One German, after the initial fall, tried to get back up and distance himself from the group. Two Cossacks began groping their way after him and might have lost him, except that he did not know where he was going, either, and after a few steps he slipped and fell forward, and they had him again. In the confusion, his helmet fell off. The leader of the Cossacks made it clear that we should not leave it there, because if the dogs came they could follow the scent and would track us down. Only then did we realize that the second German was bareheaded. “God damn those bastards,” Gragnola murmured. “His helmet fell off when we took him in the alley. If they get there with their dogs, they’ll have the scent!”
Nothing for it. And, indeed, we had gone only a few metres farther when we heard voices from above, and dogs barking. “They’ve reached the alley, the animals have sniffed the helmet, and they’re saying we’ve come this way. Stay calm and quiet. First, they have to find the gap in the wall, and if you don’t know it it’s not easy. Second, they have to get down. If their dogs are cautious and go slow, they’ll go slow, too. If the dogs go fast, they won’t be able to keep up and will fall on their asses. They don’t have you, Yambo. Go as fast as you can, let’s move.”
“I’ll try, but I’m scared.”
“You’re not scared, just nervous. Take a deep breath and move.”
I was about to piss myself, like the priest, but at the same time I knew that everything depended on me. My teeth were clenched, and in that moment I would rather have been Giraffone or Jojo than Romano the Legionnaire; Horace Horsecollar or Clarabelle Cow than Mickey Mouse in the House of Seven Haunts; Signor Pampurio in his apartment than Flash Gordon in the swamps of Arboria, but when you are on the dance floor there is nothing to do but dance. I started down the gorge as fast as I could, replaying each step in my mind.
The two prisoners were slowing us down; with the rags in their mouths they had a hard time breathing and paused every minute. After at least fifteen minutes we came to the boulder, and I was so sure of where it was that I touched it with my outstretched hand before I could even see it. We had to stay close together as we went around it, because if anyone veered right he would come to the ledge and the ravine. The voices above us could still be heard distinctly, but it was unclear whether that was because the Germans were yelling louder to incite their reluctant dogs, or whether they had made it past the wall and were approaching.
The two prisoners, hearing their comrades’ voices, tried to jerk away, and when they weren’t actually falling they were pretending to fall, trying to roll off to the side, unafraid of injuring themselves. They had realized that we could not shoot them, because of the noise, and that wherever they ended up the dogs would find them. They no longer had anything to lose, and, like anyone with nothing to lose, they had become dangerous.
Suddenly, we heard machine-gun fire. Not being able to come down, the Germans had decided to fire. But they had almost a hundred and eighty degrees of the gorge in front of them and no idea which way we had gone, so they were firing all over the place. Also, they had not realized how steep the gorge was, and they were firing almost horizontally. When they fired in our direction, we could hear the bullets whistling over our heads.
“Let’s move, let’s move,” Gragnola said. “They still won’t get us.”
But the first Germans must have begun climbing down, getting an idea of the slope of the terrain, and the dogs must have begun heading in a more precise direction. Now they were shooting down, and more or less at us. We heard some bullets murmur through nearby bushes.
“No fear,” the Cossack said. “I know the Reichweite of their Maschinen.”
“The range of those machine guns,” Gragnola offered.
“Yes, that. If they do not come more far down and we go fast, then the bullets will not reach to us anymore. So quick.”
“Gragnola,” I said, with huge tears in my eyes, “I can go quicker, but the rest of you can’t. You can’t drag these two with us, there’s no point in me running down like a goat if they keep holding us up. Let’s leave them here, or I swear I’m taking off on my own.”
“If we leave them here, they’ll get loose in a flash and call down the others,” Gragnola said.
“I kill them with the butt of machine gun, that makes no noise,” the Cossack hissed.
The idea of killing those two poor men froze me, but I regained my composure when Gragnola growled, “It’s no good, God damn it, even if we leave them here dead, the dogs will find them, and the others will know which way we’ve gone. There’s only one thing to do: cause them to fall in some other direction, so the dogs will go that way and we might gain ten minutes or even more. Yambo, to the right here, isn’t there that false path that leads to the ravine? Good, we’ll push them down there, you said that anyone going that way won’t notice the ledge and will fall easily, then the dogs will lead the Germans to the bottom. Before they can recover from that blow, we’re in the valley. A fall from there will kill them, right?”
“No, I didn’t say that a fall from there would definitely kill them. You’ll break bones, if you’re unlucky you might hit your head …”
“God damn you, how come you said one thing and now you’re saying another? So maybe their ropes will come loose as they’re falling, and when they come to a stop they’ll still have enough breath to yell and warn the others to be careful!”
“Then they must fall when they are already dead,” the Cossack, who knew how things worked in this dirty world, commented.
I was right next to Gragnola and could see his face. He had always been pale, but he was paler now. He stood there gazing upward, as if seeking inspiration from the heavens. In that moment, we heard a frr frrr of bullets passing near us at the level of a man’s head. One of the Germans shoved his guard and both fell to the ground, and the Cossack started complaining because the first one was butting him in the teeth with his head, gambling everything and trying to make noise. That was when Gragnola made his decision and said, “It’s them or us. Yambo, if I go right, how many steps before the ledge?”
“Ten steps, ten of mine, maybe eight for you, but if you push your foot out in front of you you’ll feel it start to slope away, and from that point to the ledge it’s four steps. To be safe, take three.”
“O.K.,” Gragnola said, turning to the Cossack. “I’ll go forward, two of you push these two toadies, hold them tight by the shoulders. Everybody else stays here.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, my teeth chattering.
“You shut up. This is war. Wait here with them. That’s an order.”
They disappeared to the right of the boulder, swallowed by the fog. We waited several minutes, heard the skittering of stones and several thuds, then Gragnola and the two Cossacks reappeared, without the Germans. “Let’s move,” Gragnola said. “Now we can go faster.”
He put a hand on my arm and I could feel him trembling. Now that he was closer I could see him again: he was wearing a sweater that was snug around his neck, and the lancet case was hanging over his chest, as if he had taken it out. “What did you do with them?” I asked, crying.
“Don’t think about it, it was the right thing. The dogs will smell the blood and that’s where they’ll lead the others. We’re safe, let’s go.”
the art is inside
