My Italian Adventures

by Lucy de Burgh

  Frank, the captain who was to run it, and had carried out a recce in advance, was waiting to conclude arrangements. He already knew that area on both sides of the Morgan Line, as he had been parachuted into Yugoslavia during the war and at that time collected Tom and Bertie, who were later taken on the staff of the section in Milan as civilian driver-batmen.

  That evening I met my cousin in the bar of the Excelsior, also a naval officer and formerly with our unit but now on his way home.10 I had met my cousin’s wife that morning, and his little son, but she was not well and could not join us in the evening. We had a long chat and exchanged all the family news. He was by now second-in-command of his regiment and frequently recognised friends and acquaintances as we sat and sipped drinks and gossiped. It was not until about two years later that I met him and his wife again and they reminded me of that night, after which it appeared that kind persons had taken it upon themselves to inform his wife that her husband was gallivanting with an AT officer in the bar the very day she came out of hospital!

  Later we went to a fish restaurant, which is apparently the thing to do in Trieste. It was on the waterfront and there was a cool breeze from the sea, and the smell of tar and seaweed permeated the air. It reminded me vaguely of my east coast home, but it did not make me homesick. Trieste was far too exciting for that, with its houses rising up on the hill behind, where it was said that Communists lurked and trouble might be brewing up at any moment. The city and port were quiet then, but when we got back to Rome people were surprised to hear it, as it seemed that some amazing riots had been reported in the papers. It was actually in Rome that the rioting had taken place, when the crowds of anti-monarchist demonstrations had surged up the Via Quattro Fontane, past the ASC hotel, and all round the Royal Palace of the Quirinale. Although by the referendum of the previous June a Republic had been voted for by the majority of the population, the new constitution had not yet taken effect, as for this an act of parliament was necessary. Feelings still ran high on both sides, and in Rome and the south many ardent royalists were still hoping for a return to the throne at least of Vittorio Emanuele’s grandson, if not of King Umberto, his son and heir. But Umberto had not made a great impression at the time on the plebiscite: he had attempted to speak in public outside Milan Cathedral, but some ripe tomatoes were thrown at him and Cardinal Schuster, Archbishop of Milan, and they both beat a hasty retreat into the sanctuary behind; it was said that if he had stood his ground, Umberto might have won a place for himself. The Italian royal family was unfortunately too much identified, at least in the public mind, with Mussolini and all that he stood for, and in the wave of popular anger that caused Mussolini’s shameful death, there was no remembrance of anything good. In Trieste, however, the royal family was a side issue compared with the international problems that occupied the day-to-day existence of the Triestini. But our visit was too short to acquire any more than a fleeting impression of the place and its unique set-up.

  Next day we were back on the road for Padua, on a visit to GHQ, CMF. I did not feel very bright and at last was moved to protest as Bruno excelled himself and drove over the pitted roads at about 70mph. At length the CO ordered him to drive at a more reasonable pace and he grudgingly obeyed, grumbling to himself in wheezing and partly audible Italian, which apparently was intended to convey his disapproval of everything in a way that was just about intelligible, without being reprehensible.

  Note

  10 Colonel John Alleyne Addey. His son Simon was also to be a soldier, later a Queen’s Messenger, and attended Lucy’s 90th birthday party at Richmond in 2010.

  33

  Sacred and Profane

  W hen we got back to Rome from Trieste, I was able to hold a long-delayed birthday party, and had persuaded the maestro of our hotel trio to come along with his two co-musicians. The party was arranged in our sitting room and we danced, drank and ate all the titbits I had managed to get from the maître d’hotel and a few more besides, such as nuts, olives and NAAFI biscuits. I always found the hotel staff very obliging and helpful when anything in the entertainment line was called for. Through the auspices of the town mayor, who had been very kind to Judy and me, I had discovered a wonderful wine distiller’s out at Grottaferrata, where one could buy Frascati Spumante on the spot where it was made, at a very reasonable price, equivalent to about half-a-crown a bottle. This had proved to be the best and least alcoholic drink to offer anyone, and incidentally it seemed fairly opulent, though it was actually far cheaper than many less deluxe beverages; but champagne, even when it called itself ‘Spumante’, always sounded and looked good.

