“They’ve been told to climb out the front windows then to get across the lawn and head down the road to Lungomare.” Vincenzo tried to avoid the hard stares of the Nazi soldiers surrounding them. “But I didn’t count on so many soldiers and tanks stationed outside the walls. I didn’t think he’d split his force.”
“No shit, you didn’t think,” Connors said, angry and frustrated. “Some general. You didn’t even think he’d use the most damn basic strategy in the world.”
“I was busy.” Vincenzo’s words were equally angry. “I was trying to figure out a way to save your life.”
“And while you were burning up brain cells doing that,” Connors said, raising his voice, ignoring the glares of the Nazi soldiers, “you left a hole in your plan wide enough to wipe out half the kids in the castle.”
“We need to think of another way to get the boys out,” Maldini interrupted. “We have some time. The battle inside will keep them occupied.”
“Why don’t we take a look at each of our hands and figure out what we don’t have,” Connors said, his anger now coated with sarcasm. “Guns would be the first thing that jumps to my mind.”
“I have six grenades around my waist,” Vincenzo said. “We can start with those and take our weapons off the wounded the way we usually do.”
“Not this time,” Connors said. “We may clip off a couple with those grenades, but the return fire’ll be too heavy for us to get close enough to rip a machine gun off a dead soldier. We need a plan B, Chief, and we needed it five minutes ago.”
Maldini stopped and looked down at his feet. He was inches from the lid of a manhole cover. He gazed over at Connors and Vincenzo. “The two of you can go on like an old married couple,” he said. “It makes a man lose any desire to think things through. One of the benefits of being a drunk, I learned long ago to drown out the chatter I don’t want to hear.”
“What?” Connors said, his frustration way past the level of reason. “Is there a point to all this? Because if there isn’t, I’m not in any mood for a long-winded Neapolitan folk tale.”
Maldini patted Connors on the side of his shoulder and smiled. “I have your Plan B,” he said.
The tanks were placed in a circular pattern, their turrets primed and ready to bring down the castle walls, when the first of the ignited wine bottles came crashing down on them. Within seconds, the morning sky around the castle was obscured by a heavy rain of gas cocktails and hand grenades. Soldiers rushed toward the sealed doors of the interior buildings only to be blown back by the mines attached to each knob by long, thin wires. The doors that were mine-free had been soaked with gasoline. The instant a soldier stepped in the shadow of those doorways, a streak of blue-white flame erupted, set off by a street boy in a dark corner. Boys stood in the wells of open windows, firing down into the crowded court, wounding and killing the Nazis who were now squeezed against the sides of the tanks, the only cover available to them. The tanks shelled the front of the buildings and the soldiers riddled the upper walls with machine-gun spray, attempting to ward off the attack that had turned the peaceful landscape into a cauldron of black smoke and trampled bodies.
Outside the castle walls, the Nazi tanks were placed in a straight line to fire fierce volleys against the thick hide of the structure, hoping to bring down the buildings and kill the street boys hidden deep in its hold. In the center of the action, the young officer ran along the perimeter of the battle, one of his sleeves streaked with blood, shouting out his commands, hoping to be heard and seen above the din of battle and through the fire-enhanced colors of war.
Nunzia fired off the last rounds in her chamber, clicked in a new ammo clip and turned away from the open window, her eyes singed red by the heavy smoke. “The front walls are weakening,” she said to Gennaro. “We have to get the boys out soon.”
“We need to wait a few minutes longer,” Gennaro said. “If we have them climb out the windows now, they’ll be nothing but targets to the soldiers outside.”
“Wait for what? They’ve held them off, now it’s time to get them out.”
“Our tank should be in place by now, blocking the front entrance,” Gennaro said. “The Nazis need to shoot at it and set off the bombs inside. The cover smoke from that should be enough to get some of the boys down unharmed.”
“We don’t need to wait for the Nazis,” Nunzia said. “We can set off the tank ourselves.”
