Once There Was A War Part 7

And the battle line has moved up. The beach is taken now and the invasion moves ahead. The white hospital s.h.i.+ps move insh.o.r.e to take on their cargoes.

PALERMO.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN THEATER, October 1, 1943 October 1, 1943-The sea off Sicily was running in long, smooth waves without whitecaps and the day was bright and the sea that Mediterranean blue that is unlike any other blue in the world. The PT boat ground its way through, making a great churned wake and taking even what little sea there was over the bow. It's the wettest boat of all, the torpedo boat. The crew, in their rubber clothes, huddled on the deck trying to keep out of the constant spray, and on each side of the bridge the machine-gunners, at their stations, sat in their turrets behind their guns and the water glistened on their faces. The cartridge cases of the .50-caliber sh.e.l.ls were green from contact with the sea water.

Off to the right a body was floating in the sea, rising and falling on the long waves. It was pretty swollen, and the brown lifebelt and collar made it float high in the water.

The captain was dressed in a bathing suit and he was barefooted. The First had a rubber coat on but his trousers were rolled up and his feet were bare, too. The two of them looked off across the port torpedo tube at the floating body.

"Should we go over and take a look?" the First said.

"Not in the shape it's in," the captain said. "Besides, we have to make our schedule."

The first said, "I think that's the loneliest thing in the world. A body floating at sea. I don't know anything that looks so alone."

The captain let go his hold on the torpedo tube and turned and held onto the rail behind the port gun turret. "Before you came on I had one that gave me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s," he said. He broke abruptly into his story.

"After Palermo fell," he said, "there was a night and a part of a day before the Seventh Army got to the city. I was on patrol with five PTs and we got the flash and we were in the neighborhood anyway, so we came to take a look. You know what Palermo looks like. That great, big, strong mountain right beside the city and the crazy lights that get on it and then the city spilled down there at the base. It looks like Ulysses has just left there. You can really get the sense of Virgil from that mountain, from the whole northern coast of Sicily, for that matter. It just stinks of the cla.s.sics.

"Anyway, it was fairly late in the afternoon when we came opposite the city and crept in next to the mole and sneaked through. We were fixed to run if anything shot at us, but nothing did. We went into the harbor and it was really shot to pieces. There were s.h.i.+ps sunk all over and twisted cranes and one little Italian destroyer lying over on its side.

"The Air Force really did a job on the waterfront there. Buildings and docks and machinery and boats just blasted into junk. What a junkman's dream that was! What made me think of it was that the water was oily from the blasted s.h.i.+ps and there was a dead woman floating on the oily water, face down and with her hair fanned out and floating behind her. She bobbed up and down when our wake spread out in the harbor.

"At first," the captain said, "I didn't know what gave me a queer feeling and then it came to me. There wasn't anybody moving about on the sh.o.r.e at all. You take a wrecked city, why, there's usually someone poking around. But not here. I got the idea I'd like to go ash.o.r.e. So the First I had then and I, we pulled up between two wrecked fis.h.i.+ng boats and we got out a tommy gun apiece and we tied up and jumped ash.o.r.e.

"It's kind of hard to imagine. Palermo is a pretty big city. Except for the harbor and the waterfront, our bombers hadn't hurt it very much. Oh, there were some wrecks, but not to amount to anything. I tell you, there wasn't one living soul in that city. The population moved right out into the hills and the troops hadn't come yet. There wasn't a soul.

"You'd walk up a street where there were big houses and the doors would be open and-just not anybody. I did see a cat go streaking across the street, a pure white cat, but that's the only living thing there was.

"You know those little painted carts the Sicilians have, with scenes painted on them? Well, there were some of those lying on their sides and the donkeys that pulled them were lying there dead, too.

"The First and I walked up into the town. Every once in a while I'd get the idea of going into one of the houses and just seeing what they were like, but I couldn't. It was quiet and there wasn't a breath of wind and the doors were open and I just couldn't make myself go into one of those houses.

"We'd walked quite a good distance up into the town, farther than we thought, when it began to get dark. Neither of us had thought to bring a flashlight. Well, when we saw the dark coming, I think we both got panicky without any reason. We started to walk back to the waterfront and we kept going faster and faster and then we finally broke into a run.

"There was something about that town that didn't want us there after dark. The open doors were black already and the deep shadows were falling. We dog-trotted through the narrow streets and then I got to thinking-there's n.o.body here, but now if I see anybody it's going to scare me. It gets dark awfully quick there. It was pitch black in the narrow streets, but you could see light above the houses.

