My Italian Adventures

by de Burgh, Lucy; Hodge, Mary; Hastings, Max

  We had twenty-four hours’ notice to depart, and I had to hand over both of my jobs, organise a farewell dinner for the CO and do my own packing. Most of the latter was done for me by Maria, and I should never have managed it without her. The dinner went off very well, and there was a riotous party to follow.

  We left the following morning at 0900 hours and the guards gave the colonel a farewell salute. They looked magnificently smart, with spotless white gaiters and web belts, every item of uniform and equipment neatly in place, rifles and bayonets gleaming with polish. It was a moving experience, for me the only such in my life, and I felt privileged to take part in it, however insignificant my part was.

  We did not have much conversation on the way down Route 7 to Naples. It was warm and as we sped over the miles south, across the Pontine Marshes, now re-drained, and along the coast with the turquoise blue sea on our right, I dozed with the fatigue resulting from our hurried departure.

  This time I was billeted in Posillipo in an Italian villa, near our office-cum-mess, jutting out in a fine position right over the water’s edge. The three other AT officers, Patricia, June and Betty, were also billeted there. To get to our villa, we either had to go right up to the main road and down a long, winding drive similar to that leading to the Villa Paulina where we worked and messed, or follow a path down to the water’s edge and over a small bridge and then up the other side from our place.

  The villa was modern and had several storeys. There were cellars underneath and a passage leading through these to the rock in front, from which it was possible to bathe whenever one liked. The ground floor was a self-contained flat and leased to an Italian family, whom we never or rarely saw. The first and second floors were occupied by the Perelli family – father, mother and three small children – and the maid, Luisa, a great character, and a Sardinian. We had three requisitioned rooms here: June and Betty shared one on the first floor, and Pat had the room next door to them. I was given a tiny room on the second floor, leading out on to a magnificent terrace with a glorious view of Capri and the coast of Posillipo in the foreground. There was a stair leading down from it to another terrace on the first floor, and sometimes three fierce boxer dogs, pets of the Perellis, would leap over the gate and into my room. I was awakened on my first morning by such an invasion, with cool damp noses snuffling all round everything. Unfortunately, the dogs were too playful and inclined to seize any piece of clothing they could find and tear round and round the terrace with it. Some of my uniform went through this ordeal, which did not improve it. I was quite alarmed by these three huge bouncing creatures, but soon found them to be friendly and harmless.

  Luisa called us each morning at about eight o’clock, with the customary cup of strong sweet black coffee. At that hour she was usually wearing her curlers and looked tired and pasty-faced. She had probably been up since at least 5 a.m. She can never have had enough sleep, but like Figaro she was always cheerful.

  We dressed and went over to breakfast in the mess, which was not very appetising, as the co-operators were in charge in the kitchen and allowed a very free hand. In consequence, we had execrable porridge, more like pease pudding, and spam fried in batter, or bacon and fried bread, almost every morning. The toast was burnt and rubbery. Sometimes we had a nice salad for lunch, but too often there were fried potatoes and other unsuitable greasy dishes; in the evening, doughnuts positively oozing fat were the co-operators’ favourite sweet. In the end I could not face this perpetual ‘fry-cooking’, and Pat and I would later regale ourselves with fresh apricots and peaches, much more enjoyable, or fill up with sweets and chocolates, as much as we could procure, which was mighty little.

  I shared an office with my colonel, and Pat worked in the adjoining room, with a door leading into Colonel Petrie’s office. He was a full colonel, in charge of the whole section and ‘overlord’, as one might say, of our unit in Rome and its subsidiaries elsewhere in the Italian theatre. Another section worked in a further part of the building, and yet another was situated in the opposite corner. There was a general office where typing and duplicating was done, and down below was the admin office, the office of the GSO (General Staff Officer) Signals, and the mess.

