My Italian Adventures

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

  It seemed strange to think of some of our men lying there so peacefully, side-by-side with some of their recent enemies, all hostility stilled by death, and the cessation it brought to bodily existence. One could not imagine a more tranquil scene than the small green field with its grassy mounds surmounted by rough white painted wooden crosses, the names haphazardly painted on in black, the German ones in Gothic script. And yet, just over a year ago, the battle for Cassino, through which we were about to pass, was raging, and that very field had possibly, even probably, been the scene of fierce fighting and death-to-death struggles. Now time had effaced all signs of strife, and only those crude little wooden crosses marked the spot where men from several races had met their ultimate end.

  We went on, and I tried not to think with melancholy of the place we had just visited. A puncture fortunately took my mind off it. Now the colonel proved adept at changing tyres, and I looked on with admiration while he deftly removed the offender, having jacked it up neatly, and then rolled it aside and replaced it with the spare one. I offered to help, but realised I would be more of a hindrance than a help and mainly contented myself with admiring his handiwork.

  On the second visit we paid to Rome, we had lunch in a mess in the city. The unit concerned, the Allied Screening Commission (ASC), was one newly formed and mainly consisted of officers who were ex-prisoners of war. Their function was to deal with the numerous Italians who had helped our men when they were escaping and were at large in the country, or our agents who were doing undercover work during the Occupation. In many cases these Italians had suffered grievous material loss, sometimes imprisonment and torture and even death at the hands of both Fascists and Nazis, for the penalty for shielding an ally was death, and sometimes also for the innocent family of the culprit. On this occasion I had small chance to learn much of the work being initiated by this commission, being somewhat taken up with my party manners, as I was the only girl and there were about forty men in the mess. I sat next to a very charming young major with an MC, who had a slightly Scottish accent, and met hosts of others, whose faces for the most part I forgot the same day, for there were too many of them for me to get to know personally. Their mess was a luxurious flat off the Via Flaminia. It had a round hall with ornate gilded mirrors, and the whole place seemed very well appointed. The food, though Army rations, was so exquisitely cooked that it was hardly recognisable. I wondered vaguely how the cook managed when bully beef was issued.

  Altogether the visit was an enjoyable affair. As far as I was concerned there was not much work attached to these visits to Rome, although I was of course on call to do any ‘stooging’ that Colonel Petrie might require. But he was the most reasonable of masters, so I had nothing in the world to complain about.

  17

  Bella Napoli

  W hen I had been in Posillipo about a month or more, Jimmy turned up to see me. He was on leave and was burnt a deep brown, which made him look more Spanish than ever, and I could well believe that he was descended from some sailor of the Armada, who had landed in Cornwall and settled there. We went out together once or twice, to visit the Aquarium or to the Naval Officers’ Club, where we ate tomato spaghetti, and danced a little. I never knew how we gained entry to this exclusive place, but Jimmy seemed to have a way with him. The club was on the waterfront near the Castel del’ Ovo, and through the open windows one could watch the changing sky as night fell over the Bay of Naples.

  Another evening we went up to the famous Orange Grove, which had been taken over as a club by the Americans. It was in a truly magnificent situation on the heights above Posillipo, overlooking the complete panorama of Capri, Sorrento, the Bay, the harbour, and of course Vesuvius. It was as good as its reputation: in addition to the indoor restaurant, there was a large garden full of orange trees and palms, where an orchestra played beside a small concrete dance-floor. Tables and chairs were set amongst the trees, from which fairy lamps hung festooned round and about.

  It was a romantic spot and could have a romantic atmosphere, but I decided there and then that, in spite of Hollywood, Americans have no taste for ‘romance’. The orchestra, or band, was geared to suit their very ‘hot jazz’ and ‘swing’. Scarcely a tango or a waltz was played all the evening. The saxophone blared and drums boomed in an unending discord of syncopation. Then the ‘guys’ shouted, whistled, chewed gum and waggled their hips doing rumbas or what-have-you. Altogether our English idea of a quiet dinner for two, ‘You and the Night and the Music’, had a rude shaking up. Inside the restaurant the scene was fairly riotous and the waiters had a brisk time of it. Nevertheless I enjoyed it, but wished the Orange Grove had been a British club; at least we would have given the Italians free play with their own music, and in Naples they play such lovely things so well, such as ‘Torn’ a Sorrento’ and other songs of the Sunny South, many of them adapted for dancing. But it was fair enough that the Americans should have a club run as they liked it. Probably they in turn found the British extremely sedate, and they had certainly picked the best spot in Naples for their off-duty relaxation. There was an ornamental pond in front of the club, and as we drove away one or two officers were fording it fully clothed. I did not discover why!

  Jimmy and I got on very well and he kept on telling me it was time I thought about marriage, whether or not in connection with himself he never revealed. In any case, I argued, there was still time; for the present I was quite happy where I was, despite the daily routine of paper wading in the office. By that time I had got to know most of the personnel in the unit, and we had even managed to organise a dance in the Grotto with the stout support of Signor Favini and his attractive daughters, who were only too keen for any sort of celebration. So marriage was not figuring very largely in my thoughts just then. Anyway, Jimmy went off without making any declaration, if he had ever intended to!

