That was the end of it as far as I was concerned, indeed almost the end of it as far as the Division was concerned; for that attack too failed and the Division was moved to another sector. When the little village of Gemmano ultimately fell – not to the Ox and Bucks who had made the first attempt, not to the Queen’s Brigade who had made the second attempt, not to 46 Division who relieved us to make the third attempt – but, ten days after my night ride, to 4 Indian Division, it had claimed the lives of well over a thousand men. I say this to put my own small adventure into perspective.
Nevertheless, tame though that adventure was compared with what our infantry did and suffered, Gemmano became for me a name to remember, a place where (or near where) many things happened.
For it was here that I experienced not only the Adventure of War, not only (when that adventure had come to an end and the German shelling had started) the Horror of War, but also the Fruits of War.
For yes, it was indeed this third side of my triangle that had made me so light-hearted on my night-ride down the deserted road. Afraid? What was there to be afraid of? There may have been men crouching behind guns, but dwarfing them was the town of Montefiore behind us, was the great ridge that flanked the plain we were driving through, were the olive trees and the vineyards that lay around us. In the dark I could scarcely see them, but in the dark one’s awareness comes through another sense, a sense I had discovered four years earlier at Cotchford: one feels. And I felt all around me the Land of Italy, and I knew that it was both powerful and benevolent. Some in my position might have felt this great, all-pervading presence as a Person, might have given it the name of God. I didn’t because this was a word that held for me a different meaning, one that was associated with Church Parades, sermons and childhood beliefs that now seemed false. For me it was never a Person. Indeed I scarcely questioned what it was for I never really thought about it at the time; and it is only now that I am trying to sort out my various experiences that I have come to see that, of the many fruits that Italy had to offer me, this was the greatest of them all.
I found it that night below Gemmano. I found it not just where one would expect to find it – in the picturesque countryside and in the fine views of distant mountains; not just when the guns were silent – as we crossed the Plain of Naples or made our way north to the Gothic Line through Umbria and the Marches. I found it even at Anzio.
The British have always felt an affection for their disasters. If two names survive from the Italian campaign, the first is certainly Cassino, the second is probably Anzio; and both were equally awful. We were taken to Anzio by Landing Ship from Naples and we brought with us no illusions. We had been told the worst: that things had gone badly wrong there, that the Germans were attacking very powerfully and for the first time in the campaign were using aircraft on a considerable scale, so that we were likely to be bombed as well as shelled.
If a disaster is of one’s own making, one feels perhaps some responsibility for putting it right; but this was somebody else’s fault, nothing to do with us at all. We were just being called in to pull their chestnuts out of the fire; and we felt no enthusiasm for the task. So we arrived in low spirits, and the sight of the bombed and battered town did nothing to reassure us. As we drove in convoy through the cratered streets my mouth was dry and my stomach tight. But out in the country on the far side reassurance came with a flood; for the countryside was not Italian – it was English!
I don’t suppose that anyone today, visiting the fields and woods that were once the Pontine Marshes, would be particularly struck either by their beauty or by their Englishness, but this was what most forcibly struck me, and the difference it made was immense.
I remember in particular the day the order came that we were to stop being Engineers and take over a section of the line from an infantry company. Then indeed we knew that the situation was desperate. The one great blessing that Engineers enjoy is that, whatever the hazards of our work, when it is done we can return to billets that are always both comfortable and safe, and there we can relax. This is a blessing totally denied to the infantry who must sleep where they work and live where they die. So here we were, our tents left behind, our vehicles left behind, our cookhouse left behind, marching up to the front and to who knew what dangers and discomforts.
It was beginning to grow dark when we halted, the first stage of our journey completed. I have no particular recollection of the place, just of a slit trench three feet wide and six feet long with a thick bed of straw at the bottom. I climbed into it and found it more comfortable than any bed I had ever known. I lay there luxuriating in the comfort, then slipped peacefully and happily to sleep. In the middle of the night there came a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my ear: it was time to get up. We – the Platoon commanders – were now to be shown the next stage of our journey, memorizing it so that we could then guide our platoons forward to the green hillside beneath whose grassy surface we were to spend – like moles – the next two weeks. And as I moved along the footpaths, beside the hedges, across the fields and through the copses I might have been walking through Sussex countryside, so friendly did it all feel, so much like home.
This inspiration that I drew from my surroundings was always strongest at night and particularly when I was alone. I suppose this is only natural, for then there were no distractions: no voices to listen to and none of the sights of war – the incredible mess that is made not just by the fighting but by the mere presence of an army in occupation – to spoil the view. And so I felt it most when perhaps I most needed it: out on patrol in the silent country that lies between the two sleeping armies. Alone in the dark, yet not alone, for all around me were the hills. And the rocks and the trees and the bushes and the grasses were there as they had been for hundreds upon hundreds of years. The war was only a tiny thing fought between two tiny armies. Italy herself was at peace. We could kill each other; we could batter the landscape and destroy its buildings; we could litter it with our bodies and with all the debris of our fighting; we could shout ourselves hoarse. But we could not touch the peace that lay around us, in the distant mountains, in the little rounded hills, in the lush valleys, in the vineyards, under the great chestnut trees Peace, beauty, sanity and a great and all-pervading Benevolence: almost always, almost everywhere these were with us, and they dwarfed the lunacy and ugliness of what we were doing.
