Swordpoint (2011) (13 page)

First of all he stood with his back to the audience with his arms wrapped round himself so that his hands appeared to belong to someone out of sight beyond him. Then, waggling his behind, he put on his act of a sailor in a shop doorway with a girl.

Everybody hooted with delight and waited with baited breath for his pièce de résistance, even though most of them had seen it before. It was known as ‘The One-Armed Fiddler’, and Syzling never missed an opportunity of presenting it whether he was asked to or not.

The routine began with his donning his battledress blouse with the right sleeve empty and his right arm and hand out of sight and tucked into his trousers. Usually all the props he had were two sticks, one for a bow and one for a fiddle, but tonight realism was added by the loan of the pianist’s violin. Holding the instrument in place with his chin, Syzling used his left hand to pass the bow lightly over the strings, imitating the high-pitched sound of the violin with the side of his mouth until, suddenly, he stopped short with a raucously discordant squawk of a note. Keeping the violin clamped firmly under his chin, and still grasping the bow with his free hand, he then began to pluck at the strings to the accompaniment of suitably pizzicato noises until he found the one that was supposed to be out of tune. Syzling was no comedian and it was all done with a straight face – not the straight face of the professional actor but the dogged stare of a stupid man who’d learned one party piece by heart and was struggling not to forget it. It was perfect.

The grand finale consisted of tuning up the fiddle. Since he had only the one arm and hand free, Syzling needed this to turn the pegs that held the strings and had to dispose of the bow while he worked. Gazing blankly around him, he first seemed to be about to put it on the floor, then on the piano. Finally, with a shrug of despair, he held it in front of his trousers where through the flies appeared a fat white finger to hold the bow against his groin.

There was a shriek like an engine whistle from the nursing sister Jago had brought along from the hospital at Calimero and she hid her face in Jago’s sleeve, weeping with laughter, while the tank men and the newcomers who’d never seen it before clutched each other and howled. It was so blatantly vulgar, it wasn’t even offensive, and the pub comedian had nothing in his repertoire half as good.

Colonel Yuell had been too busy to attend the show. He was trying to make sure everything was prepared, because Division appeared to be having difficulty producing the boats they needed. It was going to be difficult in any event but they’d get nowhere at all unless someone produced some soon.

There was one thing he could do, however, and that was make sure that there was a proper supply of mortar bombs and hand grenades. When they’d attacked at Sant’ Agata, they’d found themselves obliged to suffer the German mortar bombardment without being able to retaliate and when they’d gone in, they’d had to use bayonets.

‘There’s a whole lorry-load of them,’ Tallemach insisted when he telephoned. ‘Mortar ammunition, too. It was a point I raised myself and Brigadier Heathfield said he’d handle it. And so that you won’t be short when the build-up begins, he’s promised to send a second lorry-load down with it. They’ll be leaving Ordnance today and they’ll be in San Bartolomeo ready to move up with your people.’

‘There’ll be no mistakes, sir? We lost a lot of men at Sant’ Agata because we were short.’

‘You won’t be short this time,’ Tallemach said. ‘Two lorry-loads ought to be enough to bomb your way to Rome!’

If they could have left the next day, everything would have been all right. But they didn’t. They waited another twenty-four hours, and during those twenty-four hours it seemed as if the last of the Italian winter did its damnedest to destroy every ounce of good spirit the concert had engendered. The rain lashed down with incredible ferocity so that it was impossible even to queue up for food without being soaked. It was impossible to go into the town, impossible to keep warm. During the afternoon the
tramontane,
the winter wind from the mountains, found all the cracks and holes in the billets and made them wretched.

‘In case of inclement weather,’ Fletcher-Smith said, ‘the battle will be held indoors.’

Tempers grew frayed. CSM Farnsworth put Puddephatt on a charge which he knew he’d never press. McWatters shoved at Lofty Duff for getting in his way, and in return received a kick on the backside which was as much as the tiny Duff could manage.

