The Penny Bangle (34 page)

‘We passed a shepherd’s hut a while ago,’ Sofia said, pulling her tattered coat around her body, and hugging herself as she tried to keep warm. ‘I think we should go back to it. Otherwise, Marcello and the others are going to find us frozen on the mountain when they come to look for us tomorrow – and that’s if we’re lucky, if the Germans haven’t found us first.’

Robert agreed Sofia was right, so they turned back the way they’d come, hoping they were keeping to the track, which was difficult in the pitch dark. They’d know they’d missed it when they ended up in the ravine a dizzying drop below.

The hut was damp and freezing, but at least it gave them some shelter from the wind. Robert lit a match and saw there was some rubbish in a corner – several cardboard boxes with German lettering all over them, empty packets, paper wrappings, even musty straw.

He wondered if they dared to start a fire?

He lit another match, and with his other hand he began to push the boxes into a small pile. The fire would last ten minutes at the very most, he realised. But for those ten minutes they would have warmth and light.

‘No!’ Sofia cried, when she understood what he was doing.

‘Why?’ he demanded crossly.

‘You never know who might be watching.’

‘You think there’s a platoon of German soldiers lurking in the pine trees? Anyway, if any soldiers come, they’ll see we’re harmless peasants. We’ll tell them we’re returning from a wedding feast or something, and we’ve lost our way.’

‘Roberto, don’t be stupid,’ said Sofia scornfully. ‘Look at what we’re carrying – guns and ammunition we’ve stolen from the Germans, a sack of flour you pinched from that cook’s hut, some tins of sauerkraut, packs of pumpernickel bread. These came from an Italian wedding breakfast? I’ll let
you
explain!

‘As for pretending to be peasants – you see this coat I’m wearing? I know it’s dirty, torn and ragged now, but it came from the smartest shop in Florence – no peasant ever had a coat like this. You stink of high explosive. Your hands are covered with burns and cuts from laying charges and detonating them.’

‘So we sit here and freeze to death?’ asked Robert, who was now annoyed with her for talking to him in the bossy, patronising way she often did, especially when she thought – or in this case, knew – that she was right.

‘We snuggle up for warmth, we eat some pumpernickel bread and drink your schnapps.’

‘I must admit I had forgotten about the schnapps.’ Robert found his water bottle, shook it. ‘It’s nearly full,’ he said.

They huddled close together, eating bread and drinking schnapps and feeling a delicious warmth flow into them. ‘What do you think, Sofia?’ asked Robert, as he drank again. ‘What’s this stuff made of – apples, pears or plums?’

‘None of them,’ Sofia said, and giggled naughtily. ‘This is the best stuff, made of cherries. It was intended for a colonel’s table.’

‘But it ended up here in our hut.’

‘Yes,’ said Sofia, and now she snuggled closer, slipping one cold hand inside his shirt. ‘Roberto, you’re so warm inside your clothes,’ she whispered, running her long fingers up and down his chest. ‘But me, I’m cold, I’m freezing – feel how cold I am.’ She took his hand, pulled it inside her coat and laid it on her beating heart.

Robert could smell Sofia now and, even though she hadn’t had a wash for several days, the female muskiness of her was more intoxicating than the most expensive scent.

He could feel the schnapps firing his blood, demanding action, telling him that here was a young woman, a lovely, willing woman, and she wanted him. He kissed her on the mouth, tasting the schnapps, tasting Sofia, and suddenly he wanted, needed more – he knew that he could never have enough.

‘I always get my man,’ Sofia told him, as they lay together under both their coats upon the musty straw, in a warm, tangled heap of arms and legs.

‘You’re a determined woman,’ Robert said, and offered her the last of what was in his bottle.

She drank and let some dribble down her chin, raising her pale face to his, inviting him to lick it off and laughing when he did. ‘As Marcello says, you’re a black witch,’ he told Sofia. ‘You’re a sorceress, you’re an enchantress. You’ve put a spell on me.’

But in the morning, when the cold, grey dawn came creeping like a ghost on to the mountain, and Robert woke with a thick head and mother of all hangovers, he found the spell was broken.

Sofia lay beside him, fast asleep, her dark hair matted and her face begrimed, apart from where the runnels of sticky schnapps had washed away a little of the dirt.

He wished he could turn back the clock. Why had he done this stupid, stupid thing? He liked Sofia, he admired Sofia, she had saved his life. She was the bravest, strongest woman he had ever known. But she was not the one he loved.

Sofia stirred and then opened her eyes. ‘I know,’ she said, as she looked at his face.

‘What do mean, you know?’

‘You Englishmen, you’re good at feeling guilty. You wish we hadn’t done those things we did last night. So I suppose you hate me now?’

‘I’ll never hate you,’ Robert said. ‘Come on,’ he added, pulling on his clothes, then picking up the various bags and sacks they’d dumped when they’d decided they would spend the night in this damp hut. ‘We must be getting back. Marcello and the others will think we’ve run away.’

Rose left the farm and went to London to identify the body.

She was absolutely adamant that Daisy mustn’t do it. But afterwards she looked so ill and shocked that Daisy said to Cassie she wished she had insisted, wished she’d told her mother she was a big girl now, and could do this for Steve.

Cassie was afraid that even though she’d privately convinced herself she was to blame for Stephen’s death, Rose might say in public that Cassie was a wicked, grasping harlot who had come into her family and caused them all great pain.

