Tuscan Rose (51 page)

Luciano shook his head. ‘He won’t recognise me,’ he said softly. ‘I was ten when he left. I am a man now.’

‘So you will still join with his band and share the command?’

Luciano closed his eyes, trying to master his pain. ‘I have no choice. I have to think about winning this war and this is the only way we can do anything meaningful.’

Rosa wondered if it was possible that Giovanni would not recognise his own flesh and blood; and what would happen to his new-found sense of dignity if he discovered Piero and Carlo were dead—and how they had died.

The following day, when Rosa accompanied Luciano, Starling and Partridge to the Staff’s camp, she wondered about Nerezza again. Had she been too hard on her mother by assuming that she would have been a fascist? She thought of the notebook and how she had been fascinated by Nerezza when she saw her opera sets. Nerezza was a great artist. Artists are sensitive people, Rosa conjectured, she couldn’t have possibly behaved like the Marchesa. The Marchese wasn’t a fascist, so maybe his sister wouldn’t have been either. With that, Rosa began picturing how
things might have been with her mother had she lived to bring up her child. Nerezza would have been strict, Rosa thought, but we would have shared a love of music and languages. I’m not beautiful like her. Would she have been disappointed by that or have loved me all the same? She flinched when she recalled that the date of her conception had been crossed out in her mother’s notebook. But maybe that said more about what Nerezza had felt about Baron Derveaux than her? Rosa recalled how when she found out she was carrying Osvaldo’s child she had been the opposite of delighted, yet once Sibilla was born, she loved her dearly. It would have been that way with my mother, she concluded. She would have adored me the way that I adore Sibilla. It’s natural for a mother to feel that way. It is the most natural thing in the world.

Rosa felt her gut tighten when they approached the Staff’s camp. Poor Luciano, she thought. Rosa had been included in the meeting because the Staff had several women partisans—not
staffette
but actual combatants. As well as Ada and Paolina—who, Rosa realised, had been cleaning their own guns when she’d seen them the previous day—there were the maids from the Villa Scarfiotti, and two farmers’ wives who had seen their sons hanged and their houses razed to the ground. With nothing left to lose, they had joined the partisans and could shoot as well as any man. Luciano, never comfortable with women as soldiers, wanted Rosa there to ease tensions if the need arose.

The atmosphere at the camp was friendly when the representatives from the Flock arrived. ‘Welcome, comrades,’ said the second-in-command, whose battle name was the Valet. Rosa wondered if the meeting would turn sour when Luciano saw his father for the first time. Giovanni emerged from his tent and Rosa studied his face for any sign that he recognised his son. She saw none. Just the sad resignation in his eyes that belied the determination in the set of his jaw and his proud stance.

Luciano shifted on his feet, but mastered his emotions and looked Giovanni in the face.

‘So we meet,’ said Giovanni, taking Luciano’s hand and clasping him on the elbow. ‘The Falcon—I am honoured.’

Giovanni ushered the delegation into his tent and was joined by the Valet and the Cook, who, of course, was Ada.

A young boy brought the group a bottle of wine and Giovanni poured it. He turned to Luciano and Rosa thought she caught a glimmer of something in his eye but it could have been a trick of the light.

‘I have heard that you fought in Spain,’ he said. ‘And although the Republicans were defeated, you are remembered as an outstanding leader.’

‘Spain made me what I am,’ said Luciano. ‘It changed me from a political activist into a fighter. I learned everything there.’

Giovanni raised his eyebrow and smiled, pouring Luciano a glass of wine. ‘And what did you learn?’

‘To not waste my energy on revenge. To not seek out and destroy the enemy simply to satisfy a weak human emotion. Men and ammunition are only for useful purposes. We must solely attack targets that bring us closer to justice and freedom.’

Giovanni nodded his head, impressed. ‘Then you have learnt well,’ he said.

The Valet turned to Rosa. ‘And you are the female partisan we have heard about—the one who runs like a deer in the forest?’

Rosa was embarrassed and blushed. Her training was supposed to have been secret. She’d had no idea she was being observed by other partisan groups. But when she looked at the Valet she saw that he’d meant it as a compliment not as a rebuke.

‘We have many women soldiers amongst us,’ said Giovanni, nodding towards Ada. ‘They have proved the most successful soldiers because they have the element of surprise on their side. German soldiers do not expect a group of women gathering hay to suddenly turn guns on them.’

