‘Fire!’ The cry came from in the crowd. ‘Il capannone è in fiamme!’
The flare of the flame in the darkness lit the faces of the gathering crowd as they all swung from Schwartzheiss towards the blaze.
‘Santa Maria, madre di Dio!’ Barbieri moaned. ‘The petrol!’
Even as he spoke, the shed disappeared. There was a tremendous whoof, the roof seemed to lift into the air, and blazing petrol shot in all directions. As they picked themselves up, Italian carabinieri appeared from nowhere, shrieking with fury.
‘Put that fire out,’ they began to yell. ‘The British bombers will come, and the army’s on the move!’
Someone turned to the standpipe just down the street and buckets appeared. Civilians and Italian soldiers formed a line, all shouting instructions at once. Rosalba was standing in the shadows among the trees near the bar, screeching blue murder and, red in the face with fury, Schwartzheiss was shouting orders at anyone who was near enough to hear. But the petrol had gone up in one great sheet of flame and no one took the slightest notice of him in the panic.
There was a good blaze going now from the remains of the shed. More buckets appeared and they seemed to be getting the flames under control when Clegg stepped into the line and did his Will Hay fireman act. Switching hands, he sent the empty buckets back to the fire and the full ones back to the standpipe. As they were passing them automatically, it was some time before anybody noticed. Then a yell went up from the fire.
‘È vacue! Le secchie sono vacue! The buckets are empty!’
‘È piene! Le secchie sono già piene.’ Almost as if in chorus, another wail went up from the standpipe. ‘The buckets are already full!’
The fire brigade had arrived by this time, the ancient vehicle rattling noisily into the street, manned by firemen in shining brass helmets.
‘Aprire la strada! Aprire la strada! Clear the way!’
The hose was hitched up and run out but the leaks still hadn’t been repaired and water shot into the air like miniature fountains. The shouting increased to hysteria. Then, in the middle of it all, someone yelled that he could hear the RAF coming back.
Almost immediately the air-raid siren sounded again and there was the crash of an explosion nearby. The crowd scattered like cockroaches before a light, the firemen close behind so that the abandoned hoses, still leaking like colanders, whipped backwards and forwards across the ground like panic-stricken snakes. Schwartzheiss seemed to divine that the performance had been put on for his benefit and now, as the flames roared up again, he got a good look for the first time at Caccia, who had been carefully keeping out of the way.
‘You!’ he roared. ‘Mein lieber Gott! I’ve seen you before!’
He was just dragging his pistol from its holster on his belt when Clegg hit him over the head with the brandy bottle.
As the German collapsed, Clegg seized him by the seat of his trousers and the neck of his jacket and, with a muscle-cracking swing of his powerful arms, tossed him into the back of the car. ‘After you, Cecil,’ he said.
‘Get in!’ Realizing that Clegg had saved the situation, Morton shoved Caccia aboard.
‘The petrol!’ Barbieri wailed. ‘They’ll shoot me for having petrol!’
Without arguing, Clegg pushed him into the car, too, and, treading on his heels, scrambled into the driver’s seat. With a scrape of gears, he let in the clutch and the vehicle jerked and began to lurch down the street.
Morton gave him a terrified look but Clegg was actually laughing, a deep-throated chuckle coming from his throat.
On the edge of the town, they recognized the LRDG’s borrowed Lancia at the side of the road, and Morton was just about to demand a little help when he realized it was near the warehouse where they’d seen lorries being loaded with ammunition and petrol and changed his mind. As they passed at full speed, Caccia yelling through the din in infuriated incoherence from the rear seat, Coffin and Sergeant Grady appeared from the doorway and started running for their lorry. As they scrambled aboard, they recognized the Humber.
‘Keep going, mate!’ Grady yelled. ‘It’s going up any second!’
As the ammunition store went up, it seemed to give the Humber a shove from behind and they felt the heat as the sear of flame shot skywards. Outside the town, they halted. Half the Italian army seemed to have come to a stop, too. The columns moving eastwards had all ground to a standstill, the crews of tanks and lorries staring back at the flames and whirring tracer rising from the direction of Zuq. Searchlights were probing the sky but the flames had attracted the RAF and they could see the flares and feel the thuds in the bones of the earth as the bombs screamed down.
Clegg was crowing with delight, and it was some time before they became aware of Barbieri’s moans and Caccia’s strangled shouts of fury. As they swung round, they saw his face was stricken.
‘What the hell’s up with you?’ Clegg asked.
Caccia turned on them wildly. ‘You stupid daft silly sod!’ he stormed. ‘You’ve left Rosalba behind!’
Chapter 6
There was no going back into town, Rosalba or no Rosalba. Too many people had seen them and too much had happened. Besides, all Italian traffic was moving south and east now and the Italian military police would be watching
