CHAPTER FOUR
HUGO
December 1944
He came to with a start as something tickled his cheek. He brushed at it in alarm and saw it was only a stalk of grass bent over by the wind. He propped himself up, taking in the cold, damp soil around him, the rows of neat olive trees stretching up the hillside. It was still not quite light, but from what he could make out, the sky above him was leaden grey, heavy with the promise of rain. There was already a fine, misty drizzle coating him with a layer of moisture. He felt a tug jerk him over backward and almost cried out in alarm until he realised he was still attached to his parachute that now lay flapping on the ground like some kind of wounded bird. He fumbled at the catch, the gloves on his hands making his fingers clumsy, and eventually felt it release. He pulled away the harness and tried to sit up. His head swam with nausea as he looked around, trying to make his brain obey him and decide what course of action he should take.
The parachute billowed out as the wind hit it and threatened to blow it away. That would never do. He grabbed at the strings, attempted to stagger to his feet, and collapsed in pain again. His leg simply wouldn’t hold him. He dragged the parachute toward him, reeling it in, and fought with the wind to roll it up. It was amazingly light, and he managed to do a reasonable job of stuffing it back into its pouch.
Once he had safely stowed the parachute, he sat, clutching it to him, looking around and assessing the situation. The hillside around him was planted with rows of olive trees. Round little trees with feathery leaves. Not much chance of hiding among them. The first real woodland—although now mostly bare at this time of year—was at the top of the hill several hundred yards away, and he had no way of knowing if it was the start of a true forest or merely a thin stretch of trees bordering another farm. Clouds hung down over the hilltops, but as they swirled and parted he noticed beyond the trees a rocky outcropping rising with the ruins of what looked like an old fortress on it. That might be a promising place to hide, at least until he had time to assess his wounds and decide what to do next.
He swivelled around to look down the hill. The rows of olive trees ended in a small depression, and on the other side the ground rose again, this time planted with rows of what looked like vines, although they were dead and brown intertwined sticks at this time of year. Beyond them, on the ridge, ran a row of black cypress trees looking like soldiers standing at attention through the mist that clung to the hillside. A road, he thought, remembering a time when he had painted scenes like this. Where the cypress trees ended, the top of the hill was crowned with woodland, and above them he could make out the tiled roofs of a small hill town. A square church tower rose above the roofs, and as he watched he heard a bell tolling six.
He stared at the hill town, wondering what sort of reception he’d get if he headed in that direction. Having lived in Italy he was hopeful that the local people would not be too fond of Germans. But then Germans might be occupying the town. It was a risk he couldn’t take—at least not until he knew more.
A sudden awful shriek made him jump before he realised it was a rooster greeting the dawn. A second answered it. A dog barked. The village was coming to life. He needed to move before he was discovered. He started to crawl forward, using his hands and his good leg, dragging his parachute pack beside him. He dared not leave it behind—it would certainly give him away. And besides, a parachute might be useful—a future shelter if it rained or snowed, maybe? He wondered if he’d go faster if he stood up and hopped, steadying himself with tree branches. A crutch, he thought. I need a stick to make a crutch, or maybe a splint would work if the bone is broken. His going was painfully slow. The olive trees seemed to go on forever. He kept turning to look back to see if anyone was coming. The snort of an animal made him freeze and drop down to the earth. As he scanned the horizon, he spotted a horse and cart leaving the village along that high road. He heard the creak of wheels and the horse snorted again. He watched as it passed between the cypress trees, but it was going away from him, and he heaved a sigh of relief as he returned to his weary task.
A stiff breeze picked up, rustling the olive branches and sighing through the grass, masking faraway sounds. He felt horribly thirsty, his mouth parched and dry, and wished he’d had the sense to bring his canteen with him. Or his flask of brandy—that would have been most welcome. The woods were closer now, but he needed to stop. His strength gave out and he sat, leaning his back against a sturdy olive trunk, out of sight of the village, and closed his eyes. He felt horribly weak and realised he might have lost a lot of blood.
