“We’ll die in here!” a boy in a far corner shouted out at Emilio, the walls around him trembling from another heavy hit. Below them, the voices of Nazi soldiers screaming out orders ricocheted off the barren stairwell.
“I know,” Emilio said. “All of us did, the minute we came running in here. But in the time we have left, let the Nazis feel some of our pain.”
The aftershock of a tank shell blew out a back window, thick smoke clogging the room. The crack and sparkle of flames could be heard licking at the walls in the other rooms, the paint around them melting from the heat and sliding down the thin wood panels.
“They’ll come storming through any second now,” Emilio said, pointing to the thick oak door at his back. “Let’s be ready.”
They were lined up in a row of twelve, the open windows and glare of the tanks at their backs. Each held either a rifle or handgun, cocked at the front door, brown smoke from the fire below them filtering through the cracked tiles and coating their bare feet. “Use every bullet you have,” Emilio instructed them. “There’s no reason to save anything for later.”
The front door was smashed open by the butt end of two machine guns, the wilting wood easily caving in to the blow. Three soldiers stood across the smashed entryway, their guns at waist level. The dozen street boys braced themselves against the hot walls and fired their weapons. A steady stream of bullets rained on the soldiers, killing three instantly and wounding two others, the ammo escaping through holes in the side panels. The boys then moved forward, six sliding to the burning ground, the other half dozen straddling above them, all firing at will at the attacking soldiers. “When your gun is empty, reach for a Nazi’s that’s full,” Emilio shouted above the buzz of the fire. “Move forward and never let up.”
Three boys slid across the now scalding floor and grabbed machine guns and ammo belts from the dead soldiers by the door. One held up a pack of grenades and tossed it over his shoulder to Emilio. “Slide any extra weapons you find behind you,” he told them as he rested the grenade pack on his shoulder and continued shooting across the now wide doorway. The small children’s brigade kept moving, their hands scorched from the firing, their faces masked with soot and black powder, hair tinged with dust. The heavy flames from the outside of the building had spread inside, the smoke winding its way down the halls and into the rooms like a silent snake. Some of the boys were groggy, their watery eyes tinged with red, their breath coming in hard, difficult gulps. “We need to get to air soon, Emilio,” one of the boys said. He was now in the hall and firing his weapon into the stairwell. “We can fight the Nazis but not the smoke.”
Emilio broke from the pack and raced through the halls of the eighteenth-century building, flames shooting at him from all sides, bullets zinging past, the floor below him creaking with every step. He turned a corner and went into a room that was near collapse, the ceiling cracked and hanging halfway down to the ground, a large chandelier shattered below it. He dodged the shards of glass and ducked past thick chunks of plaster, reaching an open window in the rear. He looked down on the remains of a once well-tended garden, its flowers wilted and mauled, its grass blackened by tire treads and the weight of tanks and trampling feet. Emilio looked from the garden to the heavens above and smiled.
He ran back into the hall, the heat around him like that of an oven, the smoke making it all but impossible to see to the next step. He found two of the boys, crouched in a corner, firing the last of their machine-gun bullets into the fog that held them prisoner. He lowered a hand down to them and pulled them to their feet. “Run to the back,” he ordered. “In the rear of the house, the room with the broken chandelier. Jump through the open window and run to safety. Do you hear me?”
“Si, Emilio,” the boys said, disappearing as if ghosts into the blanket of hell.
Emilio ran for the others, gathering as many of them as he could find, giving them all the same instructions, watching as they each scrambled through clouds of smoke for the room at the end of the hall. He leaned against a creaky banister, his eyes heavy, his breath coming in painful spurts, his right foot resting against the body of a Nazi soldier. Outside, in the misty afternoon sunshine, eleven street boys were jumping from the fire and scrambling their way to freedom. Emilio smiled, closed his eyes and fell over in a dusty heap, his body coiled against the top of the landing. His head rested limp over the side.
Seconds later, the once majestic building surrendered its battle to the smoke and the flames and collapsed, melting into the ground like a washed-over sand castle.
