Page 17 of The Tuscan Child
We pulled up in the station yard. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. “I think the various sums of money will be released in the next week or so. And the items should go to auction soon.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind,” I said.
“Not at all. It’s been a pleasure.” He paused. “Joanna—I may call you Joanna, mayn’t I? I do come up to town from time to time. Maybe I could take you to a show or something.”
Scarlet had said something about falling off a horse and the best thing to do being to get right back on again. But it had been such a great and damaging fall. I wasn’t sure I wanted to ride anymore.It’s only a show,my inner voice was saying.Nothing more.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’d like that.”
His face lit up.
But we never did go to that show because in a little over a month, I had left for Italy.
CHAPTER TEN
HUGO
December 1944
After Sofia had gone, Hugo sat holding the bandage over his wound for a long while until gradually he felt the morphine starting to work. There was still some water left in the battered tin mug, and he drank it gratefully, then remembered the chestnuts she had left for him. He peeled off the prickly casings and ate their contents. They weren’t as satisfying as the roasted chestnuts at home, but they were edible.
The rain was starting to drip on to him, and Hugo realised he would need to concoct some kind of shelter for himself before the rain got any worse. He used the last of the bandages to hold a pad around his wound and pulled his trousers back up, in spite of Sofia’s admonition. He wasn’t about to be caught by Germans with his trousers down! Then he stood up, reaching for the stick that acted as his crutch. The morphine was working well and he felt only faint stabs of pain as he moved forward cautiously. The first thing he did was relieve himself. After that he felt well enough to fish for the packet of cigarettes and lighter in his bomber jacket. He perched on the broken pew, taking long drags and giving a sigh of contentment. He had nearly a full pack. If he rationed himself he could make them last for several days.
He smoked the cigarette right down to the butt, then stubbed it out. He now felt ready to tackle what needed to be done. He stood in the middle of the chapel assessing the situation. There were certainly plenty of building materials. The whole roof had collapsed, but in the far corner there had been some kind of side chapel built into a nook, with the altar still standing. He hobbled around, dragging pieces of broken wood over to the corner. He placed what must have been a cupboard door on the floor, then leaned several planks against the altar front to make a tepee-like shelter. Then he brought out his parachute. He couldn’t decide whether to drape it over the whole thing as a waterproof tent or to use it as a covering around himself inside. He opted for the latter—at least under those planks of wood it wouldn’t draw attention to himself—and spread it out on the floor. Then he lowered himself to the ground and eased himself in through the gap, wrapping himself in the parachute.
The floor felt horribly hard, but the fine parachute silk did seem to trap his body heat. He wished he’d taken the time to put on his usual canvas flight suit. He was supposed to wear it over his clothes, but the pilots found them bulky. On missions like this he wasn’t even flying high enough or long enough to get really cold. He took out his service revolver and loaded it, retrieved the knife, and made sure they were where he could easily reach them. Then he tucked the pouch that had held his parachute and first aid kit under his head and lay back. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
He must have drifted off to sleep. The morphine was giving him strange dreams. He was on a high mountain, with clouds swirling below it, and angels and devils were wrestling for his soul. The devils had swastikas tattooed on to their foreheads and were trying to drag him down to a place below the clouds. Then one of the angels took him by the arm and lifted him up, and now he was flying.
“Don’t let me fall!” he cried out, looking up at the angel.
“Of course I won’t. You are safe with me,” the angel said, and her face transformed into that of Sofia Bartoli. Hugo opened his eyes and found he was smiling. Then his heart gave a lurch as he spotted a woman’s face looking at him through a gap between his piled planks of wood. Not Sofia—a woman with light hair and a crown. He sat up, banging his head against the altar table and swearing. He peered out.
While he had been sleeping, the rain had stopped, and sunlight was now streaming into the chapel. The rays of slanted winter sun were falling directly on to a fresco on the opposite wall. Parts of the fresco were pockmarked and damaged, but this part was still intact. It showed a picture of the Virgin Mary. He couldn’t tell if she had been holding the Child Jesus, as that part of the fresco had been blown away. Just her face smiled down at him, and he found this extremely comforting—a sign almost that heaven was protecting him.
