough red wine that soon had my cheeks burning and my senses swimming. The contessa had a small smile on her face as she watched me stuff my face. Her husband looked pained.

Knowles did most of the talking. He answered many of the questions I wanted to ask him. The first thing he impressed upon me was that he wasn't a collaborator.

‘I'm no Lord Haw-Haw,' he said. ‘I was sent to Italy before the war as the BUF's ambassador to Rome. Mussolini greeted me warmly and the state provided accommodation for me near the Spanish Steps. But I had a change of heart and became a wanderer.'

‘A wanderer?' I said between mouthfuls. ‘What kind of wanderer?'

‘I was researching the surviving pulpits of Cimabello. You know his work?'

I shook my head. The count, obviously bored, looked at the ceiling, taking deep swallows of his drink.

‘No matter. Then I came down to Chiusi to research the wall paintings in the funeral barrows scattered around the town and was trapped here when war broke out. I have been a kind of prisoner of war, under very pleasant house arrest. First of the Italians, then of the Germans, but always in the safe keeping of the count and contessa.'

I pushed my empty plate away.

‘Thank you – and I apologize that I ate like a pig.'

The count grunted.

‘I expect the vigorous defence of the town came as an unpleasant surprise to you,' Knowles said.

‘The Germans handled their defences well,' I said evenly.

‘The reason the town was defended so strenuously is Hitler's belief that there is a great tomb beneath the city. Hitler himself ordered the field commander to retain the town at whatever cost until it is located. As you possibly know, Herr Hitler is keen to acquire some of the world's most sacred relics from every corner of his everlasting Reich.'

‘I'm aware he loots treasures from occupied countries for Germany.'

‘Sometimes it is a little more than that. If the object is said to have magical powers . . .'

I'd read about Hitler's determination to get a Christian relic, the spear of Longinus, for its supposed magical properties. The man really was as mad as a March hare but much more dangerous.

I mentioned the Longinus spear. Knowles nodded.

‘Ah yes, the Roman centurion who attended Jesus on the cross and the spear he is said to have thrust into Christ's side. Such nonsense.'

‘And you've been helping the Germans loot relics?'

Knowles looked almost comically aghast.

‘I don't pilfer.'

I took another glug of wine.

‘Is the tomb beneath Chiusi also nonsense?'

Knowles glanced at the count and the contessa.

‘Well, that remains to be seen.'

The count broke in.

‘It is the mausoleum of Porsena. You have heard of him?'

‘Vaguely.'

‘Porsena was Etruria's greatest king. He was buried in a golden chariot pulled by six golden horses, his weapons and his fabulous treasure piled all around him. The tomb was concealed in the centre of a labyrinth. Whoever finds his tomb will have found one of the wonders of the world. Tutankhamen's tomb would pale by comparison.'

‘I wouldn't have thought, as an Italian patriot, you would want such a find to be looted by the Nazis,' I said to the count.

He glanced at Knowles, who looked down at the table, then looked back at me for a long moment.

‘They must find it first.' He gestured at me. ‘And time is running out.'

I nodded vaguely. A moment before, exhaustion had washed over me like a wave. The wine and fatigue had made me bleary.

‘I think the major needs to rest,' the contessa said.

‘My dear fellow, of course you must,' the count said. ‘I'm sorry you are in a cellar but we all are until we are sure the Allied bombardment has ended. When it is over, you will, of course, have a room upstairs.'

Over the next two days I continued to feel that I had gone through the looking glass. I could see from the windows of the villa that the Allied bombardment had done severe damage to the town. Buildings were reduced to rubble, the Etruscan arch had collapsed, streets were blocked by fallen masonry. But the weather had cleared, the sun shone brightly and the shelling had stopped. The townspeople, who had been hiding in the catacombs for the duration of the attack, had returned to take up their lives as best they could. I scarcely saw a German soldier, and never in the villa, which was guarded by Italian militiamen.

I found myself a participant in a bizarre house party, hosted by the count and contessa. As prisoners of war, Knowles and I were restricted on our honour to the villa, but were free to go wherever we wanted within it. I wanted to talk to Knowles about things from before the war but I never found him on his own. On the third morning I did find the count, morosely gazing out of a window overlooking the church, a jug of wine before him. It was ten a.m.

He invited me to join him and I didn't refuse. What the hell – it was wartime. You grabbed at life wherever you could find it.

‘You will protect me from the partisans when the Germans leave.' The count said it as a statement as he handed me a beaker of red wine.

‘I will be here to see there is justice done, yes.'

The count looked anxiously at me. He had been a good-looking man but in his middle years he had thickened, become jowly. His eyes were red-rimmed, broken veins clustered on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

‘Justice,' he sneered. ‘Those communist bastards just want to share in what others have worked for years to build up. Nobody in this town supports them. And anyone will tell you I haven't done anything wrong. The Germans have treated us decently. More than decently.'

Franca, the contessa, entered the room. She glanced at the flask of wine but didn't acknowledge it.

‘Captain Tempest. You look much better this morning.' She sat on the sofa. ‘Doesn't he look better, Alfonso?'

The count's eyes flickered between his wife and me.

‘He does indeed, my dear.'

I recognized jealousy in his look. The contessa was a shapely woman and her black woollen dress emphasized her breasts and hips. She had dark, melancholy eyes and thick black hair. Her lips were full, her complexion olive. I could smell her perfume but I could also feel her sexual heat, as, I imagine, did any man who came across her.

The count indicated a tapestry behind him. It showed ships at sea, merchants standing in harbour.

‘My ancestor Guiseppe – the one wearing the hat – was a great adventurer. A man of vision. But there was none to follow him, He marks our family's greatest expansion. After him, we contracted, slowly at first, then at a greater pace. During the Risorgimento we alone in Chiusi sided with the Pope. We lost much of our fortune and earned the enmity of others. Thereafter, for a hundred years, we converted investments into cash.

‘I tried to expand. With the fascist revolution, anything seemed possible for a man of vigour and courage.' The count scowled. ‘But then the war came. And suddenly honest labour had no reward.' He looked at me, measuring me.

‘In the last century my grandfather and my father both made a little money selling antiquities they uncovered on our land. You may know we live in an area rich in Etruscan remains. I did a little of it myself before the war, selling to private collectors what I was able to discover in the tunnels that run beneath this villa. For pocket money, really.' He stopped abruptly. ‘You will protect us from the partisans when they come down from the mountains.'