Blood From A Shadow (2012) Read online

  One day, we were sitting in our Humvee, just waiting. A gang of kids, most of them not even teens yet, came around the corner and started throwing rocks at us. Nothing unusual, just a game for the kids, really, the rocks bounced off and we just laughed or ignored them. Then one kid, a bit older, maybe 15 or 16, came closer. “Go home, Nazis! Go home, Nazis!” he shouted. He was probably a bright kid, English was pretty good. The rest stayed back, but cheered him on. He came closer, still screaming the Nazi shit at us. He wasn’t carrying anything, we knew he was no danger. He stood right in front of the Humvee, giving the Nazi salute and still screaming. Brave kid, I thought, but Reitner didn’t laugh. He and Ferdy jumped out and caught the kid, the rest all ran away, except for one small girl, missing her right arm below the elbow. Must be his little sister, I thought. Anyway, Reitner and Ferdy slapped the kid around a bit, nothing heavy, more a spanking than anything else. They left him there, sitting on the road, ass kicked but not broken. I went over and had a look, he was ok. The little girl ran over to help him. She was hysterical, howling and crying. She screamed something right in my face, don’t know what, but I know she hated me, I was her Nazi.

  I stood in front of the plaque, looked up and down this Jewish Italian street. It hadn’t changed much in 70 years. I could picture the scenes as stormtroopers dragged them away, old men, old women, children, babies. I could hear their cries, officers barking orders, diesel fumes choking, before they were packed off like rats to be gassed. My hands were shaking, and tears ran down my cheeks. I hoped the funeral on the Tiber would be over, I couldn’t face the crying girl again.

  I needed to speak to Artie.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I was on my second bottle when Artie appeared.

  “What’s happened? The receptionist told me to come straight away, what’s wrong?” he said.

  I pulled a chair over for him to join me beside the hotel’s gently tinkling fountain in the garden.

  “Just think it’s time I got some things off my chest,” I said. “You’ve been hinting that you already know some, like my therapy with Florencita Conroy, but I’ve never told anybody the whole story, I’m the only man alive that knows.”

  “Why me, why now?” he said.

  “I just need to tell somebody,” I said. “I thought I could get by on my own, but I don’t care what happens to me now. I don’t know how you fit in with Duffin and all the rest of it, but I don’t give a shit anymore. If they want to nail me for Swansea, I won’t put up a fight. It doesn’t matter anymore, I’m finished.”

  I poured what was left in the bottle for Artie, stood up and waved the empty bottle at the waiter. Artie sipped, appreciated.

  “Nice wine, Con, Chianti Classico from the Fontodi estate. I didn’t realise you had such a discerning palate. Full of surprises today, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Paolo the waiter said it was good. I’m glad you like it, since you’re paying my room tab,” I said.

  “Do you want me to hear your confession, Con, as your priest?”

  “Just hear me Artie. I guess that’s all I want, somebody else to hear it and decide what I deserve. How’s that sound?” I said.

  Artie nodded, had his beads at the ready in one hand, his Chianti in the other.

  “After we were captured, after Mehmet Kaffa rescued us, they wanted to send us home, get us out of there. That was no good for me and Ferdy, we needed to be back with our own guys, that’s what was normal for us. About a month or so after we got back, we’re running a TCP, Traffic Control Point, on the road to the airport, you know, Route Irish?

  Anyway, not much was happening, boring the piss out of us, until some motherfucker crawls out of his shithole and fired a few rounds at us. No big deal, he was too far away, was never going to hit anything. That happened a lot, you know, some dirtbird sticks his head up and empties his weapon, nowhere near us, but it doesn’t matter to him. He goes back to his fucking cave, or whatever, and he’s the big hero. “Tell Bin Laden I killed 20 Americans single handed, where’s my down payment on the thousand virgins he owes me?’ Shit like that’, I said.

  Paolo arrived with another bottle, invited me to taste it, I just filled my glass to the neck.

  “A lot of days that would have been ok, we’d take cover, radio base, wait for orders, the shooter disappears, we go home. It’s a game. Except this day, me and Ferdy were really wired, you know? We looked at each other and that was it, some motherfucker was going to have a really bad day, that day.

