“Ah, Herr Leutnant, was it then you who . . . ? ”
“Yes,” I answered, “I have the honour to be the one who shot you down this morning. But believe me, my dear Major, it gives me a thousand times more pleasure to see that you are alive and unharmed. I apologise. But you will understand, I hope, that war is a ruthless business.”
“Ah, my dear Tenente, please do not reproach yourself, I beg you. You were only doing your duty—and you may comfort yourself with the fact that you will be able one day to tell your grandchildren that it was you who brought to an end the career of Major di Carraciolo . . .” He smiled, “. . . Or perhaps I should rather say, caused a temporary interruption in the career of Major di Carraciolo, until such time as he escapes from prison and returns to fight again for his country.”
“Your confinement need not be close, Major, if you gave your word not to escape. You are now in your forties, I understand, and might easily be repatriated on parole.”
“I would never give it. In an ordinary war such things might be permissible, but a patriot fighting for the final liberation of his people has a sacred duty to escape and fight once more, so long as there is breath left in his body.”
“Very well. But you must at least be the guest of honour in our mess this evening. I and my brother-officers insist upon it. Surely you can give your word not to try to escape just for these few hours.”
He smiled broadly. “Then you may consider it given, and I shall be delighted to accept your hospitality. I have always considered myself to be fighting against the Austrian Monarchy and not against the Austrians, whom I regard as an intelligent and artistic people like ourselves.”
“Splendid. But tell me one thing if you will, Major. How exactly did I manage to shoot you down? The sun was in my eyes and I was quite unable to take aim, and I fired only a few shots anyway. You had us in your sights and could hardly have missed, yet you veered away at the last moment. What went wrong? I ask as one aviator to another.”
“It is the fortunes of war, my dear . . . er . . . ?”
“Prohaska. Otto Prohaska. Lieutenant of the Imperial and Royal Navy.”
“Ah yes, Prohaska. Well, as I attacked I knew that you could not aim at me because of the sun, and also that your Schwarzlose gun is as much use as a garden syringe. But there, even random shots sometimes find their mark. One of your bullets severed an oil-feed pipe and hot oil sprayed back in my face. By the time I had regained my sight I was flying past your tail and you were shooting at me again. Then I saw fire coming at me from the engine cowling—and after that I lost all interest in you, as I think you will understand. But the rest of the story I believe you already know?”
“Yes, the Intelligence Officer at Oppachiasella told me all about it. You are to be congratulated by all accounts on a magnificent piece of flying. But, dear Major, I am doubly glad to meet you because it was you who escorted us back across the lines a few days ago when our engine failed.”
He looked puzzled for a moment—then laughed loudly and slapped my shoulder.
“So it was you? I remember now: your Brandenburg Zoska if my memory serves me right? Then we are acquaintances already. My sergeant wanted to shoot you down but I headed him away from you. ‘Why did you let the Austrian pigs escape, Maggiore?’ he asked me later. ‘No,’ I said, ‘to spare the life of an enemy in distress will bring us luck. And who knows? he may well do the same for us one day.’ Well, you certainly brought me luck.”
It was as convivial an evening in the mess as our increasingly meagre rations would allow. The food might have been poor, but the local wine flowed freely and we were entertained by Flik 19F’s gypsy orchestra, drawn from its Hungarian ground crewmen; also by Potocznik, who played a good deal of Schubert very well indeed on the mess piano. Even Hauptmann Kraliczek was there, looking as unhappy as an owl forced into daylight, and only present because Meyerhofer and Potocznik and I had arm-locked him into attending. As for Major di Carraciolo, he provided us with magnificent entertainment of his own. He spoke German tolerably well, and I was able to help him out in Italian when needed, so the evening was one long succession of anecdotes about his days in Africa. His time there, it appeared, when he was not discovering lakes or being mauled by lionesses, had been spent mostly in the arms of a succession of Eritrean mistresses who had their teeth filed to points and who chewed qhat leaves. And when the African reminiscences failed there was always his career as a sculptor, adulterer, duellist and racing driver to fall back upon. All in all he seemed to have lived enough lives for a roomful of people. He was a flamboyant and theatrical character it is true, but I found myself not at all irritated by it. The Major loved to entertain people, while as to the truth of his stories I had not the slightest doubt that most of them had really happened—or at least almost happened. Only Potocznik made a rather disapproving face. I asked him afterwards what was the matter.
“That insufferable Wellischer and his greasy lies. And a lot of Hungarian gypsies scraping fiddles. And that Levantine Meyerhofer into the bargain. It’s enough to make anyone sick. This is supposed to be a Germanspeaking empire, not some filthy bazaar in Constantinople.”
“Oh come on: Carraciolo’s a bit of a boaster but I don’t doubt most of it’s true.”
“A typical degenerate Latin—would laugh in your face while he’s sticking a knife in your back. I tell you the bastard uses scent like a woman! We should have shot him when he landed and had done with it.”
Apart from this drop of acid, all went splendidly until about 2300, when I heard a motor lorry draw up outside and the noise of soldiers, boots crunching on the cinder pathway. Thinking that it was the liberty-lorry bringing the drunkards back from Haidenschaft I went out to tell them to quieten down—and found myself confronting a Provost major and a squad of soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets. From their grim faces it was clear at first glance that they were here on official business.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I think that there must be some mistake. This is a k.u.k. Fliegertruppe flying field and this tent is the officers’ mess.” “I know that. Kindly stand aside.”
“What do you mean . . . ? ”
“What I said. We’re here to make an arrest.” He shouldered me aside to enter the mess tent, followed by his men. I heard the sudden silence inside, and made my way in. Everyone had frozen in his place and was staring at the intruders, some swaying slightly.
No one spoke. Di Carraciolo still sat between Meyerhofer and Potocznik behind the long trestle table, one hand raised with a glass in it. In the pale, flaring light and deep shadows of the petrol lamps the scene put me irresistibly in mind of the Caravaggio “Last Supper”: distant memories perhaps of all those Easter Thursday masses when I was a child. Kraliczek was the first to recover from his surprise.
“Herr Major, might I enquire what is the meaning of this intrusion?” “Herr Kommandant, do you have here an Italian prisoner by the name of . . .” he examined the slip of paper in his hand, “by the name of Oreste Carlo Borromeo di Carraciolo, currently serving as a major in the Italian Air Corps?”
“We do. But he is our guest for this evening and will be transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp tomorrow morning. This is the custom . . .” He looked around him, suddenly uncertain. “Er . . . at any rate, my officers here inform me that this is the custom in the Fliegertruppe.”