The Vintage Book of War Stories

by Sebastian Faulks

  The Cephallonians needed no such malicious ghosts to warn them. Two days before, the Italians had taken Corfu under farcical circumstances which were to be repeated identically today, and there was no one on the island who did not anticipate the worst.

  It was the waiting that was tormenting. A great nostalgia rose up like a palpable mist; it was like making love for the last time to someone who is adored but is leaving forever. Every last moment of freedom and security was rolled about on the tongue, tasted, and remembered. Kokolios and Stamatis, the Communist and the monarchist, sat together at a table cleaning the components of a hunting rifle that had gathered dust on a wall for fifty years. They were without ammunition, but, as it was to everyone on the island, it seemed important to be engaged upon some gesture of resistance. Their busy fingers sought to calm the storms of anxiety and speculation in their minds, and they talked in low voices with a mutual affection that belied their years of vehement ideological difference. Neither of them knew any more how long their lives would be, and they had become precious to each other at last.

  Families embraced more than had been the habit; fathers who expected to be beaten to death stroked the hair of pretty daughters who expected to be raped. Sons sat with their mothers on doorsteps and talked gently of their memories. Farmers took their barrels of wine with the glint of sunlight in it, and buried them in the earth so that no Italian would have the pleasure of their drinking. Grandmothers sharpened their cooking knives, and grandfathers remembered old deeds, persuading themselves that age had not diminished them; in the privacy of sheds they practised the ‘shoulder-arms’ with shovels and sticks. Many people visited their favourite places as if for the last time, and found that stones and dust, pellucid sea and ancient rock, had taken on an air of sadness such as one finds in a room where a beautiful child is lying at the door of death.

  Nothing was as anyone had anticipated. Those who had thought that they would be filled with rage were afflicted instead by sensations of wonder, curiosity, or apathy. Those who knew that they would be terrified felt an icy calm and a rush of grim determination. Those who had long felt a terrible anxiety became calm, and there was one woman who was visited by an almost venial apprehension of salvation.

  Pelagia ran up the hill to be with her father, following the ancient instinct that decrees that those who love each other must be united when they die. She found him standing in his doorway, as everyone else stood in theirs, his hand shielding his eyes against the sun as he watched the paratroops descend. Out of breath, she flew into his arms, and felt him tremble. Could he be afraid? She glanced up at him as he stroked her hair, and realized with a small shock that his lips moved and his eyes gleamed, not with fear, but with excitement. He looked down at her, straightened his back, and waved one hand to the skies. ‘History,’ he proclaimed, ‘all this time I have been writing history, and now history is happening before my very eyes. Pelagia, my darling daughter, I have always wanted to live in history.’ He released her, went indoors, and returned with a notebook and a sharpened pencil.

  The planes disappeared and there was a long silence. It seemed as though nothing was to happen.

  Down in the harbours the men of the Acqui Division disembarked apologetically from their landing craft and waved cheerfully but diffidently to the people in their doorways. Some of them shook their fists in return, others waved, and many made the emphatic gesture with the palm of the hand that is so insulting that in later years its perpetration was to become an imprisonable offence.

  In the village, Pelagia and her father watched the platoons of paratroopers amble by, their commanders consulting maps with furrowed brows and pursed lips. Some of the Italians seemed so small as to be shorter than their rifles. ‘They’re a funny lot,’ observed the doctor. At the back of one line of soldiers a particularly diminutive man with cockerel feathers nodding in his helmet was goose-stepping satirically with one finger held under his nose in imitation of a moustache. He widened his eyes and explained, ‘Signor Hitler,’ as he passed Pelagia by, anxious that she should perceive the joke and share it.

  In front of his house Kokolios defiantly raised a Communist salute, his arm outstretched, his fist clenched, only to be confounded completely when a small group without an officer cheered him as it passed by and returned the salute, con brio and with exaggeration. He dropped his arm and his mouth fell open with astonishment. Were they mocking him, or were there comrades in the Fascist army?

  An officer looking for his men stopped and questioned the doctor anxiously, waving a map in his face. ‘Ecco una carta della Cephallonia,’ he said, ‘Dov’è Argostoli?’

