The Wedding Officer

43

EVENTUALLY THEY got to the front of the line, and then they were up out of the trench and advancing at a run. It felt odd to be standing upright out here, when for so long they had only crawled and slithered and wriggled through the mud. But all around there were thousands of others doing the same thing. Bodies lay on the ground—Allied bodies, both dead and wounded. There seemed not to be any stretcher bearers, or perhaps they had just been overwhelmed by the sheer number of casualties. James followed the man in front of him. When he stopped, James stopped; when he lay down, James lay down; when he advanced again, so did James. Ahead of them, fighter planes circled over what was presumably the thick of the fighting.

A terrified German soldier ran toward them, his arms in the air as he tried to surrender. Someone pointed to the lines behind them and told him to keep running. Then shells started dropping nearby—small German 88s. James flopped into a crater and waited along with a group of doughboys for someone with a mortar to catch up with them. Somehow he and Hervey had got separated from the rest of their section. Eventually a mortar team turned up. “Position?” gasped the mortar man as he wrestled with his weapon. Hervey cautiously raised his head to look. As he did so, a shell took half his head away. He fell backward without a sound, a look of wonder in his eyes. Blood pumped through his mouth. James tried to grab him but felt Hervey’s head collapsing in his hands, like a broken egg. A burst yolk of blood slithered through his fingers. “Quick,” he said to one of the doughboys. “Give me your sulfa.” The GIs all had medical pouches on their belts, with bandages and tins of sulfanilamide powder. The doughboy shook his head. “Ain’t no point,” he said. “That boy’s a goner, and I might need it myself.”

“Give it to me.” Something in his voice made the other man shrug and hand over the tin. James sprinkled the powder over the wound, but the infantryman had been right, it was a waste of time. Hervey died even before James could get a bandage on him. He wiped the blood from his hands onto his trousers.

The mortar man got four mortars off and told them it was all he could do. Reluctantly James left Hervey’s body and climbed back onto the battlefield. They crawled toward the German lines, several more of them taking direct hits, until a Spitfire overhead spotted their predicament and managed to get close enough to fire directly into the gun emplacement. Someone else shouted an order, and then they were up again and running. James almost fell into a trench, and realized it was a German one. He climbed out the other side and kept moving. Another trench. A German soldier, running in a crouch from left to right, turned and hurled something at James. It smashed him right on the chin. “Christ,” James said, reeling back and feeling his face. The man had thrown a tin of rations at him. The tin rolled back into the German trench. James just had time to realize that it was not in fact a tin of rations but a grenade when it exploded, the blast knocking him backward. He struggled to his feet, raised his rifle and shot the fleeing German in the back, but missed.

They were behind the German lines now. He passed a group of forty or fifty prisoners being guarded by a single GI. Then the inevitable counterattack came—dozens of Tiger tanks cresting the brow of the hill and streaming down toward the advancing Allied infantry. The prisoners watched them with interest, like spectators at a sporting event. James retreated to the German trench and helped a mortar man knock out two of the Tigers. Then, as abruptly as they had arrived, the tanks were retreating again, their guns swiveling round to continue firing to the rear as they left the scene.

That was the pattern for the whole day—advancing in a large, chaotic group; taking casualties; dropping into a foxhole until sheer pressure of numbers forced the Germans back. Occasionally there would be holdups. Minefields, in particular, caused terrible casualties. They were dealt with by “snakes,” long tubes full of explosives which were pushed onto the minefield by a tank and shot at until the snake exploded, taking the mines with it. The path through the mines was then marked with white tape.

They had covered about five miles. James found himself moving forward unopposed with a group of about thirty others. Overhead, a Spitfire mistook them for Germans. It came around with its guns blazing, the lines of bullets walking up the road to meet them. They dived for the ditches on the sides of the road. When they got up, four men were dead. “I’ll shoot that stupid bastard if he comes around again,” a corporal was saying. But they had nothing to shoot a Spitfire with; they just had to pray he wouldn’t come back.

A little later, James saw the men in front of him suddenly begin to shake their limbs and dance, waving their arms in the air like puppets and spinning their bodies around as if executing a jig. He had seen enough fighting to know what it meant: There was a Spandeau machine gun somewhere, the impact of the bullets tossing the soldiers around even as they died on their feet. The Spandeau ballet, they called it. Again he took cover in a ditch. He felt wetness on his thigh: A bullet had pierced the spare water canteen he had taken from the truck earlier. He held the canteen to his mouth and let the remaining liquid gush into his mouth.