But Rose was kind to Cassie. ‘Steve always felt that he was second best,’ she said, as she and Cassie sat quietly in the cottage the evening after Stephen’s funeral, when the other mourners had all gone away. He was buried with his father now, in the local churchyard, underneath an ancient, dripping yew. ‘He hero-worshipped Robert,’ Rose continued. ‘He adored him, literally. When Robert joined the army in 1939, Stephen followed suit – went into the same regiment, applied for a commission, was determined to do everything that Rob could do. But it really bothered him, that Rob was always bigger, brighter, braver – better at everything.’

‘I’m so s-sorry, Rose.’ Since Stephen’s death, Cassie found she couldn’t stop crying, found that she was bursting into tears on buses, in the street, while driving officers around, while working in the motor pool. ‘I expect you wish I’d never met them. If I’d never come to Melbury – ’

‘Rob would not have met the girl he loved. Steve had his own demons, which were nothing to do with you.’ Rose put her arms round Cassie and hugged her like a mother. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself.’

But Cassie did.

She knew everybody thought her nerves were shot to bits. Her CO called her in to have a pep-talk, to offer her a transfer, to tell her she could have compassionate leave.

But she didn’t want it and, the day after the funeral, she went straight back to London, driving all around a city that was being traumatised by rockets coming over night and day.

She didn’t know quite why, but a few days later she realised she didn’t feel afraid. She’d used up all her tears, all her compassion, and all her sympathy. Blazing buildings, bombs, explosions, scenes of carnage, screams of people burning, wounded, dying – she could deal with all of it.

She wasn’t bothered if the war was lost or won, or just dragged on and on for ever. She couldn’t bring herself to care about it any more.

Sofia had been careless.

On a raid with Robert and Marcello and two of the other men, she had tripped and fallen as they ran away from an explosion, and she’d hurt her arm. When they arrived back at their hideout, Robert realised she had broken it.

He managed to set it straight again between two wooden splints, then bind it up with rags. But it was soon obvious Sofia would be no use to anybody for several weeks or more.

Marcello was disgusted, ranting in Italian about it being bad luck to have a woman in a
banda
. He should have sent her home when she and Robert first arrived, he grumbled, and she needn’t think she could just lie there, and have the others waiting on her hand and foot. If she didn’t work, she didn’t eat, and –

‘Shut up, Marcello,’ Robert said.

‘What?’

‘I told you to shut up.’

There was a sudden silence. Robert realised everyone was looking straight at him, and also realised he had gone too far. But he couldn’t start to back down now, even though he knew the various members of the group could all turn on him, if they pleased.

He wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t even an Italian. They didn’t owe him anything, and he’d just insulted a man they all respected. He waited to feel steel against his throat.

But, after a few moments, when he’d realised they weren’t going to kill him, or at any rate not yet, he met Marcello’s stare. ‘I’ll take her home,’ he said.

‘You won’t.’ Marcello glared at him. ‘You’re useful, and I need you here with me.’

‘What about Sofia?’

‘What about Sofia, Roberto?’ Marcello was grinning monkey-like at him. ‘What about your whore? If this one dies, Roberto, you can always get another one. Listen, when she came here, she knew about the risks. She knew she wasn’t wanted, but she stayed. She hung around like a stray dog. I don’t care if she dies like one.’

‘I’ll take her home,’ repeated Robert, scowling at Marcello and wishing he didn’t already feel the knife going in his back.

Then, to his astonishment, one of the other men spoke up. ‘Let them go,’ he said. ‘Let Roberto take the woman home, and then come back to us. You will come back, Roberto, won’t you?’

The others all joined in – take her home, they said, let the woman go back to her family.

‘You’re crazy!’ cried Marcello. ‘You’re crazy, all of you!’ But he knew he was beaten and backed down. ‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘You can take your
puttana
, but you’ll have no arms, no ammunition, and only one day’s food. When you’ve delivered the woman, you come back. If you don’t, we’ll hunt you down and kill you.’

Robert nodded, but didn’t promise anything.

It was the worst of journeys, for the snow was melting and the rivers were all rushing torrents which they somehow had to get across. They were anxious to avoid the Germans, but they still had to steal some food from them.

Always hungry, always tired, Sofia’s strength was failing, and Robert found he was hoping he was dreaming, that this was all a nightmare from which he would wake up. He didn’t know how he was going to carry on.

But, somehow, they made it.

As they approached the villa – six or maybe seven days later, Robert had lost count – they saw it was a ruin. He wasn’t sure quite what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t to see such final, absolute destruction.

The pigeon loft where he had once been hidden was just a blackened shell. The roof tiles lay in broken orange shards upon the paving far below. The villa’s walls were pockmarked, burnt and holed by high explosive. The grand, impressive entrance portico was blasted into splintered marble bits.

Robert was so tired today that he understood why many people just gave up, why they lay down and died. If the Germans were still here, he thought he might as well surrender and hope they’d spare Sofia, even if they shot him there and then.

‘Get your hands up!’ cried a voice.

Robert was so exhausted, so light-headed from starvation and fatigue that he didn’t know if he was hearing English, German or Italian, but he raised his hands.

A dozen men in dirty British battledress encircled him, and he saw from their shoulder flashes they were from the Yorkshire Regiment. As Sofia sank down helpless on the weed-choked gravel, he called out his name and rank and regiment, and he almost laughed to see their faces.

But actual laughter was beyond him.

There were a couple of rooms which must have been inhabitable still, for Robert could see faces at the broken windows. After he’d told his captors that the lady was the owner of the villa, a sergeant agreed to let Sofia go and lie down in one, and helped her limp away.