After getting out of the gate, I ran for maybe two or three hundred yards, then circled to the east, hoping to get to the beach before the rest of the boys left. Sporadic fire was still resounding to my right, I just couldn’t tell who was doing most of the shooting.
Eventually I stumbled onto the dunes, then onto the beach, only to see a searchlight truck already there, a quarter of a mile away, shining its light off to sea. Soldiers further down the beach were firing offshore. Tracer rounds sped off out into the night. I knew that even if they hadn’t hit the operatives, my temporary companions certainly weren’t coming back to a hot beach for me.
Damn it if my ride home hadn’t buggered off again.
Instantly I knew I had to put distance between myself and the incident.
Trusting the beach to be the most direct road available, I took off, settling into a decent jog. At my first sign of rocks, I turned inland and found a convenient hollow to dump and bury my incriminating equipment. Luckily I had kept my civvy clothes under my black overall, and through thick and thin, had kept the Luger I’d got in Rabat. With my forged German passport, I wasn’t in bad shape for some form of escapery, and I still had Trezeguet’s envelope of French Francs.
I also had to find shoes. I couldn’t exactly get away with looking the part of a tourist/businessman and trudge around in Army issue boots; they had to go.
I soon discovered that one of the great things about Sicily was, yes it was a country under German/Italian control, but it certainly seemed more relaxed than Scotland had been. When I encountered the first village, the main road had an empty sentry station, the side roads still clear.
My main problem, like in Rabat, was I had no grasp of the local language, and the first village, Sampieri, had no shops to speak of. A mile along the road, it joined a main road, and as dawn broke I could see signposts for what had to be a major town in front of me.
Pozzallo had all the trappings of a tourist destination, heck it still had a fair amount of civilian yachts in the harbor. I ducked into the brush land which covered either side of the road when I neared a checkpoint, and made my way into town. To my surprise, I attracted no attention. I guessed a shoeless man wearing crushed white shirt and trousers could have jumped from his lover’s window upon discovery. I smiled, held my head a little higher, and pressed on into the town.
I turned a corner, and almost bulldozed right into a German Officer, relieving himself into a bush, his open-topped staff car standing beside him, the embarrassed driver looking away. The startled peeing man looked up, then turned away. “He’s in a worse state than I am,” The Captain said over his shoulder to the driver.
“He looks like he got some, though.” The driver replied, grinning lewdly.
“I did,” I said, trying my hardest to look smug as I walked past. The presence of a German officer made the Luger press more firmly to my belly, but I decided to be brash, open. Since I spoke the man’s language, what would be more natural than to speak it. “But her husband came back, hence, no jacket, no shoes.”
“You’re German?”
I stopped and turned to face him. “Eric Volland, from Stuttgart.”
“Well, this is fate.” The captain buttoned up his trousers, then stretched a hand to me. “Captain Wieland, 24th Engineers. Do you need a ride into town?”
“Thanks. In my current state I can hardly refuse.” I stiffened slightly. “I do feel obligated to inform you that I’m armed.” I patted the luger stuck in my waistband under my shirt.
“You’re a civilian?” the captain asked, eyeing me a little suspiciously.
“In a manner of speaking,” I smiled. “I also do some work for the Government. I don’t travel anywhere without carrying something.”
“What’s your choice?”
“A Luger 45. I fished it carefully from inside my shirt. “I picked this one up in Tunisia. I was over there recently.”
Thankfully with my explanation, the captain seemed unconcerned with my pistol, and I replaced it.
“Shall we go?” he said, opening the car door, and folding the passenger seat forward. I got in the back seat and shuffled behind the driver. “Anywhere in particular?”
“No,” I needed to keep it vague. “Anywhere near the sea-front would be nice. I lost all my local money in my jacket. I’d like to find a bank first thing this morning. Luckily I still have my passport.”
They both laughed.
“To Garibaldi/Giardina,” Wieland tapped the driver’s shoulder, then turned to me. “What happened?”
I told a story of meeting a girl in a café, and we’d drove back to her place in Sampieri, the village I’d just walked through. Her husband had returned unexpectedly, and I’d dropped out of a window to escape.
“Did you lose much money?” Captain Wieland asked.
I shook my head, then allowed a smile to spread over my face. “No. but whatever it was, she was worth it.”
“What brought you to Pozzallo?”
I’d thought this one out as I walked along the road from Sampieri. “I’m a scout for a fabric manufacturer. I was told of a source here in town.” I shook my head emphatically. “That turned out to be a wild goose chase.”
“So what happens now?”
“Oh, I maybe do a little more scouting, maybe I get back home. I’ve been away for a few months. I also don’t want to see her husband again; he got a good look at me. Perhaps it’s time to leave town.”
“Sensible.”
