October 1943 was wearing its way to November and Paul could not remember when he’d last lain in a proper bed. Before Italy, before Sicily? Not since they’d left Egypt, he calculated, so over three months ago. This particular morning, thuds of shellfire had torn him from a sleep that left him unrefreshed, but though he struggled from his tent with protesting limbs, his rifle already in his hands, he realized that the noise came from far away and reveille hadn’t yet sounded so he’d sunk back inside again.
Gunfire again, nearer this time, and now the thin strains of the bugle and groaning and cursing men surfaced from their tents like the dead from their graves on Judgement Day, reacquainting themselves with their exhausted bodies, testing their weight on stiff legs, apparently astonished to find that they still lived and moved. Some limped off in the direction of the latrines, others to queue at the mobile kitchens for breakfast.
Passing the officers’ tents, Paul spied Harry’s recumbent form through an open flap. On his way back from breakfast he bent and nudged him, watching him for signs of fever as he fought his way to consciousness. Harry rolled up to sitting and sipped at the mug of water Paul handed him, then splashed some on his face so that rivulets of dirt ran down it. He drained the mug, returned it to Paul with a silent nod of thanks and accepted a bully-beef sandwich with a gloomy expression. Paul left him to come to terms with the day.
It would be the same as the one before, he supposed as he repacked his haversack, which would be the same as the one before that, playing cat and mouse with German patrols in these mountains north of Naples with the fate of being shot or blown up by booby traps all too real options.
Over the last week a wintry chill had set in to make the persistent rain more miserable. All conversation seemed to be about the weather. They remembered the relentless heat of the summer months with nostalgia, for while they’d become dug in, chipping away uselessly at the German defences, floods and merciless bombardment had turned the mountainous terrain, once tree-covered and fecund, to liquid mud and the charming farmhouses to blackened ruins.
Paul read exhaustion on the faces of the men that he passed on his way to roll call. After they’d triumphantly entered Messina back on 17 August only to find the Germans had escaped, his company had crossed over the narrow strait to mainland Italy on 3 September. Then came the Italian surrender to the Allies five days later, and they’d formed part of a light force dispatched up the coast to meet the Americans, who’d made landfall at Salerno and repulsed the Germans there after a bloody and costly battle. The Allies had liberated Naples on 1 October, and when he’d entered the city the following day Paul had been shocked by the wanton destruction wreaked by the departing enemy, and the suffering of its people, the drawn faces of the children, the hunger in their mothers’ eyes.
The suffering was telling on them all now. They were being tested to their full extent. Three days ago Paul had seen another private in his company, Smithy, go under, refusing point blank to join a patrol on mine-clearance duty. Smithy had actually shaken with fear and, worse, he had cried, actually cried, this big, solid chap who at home would have been out in the fields bringing in the cows, a steady sort whom everyone had taken for one of the reliable ones, obeying orders under fire. Now his nerves were shot. Paul had witnessed Ivor Richards’ rage as he argued with him uselessly, then in frustration taunted the man and struck him with his rifle butt. It was the officer in charge who intervened. He’d sent Smithy to the medical tent, but Richards had not even been admonished. Not that Paul knew of, anyway.
Paul was worried about Harry. He had been ill with malaria, picked up in Sicily. He’d recently suffered another bout of fever, but was now dosed up and on the mend. It wasn’t simply his illness that disturbed Paul, though, it was the change that he saw in the man. Sometimes Harry’s hands shook, and if his gaze fell on Paul, he had a pleading expression. Ivor was keeping a close eye on Harry, too, Paul noticed that, but instead of sympathy his expression showed contempt.
The ground reverberated as their guns pounded the enemy’s mountain hideouts and then they were off climbing the slopes with the tenacity of goats if not their fleetness, for they had to stop frequently to test the ground for mines. Ahead of him, Clarkson, a grocer’s son from Middlesbrough, stumbled and an explosion cut off his cry. Paul averted his eyes as they passed what was left of him. Watch the path, he told himself, breathing stertorously, watch. Gunfire rattled overhead. Something struck a finger of his left hand, numbing it, but by the time he allowed himself to notice the pain and investigated, the tip beneath the nail was swollen and purple. He could still use his gun so he supposed there was no need to get it taped up.
The sight of an enemy helmet above, then a shell burst nearby made his heart leap. He raised his rifle and shot in the direction of the helmet, hopelessly, before drawing back into the shadow of a rock. Some way ahead up the winding goat path, he could see several others, Briggs and Fielding, it looked like, scampering after Ivor. They’d overrun the enemy outpost to approach it from above. He ducked and held his hands over his ears as the grenades exploded, peeped out to see a German officer loping past. Paul felled him with a single shot, then peered down the hill wondering what had happened to Harry. He’d been behind him only a moment before.
Heart in mouth, Paul set off back down the slope, scuttling from rock to tree, taking care where he put his feet. It wasn’t long before he found Harry. It was near, very near, where they’d lost Clarkson. Harry was sitting on the ground with his arms around his knees, his shoulders shaking. He’d been sick, Paul saw, his own stomach turning. ‘Harry,’ he said, dropping all formality. ‘What’s the matter, man? You can’t stay here.’
Harry did not even acknowledge him, but continued to sob soundlessly. Paul put out a hand, felt the man tremble. It must be the fever. ‘Harry, don’t worry, I’ll help you. I’ll just signal to Richards if I can. Then we’ll go back down. Get you to the doctor.’
