Shout in the Dark (16 page)

Laura folded the map and turned, her eyes
fixed on his. "Just trust me, Marco."

The drive to the monastery of Monte Sisto
only took a few minutes more. The monastery was much smaller than
Marco had expected it to be. Perched high on a hill, the building
of local stone was totally roofless and open to the elements. Human
existence had obviously ended here many years ago.

Laura led the way up a narrow pathway,
passing some ancient olive trees that struggled for survival in the
rocky soil. This was like an expedition into the jungle. Flies
surrounded them, and these flies were definitely bigger and more
persistent than the city variety. Marco whacked at them with a
stick.

Close to the ruined building they came to
a smaller area overgrown with bamboo and brambles. "This was the
monks' garden," explained Laura as she stared at the brambles
twisting tightly round the canes. "I haven't been here for years. I
don't remember it being as bad as this."

"
I know where I can borrow a metal detector." Marco felt
more enthusiastic than Laura sounded. "It will only be a simple
one, but Canon Angelo wouldn't have buried a bronze head very deep.
We could whip over these graves in a couple of hours. I'll get a
small spade as well."

"
It's an idea," said Laura, "but the ground looks like we
might need a pick-axe if we got a signal."

Marco disagreed. "If the ground is too
hard for us to dig with a spade, it means it hasn't been disturbed
recently. We won't dig if we get signals in places like
that."

A flock of doves, with their white feathers
streaked with the gray of the occasional visiting wild pigeon, took
off from the red stone walls in a flutter of wings. Without the
constant care and attention of the monks, every part of their
little heaven on earth had fallen into decay. Marco realized how
naïve he had been to dream of meeting friendly monks, and finding
rows of carefully tended graves that might have once been disturbed
by Canon Angelo Levi when he hid the bronze head.

"
The Levi family and the monks were shot by the Nazis,
against that wall." Laura sounded deep in thought. "Stand with me
for a moment, Marco."

A somber mood came over him as he stood
beside her, trying to imagine those last moments of the Christian
Brothers and a terrified Jewish family. Massacred by German
soldiers. What must it be like to face certain death, to know that
within a few seconds the guns would fire, the bullets would hit,
sending you to meet your Maker? Perhaps it was easier when the time
came. Somehow he doubted it.

"
Are you going to tell me?" he asked quietly.

"
What do you want to know?" Laura's eyes were wet with
tears.

"
Everything you know about Monte Sisto."

"
It's Bruno's story as much as mine." Laura spoke slowly.
"His mother was caught up in the events that started
here."

She caught hold of his arm abruptly and
pulled him towards the top of the cliff. "Look down," she ordered
him. "See that narrow path we came up?"

He tried to pull himself from the edge,
feeling threatened as he reached back to cling on to the branch of
a small tree. "Yes."

"
How do you think the monks were feeling when they looked
over here in nineteen forty-four? Lean right over, Marco. There are
Nazi troops at the bottom of the hill, and they're coming up to
kill us. We can't escape. We're going to die before it gets
dark."

Chapter
14

Monte Sisto

"
THE SS, FATHER?"

The bitter wind pierced the lookout in the
bell tower and quickly stripped all feeling from the older man's
face. He was head of the monastic order, trying to maintain a
pretence of inner calm for the sake of the young brother at his
side. They had already counted twelve German soldiers climbing up
the path from the valley.

Brother Antoni moved closer as they both
leaned out through the window in the high wall. When the young
brother repeated his question his voice became high pitched with
fear. "Are they the SS, Father?"

Father Guido said nothing. The monastery of
Monte Sisto had clung to the hill for five hundred years. Without
the climbing soldiers and their modern weapons of war it might have
stood for another five.

Father Guido struggled to control his
emotions. "Brother Antoni, may the Lord not find any of us wanting
in our faith." He reached up, his numbed fingers gripping
desperately to the rope. "Make your peace with God. The end is near
for us all." He regretted that the ringing bell could never be made
to sound urgent. The mellow tone might be summoning the Brothers
for prayer, rather than warning them of certain death from troops
of the Third Reich. There was no mercy for those who sheltered
Jews.

Brother Antoni refused to move, frozen by
a mixture of horror and fascination. He rephrased his unanswered
question. "They
are
the SS
aren't they, Father?"

"
Indeed they are." Father Guido gave up his attempt to hold
the harsh rope. He reached out awkwardly to touch the young man's
shoulder. Never before had he made physical contact with one of the
Brothers. The tears in his eyes were no longer caused by the cold
wind. The embrace was an act of innocent compassion, a sharing of
their mortality.

"
I love you all, just as I love the Lord." His voice shook
with emotion. "If only we had been more prepared. We knew the
Germans are hunting for refugees. We even knew…" But the words
refused to come. He held Brother Antoni tightly, the thin body
giving him more comfort than he could give in return.

Why had they been so slow to react to the
reports reaching them almost daily? Not just gossip in the village
of Monte Sisto, but reports from visitors describing in terrible
detail the Nazis
'
relentless search for victims and bounty.

Brother Antoni trembled as he gripped the
small handrail. "Perhaps the door will keep the soldiers
out."

Father Guido released his hold of Brother
Antoni and wiped the tears from the young man's face with the
coarse brown fabric of his habit. Only a wooden door between
themselves and eternity. The end was coming for them all. In the
cellar, deep within the ancient foundations, a terrified family of
refugees was hiding between casks of wine prepared by the Brothers
during the peaceful summer months. Father Guido took the youngest
brother by the arm and led the way towards the narrow stairs from
the bell tower.

"
We have prayed, Brother Antoni, and now we must
wait."