  I left the rest of the guys at the TCP and four of us went hunting the shooter. Me, Ferdy, Rico and Lopez. Took us just about fifteen minutes to flank around where the fucker was. A big solid house, lots of outbuildings, stone walls, places to hide. Turns out we stumbled on some sort of HQ, right under our noses, because the next thing ten or twelve of them open up on us as we got close. They must have thought they hit paydirt that day. “We outnumber these American sons of whores, this will be easy’. But it’s not easy, not when you’ve got four Americans coming straight for you. It’s not like exploding a bomb from a mile away, or like blasting off some shots from a hole in the distance. We were going eyeball to eyeball. You know the history of our Regiment, Artie, we don’t back down for anybody. We weren’t going to stop until we nailed all of them, and they knew it. Four of them went down pretty quick, the rest started to run. We kept going, closing them down. They were screaming, they knew the unclean devils were going to get them,” I said.

  Artie set his glass down on the low wall that fringed the fountain, started to finger his beads, didn’t notice the fine spray land in his wine.

  “Lopez and Rico went one way, me and Ferdy the other. There were four of them in front of us, we took down three, reckoned the fourth was some kind of Hadji leader, we kept going, he wasn’t getting away, not that day. At one point we split up, knew we must have him cornered in some outbuildings. I could hear Lopez and Rico still laying down fire on the other side of the buildings, but Ferdy was all quiet. Then I heard these screams, screams of terror, not just fear or pain, but real terror. I followed the sound and came to a shed behind some houses. I bust in and my life hasn’t been the same since,” I said.

  I knocked back the whole glass, I couldn’t drink enough to get drunk now.

  “I bust in, saw it was a carpenter’s workshop, sawdust, wood shavings, planks, bits of rough furniture all piled up. Just like any regular woodworker’s place. There was a woman, huddled in the corner. She had a young girl, about 8 or 9 years old, trying to protect her, hide her eyes, cover her ears.”

  I filled my glass again, emptied it.

  “The screaming had stopped, but there was a different noise, sounded like a dog or wolf, not a human noise. I stepped around the furniture, ready to shoot, and there was Ferdy. He had a guy pinned to a workbench, nailed his wrists to the bench. Ferdy was on top of him, knee in his chest, had a fistful of his thick beard, had a saw in his other hand, a big bow saw, a two handed saw. The guy’s head was hanging by a thread. Ferdy worked the saw where the guy’s throat used to be, he was soaked in blood, it was gushing out of the guy’s neck like an oil well. I froze for a second, I couldn’t compute what this was, what was happening in front of my eyes. It wasn’t even the fucker we were chasing, it was a fucking woodworker in his own workshop! Then Ferdy yanked the head off completely, he jumped up on the workbench and held it up in the air like he’d just won the World Series. White foam frothing out his mouth. I couldn’t move. The woman pressed the girl on the floor beneath her, nearly suffocating her. The woman was silent but the child was whimpering, that was her dad being butchered,” I said.

  I turned away from Artie and spewed a throatful of wine around the roots of a tree.

  “You asked me before about that old guy with the horses, the poitin maker? Did he see the devil? Sure, he saw him, so did I that day. Only it was the guy I grew up with, thought of as my brother. Here he was, this innocent man’s blood running down his face and neck. He did everything but drink the
blood from the guy’s neck, Artie, laughing like a maniac and howling like a wild thing the whole time,” I said.

  Artie poured himself another glass, emptied the rest of the bottle into my glass. He stopped working his beads.

  “What happened then, Con, what did you do?” he said.

  “I jumped up on the workbench and hit him, a real piledriver, it should have knocked him clean out. He went flying, landed on his back, saw the woman, started to go for her and the girl. I jumped him and kicked him in the ribs, he should have stayed down but he didn’t, like he didn’t feel anything. Then he was up and went for my throat, like a demon, a fucking wild animal. We were just punching, kicking, clawing, biting, we would have killed each other, we were both animals. One of us would have been dead except Rico and Lopez found us. They couldn’t separate us, Lopez told me later, it was too dangerous. They had to buttstroke us, using their weapons, until we both dropped, even then we still had each other by the throat,” I said.