“I don’t want to die here,” he muttered. He made himself picture home. He was riding up to Langley Hall on a lovely summer day. The horse chestnuts were all in blossom. The air was perfumed with newly mown grass and the scent of roses. He reined in the horse to a trot as a groom came out to meet him.
“Good ride, Mr. Hugo?” he asked as Hugo swung himself down easily from the saddle and handed over the reins.
“Splendid, thanks, Josh.”
Up the steps and in through the front door. His father sitting with the newspaper in the breakfast room, looking up with a frown. “Been out riding, have you? In my day, one changed out of riding togs before one came to breakfast.”
“Sorry, Father, but I am devilishly hungry. How are you today?”
“Not bad, considering. Still short of breath going up the stairs. Still, it’s to be expected, isn’t it? If you’ve been gassed your lungs are bound to be defective.”
“Beastly war. Made no sense at all.”
“I doubt that war ever does, but we don’t seem to learn, do we . . . ?”
Hugo pulled his memory away from that conversation, and from the image of his father’s hacking cough and gradual fading away. Think of your wife, Brenda. Think of your son. He tried to picture them, but already the images were blurred and indistinct, like old photographs. How many years since he’d seen them? Four. Almost half of Teddy’s life. When he’d left, Teddy had been a timid little boy, clinging to Nanny’s skirt. Now he’d be nine. Hugo had no idea what he looked like or what he was doing. Letters only arrived every few months, most of them blacked out by the censor so that they said almost nothing—“Teddy is doing well and sends his daddy love”—leaving Hugo to wonder whether Teddy had been sent away to prep school yet, whether he liked playing cricket, whether he had turned into a good rider . . .
He opened his eyes to see someone standing over him. He sat up with a start, his gloved hand reaching for his service weapon and realising that it was not loaded anyway. He remembered the knife, stowed in the inside of his boot—again completely useless to him. Why hadn’t he thought ahead, prepared to defend himself?
As his eyes focused he reacted with horror. A thin, hooded, faceless figure, garbed in black. The grim reaper. Death come for him. As he attempted to get up, the figure gave a little gasp and stepped back. Then Hugo saw that it was a woman, dressed entirely in black, her head and shoulders covered in a shawl. She was carrying a basket that she now held in front of her, as if to defend herself.
“Are you a German?” she asked in her native Italian, then added, “Deutsch?”
“No. I’m not German. I’m English,” he replied in Italian, grateful that his year studying in Florence had made him reasonably fluent in the language. “My plane just—” He searched for the words “crashed” or “was shot down” and found neither. They weren’t the sort of vocabulary he’d had to use before the war. “My plane went down.” He emphasised this with a gesture of a plane crashing.
The woman nodded. “We heard it,” she said. “The explosion. We didn’t know what it was. We were afraid the Germans were blowing something up again.”
He found her hard to understand. He was afraid that he had forgotten all the Italian he had learned but then realised she was speaking with the strong Tuscan dialect he had heard used among country people. And her hand gestures confirmed what she was saying.
“Are there still Germans in this area?” he asked.
She nodded again, glancing around her as if expecting them to appear at any moment. “Oh yes. They have dug themselves holes in the hills, like rabbits. I do not think it will be easy for your people to drive them out. It is not safe for you to stay here. You must get away to the south. That way.” She pointed. “That is where the Allies are advancing. We hear that they are already close to Lucca.”
“I can’t walk,” he said. “I think I’ve been shot in the leg. I need a place to hide until I can treat the wound and see what needs to be done.”
She glanced up again. “I can’t take you to my village,” she said. “The Germans come through sometimes. They demand lodging and they take our food. You would not be safe. Word would get out, and there are those among us who would willingly sell information for food or cigarettes.”
“I wouldn’t dream of putting you in any danger,” he said. Actually, that was what he’d wanted to say, but he could only produce, “I will not make dangerous for you.”