  Down below that was the Grotto, a café in a cave opening on to the beach, with a balcony in front of it where open-air dancing often took place as spring wore into summer. For the first time I saw people dancing in bathing costumes there, and cannot say it appealed to me greatly. The beach daily became more crowded, and if one was bored for a moment there was plenty to be seen from the window. But I never bathed from that crowded stretch of shingle. Pat and I invariably bathed from the villa, where there was more privacy and seclusion, and where we were not overlooked by almost every window of the Villa Paulina. Sometimes the sea was quite rough, and I had one or two narrow shaves, nearly being hurled on to the rocks. Just as you thought you were going to make a nice landing, a sort of undertow would pull you back and then suddenly throw you forward again on to the mussel-covered rocks, which were very prickly and uncomfortable. You had to catch on just at the crucial moment and leap ashore, otherwise the sharp-edged mussels would play havoc with your bare legs.

  The work at the HQ was different from anything I had ever done before, and did not appeal to me at all. We seemed to deal with nothing but papers, and every morning there were piles of bumf to wade through, classify, pass to the staff colonels for reading, and then we typed letters or telegrams, made long-distance phone calls, or copied orders for lower formations. We seemed to be a glorified post- or sorting-office, and after the above-mentioned activities had taken place, there was filing and more filing, and further sifting of letters from the various units for whom we were the point of contact for AFHQ. The whole thing was on paper and completely lacked the human element.

  In my previous job I had been dealing with people nearly all the time, and paper was, when necessary, incidental. At AFHQ paper seemed an end in itself, and personnel and human relationships seemed to have become mere ciphers and abstractions. However essential the central organisation was, it was not my line of country and I positively languished. In my office the filing had got out of hand, as my predecessor, Betty, departed within a day or two of my arrival without a proper handover, and I found mountains of papers and files with myriads of cross-references to be put in order, and a crowd of headings to be learnt. During the first few days I felt this just could not be endured without my going at least temporarily insane. But Pat, who worked next door, was very kind and understanding, and it did help when she came in and clarified some mystery and then said, ‘Don’t worry, my dear, it will sort itself out, but do have a cigarette, I’ve just got hold of some Senior Service.’

  At about 10.30 a.m. each morning we had a cup of strong tea made with sweetened condensed milk, served in coarse shallow earthenware cups, painted green. How good that tea was! The co-operators had at least mastered the art of making a good strong brew. Sometimes, at about 12.30, or later if we were busy, Pat would say, ‘Come on, let’s have a cocktail.’ There was no barman here, at least on permanent duty, and so we each had a little book and wrote down in it what we took in the way of drinks in the mess.

  By lunch-time, the heat of the day was fully turned on, and one usually felt completely listless and lacking in all energy, and as the weather warmed up further, one was often soaked to the skin with perspiration. When we went to the office first thing in the morning, the sun was already streaming in and the beach looked inviting enough, as yet empty of its usual customers. We faced south, and with the passing hours the sun beat more incessantly and ever more strongly in at our windows, until we were obliged to close the shutters, in the hope of protecting the offices from the afternoon heat. Sometimes I would have a bath at lunch-time and change all my underclothes (what little one wore in that climate). The Perellis had two bathrooms and there was usually hot water. Sometimes I had a cold bath and sometimes a bathe at lunch-time. I would perhaps meet Signora Perelli and the children in f
ront of the house, basking in the sun in their bathing-costumes, and the Signora was most insistent that I should try her Pizza Napolitana. This can be most delicious, a sort of glorified Welsh rarebit with fish and tomato thrown in for good measure, but the Perellis had their own particular brand, which was a kind of cheese pudding and very substantial. A helping of that and I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to pass the afternoon without a sleep of some sort in the prevailing intense heat. But one could not always refuse their hospitality, and once or twice I tried the pizza. Signora Perelli was very generous and gave me huge helpings each time. She then fortunately discovered that Pat and I were particularly fond of fruit, and almost every evening she would give us apricots, peaches or plums to eat when we came over after dinner. When we had been there longer, she would also give us a carafe of red wine, and in this way we learnt to appreciate good Italian wine. It was probably local red wine, Vini d’Ischia or Vino di Capri, but in any case we enjoyed it, and it was better and more satisfying than the soggy fritters that were our daily bread in the mess.

  After I had been there only a week or two, I suspected that one or two things were disappearing from my kit, and we came to the conclusion that Luisa the maid was not altogether trustworthy. I had in particular a woolly monkey with a china face, which had been once broken and then very skilfully mended and repainted by Tony. This disappeared, and I asked Luisa if she had seen it. She repeatedly denied all knowledge of it, and was indignant at being questioned, but I always strongly suspected that she thought it would be a nice plaything for some small children of her acquaintance. However, after that scare all went well.