11
VIA NUOVO TEMPIO
The wrath of the 16th Panzer Division tanks and its soldiers was now fully unleashed on Naples. The tanks rumbled through the steamy streets, unloading one barrage after another. Soldiers fired at the first hint of any movement and the flame throwers were working at full throttle, their potent line of fire raining down on barns, homes and storefronts. Grenades were tossed on rooftops and rapid-stream machine-gun shells echoed off the empty side streets.
In the midst of the smoke and ruin, a young soldier, face soiled by grease and caked dirt, stepped up to the main tank and saluted the officer standing in the open hole.
“There’s a small church on the next corner, sir,” the young man said, speaking in a rushed manner. “It’s sustained quite a bit of damage and there are fires smoldering on the inside, but sections of it still stand. Shall we leave it and move on?”
The officer glared down at the young soldier, his face draped in a cold, hard shell. “No, moving on is not an option,” he said in a stern voice. “Moving through is your only choice.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. “I only thought that since it’s a church, we could leave it as it is.”
“You thought wrong,” the officer said. “Once we’ve gone, these streets will fall into enemy hands. Our goal is to ensure that they can’t find a scrap of a building, church or otherwise, when they come marching in. Not even a spot that offers shade from the sun.”
The young soldier quietly nodded and turned away, to return to a cruel task he never envisioned performing back in Hamburg, when he first proudly wore his uniform and posed for photos with his younger brothers and sisters. He walked in the middle of the street, flames, explosion and debris on both sides of the avenue, the sounds of gunfire fading into the background as the tanks moved forward. He stopped when he reached the church, its facade smoking and broken in half, portions of the side walls blown off. He stepped over rubble and cracked stone and walked into the remains of a building that had been erected centuries earlier by skilled laborers who worked as much out of pride of craft as for want of money. He rested his rifle on the back of a broken chair and walked down the center aisle, eyes fixed on the large crucifix that hung down from a main beam in the ceiling. The ceramic floor of the church, once ornate and glimmering, was now blanketed with brown dust. Statues of saints rested in heaps under darkened archways and the two side altars had been blown apart, each one sent smashing through stone walls and into the fiery alleys at their back. The soldier stopped on the lower step of the central altar and bowed his head, his knees resting on the cold, chipped marble. He blessed himself and mumbled a soft prayer, his eyes closed, his hands folded at his waist.
He stiffened when he heard the baby cry.
The quiet wail came from his left, inside one of the confessional booths, shrouded by heavy purple curtains. The soldier stood and walked toward the sound, one hand held on his holstered pistol. He stopped in front of the booth and hesitated, listening closely. He stepped off to the side and parted the curtains, peering into the darkness of the tiny wooden cubicle. He saw the infant first, cuddled in the arms of a young woman, the child’s chest bare, soiled pants covering the small curled legs. The woman looked back at the soldier, her body still, her eyes wide and overrun with fear. Her clothes were torn and frayed, exposing the sides of her legs and shoulders and her hair, dark and long, shaded the top of her head and the back of her neck. The woma
n had one hand clasped tightly across the baby’s mouth, muffling his loud and eager cries for food.
The woman stood and stepped out of the booth on trembling legs. She walked up to the soldier, the baby now close enough for him to touch. He stared down at the smeared face and moved his hand away from the gun. He looked at the mother, neither one making any attempt to speak. The soldier turned his head and gazed over at a staircase behind the confessional, leading down to a darkened basement. He slowly looked back at the woman and rested a hand on her arm, sensing her flinch from the touch. He pointed toward the steps, nudging his head in their direction, the restless hunger of the baby calmed by the sight of a stranger. The woman held her place, her eyes focused on the soldier, her hands clutching the baby tighter in her grip.
