Our other male member was a Captain Smithers, affectionately known as ‘Auntie’. His chief claim to eccentricity was that he ate no lunch. While we were all digesting whatever RASC (Royal Army Service Corps) had provided, his poor inside would be painfully rumbling between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. At three o’clock he broke his fast and allowed himself his sandwiches, neatly packed in a tin each morning by his wife, for he was billeted at home. Occasionally, when a general’s inspection was in the offing, Auntie had to retire to the office cupboard and demolish his sandwiches in hiding. His main meal of the day was in the evening and he then made up for his missing lunch. Sometimes he would invite us all to dinner, where we fed like Epicureans. He and his wife were experts in food and wine, and even in 1943 they were able to produce caviar.
But an even more happy memory is that of the delightful evenings we spent in the Smithers’ large and attractive flat, forgetting the war for a time and discussing many interesting things, such as art and foreign travel, which one tended to forget in those gloomy days. Captain Heath and his wife also entertained us very kindly, and these excursions away from the mess made a very pleasant change from the customary routine of dinner, coffee, chores and bed.
Hilary, the other ATS officer, was a junior commander, with three pips. She was a strange, quiet and modest person, but we got on well together, though she hated and shunned social life, whereas I enjoyed it. After my initial shyness had worn off, I was beginning to find interest in the huge crowd, constantly changing, in the large inter-service mess in which we lived. Once a week or so, I went to the Other Ranks’ (ORs) dances, and began to realise what very good dancers the soldiers were.
We had a company of ATs attached to us, and they did all the cooking, batting for the women officers and administrative clerking. Later on, as manpower became tighter and tighter, they also did batting for the male officers, but only after very specific rules had been laid down for their observance – and that of their officers. They were not allowed in the officers’ quarters before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m., etc., etc. My batwoman was a twin, or rather the two twins batted for our wing. To me they both looked exactly alike and I never could tell the difference, although people told me that one of them had false teeth and was therefore distinguishable from her sister. Anyway, they looked after us splendidly and were always bright and cheerful.
As regards the food, it was not at all bad, though I have felt positive nausea ever since at the sight of a bread-and-butter pudding, so often did the spare bread get used up in this way. One thing in connection with the food was the tinned milk – we had mostly tinned milk, some sweet, which took a lot of getting used to. When the unit qualified for a full time ATS messing officer, the catering improved. Funnily enough, I became very friendly with the messing officer and found that I had known her husband, then serving overseas, since childhood.
I had a small electric ring stove, on which I used to boil cocoa at night (I think we scrounged a little left-over milk). This was most comforting last thing, although it was forbidden to use electrical appliances. We even made marmalade out of one or two oranges – or even just orange peel – later on, after everyone was given individual rations of sugar. The girls made excellent cakes for afternoon tea, which we had in the mess, going back to the office afterwards. We appreciated that tea, which was most refreshing after poring over reports and papers all afternoon, especially in the hot summer. Something which grew in abundance locally was mushrooms, which could be gathered in the fields around our stately home. I had a nice boyfriend, who picked them for me and gave them to an ATS waitress before breakfast. I can still see her look of conspiratorial glee as she served me with the token mushrooms.
During my work at this time I met many interesting people, who in civvy street had done all sorts of different jobs. Most of them had travelled, some very extensively. There were among us a famous pianist, a conductor, a well-known actor, an outstanding psychiatrist, people who had been in business or the consular service, teachers, lawyers and people of other professions. The psychiatrist was held in awe by some, in scorn by others, but in general was universally liked, and quite well aware of the effect that his designation, belonging to the ‘Army Psychiatric Corps’, had on the most hard-bitten of officers. I always remember him at breakfast, which he invariably attended bright and early; he was very alert at all times, perhaps in contrast to everyone else, especially first thing in the morning. With a charming smile he would bend towards his next-door neighbour, or the man opposite, and enquire quite innocently and apropos of nothing, ‘And what do you think of Beethoven?’ Some people maintained that he was writing secret psychological analyses of us all, while others quoted him as saying that the only sane person in the whole unit was the transport officer. I just remember him making me earrings of cherries at a dance in summer 1943, but doubtless he had forgotten psychology on that occasion.
