Street Boys (6 page)

13

IL CAMALDOLI, NAPLES
SEPTEMBER 26, 1943

The bullmastiff led the way down the side of the bluff, walking with delicate ease along its narrow path. Connors followed, one hand holding his rifle belt, the other resting inside his pants pocket. His uniform was sprinkled with dust and blood. He had buried Willis and Taylor at the top of the bluff, overlooking the Bay of Naples, using their helmets and rifles as markers.

They had parked the jeep under an old pine tree, inside a neglected olive grove. There was little wind and the heat was cooling down with the evening shade.

The bullmastiff saw the boys before he did and took a run toward them, barking and kicking up pockets of dust and dirt with his paws. Connors flipped his rifle from his shoulder to his hands and fast-stepped down the path toward the jeep. He stopped between the dog and the four boys sitting in his jeep, rifle at his side. One of the boys had his fingers wrapped around the ignition key. They were thin, dirty and disheveled and none was older than fourteen. Connors looked at each one, getting only frightened stares and nervous shifting in return. The mastiff had his paws on the side of the jeep and was low growling, ready to pounce at any sudden movements.

“Do you speak any English?” he asked.

“We all do,” the oldest of the four stammered.

“How is that?” Connors asked. “That you all speak it?”

“We are taught to speak three languages,” the boy said. “Neapolitan first. Then Italian and then English.”

“Why are you here?” the boy in the front passenger seat asked.

“I was about to ask the same question,” Connors said, looking from the boys to the dog. “And since I’m the one with the rifle, I’d like my answer first.”

“We’re looking for Nazis,” the boy said. “See if they’re really coming to Naples again. And then report back.”

“Report back to who?” Connors asked.

The four shot quick glances at one another and then looked back down at the dog and the soldier. “The others in our group,” the one holding the ignition key said.

“Let’s say the Nazis are coming back,” Connors said. “What happens then?” He walked closer to the jeep, rifle slung once again over his shoulder.

“I guess then we fight,” the boy closest to Connors said.

Connors stared at him. The boy’s eyes were dark and rich; his face round, sweet and innocent; his hair clipped back and short. “Fight the Nazis?”

“That’s what you do,” the boy said. “Why can’t we?”

“The Nazis have a habit of shooting back,” Connors said. “That’s one reason to think about.”

The boys stayed silent for several seconds, eyes glancing up toward the ridge where the firefight had taken place.

“Does your dog understand Italian?” the boy in the back asked.

“That’s
all
he understands,” Connors said.

The boy in the back smiled at the dog and snapped his fingers. “
Scendi jou
,” he said in as firm a voice as he could muster. “
E siedati!
”

The bullmastiff lowered his paws, stepped back from the jeep and sat on the dirt, his mouth open, large tongue dangling. Connors looked at the dog and then back to the boy.

“It’s good to know he listens to
somebody
,” he said. “Tell you his name if I knew it. But I can tell you mine. It’s Connors.”

“I am Dante,” the boy in the back said. “The boy next to me is Claudio. And the two in front are Gaspare and Pepe.”

“How many are there in this group of yours?” Connors asked.

“About two hundred,” Dante said, stepping down from the jeep. “Maybe two hundred and fifty.”

“All boys?”

“A few girls, but not many,” Gaspare said. “Just the ones without any family.”

“Any American soldiers down there?” Connors asked, leaning against the side of the jeep, his helmet off and resting on the hood.

“You’re the first one any of us have seen,” Dante said.

“What about Italian resistance?” Connors said. “Any of them with you?”

“No,” Dante said. “They left before the evacuation.”

“Are we your prisoners now?” Claudio said, speaking for the first time. He was the youngest, his brown hair touched with streaks of blond, looking nervous and ill at ease in the rear of the jeep.

“Why don’t we say that for the time being we’re working together,” Connors said. “At least until we see how everything in Naples plays out. Just me, the dog and the four of you.”

“What is it you want us to do?” Dante asked with a hint of suspicion.

“It’s not anything that’s going to get you into trouble,” Connors said. “If I’m anywhere in this, it’s on your side. Understand?”

“
Si
,” Dante said, nodding along with the three other boys.

“Good,” Connors said, throwing off his pack and wedging it in the back of the jeep between Dante and Claudio. He tapped the younger boy on the knee. “You’re going to have to ride on your friend’s lap,” he told him. “We need to make room for the dog. The same goes for the two of you in front.”