“Come with me.” An officer was tapping him on the shoulder. James nodded to show that he had understood. The officer stood up and together they charged the machine-gun position. The officer reached it first, took aim, and collapsed as a bullet took him in the chest. James, behind him, just had time to steady his rifle. He fired, and the German machine gunner slumped forward over his gun. The belt feeder put his arms up. “Kamerad,” he called. “Surrender.” James motioned for him to leave the machine gun and walk forward. As he did so, someone James never saw shot the German. James was no longer particularly upset by accidents like these, although each time they occurred he was reminded that sooner or later something equally unpredictable would almost certainly happen to him.

To his enormous pleasure he met up with Roberts, who although suffering from a shrapnel wound to the ear was still advancing. “I’m not walking back through those bloody minefields,” he told James. “I’m waiting until we take Cisterna and there’s trucks to take me ’ome. Don’t reckon it’ll be long now.” He nodded to where the town could be seen ahead of them, in the bend of the hill.

By the time they got to Cisterna hundreds of Germans who had given up were being marched to the rear. Despite the sound of gunfire coming from the buildings, a route had already been marked into the town with white tapes, past a number of burnt-out tanks. A few women peered anxiously from doorways. Children waved shyly. A group of exhausted soldiers squatted by a radio. “What kept you?” one of them said laconically.

As they entered the town they passed an officer listening to a small group of Italian women. The Italians were trying to explain something to him, pointing down the street and gesticulating. “Any of you boys speak dago?” the officer called at James’s group.

“I do.”

“Tell me what this lot are saying, would you?”

James turned to the women. “Buona sera, signorine. Cosa c’è?”

“We are trying to tell this soldier that there are fifteen Germans hiding in Cosima’s cellar,” one of them said.

“Where is this cellar?”

The woman gave him directions, which he passed on to the officer. “Do these Germans have guns?” the officer wanted to know. James translated, and the women nodded.

“Sì. Many guns.”

James nodded. “Thank you, signorine.”

“Good job,” the officer said as the women departed. “What’s your name?”

“Gould.”

“Fancy a cushy posting, Gould? My lot are going to need a translator when we get to Rome.”

James shook his head. “Sorry. Once I get to Rome I’ll be busy.”

Three days later they were there. The forward units drove into the city expecting fierce resistance and were met instead by a relieved population throwing geranium flowers into their jeeps, pressing bottles of wine on them and giving them whatever gifts they could—which, in the case of the women, was often simply themselves. After a few days large signs appeared where once the Germans had posted their orders: “Women of Rome, remember your honor.”

The speed of the advance had taken their own commanders by surprise, and for five delirious days the troops frolicked, swimming in the Tiber, taking full advantage of the Romans’ hospitality, sightseeing, sending V-mails home or simply catching up on their sleep in the sun.

James had no time for any of this. His first task was to discover the location of the German army brothel. It was not hard—the locals were only too happy to identify the place, at number 95 Via Nardones. It was a tall, stone building, presumably once a hotel. James ran up the steps and entered a large reception area. The desk was deserted, and the mess of papers scattered around suggested that the occupants had left in a hurry. His boot slipped on a sheaf of flimsy chits, and he bent to examine them. They were printed tickets, with spaces for the name and number of the soldier, the name of the nurse who had certified him free from disease and the name of the girl. A little farther on he found one that had been filled in. The girl’s name was Eva. Her price, it seemed, had been twelve lire.

“Hello?” he called up the stairs. He listened: It seemed to him that he could hear someone moving about.

He went up. There was a long corridor, the rooms all numbered. Notices printed in the elaborate Gothic script favored by the Germans hung on the walls.

James opened the first door. The room was empty, and looked as if it had already been ransacked by looters. A metal-framed bed had been turned over onto the floor and the mattress cut open. Horsehair spilled onto the threadbare carpet.

He caught a low murmur of voices. It was coming from one of the rooms on the opposite side of the corridor. He went across and checked them one by one. In the second, four girls were cowering on a bed. Their heads had been completely shaved, very badly—there were bloody scabs on their heads where the razors had nicked them. They looked up at him with fear in their eyes.

“It’s all right,” he said in Italian. “I’m just looking for someone.”

“The Germans have all gone,” one of the girls said in a lisping voice. “They went on Monday.”

“Was there a girl called Livia here?” he said. The girl shook her head.

“Are you quite sure?”