Christmas 1942, my first in the army, was wonderful. The officers served the troops at midday and had their own party in the evening. I remember washing up and scouring some of the most enormous pots and pans I had ever seen. It was tremendous fun, as was also the Christmas dance. We had a very good band, for talent was not lacking. Most of the soldiers were not afraid to dance with one if one wore pips on one’s shoulders, thank goodness, or we might have had a pretty thin time. Our office cleaner used to make a point of dancing with all the ladies – in fact sometimes more than convention permitted. Sometimes his swarthy Celtic face with its shock of unruly black hair would appear at our office windows at the most unexpected moments, with a naughty look in his black gleaming eyes. His nickname was Sambo. We missed him when he went off to more active service, as a lot of our other ranks did as time wore on.
The girls lived in a compound away from the main building, mostly in Nissen huts. They were probably not too comfortable, but complained very little. At least they had good food, and enough of it, and they could never have lacked boyfriends.
During 1943 our American invasion began, and we soon had a great many Americans of different ranks and services attached to us. Some of them were still ‘unassimilated’, as one might say, i.e., they were still more European, of different countries, than actually American, with their own particular accents and mannerisms. But somehow they already bore a stamp that unmistakably marked them out as from the US.
In our office also we had a change. Hilary went away for health reasons, and I took over from her and was given one assistant, and then another. The second wore her hair in a swept-up style like my room-mate and became known, likewise affectionately, as ‘Bath-Cap’. She had a double-barrelled name that took one right back to Killarney, or some such place, and was, I would say, an Irish rebel. She eventually succeeded me in the office.
Meanwhile, I had put in my application for a transfer overseas after Christmas 1942. It was not viewed with much favour and, I suspect, was shelved for some months. I submitted it three times in all, either written or verbally. On one occasion, the colonel told me I was a ‘naughty girl’ to wish to go overseas, but that did not deter me. My father kept on pressing me to be more active about it, but I had a horror of senior ranks and interviews with them, and I hated making a nuisance of myself – my parents did not realise that the commanding officer and the second-in-command were like the gods in Valhalla to a young, inexperienced and nervous second subaltern. But finally the index got me down, and as I was becoming increasingly interested in the administrative side of ATS work, I decided to try for a transfer to that, and asked to be sent on the admin course at Egham. Needless to say, my request was refused, but I think the powers-that-be were tiring of my applications, because a short time afterwards the colonel’s personal assistant sent for me and told me that I had just half a minute to make my mind up: did I want to go abroad, to an unknown destination, at any moment, or not? It did not take me half a minute to form my decision. It was the chance I had been waiting for and it would also get me out of an awkward predicament in my personal affairs, which was
on my mind and had to be disposed of somehow. This was not the first time that I felt there is a hand guiding one’s human destiny. I felt instinctively that this opportunity must be grasped, come what may.
3
Wheels Within Wheels
A fter the first thrilling moment of decision, there was a wait of about a month or six weeks. I was gripped in an agony of suspense, but meanwhile the battle for Naples had taken place and the Allies were moving up the Garigliano.
Two other girls were on the same venture with me – one a nice junior commander, with whom I had been associating at work during the last few months, and the other girl married to an officer who had been with our unit. She had been brought up and educated in Italy, and was hoping to join her husband, or be near him, somewhere in the Mediterranean, where we all hoped to be going, though we had not the slightest information on which to base our hopes.
