Siege at the Villa Lipp (12 page)

Well, no. What you did was try to catch the black marketeers, and you did this by checking as constantly as you could on the driver and occupants of every civilian vehicle moving in your area. The CIC used jeeps with two men in them. We used one-man motorcycle patrols.

It was one of my patrols who brought in Carlo.

The first thing I heard of Carlo was the sound of his car, a clapped-out Opel that made more noise than the patrol’s motor-bike. When both engines had been switched off, I heard the corporal telling the owner of the car to stay exactly where he was. The corporal then came down to report.

‘Highly suspicious, this one, sir,’ he said. He called me ‘sir’ because I was by then a Warrant Officer 2nd Class, a sergeant-major. He also handed me a gasoline permit and laissez-passer issued in Naples by AMGOT .

I drew a deep breath and counted silently to ten.

AMGOT
- Allied Military Government Occupied Territories - was one of the crosses the army had to bear at that stage of the campaign. AMGOT, it seemed to us, had been recruited by a committee of highly-placed saboteurs from the dregs of those ghastly pools, which both the American and British armies were obliged to maintain, of officers who had been commissioned in haste or ignorance and later rejected by unit after unit as unfit for any sort of responsible duty. Some were just stupid, some were alcoholics, a few were failed crooks and more remarkable, and from our point of view the more dangerous of these, were those amiable, personally charming and often cultivated eccentrics who, having served honourably in peace-time regular armies had, over the years, quietly become gaga without anyone ever having noticed the change. They were more dangerous not only because they were often of quite senior rank, but because many of them tended to hold political views which even Gabriele d’Annunzio might have found reactionary. Their tendency to form warm personal friendships with the former Fascist bosses they had been sent to replace, and also to confirm them in office, caused much resentment in the Allied armies.

Naturally, some of the AMGOT scandals were successfully hushed up. The Town Major in Sicily who used his authority to buy up all the best buildings, including the hotel, at cut prices for his own post-war account, was quietly court-martialled and sent home to serve a short prison term. Only a few ever heard about that. The gasoline-permit racket and the shenanigans that went with it were less easily covered up.

They reached their full absurdity when a CIC patrol on the outskirts of Naples stopped an Italian civilian driver whose car looked unusually well cared for and asked for his permit. The driver responded sullenly. He slowly produced a wallet from his pocket and was about to extract the permit when the CIC man reached in impatiently and took the whole thing. Inside, he found not only the AMGOT permit and a considerable sum of money, but also a Gestapo permit to operate the car issued less than three months previously. The driver was later identified as a senior Fascist Party official who had denounced Badoglio as a traitor for arresting Mussolini, urged his countrymen to stay loyal to the Nazi alliance and, when possible or convenient, stab the invaders in the back. He was on the Allied wanted list. The CIC put him in jail. Twelve hours later he was out, released on the orders of a senior AMGOT official.

This was too much for the CIC, who promptly leaked the story to war correspondents. Questioned by them, the AMGOT spokesman began, not too badly, by admitting the facts and agreeing that the whole affair was absolutely deplorable. But, he continued, they were all men of the world who knew that, in occupied territories where states of emergency existed, occasional compromises, distasteful though some might consider them, had to be made. AMGOT had been given the responsibility of governing the country
pro tem,
but no one had explained how it was to be governed without the aid of experienced local administrators accustomed to giving orders and seeing that they were obeyed. Where, might we ask, were the democratic administrators willing and able to take over the duties of those he was being urged to discard? We had had serious outbreaks of typhus. Was he now being asked to permit outbreaks of typhoid and cholera because the senior city sanitary department engineer had once been a member of the Fascist Party?

The spokesman had chosen that moment to pause for breath. Unfortunately for him, there had been one correspondent there who particularly disliked rhetorical questions. He was on his feet instantly. But what, he asked, about this man who had been arrested and then released? Was
he
a senior sanitary engineer? ‘Colonel, is he
any
kind of a sanitary engineer?’

