Dawn was breaking as the convoy of trucks and armoured vehicles crossed the pontoon bridge over the Ambrone River, twenty miles due south of the ancient town of Montellano. Hundreds of bedraggled troops of various nationalities trudged wearily back the way they had come two days earlier, their hard-fought gains squandered in half the time and their strength further depleted. The Allied push for Rome had been halted yet again.
German panzer divisions still occupied the high ground and, despite their overwhelming superiority in firepower and personnel, the Allied armies had failed to break through the extensive fortifications, and when they did, often succumbed to counter-attack. The mountainous terrain not only constituted a natural barrier for the invading forces, it afforded the enemy a natural observation post from which to monitor the advance of the Allies from the south and to direct artillery fire with uncanny accuracy.
Second Lieutenant Harry Male, twenty-four, winced in the chill wind of the winter’s morning, pulled his greatcoat collar up around his neck and turned to check on his platoon, whose members followed dutifully behind. They were down to sixteen now, having lost Forbes and Alcott in yesterday’s ignominious retreat from the village. His men were subdued and demoralised and would remain that way for a day or so until thrown into action again, when they could vent their anger and possibly exact some revenge on their enemy.
Harry’s men knew exactly what lay in store and were battle hardened enough to know it wouldn’t be easy. The same thing all over again. He had instructions to brief them once they’d reached their makeshift garrison at Moscuso, by which time the aerial bombardment of Montellano would be well underway. The ancient town stood in the way of the Allied push towards Rome and had so far proven to be impregnable, each assault by ground forces repulsed with ease, such that the military high command had determined Montellano would be completely destroyed from the air.
“Come on, chaps,” said Harry, “another couple of miles and there’ll be hot tea, bacon sarnies and most important of all, clean socks.”
“It’s not me socks I’m worried about, sir,” offered Sergeant Bill Fraser, twice Harry’s age and veteran of Ypres.
“Thank you, Sergeant, we don’t need to know about the state of your nether regions.”
“Hey, Sarge,” piped up Corporal Joe Fleming, “maybe you should march at the back. Me and the boys are finding it a bit whiffy back here.”
“Shut it, Fleming.”
“Told you it was horse that geezer was flogging. And it was well dead.” Corporal Fleming laughed at his own joke and one or two of the others joined in, which only encouraged him to continue. “I reckon it’d been dead a month. Weren’t no rump steak, that’s for sure.”
“I ain’t telling you again, Corporal.”
But Fleming fancied himself as the joker in the platoon and he was on a roll.
“Every time you fart, the rest of us duck thinking it’s another one of them Stukas comin’ over.”
Fraser stopped abruptly and turned to confront his junior NCO, but he was interrupted by a familiar whistling noise that grew rapidly to a crescendo and they all looked to the sky. There was a whoosh over their heads.
“Down!” shouted Harry and the entire platoon dropped to the ground like synchronised acrobats. The shell landed with a deafening explosion in the field fifty yards behind them, throwing up a plume of grass, soil and stones that slowly fell back to earth, pummelling their backs and helmets like giant hailstones. They lay still for a second expecting another, but as was often the case, it was a random attack.
“Bloody hell, that was a close one,” grunted Fraser, but to his intense frustration, Fleming, face down in the dirt, was still chuckling.
“Blimey, Sarge. That was a ripper!” Some of the others chuckled with him.
“Enough, Corporal,” barked Harry, getting to his feet, though he too thought it was funny. “C’mon, let’s get going before the bastards get their eye in.”
They trudged on and Harry noticed a church a half-mile distant, its steeple standing tall and proud amidst the devastated olive groves and vines that surrounded it. He wondered fleetingly whether God was choosy about which house of worship took a hit from one of his creation’s creations, but dismissed it as pure luck. He had no time for religious mumbo-jumbo; you just had to look around to see how pointless it all was, how deluded his followers were.
The road curved to the right and they came to a lop-sided road sign that forlornly announced their arrival in Solano. Harry remembered passing through a couple of days ago, noting at the time there were few buildings or features to suggest it had a population of any size or that it was indeed a village at all. But his attention was drawn to a commotion up ahead where a small group of soldiers appeared to be in heated debate.