All my life I have found reassurance in the countryside; have found sorrows and anxieties benefitting from a walk through a meadow. In the past if I had been asked to explain why this was so, I think I would have ascribed to the meadow a fairly passive role. I went to it; it did not come to me. I knew what it had to offer; it knew nothing and cared nothing for my needs. Nor would I have credited it with offering anything more than I was conscious of: pleasant sights, pleasant sounds, pleasant smells, something to take my mind off its particular worry, as refreshing and restoring as a cool drink on a hot day. So it had seemed at Cotchford when I was a boy. So it seemed in Italy. In Italy I certainly needed all the reassurance I could get; and I found it there. But if I had thought about it at all (and I didn’t think about it much) I would have said that the mountains were no more than kindly spectators at the drama that was being played out up and down their slopes – not participants.
Today I am not so sure. Or rather if I believe it with my head I might dispute it with my heart. Today I am less of a mathematician less of a scientist than I once was and I don’t listen only to reason, sometimes I prefer Shakespeare.
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard in the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confus’d events
New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night: some say the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
Let the geologist with his sei
smograph and his Richter scale say what he likes, this is what happened on the night Macbeth murdered Duncan.
Scientists can tell us a lot but they cannot tell us all. Sometimes the poet can tell us more. And just as I prefer a poetic to a scientific account of an event that occurred in 1040 so I prefer a poetic to a scientific interpretation of what happened on the night of March 24th 1944.
We had just come back from Anzio. Our landing ship had taken us to Naples and from there we had driven to Nocera, a town about twelve miles away on the edge of the Plain, to begin our four months’ holiday. I remembered Nocera. My bridging lorries had spent a night in a jam factory there back in October. It had been a happy and memorable occasion. Two days earlier we had crossed the mountains at San Severino, had looked down on to the Plain of Naples and had seen in the distance the famous Mount Vesuvius. ‘See Naples and die,’ they say; and whatever exactly is meant by that, I think we all felt that here was a historic moment in our lives. And the view lived up to the expectation: so green, so peaceful after the noise and destruction of Salerno. An island of peace, it looked. And over to the left, the Lord of the Island – the volcano – unmistakably regal with its crown of white cloud floating just above its head, the only cloud in all the blue expanse of sky. So it was only proper that our guns should have fallen silent and that the two battling armies should be crossing this holy place on tip-toe, their squabbling not to be resumed until the Plain of Naples lay behind us and Vesuvius was out of sight.
Thus it was on my first visit to Nocera; and now here we were again, conquering heroes, proud of our exploits, swaggering back.
Oh, bliss! We had got out of Anzio alive! For six weeks we had scarcely taken off our boots, let alone our trousers. We were filthy. Our clothes were filthy. And now, waiting for us at the Italian army barracks where we were to be billeted, were hot baths and new clothes. I threw away a shirt that had become more black than khaki. I threw away, more sadly, a jersey whose many holes I had darned with such loving care. And more sadly still I threw away my officer’s peaked cap. I had bought it so proudly at Aldershot; I had worn it so proudly ever since; I liked it battered, but now it was battered beyond wearing. And I emerged, like a butterfly from its chrysalis, not quite sure if I was still the same person.
Nevertheless, this was undoubtedly an occasion that called for a little celebration; and so that evening Major Smith invited his fellow officers to join him for dinner at the Albergo Capuccini in Amalfi.
I have no memory of the meal, only of the drink that followed it. A stirrup cup, one for the road, what shall it be? Cognac seemed appropriate: seven cognacs for seven brave soldiers. We stood in a group in front of the glowing embers of a fire feeling very happy and pleased with ourselves. We’re just back from Anzio, we had told a couple of Canadians. ‘Gee, Anzio! That must have been tough! We were on the Sangro,’ they said. ‘That was tough, too, but, boy, Anzio must have been a whole lot tougher.’ It was nice to see how impressed they were. . . . And now here were our drinks. We raised our glasses. Cheers! I took a cautious sip. I was not much of a drinker in those days. It was only four months since I had ventured my first glass of wine; and my monthly entitlement to gin and sherry had always been passed to others. So it is not surprising that the cognac seemed about as drinkable as undiluted liquid fire. Luckily my companions were also finding it stronger than they had expected. We struggled on, sip by sip. Brave soldiers don’t surrender; veteran fighters can take their liquor. But in the end I had to give up.
‘Throw it on the fire, then.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I will. Fire to fire: that’s where it belongs.’ And with a theatrical gesture I did.
Immediately a great sheet of flame leapt out into the room, grabbed the drink and swallowed it at a gulp; and seven brave soldiers recoiled. . . .