The explosion rattled them both, the front wall of the church blasted aside, smoke and debris racing toward them like a fast-moving train. The startled baby began to fill the air with his cries. The soldier tightened his grip on the woman’s arm and pulled her toward the stairs, giving a quick check to the front door. He looked at the woman, nodded and pointed down, urging her with an assortment of hand gestures to move at a faster pace. The woman stopped on the third step, the baby in her arms shrieking for food, attention and an escape to a quieter, safer place. She moved closer to the soldier, placing her lips near his left ear, partially covered by the edges of his pith helmet. “Ti ringrazzio,” the woman whispered. She then softly kissed his cheek and ran her thin fingers across the side of his face. “Ti ringrazzio tanto.”
She turned and quickly disappeared down the dark stairwell to the hoped-for safety of the church basement, looking to keep her child alive for one more day. The soldier stood silent as he watched her leave, face still warmed by her tender touch. He turned when he saw the two soldiers behind him, rifles drawn, backs to the small confessional.
“Anybody down there?” one asked.
“No,” the young soldier said. “Not a soul.”
He moved up the steps, past the booth and headed out of the church.
12
PIAZZALE MOLO BEVERELLO
The large oil tanker was moored off the long dock, a series of thick ropes wedged around iron pillars keeping it in place. Two large overhead spotlights, running off a generator, cast a glow across its rusty exterior. The tanker had arrived in port earlier that afternoon, its hulk filled to capacity with thousands of gallons of fuel, enough to keep the Nazi tanks roaming the streets of Naples until their mission was completed. Small rivers of water spewed from three circular openings at its base, the rumble of its loud engines brought down by the crew to a low throttle. There were a dozen guards patrolling its upper railings, submachine guns tucked behind their shoulders, eyes focused on the lapping water beneath them and the dark city streets beyond.
Connors, Maldini and Vincenzo were crouched behind a wooden shack, two hundred feet from the bow of the tanker. Nunzia and two boys were at the other end of the pier, crammed inside a small ticket booth. Connors slid to his chest and crawled along the ship side of the dock, a few feet removed from the glare of the lights, the shadows of the Nazi soldiers on patrol lining the length of the platform. He turned back toward Vincenzo and waved him forward. The boy slid in alongside him, his movements as quiet as falling leaves, makeshift bomb in his hands, Maldini’s wristwatch imbedded in the center of the mechanism. “How much time?” Connors asked, his eyes on the bomb.
“Forty-five minutes like you told me,” Vincenzo said. “Thirty to get there and strap it to the tanker and fifteen to get away.”
“Sounds about right,” Connors said, nodding and checking his own watch. “I’ll leave you my pack and rifle. I’ll lay the bomb down and you help the others do what they need to do.”
Vincenzo shook his head and pulled back from Connors. “I’ll put it on the ship,” he said.
“Maybe we should have worked this out before.” Connors’s voice was low but his anger apparent. “I wasn’t counting on you turning into a jerk. Any idiot with wire, tape and explosives can make a bomb. But you need to have some clue about what you’re doing to lay it in there.”
“Have you ever done it?” Vincenzo asked. “Stuck a bomb on the side of an oil tanker in the middle of the night?”
“That’s not the point,” Connors said. “It’s a risky move. One mistake and those soldiers will spot it and they’ll be on us in seconds.”
“That’s why I should be the one to go,” Vincenzo said. “You can fight the Nazis off better than me. And after that, you can figure out a way to get the others out of the city.”
“It does bother me when what you say starts making sense,” Connors said, reaching for the rifle slung across his back. “I’ll leave Maldini behind to give you some cover.”
Vincenzo lowered his head, the bomb held in the palm of his hands, and slithered off toward the cool waters of the bay. Connors turned and crawled back to the side of the shack, Maldini hunched down beside it. He flipped off his pack and handed it to the older man. “I filled it up with grenades,” he said to Maldini. “First smell of trouble, scatter them across the upper deck of the ship.”
Maldini took the pack and reached inside, pulling out one of the grenades. “I see our general got his way again,” he said with a sly grin.
“He should be a lawyer, not a general,” Connors said. “The kid could argue his way out of a firing squad.”
“He knows those waters and their currents well,” Maldini added. “And he moves like a ghost. He’s gone before you can hear him coming. Me, I can wake a room just by breathing.”
“Nunzia’s waiting,” Connors said, hands braced against the wood, checking the guards above, eager to make his move.