An elderly man in saggy black cord trousers, crumpled brown jacket and waistcoat, cloth cap gripped in both hands, was gesticulating and jabbering incoherently in Italian at the men and they were doing their level best to ignore him. He seemed particularly agitated with one of them, who lifted his arm as if to swat him away like a fly, before another interjected and pushed the old boy to the ground. Harry frowned and broke into a run.
“Oi!” he shouted and the soldiers turned to look back at him in disdain. He reached them in seconds. There were four of them and they looked surly and disinterested, bodies slouching, weight on one leg, defiant. “Who’s in command here?” The silence betrayed a semblance of guilt. “Well? Speak up!”
“No one. He’s dead,” said the largest of the four, a tall, thickset private with three days’ stubble, insubordination clearly on display.
“Stand to attention!” Harry barked and the four soldiers snapped out of their torpor as his own platoon caught up behind him. He took a step towards the large one.
“What’s your name, Private?”
“Dawson, sir.”
“Okay, Dawson, what’s going on here?”
“Crazy old Eyetie,” said Dawson, gesturing to the prostrate figure. “Been pissing us off.”
The man tried to get up but was clearly having difficulty, panting and mumbling incoherently in Italian.
“Sergeant. Help the gentleman.”
“Yes, sir!”
Fraser knelt down and put a hand under the old boy’s arm and lifted him to his feet. He resumed his animated babbling.
“Signore, signore, per favore aiutatemi… per favore.”
“Momento, signore,” said Harry in his best Italian, holding a palm up at the man, who was now hopping from one foot to another, still wringing his cap. Another whistle, another whoosh. “Down!”
The ground shook as the shell hit, this time in the field to their left and when Harry lifted his head, he saw all the men flat out except for the old boy, who was still on his feet, seemingly unperturbed by the explosion, still agitated and pleading.
“Per favore aiutatemi…”
Harry got up and brushed some mud from his coat.
“Dawson!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Signore, per favore…”
“Momento!” shouted Harry at the man in irritation. “Take your men off. At the double. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yes, sir!”
Both he and Dawson knew this was an idle threat. There was little or no chance of them meeting up again but it wasn’t the time or place for any dressing-down and the incident would be forgotten in no time. Dawson and his colleagues didn’t hesitate, turning on their heels and jogging away, one hand instinctively on helmet, rifles drooping. The man grabbed Harry’s arm.
“Signore, per favore…”
Fraser stepped in, raising the butt of his rifle. “Oi! Let go of the officer, you grubby old wop.” The man flinched, cowed in fear.
“Sergeant! That’s enough!” shouted Harry, increasingly frustrated. Fraser lowered his rifle and the man looked back at Harry. His eyes were bloodshot and tearful, his lips quivering and his body shaking in desperation, but for what, Harry could only guess. He’d learned all his Italian from the last three months in Sicily and it still amounted to little more than a couple of pleasantries and the ability to order two beers. He rustled up enough to ask him what the problem was.
“Cosa c’è?”
“Mia figlia sta molto male.”
Harry shook his head. He had no idea what the man was saying and realised they were not going to have a sensible conversation in Italian. Harry looked the old boy up and down. He was probably only in his late fifties, but the terrors and hardships of the last four of years of war had clearly taken their toll.
“Wilkins!”
“Yes, sir!” Private Marco Wilkins, nineteen, pushed his way forward. Yorkshire dad, Italian mum.
“What’s this man saying?”
“He says his daughter’s ill, sir.”
“What does he mean, ill?”
Wilkins translated and the man responded anxiously.
“Sta per avere un bambino.”
“She’s having a baby, sir.”
“Oh, is that all?” Harry sighed in relief but also in frustration and turned away. “C’mon, let’s go.”
The old boy grabbed his arm again. “Signore, per favore… sta per morire!”
“He says she’s dying, sir.”
