‘And let’s have this Corporal Morton, who speaks Italian, over here.’
Morton, cool, sardonic and indifferent to rank, appeared in front of Dampier.
‘You speak Italian?’ Dampier asked.
‘Yes.’ Morton was never one to waste ‘sirs’ on officers. His degree was inclined to make him think he was one up on them and they, like schoolboys, ought to address him as ‘sir’. ‘Also German.’
‘Good at it?’
‘Perfect.’
Dampier was conscious of Morton’s indifference but he didn’t push the matter at that moment.
‘How perfect?’ he asked.
‘Perfect type of perfect. I was brought up in Switzerland near the Italian border and spent two post-graduate years at the University of Florence. I lived with Italian students and worked for three years in Naples. I shared rooms with a Count Barda and often visited his home. His favourite trick was to introduce me to fascist officials and, when I said something unpleasant about Mussolini and they were on the point of arresting me, to point out that I was British so they couldn’t do much about it.’
Dampier was impressed. He looked at Rafferty. ‘Could you go with Mr Rafferty here and scout round those wrecked lorries to see if there’s anything we can use to help us escape?’
Morton looked startled. ‘I’m not a fighting soldier, sir.’
Dampier glared. ‘In 1918 when the Germans broke through on the Somme front,’ he pointed out testily, ‘cooks, butchers, clerks and mechanics found themselves in the line. Doubtless, if they were there, also actors. As they did at Dunkirk. This time, it seems the Italians have broken through.’
Morton considered. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Very well. I’ll have a go.’
‘Sir,’ Rafferty prompted.
Morton studied the warrant officer coolly. ‘Sir,’ he agreed reluctantly.
‘Thank you,’ Dampier said.
Morton hadn’t moved. ‘For what it’s worth – sir—’ he continued, ‘we also have Driver Caccia who speaks Italian.’
In the end it was decided that Morton, Clegg and Caccia should accompany Rafferty and pick up anything the warrant officer thought worthwhile, and that they should go immediately while the Italians were still shaken by the air raid.
While the others disappeared into the trees, where Dampier’s vehicles were hidden by the ruined warehouse, the salvage party headed for the burned-out lorries. The owners had withdrawn with their column to the safety of the desert but it was obvious they would more than likely very soon be back. Thin columns of smoke were still rising into the sky and, scattered around, showing the haste with which the Italians had disappeared, were abandoned dixies, a rifle, a pouch containing half a dozen of the light percussion grenades of Japanese manufacture that the Italians used, items of equipment such as belts and side packs, even a few scraps of clothing – two or three jackets, one an Italian sublieutenant’s and one a sergeant’s, an overcoat, two caps, three steel helmets – a few straw-covered chianti bottles and several undamaged cans of petrol and water.
There was also a sheaf of letters, which they found fluttering in the breeze among the bushes, a folder of orders and an inventory of supplies, signed, sealed and delivered, with the name of the man who appeared to be the quartermaster general at Derna, one Commandante de Brigata Ruggiero Olivaro, as well as a supply of empty requisition and inventory forms which were clearly about to be filled in. Obviously the commander of the Italian column had just received new equipment or supplies and was about to receive more and had not yet done his paperwork. Outwardly none of them seemed to be of much value and Clegg was about to toss them aside when Morton snatched them from him and handed them to Rafferty.
‘Italian army forms D3801 and C2947, sir,’ he pointed out. ‘Inventories and requisition forms. Very convincing if anybody asks to see our papers.’
Rafferty grinned. Having been in the army all his adult life and for a great deal of it concerned with stores, he always felt that official forms – especially signed ones – were worth their weight in gold. If you possessed something you weren’t supposed to possess, sneaked on the end of a signed list it at once became official, and he immediately appreciated what Morton was getting at.
‘Good bhoy,’ he said. ‘How did you know what they were?’
‘Used to be in Intelligence, sir. It was one of my jobs to go through these things.’
In addition there was an Italian flag and a picture of the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel.
‘Looks like a startled ferret,’ Clegg observed critically. ‘We only want one of Mussolini and we’re Italian patriots.’
They had just thrown the last of what they’d found into a heap and were unscrewing insignia from the remains of the shattered lorries when a small scout car drew up. An Italian sergeant climbed out.
‘Da dove viene?’ he asked.
Morton jabbered back at him. He seemed satisfied and gestured at the burning remains of the lorries before jabbering again at Morton.
Morton shrugged. ‘È la guerra!’
The sergeant stared round him, his large dark eyes sad, then he spoke again. Rafferty listened quietly. The only word he could pick out was ‘Mussolini’.
Morton and the sergeant talked a little more, then the sergeant climbed back into the scout car, swung round and drove away.
‘What did he want?’ Rafferty asked.
‘He wanted to know where we’d come from and who we were. I told him we were a recovery group sent to salvage what we could.’
‘Good, good.’ Rafferty nodded approvingly. ‘What else?’
‘He said in effect that it was a bloody mess and I said, “C’est la guerre.” It’s an opinion most soldiers seem to hold. Then he went on a bit about Mussolini sitting on his fat backside in Rome and leaving people like him to fight the war he’d started. I agreed, he seemed very satisfied, and we parted the best of friends.’
‘Good bhoy. Good bhoy.’
Even Morton seemed pleased at Rafferty’s approval.
‘Did he say what was going on?’
Morton’s mouth moved in his cold smile. ‘I got the impression that the Italian generals have been growing a bit fed up with the way the Germans