Luciano shifted uncomfortably. Rosa knew it was because he didn’t believe that women should fight. It was the role of men to
do that for them. In his eyes, a woman having to defend herself was a slight on the man who was supposed to protect her.

The discussion moved to strategy. As the front drew closer, the partisans needed to break into smaller divisions in order to remain hidden and move speedily, and yet maintain close enough communication and an effective chain of command so they could unite when the situation called for it. The group had been speaking for over an hour when the buzz of planes sounded from the sky overhead.

‘Germans!’ the Valet cried.

Giovanni was out of the tent in an instant, followed by the others. ‘Take cover,’ he ordered his band. ‘They are headed this way.’

The camp’s tents were already hidden under branches, and the partisans moved quickly to disappear into them. Giovanni led the delegation into a makeshift wooden bunker half-buried in the earth.

The planes flew low over the camp but did not shoot. They disappeared up the hill.

‘Stay where you are,’ Giovanni shouted out to the camp. ‘They may return.’

‘Do you think they saw us?’ the Valet asked him.

Giovanni shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But the sooner we break up and move from this camp site the better.’

Turning to Luciano, he said, ‘I’m sorry our meeting has been cut short, but you had better get back to your camp and move your own men. I have an uneasy feeling about those planes.’

‘So do I,’ said Luciano.

No sooner had they stepped out of the bunker than the sound of shelling could be heard in the distance followed by gunfire. Luciano’s face turned pale. ‘It’s coming from the direction of our camp! They are attacking the Flock!’

He bolted up the hill and disappeared into the trees. More explosions followed. Giovanni called out to his partisans and divided them into two groups: one to move the camp and one to
follow him and Luciano. Ada passed Rosa a machine gun and they ran after the men, who were rushing towards the Flock’s camp site.

When the partisans reached the forest on the outskirts of the camp, a terrible sight awaited them. The camp was surrounded by German storm-troopers. Rosa shivered when she recognised the skull-and-crossbones insignias on their helmets and jackets. This was the crack unit, sent only for special manoeuvres. But how had they discovered the camp?

Rosa could see that Woodpecker, who had been left in charge of the camp, had moved the partisans into the defence trenches. Marisa and Genoveffa were passing the ammunition along the line. The Flock were fierce fighters but sooner or later they were going to run out of ammunition and they had no way to escape. They were slowly being surrounded. The Germans fired a shell. It hit the old farmhouse that the Flock had been using to store its equipment. Another one struck the barn that was serving as a hideout and camp hospital. It burst into flames. Rosa flinched. Where was Fiamma?

She turned to Luciano, who was watching the disaster with horror on his face. Giovanni divided his partisans into detachments and ordered them to move towards the Germans. One of the squads hurried into the open as a distraction while the rest remained hidden in the forest. Rosa saw that they intended to fire on the storm-troopers from behind and in that way surround one side of the German attack force.

The storm-troopers were surprised to find themselves taking bullets from two sides. There were more partisans to fight than they had anticipated. They re-formed quickly to fire in all directions. However, they were outnumbered and exposed and outsmarted on this occasion by Giovanni. The partisans of the Flock now had a chance to turn their guns solely on the storm-troopers, attacking them from the rear, and, with Giovanni’s partisans backing them up, the storm-troopers had no choice but to withdraw along the riverbed. But it wouldn’t take long for such an elite unit to regroup and who knew when the planes would
return. The partisans couldn’t afford to be drawn out into the open for long.

As the partisans moved in on the withdrawing Germans, Rosa saw there were a number of injured men left behind in the trench. If the partisans had to suddenly flee, there would be no chance to save them. Fiamma stumbled out of the burning barn. She was too far away for the partisans to reach. If the troopers returned she was going to go down in a hail of bullets—or, worse, be captured. Rosa scanned the battle line. Two dead Germans lay by a machine gun they had been operating from behind a rock. Rosa looked at Ada who was thinking the same thing. If they could reach the gun, they could fire straight at the riverbed, cutting off the troopers’ withdrawal. The Germans would then be forced to flee in several directions, delaying their ability to regroup.

‘Cover me,’ shouted Ada, slapping Rosa’s back.