  Artie’s phone beeped a text message. He didn’t look at it, knocked the phone off.

  “Rico radioed for the other guys, got the Humvees round there quick before any more shooters surrounded us, or any officers appeared. When I came round, I was in the back of one vehicle, Ferdy was in the other. I should have turned him in, Artie, turned him in or killed him myself. I didn’t do anything, just filed a report on the Hadji, marked the house they were using, never said anything about the woodworker’s house,” I said.

  “And no-one else reported it? What about the woman and child? What happened to them?” Artie said.

  “Nobody else saw what I saw. Lopez and Rico just saw us fighting. They didn’t want to know about the guy with his head hacked off. They got us out of there, that was their job, the rest was up to me, and I didn’t have the guts to do my duty, I didn’t nail McErlane. I got high instead, got heroin from the Iraqi Army guys and got high, to forget about the whole thing. The next day Ferdy was back to normal, was sort of quiet, but normal. The other guys too, doing ordinary stuff as if nothing had happened. See, the most important thing to us, to all soldiers, is to protect your own guys. And they’re all good men, decent guys who know right from wrong. It was all down to me, I should have done something about it, but I let them all down, I couldn’t turn Ferdy in. I just left all of that out of my report, end of story. The woman and girl, I don’t know. They saw the devil tear the father apart like a wild fucking animal, like a fucking rabid dog. I don’t know what happened to them,” I said.

  “So, that’s what caused your mental breakdown? And you never told Florencita Conroy about any of this?” Artie said.

  “Yeah, I finally fell apart a couple of years later, but that’s where it all came from. I never told Florencita the whole truth, but I think she realised that. But that’s not all of it. The real clincher came later, a week or so later,” I said.

  Somebody appeared behind me, at the side exit from the garden. Artie dismissed them with a tight shake of his head, they weren’t there when I turned to look. I carried on.

  “The next week was really weird, we all goofed around as if nothing had happened. The drugs helped me. Ferdy didn’t say much, just put his head down and did any jobs that needed to be done, kept himself busy, out of my way, couldn’t look me in the eye. Maybe he realised what he had done, I don’t know. At the end of the day, Artie, he was still the Ferdia McErlane his mother wants us all to remember, you know? But I was worried about the other guys. When you’re in a combat zone, you need to know you can trust all your own people, otherwise everybody is put in danger. I was responsible for all of them, not just Ferdy, but I was putting them in danger by shielding McErlane. I knew I should face up to it, for everybody’s sake, but I wussed out, I was a coward,” I said.

  Paolo brought my fourth bottle of Chianti, smiled as he fished the empty out of the pretty fountain.

  “Then we had a contact again, near the same area. A shooter opened up on us, just like before. The guys were still tense, they wanted to get after him, vent their frustration. But the Hadji are good, you know, they watch everything we do then work out how to hurt us. I reckoned that was a trap, we charge in like we did before, they have an ambush prepared this time. So, we said ok, let’s do it, let’s see what they’ve got,” I said.

  “Christ, Con, why didn’t you just get out of there? Get back to safety?” Artie said.

  “Because we’re soldiers, Artie, it comes with the job. You took me to Corcoran’s memorial, do you think that’s how he led the men at Bull Run, ran for safety?” I said, knowing it was hard for a civilian to understand, especially a civilised man like Artie.

  “There were twelve of us, and I knew they would face anything. I left four guys at the TCP, laying down fire on the shooter’s position, the rest of us split in two teams, circled around behind their position. I already had a good idea where an ambush might be set up, there were two big houses overlooking the route to the shooter’s firing point. Sure enough, that’s where they were, six or seven on the roof and upper windows of both houses. So, I had Ferdy with me, and Rico and Lopez again. Reitner and the others took the other house. I gave the orders, but I could see the doubt in Lopez and Rico’s eyes. They were top class soldiers, but they didn’t want to be any part of Ferdy’s pain again. You know, you can’t do that shit unless you trust your guys 100%. It’s like your priest guys say, Artie, you must have faith, and those two had lost faith in me because I had wimped out. I made my mind up there and then, I would fix things, for the good of everybody.”