"It got so we were really running and when we broke out on the dock and climbed over the wrecks, we were panting. The First said to me, 'A guy might have got lost in there and not got back all night.' But he knew we had been scared, and I knew it too."

A hard dash of spray came over the bow of the PT and splashed him in the face.

"That gave me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s," the captain said. "I think that scared me more than I've been scared for a long time. I got to thinking about it and once or twice I had a dream about it. Come to think of it, the whole thing was like a dream anyway, from that dead woman right on through. But if I ever wanted to say how it was to be alone and panicky, I think I'd think of that right away."

SOUVENIR.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 12, 1943 October 12, 1943-It is said, and with some truth, that while the Germans fight for world domination and the English for the defense of England, the Americans fight for souvenirs. This may not be the final end for our dogfaces, but it helps. It is estimated that two divisions of American troops could carry away the Great Pyramid, chip by chip, in twenty-four hours. This writer has seen pup tents piled nearly to the ridge rope with nearly valueless mementos of places the soldiers occupied. Dark back rooms of houses in Algeria and Palermo and Messina, and by now probably Salerno, are roaring with the industry of making bits of colored cloth and celluloid into gadgets to sell the soldiers.

A soldier has been seen struggling down a street in Palermo carrying a fifty-pound statuette of an angel in plaster of Paris. It was painted blue and pink and had written on its base in gold paint, "Balcome too Palermo." How he ever expected to get it home no one will ever know. If the homes of America ever receive the souvenirs that are being collected by our troops there will be no room for living. The post office at an African station recently stopped a sentimental present a soldier was sending his wife. It was a prized possession and he had bought it from a Goum for 1000 francs. It was a quart jar of fingers pickled in brandy.

It is reported that the pre-Roman Greek temples at Salerno have suffered more from chipping by American soldiers in two weeks than they did during the preceding three thousand years, and whereas they have suffered the destructive rage of invaders for centuries they are not expected to survive the admiring souvenir-hunting of our troops, who only want to send a small chip home to the little woman.

True souvenir-hunting has its rules. It does not apply to the fighter group who transported a grand piano, piece by piece, over a thousand miles. Nor to the bomber swing band who rescued a crushed bull fiddle and mended it with airplane fix-it until it was four inches thick. They wanted to use these things. Souvenir hunting, if properly done, only takes notice of things that can't possibly be used for anything at all and are too big or too fragile ever to get home.

Probably the greatest souvenir hunter of this whole war is a private first cla.s.s who must be nameless but is generally called Bugs.

Bugs, when the battle for Gela in Sicily had abated, was poking about among the ruins, when he came upon a mirror-but such a mirror as to amaze him. It had survived bombing and sh.e.l.lfire in some miraculous manner, a matter which created wonder in Bugs. The mirror was six feet two in height and four feet wide, and it was in a frame of carved and painted wood which represented hundreds of small cupids wrestling and writhing about a length of blue ribbon, which accidentally managed to cover every cupid from indecency. The whole thing must have weighed about seventy-five pounds, and it was so beautiful that it broke Bug's heart. He just couldn't leave it behind.

Bugs probably fought the toughest war in all Sicily, for he carried the mirror on his back the whole way. When the sh.e.l.lfire was bad, he turned his mirror face down and covered it with dirt. On advances he left it and always came back in the night and got it again, although it entailed marching twice as far as the rest of his outfit.

Finally Bugs arranged a kind of sling, so that while advancing he had the appearance of a charging billboard. He gradually came to devote a good part of his life to the care, transportation, and protection of the biggest souvenir in the whole Seventh Army. When he finally marched into Palermo he did so in triumph, for his mirror was un-chipped and its frame was only a little chewed up from handling.

Now, for the first time, Bugs was billeted in a house, one of those tall houses with iron balconies and narrow stairs. Bugs tried in vain to get the mirror around a corner of the narrow stairway and finally he got a rope and, tying one end of it to the balcony, he went back to the street and tied the other end of it to his mirror. Then he went back and hauled it up to the second floor, where he was billeted. There he surveyed the room and decided where to hang his mirror. He drove a nail in the wall, hung the mirror, and stepped back to admire it. And he had just stepped clear when the nail pulled out and the whole thing crashed and broke into a million pieces.