Harry stopped and turned to look into the man’s eyes. The whites were yellow and rheumy, criss-crossed with tiny spider webs of blue and red, the irises grey and colourless and his pupils black as bottomless wells, yet the emotion and terror and honesty they portrayed somehow reached deep down into Lieutenant Harry Male’s heart and twisted it till it hurt. Three fully loaded transport trucks rumbled by, each towing a howitzer, men crammed in the back swaying and bumping together as the wheels bounced over the potholed road. It had given him time to think.
“Where is she?”
“Dove’è lei adesso?” said Wilkins. The man jerked his head and gestured behind him, pointing to a small farmhouse nestling in a field two hundred yards up a rutted track.
“A casa mia. Vieni subito.”
“Farmhouse, sir. He wants us to hurry.”
“Dammit! We’re not bloody medics or midwives!” shouted Harry to no one in particular but he knew inside he was committed and that the frustration he felt was directed more at himself.
“Signore?” pleaded the man again.
“Okay. Okay. Tell him we’ll take a look. Fraser, Wilkins and I’ll go up to the house and see what’s up.”
“Sir! You can’t!”
“Take the rest of the men, carry on up to Moscuso and get the bloody kettle on. We’ll check it out and then we’ll be right behind you.”
“Sir! What if it’s a trap! What if there’s a bunch of Jerries up there?”
“Doubt it, Sergeant. Bit too subtle for your average Kraut, don’t you think?”
“But, sir?”
“Fraser, do as I say. Wilkins. Come on, I need you to translate.”
“Sir!”
Harry waved towards the farmhouse and the man, who had been watching the exchange in confusion, looked first relieved, then reinvigorated.
“Grazie, grazie! Grazie mille!”
He stumbled off up the track and into the field, hobbling from one leg to the other, continuing his agitated discourse while constantly looking behind him to ensure the soldiers were still there. Lieutenant Harry Male and Private Marco Wilkins followed, trepidatious and wary.
“Keep your eyes open for trouble, Private.”
“Yes, sir!”
Harry looked up at the ever-lightening sky. He knew the bombardment of Montellano would soon be underway, and as he picked his way amongst runnels and puddles and the ice-capped mini craters of the muddy field he thought he could hear, between the random thud and crump of German artillery, the distant drone of heavy bombers.
***
Two hundred miles to the southeast at Foggia airbase, First Lieutenant Mitch McLennan of the United States Army Air Force took one last draw from his Havana and tossed the still glowing butt out of the open cockpit window onto the tarmac twenty feet below.
The Boeing B-17G bore a painting on its cheek of a fantasy goddess with long blonde hair and curls. She had white teeth and deep red lipstick, impossibly long legs and large breasts that burst out of her skimpy pink swimsuit, and she rested one hand on her hip, her other arm reaching up to the cockpit in a provocative pose. Above her, in flamboyant and garish script that traced the contours of her voluptuous figure, was her name: Nora Desirée.
Mitch stretched a hand out of the window and slapped palms with Nora before sliding the glass shut and securing the catch, instantly dulling the rumble and snarl of engine noise that pervaded the cockpit. He reached for the mouthpiece that dangled from one side of his flight mask, hooked it over the other side and turned to the co-pilot on his right. Second Lieutenant Carl Withers slid his own window shut and flicked the catch.
“Let’s go, Nora!” said Withers with uneasy enthusiasm. Twenty-eight-year-old Mitch knew it was forced and served only to hide the young man’s fear. He winked at his young first officer and spoke into the intercom.
“You guys strapped in back there?”
Tail gunner Fred Sherman, waist gunners Brent Morris and Mickey Flanagan, ball turret gunner Cody Fisher and radio operator Ben Kravitz, staff sergeants all, sat in a huddle amidships, ready to take their respective positions straight after take-off.
“Secure, Cap’n,” replied Kravitz. Mitch could imagine their faces: jaws set, a mixture of insouciance and defiance concealing the crushing weight of terror that accompanied every operation.
“Balatelli?”
“Check,” responded the flight engineer seated above and behind the cockpit just ahead of the bomb bay.
“Rosenberg, Kovacs?”
