The raft, when we got to it, was a minute, flimsy affair, not much larger than a big soap box, on which there was barely room for one passenger besides the aged ferryman, who, grumbling to himself as he went, propelled it across the rapid current with vigorous but erratic strokes of his pole. Eventually, after a series of individual journeys, each of which landed the passenger, soaked to the skin, at a different point on the opposite bank, we were all across. We bid farewell to the boatman, still grumbling to himself in the darkness, and set out to look for our next target, the village where we were to find reliable guides.
The need for guides was already beginning to make itself felt. We had not gone far when there was the usual hoarse whisper of ‘enemy’. As usual we all stopped dead in our tracks and held our breath, but this time, instead of silence, we heard the unmistakable sound of men making off at full speed through the scrub. This was too much for the Partisans. On all sides of me I could hear the rattle and click of machine pistols and sub-machine guns being cocked and I reflected with alarm that, in our present formation, at that moment a rough semi-circle, an attempt to shoot it out in the darkness with an unseen and possibly imaginary enemy, besides rousing the entire neighbourhood, would almost certainly inflict heavy casualties on our own party. But fortunately more prudent councils prevailed and, while we inflicted, it is true, no damage on the intruders, we at least succeeded in preserving our anonymity.
The incident had convinced me of the advisability of finding our guides as quickly as possible and then continuing our journey to the coast by the most direct route. Somebody, probably, to judge by his behaviour, the enemy, now knew where we were, and, if we continued to wander aimlessly about in the dark, would almost certainly come back in force to deal with us. Mitja, who was in charge of navigation, was accordingly summoned, maps and an electric torch were produced, and a more direct route plotted. Then, hoisting our packs back into position, we started once again to pick our way upwards over the ever-shifting scree of the hillside, our feet sliding back half a yard for every yard that we advanced.
The village for which we were bound lay on some flat ground at the top of the next range of hills. There were, it appeared, Germans quartered in it. The house we were looking for was a farm on the outskirts of the village. The rest of us lay behind a hedge while one of the Partisans went and knocked at the door. For a time nothing happened. Then the door opened a few inches and a whispered conversation took place. Clearly nocturnal visitors were regarded with suspicion.
Finally, after much whispering, a tall, gaunt, elderly man in a cloth cap emerged, with long, drooping moustaches, and a rifle slung over his bent shoulders. He was, it seemed, the Partisans’ chief contact-man in the village, where, under the nose of the Germans, he conducted his own miniature underground movement. Should the Germans be driven out, he would come into his own and probably become mayor. Meanwhile, he led a clandestine, surreptitious existence, full of nerve-racking episodes such as this. He took the lead and we moved silently off. The going — loose, sharp-edged stones — was as bad as ever.
After another hour or two of marching it began to get light. By now we were out of the danger zone and our guide turned back to his village; we had only to follow a clearly marked track which plunged downwards into the valley. There was not much further to go and the knowledge that we were nearing our destination suddenly made us feel tired and sleepy. We plodded along in silence. Dawn, coming up over the hills we had just crossed, was beginning to light the topmost pinnacles of the great range which rose like a jagged wall on the far side of the valley, the last barrier between us and the sea. As the rays of the rising sun touched them, the mountain tops turned to gold. The mist still lay thick in the valley beneath. We wondered, with an increasing sense of urgency, what, if anything, there would be for breakfast.
The country which we were now traversing was almost incredibly rugged and desolate. In some places, amid the great whitish-grey boulders, the stones had been cleared away to form tiny patches of cultivated ground, not large enough to merit the name of fields, where the vivid green of the vines contrasted vividly with the drab background of the rocks. Here and there stood the remains of a peasant’s cottage, its blackened stones an eloquent reminder of the results of Italian military government. Then, rounding a corner, we came upon a church, with three or four houses round it, and a group of Partisans with tommy-guns standing in the roadway. We had reached Zadvarje — our immediate destination.
