She continues: ‘It means me coming across to this island, of course, but then there’s no truth in the stories, at least that’s what my mother said. Although she did give me this sprig of white heather for protection. It’s usually above our door.’ She brings out a bunch of dried-out leaves – brownish, not white, then nods, half smiling. ‘And those twins have been safe enough, living here.’
‘Twins?’ Cesare is suddenly alert: he can’t help himself. But then he wishes he hadn’t spoken, because the girl’s eyes focus on him again and her smile fades. She straightens her skirts.
‘I don’t have time to be talking to you. I must write my notes for the doctor.’
She taps away, tutting.
Gino is sleeping. The square of light from the window creeps down the wall. Cesare counts the beat of his pulse in his foot.
He is beginning to think that the doctor might not come after all, when he hears footsteps again, two pairs, and Nurse Croy is back with a tall man – elderly but straight-backed and sharp-eyed.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ he says, bending to take off Cesare’s boot. The pain ricochets up through his leg and he clenches his jaw to stop himself crying out. The doctor prods his swollen, blackened toes firmly and instructs Cesare to bend them, which he does with difficulty and a groan through gritted teeth.
‘Possibly broken, or badly bruised if you’re lucky.’ The doctor speaks slowly and clearly. ‘I’ll bandage them. Rest. Two days, then we’ll see.’ He mimes bandaging and holds up two fingers.
‘Thank you,’ Cesare says. ‘My friend, I think, is worse. There is some bleeding and he cannot walk without help.’
‘Your English is very good,’ the doctor says, eyeing Cesare. ‘Can you write?’
Cesare nods.
‘You have good relationships with the other prisoners?’
Cesare pauses, thinks of Marco, and nods again.
The doctor taps his pen on his paper. ‘Major Bates will come and see you later today, I should imagine. If you want to avoid breaking more toes in the quarry, I’d suggest best behaviour.’
And with this mysterious instruction, the doctor moves on to examine Gino, who has indeed broken his big toe, the doctor is almost certain, and has significant trauma besides. The nurse frowns as she writes this down, and Cesare rolls the words around his tongue – such beautiful words to describe something so damaged.
Significant trauma.
And as he tries to ignore the pain and drifts off to sleep, the words blur with those of the nurse earlier.
Protection. Those girls have been safe enough. Significant trauma.
And he remembers, again, the red-haired woman. The sensation of her fingers gripping his shirt, pulling him upwards towards air and life. He remembers her hand under his chin, her breath loud in his ear as she’d whispered, Please, please, please.
Early the next morning he is woken in the darkness by the whistle in the yard and the sound of the men stumbling from their huts into the cold to be counted.
Gino is awake too, his face tight with pain in the dim lamplight.
Cesare reaches across to him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says again, in Italian.
Gino gestures at the warm room, the beds, the clean sheets. ‘I’m not.’
They both laugh softly and Cesare sleeps again.
When he next wakes, a tall uniformed man is standing next to his bed, scowling at him.
Major Bates.
Out of habit, Cesare tries to stand, then cries out at the pain in his foot.
‘Not too clever, putting all your weight on an injured foot,’ the major half smiles, but not unkindly. ‘Lie down, at ease.’
Cesare nods, sucks in air, and waits for the nausea to subside.
‘Now,’ the major says, ‘Dr Tulloch tells me you speak English.’ He indicates the nurse. ‘And young Bess here says you’ve nice manners – for a foreign chap. Would you say that’s fair?’
‘I . . . I speak English, a little, and . . .’
‘You’re modest, good. I like that. You’d be able to translate for your fellow prisoners? Talk to them about their skills and so on, and give them my orders?’
He doesn’t understand what he’s truly being asked, but still Cesare nods. It is unthinkable to do anything else, when he is faced with those medals and dressed in pyjamas, in this warm bed, and all the while, from somewhere in the back of his skull, he feels the reverberating thunk, thunk, thunk of spades on rock. As if the endless act of digging, and the danger and the fear, have sunk into his bloodstream, into his bones.
‘Very well, then,’ the major says. ‘You’ll be sitting at a desk and you’ve not far to hobble to get to my office, so what say you start this afternoon? Nurse Croy here will help you across the compound. After lunch should do nicely.’
Nurse Croy bobs smartly and both of them turn to Cesare.
‘Yes, sir,’ he says, finally. ‘Thank you.’
After they have gone, Gino turns to Cesare. ‘What were they saying?’
Cesare shakes his head, not daring to hope. ‘I think I’ve found a way to survive.’
Later, Nurse Croy holds his arm as he walks across the yard to the major’s hut. Cesare has dressed in his uniform, which has been washed, and Nurse Croy speaks more tersely than before, taking care to touch him as little as possible.
‘Now, the major has a short temper, they say, but he’s not unkind.’
‘Thank you,’ Cesare says. ‘You will look after my friend, Gino?’
She nods, helps him up the step and opens the door for him. It bounces off a heap of letters and dislodges some envelopes, which flurry into the air and come to rest on the floor, along with the piles of paper, files and boxes that already crowd the room.
The major sits behind a small wooden desk, which is loaded with yet more papers. A single lamp gives off a dim light and the hut is as draughty as the one Cesare sleeps in. Major Bates’s eyes are red-rimmed and
