‘I want to get married.’
Dampier stared. ‘Good God, man,’ he snapped, ‘this is no time to be worrying about getting married! It can wait until we get back to our lines, can’t it?’
‘No, sir. It can’t wait.’
‘Dammit, there’s nothing we can do about it here, stuck out in the blue, with the girl back in England.’
‘She’s not back in England, sir.’
‘She’s not? Cairo? Who is it?’
Caccia drew a deep breath. ‘Her name’s Rosalba Coccioli.’
‘She sounds Italian.’
‘She is Italian, sir.’
Dampier frowned. ‘I think you might have difficulty over this, Caccia. The authorities would never wear it. They’re none too fond of the Italians just now. After all, they’re a pretty treacherous lot.’ Dampier coughed, realizing his gaffe as he remembered Caccia was almost more Italian than English. ‘Well, shall we say they don’t like Italian Italians. There are a lot of British Italians, of course. In London. I expect you’re one. Splendid chaps. Run excellent restaurants. Eaten there meself—’ He realized he was running on unnecessarily without improving the situation and changed direction hurriedly. ‘However, whatever the authorities think about the Italians, I can’t do anything about it here.’
‘I think you can, sir. You’ve got to.’
Dampier’s eyes narrowed and his brows came down again. ‘What do you mean? I’ve got to.’
In a mass of stumbling sentences, Caccia tried to explain. When he’d finished, Dampier looked at Rafferty, whose face was as blank as his own. Then, as it finally dawned on him what Caccia was trying to tell him, the balloon went up.
‘You mean this girl’s here somewhere? Here? Good God, man, do you realize what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Caccia said wretchedly.
‘There’s a war on, man! We’re facing the whole bloody world armed with not much else but our teeth and fingernails and you go off chasing enemy females. What in God’s name have you been up to? Have you been seducing the girl?’
Caccia looked miserable. He had begun to realize that Rosalba Coccioli was a very determined young woman. ‘I don’t know which way it was, sir,’ he admitted. ‘It seemed a bit as if she was seducing me.’
‘Good God! Dancers! Singers! Comedians! Deserters! Now seducers! What have we got mixed up with, Mr Rafferty?’ Dampier glared at Caccia. ‘Where is this girl?’
‘In Zuq, sir. She lives at the Bar Barbieri.’
‘And you’ve been sneaking in there? Into Zuq, at night? Without a pass?’
‘Sir, I didn’t know anybody was issuing passes.’
Nobody was, so Dampier cleared his throat noisily. ‘You’ve been consorting with the enemy, Caccia. That’s a criminal offence, isn’t it, Mr Rafferty?’
Rafferty, as usual, seemed to find it all highly amusing. ‘Sure, they usually shoot ’em, sir,’ he said.
Caccia threw him an alarmed look and Dampier gestured angrily. It jabbed at his lumbago again and he finally lost his temper. ‘Put this bloody man under arrest, Mr Rafferty!’
‘Sir!’ Caccia’s voice rose to a bleat of protest. ‘I think you should listen!’
‘Good God! Desertion’s bad enough! Consorting with the enemy’s about the most severe crime you could commit!’
‘But, sir—!’
‘He’s confined to his tent, Mr Rafferty, until we decide what to do with him.’
Rafferty walked with Caccia back to his tent. He was a calm man and he had a lot of experience. Instead of merely leaving Caccia to himself, he leaned on the tent pole.
‘You said the colonel should listen,’ he said. ‘Why? Have you something that might be an explanation?’
‘Not half I haven’t, sir,’ Caccia complained. ‘What I’ve got’s enough to make your hat spin round. I just didn’t get a chance to say so.’
A few minutes later, Rafferty reappeared in Dampier’s tent.
‘I think, sir,’ he said, ‘that mebbe we should talk some more to Driver Caccia.’
When Caccia reappeared in Dampier’s tent, the colonel was in a more subdued mood. Morton was also there this time, alongside Rafferty, almost in the guise of the prisoner’s friend at a court martial.
‘I’ve been thinking about your case, Caccia,’ Dampier said. ‘And I’m assuming that your conduct is explained to a certain extent by the fact that you have Italian blood in you. But you’re still a British soldier. Can’t you just ignore her? Soldiers have done it before, y’know. Got a girl into trouble and then asked for a posting to the other end of the country.’ He was itching to know what was on the map Rafferty had told him about, but in his pompous way he felt he first had to go through the rigmarole of reading some sort of lecture. ‘Not that we can give you a posting from here. But we’ll be away soon. Corporal Morton has information that the Italians are about to start clearing a strip of the minefield.’
Caccia drew another deep breath. ‘It’s not as simple as that, sir.’
‘Soldiers have always found it simple before. It’s something I very much deplore. Putting a girl in the family way – is she in the family way?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then, what the devil are you worrying about? You’ve heard of the Soldier’s Farewell, haven’t you? And shotgun weddings never work. Just forget her.’
‘I can’t, sir.’
‘Great gold teeth of God, man! Don’t start being all intense with us! Of course you can forget her!’
‘I didn’t mean that, sir. This time it concerns all of us. You, sir. Mr Rafferty, sir. All the others. She’s found out.’
‘What do you mean, she’s found out?’
‘About us.’
Dampier glared. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘No, sir. I swear. But she says if I don’t marry her, she’ll go to the town major and tell him who we are. We won’t half catch a cold.’
‘Good God!’ Dampier looked at Rafferty for guidance but the warrant officer’s face remained blank. ‘Can she?’
‘She knows where we are. She said she drove out in her uncle’s car a few days ago to watch. She had a pair of binoculars. British ones. Captured British ones. Stolen from the dump.’
‘Good God,’ Dampier said again. ‘Everybody’s at it.’ He paused. ‘Look, tell her to come out here to see me. It’s usual for the CO to