  “Well, we hit the house from the back, Rico and Lopez covering us from a wall, me and Ferdy hitting the back door. I didn’t want the other two with us, I needed to go with just Ferdy on my own. All hell broke loose, the upper floor was full of Hadji shooters. We threw grenades up the stairs, then chased up after them to take out anybody still moving,” I said.

  I was properly drunk now, could hear my words slurring, but it was easy to talk to Artie, I guess that’s why he was a priest.

  “The thing is Artie, I didn’t figure on Ferdy and me coming out of there. I couldn’t let him do that again. Couldn’t let us go home in disgrace either. Near the top of the stairs I dropped another grenade, meant to take out me and Ferdy and anybody else up there. The blast blew me down the stairs, felt like I was falling all the way into hell, thought my whole body was in flames, that’s how I got this,” I pulled down my shirt, exposing the red and scarred branding on my neck and upper chest.

  “I was ok, still conscious, but couldn’t move. Turned out there were still Hadji moving up there. Ferdy was hurt but still on his feet, he kept firing, he was fucking unbelievable, but I knew he wasn’t going to survive that firefight. Then bullets hammered into the wall above my head. There were two fuckers down below we hadn’t counted on, they were firing from around a corner at me, they could have just walked up and popped me, but they hadn’t worked that out yet. I managed to turn on my side and fire a blast, hit one of them, then I just couldn’t move anymore. I was fucked, Artie, but I was pretty cool about it, you know, like now, I didn’t care what was going to happen to me next. That was the end for Con Maknazpy, the Irish Pole of McLean Avenue, I could see the headline of the Journal News in Yonkers.”

  “But then Ferdy jumped down the stairs, grabbed me by the collar, dragged me into a room. I had just tried to put him down, Artie, like a mad dog, but he lay me down, gently, told me to take it easy, said he would never leave me behind. He kissed me on the head, like I was a baby, then dived out into the hallway, the Hadji was still firing, but Ferdy blew him away.

  The house was on fire, falling down around us, I told Ferdy to leave me, I didn’t want him to rescue me. He just laughed that crazy laugh of his, he said, “I understand you, Con, you don’t need to explain anything’. He put me over his shoulders and carried me back out to Lopez and Rico. He had the same injuries as me, half his uniform was blown off, his arms and shoulders were burnt to fuck, but he lifted me up, wouldn’t leave me behind. I tried
to kill him, Artie, he must have known that, but he wouldn’t leave me behind,” I strained the words out, crying again.

  Artie rattled his beads, spilled a stopgap absolution, then he and Paolo took an arm each and lugged me up the stairs to my room. I slept soundly that night, no nightmares, no waking in a sweat, no screaming. Artie was a good confessor, Paolo was a good wine waiter.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I woke up with the driver’s breakfast breathing in my face, the ugly bastard was shaking me by the shoulders.

  “Ok, ok, I get it! Get out of here, wait downstairs!” I shouted, rousing the pain in my head.

  Artie and Paolo hadn’t undressed me. I swayed over the toilet, washed my face, then felt my way down to reception. The Range Rover was waiting outside, we crawled through the tour buses and headed back along the river. My head was clearing, I remembered Auschwitz and the crying girl, but we turned off right before that, started to climb, passed restaurants, offices, apartments. Then we were above the city, along a tree lined road before pulling into the carpark of a Church.

  Bells were in chorus across the city, all of Rome was down there below me, domes, columns, arches, domes. Shit, had I really told Artie all that last night? The Colosseum was down there somewhere, I couldn’t spot it, but I recalled snatches of what I had said. What happens now? The driver tugged my arm and chin pointed to the Church. Up a few steps to the door of the Church, once strong and solid, now very old and weathered. A small porch inside, he turned the heavy lock behind us.

  Two figures sitting at the front, left hand side. I started towards them, half way up before I spotted Artie, kneeling on the blue carpet, five feet in front of the other two. Artie was praying, one hand on the carpet, looking straight down at the floor. Two bodies swivelled in their seats.