My Italian Adventures

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

  We had heard that it was possible to visit the tower, and as our guide was very keen to take us, we agreed to brave the ascent. It began all right with reasonable stone stairs, but these developed into nothing more than a narrow spiral stairway, and eventually we were climbing wobbly iron ladders, which the guide ran up as lightly as a monkey, looking round and bidding us hold on tightly and have no fear. Each platform seemed smaller and the drop to the ground more dizzy, although of course the view was more beautiful and extensive as we climbed higher. Finally, on the last platform but one, Charlotte and I could go no further, both thoroughly unnerved by the waving ladders and their seeming insecurity. Our guide, Luigi, laughed, and said that that was nothing – he had been a sailor and he assured us that the ladders were perfectly safe. But we firmly told him that we had not been sailors, were unaccustomed to such acrobatic feats and he must excuse us. And so we contented ourselves with the view from very nearly the top, which could not have been much better. In front of us and all round were the red roofs of the city, as well as the red turrets and battlements of the castle itself, with its green courtyards like toy lawns below. When we raised our eyes, there were the Alps, the whole Chain of Savoy in all its splendour of snow and rock, with the Matterhorn surpassing the rest in height and forcefulness. The snow glittered in the sunshine against a limpid blue sky, for that day autumn had fled and there was nothing to indicate its presence save a crisp sharpness in the air and at night a nip of frost. We lingered, drinking in the view and our guide’s amusing anecdotes, but, still anxious about safety, we dreaded the coming descent. We finally made it, after much protesting, squeaking, puffing and panting on our part, and many exhortations to ‘Coraggio’ and soothing words on the part of Luigi, punctuated by his frequent encouraging use of the word ‘Brava’ (‘good girl’). So eventually we reached terra firma again, and never was I so glad to see it! We bade our nautical friend farewell, thanking him for prevailing on us to make the ascent as high as we did, for without his help we should never have seen that wonderful view. But never again will I attempt those ladders – they were a nightmare.

  The famous Scala Opera House was closed, having been damaged by a bomb, but an opera company was functioning in a small theatre in a side street and we decided that go we must; and accordingly we took seats for Lucia di Lammermoor (The Bride of Lammermoor), taken from Sir Walter Scott’s novel of that title. Neither of us knew this opera and we felt the opportunity must not be missed for enlarging our opera education. When the curtain went up, the theatre was packed with troops in uniform, hushed and expectant. The hush, however, soon became perceptibly disturbed by what at first sounded like stifled giggling and guffawing, and then, more openly, gusts of semi-silent laughter swept through the audience. The reason for this mirth was that the actors were dressed, or were meant to be dressed, in Scottish traditional costume, but they strode on in plaids and kilts that looked for all the world like kitchen table-cloths, their glengarries flat as pancakes on their crowns, with feathers sticking out in front like antennae. Furthermore, the principal singer shook the ancestral walls so soundly when he made his first dramatic entry, that for several seconds it was a matter of conjecture whether they would remain standing or, like the walls of Jericho, collapse forthwith. All this was too much for the British sense of humour, and the audience was fairly bursting with the desire to break into one great roar of uncontrolled mirth. While respect for the sacred opera restrained the laughter, there were some distinct guffaws. I think the artists were genuinely surprised – doubtless they had not the slightest idea that there was anything ridiculous about their appearance. But later on, when the hero nearly dropped the sword he was brandishing and unwittingly almost brained his opposite number, even the supposedly grim laird allowed a shade of amusement to penetrate his greasepaint. The singing was not up to the usual Italian standard either, and altogether we passed a most entertaining, if not very culturally elevating, evening. We had only to see the characters acting in their Italianised Scottish costumes to enjoy a spectacle of complete incongruity. At least the Scots are used to wearing kilts, and doubtless the Italians felt ill at ease in skirts. But a good time was had by all, and there were no complaints!