“Check,” came the joint replies from the navigator and bombardier from the nose compartment ahead and below the flight deck.
“Wagons roll,” shouted Mitch into his mouthpiece, “let’s do this. When we get back, coffee and doughnuts are on me.”
The B-17 ahead of them was barrelling down the runway a mere two hundred feet away but there was no time to wait for it to get airborne. There were eight more in the squadron lined up behind him and all would be anxious to get on their way.
Mitch gripped the underside of the two pairs of throttle levers and Withers placed his own behind the pilot to steady the vibration that fed through the controls. He edged the levers forward and wound the engines up to a roar. Nora Desirée shivered and hesitated, then lurched into motion as both pilots pushed hard on the throttles until the rev counters read twenty-five hundred.
Four thirty-litre radial engines, each packing twelve hundred horsepower, bellowed their rage in response and dragged Nora, shuddering and lumbering down the runway carrying her full eight-thousand-pound bomb load.
“Shalom,” he heard Manny Rosenberg mutter softly over the crackle and pop of the intercom.
“Don’t be a smartass, Manny. We ain’t carrying a shitload of peace to them Krauts.”
“No, sir!”
Withers cast a sideways glance at Mitch and caught his wry smile, but the pilot was staring straight ahead, both hands gripping the shuddering yoke. Withers held the throttles and the rhythmic thump-thump of the wheels on the runway seams came faster as the plane gathered speed.
“Sixty, seventy, eighty…” called out Withers, reading the airspeed indicator as the tail wheel lifted off the ground. “Ninety, ninety-five, one hundred.”
Mitch hauled back on the yoke, the vibration subsided and Nora Desirée, engines roaring like a thousand lions, hoisted her thirty tons into the morning sky.
***
Harry and Wilkins tentatively followed the man up the muddy pathway that led to the farmhouse. Wilkins scanned the field left and right for movement while Harry stared ahead, both weapons at the ready. But the man had neither hesitated nor acted suspiciously which gave Harry some comfort there was nothing sinister in his intent. He stopped and looked skywards.
A squadron of B-17s droned overhead at about ten thousand feet. Harry guessed they would be about twenty miles and less than ten minutes’ flying time from Montellano and, assuming they dodged the flak, he wondered what manner of hell they’d unleash on the town. The old boy reached the front door of the farmhouse, stopped for a second, then turned to Harry.
“Momento, signore.”
He opened the door tentatively and stepped inside, closing it behind him. Harry was confused and mildly irritated. The man had been very anxious and in a desperate hurry to get them there as soon as possible and now he was making them wait. What for? To tidy the house for visitors?
“What’s he doing?” said Wilkins, equally puzzled and now doubly alert. “I don’t like it, sir.”
“Nor me, Private.”
Harry dropped to his haunches to the left of the door and pressed his back against the wall, gesturing to Wilkins to do likewise on the opposite side. They waited a minute, listening for any sign of danger above the drone of another squadron of aircraft drifting in from the south. The farmhouse door opened again with a loud creak. The man appeared, cap still in hand, looking at first confused and worried, but then noticed the soldiers crouched down either side of his front door.
“Ah, per favore, entrate…”
“Stay here, Wilkins.”
Harry got to his feet and lifted his Sten gun to waist height. Keeping low, he ducked into the gloomy farmhouse after the man, swinging the gun from side to side, his eyes struggling to adapt to the darkness.
A stone staircase rose on his right to a landing that was bathed in the yellow glow from a first-floor window. A threadbare rug lay incongruously in the alcove beneath the staircase and to his left, an open fireplace burned brightly, its orange flames casting flickering shadows on a shiny stone floor worn smooth by decades of footfall. A single rocking chair with moth-eaten cushions sat to the left of the chimney breast, one side scorched and blackened by permanent exposure to the heat, and nestled against the front wall of the house behind the open door was a battered oak table with three chairs. Straight ahead, set against the far wall between the chimney breast and a second doorway, was an iron bedstead where a slight figure lay under heavy blankets and thick eiderdown.