  The doctor looked into the dark eyes set in a handsome face, diagnosed a terminal case of extreme amiability, and replied, in Italian, ‘I don’t speak Italian, and Argostoli is more or less opposite Lixouri.’

  ‘You speak very fluently for one who doesn’t,’ said the officer, smiling, ‘so where is Lixouri?’

  ‘Opposite Argostoli. Find one and you find the other, except that you must swim between them.’

  Pelagia nudged her father in the ribs, fearful on his behalf. But the officer sighed, lifted his helmet, scratched his forehead, and glanced sideways at them. ‘I’ll follow the others,’ he said, and hurried away. He returned a moment later, presented Pelagia with a small yellow flower, and disappeared once more. ‘Extraordinary,’ said the doctor, scribbling in his notebook.

  A column of men, much smarter than most of the others, marched by in unison. At their head perspired Captain Antonio Corelli of the 33rd Regiment of Artillery, and slung across his back was a case containing the mandolin that he had named Antonia because it was the other half of himself. He spotted Pelagia. ‘Bella bambina at nine o’clock,’ he shouted, ‘E-y-e-s left.’

  In unison the heads of the troops snapped in her direction, and for one astonishing minute she endured a march-past of the most comical and grotesque antics and expressions devisable by man. There was a soldier who crossed his eyes and folded down his lower lip, another who pouted and blew her a kiss, another who converted his marching into a Charlie Chaplin walk, another who pretended at each step to trip over his own feet, and another who twisted his helmet sideways, flared his nostrils, and rolled his eyes so high that the pupils vanished behind the upper lids. Pelagia put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ ordered the doctor, sotto voce. ‘It is our duty to hate them.’

  All over the island there was a burgeoning of graffiti that took merry or malicious advantage of the fact that the Italians could not decipher the Cyrillic script. They mistook Rs for Ps, did not know that Gs can look like Ys or inverted Ls, had no idea what the triangle was, thought that an E was an H, construed theta as a kind of O, did not appreciate that the letter in the shape of a tent was the same as the one that looked like an inverted Y, were baffled by the three horizontal strokes that could also be written as a squiggle, knew from mathematics that pi meant 22 divided by 7, were unaware that E the wrong way round was an S, that the Y could also be written as a V and was in fact an E, were confused by the existence of an O with a vertical stroke that was actually an F, did not understand that the X was a K, failed utterly to find anything that might be meant by the elegant trident, and found that the omega reminded them of an earring. Ergo, conditions were ideal for the nocturnal splashing of white paint in huge letters on all available walls, especially as the quirks of an individual’s handwriting could render the letters even more completely inscrutable. ENOSIS fought for space with ELEPHTHERIA, ‘Long Live The King’ cohabited without apparent anomaly with ‘Workers Of The World Unite’, ‘Wops Fuck Off’ abutted with ‘Duce, Eat My Shit’. An admirer of Lord Byron wrote, ‘I dream’d that Greece might still be free’ in wobbly Roman letters, and General Tsolakoglou, the new quisling leader of the Greek people, appeared everywhere as a cartoon figure, committing various obscene and unpleasant acts with the Duce.

  In the kapheneia and fields the men related Italian jokes: How many gears does an
Italian tank have? One forward and four in reverse. What is the shortest book in the world?The Italian Book of War Heroes. How many Italians does it take to put in a lightbulb? One to hold the bulb and two hundred to rotate the room. What is the name of Hitler’s dog? Benito Mussolini. Why do Italians wear moustaches? To be reminded of their mothers. In the encampments the Italian soldiers in their turn asked, ‘How do you know when a Greek girl is having a period?’ And the answer would be ‘She is wearing only one sock.’ It was a long interlude during which the two populations stood off from each other, defusing by means of jokes the guilty suspicion on the one side and the livid resentment on the other. The Greeks talked fierily in secret about the partisans, about forming a resistance, and the Italians confined themselves to camp, the only signs of activity being the setting up of batteries, a daily reconnaissance by amphibious aircraft, and a mounted curfew patrol that jogged about at dusk, its members more anxious to exercise charm on females than to enforce an early night. Then a decision was made to billet officers upon suitable members of the local population.