That was when the spokesman had made his mistake. Instead of continuing to conceal his contempt for the newsmen, he had suddenly let it show.

He had smiled at the questioner. ‘No, my dear sir,’ he had replied sweetly, ‘the gentleman is not a sanitary engineer, but - ‘ a slight pause - ‘I happen to know that he plays an excellent game of bridge.’

Naturally, the whole story was at once censored, but the censors could not stop it spreading by word of mouth. It was at this time that some wag thought up the bitter little joke motto,
Amgot mit Uns.

So, all that interested me about Carlo’s gasoline permit and laissez-passer was the name of the officer who had signed it. As the name was unfamiliar, I was unable to tell how much weight the permit-holder might have behind him. Accordingly, I
rang
signals and asked if they could put me through to CIC Venafro. Signals said that they would try. Venafro was then on the right flank of Fifth Army on the other side of the mountains from us, but signals could sometimes patch me in through HQ Caserta.

I called the corporal to come back down. There was still a faint possibility that he hadn’t made a complete fool of himself.

‘Was he carrying anything in the car?’ I asked.

‘No, sir, just himself. But he’s way off his permitted route, and out of his area as well.’

‘Did you ask him why?’

‘No, need to, sir. Standing orders. He shouldn’t be here.’

Hopeless. You could never persuade that kind of idiot that, in some circumstances, he might get better results by using standing orders as threats rather than by blindly obeying them.

‘I take it you’ve told him that he’s going to be arrested?’

‘Of course, sir. He already
is
under arrest really. Clear case. Shall I bring him down now?’

‘Not yet. I’ll let you know. Has he said anything?’

‘Not a word, sir. Shall I question him?’

‘No.
You
keep your mouth shut too.’

After a while signals came through to say that they had raised CIC Venafro. The man in charge there was an officer - trust the Americans to do things properly - but he never pulled rank on me and we had always managed to co-operate amicably. We had first met in Sicily.

‘Hi, Paul,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you? Or do you want to do something for me?’

‘I’m not quite sure, sir, which it is. One of my lot has brought in a man named Carlo Lech.’

There was a small silence before he said: ‘Paul, I think you may need help, but I don’t think I have the right kind. Lech is a well-known bridge player. You didn’t, by chance, catch him with any of the actual goods on him?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’d better let him go before someone starts reaching for your balls with a pipe-wrench.’

‘He’s out of his permitted area.’

‘You could ask him why and then let him go.’

‘If I’m going to have to let him go, sir, I’d like to ask him more than that. He’s been picked up and my man has logged the fact. I’ve got to have a good reason for letting him go. He’s got to buy his way out and not too cheaply. He’s from your side of the mountains. If you were here what would you like to ask him?’

‘Two nights ago twenty thousand cigarettes went missing off a truck between Caserta and here. There was an MP riding shotgun. His case is that the cigarettes were never loaded. I’d like to know what really happened because it’s happened before and some of the loot has ended up right here. Makes it look as if you’re a jerk who doesn’t know what’s going on in his own back yard. And if Mr Lech knows any good anti-Fascists, men of distinction whom we can persuade to come out of hiding so that we can give them posts as mayors, city councillors and police chiefs where their untainted records and democratic convictions can publicly demonstrate . . . ‘

‘Yes, sir. I’ve had that directive too. I’ll see what I can find out about the cigarettes and call you back if I get anything. Funny name for an Italian, Lech. Sounds more like German.’

‘It’s Austrian. He’s one of those Tyrolese Italians, injured in a road accident when a teenager, which kept him out of any of the services. Party member though, and a smart lawyer. Watch yourself, kid.’

I
cleared the line, then told the corporal to send the prisoner down but stay upstairs himself.

At that time Carlo was more than twice my age, a short, compact man with greying dark hair, grey-green eyes and one of the kindliest expressions I have ever seen. You felt instantly that he was longing for you to say or do something, anything that would give him an excuse to let the smile that seemed always to be trembling on his lips blossom forth. Except for the leather overcoat he wore, which was too long and had obviously once belonged to someone else, he was neatly dressed. His slight limp, a legacy of the road accident, did not seem to bother him much. He walked down the broken stone stairs as if he were used to them, and he was taking off his greasy grey-felt hat as he did so.

