Sergeant Major Fee watched them as if they were mad. ‘You really mean it?’ he grinned. ‘He really is going to marry an Italian sheila?’
‘Why not?’ Clegg asked. ‘Italian women have the same complement of legs, arms, eyes and odds and ends as any other sheila.’
‘But, Jesus, Italians are bloody useless!’
‘It won’t make much difference either way. Marriage hardens the arteries whoever you’re married to.’
‘Stone me eyes right and fours about,’ Caccia said indignantly. ‘It’s the girl I’m going to marry you’re talking about!’
‘I know,’ Fee agreed. ‘That’s why I’m talking about her.’
‘Yes, and you’re going at it like a load of mad dogs, too! All that about Italians being useless.’
‘Well, they are, cobber,’ Fee said. ‘We all know that. We’ve been fighting ’em ever since we came into the war. What do you want to go and marry an Italian sheila for?’
‘She’s got class,’ Caccia snarled. ‘Italian or no Italian!’
‘It’s a sort of diplomatic gesture,’ Clegg pointed out. ‘She’s got a map with the Italian order of battle tattooed on her chest. All their gun emplacements, minefields and what have you.’
‘Which she won’t let him see,’ Clinch added, ‘unless he makes her an honest woman.’
‘Don’t you start,’ Caccia snorted.
Jones the Song joined in delightedly. After all the tormenting he’d suffered from Caccia, he was overjoyed at his predicament. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, boy,’ he said.
Despite the teasing and embarrassment, when it came to the point, however, and now that the moment had come, Caccia wasn’t very worried about his future. ‘She’ll be good in the shop,’ he said.
Morton appeared, decked out in his Italian lieutenant’s uniform. Producing a small bunch of red, white and green ribbons, he solemnly pinned it to the breast pocket of the Italian sergeant’s jacket Caccia was wearing.
‘Sorry there aren’t any carnations,’ he said. ‘But I suppose this will do.’
‘Perhaps they don’t wear carnations when they’re married in Italy,’ Clinch observed.
‘Perhaps they carry a bust of Mussolini in one hand,’ Clegg suggested. ‘And a few sticks of spaghetti in the other.’
‘Now I’ve seen everything,’ Fee said as they pronounced Caccia ready. ‘A Pom dressed in an Italian uniform going off to marry an Italian sheila behind enemy lines.’
‘Oh, there’s more to come,’ Morton said cheerfully. ‘Tonight, remember, we have Jones the Song serenading a German general.’
Wearing a red, white and green sash, a small man with dyed hair and a big belly met them on the steps of the battered Palazzo Municipale.
‘I am Carloni, Gianpiero, avvocato,’ he announced. ‘I am the mayor.’
He stood framed in the large splinter-pitted doorway, between two carved stone fasces and beneath a carved Italian eagle. On the walls on either side someone had painted stalwart slogans from Mussolini’s speeches, and there were a few sombre printed notices for locally born Italians who had been killed pasted to the walls as signs of mourning.
But the sun was out, the wind was not blowing to fill everybody’s eyes with grit, and the mayor shook hands with Caccia and Morton. Clegg, who was driving, sat rigidly in the Humber. ‘It’s a long time since I conducted a marriage ceremony,’ the mayor said, leading the way into his office. Above his head was a picture of Mussolini – prognathous jaw thrust out, eyes fixed in a stare of determination – being aggressive under a steel helmet.
‘There are few marriages in Zuq these days,’ the mayor went on. ‘All the men have gone away. The last one was an officer from a Blackshirt battalion who married a widow from Derna. It was very elaborate. Flags. Saluting. Heel clicking. Very impressive,’ he ended in a flat voice to show how little impressed he was.
They were waiting on the steps when Scarlatti drove up in his Lancia. He was sitting alongside the driver and as he saw Morton he leapt out at once. By this time, under Morton’s influence he had abandoned the rigid straight-armed Roman salute for Morton’s languid British-type flick of the hand. Morton glanced about him warily.
‘Where’s Faiani?’ he asked. ‘Is he coming?’
‘Someone has to stay behind,’ Scarlatti said. ‘To look after the shop. I told him he could take the afternoon off but he said he was busy. Occupied with a signal from Rome about something.’
In the back of the car were Rosalba, her uncle and another girl, who turned out to be Teresa Gelucci. The dress from Scarlatti’s store was a confection of subdued yellow that suited Rosalba’s dark skin and black hair and, with the low neck, tight skirt and the posy of wilting flowers she carried, she looked remarkably pretty. Caccia decided that his mother would approve. The bridesmaid was wearing what looked like a borrowed dress many times darned, and starched and ironed until it was shiny enough to pick up the sun. Barbieri was clad in his best black suit, white shirt and black tie and looked as if he were dressed for a funeral. But there was a suppressed excitement in him, so unlike his normal depressed gloom Caccia was puzzled.
Sidling alongside, Barbieri laid his finger to his nose. ‘I have petrol,’ he announced quietly. ‘Enough to last me for weeks if I’m careful. From the Venezia Armoured Division.’ He made a spitting gesture. ‘Armoured division? The British will make mincemeat of them.’ The smile returned. ‘One hundred and twenty litres. I had brandy. From the dump on the night of the air raid. It was good for barter.’ He kissed his fingertips. ‘British petrol,’ he ended. ‘In beautiful square silver cans.’
‘Make sure they’re not leaking,’ Caccia advised. ‘British petrol cans always leak.’
Barbieri smiled. ‘One or two. Here and there. But the floor of the shed’s covered with shavings from the furniture factory so there can be no sparks. They absorb all the noise.’
‘They’d make a nice bonfire, too,’ Caccia observed.
Avvocato Carloni, who’d been having a quiet talk with Rosalba, announced that he was ready and they lined up in front of him. Rosalba gave Caccia a possessive glance, then shyly lowered