She spread her hands wide. “If it was just me, I would say yes. I would take this risk. But I have my young son and my husband’s grandmother living with me. I must protect them.”
“Of course. I understand. You must not have danger from me.”
She was frowning at him now. “How is it that you speak my language?”
“I lived in Florence once when I was a young man. I was there for a year to study art.”
“You are an artist?” she asked.
“I wanted to be a painter before the war. Now I’ve been flying planes for five years.”
“This war has robbed us all of what we loved,” she said, and looked away.
He nodded. “If you could just help me up, I’ll be on my way,” he said. “Any moment I could be discovered and you would be in trouble for talking to me.”
“I don’t think anybody would come in this direction now.” She looked around cautiously as she spoke, as if not quite trusting her words. “The olive harvest is over. I myself came to see if any olives still lie among the trees, or maybe there are mushrooms or chestnuts in the forest. We eat what we can find these days. The Germans take what we have.”
The mention of Germans made her face grow pinched and fearful again. She pulled the shawl more tightly around her. “You cannot walk at all?”
“I could try if you would support me. Just as far as the trees up there. Then I would be hidden.”
“The monastery,” she said with sudden emphasis. “I will take you to the monastery. You will be safe there.”
“Monastery?” Hugo reacted with the Protestant’s suspicion of all things Catholic, especially monks. “Are you sure that would be a good idea?”
“It is a ruin,” she said. “Nobody goes there now. But it would be a place to shelter, if you can make it that far.”
“Then let’s try. Maybe you could help me up?”
She put down her basket and lifted him under his armpits. She was remarkably strong for her frail appearance. He stood, sweating with pain as his wounded leg tried to take his weight.
“Come,” she said. “Put your arm around my shoulder. I will support you.”
“Oh no. I couldn’t. It’s not necessary,” he said, seeing his own size compared to hers now that he was standing in front of her.
“Don’t be stupid. You can’t walk without help. Come on. Do it.”
He did as she told him, conscious of her slight, bony shoulders under the shawl and not wanting such a delicate little thing to take his weight.
“That’s right,” she said. “Lean on me.”
He dragged the parachute pack in his other hand as they started forward between the rows of olive trees. The wind buffeted them, unfurling her shawl across their faces. The going was horribly rough—the soil soft and muddy in places, rocky and partly frozen in others. Hugo gritted his teeth and inched forward. At last they made it to the tree line. Some of the trees were now stark and bare, while others still bore leaves—evergreen oaks and among them a few tall, dark pines. Hugo paused and leaned gratefully against a solid tree trunk.
“I need to catch my breath,” he tried to say. Actually, he said, “I need to wait and breathe better.” His Italian had never progressed enough to be idiomatic.
“Let us move a little further into the woods. Here you may still be seen. We never know where the Germans may be lurking.” She urged him forward.
They stumbled between trees, slithering on wet leaves, tripping over roots. Here the air smelled rich and moist and the world was completely still. The woman left him, darting forward to snatch at a dangling branch. “Oh look, chestnuts,” she said. “That is good. Usually all the wild chestnuts have been found by this time of year. And I see some mushrooms growing on that trunk. I will pick them on my way home.”
“And I see a dead branch lying over there,” he said. “If you would pick it up for me, I could try to use it as a crutch.”
“Good idea.” She lifted the heavy branch, shaking off dead leaves. “If we break it about here”—and she did so, the branch giving a loud crack as it snapped—“it should be just right.”
He tucked the thicker end under his armpit. “Yes, I think it might work.”
He gave her a hopeful little grin and she returned his smile. “That is good.” He noticed the way her whole face lit up as she smiled. Hidden beneath that shawl, she could have been any peasant woman of any age. Now he realised she was little more than a girl with a cheeky smile and dark eyes that sparkled.
“Now comes the difficult part,” she said. “I hope it will not be too much for you.”