  All in all the party, comprising between twenty and thirty people, was a success and I felt encouraged to repeat the performance a few months later, having meanwhile saved up enough lire to provide the champagne and titbits, not to speak of cigarettes for the maestro and his brood, for which they were very grateful. They played for us all evening, from ten o’clock onwards, with the greatest goodwill and jollity – without their co-operation I could never have managed an orchestra.

  On one occasion the maestro invited me to a concert at his old school, a church school on the Aventine Hill, where he was conducting the orchestra. It was a Sunday afternoon, and my companion and I were shown to seats in the second row. In front of us was a distinguished gathering of High Church dignitaries, including at least one cardinal in bright crimson robes; these personages were probably the college principal and various colleagues or friendly clerics. In front of such a serious-minded audience, on a Sunday afternoon, one would have expected mainly church music to be played, Bach and Handel, for instance. We were astonished when the maestro at last appeared, resplendent in tails, white tie and waistcoat, and after a few bows and some welcoming applause led the orchestra off into a hot jazz number to which the venerable persons in front seemed almost to be tapping their feet, and nodding in time to the rhythm. Almost the whole programme was noticeably secular in character, but the audience, including the dignitaries, thoroughly enjoyed the performance; and I personally thought it a far more amusing afternoon’s entertainment, especially as the playing was excellent, than listening to what one would have expected in Sabbath-conscious England on a Sunday afternoon. At the end of the performance the maestro descended from the podium amid a storm of applause, and was warmly congratulated by the ecclesiastical VIPs in the front rows, and heartily embraced by many on both cheeks, in true continental fashion. The enthusiasm was tremendous and there was a genuine friendliness about everyone that made it all rather like a speech day at a public school at home.

  The wine distiller’s at Grottaferrata was known as the Cantina Santovetti, and I never met the owner, only the manager and his employees. These included a swarthy bright-eyed peasant with a stubbly beard and a woman of about 35 who, strangely enough for Italy, appeared to be a spinster. The first time I visited the Cantina it was in October and we saw the immense vats pressing the grapes down in a colossal tank of fermented liquid, which would eventually be drained and form the white Frascati wine, which was the basis of the Spumante. Red Frascati wine was also made here. The Cantina was in a sort of cave, without windows, but with electric light installed, and housing rows upon rows of bottles and enormous bottles of wine. We were always offered a drink on the spot and found the people most friendly; we established cordial relations, and I went out several times that winter and chatted with them and obtained some of the popular brew. On the road to and from Grottaferrata one could often see the peasants on their gaily painted carts, with coloured hoods, en route for Rome with huge vats of wine loaded behind – wine of the ‘Castelli Romani’ or ‘Roman castles’, as the vintages from this area are usually called.

  A rather cosmopolitan haunt which I discovered about that time was the Caffè Greco, which was the most famous café in Rome, as renowned as the Orso and almost as old an establishment. It was an old-fashioned place, somewhat on the lines of a Viennese coffee-house, situated in the Via Condotti, off the Piazza di Spagna,
and near the little house in which our Keats lived and died, and which is still kept as a memorial to him and other English poets of his period. The Caffè Greco, with its plush seats, its marble-topped tables and its partitions and alcoves, has always been frequented by eminent men of letters and the arts as well as patronised by exiled or visiting royalty – Keats, Shelley, Byron, Goethe, d’Annunzio, Gounod, Gogol, Wagner and King Ludwig of Bavaria are only a few among the famous names whose signatures one can find in the massive leather-bound visitors’ books, where I also inserted my humble signature, among many contemporary English and American ones.