  Soon afterwards Signora Perelli asked me if I would mind sharing a room with June, as Betty had gone and the Perellis were short of rooms. I agreed, though actually not bound to, but unfortunately June was not at all keen on my sharing with her. Betty had been there only temporarily and June was once more alone, which she infinitely preferred. I discovered later that she had once shared a room with a chronic snorer and was in mortal fear that everyone else might be the same. After she found out that I was no snorer, we became good friends, and I was sorry when she left for England at the end of May.

  Before that happened, the war had come to an end and the exciting VE celebrations had taken place. We had expected it for some days at least, and therefore it was perhaps not such a surprise to hear over the wireless that Germany had at last capitulated and unconditional surrender had been imposed by the Allies. Hitler was supposed to have perished in Berlin, but it would appear that no-one knows even now that he really did die there, by his own hand or that of the enemy, or whether as rumoured he escaped to South America, and perhaps secretly plotted revenge and a return to Germany.

  As far as the Allies were concerned, in 1945, Hitler and all that he stood for had been effectively crushed, and the great work of Occupation, de-Nazification, re-education and reconstruction was about to begin. We, in Italy, ‘the land where the lemon trees bloom’, were far away from the devastation of Germany, and Naples was already beginning to resume more normality. On 9 May there was great jubilation everywhere. At last the Germans would be expelled from Italy and the Italians could begin to put their house in order, without (they hoped) too much interference from outside or from the occupying authorities on the spot.

  In our small unit we had no particular festivity arranged for that day, as the main celebrations, as far as the outfit were concerned, were planned to take place in Rome in a day or two, and the colonel was going up for them. And so, that evening, Pat was in her room, June was out with a boyfriend and the mess seemed deserted. As I often did, I went back to the office to continue the sorting of papers, or to write home. It was stickily hot, and I was hoping that Brunati, the batman of Italian origin, but with a cockney accent, would remember to bring me the cup of steaming hot sweet tea that I had persuaded him to provide me with every evening at about ten o’clock, when there was a ‘brew-up’ for the men. Brunati was a kindly cheerful soul and we always had a long and friendly conversation when he brought me the tea. I enjoyed both the drink and the chat, though the former made me perspire all over, so that I came out in beads on my forehead. But it did somehow revive me, and in those early days we had not got to know Signora Perelli very well, and our wine bibbing and fruit tasting was not organised. That came later.

  Well, on VE night I decided to go along to the anteroom at about nine o’clock, just to see if there was anything doing, but it was quite empty. I was about to move disconsolately back to the office, when I met Sims, the CO’s batman, who had travelled down to Naples when we took our leave from Rome. ‘Oo, miss’, he said, ‘do come down to the Grotto, the Colonel’s down there, and Captain Trent and most of the boys. They’re all celebrating VE – come and see what’s going on.’ ‘Are you sure it’s all right, Sims?’ I asked somewhat anxiously, not quite sure what I was in for, but longing to go just the same. ‘Well, the Colonel’s there, miss, I don’t see as how you can go far wrong. And Captain Trent’s there too. I’ll take care of you, miss,’ he added, in a burst of confidence. That decided me, I would go down, escorted by Sims and at least taste the fruits of victory – it was jolly miserable being alone on such a night anyway. We went through the kitchen and down a long narrow stone passage, and came out on to the platform on the edge of the beach, where I had seen people dancing in the daytime.

  The Grotto was dimly lit and there were fairy lights along the walls. The Italian owner, Signor Favini, was pouring out drinks at the bar and round it was seated a large group of men, almost everyone from our place, I figured. I would be the only girl, but no-one seemed to mind and they soon made me feel thoroughly at home, and I was almost at once provided with the usual glassful of sweet, syrupy vermouth. I must have stayed there for about an hour, and there was much jollification, drinking of toasts and singing of old favourites. I remember things getting a trifle noisy towards ten o’clock, and for some unaccountable reason Sims suddenly decided to sit on my knee. I felt as though I were nursing a rather large small boy. Soon after ten, the colonel, Captain Trent and I went up to the mess, where we met some other officers and had one or two drinks with them to toast the victory again.

