had now been joined by a crowd of women and children. “Your man doesn’t say much does he? Is he a deaf- mute?”
“No, he’s a little quiet it is true, but he’s an excellent pilot. It’s just that he’s a Sardinian.”
“Sardinian? Looks more like an ape to me. Get him to say something in Sardinian then.” I turned desperately to Toth and whispered:
“Toth, di aliquid, per misericordiam Dei.” He obliged with a few sentences of Magyar.
“Couldn’t understand a word of it. That’s the trouble with the Sards: all pig-ignorant Mauritanos. Worse even than Sicilians.”
At last we were ready. I swung the propeller and at the second attempt, to my intense relief, the engine sprang into life, firing with less than perfect smoothness but certainly well enough to get us airborne and over the mountains to Pergine. It warmed up, straining the undercarriage against the logs which we had stuck beneath the wheels as chocks, while I climbed into the cockpit behind Toth. The village elder climbed up behind me and presented me with a large rush basket covered with a cloth. It contained some loaves, a cheese, a large black- smoked country sausage and a straw- wrapped bottle of brown local wine. I turned to thank him, ashamed to have practised such a suave deception upon these simple people. A sudden horrible thought had struck me. Suppose that word got around later and they were hauled in by the authorities on a charge of aiding and comforting the enemy? From what I knew of the Italian military I doubted whether a plea of terminal ignorance would save them from an army penal battalion.
“Some provisions for your journey,” shouted the head-man above the noise of the engine. “Remember to send us a postcard when you get back to Austria.”
I was speechless for a few moments.
“Austria . . . but . . . we are Italians.”
“Don’t give me that horse-shit, Austriaco. We may be poor here but we aren’t stupid.”
“But . . . why did you help us then?”
“We’re anarcho-syndicalists in this village. Anyone who’s against the landlords and the carabinieri is on our side. If we lived in Austria we’d help Italian fliers just the same. That’s why we don’t have a priest here: we burnt the bugger out ten years ago and since then no black-frock has dared show his nose in these parts. We’ll do the landlords next, come the revolution. Here, here’s some reading-matter for your flight.” He thrust a wad of papers into my hand: pamphlets with titles like “The Death of Property” by Proudhon and Prince Kropotkin’s “Uselessness of Laws.” There were also some copies of the newspaper La Rivolta. I glanced at the back page of one of them and saw an article entitled “Chemistry in the Home, No. 35: The Properties of Nitro-Glycerine.” “Anyway,” he said, “be on your way now before the carabinieri arrive and be thankful you landed among us and not elsewhere.”
I shook hands with him and thanked him as he stepped down to the ground and Toth revved up the engine. As we began to trundle across the field they all waved and gave us clenched-fist salutes. “Arrivederci!” the foreman shouted, “and remember, mankind will never be happy until we’ve hanged the last priest with the guts of the last king. When you get home tell your old Emperor from us that when we’ve finished with King Vittorio the Short-Arsed we’re coming for him next!”
So we climbed away from that field as the cawing rooks flapped around the poplars below us and the villagers stood waving. In the years since, I have never heard anarchists mentioned except as wolves in the guise of men: bomb tossers, assassins and enemies of the human race. Yet these were the only anarchists that I ever met in person, and I must say that they treated us with every kindness.
We landed at k.u.k. Fliegerfeld Pergine at about three that afternoon after an uneventful flight, following the River Brenta as far as Bassano del Grappa then climbing over the hills and the front line until we saw the twin lakes of Caldonazzo gleaming in the distance. The Pergine flying field, home of Fliegerkompagnie 7, was as rudimentary as all other airfields on the Italian Front in those days: a hummocky grass field surrounded by a makeshift jumble of wooden huts and canvas tent-hangars. What made it different from Caprovizza was the alarming approach along the side of a vineyard-clad mountain with a rather vulgar nineteenth- century mock-Renaissance castle half-way up. Down-draughts and thermals from the mountainside made us skip and bounce like a rubber ball as Toth brought us in to land.