  Yet another haunt, and a vastly different one, which I made the acquaintance of that winter, was the Quirinetta nightclub, reopened about that time. Now that one was free to visit any local spots, the officers’ clubs became less well patronised, but the prohibitive prices in the civilian places of entertainment made any visits paid to them very rare occasions. They were for rich Italians (and foreigners) and probably the vast majority of Romans had never even set foot inside them, just as hardly any Parisians are to be seen at the Lido or the Folies Bergère. But the Quirinetta, whatever it may have been like pre-war, or is now, had at that time a slightly decadent vitality about it, which was entrancing and perhaps a little dangerous. You went down a thickly carpeted flight of stairs, and left hats and coats at the cloakroom halfway. The room itself was low, with tables at each end and in alcoves at one side. On the other side was a small dais for the band and in front of it, holding the centre, a small dance-floor.

  The band was small, only four players, but together they formed a first-class and highly versatile dance orchestra. The music varied from Argentine and Hawaiian to Italian, German, French and English jazz, with perhaps a Negro spiritual or an Indian love song, not to speak of a Spanish habanera, thrown in for good measure. There was always something catching about the music, whether sad or gay, the rhythm was impeccable and one just had to dance. The violinist and leader of this orchestra was a little, quiet modest man, who had as his assistants a pianist, a saxophonist or accordionist (mostly he was the latter) and a drummer. It was the drummer who was the life and soul of the quartet; he was tall and hulky, but thin and wiry with it, and looked something like a boxer or a paratrooper – in fact immensely tough. His energy was dynamic and his facial contortions were almost mesmeric – it was said by some that he had a strange fascination for women and by others that he took drugs. Whether or not all this was true, his rhythm was faultless and he had personality. Sometimes he sang the wild sambas and rumbas, while he beat his drums to an intense crescendo, a hank of mouse-coloured hair flopping Hitler-like over one eye. At other times he would address some of the dancers as they passed him by – his penetrating gaze missed no-one. He was without doubt one of the management’s greatest assets.

  All sorts of people frequented the Quirinetta: Roman nobility, actresses, business people, politicians, Allied officers, embassy officials, black marketeers, tourists – there was always a motley crowd of smartly dressed people there, the women often in extravagant hats, the men in well-cut lounge units, with the cream or white silk ties that Italian men wear for informal smart occasions. The floor, like some in London, was minute and often there was scarcely room to place one foot in front of the other, so everyone jogged up and down on the spot, revolving extremely slowly, and swaying rather than dancing. It was nothing to see a tall, willowy lady, surmounted by several ostrich plumes on a model piece of millinery, curving gently over her partner, a small, dapper gentleman, as they both hopped to and fro from one foot to the other in time to the pulsating, exotic throb of a Mexican samba. The dresses were of all colours – mostly of light materials and vivid hues – nothing of the sombre black which is always considered so chic in other places. As you arrived at this place and as you left, an Italian woman clad in black calico with thick stockings and wooden-soled slippers would sell you a gardenia, or press you to buy a spray of roses, which sometimes by the early hours would be somewhat wilted. Perhaps it was the contrast in the Quirinetta to the life going on in the city as a whole that made it attractive – its unreality, which made it like a vivid dream. Some starved in Italy while others danced and made merry; it was far from the Welfare State conception, and yet there was on the whole astonishingly little bitterness at the goings on of ‘i signori’. Perhaps by now there has been a little more levelling out, but in Rome the distinctions were sharp between rich and poor – only the sunshine was available to all, and what a blessing for the poor!

  The Rome Golf Club was another favourite meeting place for the well-to-do. I once saw it in the summer – it had a delightful setting, with green lawns and a swimming-pool, set near a little wood just off the Appian Way, outside the city walls. One visit sufficed, however, as there seemed to be more sunbathing and staring than golf or even swimming. It was a sort of smart country club, and had once been extensively patronised by Ciano and his circle.11 Now that he was no longer on the scene one could not help wondering how many of his former friends and acquaintances still frequented the golf club, or could afford to; this was a luxury spot and even to use the swimming pool was quite expensive. To me, Ostia with its sandy beach, rafts and diving boards, and its sea breezes, was preferable to the sophisticated languor of the club off the Via Appia.