  It was with genuine regret on the Sunday morning that we entrained once more, and embarked on the last stage of our journey, which also proved to be the dreariest. Every Italian junction of any importance and almost every line seemed to have been damaged in some way, some with devastating thoroughness, and so our train crept along at a walking pace most of the time. Our stops were Bologna, Rimini on the Adriatic coast, and inland at Foligno. At this last stop we arrived seven hours late for our evening meal, but the staff were grand and provided us with a three-course meal and hot drinks, even though it was 2 a.m. We slept loggishly for a few hours after that, and were awakened by a violent shunting and grinding of brakes – we were at the entrance to Rome station, another badly damaged place.

  I said goodbye to Charlotte, who was going to GHQ at Caserta, and hastened to the exit, but did not expect to be met, for it would have been well-nigh impossible for the unit to have known the hour, let alone the day, on which I was arriving. We had also been delayed by bad weather at first, and then the switchover from plane to rail travel had delayed us further. As it was about 6.15 a.m., I decided the best thing was to go over to the Continentale Hotel, the transit mess, opposite the station, and wait there until a reasonable hour when I could ring up our duty officer and ask for some form of transport to take me out to the unit. Accordingly I found a porter who wheeled my baggage across the road on a barrow; I then rang the bell of the Continentale, but could get no reply. After repeated ringing, a porter appeared and told me that it was too early for me to be admitted. I expostulated and became somewhat voluble and vociferous, asking him in my best Italian, accompanied by what I hoped were expressive gestures, what he thought a ‘Signorina’ should do in the streets of Rome at that hour, and did he want the military manager to find a young ATS officer on the doorstep, being refused admittance? While we were arguing and I noticed him weakening, I took advantage of the door being ajar to insert myself through the narrow opening and then told him I was inside, and intended to stay there. In the end he came round and even allowed me to have a room and a bath until it was time for breakfast. Afterwards I phoned for transport and a 15cwt truck came to collect me at about 9 a.m. Thus ended my leave and began my last lap in Cinema City.

  23

  Retrenchment

  A lmost as soon as I got back, Peggy handed over to me and departed for Austria, where she was posted to GSI, ACA (General Services Intelligence. Allied Commission Austria) in Vienna. I also took over the messing once more and so was fairly busy, though not as much as formerly, as the unit was contracting and the work was growing less. My new CO was purely a military officer, and the nerve-centre of the ‘I’ work was the major, the same second-in-command as before. Thus I did in a way once again have two bosses. But this was not to be for long, as I soon discovered. Units were being cut down all over CMF and basic establishments were being rigidly reduced in order to conform with the overall retrenchment that was now in full swing. The magic phrase, ‘Field Force Commitment’ (FFC), appeared in nearly every circular from GHQ and new ones came out with alarming regularity. No sooner had one reduction taken place in accordance with the latest FFC than another FFC followed and more staff were to be displaced or released.

  As far as this reduction of staff was concerned, I was among the next on the list. It was 13 November when I got back, and it must have been about a month later when the CO told me that he was being demobilised after Christmas and that the unit would henceforth be under a major’s command, with a correspondingly smaller number of personnel. He said the second-in-command had already chosen two AT officers to remain with him, of which I was not one (this did not surprise, nor disappoint me), and that therefore as soon as the colonel went, I would become redundant. I had, unless I later chose to sign on, another six months
to go before my two years’ overseas service were completed. The colonel asked me if I had any particular preference about my next posting and if so he would put in a good word for me. I had a few days to think the matter over. The CO also pointed out that one option was the unit previously referred to in Rome, dealing with the compensation due to Italians for helping Allied prisoners of war. He had heard, he said, that an intelligence officer was needed there, and he knew the CO and would speak to him if I were interested. I knew all this was subject to GHQ approval, but also that it would greatly help me to have a recommendation, and I was therefore very grateful to the old man.

  I discussed the matter with one or two friends. The preceding summer I had been asked if I would like to go to Greece for secretarial work of a secret nature and the idea had attracted me greatly at the time, but could not then be considered as my return to Rome had already been fixed; now, however, I began to reconsider it. The alternatives were probably GHQ at Caserta, the very thought of which sent cold shudders down my back, for Caserta was the most depressing place imaginable in winter, and I had had a taste of GHQ work the previous summer and decided I never wanted to do it again. Another option was Austria, which was quite a possibility – but again, Austria did not attract me as a country as much as did Italy or Greece, and I suspected that being employed at the big HQ in Vienna would probably be like working in Caserta. My two advisors told me that as an English girl I would probably have a thin time in Greece, as the Greek girls were so very beautiful that Englishmen there had no time for their own compatriots, which would make me lonely and possibly unhappy. Men certainly can be brutally frank at times, without even realising the full implication of their words. I agreed that life in Athens might be rather lonely, and in any case retrenchment was in full swing there and the forces might be withdrawing altogether from Greece before long. I was tempted to, but did not, suggest that perhaps English girls might find Greek men very interesting and handsome – such a remark would have been regarded as extremely bad taste!

