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Alessia and her fellow partisans were holed up in a shepherd’s hut high up on the mountain side overlooking Augusta, keeping out of the way of the Cosa Nostra and keeping close to the SAS. Since aggravating top brass with their partying and looting in the town, the SAS camp had been relocated to a lonely olive grove on the outskirts.
It was a tight squeeze fitting all nine partisans in the little hut, but it was made easy as everyone was in high spirits with good news arriving thick and fast from all across the island. The invasion of Sicily was going well, better than anyone had anticipated.
Their days were full. Messages were carried to and fro, supplies gathered and distributed across the Partisan network, all the while sheltering from shelling and taking aim at the enemy planes that still harried the skies. That morning, they were waiting on Dino’s return, and hopes were high that he would come with reports that yet another port or town had been secured by the Allies.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Alessia jolted upright, reaching for her gun as Alfredo went to the door.
‘Is it OVRA?’ cried Nonno. Amilcare and Nicoletta hushed their grandfather and Alfredo shook his head.
‘It’s a local farmer,’ Alfredo told them, as he opened the door to let the man in.
‘They’ve stolen my pig!’
They all stared at the man in silent surprise.
‘My pig! Those oafs have stolen her!’ The farmers face was red with rage, his arms beating out to a fierce staccato.
Alfredo rolled his eyes, laid down his gun, and busied himself with rolling up a cigarette.
‘You mean the SAS, the British soldiers?’ Alessia clarified.
The farmer confirmed, an accusing finger pointing to their camp as he did so, and the partisans behind her grumbled to one another.
‘Why is this our problem?’ Amilcare asked loudly.
‘And you call yourself communist?’ Umberto chided. ‘Is this man not your comrade?’
Unable to resist the bait, Amilcare turned to face him a retort on his lips.
Alessia spoke up, ‘I’ll go.’
Alfredo looked up from his half rolled cigarette, ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No.’ Alessia didn’t need Alfredo’s particular brand of diplomacy in this situation. ‘You’ve been up most of the night on guard duty.’
‘I can come,’ Antonella offered, and Alessia was grateful.
‘Best leave it to the women, Alfredo,’ Rumèu told him sagely, but as his usual gestures were curtailed by his bandaged arm he added a wink instead, ‘they can sweet talk everyone around.’
The farmer paused his rant and, looked at the two women sceptically.
‘I can speak English,’ Alessia told him. And with that the three of them left the hut and headed down the mountainside towards the SAS camp. The whole way down the farmer kept up a volley of complaints about the soldiers, from himself, his wife, his cousin, and his cousins neighbour.
*****************************************************
As the trio neared SAS camp a guard called over to a tall, shockingly blonde boy.
‘Cooper, he’s back!’
The blonde boy sighed, plastered on a fake smile, and sauntered over. His nonchalance immediately upsetting the farmer who promptly launched into a barrage of complaints and accusations.
Cooper stared, uncomprehending, smiled and then shook his head. Antonella managed to take the irate farmer to one side and tried to calm him while Alessia explained to Cooper.
‘He says that British soldiers stole his pig.’
Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘A pig?’
‘A pig is worth -’
The farmer brushed past her, ignoring Antonella’s pleas to be patient, and tried to march directly into the camp. He did not get far. A large stony faced man blocked his path, broad, tall, and threatening, the soldier looked down on the farmer. For a moment the farmer bristled at this afront, before fear won out and he backed off. The scene was attracting some attention now, bored soldiers wondering over to see the commotion. Antonella drew the farmer safely off to one side, and once again, Alessia tried to explain.
‘The war has hit the people here hard, a pig is worth a great deal, and the farmer has a big family to take care of.’
As she spoke a truck full of soldiers rolled up to them. As it came to a stop the men jumped out, including two Alessia recognised, the handsome translator Riley, and the unit’s eccentric commanding officer Paddy Mayne.
‘That farmer has been stickin’ his nose in,’ the big soldier told Paddy Mayne.
Alessia turned to address the commanding officer, but her words were drowned out by a renewed outburst from the Farmer. Alessia sighed in frustration, the man was not helping himself.
Paddy Mayne looked to Cooper, who just shrugged.
‘He says some of our men stole his prize pig,’ Riley supplied.
Paddy Mayne rolled his eyes, and for a moment Alessia feared he would be of no help, but then he addressed the crowd of soldiers.
‘Who ate the pig?’ he demanded.
The men’s eyes flickered over to a burly man.
‘Fuckin’ McDiarmid, of course it was. McDiarmid, pay this fine man for the loss of his pig.’