We asked for Brigade Headquarters and were taken to an upper room in the priest’s house, the largest in the village, where we found the Brigade Commander, a young man in his early twenties, sitting down to a breakfast of black bread and captured ersatz coffee made from roasted grain. He asked us to join him and eagerly we did so. It was not the breakfast I should have ordered from choice, but it was very welcome all the same, and was rendered doubly so by a bottle of rakija which was produced to wash it down. By now it seemed to us the most natural thing in the world to gulp raw spirits at breakfast.
By the time breakfast was over we felt as if we had known the Brigade Commander (and the dozen or so other people who had flocked in to watch us eat) all our lives. Each of them had told us his or her life-story and we, in response to a volley of questions, had reciprocated with a great many personal details of an intimate and revealing nature. The Brigadier, who in civil life was an electrician’s mate and who had been one of the first Partisans in Dalmatia, could not take his eyes off us. To him we seemed, as indeed in a sense we were, beings from another world. How, he wanted to know, had we got here? We explained. What did it feel like to be dropped out of an aeroplane? Had we been sent or had we come because we wanted to? What were we going to do, now that we were here? Might our Government send in arms, and ammunition, and boots, and greatcoats, and food? And would some be sent to Dalmatia?
It was all that we could do to stem the flood of questions and bring the conversation round to our onward journey. This, according to the Brigade Commander, presented no great difficulty. Standing outside the door, he showed us our route. As far as the river at the bottom of the valley, we could travel in a truck which they had captured a few days before. From there onwards — over the last great ridge of Biokovo, and down to the sea — we should have to walk, for the next bridge was down and there was no means of getting the truck across. If we left at midday, we should reach the pass over Biokovo at dusk, which would enable us to complete our journey to the sea under cover of darkness. This was advisable as practically the whole coast was now in German hands, save for the tiny harbour of Podgora, for which we were bound and where we hoped to find some kind of craft to take us across that night to the island of korčula.
Having thus planned our route, the Brigadier next turned his attention to the truck and was soon hard at work at the head of a gang of amateur mechanics. I asked him what was the matter with it and be answered that it had been shot up by a Henschel the day before. ‘The driver was killed,’ he added, ‘but the engine was not badly damaged, and we will soon get it right again.’ He asked us if there was anything we would like to do in the meantime. We said there was: we would like to lie down and go to sleep.
When we woke the sun was high, the truck was ready and it was time to start. We said goodbye to the electrician turned Brigadier. We had only been his guests for a few hours, but I still remember his efficiency, his friendly straightforwardness and his obvious gift of leadership. He was, it seemed to me, a good man by any standards. I tried afterwards to get news of him, but there was bitter fighting in the coastal area in the months that followed and it seems likely that he and most of his men were killed.
Before we started, someone took a group with a camera taken from a German officer, a copy of which was, much to my surprise, to reach me by a courier months afterwards. Then we climbed into the truck; everybody pushed, and we rattled off down the hill in fine style.
The length of the ride hardly justified all the trouble which had been taken to put a v
ehicle on the road. We had scarcely started when we reached the demolished bridge and it was time for us to get out again and walk. But at least our friend the Brigadier had been able to assert the claim of his Brigade to be regarded as partially mechanized, a great source of prestige amongst the Partisans.
Just before we reached the summit of the ridge, we were overtaken by a thunderstorm and torrents of drenching rain, and for a few minutes we sheltered in a peasant’s but by the roadside, full of smoke and smelling of garlic, like a mountaineer’s but in the Alps.
Then the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, and a few minutes later we reached the top and were looking down on the Adriatic, with the islands in the distance, the jagged outline of their mountains grey-blue against the fading red of the sunset. Neither Mitja nor my bodyguard had ever seen the sea before, and so we waited while they accustomed themselves to the idea of so much water. Then the sun sank behind the islands, and we started on our way down.
