Scarlatti’s driver, a lugubrious private called Mondi, who had been brought in out of the desert with jaundice and given the job of driving Scarlatti about until he recovered, echoed his thoughts. Like most private soldiers, he loathed the desert.
‘Sometimes when you dig fortifications,’ he said, ‘it’s as hard as rock and a pick or shovel makes no mark. At other times, it falls away beneath your feet.’
The wind, the disembodied silence, had scared him and he talked with horror of the khamsin, the drying wind which surrounded everybody in a cloud of fire and whirling sand.
‘Two men lost last time,’ he told Caccia. ‘We found them shrivelled up like mummies. One had stones clutched in his fists. The other had shot himself through the head. Their eyes were dry as prunes and their mouths were full of sand.’
He had a fondness for English gin and was always on the cadge for it. ‘It scares away the bullets and makes you forget the war,’ he claimed. ‘I just hope when I’m killed they bury me deep down so the jackals won’t get me.’ He sighed. ‘Mussolini’s filled Rome with fasces, flags, fine phrases and fancy claims,’ he went on. ‘But he never did much for me.’
‘May the Lord protect us,’ Caccia intoned piously.
‘Will the Lord really protect us?’
‘Of course He will.’
‘What about the ones who are dead?’ Mondi’s face contained all the good cheer of an elderly bloodhound’s. ‘He didn’t protect them.’
Chapter 7
Even the Germans seemed to have accepted them. After all, they wore Italian caps and Italian tunics with Italian insignia on them, even some of them the ugly Italian trousers. And they used Italian tools on Italian vehicles. They had to be Italians.
The grumbling from the hoi-polloi died and apart from a doubtful wariness the nervousness disappeared. They were tucked well out of the way of the main traffic, which was largely round the fort, and they were rarely bothered. Dampier’s idea began to seem not only possible but even very practical.
From time to time a German vehicle stopped alongside them, its driver asking the way or offering to barter rations for wine. The Germans were suffering from dysentery and, almost as badly off for food as the Italians, were always on the lookout for supplies. They ate the same tinned meat as the Italians, from tins marked AM (Administrazione Militare) but known to the Italians as Asinus Mussolini (Mussolini’s Donkey) or Arabo Morte (Dead Arab) and to the Germans as Alter Mann (Old Man). Occasionally a little cheese or olive oil came their way but never any potatoes, which they loved, and they drooled at the thought of captured British rations.
Among them was the German sergeant they had seen tormenting the Italian girl outside the Bar Barbieri near the harbour. His name was Schwartzheiss and he worked as a chief stores clerk just to the west of Zuq where the Germans had set up tank workshops far better than anything the British possessed. Embedded in concrete under canvas were big lathes and a heavy smithy, and they had tank precision instruments by the truckload, boxes of periscopes, 50 mm guns, sheets of armour, tracks, tyres, woodwork and steel parts.
‘We could build tanks from scratch if we had to,’ Schwartzheiss told Morton. ‘In fact, we did when we first arrived. Dummy ones. Wooden, on old car frames. But then’ – he grinned – ‘we always did have a few extra tricks up our sleeve, didn’t we, tenente? When we landed, there weren’t many of us so we marched several times round Tripoli to make it seem there were more of us than there were.’
He had an engaging personality, with a wide smile, an infectious laugh, and an obvious sense of mischief that was tickled by any suggestion of outrageous fraud.
‘It was a funny time, that,’ he went on. ‘While we were building up, the Tommies thought there were only a few disorganized Italians to face. And, while we thought the Tommies were going to come down on us like a lot of ravening wolves, we found out later that all the experienced ones had gone to Greece and been replaced by an inexperienced lot newly out from home.’
He offered a cigarette – a British Gold Flake, Morton noticed. ‘Still,’ he went on. ‘It didn’t matter much, because old Mussolini had already messed it up, hadn’t he? He’s already lost half his navy, the war’s being won without him and his adventure in the Balkans has gone sour. He not only deluded Italy, he deluded himself, which is worse.’
‘You don’t think much of fascism, sergeant?’ Morton tried.
Schwartzheiss smiled enigmatically. ‘I’m just a German soldier fighting for his country,’ he said. ‘And your army doesn’t contribute a lot, does it, tenente? Artillery that came from Austria after the last bunfight. No anti-aircraft guns at all. And those tanks of yours – Himmelherrgott! Most of them come to a grinding halt whenever they’re used.’
Morton listened with a faint growing indignation. He had heard it all before from captured Italians while in Intelligence but now it was with a vague sense of resentment at the German’s smug self-satisfaction. He could only put it down to the Italian tunic and cap he was wearing. He thrust his thoughts aside and tried probing. ‘I’m surprised your Führer allied himself to us,’ he said.
Schwartzheiss grinned. ‘I expect he knows as much about it as most politicians.’ He gazed at Morton. ‘I suppose a lot of Italians feel the same about what goes on in Rome.’
‘Most of us are aware.’
Schwartzheiss frowned. ‘It’s the flies that get me down most about this place,’ he said. ‘Always wanting first bite
