“How dare you, you grovelling miserable Italian serpent! You’re under military law now and if I say you’ll get benediction you’ll damned well get it! Is that clear? Herr Feldkurat, absolve this bastard and give him the last rites at once so that we can get on with shooting him.”
“But Herr Oberst, the prisoner refuses to make confession . . .”
“DO AS YOU’RE DAMNED WELL TOLD!”
So di Carraciolo was hastily absolved and smeared with unction in nomine patris et filii et spiritu sancti. Then the chaplain was curtly dismissed to make way for a sergeant bearing a metal disc on a loop of string. It was the top of a ration tin. He hung it around the Major’s neck so that it lay over his heart as an aiming-point for the firing squad. Our fellows should have been in the air a good quarter-hour already, to draw away the hunt. Where were they? Meyerhofer said that they had certainly seen the message canister as he dropped it.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted.
“Herr Leutnant, Herr Major, if you please. It’s the prisoner again: he wants to speak with you both.” I walked over once more to di Carraciolo, tied to the stake but still unblindfolded. Baumann stalked along beside me, head lowered and spluttering with rage.
“What is it now, damn and blast you? Herr Leutnant, tell this insubordinate Italian swine to stop wasting my time and to stand to attention when he addresses me.”
I conveyed these remarks to di Carraciolo.
“Please tell the Maggiore,” he said, “that I have not been granted a last request.” I relayed this to Baumann. The response was an immediate and vicious slap around the face for the condemned man.
“Himmeldonnerwetter! Last request, you miserable horse turd . . . By God I’ll have you shot . . . I mean, damn your eyes you greasy Wellischer bastard . . .”
“I only asked to be granted a last request. It is the custom I believe for condemned prisoners . . .”
I felt at this point that things were getting out of hand: Baumann was loosening his sabre in its scabbard and might soon use it. I beckoned Meyerhofer across to give me moral support. “Herr Major, we respectfully suggest that this man should be granted a last request. It is the custom in all civilised countries.”
“There’s nothing about it in military regulations.”
“No, Herr Major, but it is still the custom. Oberleutnant Meyerhofer and I are here to represent the k.u.k. Fliegertruppe and the Imperial Navy respectively, and we feel that it would be unfortunate if our reports on these events had to make reference to such an omission.”
“Oh very well then, damn you. Give the bugger his request, but quick about it: I’ve got prisoners waiting to be questioned back at the barracks. What does he want? ”
“To make a last speech if you please, Herr Major.”
“Speech? Speech be damned: I won’t allow it . . .”
“But Oberleutnant Meyerhofer and I must respectfully insist, Herr Major. It is also the custom that a condemned man should be allowed a speech from the gallows—or from the stake in this case. So if he can combine that with his last request time will be saved and everyone will be happy.”
Baumann rolled up his eyes, appealing to heaven. “Oh all right then. What language does the scum want to speak in?”
“In Italian I think, Herr Major.” Carraciolo nodded his assent.
“Herr Oberleutnant,” Baumann called to the officer commanding the firing squad, “do any of your men know Italian?”
“Obediently report that no, Herr Major. They’re all Ruthenes.” “Carry on then. But make it snappy, and no sedition, do you understand?” So, lashed tightly to his post, di Carraciolo proceeded to make his last oration. Of those present I suppose that only I understood the full import of the ringing phrases as they resounded across that barren, empty plateau high up there on the ridge of the karst, as the young soldiers of the firing squad fidgeted uneasily and the waking birds twittered among the pine trees: la Patria; Italia; il Risorgimento; the sacred flame of patriotism; the liberation of the last unredeemed fragments of Italy from under the rule of Francisco Giuseppe —“that blubber-lipped old hangman,” as the Major was pleased to describe him. By now Major Baumann was tapping his boot on the ground with impatience and looking at his watch. But Carraciolo was in full spate now on the glorious privilege of shedding his blood for his nation in these last days of struggle “to choke the life for ever from the two-headed Austrian vulture.” Future generations, he predicted, would hold sacred this spot where he had spilt his heart’s blood in the holy cause of freedom. Then he turned his attentions to me. “But what shall we say . . . si orrible, si perfido . . . of those vipers whose miserable lives I once spared, but who now come to gloat over my death. Yes my Austrian friend: you were unable to get the better of me in fair combat in the air, so now you have come to watch them shoot me, helpless and bound to a post like a dog. Be thankful that they will blindfold me, so that my eyes may not look into the depths of your black soul.”
If only you knew, I thought; if only you knew. But keep on, my Italian friend: the longer you spout the more time there’ll be. But where have they got to, damn them? It’s nearly 6:40 already. Suddenly Baumann barked:
“All right, that’s enough of that now, do you hear? You’ve had your say and breakfast’ll be getting cold.”
“But Herr Major . . .” I protested.
“Shut up. Feldwebel—tie on the blindfold and let’s get on with it.” My heart was pounding. No time left now: two minutes at the most. As the blindfold was being bound about his eyes Carraciolo burst into song: the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from Verdi’s Nabucco. Even after making allowance for the distressing circumstances, I considered that as an opera singer he was quite a good sculptor. At last everything was ready.
“Execution party, load and make safe!” The bolts of ten rifles rattled. “Execution party, safety catches off— take aim!” The rifles were levelled as the Oberleutnant stood with his sabre raised. I could see that his hand was shaking. Then a car horn honked from the edge of the exercise ground. It was a motor lorry lurching up the road with as much speed as a motor lorry could manage in those days when laden with soldiers. It stopped as the Oberleutnant hesitantly lowered his sabre and signalled to his men to order arms.
“Oh God, what is it now?” said Baumann.
As the officer marched up from the lorry and saluted I saw that he and his men were wearing the peakless high-fronted forage caps of a Hungarian cavalry unit. “Herr Major,” said the young Hauptmann in his singsong Magyar-German, “I fear that I must respectfully ask you to move your firing party aside and allow my men to execute this criminal.”
“On what grounds, damn you?”
“It has come to light that since this man is a native of Fiume he is a subject of Ferencz Josef, Apostolic King of Hungary, and not of Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the Royal Hungarian military authorities.”
“I don’t believe this,” Baumann muttered weakly. “Does that mean that you want to retry him?”
“Respectfully no: the royal Hungarian government in Budapest is quite content with the verdict of the Militarhofgericht here in Trieste. But it is also anxious that he should be shot by Hungarian troops. The matter has been referred to Prime Minister Tisza and he is quite emphatic on the point. I have the telegram here with me if you would like to see it.”
“But this is monstrous . . . outrageous. The court was assured that the man is an Austrian subject.”
“If he comes from Fiume then, by your leave, this cannot be. Fiume has been Hungarian territory since the Ausgleich of 1867.”
“But not all of it . . .”
“The suburbs perhaps not. But the main part of the city is ruled from Budapest.”
“I refuse to accept that: the court established that the man was born in the commune of Cantrida, which is Austrian territory . . .”
“. . . But with respect, his birth certificate was made out in the district of Bergudi, which is Hungarian territory . . .”
“. . . But he was later resident in the commune of Pilizza . . .”
“. . . Which became in part Hungarian territory in 1887 when the city boundary was extended.” The Hungarian captain turned to his sergeant and said something in Magyar. The man hurried across to the lorry and returned with a map. “Here, Herr Major. May I obediently suggest that we settle the matter by asking the condemned man on which street he lived before he left for Italy?”
So di Carraciolo’s blindfold was removed and, with me as interpreter, he was politely asked to indicate
