The British Partisan by Ross Michael; Ross Brigadier David;

Author:Ross, Michael; Ross, Brigadier David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY/Military/World War II
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Enemies Become Friends

Our little procession wound its way along a main road in silence. It was still dark, so I took the chance to dispose of my identity card discreetly before reaching the police station. I simply tore it into several pieces and dropped them on the ground as we walked along.

We did not have far to go, and when we reached our destination we were shown into a room where numerous officials descended on us and attempted to interrogate us. But we had no intention of making things easy and refused to reveal our true identity.

A senior officer then appeared and demanded to see my document. When I could not produce it, we were stripped completely, given a blanket each and told to squat on the floor. Meanwhile, a search was made of our clothing. There was, of course, no sign of the card, but then an idea occurred to the pompous carabiniere who had arrested us, and he promptly left the room armed with a big torch.

Within ten minutes he was back, face beaming, triumphantly holding up the pieces for all to see. A few nasty threats were cast in my direction as these remnants were carefully scrutinized and later placed on a table near us together with our clothes and belongings.

There followed a series of comings and goings and some heated arguments between the officials. Even the policeman in plain clothes who had let us slip through his hands earlier that evening made an appearance, looking rather sheepish. During this commotion we remained seated on the floor and at one point I was able, unnoticed, to reach up and seize the remains of my card. I hid the pieces safely inside my blanket and then asked if I could go to the toilet.

I was duly escorted to washrooms in another part of the building. Needless to say, I promptly flushed the pieces of card straight down the drain. After I returned, Jimmy and I had a quiet laugh when I whispered what I had done and suggested that our smart carabiniere would be hard pressed to retrieve the pieces this time. We also chuckled, later on, at the faces of the authorities when it dawned on them that the wretched bits of card had disappeared for a second time.

* * *

After an hour or so we were conducted to one of the cells and locked in. We wondered if they regarded us as some sort of Houdini escape experts, as they took the precaution of locking into the cell with us two hefty-looking policemen as company for the rest of the night. We sat in silence, except for one of the policemen, who whiled away the hours cracking his knuckles. In the morning we were told to dress, given a cup of black coffee, handcuffed and marched over to the main police headquarters of Como.

Here, in an upstairs room, we were once again faced with an interrogator; this one spoke good English. He started off by saying that he knew exactly who we were, and so he did.

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