Below us on the right we could see the lights of Brela, where there was an Ustaše garrison. Further to the north, out of sight, lay Split, where the Germans were now firmly established. Immediately to the south, on our left as we descended, was Makarska also held by the enemy, and, beyond it stretched the peninsula of Pelješac, along which German troops from the garrisons at Mostar and Metković were beginning to advance, in preparation, no doubt, for an invasion of the islands. Somewhere in the darkness at our feet lay Baška Voda, still, for the moment, in Partisan hands.
Once or twice on the way down we were challenged by Partisan patrols, gave the password, and went on. Then, at last, we heard the dogs barking in Baška Voda, were challenged once more, and, passing between high white-washed walls, found ourselves on a narrow jetty, looking out over a tiny harbour.
There was no time to lose if we were to reach Korčula before daylight. While we made a frugal meal off a bottle of Dalmatian wine and a couple of packets of German ship’s biscuits, two Partisans in bell-bottomed trousers and fishermen’s jerseys started work on a fishing smack, fitted with an auxiliary engine, which was to take us across.
Soon everything was ready. The storm had cleared the air and it was a fine night. The wireless set and our kit were put on board; we followed them; I made myself comfortable in the bows with my pack under my head for a pillow, and, with the engine spluttering away merrily in the stern, we set out across the smooth star-lit waters of the Adriatic.
I have seldom slept better. When I woke, we were some way out and, looking back, we could see the lights of Makarska and of the other villages along the coast twinkling across the water. All around us, an unexpected and rather startling sight for one waking from a deep sleep, the dazzling white acetylene lights which the Dalmatians use for fishing flared and flickered from dozens of little boats. In war as in peace, black-out or no black-out, they continued to make their living in their own way, unmolested by Germans or Partisans. I asked our crew whether the Germans made no attempt to keep a check on what was going on. ‘Yes,’ one of them said, ‘they patrol these waters regularly,’ and as he spoke, as if in answer to my question, there came the louder, more regular chugging of a more powerful engine, and a strong searchlight went sweeping over the surface of the sea a mile or two away.
The course which we followed was perforce a roundabout one, in and out amongst the islands. Once we stopped to drop a message at Sučuraj on the eastern extremity of the island of Hvar, half of which was held by the Partisans while the other half was occupied by a force of Ustaše, who had landed on it and were digging themselves in. As we approached Sučuraj, one of the crew, muttering ‘Signal!’ started fumbling in the locker and eventually produced a small lantern, which he lit, and then, standing up, waved a couple of times in the direction of the shore.
The response was immediate; a shower of machine-gun bullets ploughed up the water all round us. ‘Wrong signal,’ said our Partisan gloomily and waved his lantern three times instead of two. Once again the machine gun opened up, this time with rather better aim, and I began to wonder whether we had not perhaps struck the wrong part of the island and were not signalling to Ustaše. Meanwhile we had kept on our course and were by now within hailing distance of the shore. ‘Partizani!’ we shouted hopefully.
To my relief the sentry did not give us another burst. ‘Is that you, Comrade?’ he shouted. ‘I thought it must be, but why did you give the wrong signal?’ And an argument started which was still in progress when, after delivering our message, we once again put out to sea. Soon I was asleep again and when I next woke the sun was coming up behind the mountains on the mainland and we were nearing our destination.
Chapter VI
Island Interlude
THE wooded hills of Korčula stood out black against the pale sky. As we rounded the point and entered the harbour, the first rays of the rising sun were beginning to fall on the old houses of the port. Picking our way through a motley assortment of fishing vessels, we tied up by some stone steps which ran down to the water at the base of an ancient circular tower, emblazoned with the Lion of St. Mark, the symbol of former Venetian domination.
We had arrived.