Nunzia and Gennaro ran to the other side of the building, each carrying a half dozen grenades in a tied-up woolen shirt. As they turned a dark corner, two Nazi soldiers came up the stairs, guns firing in their direction. Nunzia pushed Gennaro to the ground, braced her legs and back against a wall and fired back. She lowered her smoking machine gun when she heard the soldiers fall down the flight of steps. “Let’s go,” she ordered Gennaro.
Together they ran toward the open window that stood directly above the tank that barricaded the front entryway to the castle. They rested their hands on the chipped ledge and stared down at the empty tank. Nunzia looked out across the lawn, toward the long line of tanks firing their heavy shells at the base of the castle, an attempt to topple it from the bottom. Soldiers ran around the edges of the property, shooting up at the boys, thick circles of rope bound to grappling hooks hanging across their shoulders, anxious to get close enough to jam the hooks into the open crevices of the castle. “There are so many on both sides,” Gennaro said. The panic that was starting to creep into his voice matched the anguished look on his face. “We set a trap for them and we’re the ones who end up trapped.”
“Let me have your grenades,” Nunzia said, reaching out for the boy’s knotted up pack. “Then make your way down the halls and tell the boys to get ready.”
Gennaro stood and stared out the window, his dark eyes roaming past the tanks and the soldiers, looking beyond the smoldering fields and ruined fountains and statues. “What are they doing?” he asked, pointing out across the large boulevard to an area just beyond the reach of the shell fire.
“Who?” Nunzia peered through the smoke, trying to identify the three stick figures in the distance. Her eyes came alive when she realized who it was huddled over what looked to be an opening in the ground. She turned toward Gennaro and saw the look of awe and respect on his face. “Maybe,” she told him, “we’re not as trapped as we think.”
“Whatever they’re planning to do,” Gennaro said, feeling the heat of the flames at his back and the tremble of the building each time a shell found its mark, “I hope they do it soon.”
“Let’s make sure we do our part,” Nunzia said. She pulled the pin on one of the grenades, shoved it back inside the folded garment and dropped it down into the open lip of the empty tank. She grabbed Gennaro’s arm and ran with him, away from the window and down the stairs. As they turned around the curved landing, stepping over the bodies of the two dead soldiers, the explosion lifted the building off its base, a missilelike plume of smoke shooting up toward the front of the castle, masking it in clouds of darkness. Below them, the tank had shattered into sharp and deadly pieces, which now flew at bullet speed through each end of the courtyard. The bronze doorway, a cannonball from another century embedded in its center, landed against one end of a tank, crushing three soldiers in its path. In the center of all the destruction, the young German officer leaned with his back against the side of a tank, his legs folded under his chin, tears now lining the sides of his face. The intensity of the battle had taken hold of him, stripped him of his bravado and weakened his desire to fight. He sat there, holding an empty gun in one hand, his body shivering in the warmth of the madness that had engulfed his troops, surrendering to a soldier’s deadliest enemy.
The overwhelming power of fear.
Vincenzo stood inside the mouth of the open sewer, reaching a hand up for Maldini. Connors was already down below, racing several hundred yards ahead of them, searching out any weapons and bombs that had been hidden there by the street boys in the days before the start of the battle. “
Follow the line of water,” Maldini shouted out to him. “It will lead you right under the castle.”
Connors stopped, bent over and picked up two kerosene-filled wine bottles resting in a corner next to a rusty, old fuse box.
“You should find another half dozen or so before we reach the walls,” Maldini said, catching up to him.
“How many of these did you lay down?”
“We’re low on everything in Naples,” Maldini said across his shoulder, “except wine bottles.”
“You two move ahead, get Nunzia and those kids out of the castle,” Connors said. “I’ll trail back and try to do some damage with whatever I find down here.”
“There shouldn’t be more than two sewer lids between here and the castle,” Maldini said. “And be careful. If you’re seen, they’ll figure out a way to stop us before we can get to the boys.”
The three ran down the dark corridors, Maldini leading the way, moving with subtle grace through the oily darkness of the dank and muddy path. He stopped when they reached the first sewer cover. “They’re right above us,” he said to Connors. “Grip your fingers through the holes and slide it across. Makes less noise that way. Light those bombs and toss them, close the lid and keep moving.”
