SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

Grinding up to a screaming wail, the nearest air-raid sirens signaled the arrival of the first wave of the night’s bombers. Not every night, not yet, but often enough to keep the German occupiers – and the innocent populace – guessing. Tonight the raid was slightly early, with a tendril of daylight left across the darkening sky, but there it was. The rumble of airplane engines slowly crawled over the land, and in seconds the crump-crump-crump of anti-aircraft fire joined in the cacophony as gunners began to lay down a barrage that would knock a percentage of the Liberators and Fortresses out of the sky before the raid was over.

Waves of American and English long-distance bombers targeted the harbor, the suspected high command, and the factories arrayed in long blocks between them. Typically, the first strings of ordnance fell short and landed in civilian neighborhoods.

Like this one.

The truck’s driver gunned the motor and squealed away from the cobbled curb.

The thugs who had thrown Giovanni onto the back of the truck leapt for the command car in their haste to escape the open street. They were in the crosshairs for a direct hit, or burial under rubble if the Allied bomb strings found a nearby building.

The soldiers who’d been frisking Giovanni and driving the gun muzzle into his cranium were thrown clear to the side as the driver swerved.

Giovanni took his opportunity, ignoring the pain in his head and face, he leapt up to dive off the rear of the truck. The soldier with the submachine gun regained his balance and managed to partially block Giovanni’s access to the open gate. Behind them, the cobblestones fled past as the vehicle gained speed. A series of explosions rocked the ground and the truck careened to the right-hand side.

Without even thinking, Giovanni’s hands wrapped around the barrel of the German’s submachine gun as if of their own volition and he snatched it away. Once in his grasp, he turned it around.

The short burst cut the soldier in half and threw him against his fellows in a heap.

As completely instinctively as the shooting had been, Giovanni made his split-second decision and dove from the rear of the vehicle. He hit the cobblestones hard, knocking the air from his lungs even as he rolled toward the gutter.

He still held the gun.

Down the street, a building collapsed after an Allied bomb struck its roof and ripped out its guts. The cloud of dust and debris obscured the street and pelted Giovanni’s back as he lay on the cobblestones trying to draw a breath.

He glanced over the debris and saw the truck teeter momentarily on two wheels, strike the opposite curb and overturn, spilling its human cargo like sacks of trash.

Giovanni struggled to his feet, submachine gun still in his hands.

Three soldiers spilled from the truck and one pointed at him.

Giovanni’s hands were bruised, his arms ached. But his right index finger twitched on the trigger as if he’d lost control, causing the Schmeisser MP40 to stutter in his grip. The breech ejected a stream of hot brass casings as the gun spoke in its own guttural dialect.

The soldiers flopped around in a gruesome dance as the 9mm slugs tore through them in ragged, bloody lines. The muzzle went silent when the magazine was empty, the bolt stuck in the open position.

Giovanni’s hands opened and the smoking gun dropped to the bricks.

He stared at the carnage he had wrought.

More soldiers were crawling from the truck’s sideways cab, one reaching for a sidearm. Yet another emerged from the covered rear, struggling to bring a Mauser rifle to bear.

Giovanni closed his eyes, waiting for the feel of the slugs tearing out his chest.

Instead, gunfire erupted all around him.

The Germans’ bodies fell twitching to the gore-slick road. Masked gunmen, sprinting from the cover of dark doorways and narrow lanes, ran to the wounded or dead Germans and shot them repeatedly in the head. Several motioned other civilian men from the rear of the truck, one of whom had been wounded in the gunfire and had to be carried. When the gunmen had made sure all the German soldiers were dead, they stripped the bodies of weapons and ammunition.

A gangly young man in a rakish beret walked up to Giovanni, who stood still stunned by what he had done, grasped his hand and pumped it enthusiastically.

“Grazie, signore. Lei e` un eroe!”

You are a hero!

“No!” Giovanni spat at him, breaking into a racking cough as the dust swirled around them. “No,” he repeated softly in disgust at what he had done.

“Si, certamente.” The young man was clearly in command of the rag-tag group of gunmen. He wore a tweed coat crossed by bandoliers – shotgun shells – and in his hands he held a fine Beretta hunting shotgun. He had a German Luger pistol holstered on his hip. He smiled broadly under a thin moustache. “I am Corrado Garzanti, field commander of the local brigade.”

“Partigiani?” Partisans?