Page 3: A Prisoner of War Remembers
L - R: Angelina, Elvira, Domenico & Vincenzo De Blasis |
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Here I must try to illustrate another facet of this wonderful man's character. When we first settled down with him, he brought us a large flagon of wine with each of the morning and evening meals. After a couple of months the ration was reduced to one flagon per day, then some weeks later to one-half flagon daily, then there was none. This could only mean that we had exhausted his wine output for the year, but the gradual reduction, and subsequent termination, so embarrassed him that he could not offer a word of explanation. Later on, when the ration had ceased altogether and we were able to converse more fluently, I told him that we fully appreciated the position but were distressed at the thought of having drained his store. He then told us that he had put seven flagons aside, the first of which was to celebrate news of Archangelo in America and the other six to "fare fiesta" on what he referred to as the Italian equivalent of "Deliverance Day". Very soon afterwards he brought the first flagon up to the loft to celebrate good news from Archangelo in the States. I shall always regret that health precluded me from helping to drink the remaining six flagons. Domenico's barn was strongly built of sandstone to withstand the earthquakes to which the district is subjected. There were four divisions in the main portion, one of which had a fire-place and was then used as the kitchen-living room. Above us was the family's bedroom, reached by a roughly-made staircase, with a floor of semi-smoothed chestnut planks, through the interstices and knot-holes of which one could see what was going on below. Next to the kitchen, but with no interior communication, was a cattle byre, above which, reached by a ladder, was a forage loft. There were several adjuncts to the main building, one occupied by refugees from the town below, and in another of which we slept on the night of our arrival. We spent several days and nights in the grotto and looked forward, eagerly, to the evening meal in the barn. By this time, the ever-adaptable Domenico was beginning to speak our brand of pidgin Italian. My schoolboy French, the little Latin I had (unwillingly) learned at school, and a few of the more important Italian nouns and verbs we had picked up on our peregrinations, helped somewhat, but full credit must be given to Domenico for the fact that we were able to converse at all. The only English word he knew he pronounced as "loofer" and I immediately conjured up visions of baths and loofahs (not to be seen for many a day). At last I realised that he meant loafer, a word he had picked up from his brother Giovanni who had spent some years in the USA. Domenico, rightly or wrongly, accused Mussolini of being a "loofer". One night we had just completed our evening meal in the barn when we heard German voices followed by a knock on the door. The alert Domenico immediately grabbed the plates from the table while the three of us, noiselessly, fled up the stairs. He opened the door and bade the Germans, an officer and two privates, welcome. He then plied them with wine and, had it been their intention to search the place, they soon forgot it and departed three hours later, tipsy, but well-disposed towards Domenico. During those hours we were stretched out on the floor above watching the proceedings through the cracks in the floor. How we refrained from coughing, etc, I do not know. It was interesting to note that the Germans spoke the same sort of bastard Italian as we did so that we could follow the conversation which had little to do with war. Many months later, the chap in the next bed to me in a British Field Hospital was a Turk, (formerly of the French Foreign legion and taken prisoner while serving with the Free French.) Strangely enough he could speak no French, or any other language apart from his own and the pidgin Italian he, too, had acquired while wandering in the Apennines. We had a lot of interesting converse. Like myself, he was a dysentery case, and I was able to interpret through this patois when the MO and nurses enquired as to how many times he had been to the toilet, etc. The, perhaps, close shave of the previous night had set Domenico thinking. It was with a grin of satisfaction that he approached us in the grotto next morning. He told us to go back to the barn, one at a time, ensuring that nobody saw us, and go up to the forage loft which was then practically full of bales of lucerne and hay. This fantastic man had made a tunnel through the bales, from near the loft ladder for about ten feet, to the opposite end and, at the first sign of danger, we were to block the tunnel at our end while he would do the same at the other. There being no window, to supply the hide-out with air and light, he had removed a large stone from the wall. We were to find that this orifice, while supplying an ample amount of the former, gave very little of the latter. We were thrilled with our new abode as we could sleep warm at night, and as there was a door, some ten or twelve feet above ground level, near the ladder, we would be able to watch the passers-by through the cracks and knot-holes. However, our new hide-out and the byre below were in semi-gloom, a fact which Domenico often deplored. For sanitary purposes we used the byre below and it was deemed unwise for us to emerge from our new hiding place for the evening meal. Accordingly, either Domenico or Elvira would bring us up the morning and evening meals. I noticed that, when the latter was the purveyor, dear old Angelina was always in the offing to ensure that there was no "funny business." We did not, of course, spend all our time in the hide-out, but a considerable portion of the daylight hours at the peep-holes in the door. We soon got to recognise the regular passers-by and, after a time, we did not even repair to the hide-out when German soldiers, obviously not searchers, passed by. We could not understand why all the young girls were decked out in red, white and green dresses until Domenico explained that some enterprising German soldier had found a big stock of large Italian flags and sold them to the townsfolk. Apparently he, or some equally "spiv"-minded opportunist, had done a similar lucrative trade in disposing of cushions, etc, from de-railed railway carriages below. As previously stated, towns in the Liri Valley below were liable to Allied bombing, particularly those in which there were large concentrations of German troops. When our 'planes bombed the distant towns of Arezzano and Sora, Elvira intimated that the people there deserved what they got. But the day they bombed Civitella, I shall never forget, nor her cry of "Mama mia, Civitella." I really think that the aftermath of this raid, in which I imagine that some of Domenico's friends were killed, was the nearest to which he might have shown any antagonism towards us. However, he showed not the slightest. During the raid we were at our peep-holes in the door when a bomb fell about forty feet away from the barn and threw a passing woman to the ground. Poor bombing indeed, for I imagine that, even allowing for a 45º mountain slope, we must have been a good mile from the town. I was gratified to note that the German medical men were soon on the scene and that a medical corporal went up to the woman's house at Meta twice a day for a fortnight to attend to her. The German troops were told not to antagonise the Italian civilian population and that there was to be no looting. As far as personal knowledge goes, these orders were rigidly obeyed. Domenico had the same numbers of sheep and hens when I left as he had when I arrived (apart from a woebegone looking hen which he gave to a soldier for whom he felt sorry.) A lot of German soldiers called while we were in the barn and all of them seemed to have been after bacon or other fatted food. Domenico would give them as much as he could spare and would usually get tobacco, cigarettes, cigarette papers or matches in return. On their departure he would gleefully bring the "spoils" to us in the byre and, realising the humour of the situation, smile with satisfaction as we "lit up." (I warned Domenico, from time to time, to keep a more watchful eye on his livestock when our troops arrived.) As I write I have beside me the top of a matchbox thus received. Domenico wisely decided to divulge our presence in the barn only to his most intimate and trusted friends, as it was known that parties of German soldiers were masquerading in British uniform as escaped Prisoners-of-War. When some unsuspecting peasant introduced them to prisoners he was hiding the latter were immediately arrested with dire consequences to the peasant and his family. So, when parties of "prisoners" arrived, whether genuine or bogus, Domenico gave them food and wine but never mentioned us (listening with our ears glued to the wall.) Accordingly, we often heard broad Scottish, Lancashire, Cockney and other obviously genuine voices, but never met their owners. The barn was twice searched, at night, by designated parties of Germans while we were in the hide-out in the loft. It was well-known to the Germans that there were many escapees still in the mountains and on both occasions the parties were large and the searches thorough. After each search we told Domenico that we must go, but he would not hear of it. We again pointed out that, if we were found in the barn, he would be in serious trouble, and I asked him how he felt when he was accompanying the searchers. He replied that he then felt quite calm but "dopo" (after) - and then he drew his forearm across his forehead without further comment. |