Bugs regarded the mess sadly, but then the great philosophy of the "blowed in the gla.s.s" souvenir-hunter took possession of him. He said, "Oh, well, maybe it wouldn't have looked good in our flat, anyways."

WELCOME.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 14, 1943 October 14, 1943-The Italian people may greet conquering American and British troops with different methods in different parts of the country, but they act always with enthusiasm that amounts to violence. One of their methods makes soldiers a little self-conscious until they get used to it. Great crowds of people stand on the sidewalks as the troops march by and simply applaud by clapping their hands as though they applauded a show. This makes the troops walk very stiffly, smiling self-consciously, half soldiers and half actors.

But this hand-clapping is the most restrained thing that they do. The soldiers get more embarra.s.sed when they are overwhelmed by Italian men who rush up to them, overpower them with embraces, and plant great wet kisses on their cheeks, crying a little as they do it. A soldier hates to push them away, but he is not used to being kissed by men, and all he can do is to blush and try to get away as quick as possible.

A third method of showing enthusiasm at being conquered is to throw any fruit or vegetable which happens to be in season at the occupying troops. In Sicily the grapes were ripe and many a soldier got a swipe across the face with a heavy bunch of grapes tossed with the best will in the world.

The juice ran down inside their s.h.i.+rts, and after a march of a few blocks troops would be pretty well drenched in grape juice, which, incidentally, draws flies badly, and there is nothing to do about it. You can't drown such enthusiasm by making them not throw grapes.

One of the most ridiculous and most dangerous occupations, however, was the investment and capture of the island of Ischia. There the people, casting about for some vegetable or floral tribute, found that the most prominent and showy flower of the season was the pink amaryllis. This is not a pleasant flower at the best, but in the hands of an enthusiastic Italian crowd it can almost be a lethal weapon.

A reasonable-sized bunch of amaryllis, with big, thick stems, may weigh four pounds. In a short drive through the streets of the city of Ischia, some of the troops were nearly beaten to death with flowers, while one naval officer was knocked clear out of a car by a well-aimed bouquet of these terrible flowers. His friends proposed him for a Purple Heart, and wrote a report on his bravery in action. "Under a deadly hail of amaryllis," the report said, "Lieutenant Commander So-and-So fought his way through the street, although badly wounded by this new and secret weapon." A man could easily be killed by an opponent armed with amaryllis.

The pressures on the Italians must have been enormous. They seem to go to pieces emotionally when the war is really and truly over for them. Groups of them simply stand and cry-men, women, and children. They want desperately to do something for the troops and they haven't much to work with. Bottles of wine, flowers, any kind of little gift. They rush to the churches and pray, and then, being afraid to miss something, they rush back to watch more troops. The Italian soldiers in Italy respond instantly to an order to deliver their arms. They pile their rifles up in the streets so quickly that you have the idea they are greatly relieved to get the d.a.m.ned things out of their hands once for all.

But whatever may have been true about the Fascist government, it is instantly obvious that the Italian little people were never our enemies. Whole towns could not put on such acts if they did not mean it. But in nearly every community you will find a fat and sleek man, sometimes a colonel, sometimes a civil administrator. Now and then he wears the silver dagger with the gold tip on the scabbard, which indicates that he was one who marched on Rome with Mussolini.

In a country which has been hungry this man is well fed and beautifully dressed. He has been living on these people since Fascism came here, and he has not done badly for himself. On the surrender of a community he is usually the first to offer to help in the government. He will do anything to help if only he can just keep his graft and his power.

It is to be hoped that he is never permitted either to help or to stay in his position. Indeed, our commanders are usually visited by committees of townspeople and farmers who ask that the local Fascist be removed and kept under wraps.

They know that if he ever gets power again he will avenge himself on them. They hate him and want to be rid of him. And if you ask if they were Fascists, most Italians will reply, "Sure, you were a Fascist or you didn't get any work, and if you didn't work your family starved." And whether or not this is true, they seem to believe it thoroughly.

As the conquest goes on up the length of Italy, the crops are going to change. Some soldiers are already feeling an apprehension for the cabbage districts and the potato harvest, if they too are used as thrown tokens of love and admiration.

THE LADY PACKS.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 15, 1943 October 15, 1943-There is a little island very close to the mainland near Naples which has on it a very large torpedo works, one of the largest in Italy. When Italy had surrendered, the Germans took the island, mined it thoroughly, and ran the detonating wires under the water to the mainland, so that they could blow up the torpedo works if it seemed likely to be captured. The Germans left a few guards, heavily armed, and they also left an Italian admiral and his wife as a sort of hostage to the explosives planted all over the little island.

