“Look here, Vadassy,” he said suddenly, “I wanted to have a word with you for a special reason.” He stopped. I waited, looking at the end of my cigarette. In the silence I began to hear the clock ticking on the mantelpiece.
“You weren’t down on the beach yesterday afternoon, were you?” he asked unexpectedly.
“No.”
“I thought not. I couldn’t remember having seen you.” He hesitated, fumbling with his words. “You probably heard about what happened there. Lost my temper, I’m afraid. Damned unpleasant.”
“I did hear something about it.”
“Thought you might have. You can’t expect people not to talk about a thing like that.” He stopped again. I began to wonder when we were coming to the point. Suddenly he raised his head and looked me in the eyes.
“They’re saying that I’m mad, aren’t they, that I’m not responsible for my actions?”
The question took me completely by surprise. I did not know what to reply. I felt myself reddening.
“I beg your pardon.”
He smiled faintly. “Sorry to spring that on you, but I had to know where I stood. I can see by your face that the answer is yes. Well, that’s what I wanted to have a word with you about, that and something else.”
“Oh, I see.” I tried to make the answer casual, as though I were used to people explaining why they were regarded as mad. He did not appear to be listening.
“I know,” he said, “that it’s damned bad form unloading one’s private affairs on strangers, that is, on people one’s just met; but I have a good reason. You see, Vadassy, you’re the only man I can talk to here.” He regarded me somberly. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I said, wondering what on earth it was all about, that I did not mind.
“It’s good of you to say so,” he went on; “these damned foreigners…” He stopped, evidently realizing that this was scarcely tactful. “You see, Mr. Vadassy, it’s about my wife.” He stopped again.
I was getting tired of this. “Supposing,” I suggested, “that you take my good will for granted and say what you want to say. You must remember that I have no idea what you are talking about.”
He flushed. There was a suggestion of a return to the military manner. “Quite right. No good beating about the bush. I wouldn’t be sitting here wasting your time at all if there wasn’t a reason. Put my cards on the table. Tell you the whole story. Then you can judge for yourself. Don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” He drove his fist gently into the palm of his other hand. “I’ll put my cards on the table,” he repeated.
“I met my wife early in 1918 in Rome.” He paused, and I was afraid that there were going to be more hesitations; but this time he went on.
“It was just after the Italians had folded up at Caporetto and retreated across the Piave. I’d been transferred to the staff as attache to a divisional general. Well, the British and French War Offices were pretty worried about the Italian situation. Most of the people thought, of course, that the Austrians were after the industrial areas around Milan; but there were whispers, and pretty loud ones, that the Austro-German General Staff wouldn’t have detached so many troops from the Western front for that alone and that their real plan was to outflank the Swiss barrier via the North Italian plain with Lyons as the objective. A sort of Drang nach Westen.” He stumbled over the German.
“Anyway, ourselves and the French sent guns and troops into Italy to stop the rot, and a few of us were drafted there to sort things out. I went to Pisa first. They’d got their railway system into a shocking mess. Of course, I knew damn-all about railways, but there was a promoted ranker with me who’d had some civilian experience in England, and together we got along famously. Later in ’18 they sent me down to Rome.
“Have you ever been in Rome in winter? It’s not at all bad. There was a pretty big British colony there at the time, but it was mostly army, and it was part of our job to mix with the Italians and get friendly. For two pins they’d have made peace. Well, I’d been there about a couple of months when I had a bit of bad luck. You know, some of those Italian cavalry officers are amazing riders and a bit mad. So are the horses. Anyway, I was out for a canter with one of these chaps one day, and he put his horse at a jump that I shouldn’t like to try on a Grand National winner. My animal tried to follow, and I took a toss that busted a leg and a couple of ribs.
“I was living in a hotel, and as they couldn’t look after me there I had to go into hospital. The trouble was that just about that time there’d been a dust-up in the north. The wounded were being sent down by the trainload from the base hospitals to make room for the fresh casualties. Beds were scarce and the place they took me to was overcrowded and hopelessly understaffed. I sent out an S.O.S. to an Italian staff officer I knew, and the next day I was moved to a huge private villa just outside Rome. It belonged to a family who had volunteered to nurse convalescent officers. Their name was Staretti.”
He glanced at me. “I dare say you’re wondering what the hell all this has got to do with what happened on the beach yesterday afternoon.”
I was actually wondering more than that. I was wondering what, in any case, the happenings on the beach had to do with me. But I merely nodded.
“I’m coming to that,” he said. He began to knead his fingers as though they were cold.
“The Starettis were a curious family. At least I thought so. The mother was dead. There were only the old man and his children-two daughters, Maria and Serafina, and a son, Batista. Maria was about twenty-five and Serafina was two years younger. Batista was thirty-two. Staretti himself was a dried-up, wizened old chap with a shock of white hair. He was seventy, a big banker in Rome, and as rich as Croesus. Well, you know you can’t live in somebody’s house for weeks on end without getting a pretty good idea of how each one feels about the others. I used to sit out in the garden most of the day with my leg and ribs strapped up, and they used to come and talk to me. That is, all except old Staretti, and he was nearly always at his office or seeing ministers. He was quite important in Rome at that time. But Maria used to come out a lot and sometimes Serafina, though she used to talk about nothing except the Italian who’d got me in there. They were going to be married. Then Batista started coming.
“Batista hated the old man and the old man hadn’t got much time for him. I think quite a lot of the trouble was because Batista had something wrong with his heart and wasn’t fit enough for the army. The old man was very hot on smashing the Austrians. Anyway, Batista used to moan to me about how his father overworked him and kept him short of money, and tell me what he’d do when old Staretti died and the money came to him. It used to get a bit boring at times. He was a nasty piece of work, and fat and flabby even then; but I’d got nothing much to do except look at the scenery, and that was even more boring-just a long, flat plain with a clump of cypresses here and there, dull. But one thing struck me about Batista. He had his father’s business instincts, a sort of complicated cunning that saw about three moves ahead of everyone else. I found out a bit more about that later.
“Those weeks went pretty quickly, all things considered. Maria and I got on pretty well together. It wasn’t exactly a nurse-and-patient business, because they had a proper nurse in to look after me. But Maria didn’t like all these young pups of Italian officers who used to prance round taking a darn sight too much for granted. She couldn’t handle them like her sister. Anyway, in the end Maria and I arranged that when the war was over I should come back and that we should get married. But we said nothing about that to anyone, though I think Serafina had a pretty shrewd notion of the way things were. You see, she being a Catholic made it difficult, and we didn’t want the thing discussed until we were ready. In the spring I was drafted back to France.
“Well, things went all right with me until August, when I was caught in a gas-shell bombardment. It was latish in 1919 before they finally shot me out, with about half a lung in working order, and told me to live in a warm, dry climate. Well, that suited me, and I made tracks for Rome. They were all very pleased to see me, especially Maria. A few weeks later we announced our engagement.