Connors waited for the boys to shift seats and then snapped his fingers and watched as the mastiff hoisted himself into the back. “His breath is horrible,” Claudio said, cupping a hand in front of his face. “He smells like old feet.”

“He’s not the cleanest duck in the pond,” Connors said, jumping behind the steering wheel. “But he’s good company and he smells trouble long before it hits.”

“What do you call him?” Claudio asked, moving his hand from his face to the top of the mastiff’s head.

“I only knew one Italian name before I ran into you guys,” Connors said, shifting into reverse and moving back toward the road. “And that’s Benito. So that’s who he is. At least to me.”

“You named him after Il Duce?” Gaspare said, his olive eyes flushed wide. “In Naples that could get you killed.”

“We’re not in Naples,” Connors said. “Yet.”

“You still haven’t said what you want us to do,” Pepe said, partly hidden under Gaspare’s weight.

“Benito understands you a lot better than he does me,” Connors said. “Be great if one of you could tell him to stop pissing in the jeep.”

14

16TH PANZER DIVISION, SEVENTY-FIVE MILES OUTSIDE OF NAPLES. SEPTEMBER 26, 1943

The four Mark IV tanks were lined up, gun turrets facing the front of the large pink stucco house. German soldiers, armed with machine guns and flame throwers, approached the house from the rear, trampling over grapevines and fig leaves. Von Klaus stood in front of his tank, staring out at what had once been lush gardens and fertile fields. He marveled at the design of the house. The walls were built thick enough to keep out the harshest summer heat and the most chilling winter winds. The marble steps leading to the oak-wood front door were expansive, black iron handrails helping to guide the path. The entryway had the look and feel of a palace hidden in the middle of paradise. A palace he now needed to bring to ruin.

“Has the house search been completed?” Von Klaus asked Kunnalt, standing alongside him.

“Yes, sir,” Kunnalt said. “The last of our men should be coming out at any moment.”

“And what did they find?”

“It’s been pretty much gutted, sir,” Kunnalt answered. “A few paintings left on the walls. Some furniture scattered about in the downstairs rooms. Nothing that appears to be of any value.”

Von Klaus turned to Kunnalt and smiled. “At least not to us,” he said. He walked a few steps closer to the house, gazing up at the windows to each room, every one shiny and clean. “For an abandoned home, it’s very free of dust, don’t you think?”

“I hadn’t noticed, sir,” Kunnalt said, in step behind the colonel. “Perhaps it hasn’t been left empty very long.”

“Have the house searched again,” Von Klaus said. “And this time, look beyond what it is the owner wants you to see.”

“Looking for what, sir?” Kunnalt asked.

“This is the home of a very rich man,” Von Klaus said. “And more than likely a very smart one as well. A man like that would plan ahead. He wouldn’t flee from such a place like a crazed peasant with all the valuables he could carry on his back. He would make sure those valuables would be safe, hidden from all eyes. They are in this house, Kunnalt. And I would wager that when you find them, you will also find that man.”

Kunnalt snapped his heels, gave the colonel a crisp salute and walked back toward the front entrance to the house, shouting out orders as he moved. Von Klaus reached up and grabbed a tree limb resting just above his head. He snapped off a batch of thin, red grapes and held them in his hands. “I would have preferred wine,” he whispered, pulling the grapes from their stems. He leaned back against the side of his tank, eating the grapes one at a time, and waited.

It was just after dusk when the colonel looked up and saw Kunnalt leading an elderly man in a soiled suit out of the house. The man had hair the color of snow and a beard as thick as a farmer’s hedge. He was short but stout and moved with the quiet dignity of one bred to wealth. He walked with his head raised, his eyes fueled by an angry fire.

“You were right, sir,” Kunnalt said, standing in front of the colonel, the man just off to his right. “There were a number of hidden passageways throughout the house, each of them leading to a series of large underground rooms.”

“And what were in these rooms?” Von Klaus asked, gazing over at the man.

“As you expected, sir,” Kunnalt said with an air of admiration. “Old portraits in large frames, wooden boxes filled with jewelry and several yellow envelopes sealed and stuffed with money.”

“Which room did you find him in?” Von Klaus asked, tilting his head toward the man.