“There’s a register,” another girl said. “In the office. You can check if you want.”

“I can’t read German. I wouldn’t know what I’m looking for.”

“I speak it, a little,” the girl said. She led him next door to where a large black filing cabinet had been tipped over onto its side. James managed to get it back the right way up. Inside, the files were still surprisingly ordered. And they were nothing if not comprehensive, he noted as he flicked through. Hundreds of girls had passed through the Wehrmachtsbordell on Via Nardones, and each one had been the subject of immaculate record-keeping. Every health check, every complaint, every day’s illness had been written up and filed away.

“What does damenbinden mean?” he asked, seeing a word that recurred regularly.

“Pads for menstruation. They kept a diary of when our periods were due, so that we couldn’t pretend to be sick.”

So many girls. “What happened to the ones who left here? Where did they go?”

A shrug. “The Germans took them away.”

There were no Livias and no Pertinis in the files. “And you’re sure that these are all the girls there were? There couldn’t have been some they didn’t keep files on?”

She shook her head. “They kept a file on everyone.”

Sighing, he turned to go.

“Please…” the girl said.

“Yes?”

“We have no food. No money. If we go outside, the women spit at us. The men…the men are worse. Can you give us something?”

All he had on him was a few hundred lire in occupation money and a couple of packets of gum. He handed it all over.

“Are you looking for this Livia?” the girl asked as she unwrapped the gum. She put some in her mouth and chewed it vigorously, pausing every few seconds to swallow. She was, he realized, completely ravenous.

“Yes, I am.”

“She’s lucky,” she said sadly.

“Only if I find her.”

He walked back along the Tiber, lost in thought. Everywhere he looked, the celebrations were continuing. A party of GIs were dancing with a group of Roman girls. In the Piazza Navona, the people were making a bonfire of German flags, documents, abandoned uniforms, even the beds the Germans had slept on. German proclamations were being ripped from the walls of buildings and added to the fire. A pretty girl ran up to James, kissed him on the cheek, and then ran away, laughing at her own daring.

It was a city in celebration, but he had not found her.

When he got back to the barracks where his unit was billeted Roberts told him someone had been looking for him. “Big bloke. An officer. Said he was A-force.”

“Captain Jeffries?”

“I don’t know, but he’d about a dozen Jerry watches down his left arm.”

“Yes, that’ll be Jumbo,” James said fondly.

He found his way to the hotel in which A-force had set up a temporary headquarters. “Ah, James, there you are,” Jumbo said, as if the breakout from Anzio had been little more than a hike. “Say hello to my good pal Buster.”

Buster was another Jumbo, though with a broken nose. “Buster’s responsible for the partisans in sector four,” Jumbo explained. “That’s this bit.” He pointed at a map on the wall. “Tell him what you heard, Buster.”

“I’ve been asking all the partisan commanders for an update on their strength,” Buster said. “One of them sent a message to say his motley crew was gathering more recruits all the time. He made a lighthearted reference to the fact that they even had a group of Neapolitan prostitutes with them, waiting to cross the German line.”

“Could one of them be Livia?”

“Of course it’s her,” Jumbo said confidently. “How many other Neapolitan prostitutes can there be? Well, quite a few, I suppose,” he added, answering his own question. “But not up here. Not trying to cross the lines.”

“If she is with Dino,” Buster said, “she’s done rather well. He’s a good man.”

“Is there any way we can get her out of there?” James asked.

Buster shook his head. “None whatsoever, I’m afraid. The whole sector’s stiff with Jerries.”

“On the other hand,” Jumbo said cheerfully, “we can probably get you in. Ever used a parachute?”

That night, the BBC’s daily transmission of messages to the partisans contained some intriguing new material. Having told Mario his sister’s cow needed milking and Piero that his wife thanked him for the hat, the clipped tones of the BBC presenter said, “And finally a message for Livia, who is staying with Giuseppe. Please remain where you are. The tuna is on its way.”

High in the mountains, Dino’s radio operator wrote down the message and frowned. It did not correspond to any code he had ever been given, but he would pass it on anyway. Perhaps it was something to do with the big guns they had been waiting for.

About fifteen miles from the forest where Dino and his partisans were hidden, the Germans were also listening to the BBC broadcast. They had cracked this code long ago, but “tuna” was a new one on them. They, too, suspected it might be some fearsome new weapon about to be delivered to the partisans. The message was taken to the German commander, who ordered that patrols in the area should be stepped up immediately.