Shoving several drums of petrol together, Rafferty unscrewed the cap of one of them and tipped it on its side. As the petrol poured out, he gestured to the others to disappear. As they scrambled into the ditch, he pulled the pin of one of the grenades and, placing it carefully in the pool of petrol, hurtled after the others.
They were all crouching with their heads down as the grenade exploded. It went off with a crack and a flash of flame, and almost immediately the stack of drums went up, less with a bang than with a whoof. A whole series of explosions followed, as if a giant were blowing breathy belches across the desert, and in seconds the whole area of the refuelling depot was sending huge black clouds of smoke into the sky. The heat was enough to create a whirlwind and they could feel the air roaring past them to feed the flames. Dust and uprooted bushes went with it, to disappear as cinders into the heavens with the smoke. Almost at once, lorries appeared from the fort. Imagining it to be an attack by the Long Range Desert Group, the officer in command had given orders to evacuate the place and the lorries were pouring out, one after the other, to head for the safety of the desert, the faces of the drivers lit up by the glare of the flames.
It was Rafferty who came to life first. It was a long time since he’d enjoyed himself so much. ‘Come on, bhoys,’ he said, his accent thickening in his excitement as it always did. ‘’Tis time we were off.’
Caccia followed in a daze. It was only twenty minutes since he’d been in Rosalba Coccioli’s arms.
Chapter 13
When Scarlatti finally appeared at 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit, it was noticeable that Faiani had surfaced again. They had seen nothing of him for some time but on this occasion he was with Scarlatti in the Lancia and Clutterbuck promptly disappeared to the stores tent and kept his head down.
Scarlatti’s face was as mournful as Mondi’s behind the wheel. His plump features seemed to droop and he was full of woe. ‘First the furniture factory,’ he complained. ‘Then the dump. And now, last night, the refuelling depot. Why is it always me and never Ancillotti? The RAF have bombed Derna again and again and his dump is always spared. I begin to think the Holy Father in Rome doesn’t pray hard enough for us or that his prayers aren’t answered, because nobody deserves success less than Ancillotti. The way he’s filling his pockets is disgraceful.’
‘Perhaps,’ Morton said mildly, ‘you should report him to Brigadier Olivaro.’
Scarlatti had no intention of reporting anybody in case a general enquiry should be set in motion to cover all dumps, including his own. ‘Those damned bombers are becoming too accurate,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Or else some traditore sporco – some filthy traitor – is signalling to them. I think I shall have to have a few heads blown off by a firing squad.’
Morton didn’t take him very seriously because he’d long since realized Scarlatti was a soft-hearted man longing only to return to Italy and his plump wife and three daughters.
The jeremiad continued for a while, then Faiani’s sharp eyes detected that there were more tools about 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit than previously and he turned sharply, his eyes narrow.
‘I see your equipment turned up, count,’ he said suspiciously.
‘Not mine.’ Morton smiled. ‘That appears to have disappeared somewhere near Sofi. Commandeered, I expect. You know what soldiers are. These’ – he gestured about him – ‘these are all new issues. I signalled Brigadier Olivaro. He’s an old friend of my family. I pointed out that we couldn’t function without equipment. It arrived during the night. At the height of the air raid.’ He flourished the inventories, all sporting Clutterbuck’s version of Brigadier Olivaro’s signature.
Faiani nodded. ‘There have been some disastrous happenings in Zuq lately,’ he observed shrewdly. ‘Funny you should be here to see them all, count.’
‘Fortunes of war,’ Morton said. ‘Some people have doubtless gone through the war without hearing a shot fired in anger.’
Scarlatti said nothing. He suspected the signatures were false, and it was common practice in the army, he knew, to help yourself to what you needed if the opportunity arose. If you lost something, you helped yourself to the next man’s, while he replaced what you’d taken from the possessions of the person next to him in line, and so on. The last man started it all over again by helping himself from the possessions of the first. It was an army adage that only a fool allowed himself to remain without. Nevertheless, even though he suspected that what he saw in front of him was his, Scarlatti had already, as Clutterbuck had predicted, followed another army adage and was protecting his own rear by writing it all off as ‘lost due to enemy action’. And, having done so, he had no intention of making an ass of himself by suddenly discovering that it hadn’t been.
All the same, Scarlatti thought, considering the amount of help he’d given to 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit, the advice he’d offered, the food he’d supplied, it was nothing less than base ingratitude, and the Italian nobility clearly wasn’t what he’d always thought.
Though Scarlatti didn’t worry them much, Faiani was another kettle of fish, while Schwartzheiss was yet another. And when Schwartzheiss arrived within a couple of hours of Faiani’s departure, it had 64 Light Vehicle Repair Unit alarmed.
He was driving a Kübelwagen and there was a large plaster on his head where Dampier’s revolver had contacted it. Seeing him from his tent, Caccia bolted for the marquee where Morton was standing with Rafferty.
‘It’s him,’ he said frantically. ‘That German I bonked over the conk.’
Rafferty was nervous but Morton was confident he could handle things.
‘I’ll attend to him,’ he
