‘Have you still got the paint?’ Dampier asked.
‘Which paint?’
‘The paint you used to write the words on your lorry. Perhaps we could use it on ours.’
Clegg glanced at the other two. ‘It wasn’t paint. Well, not that sort of paint. It was greasepaint. Black. No. 12.’
‘Greasepaint?’ Dampier looked at Rafferty. ‘Who in God’s name are you?’
‘We’re a concert party.’
‘A what, for God’s sake?’
‘A concert party. Who’re you?’
Rafferty decided it was time to identify themselves. ‘This is Colonel Dampier,’ he said. ‘Inspector of Equipment to the Eighth Army. I’m Warrant Officer Rafferty.’
Dampier still seemed startled to be meeting anything so bizarre as a concert party behind the Italian lines. ‘Not fighting troops then?’ he said. Hearing the quality of contempt in his voice, it crossed Clegg’s mind that an Inspector of Equipment and his unit were hardly the Brigade of Guards either. ‘They’re not going to be a lot of help, Mr Rafferty.’
‘You might be surprised,’ Morton said coolly. ‘We’ve got some Italian uniforms.’
Dampier cranked his head round slowly. ‘You’ve got what?’
‘Italian uniforms,’ Clegg said. ‘Well – bits of uniforms. We used them in a sketch about this German officer and these Italian soldiers who—’
Dampier interrupted sharply. ‘Where are the rest of your people?’
‘There’s only one more.’
‘Only one?’ It had been in Dampier’s mind that if the concert party were big enough and had had any training at all they might be encouraged to attempt to overwhelm any opposition they met.
‘We’re not the cast from Covent Garden Opera House,’ Morton said stiffly. ‘There are four of us.’
‘Songs and sketches,’ Clegg added. ‘To amuse the troops. Keep it simple, the general said. Jones the Song – that is, Private Jones – he’s our tenor. He’s the only other one. He’s back there with the lorry under the trees. Biting his nails, I expect, and having a headache.’
Dampier wasn’t sure whether to accept the Ratbags as a welcome addition to his party or, because they were likely to be more hindrance than help, simply abandon them to their fate; it was Rafferty who made the decision.
‘I think we’d better join forces, don’t you, sir?’
Dampier ummed and aahed a bit, knowing full well it was his duty to collect any odds and sods that had been left lying around, but none too willing to jeopardize the chances of his own group.
‘Go and collect this chap of yours,’ he conceded in the end. ‘We’ll wait here. Think you can find your way back?’
Clegg soon returned with the lorry and Jones, who was scared out of his wits by his stay alone. They were just on the point of returning to where Dampier’s vehicles were waiting when Rafferty lifted his head.
‘Hold on, sir,’ he said.
Over the whisperings of the wind and the clattering of the dry bushes, they heard the murmur of engines.
‘Aeroplanes, sir.’
‘Ours?’
‘They don’t sound like theirs, sir. It’s the RAF. They’re after the harbour.’
The sound grew louder and there were shouts from behind them as the Italians were also alerted to the approaching aircraft; then, seconds after an air-raid siren went, they heard the first of the bombs coming down.
‘Jesus, this is a proper old game, played slow!’ Caccia complained as they bolted for a nearby drainage ditch. ‘Bombed by our own bloody side!’
Fortunately, none of the bombs came near, but the flashes lit up the sky and they could feel the thump of the explosives, as if through the veins and bones of the earth. There was a great deal of shouting from among the parked lorries nearby and the sound of engines starting, then there was a tremendous flare of flame, a huge blossoming flower of red edged with black smoke that spoke of petrol going up. Rafferty’s teeth showed in a grin.
‘Somebody t’rew a cigarette down where we punctured their petrol tanks, sir,’ he said cheerfully.
Almost immediately, there were two more flares of red, as if sparks from the first explosive rush of flame had ignited a second and a third pool of petrol. In the glare they could see the square silhouetted shapes of lorries and the figures of running men. A few of the vehicles were moving off now but the flames had attracted the aircraft overhead and the second and third waves were aiming at them as they came in. Bombs whistled down among the vehicles and they saw more of them explode.
The shouts grew more alarmed and the lorries that were on the move began to lurch away more quickly. Shouting men – obviously the crews of the lost vehicles – were running after them. One of them was carrying a heavy bundle on his shoulder which they saw him toss aside to run faster. Eventually the whole lot of them had disappeared, leaving only the burning vehicles and a few scattered items of dropped equipment.
The noise of aeroplane engines died and there was nothing left except the flickering flames. As they watched, a fire engine, complete with a mixed Arab and civilian Italian crew, arrived. They stood watching the flames, shouting at each other and wondering what to do, then an army lorry appeared and the crew started to douse the flames with sand and a foam appliance. Eventually it was dark again.
‘It’s time we were away from here,’ Dampier whispered.
‘Perhaps ’twould be a good idea first, sir,’ Rafferty suggested gently, ‘to see what we could pick up.’
‘Pick up? Why?’
‘Sure, sir, we’ll not get away in daylight. We’ve got nearly twenty-four hours to kill. So we might as well make ourselves look like part of the scenery.’
Dampier gave him a quick look, then he swung round on Clegg, his mind working quickly.
‘Those Italian uniforms you said you had,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. We used them in a sketch.’ Clegg was still a little nervous of Dampier, who seemed bad-tempered and more than a little hostile. ‘There was this German officer and these Italian soldiers—’
‘We’ll discuss that later,’ Dampier snapped. ‘In the meantime, let’s have the uniforms.’
Clegg looked startled. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll dig