“She smiles more since you’ve been around, American,” Maldini said.
Connors turned away from the guards to look over at Maldini. “She’s going to help me blow up a tank. It’s not what I would call a date.”
“Do you come from a family with money?” Maldini asked.
“Hardly,” Connors said. “My dad works two jobs. My mom works, too, part-time. The house is small, barely big enough to hold our family.”
“A house?” Maldini said. “You have a house? That’s not poor. Is your bathroom in the house or outside?”
“In the house,” Connors said. “Both of them.”
Maldini shook his head in wonder. “A house with two bathrooms,” he said. “This the Americans call poor. In my casa, I have to walk down two flights of stairs to go to the bathroom. Outside. And pray no one else is using it.”
“We’re not rich,” Connors insisted. “We live from paycheck to paycheck. Like millions of other Americans. It’s no different.”
“Does your family have a car?” Maldini asked.
“Yeah,” Connors said. “But it’s a used car.”
Maldini leaned his back against the side of the shack, closed his eyes and smiled. “A garage, too, I bet,” he whispered. “It must be good to be rich.”
Connors looked at his watch and then at Maldini. “When I get back, I’ll tell you all about paid vacations and sick leave,” he said.
Connors hunched down on his knees and scooted off into the darkness. He ran along the edges of the Calata Beverello, heading toward Nunzia and the boys. Maldini rested his head on the edge of the shack, grenade still in his hand. “Only in America do people get paid to be sick,” he muttered.
Vincenzo swam along the edges of the large tanker, using his feet and chest muscles, hands holding the device aloft. He swam in next to the rusty hulk, oil-tarnished water splashing into his open mouth. His shoulders bumped against the ragged side of the ship, old paint chips slicing into his skin. He glanced up above him, trying to avoid the glare of the overhead lights, and saw the muzzle of a machine gun at rest against the top rail. He turned and faced the side of the tanker, his nose jammed against it, and placed the bomb at eye level. He squeezed it into the smoothest area he could find and held it there with thick strips of tape.
&n
bsp; There were twenty minutes left on the timer, more than enough time for him to get away and for Connors and the others to complete their task. Vincenzo put an ear up to the watch, making sure it was still ticking, even as the grimy water lapped just under the base of the bomb. He gave a final look up at the Nazis standing guard and silently swam away.
Connors poured kerosene on the rear of the tank, drenching the parked vehicle in the flammable liquid. He held the five-gallon drum tight against his chest, moving about with quiet steps, eyes on the lid of the tank. He soaked the rear treads and poured some under the base, Nunzia and the boys hidden in darkness behind him. He left the empty drum under the tank and walked backwards to the spot where he knew the others would be. Nunzia waited for him, another drum filled with kerosene in her hand. “This is the last of it,” she whispered.
“The boys know what they need to do?” Connors asked, nodding over at the two silent teens standing beside Nunzia.
“We’ll do our job,” one of them said, in a voice slightly louder than it should have been. “Don’t worry about us.”
Connors took the drum from Nunzia and looked into her face, its beauty glimmering even in the dark well of a dangerous night. “I’m American,” Connors said. “I worry about everything.”
Connors inched back to the tank, uncorked the drum and poured the kerosene out in a straight line, allowing it to follow him as he stepped away from the silent machine. He knew from earlier surveillance that there were only two soldiers inside the tank, both by now asleep. The other three had gone up to the tanker to spend time with those on guard. He paused to look up at the ship, wondering if Vincenzo’s handmade bomb would have any impact against such a massive hulk. He was surprised that they were able to get so close to the ship without being spotted, the overconfidence and carelessness of the Nazis playing perfectly into their hands. The Germans should have had guards on the ground as well as on the tanker. They also had enough tanks to position three to guard against any attack, two on the dock and one hidden off on a side street. In the course of any battle, Connors had learned, it’s never the better soldier who survives. It’s often the one who takes the time and pains to eliminate all elements of surprise. On this first day of fighting at least, the street boys had done all of that to their advantage.