‘In what way?’ we recruits asked.
‘In what way, I couldn’t say, but this business of the Deutsch uniforms … the training with the Kraut model-88, and now this transfer with an escort of German guards … doesn’t smell good.’
‘Where are these Kraut guards?’ we asked incredulously.
‘Just wait. They’ll be along any moment.’
I have no idea how the ‘old hands’ had got wind of it, but the moment we got settled in the goods carriages, along came our guardian angels, armed with machine guns and Gerver rifles. They took up position in the conductor’s cabin, without so much as deigning to glance at us. ‘Don’t get upset,’ advised a sergeant, ‘they’re here to protect us.’
‘From what? From the big, bad wolf?’
As the train drew in to Verona, the sirens, as punctual as bad luck, were going off. The engineers had only just replaced the destroyed bridge with another one supported on pontoons. Our troop train pulled up about a hundred metres from the new bridge, the doors were thrown open and we jumped down from the coaches. ‘Leave your kitbags on the train: they’ll only get in the way,’ shouted the sergeants.
I did not understand why all the old hands ignored that advice and dragged their bags along with them. The order was to stand back from the banks of the Adige and away from the railway line. ‘Spread out in the fields, in the middle of the corn, but stay together,’ yelled the German interpreter, obviously a native of Alto Adige.
‘He’s off his head,’ we all guffawed as one. ‘How can you spread out and stay together?’ Our laughter quickly died away, or more precisely froze in our throats. About half a dozen Hurricanes were nose-diving towards us, dropping bombs as though they were handfuls of rice scattered over newly-weds. At each raid, jets of water and gravel were tossed up into the air.
‘Got it dead-centre!’ was the cry of one of our men as he peeped out from the shoots of wheat, but in fact as the clouds of dust created by the explosion cleared away, the bridge floating on the pontoons came back into view, rocking uncertainly after the buffeting it had taken, but perfectly intact. That bridge seemed magic! After the third unsuccessful attack, the Hurricane squadron gave up and retired to their base behind the Gothic Line. ‘All clear! Back on the train.’
Several of the carriages seemed to have been holed, as one of the American hunter jets had been firing twenty-millimetre rounds at the train. So that was why the veterans from Yugoslavia had taken their kit and belongings with them!
At this point, the sergeants of the various companies began to take the roll-call, but our officer in charge was no longer there. The Germans in the escort started swearing: Hurensohne! Fanhfluchtige! Verrate! It was not long before we discovered the reason for this rage. All the more experienced members of the detachment, including our sergeant, had made off. Disappeared!
We set off again. The carriage we were travelling in was one of those which had been holed, and many of the kitbags had been ripped apart. The Germans ordered us off yet again: the train was about to cross the bridge, but it was too risky for us to stay on board. The troop made the crossing on foot, hopping from one plank to the other. Finally we got back into our trucks, and here we had the joy of a wholly unexpected surprise: as we took our place in the carriage, the German escort slammed the doors shut, locking us in with padlocks. ‘What’s going on? Are we being deported now?’ we yelled in indignation. ‘Bastards!’
The interpreter, with his rich Bolzano accent, shouted back at us: ‘Say your prayers that they don’t come back and bomb us again, because this time no one’s getting off. You’re staying put! You’ve got your son-of-a-bitch friends who took to their heels to thank for that!’ We stayed on our feet in those creaking traps, totally bemused by what was going on, while the train sped along at high speed. A couple of hours without further mishap and we were at the Sesto San Giovanni junction outside Milan: another half-hour and we finally reached Monza.
A completely peaceful week followed, making us more than ever convinced that the veterans’ flight had been a futile and risky act, leaving them liable to arrest and arraignment in front of a court martial on a charge of desertion in the face of the enemy. Meanwhile, every day, other artillery contingents arrived from Albania and Greece, each group escorted by men from the Wehrmacht. From time to time, some soldiers from the SS would turn up, but there was nothing to fear. Apart from anything else, those of us who were enrolled at the university had no problem obtaining permission to go to Milan to take our exams. So it was that every week I went to the Accademia della Brera to continue work on my thesis, and to the Politecnico to do the so-called ‘Six Days’, a practical examination involving a survey of historic buildings. In the barracks, I kept myself busy doing portraits of various non-commissioned officers in the battalion. I admit it: a classic example of beguiling arse-licking, winning me the privilege of wandering from office to office and of obtaining for myself concessions and special leave. In all honesty, my life in those barracks in Monza was almost idyllic. Slowly, the nightmare of the journey on the troop train as deportees was slipping away from my mind: even the Germans had disappeared. The Mestre episode, the carpet-bombing, the job of digging out corpses now seemed to all of us like a distant memory, better forgotten. The final, definitive liberation from that nightmare was the order for a further change of uniform. In truth, I would be tempted to describe it as the ultimate metamorphosis, for this rite also involved the transformation of our physical role in the whole absurd comedy. The order to change clothing and role was imparted to us in the course of a parade in which we were introduced to the new commander-in-chief of the anti-aircraft artillery. No sooner were we lined up on the big parade-ground than a gruff but extremely personable colonel appeared, gave a summary glance at us then almost assaulted us: ‘What is this God-awful costume they’ve dressed you up in? That’s the yellow of dromedary shit, all very well for the desert. Very sorry for the lot of you, but the Afrika Korps has been disbanded! Kaput! So, either you find yourselves a camel each, or else ditch that uniform!’ There was a general guffaw, and even a sprinkling of applause. That wit and outrageous irony from an officer were liberating bombshells.
He was as good as his word. Dispatched back to our quarters, shoved as naked as spawning worms through showers, having a whale of a time in a joyous parade of quivering privates of sizes and shapes to suit all tastes, we were finally issued with new uniforms. They did nothing to enhance our virile, war-like appearance, and indeed quite suddenly we once again took on our natural aspect of pathetic Italian rookies: a sign that we really were back home again!
Urged on by men from my own part of the world, I resumed my habit of putting on performances of my comic stories. I had begun working on a new repertoire based on our less than pleasurable experiences at Mestre, episodes which my fellows and I had lived through personally but which we had almost completely erased. One which went down particularly well was the story of the rescue of the Mestre streetwalkers. These poor, piece-work Vestal non-Virgins had been buried alive when their ‘red house’, the little villa on the outskirts of the city where they operated, had collapsed. Their numbers, granted the vicinity of barracks filled with troops groaning under the pain of long-term abstinence, were considerable: around fifty devotees of the multiple orgasm. On the famous night when it was completely destroyed, the house of phallic relief was literally overflowing with guests anxious to free their loins of the troublesome accumulation of seminal liquid. When the sirens went off, not one of them so much as entertained the prudent idea of evacuating the premises. The Madame, with all due zeal, advised the assembled clients to make themselves comfortable in the well-furnished, underground cellars, but would you believe it, not a single one among them paid heed. As the old scientific adage has it: ‘The erect penis often indicates a complete prick.’ But when the first bombs began to rain down on the fun-loving band, causing explosions of such violence that the entire roof of the building was lifted clean off, the whole bunch — revellers and revelled alike — made a headlong dash for the cellars in the hope of saving their skins from the more than imminent collapse. A further blast caused all three floors to fold inexorably in on themselves like sand castles.