The Yugoslav Border, near Petrokov Brod, Friday, 17 March 1944
Salvatore Alfieri waited impatiently. He and twenty locally-recruited
spalloni had crossed the border more than an hour ago and were waiting here in the forest for his brother Carmine to arrive with the truck.
"If the damned Yugoslavs hadn't closed the road I would not have to go through all this," he muttered. Such was the business of a
Camorristi cigarette-smuggler. His piece of the Alfieri clan's 'work' was to move un-taxed cigarettes across the border into Italy, where they could be sold for a good profit in Fiume, Pola, Gorizia and even Venice. Normally his contacts on the Yugoslav side of the border could arrange transport by much more certain means, but now, with fevers rising, he had to resort to older tried-and-true methods - humping the cigarettes across the border on the backs of human mules.
His reverie was broken by the sound of a vehicle making its way down the track - it was moving slowly, without lights to attract attention. "Finally!" thought Alfieri.
The truck came to a halt and from it stepped three men - Carmine Alfieri, Salvatore's cousin who had gone on to Karlovac to arrange the shipment, and two assistants, who quickly began to hand out backpacks to the waiting
spalloni.
"What took you so long?" asked Salvatore.
"Patrols," Carmine responded, "and not just border guards - the Yugoslav Army has troops in the area. I saw tanks on rail flats while picking up the goods in Karlovac."
"Then we need to depart quickly," said Salvatore with a nod. "We don't want to get caught on this side of the frontier. Bad enough if we have to buy off the
Guardia di Finanza but I don't want to have to buy off some stinking Croat."
Now emptied, the truck was abandoned. It would serve no further use and trying to drive it out of the forest would only attract attention.
The column of men strode off into the darkness, following the trail that they had made in coming. This, however, would prove to be an unfortunate mistake.
**********
"Lieutenant!" said the corporal, examining ground before him. "Twelve men, maybe more, passed this way come hours ago - heading east; see the way the branches are brushed back."
Lieutenant Konstantin Prigal stooped to look at the tracks in the muddy ground. "You're right. Let's follow and see what we find."
The 45th Infantry Regiment had been ordered to assist the Frontier Guards in the closure of the Karlovac motor road. Colonel Elbinger had half-a-dozen patrols out tonight, familiarising the troops with the area nearest the border. No one had expected an encounter. "This could be interesting," thought Prigal.
Some twenty minutes later hand signals passed down the line of riflemen indicated that there was movement in their direction. Prigal ordered the patrol to take up positions on either side of the trail and await the outcome.
**********
The border was less than five hundred meters away, and the Alfieri brothers began to feel a sense of relief. "It will not be long now," said Carmine in a whisper.
"There is a truck waiting for us on our side of the frontier," replied Salvatore. "Then we can pay off the
spalloni and return to civilisation."
There was a sound of a twig breaking. In the quiet of the night it sounded like a rifle shot. The
Camorristi and their followers stopped in their tracks.
"Going somewhere?" asked Lieutenant Prigal in passable Italian.
His men quickly surrounded the smuggler band. There was no resistance; neither the
Camorristi or
spalloni were armed. Under guard they were marched back from whence they had come, to be formally arrested by the Frontier Guards, and taken to Karlovac gaol for incarceration.
"I bet Colonel Elbinger will understand," Prigal said. "We were just lucky."
Novosti News Service, Karlovac, Saturday 18 March 1944
A group of smugglers were arrested attempting to effect an unauthorized border crossing and with smuggling non-duty goods out of the country. No trial date has been set.