It was Wymark who got between them as McWatters, his vicious temper boiling over, reached for his bayonet. Martindale was sitting brooding in corners, sucking at an empty pipe as if it were a baby’s dummy. The two Bawdens, who had happily done their fighting, drinking and fornicating together for nearly three years, ended up in a punch-up for no other reason than that 766 Bawden had called 000 Bawden a snob and 000 Bawden had retorted that 766 Bawden was so bloody dim he’d never be in a position to be a snob.

It was Gask who separated them, his pale face expressionless as usual, as if he regarded everybody who didn’t polish his buttons and go through a war in the same detached way he did as something considerably less than worthwhile. His large white bony hands flung them aside so that they sat glowering at each other until finally 000 Bawden sheepishly offered a cigarette and 766 Bawden came across with a light.

Since it was their last day, Graziella Vanvitelli decided to give Warley, Jago, Deacon and Taylor a lunch party with a very special meal. Jago, Deacon and Taylor had a lot less to do with it than they realised and it was really put on for no one but Warley. She had ironed his shirts the night before, because she’d wished to, and when he’d thanked her she had suggested he might like to go to Mass with her.

‘I’m not a Catholic,’ he explained.

‘The Catholic Church will not mind,’ she said softly. ‘And I would like it. I shall pray for you.’

Warley studied her. There was pride and possessiveness in her attitude, and a little more too.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

She sighed.
‘Che brutta guerra. Quando finirà.’

They said nothing as they walked to the church, but on the way back, surrounded by women in black wearing shawls on their heads, they saw one of Warley’s men with a girl in a doorway. Graziella sighed.

‘Wars are all the same,’ she said. ‘The men become animals and the girls become more willing.’

‘It’s worse in Naples,’ Warley pointed out gently.

She gave him a sad smile. ‘Everything’s worse in Naples.’ She shrugged and became silent. ‘Do you have a girl, Uoli?’

‘Yes.’

‘A
fidanzata
? A fiancée?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you love her?’

Warley considered. His fiancée was the daughter of a wealthy Manchester clothing manufacturer. She had a perfect figure and was always exquisitely turned out, but if he’d seen her at that moment her clothes could just as well have been draped round a garden roller.

‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I doubt it. I haven’t seen her for three years. I’ve almost forgotten what she looks like.’

When they reached the house Graziella busied herself with pots and pans in the kitchen while her sister Francesca laid the table, and Jago – ridiculous in a frilled apron – used his enormous hands to cut up the pasta into long strips like tapeworms.

With as much whispering and nodding as if the whole Provost Corps of Trepiazze were after them, Deacon produced two tins of bully and Taylor two tins of milk. Avvocato Vanvitelli, released unexpectedly from his duties with AMGOT to share the celebration with his daughters, contributed a bottle of Orvieto and a large flagon of rough wine. He was a plump, handsome smiling man who seemed quite happy to leave his elder daughter in the hands of Warley, though he appeared more doubtful of the fate of Francesca at the hands of Second-Lieutenant Taylor. He brought with him an elderly woman, whom he introduced as
La Nonna
and two well-scrubbed and cherubic small boys in suits of snow-white linen.

‘My cousins, Leonardo and Giovanni,’ Graziella said. Since Jago had provided chocolate, the two small boys regarded him as Christ come to earth again.

As they gathered round the table, grace was said and the home-made tomato sauce was poured over the pasta.

‘Ancora, ancora,’
Avvocato Vanvitelli insisted as they finished their platefuls. ‘In Italy is always much pasta.
Oggi, festa – mangiamo molto.’

Chicken appeared, cooked with tomato and pepperoni, followed by fried salami and slices of pork with peas.

‘Where did you get it all?’ Warley asked Graziella.

She gave him a shy, happy smile. ‘My father is a lawyer,’ she said. As you will be one day. He has always something to offer in exchange. A lawsuit for a piece of pork. A will for a case of wine.’