They both shivered uncontrollably. The chill
of the January morning was intensified by an icy fear.

HELMUT BAYER felt happy and lucky. Happy
with his promotion to
Untersturmführer-SS, and happy with his job as official SD
photographer. He had also been extremely lucky while on leave with
his latest girl. A clean-up operation the Sturmbannführer called
today's task, and all he had to do was take official photographs
for a training manual. It might be cold, but army life was not too
demanding.

Admittedly he did have reservations about
these raids, because they were never clean in their cleaning-up.
But they had been told -- told many times -- that an example had to
be made of certain people. An example to frighten Italians who were
sheltering Jews, and other refugees, into handing them over to the
proper authorities. Helmut shrugged. It sounded all right when he
looked at it like that. The proper authorities had the facilities
to deal with these criminals correctly.

He'd never wanted to be another Heinrich
Hoffmann, Hitler's personal photographer. Portraits of the Führer
striking poses all over Europe would be just too much trouble to
organize. All he wanted was a camera and a pretty girl -- and even
the camera was optional.

He turned to his Sturmbannführer.
"On a bright day like this I
think I'll photograph the treasures outside."

He watched Sturmbannführer Kessel stop on
the steep path and turn his blond, Aryan head upwards. The
Sturmbannführer turned. "Then hurry, Bayer, or it will be dark
outside as well as in!"

"
The glorious Reich is somewhat short of flashbulbs,"
explained Helmut, ignoring the Sturmbannführer's sarcasm in favor
of his own.

Sturmbannführer Manfred Kessel said
nothing. He seemed to be in no mood for a slanging match, but
perhaps he was only waiting until he could think of a suitable
retort. Helmut Bayer knew that the men held their Sturmbannführer
in respect. Respect was natural, given the man's background -- the
background he boasted about so often. Kessel's amazing father had
apparently shown great foresight in leaving the Tannenburg --
before an untimely death -- to turn to Hitler and National
Socialism in 1926. Sturmbannführer Kessel reveled in recounting how
in 1936 he had been specially selected to instruct the Hitler Youth
in the Total Education program personally devised by Adolf Hitler.
It was the only organization at that time to bear the Führer's
name.

Helmut Bayer stifled a yawn. So, the
Sturmbannführer's eager pupils had been prepared for the rigors of
the
Adolf
Hitler Schule
, where
squad competed against squad. Sturmbannführer Kessel boasted that
his highly trained young men had invariably finished with the
highest honors. Bayer removed his Leica camera from the bag at his
feet and watched his leader climb without even needing to pause for
breath. Little wonder the Sturmbannführer had gone on to leadership
in the
Sicherheitsdienst
. He turned to glance behind, and saw the small group of
men struggling to stay close.

Kessel waited for the trailing soldiers to
catch up before speaking loudly. "The trouble is, Untersturmführer,
the best things always happen in the darkest cellars. And that's
where we're going to be. In the cellars you don't need lights to
know if there are Jews and Communists hiding. You shout, 'Who's in
there!' and listen for the knees knocking."

The laughter that followed from the SD
troops who had now caught up was more than dutiful. Bayer guessed
that memories of earlier searches and arrests were flooding back.
Each man had been involved in the October roundup of Jews in Rome;
but with so many raids on farms and religious communities, the
initial excitement had turned to boredom. It was rare for anything
significant to happen that would lessen the monotony of the capture
and execution of these pathetic fugitives from German custody. The
local informers were very reliable.

Helmut Bayer blew on his fingers to warm
them, then set the controls on the top of his camera. They had sent
him to Köln to collect this Leica, and at the same time take part
in a short training course. The modern lightweight camera, with its
miniature film in thirty-six exposure cassettes, had been
introduced into the military because the small negatives saved
valuable film. He was about to use it for the first time -- on
official work. Suddenly he could feel the blood draining from his
cheeks. He had been guilty of misusing military property. The
delectable Monika Schulte in Köln had been too great a temptation
to try out the newly acquired equipment. Admittedly, all film was
in critically short supply, but leave time was also precious. And
hadn't Monika looked so enticing lying on the sofa naked apart from
his army jacket, complete with the new Untersturmführer-SS
insignia? And then without it.

The first ten exposures on the scarce film
were of the delicious Monika. Ten valuable exposures already used
up. On leaving their trucks in the valley, Sturmbannführer Kessel
had announced his intention to use every one of the thirty-six
shots in the Leica -- and spare film was unobtainable. He swallowed
hard. The significance of the remark had finally got
through.

FATHER GUIDO could hear persistent
hammering on the old door. The ancient timbers would provide little
resistance to such an onslaught. The monastery
's most precious treasure had been
hurriedly covered with a mix of plaster and white paint only
yesterday, when news came of Germans moving through the area.
Father Guido recalled how Brother Antoni had insisted on keeping
the sacred surface from the eyes of the profane, before concealing
the sacred relic behind the paneling in the library. The youngest
brother, for all his wild talk, had somehow foreseen this day of
terror.

The remaining treasures, whose importance
paled into insignificance in comparison, were already laid almost
casually on the table and shelves, in the vain hope that this would
divert the Nazis from a fuller search. A sudden explosion was
followed by a frantic flutter of wings, as the white doves that
normally found peace and solitude within the red stone walls flew
upwards in confusion.

Father Guido watched his home for
fifty-three years being torn apart. How foolish to think that
experts like the SD, the
Sicherheitsdienst
, the secret intelligence group of the Nazi SS,
would be content to take a few religious treasures, but leave the
cellars and roof unprobed. Four soldiers were already going through
the sacred gold, the silverware and the art treasures for a full
inventory.