“Dante, go to soldier. In dugout behind cow shed,” Old Mario said.
“A soldier?”
“Talk. He is British, from Scotland.”
Mario gave Dante food wrapped in a clean dish towel, a jug of milk. “Agate milked the cow,” he said, and handed Dante a flask of his own red wine. “Feed him.”
Sergeant Alfred Forte, Seaforth Highlanders, came from Kempock, the small town next to Westburn. In July, Germans had captured Fred in Sicily and transferred him to Italian custody to a POW camp near Rome.
Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, taking her forces out of the war. The guards had vanished, and Fred had walked out of the camp. He"d no desire to be taken again by German forces occupying Italy and sent to a POW camp in Germany.
Dante and Fred weighed each other up. Fred wore ancie