  The admin staff at Posillipo were a particularly pleasant crowd, and it was no small wonder that Pat chose to go out with the sergeant, who was a quiet, well-spoken and well-mannered man of over forty. As a rule ATS officers did not go out with male ORs but in this case no possible scandal could arise, as we were such a small section and the sergeant in question was a very respectable married man and a highly respected member of the unit. Pat had a sort of aversion for most of the male officers, I never discovered why, except that she seemed to have undergone some form of disenchantment in Cairo. She was wittily sarcastic and sometimes unleashed her tongue, which, though amusing, did not help towards her own popularity and actually made her enemies.

  To me she was a good friend, so if she did think all men were ‘beasts’ (except of course her colonel), it did not worry me. Her main form of recreation, apart from talks with Sgt Stewart on music, was a periodic visit to the hairdresser. Colonel Petrie always said that when Pat was over-tired and had been working too hard a visit to the hairdresser was the best cure. Sometimes he ordered her to go, as apart from these regular appointments she scarcely left the office during the day, Sundays included. Even after I was there to relieve her, she took very little time off, and indeed if she did, something usually happened that required her presence. The work was not too hard, but there was always something to do – and in the prevailing heat one could not do anything at breakneck speed.

  Pat’s other diversion was bathing, which she liked to do at night, at about 9 p.m. That was also the hour for the fish spearing that goes on in the Bay of Naples. The fisherman swims along with his spear and a waterproof torch attached to his cap; the torch has a strong battery and illuminates the water for some way round. Pat had the habit of slipping off the top of her costume when she was bathing at night, for more freedom of movement, she explained. One night there was a shriek coming from somewhere in the bay, and it transpired that she had been illuminated by a fish-spearer in her mermaidenly attitude! She was more careful about going back to Nature after that!

  About half a mile along the coast, near the naval C-in-C’s villa, was a restaurant right on the water’s edge.
A friend came south to visit me when he was on leave from the Front, and we walked for some way up the dusty cliff road and finally turned down a narrow lane, more by instinct than by knowledge. At the bottom of this lane, where several small British naval craft were moored to a stone jetty, we came to a real open-air Neapolitan restaurant with orchestra and tables set out with a magnificent view over the bay, to the lights of Sorrento on one side, and on the other to the lights of Naples. We had dined as usual on spam and doughnuts in the mess, and so we drank some white wine and coffee and just listened to the soft, lilting music, led by a violin and accompanied by the gentle lapping of the waves on the quayside, meanwhile watching the other customers, nearly all Italian. Between this place and the Villa Paulina was, among other grandiose villas, one that belonged to King Vittorio Emanuele, and from which it was later said that he was picked up by a small motor-boat and taken to the British cruiser that bore him to his exile in Egypt after the abdication. The gardens of these villas were rich with palms, orange and lemon trees, cactuses and geraniums, and various flowering shrubs, set in beautifully laid-out flowerbeds and arbours, and most of them had their own private bathing beach, or rock. King Vittorio Emanuele certainly left Italy at one of her most beautiful stretches of coastline, although he could hardly have imagined it would be the last strip of Italian soil he would ever see.

  I visited the waterside restaurant once more when I rowed a captain across the bay. We hired a small rowing-boat from Signor Favini who, as well as running the Grotto café and the beach-huts and in peace-time managing his family-owned Villa Paulina, also hired out boats, skiffs and the famous floats commonly known as sandolini. These are found in most Italian resorts, but were not suitable for an evening excursion, and so we took the boat and set off in the dark, the bay as usual being lit up by many lights and a thousand reflections. The officer I was transporting could not row, and he was much amused that I should be willing to take on the job. As I have always rowed after a fashion, it was no hardship, and the exercise was welcome in the slightly cooler atmosphere; during the daytime, exercise was out of the question at that time of year, even for the British. In any case, he sang rather nicely – Neapolitan songs and others – which made the task even more enjoyable. We tied up our boat among the naval dinghies and launches, and ordered fried scampi, a popular Italian dish consisting of some sort of prawn fried in batter and very tasty. Listening to the ever-popular music and watching the lights, occupations of which I never tired, made the excursion well worthwhile, in spite of the return journey.

  But the YWCA in Naples was, however, perhaps the pleasantest place for an afternoon cup of tea or a quiet evening away from the unit. It had cool and comfortable lounges and a delightful roof garden, where we could take meals really al fresco, as they say in Italy. There were pots and tubs on the roof with spiky cactuses, brightly coloured trailing nasturtiums and pink geraniums. At midday it was too hot to be up on the roof, but in the evening at sundown it was delightful. The white roofs of Naples with their many terraces and balconies, nearly all sporting some greenery of plants or cactuses, were spread out below and around us. Beyond was the sea and the ever-present watchful outline of Vesuvius brooding over the scene.