  An experience that winter of quite a different nature was a Beatification at the Vatican. This is a ceremony next in importance to a Canonisation, and I was lucky in being able to attend it, for many people, service personnel among them, had come from all over Italy for the occasion. Immense crowds had foregathered at St Peter’s, and the Pope played the leading role at the ceremony. We were quite astonished by the barrage of photographers in the galleries and the rows of field-glasses, which were trained on the milling throng in the nave and transept from small balconies in the walls and pillars. The deportment of many people, even priests, seemed strange to us, so wild was the enthusiasm after the Pope’s entry. He was born aloft on a chair, clad all in white silk, a gold cross embroidered on his breast, and he made the sign of the Cross and blessed the people as he passed. His face was serious and careworn, but infinitely spiritual. As he moved on, there were acclamations of applause and shouts of joy, and some people rushed from spot to spot to see him better. The same occurred after the ceremony, as he went out, when some young priests even lifted up their long cassocks and, clutching black umbrellas firmly in their hands, ran down St Peter’s at the double, to glimpse His Holiness as he finally disappeared in the direction of the Vatican. What impressed us most was the almost hysterical devotion of the people; it was a sort of religious ecstasy, culminating in the sight of the Pope. He was acclaimed as a hero, which indeed in the spiritual sense he is, and yet he is in fact only God’s representative. To us Protestants, and English at that, it was puzzling and impressive. I asked the driver, who had also been there, what he thought of it all; he had apparently found it interesting too, for his only comment was a laconic but emphatic ‘smashing’.

  As usual my Roman adventures, whether serious or frivolous, were curtailed by a journey up north. During the first week of November I was sent up to Milan to do a few jobs for the CO. The section was now all but closed, just a skeleton staff remaining until the ‘marching-out state’ had been taken and the villa handed back to its owners, and the officers’ hotel had also been shut down, with just a small men’s transit mess left. I was therefore obliged to stay in the YWCA, but this was no hardship as the YW was a cosy little hotel, near the Piazza della Scala and therefore very central.

  Besides visiting the section, of course, I had to call on a few Italians, including one wealthy lady, whose husband was claiming for some form of vehicle to replace the one he had lost when the prisoners escaped from Fontanellato. Their flat was smart, opulent and extremely comfortable, situated in a modern block near the cathedral. I discussed the business with the Signora, her husband being at his office, and according to my instructions, was only able to offer her a 15cwt in replacement of t
heir own civilian car, but she agreed to be content with this and afterwards gave me tea and petits-fours with her son and daughter. They were all very friendly, but the Signora could not resist observing to me that such organisations as the Women’s Services would not be possible in Italy, where temperaments were hotter, and ‘nice’ girls would not wish to enrol, although of course there had been some of the ‘other sort’ working in various capacities with the soldiers. I agreed with her, saying of course that emotionally the British and Italians were totally different types (I was well aware that most Italians think the British are cold-blooded). So everyone seemed to be in agreement, and they accepted me for the weird creature I was, doubtless discussing me and my kind in detail afterwards, and professing conventional and well-bred disapproval at the existence of women in uniform and speculating as to what morals we could even profess, let alone practise.

  Another visit I had to pay was to Signor Fabrizi, a young man who had guided ex-prisoners over the mountains into Switzerland and finally been obliged to flee there himself to escape the long arm of the Gestapo. He was jobless and had an aged mother to support. The CO tried hard to get him to England, where he wanted to work for a time as a pastry cook, his trade, but British labour regulations would not permit this and no relaxation was allowed, even to reward someone who had risked his life to save our own people. At that time Fabrizi’s fate was still in the balance, but I had to put him in touch with an official of the consulate in Milan, who had promised to do all he could to help. After our discussion, Fabrizi insisted on taking me to see the famous ‘Last Supper’ of Leonardo da Vinci, for which I was very grateful, as it was not yet officially open to public inspection, having been somewhat damaged by Allied bombing. So much has been said about this most famous of pictures that there is no point in my describing it. Suffice to say that it is a masterpiece among masterpieces, and that the expressions of Christ and the apostles seem painted by an artist not only of consummate skill, but also of deep religious fervour and profound understanding.