  The first thing about it that Pelagia knew was when she returned from the well, only to find a rotund Italian officer, accompanied by a sergeant and a private, standing in the kitchen, looking around with an appraising expression, and making notes with a pencil so blunt that he was obliged to read what he had written by casting the indentations against the light.

  Pelagia had already stopped fearing that she was going to be raped, and had become accustomed to scowling at leers and slapping at the hands that made exploratory pinches of the backside; the Italians had turned out to be the modest kind of Romeo that is resigned to being rebuffed, but does not abandon hope. Nonetheless, she felt a momentary leap of fear when she came in and found the soldiers, and, but for a moment of indecision, she would have turned tail and fled. The plump officer smiled expansively, raised his arms in a gesture that signified, ‘I would explain if I could, but I don’t speak Greek,’ and said, ‘Ah,’ in a manner that signified, ‘How delightful to see you, since you are so pretty, and I am embarrassed to be in your kitchen, but what else can I do?’ Pelagia said, ‘Aspettami, vengo,’ and ran to fetch her father from the kapheneion.

  The soldiers waited, as requested, and soon Pelagia reappeared with her father, who was anticipating the encounter with some trepidation. There was a lurch of dread waiting to surge into his heart and weaken it, but also a cold and detached courage that comes to those who are determined to resist oppression with dignity; he remembered his advice to the boys in the kapheneion – ‘Let us use our anger wisely’ – and squared his shoulders. He wished that he had retained his moustache with the waxed tips, so that he might twist its extremities balefully and censoriously.

  ‘Buon giorno,’ said the officer, holding out his hand hopefully. The doctor perceived the conciliatory nature of the gesture and its lack of conqueror’s hubris, and much to his own surprise he reached out and shook the proffered hand.

  ‘Buon giorno,’ he replied. ‘I do hope that you enjoy your regrettably short stay on our island.’

  The officer raised his eyebrows, ‘Short?’

  ‘You have been expelled from Libya and Ethiopia,’ the doctor said, leaving the Italian to extrapolate his meaning.

  ‘You speak Italian very well,’ said the officer, ‘you are the first one I have come across. We are very badly in need of translators to work with the populace. There would be privileges. It seems that no one here speaks Italian.’

  ‘I think you mean that none of you speak Greek.’

  ‘Just so, as you say. It was only an idea.’

  ‘You are very kind,’ said Dr Iannis acidly, ‘but I think you will find that those of us who do speak Italian will suddenly lose our memory when required to do so.’

  The officer laughed. ‘Understandable under the circumstances. I meant no offence.’

  ‘There is Pasquale Lacerba, the photographer. He is an Italian who lives in Argostoli, but perhaps even he would not like to co-operate. But he is young enough not to know better. As for me, I am a doctor, and I have enough to do without becoming a collaborator.’

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ said the quartermaster, ‘most of the time we don’t understand anything.’

  ‘It’s just as well,’ observed the doctor. ‘Perhaps you could tell me why you’re here?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the man, shifting uneasily, aware of the unpleasantness of his position, ‘the fact is, I am sorry to say, and with great regret, that . . . we shall be obliged to billet an officer on these premises.’

  ‘There are only two rooms, my daughter’s and my own. This is quite impossible, and it is also, as you probably realize, an outrage. I must refuse.’ The doctor bristled like an angry cat, and the officer scratched his head with his pencil. It was really very awkward that the doctor spoke Italian; in other houses he had avoided this kind of scene and left it to the unfortunate guests to explain the situation, by means of grunts and gesticulations, when they turned up unannounced with their kitbags and drivers. The two men looked at one another, the doctor tilting his chin at a proud angle, and the Italian searching for a form of words that was both firm and mollifying. Suddenly the doctor’s expression changed, and he asked, ‘Did you say that you are a quartermaster?’

  ‘No, Signor Dottore, you seem to have worked it out for yourself. I am a quartermaster. Why?’

  ‘So do you have access to medical supplies?’