At the foot of the stairs, he stopped, looked carefully at the crown on my battledress sleeve and then said in English: ‘Good afternoon, Sergeant-Major.’

I replied in Italian. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Lech. Please sit down.’

He inspected me again and then, after examining carefully the rickety wicker chair I had offered him, sat down opposite my blanket-covered trestle table.

I was curious. ‘What were you looking for in the chair?’ I asked.

‘Lice, Sergeant-Major. I can’t stand them and, as a civilian, have no access to the military’s new ways of getting rid of them.’

Several years later, he told me that that had been the moment at which he had made up his mind about me. ‘I saw you as a son, the kind of son I would have liked to have, one with whom, and at whose side, I could do business. I saw you, above all, as a potential associate, a friend and partner whom I could trust, under any circumstances, even when his private hubris was involved, not to behave stupidly.’

He may have been telling something of the truth. Carlo had a sentimental streak that few who ever did business with him can have suspected. He also had a son, a handsome, clever but rather vain boy, who later disappointed him profoundly by going into the Church.

Nevertheless, our first meeting was for me more like a family quarrel than the meeting of minds he chose later to recall. The moment he was seated, I perched myself on a corner of the table from which I could look down upon him, and attacked.

‘You are driving a vehicle in this area without a valid permit and have, I understand, admitted doing so knowing that it was an offence. Am I right?’

‘Knowing that it was a minor, technical offence, yes, Sergeant-Major.’

‘There are no minor, technical offences in this area, Mr Lech. An offence is an offence. Where were you hoping to go and why?’

‘To Bari on business. I explained all this to your corporal.’

‘What business?’

‘Supplying the club for senior officers in Naples with brandy, Sergeant-Major.’

‘Peach
brandy?’

He looked shocked. ‘Oh my God, no. The colonels and brigadier-generals would never commission me to supply them with that sort of rubbish.’

I noted that in spite of his shock at the idea of peach brandy entering a senior officers’ club, he had tried to pull rank on me with his colonels and brigadiers and at the same time managed to flourish the word ‘commission’. I had to mangle that line of defence before he could develop it.

‘Are you claiming that you are in this area illegally but justifiably because you have been specifically ordered here by a senior British or American officer? If so, have you some written authority to substantiate your claim?’

‘Oh no, Sergeant-Major, there is nothing like that. It is really quite simple. When persons of consequence ask the person of no consequence for his help, he endeavours, if he is wise, to oblige them. I am sure that if you would care to telephone General Anstruthers - ‘ he had difficulty in pronouncing the name but made a brave try - ‘he would confirm that good brandy was requested. Of course,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I doubt if the General will take kindly to being questioned formally by a warrant-officer on such a trivial matter.’

I tossed a packet of cigarettes into his lap. ‘Any more,’ I suggested, ‘than the General will take kindly to the knowledge that his name is being used illegally as a black marketeer’s laissez-passer.’

He handed back the cigarettes without taking one, so I went on. ‘Whereabouts in Bari is the brandy?’

He threw up his hands in protest at the question. ‘Sergeant-Major, if I were certain that it even existed, I would not be committing this trivial breach of the regulations which you are now exploiting. I am told that the brandy is there, six cases of it, but I am not told where. For all I know it may by now have been - what is the word? - “liberated” by the British army. Or it may be that the original bottles have been refilled with wood alcohol. I have a contact, yes, but I do not know him personally and so cannot possibly buy sight unseen. But I explained all this to your corporal.’

‘Who is your contact?’

‘The man formerly in charge of what was the bonded warehouse.’

‘If the brandy is there and up to standard, what do you propose to do about it?’

‘If the price is not absurdly high, I shall buy it and then take it back to the General and his club wine committee.’

‘In your car?’

‘Certainly, in my car, and with a bill of sale to prove that the goods are my property.’