“He was in the subbasement, sir,” Kunnalt said. “Hiding in a small closet off the main hall.”

“Everything you found belongs to me,” the old man said in a hard voice. “And to my family. Anyone else who takes it is nothing more than a thief.”

“That’s a fine-quality suit you have on,” Von Klaus said to him. “And it is a truly beautiful home that you own. In addition, you have all this wealth stored inside of it, enough to feed all that’s left of Naples. Every Italian from Rome down has been stripped of all possessions. The only ones left untouched, as you seem to have been, are the Blackshirts. The Fascists. Which would make you a follower of Mussolini. Is that correct?”

“I believe in Il Duce,
si
,” the man said, not backing down. “And I always will.”

“Loyalty is always admirable, but in your case, it’s also foolish,” Von Klaus said. “As of today, the Italians want your beloved Mussolini dead, the Americans want him captured and we Germans really don’t know what to do with him. We have enough buffoons in our high command as it is. Which leaves you a loyal man with no place to turn.”

“He will not abandon those who stay by his side,” the man said. “Il Duce will be back and Italy will again belong to him.”

“Perhaps,” Von Klaus said in a sterner voice. “And if he does return, I hope he rewards your loyalty with a new home and new riches. Because as of this moment, all that you own is the suit you wear. The rest now belongs to Germany.”

“This land has been in my family for three generations,” the man said. “
No one
can take it from us. Not even Il Duce himself.”

“Your family may have owned the land, but they never worked it,” Von Klaus said. He gazed at the man, his eyes gleaming and hard. “That’s a duty people like yourself reserve for the poor.”

“It’s not against any laws to employ farmhands,” the man said. “And we took good care of them. Treated them as if they were members of my own family.”

Von Klaus walked in a small circle around the man. “And where is the poor side of your family now?” he asked.

“Most of them fled,” the man said. “A few stayed behind and were killed. They were foolish enough to go against the power of Il Duce.”

“Yet you not only stayed, you’ve managed to survive,” Von Klaus said. “With most of your wealth still at your disposal. Seems a poor way for a man to care for members of his family.”

“They made their choice,” the man said. “And now they have to live or die with the results of that choice.”

Von Klaus nodded, the son of a working-class Berlin mill worker about to pass judgment on the landed nobility that stood before him. “And I have made mine,” he said. “And
you
will have to live or die with the results of that choice.”

“What are you going to do?” the man said, all the confidence and arrogance seeping from his body.

“What I was sent here to do,” Von Klaus said, giving the man a last disdainful look. He turned and stepped toward the front of the house. “Empty the house of all its goods,” he shouted to his men. “Then blast it down. I don’t want even a stone left untouched. Use the flame throwers and torch the surrounding property. All of it, from one end to the other. Once I order the pull out, I want two tanks to stay back and mine the areas around the four sides of the house. I want nothing left standing. Nothing! And I want the smoke to be seen for miles. To be seen and smelled by everyone hiding around us.”

“You bastard!” the old man shouted at Von Klaus. “You heartless bastard!”

Von Klaus stared down at the man and smiled. “To a soldier doing his duty, that is considered the highest of compliments,” the colonel said.

The old man stood his ground, breath coming out in hard gasps through his open mouth, his hands trembling. He shook when the first blast from a tank shattered the front door of his home and his eyes welled with tears when a second ripped through a third-floor bedroom. The third explosion stripped the man of all judgment. He rushed toward the colonel, standing now a dozen feet away, sanity giving way to suicide.

“I will kill you for this, you Nazi bastard!” he shouted, running at Von Klaus with both arms extended. He had a small revolver gripped in one trembling hand. It had been jammed inside his tobacco pouch, hidden from the soldiers’ search.

Colonel Von Klaus watched as he raced toward him, his manner relaxed and indifferent. He didn’t flinch as the two soldiers to his left fired three shots into the old man, dropping him face first onto the red dirt that lined the front of the house. Von Klaus walked over to the body, reached down, took the revolver from the man’s hand, and put it inside the front pocket of Kunnalt’s jacket. “A keepsake,” he said to him. “For the time we spent together.”

“Do you wish him buried, sir?” Kunnalt asked.

“Leave him for Il Duce,” Von Klaus said, walking away from the explosions and fires, back toward the quiet of his tank. “When he returns.”