  Then there was a gentle tap at the door, and someone shouted, ‘Come in!’ A South-African, Sgt Hartz, appeared rather hesitantly at the door of the mess: ‘Wondered if you were here, sir,’ he stammered slightly. The colonel said, ‘Come on in and have a drink, Sergeant, tonight’s VE, isn’t it?’ ‘Well, I don’t want to intrude, sir,’ he hesitated again, but the reply soon put him at ease ‘Nonsense, man, come on in, what’ll you have?’ Soon Sgt Hartz was quite at home, and then someone thought of asking him to sing, and I learned then that his brother had sung in opera in the Union, and that he himself had a very fine tenor voice. I shall never forget his rendering of the ‘Old Transvaal’, among other African songs, that night – it was truly inspiring. It must have been about eleven o’clock when I returned to my billet, escorted by Captain Trent, who insisted that it was not safe for me to go alone, although I pointed out that I did the journey almost daily that way. On VE night it was nice to have company, even though he did talk rather loudly outside the Perelli’s villa, and I was afraid they might appear at their windows at any moment fearful of revelling soldiery.

  It was not much more than a week after VE Day that the colonel was demobbed. It happened quite suddenly. The first releases took place when the staff of GHQ was cut down, and he was overdue for release. I was genuinely sad when he left, for he had been such a grand CO to work for. The worst of being a PA is that you become too attached to your boss. But, all the same, I still prefer that type of work. Life seems simpler somehow when you owe allegiance first and foremost to one person in your job. I think that is why so many women like PA jobs in the services, and private secretarial posts in civilian life. As long as you hit things off with your boss, no job can be more enjoyable and worthwhile.

  After my CO’s departure, there was of course
less for me to do, and it took me some time to adjust to the new routine. Even so, Pat and I never took whole days off, as it was always necessary for someone to be on the spot. I did a certain amount of work for a major from one of the adjoining sections, and learned a bit about a different type of intelligence work, in the course of which I met an American colonel. The major was usually in a great flap and always in a hurry. He had a high-powered sports car – a captured enemy vehicle, I believe – in which he zoomed about when he had to go on liaison to Caserta or Rome. Colonel Petrie also had a beautiful sports model, and Pat, as his PA, had the privilege of being allowed to go out in it occasionally, perhaps for an evening in Naples, if the colonel himself was not using it; but he scarcely ever went out and rarely used it except for his work. There was, however, one classic occasion when he decided that for a change he would go out somewhere on a particularly hot and sultry evening, and sent for his car. It could not be found and the news had to be broken to him that J/Cmdr Moffat had taken it. Further enquiry revealed that she had gone out to dinner at the YWCA with the sergeant from the admin office. The colonel was very gentlemanly about the matter, but on another occasion when he and the American invited Pat and me to a brigadier’s party at AFHQ, and we arrived at the mess about four minutes late, he was highly displeased and the atmosphere driving along in the smart Mercedes was not a little electric. It took several stiff cocktails before he even smiled – he was more on his own level by that time. It was a lesson to us never to mix business with pleasure: remember that if you are going out with a senior officer, you are as much on duty as when you are in the office, and least of all, never arrive late for the initial rendezvous.

  But Colonel Petrie was normally as unruffled as a becalmed ocean, and I never saw him except on this one occasion in anything but the most sanguine of humours. He twice took me up to Rome with him when he was driving up in a jeep to inspect the units there. The first time, we left the road to look for a cemetery where he wanted to trace the grave of a friend’s relative. We found the cemetery, having followed a narrow stony lane for about a mile, with golden stubble on one side and olive trees growing in amongst it, their shadows darkening the stubble with round patches of yellow ochre; the harvest south of Rome takes place for the most part in June. It was hot and there was no sound in the cemetery except for the whispering of grasshoppers and the buzzing of flies. There were quite a few graves there – English, American and some German – but already the collecting and reassembling process of the Graves Commission had begun and we could not find the one we were seeking. So we retraced our steps to the jeep and back along the bumpy track, past the olives, to the main highway of Route 6.