Nor were matters at all helped by the fact that after an hour or so of relatively smooth running, the engine was beginning to misfire once more. One thing was certain: that before we flew another kilometre on our circuitous journey back to Caprovizza we would have to get the magnetoes replaced. Flying over the Alps in October would be a risky enough enterprise without having a faltering engine to contend with. As Toth taxied up to the aircraft parking area in front of the hangars (I was walking alongside to guide him since he could not see direct ahead), I had decided that I would report to the commanding officer of Flik 7, then place the aeroplane in the hands of their workshop while I telephoned Caprovizza to tell them that our mission had been successful, but that we would be getting home late.
Toth switched off the engine and climbed stiffly down from the cockpit, red-eyed and grimy-faced after four hours in the air and three hours or so standing by in a muddy field while I filed away at the contact breakers. He stretched his arms and yawned while I strode up the steps of the Kanzlei hut. We had fired the agreed yellow and white flares as we came in to land, but no one had watched our arrival. In fact there was nobody to be seen. Had there been an outbreak of cholera, I wondered? Had the Allies chosen the place to try out a death ray, or some devastating new poison gas that made its victims evaporate into thin air? I opened the door and entered the outer office. Still no one to be seen. I peered into the inner office just as a young Oberleutnant with an unbuttoned tunic and dangling braces caught sight of me. He made no effort to rise from his desk.
“Yes, who is it?”
I saluted smartly. “Ottokar Ritter von Prohaska, Linienshiffsleutnant of the Imperial and Royal Navy, currently attached to k.u.k. Fliegertruppe Flik 19F at Fliegerfeld Caprovizza.” He stared at me, uncomprehending. I continued. “I have the honour to report that my pilot Zugsfuhrer Toth and I have just landed after successful completion of a bombing mission against the lagoon bridge at Venice.”
He went on staring at me, as completely baffled as if I had just announced my arrival from Valparaiso by way of Winnipeg.
“What are you doing here then?” I began to wonder whether I was dealing with a mental case, perhaps posted here as a convalescent after acute shell-shock. So I tried to be patient.
“We are from Flik 19F at Caprovizza and we have just carried out a bombing-raid on the city of Venice. We are here on our way home, which takes us north of the lines in the Dolomites.”
“Caprovizza? Never heard of it. Is that on the Eastern Front?”
By now I was growing more than a little irritated. “Not when I last looked. It is just outside the town of Haidenschaft.”
“Where’s that?”
I was beginning to drum my fingers on the desk. “On the Isonzo Front, in the sector held by the 7th Corps of the 5th Army. But surely you must have been expecting us: this was all arranged last week by the High Command itself?”
“Haven’t heard anything about it here; not a thing.” He rummaged beneath an untidy heap of paper on the desk, muttering to himself as he did so. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of rubbish Divisional Headquarters sends us each week. Honestly, we need another Adjutant full-time just to sort through the circulars . . . Ah, this might be it.” He pulled out a crumpled telegram and began to read it, eyeing me suspiciously from time to time. He broke off to look out of the window, then addressed himself to me. “This says two aeroplanes. How come there’s only one of you?” “Our companion aeroplane, piloted by Oberleutnant Potocznik, developed engine trouble and turned back just before we started to cross the Gulf of Trieste. I think that they must have landed safely, but I’m not sure. If you want me to find out I can ask when I telephone my base to tell them that we’ve arrived. Do you mind . . . ?” I reached for the telephone on his desk, but before I could touch it he had snatched it away.
“You can’t use the Kanzlei telephone for operator calls: the Kom- mandant’s very strict about economy— orders from Army Group Headquarters.”
“But that’s ludicrous. I have to telephone Caprovizza or we’ll be posted missing. How am I to contact them if I can’t use your telephone?”
“Herr Kommandant says we’ve got to use letters wherever possible.” “But . . . we’ll be home long before a letter gets there.”
“Well, you could always carry it with you. Or if you’re set on telephoning there’s a post office down in the
