Scarlatti beamed. Morton nodded again, indifferent and supercilious, deciding it was a stroke of genius to promote himself to the aristocracy. Italians found it difficult to resist a title and Scarlatti was already behaving as if he were the junior officer.
‘I’m grateful, count. Colonel Ancillotti will not be able to make comparisons as he usually does. A most unpleasant man, Ancillotti. A mere works manager before the war. My family have their own business.’
As he strutted off with Faiani, Morton pointed out to the others what was required; they looked a little startled.
‘Work?’ Clutterbuck said. ‘For the fuckin’ Italians?’
‘You weren’t doing such a lot for the fucking English,’ Clinch observed tartly, his round cheeks quivering with indignation.
The unloading took longer than they’d expected and they found themselves stumbling in and out of the wired compound in the heat of the lowering sun until they were exhausted. Rafferty seemed almost to enjoy masquerading as an Italian, but to Dampier it came as a blow to his pride to have to stagger under heavy loads, goaded on from time to time by the sharp tongue of Morton, who kept telling him, almost as if he were enjoying it, to get a move on. Caccia stood close by, wearing the sergeant’s stripes, nervous and blank-faced, but ready, in case anybody came near, to step in if necessary with a mouthful of Italian.
Clutterbuck was still muttering his disgust when Rafferty and Morton got their heads together. There were a lot of Italian vehicles near the harbour.
‘Not many,’ Rafferty said. ‘Just anything that’s up for grabs.’
He pulled Clutterbuck out of line and explained what he wanted. Clutterbuck’s sly face broke into a grin.
‘Easy as oiling a bike,’ he said.
Half an hour later, Clutterbuck reported that he’d got rid of the two fifteen-hundredweight trucks. ‘I got a couple of Lancias instead,’ he said. ‘Much better condition, too. I couldn’t get no more. One of their officers started ’angin’ about.’
‘Right.’ Rafferty was impressed. ‘Back to the compound then. And while you’re in there, nip around a bit and see if there’s anything else we could use. We might be here for longer than we expected.’
When Rafferty explained what they were up to, Dampier was shocked. ‘Stealing?’ he said.
‘Why not?’ Rafferty asked. ‘It belongs to the enemy.’
‘But Clutterbuck! A deserter! A military criminal!’
‘Sure, sir, I can’t think of anybody more suited. He’s already swopped the fifteen-hundredweights for Lancias. If nothin’ else, that’ll make us look better than we did.’
Clutterbuck appeared like a shadow from behind a pile of crates. ‘Booze,’ he said. ‘Fags. Most of it captured Naafi stuff. British blankets, weapons and uniforms. Italian wine. Radios. Cheese. Sausage. Rice. Tinned meat.’
By the time they had finished, there were several more Italian caps and jackets tucked away under the property baskets in the Ratbags’ Bedford, another Italian flag, a portrait of Mussolini, several bottles of chianti, sausages, boxes of cheese, a sack of rice, plywood, Italian money, two wristwatches, a pressure lamp, a pair of binoculars, tools, dixies, several pairs of the baggy trousers the Italians wore, two pairs of underpants, a rosary and half a dozen of the splendid German jerricans for which the mobile units of the Eighth Army would have given their right arms.
‘We captured 150,000 of these when Derna fell,’ Rafferty murmured. ‘And because nobody back at base pulled his finger out, they stayed there and were all recaptured when the Germans advanced.’
As they finished, Major Scarlatti reappeared. This time he was alone and in a well-polished Lancia open-top tourer driven by a chauffeur. He had changed to his best tunic and was obviously anxious to impress ‘Count Barda’.
‘Now, count,’ he said to Morton, ‘I suggest you take your men to my cookhouse. It’s just over there. You, yourself, however, will perhaps join me in my office for lunch. It’s in the former harbourmaster’s room.’
Morton was wary. He had decided he didn’t trust Scarlatti’s assistant, Faiani, and he cautiously tried to find out where he would be.
Scarlatti waved a hand airily. ‘Faiani will be busy,’ he said. ‘I don’t share meals which I wish to be private with a junior officer. He’ll be dining in the mess. He’s an uncomfortable man to have around too much. Because he came from the Bersaglieri and was hit by shrapnel last winter, he feels he’s the only patriotic Italian in Italy. Don’t worry about him. And I have a fine Orvieto, a tin of parma ham and a bottle of British whisky. You can refuel your vehicles afterwards.’
The cookhouse had been set up in a shed just outside the compound and a long line of Italian soldiers was queueing up with their dixies.
‘How do we go about it?’ Clegg asked nervously.
It was Clutterbuck, the deserter, who answered. ‘Just go and stand in the queue,’ he said.
Dampier whirled on him, startled, and he gestured. ‘Stand in line,’ he said. ‘That’s all you do. Just stand there, say nowt and act daft.’
So they did. Parking the vehicles alongside the ruins nearby, they stood among the grubby, unshaven, dusty, mutely exhausted Italian soldiers, Morton at the front and to the side of the group like a conscientious officer making sure his men were fed, Caccia at the rear in case anybody addressed them from behind. The rest huddled in a nervous bunch between them where they were safe.
Nobody questioned the assorted British and Italian dixies they offered, and pasta with a meat sauce was dumped into them. Then they all drew a ration of rough red wine and were given a tin of captured British bully beef between every two men. Dampier came away looking slightly bemused. ‘They didn’t say a word to us,’ he pointed out.
‘They never do.’ Clutterbuck sounded contemptuous of his attitude to crime. ‘You only need a bit of nerve. I’ve been livin’ off British cook’ouses like that for months.’
When Morton returned from his meal with Scarlatti, he looked