While I was doing my secretarial course, I had started learning Italian with a German philosopher who had spent several years in Rome. We had begun the highly entertaining reading of Boccaccio, until my omniscient parent got wind of it. He then decreed that either I gave up Boccaccio or I gave up Italian. That was how we came to embark on Dante, but I am afraid The Divine Comedy is still more or less a closed book to me. During the evenings, however, I had been continuing my lessons with a charming Italian lady in London. It was rather an effort to get to her, but well worthwhile, for the lessons were entertaining. I thought that perhaps one day a slight knowledge of the language might come in useful – you never could tell.
After the interim period was up, I was sent for one day and told that together with the other two ATS officers I was to go on an ATS intelligence course – I believe the first of its kind, so we were very privileged. On 11 March 1944 we three joined the train at King’s Cross en route for Leicester. From there, we were transported in a troop carrier to an enormous, bleak and rather forbidding barracks on the edge of the city. There was a contingent of ATS stationed there, and among other things, they looked after our messing and quarters. The former was excellent – in fact some of us went away with expanded waistlines – but the quarters were not so comfortable, as it was bitingly cold. We were in old-fashioned billets, which were extremely chilly and draughty and only heated by coal fires, which had to be lit after lecture hours and did not really warm the rooms, even by the time we went to bed. In our lecture room, which was a Nissen hut, we had a petrol stove contraption of some kind, which at times gave out a smoke-screen that made one cough and puff. At other times it radiated a fairly friendly warmth, which enabled one at least to concentrate, wrapped up in battledress, jerseys, scarves, and sometimes greatcoats.
But if we suffered a little from cold, all that was compensated for by the extreme interest of the course, to a large extent due to the excellence of our instructors, who did everything they could to make the subjects interesting, easily understandable and varied. Of course some of it was difficult for us to grasp, and when it came to an appreciation, most of us floundered at least a little (I did a lot), but in the ten days allotted to us, we acquired a very comprehensive panorama of intelligence in most of its branches, and came away feeling much better informed than when we arrived. Our instructors also brightened our classes with a host of amusing anecdotes and personal and practical experience in field security work, such as the attempted capture of Rommel in the desert. Anyway, a good time was had by all, and we regretfully parted from Leicester, our sorrow somewhat mitigated by relief at leaving the cold, draughty billets.
We returned to our units, but not for more than a month at most, as we then had three weeks’ embarkation leave, a more than generous allowance. This I spent almost entirely at home, and was very busy collecting an enormous store of articles that I had heard were in short supply, such as cosmetics, toothpaste, kirby grips, sewing materials, notepaper, certain medicines and ointments and Keatings flea powder. In fact I had something like a small scale NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) in my tin trunk, which I purchased in London while at the ATS holding unit in Bayswater.
We were posted to the holding unit about the middle of April, and there we were instructed on what kit we would need, told to buy some, and were issued with other. Some of the girls had managed to procure wonderful gabardine costumes in London, or were in the process of doing so, but as gabardine was difficult to come by and very expensive, I decided to make do with the issue of khaki drill, which included a tunic, into which brass buttons were fitted.
We naturally met other officers, and girls, like us posted overseas, and of course we were all speculating as to where we were going, especially as we were later listed in different drafts. In the transit mess there must have been about fifty of us at that time, and the CO of the holding unit decided it would be a good thing for the officers awaiting their posting to do drill every morning after breakfast. So drill we did, some of us feeling rather foolish, not having drilled for so long. But the sergeant major was very kindly, and took us quite gently, so that no too terrible faux pas were performed for the delectation of Other Ranks passing by.
After our drill we were usually free for the rest of the day to assemble our kit, buy our trunks and camp kit, say our goodbyes, or meet our boyfriends. My mother came up for two days and we went to two theatres, one where we saw Noel Coward’s Arc de Triomphe and the other a magnificent play about the war in Greece, the title of which was There Shall Be No Night.
The holding unit was situated in a delightful modern patch of Bayswater, and I believe luxury flats now stand where our mess was. We were in a quiet corner, so that there was space for drill without being much overlooked, and altogether there was a little hive of ATS life concentrated in that one small area. There were four or five of us in one bedroom, which was large and airy, and there was a constant va-et-vient and an air of suppressed excitement.