  After due consideration, I decided to ask the CO if he would put me forward for the job in Rome. I loved Rome and did not really want to leave it, and by working there I could keep in touch with my friends in Cinema City. As regards the work I would have to do, I had not the slightest idea what it would be like, but knew it would include shorthand and typing and that I would find my Italian useful. As long as I could be of use I was not worried. And so, one Sunday, the CO told me he had spoken to the colonel heading the commission and that I was to go for an interview a day or two later, after his own departure. As a parting gift, he presented me with a beautiful silver cigarette case, much more than I deserved, and which to my intense chagrin was later stolen from my desk in Rome by some light fingers, of which unfortunately there were far too many about. Meanwhile, we had our last Christmas as a unit, which was very jolly and included all sorts of good cheer, even if there were fewer personnel than the year before. The birds sent us for the mess consisted of one chicken, one duck and one small turkey, none overfed when alive, but by a judicious mixing of the whole lot we managed to give everyone quite a good plateful, helped out with pork, vegetables and the usual Christmas garnish. David and Marcello were reigning supreme in the kitchen now, and so we had the customary rich Italian sweets that Marcello insisted in preparing for every festive occasion, and everything was very attractively arranged. David had become a really excellent cook. We had menus typed in French, illustrated by one of our very gifted amateur artists. The Ack-Ack colonel was our guest that Christmas, and as a parting gift he was presented with an ancient blackbird which Mabel had solicitously cared for since the original RSM left on Python. We heard a week or so afterwards that the bird had arrived safely at Regimental Headquarters and was then taken over by the adjutant. Owing to a mistaken belief that it preferred gin to water, it did not long survive its new home, but breathed a rather alcoholic last breath soon after posting.

  Before Christmas, as autumn wore on into winter and my fate was in the melting-pot, I took the opportunity in my free time, of which I had far more than before, of seeing something of the Roman Campagna, but from a different angle now. On Sunday afternoons I was lucky enough to be able to go for occasional drives through the countryside, some days sad in the misty, melancholic atmosphere of autumn, other days radiant in the autumn sunshine, which illuminated all the golden leaves and the scarlet berries in the hedgerows. It was often wet that year and the country had something of an English October about it, but frosts were rare before December. That winter, however, was not a hard one, and by then our heating apparatus was working efficiently and the desperate fuel shortage of the previous year had eased up a little. The anteroom had been moved into a smaller room, with a magnificent terrace facing towards Rocca di Papa. The inevitable sawdust stove had been installed, and a small bar that even had a rung for the feet, and one or two stools had been set up in a corner. There were also some easy chairs and a sofa, and so we were really well off. The troops, too, had more comfort this year, partly because there were far fewer of them. Since VE day, there had been a gradual but steady reduction in numbers in all units in the theatre of war. Our men were now all housed indoors. Some of our girls had gone already, mostly to GHQ, where all ATS ORs were eventually to be concentrated, and one or two to the company in Rome, commanded by my friend, Junior Commander Margaret Lester. By the New Year all our girls had left us, some of them with tears and misgivings. They were far sadder at leaving than they had been at arriving. Cinema City had become a real home from home.

