The price he paid for the cover afforded to either side by the ranks of vines was almost total exposure in the other two directions, but here he felt even more confident of passing unobserved. At his back the ground sloped away to a railway cutting whose further edge was so much lower that nothing was visible in that direction except for the faint outline of the village of Palazzuole rising from the mist on its distant hilltop. Ahead of him, at the crest of the hill, was a small, densely wooded hanger which had been left wild, a scrubby north-facing patch too unpropitious for even Aldo to try to cultivate. The road from Alba to Acqui ran through it on a continuous banked curve so steep and tight that drivers still had to slow down, change gear and address themselves seriously to the steering wheel. Back in 1944, the underpowered, overladen, unwieldy trucks had virtually been brought to a standstill by the incline, even before the lead driver noticed the tree lying across the road…
It was while they were waiting that Angelin had found the truffle. The two of them had been stationed on that side of the road, while the others were concealed in the continuation of the wood further up the hill, which had then belonged to the Cravioli family. Now it, too, was part of Aldo’s empire, together with the unbroken sweep of vines on the hillside beyond the road to the right.
The plan had been simple. When the crew of the Republican convoy, which had hurriedly left Alba after its seizure by the partisans, got out to clear the fallen birch from the road, the men on the upper slope would rake the scene from end to end with a mounted machine-gun captured from a German unit a few weeks earlier. He and Angelin were to pick off any fascisti who tried to take refuge in the woods on that side.