“Prego, prego,” intoned the old boy, gesturing his visitor forward, inviting him to approach the bed. Harry relaxed and stood to his full height, a good six or seven inches taller than his host.
“All right, sir?” came the call from outside.
“It’s clear, Private. Stay there and keep an eye out.”
“Yes, sir!”
The faint popping of anti-aircraft fire sounded like mini claps of thunder on a distant horizon; the B-17s would soon be over their target. Harry lowered his gun, removed his helmet and stepped tentatively towards the bed.
“Prego, prego…” repeated the man. “Mia figlia. Si chiama Isabella.” His voice had softened, his anxiety supplanted by a wistful melancholy, a mixture of love, pride and wonder at the sanctity of the scene. He kissed two fingers, made the sign of the cross on his chest and forehead and knelt down next to the bed, reaching across to take his daughter’s hand.
“Isabella. Isabella. Ho trovato aiuto.”
“What’s he saying, Wilkins?” said Harry to the open doorway behind him.
“He’s telling her he’s brought help, sir.”
Harry groaned. He had no idea what to do and even if he did, was ill equipped to do it. He leaned over the kneeling figure of the old man and looked down at the young woman.
She was eighteen or nineteen and beautiful, her long dark hair spread haphazardly on either side of a dirty pillow. Her eyes were half-closed, sunken in pools of dark shadow above prominent pasty cheeks and her grey lips mumbled a mantra, incoherent and repetitive. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead and neck, flowing in rivulets down her chest onto a gold chain and crucifix before disappearing into a heavy cotton nightdress.
She was slight in build, but the bulge in the bedclothes was unmistakeable, pronounced and disproportionate to her size and the blankets stretched up and over legs that were bent at the knee and splayed outwards.
“Wilkins?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Did you do medical training?”
“No, sir. Well, I’m handy with a bandage, sir.”
Harry sighed again, but his mind was racing. He heard two thunderous explosions from miles away and then twenty seconds later, two more, interspersed with myriad small pops that sounded like fireworks. He rubbed his chin, seeking inspiration, guidance, or even divine intervention. But he was lost. He was, however, an officer and it was his job to make decisions.
“Wilkins, come in here!”
“Yes, sir!”
Marco Wilkins stepped into the room.
“She needs a medic. Nothing we can do here except hold hands and mop fevered brows. Go on after the others. I saw a radio truck pass us an hour ago so if you catch up with it, radio ahead to the field hospital and tell them we need a medic here on the double. If not, brief them when you get there.”
“Yes, sir!”
“What’s his name?”
“Lei come si chiami?”
The man stood up, still gripping his cap. “Alfredo. Alfredo Girardi.”
“Tell Alfredo what we’re doing, Private.”
Wilkins explained and Alfredo Girardi nodded in understanding. Harry held out a hand.
“Mi chiamo Harry.”
Alfredo looked at it dumbly then took it, turned it palm down and pressed his forehead to the back of Harry’s hand as if in supplication. Harry drew it back, embarrassed at Alfredo’s show of humility, but squeezed one of his shoulders and nodded an acknowledgement, of sorts. He had no idea what he would do next. He simply prayed Isabella would hold on until proper help arrived.
“Where’s his wife?”
“Dov’è sua moglia?”
Alfredo’s face fell and he fidgeted with his cap again, seemingly unable to find the words. He shrugged.
“Morta.”
Wilkins looked up at Harry. He didn’t need to translate. Harry cursed himself for his stupidity and squeezed Alfredo’s shoulder again, nodding sombrely, trying to avoid his eyes.
“Okay, Private, good luck and God speed.”
“Same to you, sir.”
Wilkins saluted and went out into the chill morning as the sky above them filled inexorably with the sights and sounds of war.
***
Mitch levelled the B-17 at ten thousand feet. The temperature was a mere 10 degrees Fahrenheit, well below freezing and only the cockpit was heated. The rest of the crew wore electrically heated suits, which although crude and unreliable, took the edge off the cold. They were all used to it and once the action started, they’d be oblivious to any discomfort.
