‘Eh, soldato!’ she screamed. ‘Ritornate! Ritornatevi! Come again!’
Chapter 9
That night the RAF came. It was fairly well understood at the other side of the lines that the Italians were up to something, and with Zuq among the entry ports for their army’s supplies it was inevitable that the RAF should turn their attention to it.
As the bombs whistled down round the harbour, the fire brigade turned out as usual and, despite their frightened eyes and wild cries of alarm, they did sterling work. They had no sooner put out a fire near the harbour, however, than the fort was hit. A wall collapsed but, apart from two lorries which went up in flames, little other damage was done. Even as the fire brigade headed towards it, though, they were caught up by a dispatch rider with the information that a corner of the hospital had also been hit.
Scarlatti, the town major, had called out the troops and the place was surrounded by soldiers in trucks and cars, and a whole string of them started carrying out patients and equipment and laying them on the lawns. To aid the ancient fire appliances, the usual bucket chain was started from one of the ponds supplying water to the fountain but it was never sufficient and, as they struggled to douse the flames, other soldiers were putting up marquees to house the rescued patients.
While all this was going on, a stray salvo of bombs from one of the last aeroplanes over the town hit Scarlatti’s dump. The first bomb brought down the gatehouse and part of the fence. A second fell inside, bringing down a corner of the food store, another demolished part of the heavy tool store, and the last two removed the fence at the far side. Immediately, as the news shot around the town, every Arab and Italian who wasn’t afraid to be out in the bombing descended on the place to grab what he could.
Clegg, who had taken to sleeping under one of the lorries for safety, lifted his head sharply at the sound of a vehicle roaring into camp and hit it sharply enough against the axle to bring tears to his eyes. Crawling out dizzily, he saw it was Clutterbuck who had been in the town searching for beer. He had just arrived back and was yelling blue murder.
‘The whole bloody place’s wide open and up for grabs!’ he was screaming. ‘Scarlatti’s doing his nut, yellin’ for ’elp, and they’ve turned out all ’is staff and labourers and ’alf the Italian police to get the stuff away before it’s either burned or pinched! But you can’t tell who’s rescuin’ it and who’s pinchin’ it and, in any case, as soon as they dump it outside, it gets pinched again! If we get in quick we can get everything we need to set us up!’
The whole area was chaos. Two palm trees, caught by the blast and uprooted to cant at an angle of forty-five degrees, had brought down telephone wires which hung in loops over the road to cut communications with anywhere outside the town. There seemed to be hundreds of soldiers and night-shirted Arabs about and they all seemed to have their arms full. The military police kept stopping them but the Italians said they were rescuing the stuff and all the Arabs apparently had passes to indicate they were on the staff of the dump.
‘Half of ’em false,’ Clutterbuck said. ‘Never mind usin’ your ’ands. Just drive the lorry in.’
They were stopped at the gap in the fence where the gate had been by a frightened young soldier with his rifle at the ready.
‘Get out of the way, man,’ Morton shouted at him. ‘This whole business is ridiculous! People are carrying things out one at a time. We should be saving it in lorryloads, not handfuls.’
The soldier seemed to agree that it was a good idea and waved them through.
‘The heavy tools, Clutterbuck,’ Rafferty demanded immediately. ‘Where are they?’
‘Over ’ere,’ Clutterbuck said. ‘They got acetylene burners an’ the lot.’
The end of the heavy tool store was lying in a pile of splintered planks and, because most people were after the food and the lighter articles which could easily be carried away, the immediate area was deserted both by looters and guards. A generator went into the back of the lorry first, followed by a block and tackle, acetylene burners and gas cylinders. Then Clutterbuck spotted a heavy-duty drill.
‘We could do with one ’o them,’ he said. ‘’Ang on. I’ll get another lorry.’
As the rest of them grabbed tools, tyres and spare parts, he disappeared into the flame-lit darkness to return five minutes later with a Lancia truck.
Directed by Rafferty, who knew exactly what they required, they began to fill the second truck. One eye on the future, Clegg had found a crate of beer. Food, clothing, camp equipment followed. By this time they had been joined by other Italian soldiers and a few Arabs. Most of them were helping themselves, on the principle that if it were going to be destroyed why not enjoy it?
Morton spotted Scarlatti in the distance, standing in the back of his car screaming orders at a group of soldiers, and Faiani, on foot, limping painfully about, flourishing a fistful of papers as he marshalled Arab labourers into carrying things to safety outside the main gate. As soon as he’d disappeared, Morton stepped from the shadows and ordered the Arabs to stuff what they’d rescued into the lorry Clutterbuck had appropriated. Then, as he found the liquor store and was just helping himself to a case of Italian brandy, he became aware of another man in the shadows. His heart thumped, but, as the spill from a searchlight fell on the other figure, he saw it was Sergeant Schwartzheiss, staggering under a case marked JOHN