“Which way, Columbus?” Connors asked. “And don’t tell me to follow the water again. There’s water everywhere down here.”
“You run in a straight line to the second sewer,” Maldini said. “From there take the bend to the right. The walls will start to close in around you. That should put you right under the subbasement. From there it’s a straight run to the water tunnels and the sea. We’ll meet you there.”
“We’ll be swimming along the shore and to the west,” Vincenzo said. “This way we move with the speed of the current. That gets us away from the Nazis faster.”
“What about the ones who can’t swim?” Connors asked. “How do you plan on getting them through?”
“These boys have been playing in the waters of the bay since they were infants,” Maldini said. “If there’s one thing they know how to do, it’s swim.”
“There might be one who can’t,” Connors said, averting Vincenzo’s gaze, his fingers wrapped around the openings of the sewer cover. “What do you do with him? Pray he doesn’t drown?”
“We won’t let you drown, American,” Vincenzo said with a chuckle. “At least not in front of Nunzia.”
“I guess there isn’t a bay in your rich town either,” Maldini said, shaking his head and moving down the slippery path toward the base of the castle, Vincenzo trailing just behind.
“Just the Ohio River,” Connors mumbled to himself. “And nobody swims in that. Not even fish.”
The front wall of the castle fell in a fiery heap, thick dust and heavy smoke branched out across the charred lawn like a large gray blanket. The bodies of boys and soldiers mixed with one another as the rubble fell on the packed soil below. The Nazi tanks now unleashed the full vent of their assault. Shell after shell ripped away at the stone-hard fortress, grenades and bullets flew through the coarse air. Death and destruction marched in the shadows of their path. It was an inferno with no end, the massive fuel of the battle reaching out a bloody hand to squeeze and whither any and all who crossed its path.
Nunzia was in the next tower; Gennaro and Franco cowered by her side. “We must get to the subbasement,” she said. “It’s our only chance to escape.”
“What about the others?” Gennaro asked. “Can we get to them before the castle collapses?”
“No one will be left behind,” Nunzia said in a loud, firm voice as she led the two boys away from the shaking corridor. “Angela is getting the children out of the towers on the water side. We’ll work our way down and meet up with them underground.”
The three turned a corner, flames licking the sides of the walls, smoke flowing through every opening. They skidded to a stop and stared down at a large crater at the edge of their feet where there had once been a stone floor. The rocks had been blown away by three salvos from a tank stationed across the path. Nunzia looked into the dark void, the eyes of the two boys focused on the fire raging at their back. “We need to jump,” she said, reaching for their hands. “It’s just one floor down. We can make it.”
“What if the next floor collapses from our weight?” Gennaro asked, his voice cracking.
“It’s a chance we have to take,” Nunzia said. “If we stay here, we’ll be dead inside of five minutes.”
“I don’t want to go first,” Gennaro said.
“I’ll go,” Franco said, stepping in front of Nunzia and Gennaro, his feet poised on the edge of the splintered floor. “And then the two of you follow me down one after the other.”
“Aim for the center,” Nunzia told him, “and keep your legs bent, it’ll help brace your fall.”
Franco turned to Gennaro and nodded. “I’ll be down there waiting for you,” he told him seconds before his jump.
Nunzia closed her eyes and waited through what seemed like endless moments until she heard the hard landing and Franco’s soft voice. “The floor here is solid,” he yelled up through the haze of smoke. His voice was a faint echo that mixed with the booming sounds of the Nazi tanks. “But the walls sound like they’re going to break apart any minute.”
“Hurry, Gennaro,” Nunzia urged, placing a hand on the frightened boy’s sweaty back. “You have to jump now. There isn’t any more time.”
Gennaro turned and looked behind him at the fast approaching flames. He could sense the melting of the stone walls around him and his lungs filled with the acrid mix of fire and dust. He gazed up at Nunzia, her beauty untouched even in the center of a cauldron, and placed a warm hand on her face. “Un baccio, per buona fortuna,” he said to her.