Nora Desirée settled into her cruising speed of one hundred and sixty. It was a mere hundred miles to the target with a flight time of just forty minutes. Mitch kept Nora within two hundred feet of Squadron Leader Enders, with the rest of the squadron assembled in loose formation behind.
The men aft had assumed their gun positions, constantly alert to fighter attack although little had been reported. Kravitz had relayed intel from the first wave that they should expect heavy anti-aircraft fire over the target and Enders would break up the squadron ten minutes before the bombing runs commenced.
Nora flew on steadily, engine revs throttled back to eighteen hundred to conserve fuel. She carried only enough to get them there and back, the weight saving given over to maximise the bomb load. Six squadrons in the first wave carried a pair of two thousand pounders. The remaining eight squadrons, including Mitch’s, would follow with their sixteen five-hundred-pound ordnance to carpet bomb the resultant rubble and surrounding areas. One hundred and forty planes in total: four hundred tons of high explosive.
Mitch couldn’t help wondering how many of his comrades had been lost to fighters or ack-ack. It was something never revealed during a mission and unless they witnessed a downing themselves the final reckoning would only be done when the last plane returned home. He was a veteran of thirty-six sorties, and apart from some strafing and minor damage had always got home in one piece, testament to the inherent strength of the B-17. He wasn’t a statistician or a gambler, but instinct told him that one day, his luck would change and, as he mused every time he went up, it might be today.
He had every reason to remain optimistic. Following the Italian capitulation six months ago, the Krauts fought alone and with the Allies now on the offensive, maybe the war would end before his luck ran out. Maybe. The speakers in his earphones hissed.
“Twenty minutes to target,” announced Rosenberg, hunched over his table in the nose. In front of him and surrounded by a Plexiglas bubble, Lukasz Kovacs sat on his stool peering into the gyroscopic bomb sight, computing height, air speed, wind speed and drift on his slide rule.
“Check,” said Mitch. “Kovacs. You set to arm?”
“Zgoda!”
“English, you dumb Polack!” Mitch was not in the mood for fooling around, but he knew Kovacs was in high spirits. There was nothing the Pole liked more than killing Germans.
“Check,” mumbled Kovacs, compliant, but unrepentant.
***
The Girardi farmhouse was comfortably warm thanks to the fire in the open range. Alfredo threw on a few more logs and adjusted two cast-iron cooking pots that rested on a metal rack. Harry could see steam escaping from the lid of one and for the first time sensed the aroma of food.
He laid his helmet on the floor along with the Sten, took off his greatcoat and tunic, folded them neatly and placed them next to the hardware. Finally he took his standard issue jackknife out of his pocket and laid it on his tunic. He ran a hand through his thick shock of dark hair wondering what he could possibly do before help arrived. The body on the bed suddenly convulsed.
“Papà…!”
Alfredo rushed to his daughter, leaning over the metal frame to take her outstretched hands and kiss her glistening forehead.
“Isabella!” he cried and Harry stepped forward, fists clenched by his side, embarrassed and frustrated by his own impotence. He’d never felt so useless and lost.
“Fa così male, Papà…”
The girl’s cry pierced his heart and he dropped to his knees beside the bed, but he had no idea what to do. Another shell landed close by and Isabella shrieked again in pain and terror as debris clattered on the roof of the farmhouse like it was raining pebbles.
Harry reached across and put his hand on her forearm. It was pointless and pathetic, he knew, and she ignored it, instead gripping her father’s gnarled and bony fingers, the knuckles white on her tiny shaking hands. He looked down at the bulge in her middle and without thinking, rested his hand on top of the eiderdown. Even through the thick layers of blanket he sensed movement and his mouth dropped open in shock. A tiny human being was in there and seemed ready to come out.
Harry turned his head. Alfredo was looking at him, grim and earnest, and for the first time, Isabella’s eyes were open and through her tears they were imploring him to save her.
“Hot water! Acqua calda,” he heard himself say and Alfredo sprang into action. Harry could have laughed at himself. He’d heard childbirth always involved hot water, but he had no clue what to do with it. Was it for hand washing? One step at a time, he told himself. It will all become clear. What the hell will become c