It would be dangerous, he knew, moving slowly in this terrain with a sick man, an open target for the Germans above, but he couldn’t just leave Harry here. When he scanned the slope above him, he saw that the mist was coming down. There was no sign of the others. He made his decision and hoped it would be the right one. Certainly no other acceptable course presented itself.
Harry was reluctant to move at first and Paul realized for the first time something shocking to him. Harry, cheerful, steady Harry, was scared. No, worse than that, he’d gone to pieces. Paul coaxed him, spoke to him in a reassuring voice then, when neither approach made any difference, explained to him sternly what they were going to do. Harry assented with a nod. They set out, Paul covering Harry’s back, keeping to the shelter of rocks and gullies as they descended the hillside.
Passing poor Clarkson was a difficult moment. Harry’s eyes squeezed shut and his limbs gave out so that Paul had to hold him up and drag him by the corpse. Shots from further up suggested a sniper, but the mist was merciful, drawing a curtain to shield them from his view. Soon it began to rain again, heavily, so the path ran with mud and their progress became a matter of sliding and falling. By the time another patrol picked them up near the bottom they were bruised and exhausted.
On arrival back at camp Paul delivered Harry to the hospital hut – an old barn – and went to report what had happened, careful to stick to Harry’s fever symptoms. He was unsure how the adjutant would respond to the problem of Harry’s nerves or whether Harry would thank him for mentioning it.
It was with some trepidation that he returned to the hospital later in the day to enquire after Harry, only to be surprised by the news that he had been discharged. Paul eventually found him sitting wrapped in a blanket on a crate under one of the stores shelters, smoking a cigarette and staring out miserably at the rain.
He greeted Paul with a nod and a raised eyebrow, but not his usual friendly smile.
‘This is a good place to sit,’ Paul said, ducking in from the rain. ‘How are you?’
‘A little better. I must thank you for rescuing me up there.’
‘That’s fine. I asked for you at the meat house just now, but you must be doing well for here you are.’
‘They gave me the usual bread pills and cut me loose. Told me they needed the bed. I say, you haven’t mentioned anything to anyone, have you?’ Harry’s face was anxious. ‘About how I was . . . up there.’
‘Of course not. We all get in a funk sometimes, don’t we?’
‘But you all get on with it. I don’t know how I can go on, Hartmann. I was lucky it was you today. Tomorrow it might be the Major or, worse,’ he said darkly, ‘Richards. You wouldn’t have thought it of him, would you?’
‘His treatment of Smithy, you mean. May I?’ Paul drew up an empty orange box and sat on it. He chose his words carefully, knowing that the Westbury officers were supposedly friends and he was an outsider. ‘If the Major won’t help you, and it seems unlikely, then go further up. The adjutant who interviewed Smithy sent him back to Naples on guard duty. That’s what I heard.’
Harry nodded, a faint look of relief crossing his good-natured face. He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘Do you think of home much, Hartmann? Good old Westbury, our life there – no, I suppose you don’t.’
‘I think of the people.’ Paul banished the thought of his own home city, Hamburg, the desolate and blackened version that inhabited his dreams, and tried instead to think of a garden surrounded by a wall, a peaceful place. And sitting on the steps would be Sarah. He studied his bruised finger, thinking that he’d lose the nail. It didn’t matter in the greater scheme of things.
‘So do I. The Bulldocks. Good old Jennifer. I wonder where her poor brother is now. You know, if we ever make it back home I’m going to ask Jennifer to marry me. She’s a grand girl. I’ve always been fond of her.’
‘That’s something to live for then,’ Paul said, amused. He was surprised, never having heard Harry mention her in this way before, but from the little he’d seen of the Bulldocks it occurred to him that Harry and Jennifer would make a good go of it together. Both sensible, straightforward sorts. But there were more urgent things to deal with. ‘Speak to the adjutant,’ he begged.
Harry must have done just that, because the following day he was kept back on mess duties while the rest of the company were sent off once more with the aim of dislodging a German gun turret. Then disaster hit. The path they’d followed the day before had been set overnight with a huge booby-trap bomb, which exploded, killing the Major and two of the men. As the others picked themselves up, ammunition fell on them like malevolent hail, killing half a dozen more and gravely wounding others. Richards survived with a grazed shoulder, and managed to order a staged retreat, but without the Major they were leaderless and mourned the loss of their comrades. The company would have to be broken up, they were told, and men and officers reassigned. For all of them this news was a terrible blow.
It was odd how they were sent back to Tuana, Paul thought. Their company had passed through the valley a week back, pursuing a unit of German infantry through the small town after destroying their hillside redoubt, searching the town hall and the outlying farm buildings to round up the last of them. Paul had liked the place, even in the rain, and felt sorry for the mothers and children cowering in their houses and the old women who scuttled out wailing for their damaged church as the soldiers left.
‘You’re to establish a garrison there,’ the adjutant explained, tapping his map with his pencil. ‘It’s on the supply route from Naples. You’ll have some Jerry prisoners to keep an eye on, from time to time, on their way through. That’s where you come in, Hartmann. We’ll need someone who speaks the lingo. We’re making you a corporal. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Paul felt nothing. As they filed out, he was aware that Ivor lagged behind.
‘We did our best here, sir,’ he could hear Ivor’s voice, reasonable but with a touch of the plaintive. ‘I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but . . .’
‘Not disappointed at all, Captain. It’s simply that this job’s come up. Someone needs to do it and you are the lucky ones. I’d be glad about it if I were you. Getting out of this hellhole. That’ll be all.’
A moment later, Ivor pushed past Paul, his expression as thunderous as the lowering sky.