  ‘Naturally,’ replied the officer, ‘I have access to everything.’ The two men exchanged glances, divining perfectly the train of the other’s thought. Dr Iannis said, ‘I am short of many things, and the war has made it worse.’

  ‘And I am short of accommodation. So?’

  ‘So it’s a deal,’ said the doctor.

  ‘A deal,’ repeated the quartermaster. ‘Anything you want, you send me a message via Captain Corelli. I am sure you will find him very charming. By the way, do you know anything about corns? Our doctors are useless.’

  ‘For your corns I would probably need morphia, hypodermic syringes, sulphur ointment and iodine, neosalvarsan, bandages and lint, surgical spirit, salicylic acid, scalpels, and collodion,’ said the doctor, ‘but I will need a great deal, if you understand me. In the meantime get a pair of boots that fits you.’

  When the quartermaster had gone, taking with him the details of the doctor’s requirements, Pelagia took her father’s elbow anxiously and asked, ‘But Papas, where is he to sleep? Am I to cook for him? And what with? There is almost no food.’

  ‘He will have my bed,’ said the doctor, knowing perfectly well that Pelagia would protest.

  ‘O no, Papas, he will have mine. I will sleep in the kitchen.

  ‘Since you insist, koritsimou. Just think of all the medicine and equipment it will mean for us.’ He rubbed his hands together and added, ‘The secret of being occupied is to exploit the exploiters. It is also knowing how to resist. I think we shall be very horrible to this captain.’

  John Fowles

  FREEDOM

  At the heart of John Fowles’s novel The Magus (1966) lies the following story, recounted by Conchis, the mysterious old man living on a small Greek island, to his young visitor, Nicholas Urfe.

  When during the German occupation of the island in the Second World War four German soldiers were killed, SS Colonel Wimmel not only captured the guerrillas responsible but took 80 islanders hostage. Staging a cruel show trial, he put the fate of the hostages into the hands of Conchis, the mayor.

  WE WERE MARCHED to the harbour. The entire village was there, some four or five hundred people, black and grey and faded blue, crammed on to the quays with a line of die Raben watching them. The village priests, the women, even little boys and girls. They screamed as we came into sight. Like some amorphous protoplasm. Trying to break bounds, but unable to.

  We went on marching. There is a large house with huge Attic acroteria facing the harbour – you know it? – in those days there was a taverna on the ground-floor
. On the balcony above I saw Wimmel and behind him Anton, flanked by men with machine-guns. I was taken from the column and made to stand against the wall under the balcony, among the chairs and tables. The hostages went marching on. Up a street and out of sight.

  It was very hot. A perfect blue day. The villagers were driven from the quay to the terrace with the old cannons in front of the taverna. They stood crowded there. Brown faces upturned in the sunlight, black kerchiefs of the women fluttering in the breeze. I could not see the balcony, but the colonel waited above, impressing his silence on them, his presence. And gradually they fell absolutely quiet, a wall of expectant faces. Up in the sky I saw swallows and martins. Like children playing in a house where some tragedy is taking place among the adults. Strange, to see so many Greeks . . . and not a sound. Only the tranquil cries of little birds.

  Wimmel began to speak. The collaborationist interpreted.

  ‘You will now see what happens to those . . . those who are the enemies of Germany . . . and to those who help the enemies of Germany . . . by order of a court martial of the German High Command held last night . . . three have been executed . . . two more will now be executed . . .’

  All the brown hands darted up, made the four taps of the Cross. Wimmel paused. German is to death what Latin is to ritual religion – entirely appropriate.

  ‘Following that . . . the eighty hostages . . . taken under Occupation law . . . in retaliation for the brutal murder . . . of four innocent members of the German Armed Forces . . .’ and yet again he paused . . . ‘will be executed.’

  When the interpreter interpreted the last phrase, there was an exhaled groan, as if they had all been struck in the stomach. Many of the women, some of the men, fell to their knees, imploring the balcony. Humanity groping for the nonexistent pity of a deus vindicans. Wimmel must have withdrawn, because the beseechings turned to lamentations.