The thirst had returned, and his head felt woozy from the morphine. He looked down at his watch. Only eleven o’clock. He had a long day ahead of him. He eased himself out of his shelter and managed to stand up. The morphine must have been wearing off because the pain shot through him again and he cried out. He started in fear at a loud noise nearby but then saw that it was only a pigeon flapping away from the jagged wall above him.Pigeons,he thought.Future food, if I have to stay here long. But I couldn’t cook it up here. Maybe Sofia could take it home, cook it, and ... Stop,he told himself.I can’t put her and her family in danger.She had already told him that a whole village had been executed for helping the partisans. She would undoubtedly suffer the same fate for aiding a British pilot.
I must get away from here,he decided.Maybe hide out for a few days, just until the wound has healed and I’ve made a splint. Then I’ll go south.
He took the battered tin mug, then eased himself along the wall to the front door.
He gasped. Before him a vista stretched out in all directions: hill after hill, covered in thick forest, disappearing into blue haze, and in the distance higher mountains, their tops already dusted with snow. No sign of a big town, but some of the hills were crowned, like the one immediately before him, with a fortified village. It stood out now in clear three dimensions, highlighted after the rain, the houses clinging together as if afraid they might slip down the hillside. He stared at it with appreciation, admiring the faded ochre and green shutters of the houses, the graceful bell tower rising above the terra cotta tiles of the roofs, the crumbling walls built to keep out intruders. Smoke curled up from chimneys into the still air.
The hills close by were a mix of cultivation, neat lines of olives or vines cut out of thick woodland.Wild and tame,he thought. That summed it up. Then his gaze moved over to the west. Where part of the rock had been blasted away he could see the remnants of a track snaking up the hillside to the monastery. He could pick it out through the trees to where it met a road far below in a valley. As he watched, he saw three army trucks driving northward. He picked out the swastika on one of them.
There is no way I can escape at this moment,he thought. He was glad that the track had been blown away near the top. No German lorry would try to come back to this point. Thus reassured, he stepped through the doorframe and made his way carefully over the cracked and tilted stones of the forecourt. He found Sofia’s rain barrel full and overflowing and dared to take a long drink, praying the rain had not stirred up whatever might have been breeding in it. Then he looked around at the piles of rubble, wondering if there might be anything that could be of use.
He was clearly standing beside what used to be a kitchen. Shards of pottery lay strewn about, an occasional cup handle or curve of a basin revealing what the items had once been. But there was nothing whole and intact. In his current condition he didn’t dare to go further, to dig and potter among the ruins, but then he spotted a pillow, burned and with the stuffing spilling out of it. It was, naturally, soaking wet, but he carried it back in triumph, hoping it would dry out soon.
Once back inside he was overcome with exhaustion and barely managed to spread out the kapok from the pillow on one of the fallen beams before feeling that he had to sit down or he would pass out. He lowered himself with much grunting and swearing back into his little shelter, lay down, and knew no more.
When he opened his eyes again it was dark—the sort of absolute darkness you find only far away from civilisation. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face.She wouldn’t come now,he thought. There was no way she could find her way up through the woods in this darkness. He felt an absurd sense of disappointment. Of course she couldn’t leave her family twice in one day. It would look too suspicious. Then doubts crept in. What if she had been seen? What if someone in the village had binoculars and had been spying on her? What if she had been turned over to the Germans and right now they were on their way to get him?
He broke out into a cold sweat. He had to speak to himself quite sternly to get a grip on his fear. Of course nobody had seen them from the village. When they had come up to the ruins, the clouds had been hanging over the hilltops. He had only just been able to make out the village. Not the sort of day that anyone would take their binoculars and decide to observe the countryside...unless you were a German sentry posted as an observer on a hilltop. The fear returned. He knew that he would never feel safe for even a minute, and was overcome with empathy for the inhabitants of that village, never knowing when the Germans would arrive claiming that they had helped a partisan, lining them all up in the village square, and shooting them all.
I should start making myself a splint,he thought, but could do nothing until it was light again. He certainly wasn’t going to use his precious cigarette lighter except for emergencies. And so he lay there, listening to night noises—the creak and crack of branches in the forest below, the hoot of an owl, the distant howl of a dog. It was going to be a long night.
He must have been dozing because he awoke to see a light flickering nearby.
