didn’t need to. The long-suffering tone of the infantryman was universal, along with the hand gestures offered to the trucks disappearing around a corner. Two dogfaces guarded them, one at the front, the other at the rear of the column.
The Italian prisoners looked like a parade of happy hobos. With their lethal potential stripped away, they were nothing but a bunch of unshaven, smelly guys wearing all the clothes they owned. Some carried blankets or canvas bags, but most had nothing but the smiles on their faces. They were out of it. No more Germans at their backs, no more Americans gunning for them. They looked relieved as their two guards signaled them to move out.
One of the Italians looked at me and gave a mock salute, shouting out, “Brooklyn!” at the top of his lungs. He and his pals laughed. Did he imagine he’d be joining a cousin or brother in Brooklyn? Or was it joy at his overwhelming luck at being safely in American hands?
“Boston!” I yelled back. Someone whistled and more laughter rippled through the group. The tail end guard looked at me and shook his head, smiling wearily.
“What a war,” he said, running his sleeve across his face, vainly trying to clear the caked dirt and sweat away.
The gesture nearly knocked me over. I envisaged another guy doing the same thing but in fading evening twilight. He was coated in grimy blackness and he drew his sleeve across his face just like this GI had. Except he was wearing an Italian uniform.
“Hey, buddy, where’re you taking these guys?” I asked as I trotted across the road. I was looking at the GI but seeing the Italian soldier leaning over me, helping me up.
“POW center outside of Gela, place called Capo Soprano,” he said. “They’re givin’ up faster than we can take ’em in.”
As he spoke, I could hear another voice, a voice I recalled from days earlier.
“Come, my friend. I help you, yes? Come, my name is Roberto. Do not fear, I will take you back, then you help me get to America, yes?”
Roberto Bellestri. Late of the 207th Coastal Defense Division, a machine gunner who preferred dancing with American girls to killing American GIs. An Italian who chose to live rather than die for Mussolini. A deserter who was looking for safe passage to a POW cage at the first sign of invasion.
Roberto had talked incessantly as he took me—where? “I like Americans very much, I talk with the American ladies in Firenze, which you call Florence, every day in the piazza. They teach me their English better than my teacher at school, yes?” I could feel my arm across his shoulder, I had been hanging on to him as he led me down steps, to a street. Where ?
“You OK?” The guard snapped his gum as he stared at me, concern, curiosity, and boredom mixed in his quizzical expression.
“Sure, sure, been out in the sun too long, that’s all,” I said.
“Ain’t that the truth.” He trudged off, his carbine, held loosely, pointing in the direction of his prisoners. They weren’t high escape risks.
Roberto. Who only wanted to go to America and dance with rich women and learn better English. I couldn’t picture where he had picked me up, but I knew it was where I’d gotten hit on the head and cut up. We’d gone down a dirt path and onto a street. The next thing I remembered, Roberto was lifting me into a cart, tossing out cauliflowers to make room, hollering in Italian and waving a pistol at a short guy in a dirty shirt and black vest who obviously owned the cart. He’d reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out fistfuls of lire, throwing them at the cart owner, who stared in amazement at the shower of cash, pulling them out of the air with meaty fists. The gold handkerchief with the L had come out with the lire and lay in my lap. I’d known it was important, and that I shouldn’t lose it. As I stuffed it back into my pocket, the Sicilian caught sight of it. This loosed a torrent of apologetic Italian, directed at me, with little bows and
The Italian prisoners looked like a parade of happy hobos. With their lethal potential stripped away, they were nothing but a bunch of unshaven, smelly guys wearing all the clothes they owned. Some carried blankets or canvas bags, but most had nothing but the smiles on their faces. They were out of it. No more Germans at their backs, no more Americans gunning for them. They looked relieved as their two guards signaled them to move out.
One of the Italians looked at me and gave a mock salute, shouting out, “Brooklyn!” at the top of his lungs. He and his pals laughed. Did he imagine he’d be joining a cousin or brother in Brooklyn? Or was it joy at his overwhelming luck at being safely in American hands?
“Boston!” I yelled back. Someone whistled and more laughter rippled through the group. The tail end guard looked at me and shook his head, smiling wearily.
“What a war,” he said, running his sleeve across his face, vainly trying to clear the caked dirt and sweat away.
The gesture nearly knocked me over. I envisaged another guy doing the same thing but in fading evening twilight. He was coated in grimy blackness and he drew his sleeve across his face just like this GI had. Except he was wearing an Italian uniform.
“Hey, buddy, where’re you taking these guys?” I asked as I trotted across the road. I was looking at the GI but seeing the Italian soldier leaning over me, helping me up.
“POW center outside of Gela, place called Capo Soprano,” he said. “They’re givin’ up faster than we can take ’em in.”
As he spoke, I could hear another voice, a voice I recalled from days earlier.
“Come, my friend. I help you, yes? Come, my name is Roberto. Do not fear, I will take you back, then you help me get to America, yes?”
Roberto Bellestri. Late of the 207th Coastal Defense Division, a machine gunner who preferred dancing with American girls to killing American GIs. An Italian who chose to live rather than die for Mussolini. A deserter who was looking for safe passage to a POW cage at the first sign of invasion.
Roberto had talked incessantly as he took me—where? “I like Americans very much, I talk with the American ladies in Firenze, which you call Florence, every day in the piazza. They teach me their English better than my teacher at school, yes?” I could feel my arm across his shoulder, I had been hanging on to him as he led me down steps, to a street. Where ?
“You OK?” The guard snapped his gum as he stared at me, concern, curiosity, and boredom mixed in his quizzical expression.
“Sure, sure, been out in the sun too long, that’s all,” I said.
“Ain’t that the truth.” He trudged off, his carbine, held loosely, pointing in the direction of his prisoners. They weren’t high escape risks.
Roberto. Who only wanted to go to America and dance with rich women and learn better English. I couldn’t picture where he had picked me up, but I knew it was where I’d gotten hit on the head and cut up. We’d gone down a dirt path and onto a street. The next thing I remembered, Roberto was lifting me into a cart, tossing out cauliflowers to make room, hollering in Italian and waving a pistol at a short guy in a dirty shirt and black vest who obviously owned the cart. He’d reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out fistfuls of lire, throwing them at the cart owner, who stared in amazement at the shower of cash, pulling them out of the air with meaty fists. The gold handkerchief with the L had come out with the lire and lay in my lap. I’d known it was important, and that I shouldn’t lose it. As I stuffed it back into my pocket, the Sicilian caught sight of it. This loosed a torrent of apologetic Italian, directed at me, with little bows and
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