The Orvieto, what was called ‘the real wine’, appeared with the main dish and by the end of it Taylor was trying to sing ‘Lili Marlene’ in Italian to Francesca, watched by the sharp eyes of
La Nonna,
while Avvocato Vanvitelli kept up a running commentary on the lot of Italy.

‘E sempre la miseria! Siamo poveri, tutti poveri! Quando finirà la guerra?’

So full they could hardly move, Avvocato Vanvitelli called for music.
La Nonna
sang a shaky
‘0 Sole Mio’,
and then they started to dance to the gramophone. Stupefied by the wine, Taylor had fallen asleep but Deacon danced with Francesca, Avvocato Vanvitelli with
La Nonna,
Jago with one of the adoring little boys, and Warley with Graziella. It was an Italian dance and gravely, wearing her calm smile, Graziella advanced and retreated before him, hands on hips, bobbing and circling with a strange cool dignity, her face as calm as if she were at Mass.

‘I am so happy, Uoli,’ she said.

Beyond the cypresses at the end of the garden, the greyness of the day was everywhere, stretching away to the horizon, hill upon hill. Graziella stared at it as they stopped dancing, faintly pink in the face, her breath coming quickly. She looked at Warley, then looked away again, quickly, as if she were embarrassed.

‘Quando finirà la guerra,’
she whispered.
‘Quando finirà?’

The last night seemed the worst of all the nights. Few ventured out, not even for the ritual evening stroll that always took place in Italian streets. Syzling braved the rain and spent most of the time in the bed of his widow, with his clothes steaming in front of a fire she built up. Well-fed and satiated, he left her just as the rain stopped for the first time, wearing clothes that were dry again.

Captain Jago borrowed a half-tonner and went to see his nursing sister in Calimero. What he intended was obvious from the fact that he’d tossed his bedding roll and a ground-sheet in the back, but it proved unnecessary because the nursing sister had a room in a small house near the hospital and the other sister who shared it with her was on duty, so they didn’t argue and slipped into bed there and then.

Private Fletcher-Smith, his teeth chattering with cold and damp, clutched his girl between the stacked winter logs and a pile of straw in the barn of the little farm where she lived with her mother. Her warmth made him forget all about literature and they took off their glasses, which were becoming steamed up anyway, and considering life too short for intellectual exercises decided to use the pile of straw instead. His love-making was hurried and clumsy because they were both virgins; but afterwards, while the girl returned to the house shivering and fearful of what she’d permitted, a proud and overjoyed Fletcher-Smith almost danced back to his billet, feeling that he didn’t care now if it rained for ever.

Warley’s parting from Graziella was quiet and subdued. Although she was the older sister and ran the household, she was still young, her slim body moving freely inside her loose dress. Her smooth fair hair, piled on her shoulders, framed a face that was oval in shape with a pointed chin. The impression she had given Warley was one of shyness and purity, but he’d seen her glance at him occasionally with eyes that were as old as woman herself.

He wasn’t a man of great experience with girls, but he suspected she wasn’t the type to play at love and he was intelligent enough to realise that one couldn’t make hard and fast rules for the reactions of a member of one sex on a member of the other. Graziella had been educated in Rome and she displayed an instinctive womanly wisdom that was curiously secretive and independent.

With Avvocato Vanvitelli heading back to Naples with
La Nonna
and the two small boys, and Deacon and Taylor at the cinema with Francesca, they were alone and spent the evening playing the piano. It seemed a ridiculous thing to do under the circumstances, and Warley knew that Jago would have laughed like a drain at the time he was wasting.

But he was supremely, bewilderingly at peace. He had brought a bottle of brandy and had insisted she have a drink with him. He finally forced two on her, which was a lot more than she normally drank, but it made her happy. Warley was a little tipsy, but he was well-behaved and clearly content just to be with her.

‘Have another?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I think it would be better if
you
did not have another, also,’ she said. ‘It is not very good brandy.’