Pozzallo’s streets soon began to close in on us and I sensed, by the downtown feel, we were getting close to our destination. Wieland tapped the driver’s shoulder again, and the car drew close to the curb.
I thanked them both for their kindness, and walked along the street, stopping at the first café that showed signs of life. “Café, bitte,” I said as the waitress gave me the choice of tables.
Most of the shops on the street had shutters, and the Italian words would have provided me with a fair bit of information, but unfortunately most of it was beyond me. When the waitress returned with my coffee I waved my hands around, and asked for a ‘bank’.
Turns out the most direct approach won the day.
“Banka?”
I nodded my approval. “Banka.”
At nine o’clock I left her with a ten franc note, and promised I’d return with Italian money.
I never did.
When I got my Francs changed into Lira, I bought a cheap pair of sandals, then made my way straight to the railway station, purchased a ticket for Messina, the nearest staging point to get off the island.
It wasn’t until on the train, and chugging quietly up the beautiful Sicilian coast that I realized what I intended to do. I was going home the hard way; right through German-controlled territory all the way to Edinburgh. In my mind it made sense; I’d tried it the S.O.E. way twice now, and ended up in more crap than I needed, and never got closer to Edinburgh than Gibraltar. Every inch of ground between me and my home was held by the Germans. I had a German passport and a seemingly foolproof accent that had got me through every encounter thus far. I’d bluffed German officers and Consulate officials, and I had over 2000 Lira; even though I had no exact idea what that was worth.
My route was planned by my childhood memory of Mercator’s map on my fifth-year schoolroom wall. I’d go up the leg of Italy, along the coast to the French Riviera, then up to Paris, across the channel, and take the train into Waverley Station. I’d be home in time for Easter, maybe sooner.
I’d said it before… what could go wrong?
I took a late ferry across to the mainland, and ensconced myself in a middle-priced hotel for the night. I had a few items to buy, and I needed time to get them.
Sunglasses; not quite the same quality as I’d left on board the New Zealand Corvette, but they’d hide my eyes from those around me.
A hat was quite the necessity in Italy and France, to be without one made me stand out; I couldn’t have that.
A wallet; to house both money and passport.
A jacket; an inexpensive one, both for warmth and to better hide my sidearm.
With my Luger in my inside jacket pocket, I considered my disguise to be once again adequate for the job; getting home to Edinburgh and to my wife.
When I counted my cash at the station the next morning, I had 1800 Lira left, and as I looked at the large map, I planned my journey more deliberately. Buying a long-distance ticket would be a give-away if caught, and although several shorter journeys would be more expensive, I decided it worth the extra. In the end I chose Rome as my first stop, with plans to reach the Italian French border in a few days.
“Slowly wins the race.” I said.
The fare to Rome was ninety Lire, and I paid it with some foot-dragging, I can tell you.
As I turned away from the ticket counter, I reluctantly realized I’d probably have to find some new source of cash before too long. My papers were checked as I got onboard, the Italian soldiers making more of the woman who had just passed them than my passport.
In the ten hour grueling trip up the leg of Italy, my papers were only checked once. But ten days after leaving Gibraltar I did get to see Mount Vesuvius, and we did stop in Pompeii; that part almost made me cry.
I slept like a baby that night. In fact I slept so late, I missed the single Sunday morning train up the coast.
So, kicking myself gently, I had a coffee, and made my mind up to visit the Colosseum instead. What a consolation.
From there on, every step was sinking back into history.
As I stood inside, I could hardly believe it; I was in Rome, standing in the very center of the old civilization. I looked around at the rows of seats, the complex surface of the stadium floor, dreaming of the sea battles, the caged lions, the depravity of it all.
I shared my tourist visions with German Officers, who seemed to flock to the amphitheater in droves. I made little actual contact with them, but my casual conversation helped me blend into the scene like I was somehow with one of their parties.
Later, I found myself in the same restaurant as one of the groups, and although I didn’t give away many details of my cover story, I still gave the impression of belonging to the group in a kind of distant cousin way.
The late evening proved far more exciting.
An air raid.
Bombed by my own comrades, I took shelter in the hotel basement, and cursed the RAF like everybody else. When the all-clear sounded, we rose to the streets to find no difference; wherever the bombs had landed, they were nowhere close.
I left the next morning, heading to Genoa, knowing from my Mercator map that I was already nearer to home than I had been for many months.
The journey, lasting most of the day was nothing short of spectacular, and I vowed to return one day to do it again at my leisure rather than a scramble cross Europe. Beautiful coastlines vied with idyllic villages, then we’d veer inland and be met with vineyards that stretched for miles.
The train puffed gently into Genoa at seven o’clock that evening, and I left the station without any form of security measures. With a mixture of gesture, broken French and mime, I asked directions to a halfway decent hotel.