As luck would have it, the coach was so packed that no one was able to get on. Instead, at each stop, we leaned out of the window to suggest to people looking for a seat that they move towards the centre of the train. Even the guards who were supposed to get on at Novara and go through the two carriages where our escaping prisoners were squatting tried only once or twice to make headway through the crowd, then gave up and climbed aboard further up the train.
We arrived in Luino, the usual half-hour late. It had taken us almost four hours to do no more than one hundred kilometres.
At this point, the whole undertaking became more difficult. A garrison of Germans was waiting for us at the station, and to make matters worse, the number of travellers in our compartment had been almost halved. We could no longer take advantage of the crush to stave off the possibility of inspections. In addition, with the passage of time, the make-up cream was beginning to stream down the faces of the disguised runaways. They now looked like clowns fleeing from a custard-pie-in-the-face competition.
‘Watch out, four “Deutsch” inspectors clambering aboard the rear carriages to pay us a visit!’ At that moment, the train moved off, jolting so powerfully that one of the Wehrmacht men, standing with one foot on the running board, was thrown onto the ground. The station-master whistled like a madman. The train shuddered to a halt. Another jolt. The four Germans went racing up towards the locomotive. The head conductor got off to scream at the station-master: the engine driver leaned out of his cab and started screaming in his turn. The Germans tried gamely to get into the discussion, but no one paid any heed to them. As if that were not enough, the normal travellers leaned out of the windows and did their own yelling: ‘We’re already a half-hour late! Would you like to wind up your argybargy and get this train rolling again?’
The result was that the station-master cut the whole thing short with one almighty blow of his whistle, the train engine replied with a snort and set off resolutely with the indignant puffing of one who is fed up to his back teeth. The station-master on the platform continued debating the matter with the Kraut guards, and as I drew level with the altercating parties, I had the clear impression that once more the railwaymen in Luino and those on our train had set up the whole scene with the express purpose of stymying the German gendarmes and preventing them from carrying out their inspection.
After half an hour, once we were beyond Maccagno, we arrived at the tunnel a few kilometres short of Pino, that is, a few steps from the Swiss border. The train stopped with the engine and the greater part of the carriages inside the tunnel, leaving only the rear coaches outside. ‘Out, down you get, off you go!’
Hardly had our feet touched the ground when the train started up again. The fifty prisoners and those of us in the escort had made it, even if we had been tossed about a bit!
Not far behind us, there was a path which led into the woods and then wended its way upwards over a steep shoulder. We climbed at the pace of wild goats. The supposedly scalded Tugh pulled the bandages off his face, and with cries of satisfaction, those who had been disguised as women stripped off their skirts and bodices. There was no time to stop and get them into trousers, and so they were obliged to remain in their underpants. The tension caused them to neglect removing their wigs … an ever-more obscene vision.
When we reached the plain above Tronzano, we ran into a group of shepherds — men and women — and at the sight of the various Tughs, African giants, fair-skinned, red-haired Scots and striding women, they opened wide their startled eyes; the women made the sign of the cross. A few more paces and we were on the frontier. We stopped at a hut to get a drink and catch our breath. There waiting for us were a couple of smugglers whom I had known for years, as well as another group of people, men, women and children. In the middle of them, I saw my father, who had come up with the people from Pino. I had not expected to see him up there. We embraced and he complimented Uncle Nino and his companions: ‘You had some courage to make him do a journey like that!’
Two peasant women emerged from the hut to hand out slices of cheese and polenta. A shepherd came up with some flasks of wine, and milk for the children. I asked my father: ‘Who are these people you brought with you?’
‘Jews,’ he replied. ‘That’s now the third group we’ve brought over in the past few days. Anyway, I’ll have to be saying goodbye to you, because I’ve to be back in an hour to go on duty at the station.’
Before he set off, he went over to speak to the fleeing Jews. Each one embraced him. As he made his way over the ridge, they all shouted their thanks and good wishes.
The Britons there asked Uncle Nino about that man whom everyone was cheering with such warmth. They were told he was in charge of the organisation responsible for bringing the persecuted and escapees to Switzerland. They, too, then cheered him.
My father, further down, gave a wave of his arm and continued his descent. I was very proud of him.
CHAPTER 23. Voluntary Conscription
The war was coming to an end, even if it was still causing mourning and tragedy. I was beginning to believe that, although there had been some heart-stopping moments when I had escaped only by the skin of my teeth, I had been successful in steering clear of it and avoiding any real trouble.
In Milan, I had the misfortune to be caught in one of the heaviest bombing raids the city had seen. I was lodging with an aunt in Isola, an old quarter behind the Garibaldi district. She had been evacuated to Brianza and had left me the keys of her flat, but that evening I had not made it back from Corso Buenos Aires, where I happened to be. I was getting onto a tram when the alarm sounded and I had to go down into the shelter under the Teatro Puccini. In no time, it seemed as though the end of the world was upon us: plaster flakes and dust rained down on us at every blast. The bombing lasted several hours, with only a few breaks. When the sirens gave the all-clear, we all trooped out and, as the smoke dispelled, we were faced with a horrendous spectacle: buildings in flames, blocks of flats reduced to rubble, piles of debris blocking the streets, emergency vehicles unable to find a way though and fire-brigade sirens screaming on all sides. I saw all around me blank, uncomprehending faces, and I doubt if mine was any different.
There was no way through that infernal labyrinth of twisted metal and wreckage, until finally I stumbled across a boy guiding a Red Cross ambulance, and he showed me how to get out.
The sun was high in the sky when I got back to Isola: same disaster, same acrid, throat-burning smoke caused by the phosphorous bombs.
I made my way to the street where I was lodging: my aunt’s house was at the foot of the street, but at the foot of that street there was nothing. The whole four-storey building had collapsed. As I stood there, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder: it was the grocer from the shop in the building opposite. ‘What are you doing here? We had given you up for dead. Not a soul got out of your building alive…’
‘Forgive me if I chose not to be on that list!’
* * *
In other words, as I said at the beginning of this story, things were going quite well for me — apart from the terror. I was seventeen and a half, and the end of the war could not be too far off. The Allies had reached the so-called Gothic Line in the Apennines. A few months more and they would overrun it. I was not due to be drafted for more than a year, so I was covered.
But instead the Salò government devised a cunning trick to trap all of us lads not due to be called up immediately. Without warning, they issued an edict requiring all those born in the early months of 1926 to present themselves for dispatch to work in Germany. In the small print, they explained that we would be employed mainly in factories and in useful services. In short, we were to make up for the skill shortages resulting from the disastrous bombing raids. My father’s immediate comment was: ‘It’s worse for you all than being sent to the front!’