Thus the Prologue. Now the Play. It is night. The scene is a mountain top; and here another fire that had been glowing quietly has suddenly flared. . . . Look, here it comes again, blood-red and molten, retched up out of the ground, spilling over, pouring down the mountain side, setting the vines alight, crackling and writhing, pressing on over their twisted, blackened bodies, pressing relentlessly forward, an irresistible tide that burnt and flattened all that ay in its path. . . . We could see it from Nocera. We watched it from a landing window on our way up to bed. We missed the detail, of course, for it was twelve miles away. But the blood-red fire was plainly visible, rising up, spilling over, pouring down. And we knew that it came from Vesuvius and that Vesuvius was erupting.
I lay in bed. . . . I cannot swear to pyjamas and sheets, only to bare toes, iron bed, white-washed ceiling and a solid roof above that. A pleasure to be lingered over, like the first night of the school holidays. . . . I lay in bed luxuriating, and in no hurry to go to sleep. . . .
I lay in bed. . . . I had been asleep and now I was awake and could continue luxuriating. There are few greater pleasures than lying in bed in the early morning knowing that it is an hour before one need get up. After six weeks at Anzio to lie in a bed that was clean, that was dry and that was safe, and then to become conscious of the sound of rain beating down on the roof overhead, to hear it fairly rattling down and to know that it couldn’t reach me: never in my life had I known more blessed luxury. Even today the memory of it is unrivalled, undimmed. . . .
The door opened and someone came in.
‘Half past six, sir.’
It can’t be! It’s still pitch dark.
‘Have a look out of the window, sir.’
I went to the window and looked.
There was a layer of cinders on the sill and the street outside was black.
I dressed and went outside. Cinders crunched underfoot as I crossed the yard. Cinders flying like hailstones stung my face and hands and caught in the folds of my tunic and in my hair. Shielding my face I looked up at the sky. A great black cloud, blacker than any I had ever seen, stood over us. At first I thought all the sky was black. Then I saw that the cloud was wedge-shaped, streaming out to us from Vesuvius, over us and away to the south east where it became tinged with brown. On either side was blue sky. I stooped to pick up a handful of cinders. They were hard, like clinkers, mostly the size of small peas but some as large as hazel nuts.
The rain of cinders continued all day. The black blanket grew thicker: two inches, three inches, four inches. We stayed indoors. If we ventured out it was with hands in pockets and tin hat on head. Cinders were still flying when news reached us that roofs were collapsing and at once a party of men armed with shovels went up on to our own roof; and as they shovelled so more cinders fell.
At 7 o’clock in the evening the sky cleared. The storm had lasted fourteen hours and our shroud was seven inches thick. Next morning we set to work to dig ourselves out. Bulldozers were busy on the main road two hundred yards away and it took us a whole day to reach them. The following day we left, driving carefully down the narrow track through the black streets.
On the main road I had my last view of Vesuvius. All round us the countryside was in mourning: black vineyards, black fields, black mountains. Above us was the blue sky. And in between the two was the volcano. A veil of smoke draped its summit, and, rising above, piled majestically fold upon fold, towering up into the sky and looking as solid as the mountain beneath, was a gigantic pillar of cloud.
There it stood in its glory and its triumph. A geological phenomenon, and no more than the merest coincidence? No! The Lord of the Plain had spoken. The Land of Italy had delivered her judgement. Like naughty children we hurried away.
11. War – The Lesson
I have often looked back on my five years in the army, on my four years with 56 Division, on my two and a half years in Italy; and sometimes I have felt that they were five wasted years, years that could have been better spent qualifying for some profession, years that put me at a disadvantage compared with those who, younger than I, had missed the war and got ahead: sometimes I felt that I was one of war’s casualties. But that
mood passed. At other times I looked back with private pride and satisfaction on what I had done. It had not been much really. But I was proud that I had started in the ranks, proud that I had spent so long overseas, proud to have been in 56 Division, serving in Italy throughout the campaign, proud to have achieved my ambition of commanding a Platoon in a Divisional Field Company, and very, very proud that I had been wounded. At other times I was grateful that during those four years abroad I had seen so much of the world: Cape Town, Bombay, half a dozen different deserts, and Italy. Italy in particular. At other times I just felt how lucky I had been to have found so much that was good, so little that was bad: that those five years had provided me with a foundation stone, strong and lasting, on which to build my adult life. And at times – and especially at this very moment – I looked back with an agonizing realization of the price that had been paid. It is this realization that has made these such difficult chapters to write: for how could I describe my many blessings when others had known only the curse of war. If I had received, they had paid. That I might come home, they had stayed behind.
So I must end with two small memories, both from Anzio, both from the time when we were pretending to be infantry. Yes, pretending. For let me make it quite clear that we were never the real thing. We never did what they did. We never suffered what they suffered. We couldn’t: we weren’t good enough. We just occupied reserve positions behind their front line. And when that line was dented, it was not we but the real infantry who had to counter attack to restore the situation. And one evening, as the sun was setting, we watched the counter attack go in.
The Path Through the Trees Page 10