  Meanwhile, out in the Campagna, the horror of war was now fast becoming a nightmare memory and evidence of it was little-by-little becoming effaced. In the crowded villages life was still a struggle, but it had become a shade less so – people still stood about in groups, and on Sunday afternoons most of the population would congregate in the main piazza, often flanked by high piles of rubble, in their Sunday best, the men and many of the women in sombre black. This would certainly be the situation in every village one might enter, but the difference that one would notice everywhere was that the people had lost the utterly despairing look of the year before. They looked a little better fed and their beasts were not quite as emaciated and bony. In Rome the shops were filling up and the markets were hives of activity. Italy was slowly coming to life again during this long and painful convalescence, and signs of recovery were frequent and reassuring. AMG (Allied Military Government) had by now handed over all its powers of administration to the Italians, except in the Provinces of Venezia, Giulia and Udine. Our own activity was lessening. There was not much left for organisations such as ours to do now that the war was over and most civilian suspects, agents and escaped prisoners had been rounded up. Almost all the refugees had been screened and the Field Security Detachments and Military Police dealt with current matters in their own areas. There was still work for our units in Austria, but as Italian life resumed with increasing normality, the work of the Army was gradually being wound up and handed over, either to the still active Allied Commission or direct to the Italian authorities who were in the process of taking over the administration of the country from the occupying forces. Crown Prince Umberto had ascended an uneasy throne, and the question of the new constitution and the rivalry of Republicans and Monarchists was fast coming to the fore.

  At the same time, life in the capital was becoming brighter and more normal almost daily. Restaurants, cafés and nightclubs were beginning to flourish again, despite the continuing food shortage and poorly administered rationing system. A chemist once confided to me that many essential medicines could not be provided, because many of the valuable substances brought in by UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) found their way mostly on to the black market and were used for extravagant confectionery and other rich foods, which of course only the wealthy could buy. No-one seemed to raise very strong objections to the black market, though, but for the very poor life was hard indeed.

  Civilian
s were by now hospitably opening their homes to members of the forces, from generals to privates. A fair sprinkling of marriages were taking place between forces personnel and civilian girls. In fact ‘fratting’ was now in full swing, in the north as well as in the south. And the strangely mixed international population of Rome was becoming more noticeable as the domestic situation was clarified and the position of foreigners more stabilised. On one occasion I was invited to Terni, a small town in central Italy about two hours’ drive from Rome. Strange to relate, a thick fog, very rare in and around the capital, blew up on the way and I was obliged to stay for the night. A Russian princess was also present – a tall, imposing and somewhat exotic figure in jodhpurs and sweater. Her uncle, an honorary colonel in the British Army, was running a riding school in Terni at that time, and was attached to the Ack-Ack unit guarding the still enormous refugee camp there. His niece worked as a secretary at Rome Area Command. To meet a Russian princess in an Ack-Ack mess may seem incongruous in retrospect, but she was perfectly at home there, much more so than I was. I felt rather ill at ease among this large crowd of men almost all unknown to me. But they were very kind, and as the fog made my journey back to Rome impossible that night, they produced soap, toothbrush and other such items for me and allotted me a small room, where a young refugee girl attended to me and smilingly brought me all the necessary articles, including a nice hot cup of tea the following morning. She spoke practically no English, but was very pleasant.

  I could not help recollecting my previous visit to Terni camp, just over a year before, when I had acted as escort to two women prisoners, one of whom had been expecting a baby a few weeks later. It was a hot and dusty day in late September and the women asked me a great many questions during the journey. It was my duty to divulge nothing, and yet to keep them as ‘happy’ as possible. When eventually we arrived in the great Terni compound, the rage of the two ladies was unimaginable. One abused me in French and the other (pregnant) in German. In the end I had to cut them short, as no amount of assurances would pacify them – I had personally let them down and they meant me to know it and as many other people as could hear. I was personally sorry for them but it was not my duty to be sorry for suspects, even when they were about to have babies, so as firmly as possible I handed them over to the duty sergeant, and was thankful to get away over to the mess for some tea. A month or so later, I was visiting a sick AT in hospital in Rome when the sister told me she had several babies there, including a lovely pair of twins, recently born to a German lady, from Terni. She showed them to me, and asked me if I would like to see the mother. I declined, not wishing to renew our acquaintance. But it did seem a little ironic, that she should have had her confinement in a British hospital, on British soil, so to speak, when she was so passionately Nazi. And, as if that were not bad enough, her misfortune was doubled, for she had given birth to twins. In fact, she was lucky, for she had had the best treatment, as good as given to any officer’s wife, and at the expense of the British government.