After two months, surrender; the nightmare heat behind the barbed wire of a desert camp. Then onto a boat and north. Into the wind, into the cold.
Onto an island where the sky arches above, like an open mouth, and guards yell and hit him.
It is best, Cesare decides, to keep his mouth shut and his head down.
He and the other men are herded past steel gates and into a square of bare earth, surrounded by metal huts, which are surrounded in turn by a barbed-wire fence. Everything is sharp and cold and grey; the men shiver as the uniformed guards line them up and count them. Each guard carries a long wooden baton and a gun. As a guard counts each Italian man, he taps him on the head with the baton – not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to convey a message: Your body belongs to us.
Each prisoner is then given a plain brown uniform – trousers and a shirt, which are dumped into the dirt.
‘Get changed, quickly,’ the guard in front of Cesare snaps. He has a thin moustache and a nose red from the cold.
‘What’re you staring at?’ he demands, then jabs at the uniform with his baton. ‘Move!’ Then he continues down the line.
Cesare glances left and right, where all the men are unbuttoning their old grey shirts and shivering. Next to him, he can hear Gino’s teeth chattering, and, further down the line, there is a cry from Antonio as a guard prods him for hesitating.
‘Basta!’ Cesare calls to the guard. ‘He speaks no English.’
The guard strides back, stops in front of Cesare, holding up the wooden baton. ‘And you do?’ the guard says.
‘Some.’ Cesare avoids the guard’s gaze.
‘So you’ll understand when I say that if you question me again you’ll regret it?’
Cesare eyes the baton, nods quickly, once.
‘Then shut your mouth and get into that uniform. Now.’
The guard watches as Cesare fumbles with his buttons, shivering at the cold cut of wind on his skin, pulling on the brown uniform as quickly as his numb hands will allow. The material is rough and thin and offers little protection from the biting chill in the air.
He watches the guard’s black boots move on. He exhales.
A whistle blows and Cesare stands straighter, craning his neck to see the figure of a tall, uniformed man climbing onto a platform in front of the lines of prisoners. Like the guards, this man has a gun and a baton. His moustache is grey, his face weathered. His coat glitters with medals, bristles with ribbons.
‘Attention, men!’ he calls. ‘I am Major Bates, your commanding officer. I expect to run an orderly camp. I expect you to do as you are instructed, without fuss or protest. Never forget that you are here as prisoners. Your lives are in our hands.’ He looks down at the men and Cesare sees something hard in his eyes. This man, he knows, would not hesitate to punish them.
Major Bates continues: ‘Your task, while you are here, is to build barriers in the sea between these islands. You will work in groups in the quarry, mining rocks to build these barriers.’
There are murmurs from around him, from the Italians who can speak some English, and Cesare shifts uncomfortably: if they are to build barriers, they will be helping the enemy, the people who are killing their friends and bombing their families.
Major Bates blows the whistle again and the Italians fall silent.
‘If you follow orders and work hard, there will be no problems while you are here.’ He pauses, shifts the baton from one hand to the other. ‘You will see, however, that on your uniforms, you have two red circles. One on the shoulder and one on the leg.’
Cesare glances down, touches the red patches of fabric. Around him, the other men are doing the same.
‘These are targets,’ the major says, his voice level. ‘If you try to escape, the guards will aim for your arm. If you do not stop, they will aim for your thigh. If you continue to run, they will aim for a larger target.’ He raises his hand to his head, briefly touches his grey hair.
The prisoners – even those who don’t understand English – stand very still, as if the guards are, at this moment, pointing guns at their legs and their arms. As if they are aiming at their skulls.
Major Bates’s smile holds no warmth. ‘You will take your meals in the mess hut behind me. You will rise with the first whistle in the morning, be out for reveille and to be counted in the yard by the second whistle. You will obey orders, and by obeying, you will be safe. If you do not obey orders, you will be put in the Punishment Hut, and given only bread and water. If you do not work hard enough, you will be taken to the Punishment Hut. If you are late to be counted, you will be taken to the Punishment Hut.’
All the Italians, no matter how little English they speak, are able to discern the threat in the repetition of these words: orders, obey, punishment.
Cesare’s mouth is dry as he is led towards his hut, with fifty other men. They file into the dark building, which has wooden bunks around the edges, and a small stove in the centre.
Gino and Antonio are in the same hut, and take bunks near to Cesare’s. The guard in charge – short, cheeks flaming with acne, barely more than a boy – gives