We were of course all medically examined, and by the only woman MO (medical officer) I have ever come into professional contact with. Any inoculations we had not already had were brought up to date, including vaccination. I was still awaiting tetanus injections, but of that more later.
One morning we were issued with our khaki drill from the ‘Q’ stores. This was quite a ceremony. Each of us got three drill skirts, a drill tunic and brass buttons and rings to fit in, two bush shirts, three tropical Aertex shirts, cellular vests and pants for hot climates, a large tin mug, water bottle, haversack and kitbag. We were also given two mess tins and a small white coarse linen bag for haversack rations. In addition, those without camp kit were issued with it while we were at the holding unit. This consisted of a large canvas valise, which rolled up, containing a camp-bed, three army blankets, a small hard pillow, a ground sheet and a canvas bucket. I inherited my father’s brown carpet-style kitbag from the 1914–1918 war. This included a nice camp chair, which folded up very conveniently in two pieces, a canvas bath that I never used, another bucket and a kapok mattress to go on the bed, which I got new.2 I also bought a black tin uniform case from a shop in Praed Street, where we were recommended to go to buy containers for our luggage. The tin trunk was invaluable, and still is. We were otherwise allowed two cabin suitcases and a small hand-grip. The latter I had in brown leather with a zip. In addition, when we eventually left, we had to carry on our backs our haversacks holding the mess tins and sandwich bags with haversack rations in them, our gas masks, helmets, water bottles, with our tin mugs attached to the inside strap of our haversacks; this latter contraption made a cheerful jingling sound as we moved in our harness. It must have been a fine peep-show for any Other Ranks about when we were paraded and drilled in full regalia of haversacks, gas masks, helmets, water-bottles and tin mugs, sweating in our battledresses one afternoon in a late and hot April. The hour chosen for the parade was needless to say 1400 hours sharp.
The quartermaster was very kind and helpful. She made sure that we were issued with all the kit that we would need, come what may, and gave us advice on fitting it, and so on. I
n one thing she failed us. She said that all khaki drill would shrink tremendously and we must buy it at least three sizes too big. Our discipline was good enough to ensure that we did this, but later results proved that the shrinkage was nothing like enough to warrant buying drill three sizes too large. If the New Look had come in a few years earlier, things might have been easier. The quartermaster told us to mark all our luggage with white paint, in large capital letters, with our name, rank, number, service and draft letters. I painted these symbols boldly, clearly, but without much artistry on my trunk, my two suitcases, my kitbag with camp kit, and my ordinary blue kitbag, also on my small handbag, my camera, and my mug, as I was taking no chances. As it was, I put one letter too many on my kitbag, so that my surname ensued with three ‘As’ on it. My room-mate Iris painted her letters on neatly and beautifully. She was ultra-efficient, and her inscribing was finished long before most of us had begun to clean our fingers that were glutinous with paint. We assisted a major of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) to paint her inscriptions on when we had done our own, so the job cannot have lacked interest. There was plenty of time for it, but what a job erasing it after service days were over! My camera is still embossed with my name, number, rank and service.
Eventually the notice was put up giving marching instructions for our draft. We were to leave by lorry at 2300 hours for an unknown destination. Haversack rations were to be collected from the mess, all cabin and hand kit would go in the troop carrier with us. Our ‘hold’ baggage would be taken off earlier and we would very probably not even see it until we arrived at our destination. We all had to be in the mess for our evening meal that night, but I managed to slip out afterwards to say some goodbyes. It was of course a strict secret that we were leaving that night. There was an air of suspense everywhere. The draft-conducting officers were getting very busy, for several drafts of ATS Other Ranks were due to depart soon after we had left, and everyone was wondering where we would be in another twenty-four hours’ time, and what the journey would be like.
My Italian Adventures Page 3