To a small Anglo-American naval force a curious order came. One single torpedo boat was to take on some British commandos, who were to go ash.o.r.e in secrecy, cut the wires to the mainland, kill the German guards, and evacuate the Italian admiral and his wife.

The boat a.s.signed was a motor torpedo boat and it lay alongside a pier in the afternoon and waited for the commandos to come aboard. The celebrated commandos, the great swashbucklers, took their time in arriving. In fact, they arrived nearly at dusk, five of them, which to their mind is a large military force. And these were very strange men.

They were small, tired-looking men who might have been waiters or porters at a railroad station. Their backs were slightly bent and their knees k.n.o.bby and they walked with a shuffling gait. Their huge shoes, with thick rubber soles, looked far too large for them. They were dressed in faded shorts and open s.h.i.+rts, and their arms were an old-fas.h.i.+oned revolver and a long, wicked knife for each. Their leader looked like a weary and petulant mouse who wanted more than anything else in the world to get back to a good safe job in an insurance office with the certainty that his pension would not be held up.

These five monsters came shambling aboard and went immediately below decks to get a cup of tea and a slice of that cake which tastes a little like fish. They sat mournfully in the tiny wardroom, mooning over their tea and scratching the mosquito bites on their lumpy knees.

When it was dark the MTB slipped from the dock and crept out to sea toward the island. The moon was very bright and had to be taken into account. But it was thought that in the indefinite light the action would be easier to accomplish. The motors were m.u.f.fled, and the small, powerful boat pushed quietly through a smooth, moonlit sea.

On the deck the rubber boat which was to take the raiders ash.o.r.e was inflated and ready. The gun crew sat quietly at their stations. Just before midnight the boat lay to, and the black outline of the island was not far ahead. Then the commandos came stumbling out of the companionway and stood about on the deck. The captain of the torpedo boat said, "You have all the plans now-cut the wires, kill the guards if possible, and bring out the admiral and his lady. How long do you think that will take you?"

The leader of the commandos gave the subject his consideration, tapping his lips with his finger. "We should be back in an hour," he said at last.

"An hour? Why, it can't take that long. If you take that long you won't be able to do it at all."

"Oh, the guards business and the wires," the commandos explained, "that won't take long."

"What will, then?" the captain demanded.

"Well, the admiral's wife will need time to pack," the commando said. "She doesn't know we're coming. She won't have her things ready." And with that they laid the rubber boat over the side and paddled silently away.

For an hour the MTB lay in the moonlight, waiting. The sailors kept close watch on the dark island and nothing happened. There were no shots, there were no lights on the blacked-out island. The whole thing was dead and quiet in the misty moonlight.

At ten minutes of the hour the captain began to look at his watch every half-minute, and he muttered to himself about E-boat patrols and the necessity for not putting his s.h.i.+p in danger for nonsense. If there had been any activity ash.o.r.e he would at least know there was fighting of some kind.

At five minutes of the hour a big shape showed on the water, and because everything is potentially dangerous the gunners swung their machine guns on it and waited for it to identify itself. It approached, and it was a rubber boat. It gently nudged the side of the MTB and a little, slender woman was helped over the side, and then a quite stout admiral in a beautiful overcoat, although the night was warm. These figures went immediately below, but the leader of the commandos said, "Bert, you will go back with me." Three of the men climbed aboard the MTB, and the rubber boat shoved off again and moved back toward the island.

The three remaining commandos stood limply on the deck. The MTB captain was impatient. "Accomplish the mission?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, there were eight guards, not seven."

"You didn't take them?"

"No, sir."

The captain's eyes went quickly to the long, thin knife at the man's belt, and the commando nervously, almost apologetically, fingered its steel hilt.

"What have they gone back for?"

"The lady's trunk, sir. We couldn't get it in the boat. There wasn't room with the rest of us. They've gone back for her trunk. Quite a large one. Old-fas.h.i.+oned kind with a hump on it, you know."

The captain put his hands on his hips and studied the little man.

"Sir?" the commando began.

"Yes, I know. And I wish it was beer, but there isn't any."

He called softly into the companionway, "Joel, oh, Joel, get some water on. There'll be five teas wanted in a moment."

