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Chapter IV

Europe Again

After landing at the Italian port of Bari we spent most of the day draped over the rails awaiting landing orders, gazing compulsively at docks, desolation and, for the first time, masses of lolling, mildly inquisitive American army men strewn amongst stacks and assemblies of guns, ammunition and miscellaneous supplies vital for the prosecution of a war. The whole scene was one of assembled power and resources – a further reminder of the volume factor in the American contribution to the Allied war effort – which, with the assortment of shipping itself, paradoxically created gnawing misgivings at the vast, unmissable target it presented to an enemy air attacker.

Presumably, the Luftwaffe were more vitally engaged elsewhere. However, somebody in authority must soon have experienced the same anxieties as myself about the dockside breach of all we had been taught about dispersal, for our disembarkation with only battle-order kit, was followed by a march of a couple of miles or so, without complaint, to some open land which did not deserve its description even as a ‘temporary’ transit camp.

The diet of hard rations was soon supplemented with unsolicited contributions from friendly, curious and bountiful American soldiers, whose spam made a change from bully-beef and whose frank, open warmth of approach made a surprising change from the usual mutual initial suspicions which operated when British units met.

If we envied them their kit and supplies, we could at least take some comfort from our special-forces equipment being vastly superior to that of ordinary units of the British army. Bedding-down that night was a perfect example. Our lightweight, snug sleeping bags offered a better guarantee of quality sleep under our easily portable two-man bivouacs than did the poor bloody infantry’s blankets under the stars. Truth be told, sleep did not come easily on that first night back in Europe after almost two years. Danger had nothing to do with it: the battle for Italy was too remote to be heard. When I think now of the thousands of lives that were lost in the long struggle for the conquest of Italy, which went on until the last day of fighting in Europe, I imagine that each one of those who died spent their first night in Italy in similarly disturbed, optimistic excitement at the prospect of being pointed in the right direction for home. I think I was rare though in also finding space in my thoughts for regrets at leaving the Middle East, and a dreamy, unrealistically optimistic ambition to return there again under different circumstances.

With typically unquestioned military mystery, a fleet of lorries arrived the next morning bearing the rest of our personal kit from the Dilwara. After we had boarded the vehicles as bidden, the convoy then set off northwards along the Adriatic coast road for sixty or so miles to a small port called Monopoli, where we were billeted in reasonably comfortable, if overcrowded, conditions in a school building at the town’s outskirts. Monopoli, being some thirty miles south of Bari – which we knew had been taken by the Allies within a few weeks of the landings in Italy in September – appeared to show few of the outward signs of the ravages of war but, being typical of the neglected towns of southern Italy, nevertheless had the appearance of a sad, down-at-heel countenance of deprivation. I had not then heard the northern Italians’ jibe about the south but if, as the yarn goes, one did draw a line across Italy from Rome to Rimini to find something of Africa below the line, I have to say that my first impressions of Monopoli’s people would have enhanced the reputation of Africa in my reckoning. Everyone had heard of the charges of cowardice, duplicity and chameleon loyalties directed at the Italians. Contact and recounted experiences had provided some justification for those criticisms yet, appropriately prejudiced as I was, my first association with Italian people at Monopoli in February 1944 was an enlightening, pleasurable experience oddly inconsistent with my posture of belligerence and disgust towards a bitterly scorned enemy of five months earlier. Alerted to all their wiles, I still discovered a charm in the Italians with whom I came into contact at Monopoli which remains inexplicable. The sceptics would, no doubt, point out that we were at Monopoli for only twelve days. In that short time we discovered hairdressers, tailors, embroiderers (who copied and reproduced our ‘wings’ and cap-badges with amazingly deft artistry), photographers, restaurateurs, and, of course, vino barmen who created our first and lasting taste for the pleasures of vermouth. And, believe it or not, there was already in Monopoli an established YMCA where ‘chars-and-wads’ (teas and cakes) could supplement the mainly unsatisfied appetites remaining after our army meals.

We bonded. We polarised. We had fights among our tense selves and we had near-mutinies in frightening bouts of ill-discipline and insubordination. We played football matches and had cross-country runs. We learnt new vulgar songs, one of which was to become our notorious signature tune. It was a remarkable twelve day episode.