Although by my watch (Cairo time? Greenwich Mean Time? Central European Time? Double British Summer Time?) it was only five in the morning, a small crowd had soon collected to look at us. It included, I noticed with pleasure, one extremely pretty girl. After the tired, ragged villagers of the mainland, the islanders seemed prosperous and well, almost smartly, dressed. The houses, too, with their white, yellow, or pink walls and their green shutters, were undamaged and looked bright and inviting in the early sunlight. The sea was blue and clear as glass. The whole place had a holiday air that was most agreeable after our exertions and the austerity of Partisan life. Sleepily we tumbled out of our boat and up the steps and asked for Partisan Headquarters.
Everybody knew where it was and everybody came with us to show us the way, chattering merrily to us as we went, for the Dalmatians have something of the cheerful volubility of the Italians they dislike so much. As usual we were plied with innumerable questions. What was happening on the mainland? Were the Germans going to invade the islands? How were they to defend themselves if they did? Had we met Tito? What was he like? Were we English or American? Had we been to California, where their aunt lived? (The Dalmatians are great settlers.) Or Australia, where they had cousins? Would we take a letter to their father’s brother in New Zealand? Did we realize what devils incarnate the Italians were, and how the island had suffered under the occupation? What had we come for? How long were we staying? Were we married? Did we like dancing?
Answering some questions and avoiding others, we made our way, followed by an excited, gesticulating crowd which increased in size as we went along, through the winding streets of the town to the old Venetian palace which housed its new rulers. Over the doorway the Lion of St. Mark stood headless, decapitated by some over-zealous Partisan, anxious evidently to celebrate the end of Mussolini’s rule by destroying the symbol of an earlier period of Italian domination. We went in, through a magnificent colonnade and up a fine Renaissance staircase, at the top of which was a door. We knocked, someone answered, and we entered to find ourselves face to face with a Franciscan friar, who rose to greet us with the clenched fist salute. He was, he said, the Chairman of the Odbor, the local Soviet. We, for our part, explained who we were and what we had come for. He replied that he was delighted to see us and that all the resources of the island would be placed at our disposal. Meanwhile, while we were waiting for a house to be got ready, perhaps we would like to have something to drink.
We said we wouldn’t mind if we did. He rang and a bottle was brought in, closely followed by a curly headed youth of about twenty, who was introduced as the commander of the garrison, a tall, elegant, Edwardian-looking character with a drooping moustache, who turned out to be his political commissar and a brisk little man in a white silk shirt and sun-glasses who had been skipper of a merchant vessel. Glasses were taken out of
a cupboard and filled. The wine, a sunny Dalmatian vintage from the islands, called, with admirable succinctness, grk, was heady and delicious, and soon we were all engaged in animated conversation.
By the time a Partisan arrived to announce that our house was ready we felt that there was hardly anything we did not know about the war-time history of Korčula. We were told of the brutality and licentiousness of the Italians, of the girls who had been seduced and the hostages who had been taken out and shot. Of how the Padre, as our Franciscan was known, had from his monastery kept in touch with the Partisans in the hills. Of how these, under the leadership of the curly headed youth, had been a thorn in the flesh of the Italians, waylaying them on lonely roads and blowing up their lorries and cutting their throats when they least expected it. Of the reprisals. And the counter-reprisals. Of the capitulation and what they had said and done to the Italians before they left for Italy; and the magnificent stores and equipment which they had forced them to leave behind.
When we left, they all came with us and the crowd, who had waited outside, followed along in our wake. We were taken to a little whitewashed house perched on a rocky point overlooking the harbour. From it rough steps ran down to the sea and you could plunge straight into two or three fathoms of clear blue water. The rooms were light and airy and the sun was streaming in through the open windows. In the kitchen a cook was busy preparing a succulent meal. We felt slightly bewildered. It was as though we had rubbed a magic ring and suddenly found ourselves miraculously provided with all the things we had been dreaming of for weeks past. Then the Padre asked us anxiously whether it would do and, having been assured that it would, went off back to his office, promising to come back and see us later.
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