Rosalba pushed Caccia to the door. Under a cyclamen-coloured sky a convoy of trucks carrying a batch of new recruits was just debussing in the road. The soldiers, undersized boys in ill-fitting uniforms, were staggering under kitbags. They looked poorly equipped and a few were even shouting anti-war slogans.
There was a sad motherly look in Rosalba’s eyes as she watched the column disappear between the ever-hopeful hawkers offering lemonade for sale, then she turned and gave Caccia a quick kiss. ‘Come again,’ she whispered.
‘Next time,’ he said, ‘I won’t take no.’
‘My uncle will be there.’
‘It gets dark.’ An idea occurred to Caccia. ‘You got any girlfriends?’
She stared angrily at him. ‘So! Because I am not available you want the addresses of my friends.’
Caccia grinned. ‘Tell him one of them’s coming to visit you. To talk. About clothes. About scent. Girls do, I know. I’ve got sisters. Tell him one of them’s got some for you on the black market. I’ll bring some.’
‘And you’ll entertain us both?’
Caccia grinned again. ‘I’ll be the girlfriend. I’ll dress up. I’ve got a wig.’
The sad motherly look had gone and she stared at him with eyes full of mischief. ‘This is something you do often? Where did you get it? Where will you get the clothes?’
He gestured vaguely in the direction of the dump. ‘There’s everything we need in there. Even a horse’s gasmask.’
She looked blank. ‘We shall need a horse’s gasmask?’
She caught on eventually. ‘You’ll need somewhere to change,’ she said. ‘You can’t walk through the streets after dark. You’ll get dragged down an alley and raped.’
‘Some rape!’
She giggled. ‘There’s the hut behind the house. My uncle uses it as a store. I’ll see the padlock’s unfastened. There’s a lamp and a mirror. I used to sleep there in the summer before the war when he let my room off to tourists.’
‘I’ll be there just after dark.’
‘And I’ll tell him there are soldiers billeted in Teresa Gelucci’s house and her father’s worried they’re trying to get into her bed, and she wants to stay with me.’
Caccia grinned. He couldn’t believe his luck.
Chapter 12
The following evening Caccia headed into town again. He was shaved to the bone and slung over his shoulder was an Italian side-pack which contained the dress he’d used in the Ratbags’ female-impersonation act. They’d often found that the soldiers they entertained, despite the fact that they knew full well what was under the dress, were more interested in Caccia than all the rest of the company put together. With it was a linen handbag, a wig and, for safety, Dampier’s heavy revolver.
It was a warm night with a sky full of stars all glowing like headlamps. Somewhere a man was singing in a light tenor voice.
‘Kennst du das Land
Wo die Zitronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Laub
Die Gold-Orangen glühn…’
Caccia had no idea what it meant but it sounded sentimental and the thought of Rosalba was pushing his voltage up so much he felt about to burst into flames.
A lorry pulled up alongside him with a low squeak of brakes and he saw the driver was Clutterbuck.
‘Dampier said we’d all to stay in camp in case there was an air raid and we ’ad a go at Scarlatti’s refuelling depot,’ he pointed out cheerfully.
‘If that’s the case, how is it you’re out?’
Clutterbuck pulled a face. ‘They couldn’t keep me in if they tried.’
As he climbed into the passenger seat, Caccia decided that perhaps he ought to have written to the Air Officer Commanding the RAF.
‘Dear AOC, Could you possibly hold off your boys tonight? I’ve got this date with this bird. Yours faithfully, A. Caccia.’ Or why not the Commander of the Eighth Army, whoever he was? Why not Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East? Or for that matter, Churchill? Why not go right to the top? The thought made him grin.
‘What time are you coming back?’ he asked.
‘Midnight. About that.’ Clutterbuck laughed. ‘I’ve got a few petrol tanks to pee into.’
‘See you outside the Bar Barbieri.’ Caccia paused. ‘Unless there’s an air raid. If there is I’ll be outside as soon as the sirens go.’
As Caccia made his way to the bar, in the Italian cap and jacket no one looked at him. It was almost dark when he arrived and he walked up and down for a while, his blood thumping in his veins at the thought of Rosalba’s warm flesh under his hands. Then, as the outlines of the buildings faded in the blue dusk, he slipped through the cactus hedge and into the garden at the back.
As Rosalba had promised, the shed was unlocked. The shutters were already closed and his feet were silent on a floor covered with wood shavings. He struck a match and found the lamp, then, his heart thumping, began to strip off his shirt. Adjusting the padded brassiere he had used to sing ‘Olga Paulovski, The Beautiful Spy,’ he hitched at the football shorts he wore as underwear and slid into the red and yellow dress and the pair of size 9 women’s shoes for which they’d had to search every shop in Cairo. Carefully putting on the wig, he began to apply make-up round his eyes and lipstick on his mouth; then, reaching for a shawl, he draped it over his head to hide his face and, picking up the handbag, slipped into it the lipstick Clutterbuck had acquired for him, and Dampier’s revolver.
Feeling full of oats, he looked around him. The shed contained flour and cartons of pasta, to say nothing of two cases of anisette and one or two bottles of Italian brandy, one of them unsealed. To give himself courage, he took a swig from it and, grasping the handbag, was just moving down the side of the bar when he heard the crash of glass and Rosalba’s voice screaming.
‘Via! Va via! Che faccenda sporca!’
He pulled back quickly into the shadows as the door was wrenched open and the German, Sergeant Schwartzheiss, appeared.