CAPRI.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 18, 1943 October 18, 1943-The day after the island of Capri was taken and before any of the admirals and generals had found it necessary to inspect the defenses of its rocky cliffs and hazardous wine cellars a group of sailors from a destroyer in the harbor strolled along one of the beautiful tree-lined paths. They were inspecting defenses too, the island's and their own, and they found their own lacking in initiative. The hill was steep and there were gardens above and below the path.

As they strolled along a shrill little voice came from under a grape arbor below the way. "I say," said the voice.

The naval men looked over the low wall and saw a tiny old woman-a little bit of a woman-dressed in black, who came scrambling from under the grapevines and climbed up the steps like a puppy. She was breathless.

"I hope you won't mind," she panted. "It was very good to hear English spoken. I am English, you know."

She paused to let this tremendous fact sink in. She was dressed in decent and aging black. She never had made the slightest concession to Italy. Her costume would have done her honor and protected her from scandal in Finchley.

Her eyes danced with pleasure, wise, small, humorous eyes. "They speak Italian here," she said brightly, and it was obvious that she did not if she could help it. "And the Germans came," she said, "and I haven't heard much English. That is why I should like just to hear you talk. I like Americans," she explained, and you could see that she was willing to take any kind of criticism for this att.i.tude. "I haven't heard any English. The Germans came, but I said that, didn't I? Well, anyway, the war came and I couldn't get out, and that is three years, isn't it? And do you know it has been a year since I have had a cup of tea, over a year-you will hardly believe that."

The communications officer said, "We have tea aboard. I could bring you a packet this afternoon."

The little woman danced from one foot to the other like a child. "N-o-o-o," she said excitedly. "Why-what fun, what fun."

Signals said, "Is there anything else you need, because maybe I could bring that to you too?"

For a moment the old bright eyes surveyed him, measuring him. "You couldn't-" she began, and paused. "You couldn't bring a little pat of-b.u.t.ter?"

"Sure I could," said Signals.

"N-o-o-o," she cried, and she began to hop like a child at hopscotch. She held up a finger. "If you'll bring me a little pat of b.u.t.ter I will make some scones, real scones, and we'll have a party. Won't that be fun? Won't that be fun?"

She danced with excitement. "Imagine," she said.

"I'll bring it this afternoon," said Signals.

"You see, I was caught here and then the Germans came. They didn't do me really any harm. They were just here," she said seriously. "All of my people are in Australia. I have no family in England any more." Her old eyes became sad without any transition. "I don't know how they are," she said. "I have had two letters in three years. It takes nearly a year to get a letter."

Signals said, "If you will write a letter I'll pick it up when I bring the b.u.t.ter and tea and will mail it at the first port."

She looked at him sternly. "And how long will that take to get to Australia?" she demanded.

"Oh, I don't know. A few weeks."

"N-o-o-o," she cried, and she began to dance again, little dainty dancing steps, with her arms held slightly out from her sides and her wrists bent down. Her shrill little bird voice laughed and her pale old eyes were wet. "Why," she cried. "Why, that will be more fun than tea."

SEA WARFARE.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 19, October 19, 1943-The plans for Task Force X were nearly complete. The officers had coffee in a restaurant in a North African city. The tall, nervous one, a lieutenant commander and a student of mines-contact, magnetic, and those vibration mines which react to the engine of a s.h.i.+p-leaned over the table. 1943-The plans for Task Force X were nearly complete. The officers had coffee in a restaurant in a North African city. The tall, nervous one, a lieutenant commander and a student of mines-contact, magnetic, and those vibration mines which react to the engine of a s.h.i.+p-leaned over the table.

"I conceive naval warfare to be much like chamber music," he said. "Thirty-caliber machine guns, those are the violins, the fifties are the violas, six-inch guns are perfect cellos."

He looked a little sad. "I've never had sixteen-inch guns to compose with. I have never had any ba.s.s." He leaned back in his chair. "The composition-the tactics of chamber music-are much the same as a well-conceived and planned naval engagement. Destroyers out, why, that will be the statement of theme, the screening attack, and all preparing for the great statement of the battles.h.i.+ps." He leaned back farther and tipped his chair against the wall and hooked his heels over the lower rung.

A lieutenant (j.g.) laughed. "He always talks like that. If he didn't know so much about mines we would think he was crazy."

"You haven't been in battle, in a good naval engagement, and you don't know anything about chamber music," said the lieutenant commander. "I'll show you something tonight if you'll go with me."