Lily's War by Shirley Mann

Author:Shirley Mann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

Chapter 29

The four men had almost stopped breathing. The tiny crack of a twig outside their hidey-hole had put them on full alert. A grubby face peered in through the bushes – it was a child. A boy of about eight years of age, dressed in rags and very thin. He stared in disbelief at the four soldiers who were cowering in his hideaway.

They beckoned him in and Frank put his finger to his lips to warn him to be quiet. Danny signalled that the Germans were just over the hill by imitating a moustache above his mouth and pointing. The boy nodded and crouched down beside Frank and the other private, Charlie. They stayed like that until they finally heard the engines of the jeeps start up as the sun started to pierce the foliage. The purr of the motors faded into the distance. Alan used sign language to tell the rest to stay where they were, bayoneted his gun and edged on his stomach out of the copse. Nobody moved until they heard Alan’s voice calling to give them the ‘All Clear.’

They moved slowly and gingerly, their muscles contracted in pain from being immobile and Danny steered the young boy out of the den. As they stretched and stamped their feet, they delved into their packs to find the welcome water and rations, offering them to the boy, who took them greedily.

Danny tried to communicate, ‘Come ti chiami?’

‘Georgio.’

‘Cosa . . . stai . . . fare qui?’ Danny was struggling now. His grammar and vocabulary were not up to this. How did the Italians say ‘doing here’?

A torrent of Italian came out of the boy’s mouth as he looked from one to the other of the men.

‘Lentamente,’ Danny urged, trying to slow him down.

Piecing together a few words here and there, he gathered that the boy’s whole family had been killed in a bombing raid by the allies and that he had been living alone in the woods for the last four months. To realise that the ‘good guys’ had caused the obliteration of this boy’s family was a shock to the British Tommies and Alan handed over some valuable chocolate that he had hidden in the bottom of his pack.

They tried to persuade Georgio to come with them back to camp but he vehemently shook his head. He pointed north, explaining he was going to find his aunt and uncle. When Frank tried to take his arm, he pushed it roughly away and sped off up the hill. When he got to the top, he turned, saluted, grinned and then disappeared over the top.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.