Before she knew it, Rosa found herself out of the forest and firing at the remaining German soldiers while running towards the machine gun. Ada reached it first, followed by Rosa, who rolled on her side fast enough to miss a bullet that whizzed past her head. She lifted herself onto her elbows. Ada had the machine gun and was firing towards the riverbed. The sound was deafening.

A trooper appeared from behind a tree near the women. Rosa’s eyes widened as he hit the trigger on his gun but by some miracle it locked on him. Luciano took him out with a burst of gunfire while running towards the women.

‘Get back into the forest!’ he shouted, taking over the gun from them.

Rosa and Ada did as they were told, covering Luciano while backing into the forest. Rosa had no idea if she hit any of the troopers she was firing at, but at least she made them duck for cover.

Giovanni ordered the men forward. Starling reached Luciano and together the men moved the gun into a closer position. But the troopers were no longer firing, they were in full withdrawal. Rosa scanned the scene. Four partisans were dead from Giovanni’s unit.
Another three were injured. In the trench where the Flock had fought, there were ten dead that Rosa could see and another five injured. Fiamma was out of enemy lines now and Rosa ran towards her.

‘Quick!’ she shouted. ‘The medicine chests!’

The women ran into the burning barn. Some beams were falling but the chests were not near the flames. They grabbed all they could and ran out of the building. The stretchers were hidden in the hay near the door, which fortunately had not caught fire. They dragged them out. Although the troopers were gone for the time being, the partisans had to hurry. Saving the injured was going to cost them time, but it was not in Giovanni or Luciano to leave their men behind. They would have buried the dead if they could have, but there would be no time for that.

Rosa fell into her role as nurse and directed the partisans to take the injured on stretchers as fast as they could into the forest. She was about to run after them when she saw Marisa, dead in the trench. Genoveffa was next to her, weeping. Although it was not the priority to take the dead and Marisa had disliked Rosa from the start, somehow Rosa couldn’t leave the woman like that. She grabbed a stretcher and said to Genoveffa, ‘We’ll take her with us.’

Genoveffa gave Rosa a look of surprise and then nodded. Rosa took Marisa’s limp shoulders while Genoveffa grabbed her feet. They carried Marisa’s body into the forest, where two partisans took the stretcher from them. Rosa ran towards Luciano, who was talking with Giovanni.

‘The wounded will slow you down,’ she told them. ‘There’s a cave not too far from here. Leave me and Fiamma there with the injured men.’

‘You’ll be sitting ducks if the Germans find you,’ said Luciano. ‘There will be nowhere for you to run.’

‘We’ll all perish if you don’t get away from here as soon as possible,’ Rosa told him. ‘Leave us overnight. If the Germans don’t come by tomorrow, you can come back and collect us.’

Luciano was about to refuse when Giovanni stepped forward. ‘What she’s saying makes sense. From what I’ve seen, your Raven can take care of herself.’

Luciano reluctantly agreed to Rosa’s plan, but ordered two of his men to guard the entrance to the cave with their machine guns and left them with a few rounds of ammunition. He turned to Rosa, about to say something, when the men bearing Marisa’s body walked past.

‘Stop!’ said Luciano. He kept his face rigid but Rosa could see the pain in his eyes. He had not loved Marisa the way he loved Rosa, but she had been his partisan ‘wife’ and that meant something. Luciano’s hands trembled when he touched Marisa’s cheek. Rosa ached for him. For a man who had lost so much, each loss hurt more, not less.

‘We’ll take her with us to the cave,’ said Rosa. ‘If all is well, we can bury her tomorrow.’

Luciano looked at Rosa. ‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘The Gatekeeper is right. You are a fighter. One of the best we’ve got.’

The night passed in the cave was full of tension. Rosa and Fiamma had to attend to the injured men before darkness fell as they would not be able to light a fire for risk of being spotted by the enemy. Fortunately the men had not sustained injuries to any vital organs, only their limbs. Rosa and Fiamma quickly cleaned and dressed the wounds. Rosa glanced at Marisa’s body. They had not been able to spare a blanket for it and she was struck again by Marisa’s queen-like profile. She had been quiet in life and was now silent in death, Rosa thought. She remembered Marisa ordering her to skin the dead rabbits and wondered what had inspired the simple peasant girl to join the partisans.