Nunzia nodded and bent down and kissed the boy gently, her lips soft against the blushed tones of his cheeks. “Grazie mille,” Gennaro said.
He then stepped back and pushed her over the edge and down to the floor below. He heard her shout out his name as she fell into the empty cavity, landing with a soft thud alongside Franco. She screamed up to him and, along with Franco, yelled for him to make the leap to safety. But Gennaro could no longer move. His small, quivering body and his gentle soul had surrendered to the long war.
“Grazie mille,” Gennaro said again, in a soft, foggy whisper, disappearing behind a collapsing wall and an angry rush of flames.
Connors slid the manhole cover halfway across the opening and lifted his head just above the lip. He stared out at a raging field of heavy heat and thick smoke, dead soldiers, exploding tanks and bullets zipping past at every conceivable angle. Two of the tanks were off to his left, toppled over and smoldering, their iron shells melting into the parched earth. The remaining soldiers were grouped in tiny clusters, some spread out chest to the ground, others bent on one knee, all firing the last of their ammo toward the open windows above them. Connors stared up at the castle, its thick walls withering and crumbling, huge pockets of fire rising into the sky, black smoke covering the wide interior like a cape. Stranded across the vast breach of such horrible decay were the strewn bodies of soldiers and boys, enemies now linked only in death.
Connors closed his eyes then took a deep breath, his lungs filling with the vile taste of battle. He clicked open his cigarette lighter, brushed the flame against the three strips of cheesecloth jammed inside the tip of kerosene-filled wine bottles, and tossed them out of the sewer. He watched the bottles crash and land in the center of a quartet of merging soldiers. The instantaneous blast sent them all tumbling, their bodies ripped apart. He reached down, turning his head away from the action above, and picked up two more bottles, the cigarette lighter still clutched in his right hand.
Connors never saw the soldier.
The Nazi was on his knees, a thin piece of rope wrapped around the palms of his hands, waiting for the American to lift his head out of the sewer opening. He made a diving lunge toward Connors, flexing the rope twice around his throat with deadly speed a
nd precision. Connors’s head snapped back far enough for him to look up into the Nazi’s eyes, his hands dropped the bottles and instinctively reached toward his neck in an attempt to ease the pressure. The Nazi pushed down harder on the rope, his eyes bulging from the effort, his jaw muscles clenched, his lower lip bit and bleeding. Connors reached a hand up and tried to swing the Nazi down into the open hole. He pressed his weight against the hard end of the sewer and forced his head to turn, the chord cutting through his skin, a long gash opening just above his neck line and instantly filling with blood and dirt and frayed rope. Connors brought his right hand up, fingers curled into a hard fist and landed a stinging blow flush to the center of the soldier’s nose. It stunned him and his grip momentarily loosened. Air once again ran freely through Connors’s windpipe. He threw two more punches, one glancing off the Nazi’s helmet, the other finding its mark on the right side of the soldier’s cheek. Connors then lowered his aim, fought off the urge to give in to the pain, ignored the weightlessness of his legs, and directed his hardest punch at the Nazi’s Adam’s apple. The sting of the punch sent the Nazi reeling to his left, inches away from Connors’s face, the rope now hanging loose around his neck. Connors took a quick glance around and then pulled the Nazi’s head toward him, resting it against the base of the sewer. He coiled his arm around the young soldier’s neck, pushed it back farther and then snapped it down and held it until he heard the final crack of bone against muscle.
He pushed the Nazi away from the sewer and stepped down slowly back into its darkness. He touched the gash across his neck, saw the front of his shirt sopped through with blood and gave a final sad and tired look at the collapsing walls of the castle. He lowered his head and slid the sewer lid closed, its rusty edges skimming the sleeves of the Nazi soldier’s uniform. He climbed down the thin steps and stepped into the center of the unlit corridor, running toward the sewage tunnels at the farthest end, a dust storm raining down on his head from the heated battle above.