As the Kübelwagen stopped, he stepped forward. ‘Good morning, sergeant,’ he said. ‘Your car is in need of repair?’
Schwartzheiss smiled. ‘If it were, I’d get it serviced at our own workshops.’ He was looking about him, his eyes shrewd. His comment was the same as Faiani’s. ‘I see your lost equipment turned up, tenente.’
Morton smiled. ‘During the air raid that destroyed Scarlatti’s dump.’
‘Pity you weren’t here to welcome it.’
Morton smiled again. ‘But I was, sergeant. I’m always careful to remain in camp at night. To guard against pilferers. Doubtless you were doing the same.’
Schwartzheiss’s smile didn’t waver. ‘Of course.’
‘Have you acquired much new equipment, sergeant?’
‘It requires sharp wits, tenente.’
‘Especially in our army, sergeant. We have nothing else to sharpen.’
Schwartzheiss laughed. ‘That’s the worst of wars.’
‘They’re always with us. The only way to get rid of them is to have them.’
Schwartzheiss’s eyes seemed to be everywhere, flickering about the camp as he talked. Apparently hard at work for the Italian war effort, everybody kept their heads down, Rafferty bent over an engine, Dampier busy over the stove, Caccia hiding with Clutterbuck behind the boxes in the stores tent. Schwartzheiss seemed loath to go and, working the accelerator of the lorry he was occupied with, Rafferty kept deliberately drowning his voice as he revved the engine.
In the end Morton handed over a couple of bottles of chianti and Schwartzheiss seemed satisfied. They stared with relief after the plume of dust trailed by the Kübelwagen.
‘Think he suspected?’ Dampier asked.
‘He’s no fool,’ Morton said.
‘Think he and Faiani are in touch with each other?’ Rafferty asked. ‘’Tis only two hours since Faiani was here.’
‘If they start exchanging suspicions we’re in trouble. Especially if they include Scarlatti.’
Rafferty frowned. ‘I’m thinkin’ neither of ’em comes here just for a change of air,’ he said. ‘It’s time we moved.’
Almost without orders, almost as if they’d all thought of it at the same time, they started to pack the vehicles, and in a matter of an hour and a half they were heading away from the town.
Rafferty sought a place that was far from people who might ask questions and eventually settled on a spot on the south side of the town, close to a deep gully called the Wadi Sghiara. The site was not on the main road and the traffic was thin. The wadi itself rose in the hills near the coast and opened southwards into the desert at a point where there were several ridges of sand dunes, one or two of them lifting as high as sixty feet to catch the evening sun. In parts it was ten feet deep and the wide entrance had steep walls of sandy soil marked by scrubby yellow flowers where black-striped hoopoes darted. Further south was only the desert, burning in the sun, the dunes like white sugar in the glare. There were no immediate neighbours but there was also no water, which would have to be brought from Zuq, and the only moisture would be their own sweat, while the flies would be more troublesome than ever.
‘This will do,’ Dampier said confidently.
Rafferty wasn’t half so sure. ‘I’d rather disappear altogether,’ he said.
‘In good time, Mr Rafferty.’ Dampier had his eyes on thwarting the Italian attack when it came and a solid British victory resulting from the information he’d collected. He could even see a little glory in it for himself. ‘All in good time. We’ll set up camp here.’
Because of a nervous feeling that Rosalba was suspicious of him – the same sort of edginess they all felt – Caccia didn’t go into Zuq for several days, but when he finally succumbed she welcomed him with open arms and a flood of tears.
‘I thought you’d forgotten me.’
‘Never,’ Caccia insisted. ‘Never!’
She swung on his neck and, because Barbieri had bribed more petrol out of an Italian transport sergeant and was asleep after a trip to Derna, within half an hour Caccia was in her bed and, over the sound of the radio, which was playing martial music from Radio Rome to drown their voices, he told her about Schwartzheiss’s visit.
‘All Germans are not bad.’ Flushed and happy, Rosalba was in a forgiving mood. ‘Some are even well mannered. But not many. They think we are an inferior race.’
‘I’m not an inferior race,’ Caccia said.
‘You should be an officer, Arturo. Have you fought in many battles?’
‘You ever heard of Addis Ababa?’
‘Of course.’
‘I took him prisoner.’
She giggled and, reaching out a slender arm, poured wine into a glass. Caccia swallowed it at a gulp.
‘Amazing how thirsty it makes you,’ he said.
‘A pity it isn’t champagne.’ She giggled again. ‘I always wondered what it would be like to drink wine in bed with a man. I think you plotted this all along. From the moment you saw me. Did you fall in love with me at once?’ Rosalba had been brought up on romantic magazines. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t go back until tomorrow.’
‘I can’t do that. There’s work to do.’
‘Not much. I’ve seen you.’
Caccia flashed her a startled look and she explained.
‘I drove out in my uncle’s car and watched you with binoculars, British binoculars that a German corporal gave us in exchange for wine. He stole them from the dump. That German sergeant followed me but I dodged him. I thought you might have girls out there. I was jealous.’ She began to wheedle. ‘It’s a long way to go back, Arturo. Send a note to say you have a bad back.’
‘You don’t send notes in the army.’
‘Not even in the Italian army?’ She took the glass from Caccia’s hand and carefully placed it on the dressing table.
‘What are you up to?’ Caccia asked warily. ‘I don’t like the look in your eye.’
‘Mamma mia, it’s not the look in my eye you should worry about, Arturo Caccia.’
The old shy Rosalba was giving way to a new saucy one who was more than willing to be adventurous; giving a hoot of laughter, her legs waving whitely in the faint light that came through