  It was some time around then that I awoke one night to find the room lit up by a weird flame-coloured ray and heard a thunderous though distant crash. I rushed to the window and saw Vesuvius ablaze. I immediately assumed that it must have begun to erupt again and shuddered involuntarily. There is something terrifying about the powers of nature when unleashed in all their fury, and Vesuvius always seemed just held in check, but ready at any time to belch forth fire and brimstone, endangering the homes of man and his cultivation. That night the bay and the town were bathed in an eerie pinkish light and a streak of flame was reflected right across the dark water, almost to where I stood on the balcony. I was alone and did not care to wake Pat who was sound asleep next door, so I watched for a few minutes quite dumbfounded by the horror, and yet the beauty, of the picture presented. Meanwhile the fire burned fiercely, but I realised after a few moments that it did not come from the summit itself, but from a slightly lower altitude; and then I guessed that an aircraft must have lost its way and crashed into the flank of the volcano. I returned to my bed, and for some time watched the flames burning brightly and then gradually die down, until there was only a reddish glow on the mountain and a small streak of blood-red shimmering across the bay. Next morning, I learnt that an aeroplane had indeed foundered on Vesuvius, and saddest of all, every occupant had lost his life. The volcano was still taking her toll, even when not in eruption. A search was being organised that day for the bodies of the unfortunate victims, but I never heard that they were found.

  By now we were well into June and I frequently bathed before breakfast. Sometimes the water was rather rough and I had one nasty experience, getting thrown on to our rocks, and slightly cut. It was all right as long as you swung in at just the right moment, otherwise in a swell you were pushed against the rock and pulled back again before you regained your balance. On the whole, the sea was calm, and fairly clean, although there were naturally some patches of oil from the ships. First thing in the morning most of the rubbish, consigned to the water each day from the various bathing beaches, had been carried out to sea overnight, and there was not much garbage to contend with, although orange and lemon peel was present far too often, floating on the surface and out with the tide.

  The heat was gathering in intensity as the days went on, and we found that to sleep in our thick ATS pyjamas, as well as covered with a mosquito net, was a virtual impossibility. The officers’ stores had no thin pyjamas for service girls, and the Italian lingerie, while being highly glamorous and most attractive, was too expensive for our purses. I was in a dilemma and meanwhile managed to sleep au naturel, covered by a sheet, but even that seemed like a blanket during those sultry nights, while mosquitoes zoomed around the edge of one’s net. Then I heard of an Army form, perhaps 04 – it might have been any number – by virtue of which one could gain permission to export from the UK clothing not provided by the Army and unobtainable locally. I accordingly made the form out in triplicate (or was it quadruplicate?!), stating that I had no thin nightdresses, and owing to the heat could not wear the thick bed-linen provided for by the clothing scale, tropical ATS, and furthermore it was not feasible to buy local stuff. I then requested Colonel Petrie, as CO, to testify that I lacked the necessary garments and needed them from home. He took me at my word and appended his signature, without which the form could not have been despatched. I then proceeded to send off two copies to the D.H. Evans department store in London (where the third copy went is unknown to me, but it probably ended up in the ‘Secret Waste’ at GHQ). In due course two pretty, thin nightdresses arrived and I could at least sleep in decency for the rest of the summer. For once the Army had proved relatively human!

  About that same time I had the foolishness to get sunstroke by staying out for ten minutes after lunch on a tiny balcony leading off one of the other section offices. I had had my head covered and thought all would be well, but had not reckoned with the sun of southern Italy, which of course far surpasses in heat anything like it in England. For the next four days I had the most searing pain in my head. I could neither eat nor sleep and felt spasmodically giddy and dizzy, and inclined to overbalance. I managed to carry on, but only just, and I never sunbathed at midday again, at least not in Naples. The saying about ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ is sometimes true, but nevertheless the beach in front of the Villa Paulina was becoming more crowded every afternoon and one could recognise many of the same people there each day. In fact we wondered how they could spare the time for so much ‘dolce far niente’. Signor Favini’s two attractive daughters and their girlfriends were always present, but it was hard to distinguish anyone in the sea of brown bodies, which seemed to become daily more chocolate-coloured. The women knitted, smoked or just reclined, and children were everywhere, naked or nearly so, chasing
in and out among the sunbathers, some children wearing small linen hats, but mostly bare-headed. Presumably they are used to the heat and do not need to take care as we do. If anyone from our unit was on the beach, you could at once pick them out by their fair skin. Only the South Africans seemed to resemble the Italians in the way they that were adapted to the sun, and became brown without discomfort or peeling.

  As a concession to local fashions, I managed to persuade the dressmaker from Bellavista, my friend of the previous year, to make me a ‘crinkly’ swimsuit from an old summer dress. This she did very neatly, lining it with the remnants of an old nightdress. Thus it was that I renewed my acquaintance with her, and once again she was the means of my receiving a proposal of marriage – perhaps I should say she transmitted the proposal. This time the gentlemen was a dark and handsome young wine-merchant, whom I had met at Signora Renata’s house the summer before. I remembered him as a very pleasant young man. Nevertheless, I did not feel inclined to marry then, and so I made the same excuse as before, i.e. a distant fiancé. It was received as philosophically as my other refusal had been. I made it clear that I did not object in principle to the idea of an Italian husband, but it so happened that there was someone else who engaged my affection. It was with regret that I said my last goodbye to Signora Renata and her children and their friendly home.