Erwin smiled. ‘So long as we have music. Very soon the only music we’ll have will be the music of the guns.’
As the car moved off down the wadi, Morton looked at Clegg and Jones. Jones gave a nervous grimace that was supposed to be a reassuring smile, his lips moving as he went for the thousandth time over the Italian words of ‘Santa Lucia’.
Erwin’s celebration was more of a success than they’d believed possible. At six o’clock Morton drove down the ravine with Jones and Clegg, pushed them out of the car where they couldn’t be seen, then continued to where Obergefreiter Bomberg had placed a folding table on the sand. Erwin and Captain Stracka sat alongside it under their umbrella, straw hats on their heads, toying with their food in the heat. Wine glasses in their hands, they were staring at the two easels set up a few feet away and discussing their work.
‘I’ve acquired something of the light there,’ Erwin was saying critically. ‘And that patch of pinkish gravel on the right brings in a dramatic touch of colour, don’t you think?’
‘I think, Herr General,’ Stracka commented, ‘that perhaps the pink should be a little deeper to offer a greater contrast.’
Erwin frowned. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Stracka,’ he agreed. ‘Perhaps the light’s going. We’ll come here one last time to finish it off. Tomorrow night at the same time, so that the sun’s in the same position. We shall just have time before we have to leave.’ He became aware of Morton standing nearby and rose to his feet. ‘Please join us in a drink, tenente.’
As Bomberg poured the wine, Morton noticed that there was no chair for him. Typical of the bloody Germans, he thought. The arrogant bastards expected him to stand.
As he lifted his glass, the first strains of Clegg’s piano accordion came with Jones’s soaring voice:
‘Sul mare lucia
L’astro d’argento—’
Erwin swung round and smiled. ‘I can see nothing,’ he said. ‘Your shy Soldato Iones has chosen his spot well.’
‘Barchetta mia
Santa Lucia—’
Jones the Song was in good voice and Erwin nodded, pleased. ‘I always think the Neapolitan songs are the most melodious in the whole world,’ he observed cheerfully. ‘I expect you know “Torna a Surriento”, tenente?’
Morton did. Who didn’t? It was the one song that every screeching tenor in the army – most of them not a Jones – who felt he could sing, always pounded out at Naafi concerts. Even the Ratbags had had to endure a few impromptu ‘Tornas’ at their shows when some drunken corporal had insisted on getting up on the stage. It was obviously the same in the German army and the fact that Morton knew the song didn’t stop Erwin going on to describe it and his feelings for it. By the time he’d finished, Jones had changed to a different tune.
‘Are you an opera lover, tenente?’ Erwin asked.
‘All Italians are opera lovers, excellency.’
‘The Führer’s favourite is Wagner.’
It would be, Morton thought.
‘Freude durch Arbeit, perhaps.’ Erwin laughed. ‘Joy through hard work. Another of Dr Goebbels’s sayings. There are other German operas, of course.’ He refilled his glass. ‘Martha, by Flotow, who was born in Darmstadt. Beethoven’s Fidelio. And what about Richard Strauss, born in Munich, and Offenbach, born in Cologne?’
They discussed Beethoven for some minutes, by which time Jones had got through another two songs. Nobody had bothered to offer Morton another glass of wine or to provide him with a seat and at one point he became aware of Clegg’s indignant face peering over the edge of the wadi behind Erwin’s back, clearly wondering if anybody was taking any notice of them.
In the hope of attracting some attention, they sang ‘Lili Marlene’ because everybody in the desert sang ‘Lili Marlene’.
‘Tutte le sere, sotto quel fanal
Pres so la caserna…’
But, having discussed German and Austrian composers, Erwin had launched by this time into a lecture on art, with reference to watercolour and in particular to his own watercolours.
‘…Con te, Lili Marlene,
Con te, Lili Marlene.’
As the voice stopped, Morton could imagine Jones and Clegg staring at each other, wondering why they’d bothered. By this time, he was seething inside himself and his opinion of Erwin had changed considerably for the worse. The German was still happily chattering away, half the time to Stracka, Morton standing alongside like a wet hen, and eventually he became aware that what he was listening to wasn’t Italian any more but Welsh. Indignation that a Welshman should be singing his socks off without even being noticed had led Jones into a brisk defiant run through ‘The Men of Harlech’.
‘Wele goelcerth wen yn fflamio,
A thafodau tân yn bloeddio,
Ar ir dewrion ddod i daro,
Unwaith eto’n un—’
Erwin finally stopped talking and looked up. ‘That is an Italian song, tenente?’ he said, puzzled.
Morton swallowed. ‘Dialect, excellency. From Stresa. Our dim little soldier is, I think, trying to translate it into German.’
Erwin frowned. ‘I have been a German all my life,’ he said. ‘But I have never heard that German. Tell him to sing another.’
As Erwin launched into another diatribe, Morton had a feeling that Clegg at least wouldn’t need prompting. After all they’d put into their act, to see Erwin talking through it was enough to make any professional indignant and, fuelled by the wine he’d drunk, Clegg’s sense of mischief would be working overtime.
He wasn’t wrong. This time it was a jingle they’d picked up from the South Africans, sung in a broad backveldt jaap accent, also picked up from the South Africans.
‘The monkey and the babejaan sat upon the grass,
And the monkey stuck its finger up the babejaan’s arse.
And the babejaan said “God bless my soul!”
Take your dirty finger out of my arsehole.’
‘And,’ Clegg’s voice ended indignantly. ‘Up yours, too!’
Morton’s heart stood still at what might come next, but Erwin had talked through the whole thing and it seemed to be the end of the concert; only silence followed. Erwin and Stracka were still chattering away but, as he