McDiarmid started to protest at the cost.
‘You just blew up a bank,’ Alessia said wryly.
Clearly out of patience, Paddy Mayne decreed that everyone who ate the pig would be fined, and duly the men started paying up.
‘INCOMING!’
Everyone dived for shelter, as enemy aircraft swooped in, hailing down bullets that tore at the ground.
Alessia thew herself down behind the truck, but Antonella and the farmer had frozen. Cooper was closest to them, and he shouted at them in Italian to come to him. Antonella lurched into action and dragged the farmer over to the tree where Cooper was sheltering.
Driven by adrenaline Alessia trained her gun on the aircraft, and along with the soldiers next to her fired off her own volley.
‘WOUNDED!’
A cheer went up as the plane limped out of sight. The skies once more returning to a beguiling clear blue.
Alessia breathed a sigh of relief and hurried over to Antonella, at once Alessia was wrapped up in a fierce embrace. When she pulled back Alessia could see that she was shaken, but unharmed.
Face pale, Antonella turned to Cooper. ‘You can speak Italian?’
‘I learnt a bit of Italian at school,’ he replied in his best Italian.
‘I can tell,’ Alessia said dryly.
Riley laughed, turning to her with a smile.
Cooper looked at them suspiciously.
‘Your accent is very -’ Alessia paused, searching for the right word, ‘refined.’
Riley grinned. ‘You sound like Bill Stirling.’
Alessia didn’t know who he was, but she could tell from Coopers expression that he was not happy with the comparison.
Having now gathered her senses, Antonella again addressed Cooper and thanked him earnestly, making sure to speak clearly and to moderate her Sicilian accent so that Cooper could understand her. He looked unsure how to respond, embarrassed but pleased.
He laughed it off, ‘I should thank you for the crash course in Sicilian.’
The rest of the money was handed over, and at Antonella’s insistence, the farmer gave a begrudging thanks to the men. Then the two women climbed back up the mountain to rejoin the Partisans at the shepherd’s hut for some much needed rest.
*****************************************************
For years Alessia had witnessed the fortification of her island home, each bunker and watch tower making her feel increasingly trapped and angry. Now it was crumbling faster than she ever could have hoped. A pig, Alessia thought, was a small price to pay for all the help that the Allies had given them.
Bang! The door burst open.
‘Palermo has been won!’ cried Dino.
‘You have to knock Dino, we could have shot you!’ Alfredo chided, relaxing his grip on his gun.
Nonno sprung to his feet, bursting into song, with all the vigour of a man a quarter of his age.
‘The wind stops and the storm calms,
the proud partisan returns home,’
Nonno waved to the others, encouraging them to join him. His enthusiasm was infectious.
‘blowing in the wind his red flag,
victorious, at last free we are.
blowing in the wind his red flag,
victorious, at last free we are.’
‘Are we? Returning home?’ asked Dino, his eyes wide with hope.
‘Yes, comrade,’ said Amilcare, wrapping his arm around Dino’s shoulders.
‘I think you’ll find the future is anarchist, not communist,’ Umberto told Amilcare, in a mock stern tone.
The two men fell into their usual political debate, but it was good natured, both were too happy to really needle each other.
‘We should go home tomorrow,’ said Nicoletta, ‘if Rumèu is strong enough to travel?’
Rumèu nodded, from his position in his makeshift sickbed.
‘- and it will do you good to be back sleeping in your own bed Nonno,’ Nicoletta told the older man firmly.
Alessia and Alfredo shared a look, it wasn’t over, at least, not for them.
Antonella caught their expression. ‘You’re not coming back with us, are you?’
The room fell quiet, all eyes turning to them.
‘Not yet,’ Alessia told them, ‘we’re going to follow the SAS to the mainland.’
‘Just you two?’ Dino asked.
‘Yes,’ said Alfredo, a little too harshly.
They all knew that Alessia and Alfredo were more cut out for frontline work than any of the rest of their group.
‘They’ll be plenty of work for us to do here,’ Antonella said, then added with a smile, ‘we’ll have our work cut out if we’re going to build this new utopia Amilcare and Umberto keep telling us about.’
Dino blinked back tears, suddenly overcome, ‘it really is over?’
Alfredo softened. ‘Nearly,’ he said gently.
Alessia hugged them. They had all been through so much together, through all the grief and despair and frustration, they had brought each other hope. But, she knew, they could not all come with her on her next journey.
‘We’ll make sure you have a beautiful home to come back to,’ Umberto said, tears brimming in his own eyes.