© Michael Page · Permission to share the memoirs of Arthur Page, Una Bella Passeggiata (A Walk in Wartime Italy), has been granted by the family of Arthur Page.

Read also  “Arthur Page’s Memorable Walk” and “Una Bella Passeggiata (A Walk in Wartime Italy)—Installment 1.”

Chapter 5—Sempre Giu Alle Montagne

From the first moments of being taken prisoner we, who had been expecting imminent death or dreadful wounding, were given a sudden and unexpected reprieve. As one German said to me, “For you the war is over, but I go on and on.” The neutrality of camp life seemed to confirm that, as in 1914–1918, being a POW meant immunity from the perils of war for the duration, that we were meant to return to wife, girlfriend, or mother. As prison became less disagreeable and its monastic nature appeared to distance us from the struggle against Naziism, so we slowly accepted its placid regime and grew less inclined to consider re-entering the fight to rid the world of totalitarian frightfulness. Belsen was not known to us and the Holocaust barely a whisper. Now, at a stroke, we were back in it as though the drive and spirit of our old company commander, despairing of our inertia, had booted us back to duty.

A planned departure was quickly arranged, personal gear packed, we formed small groups and awaited nightfall. The plan saw us only to beyond the camp confines. From there the injunction was to head south. Exits were convenient to hut positions and my hut used the postern door that led to freedom via the sports field.

As we crossed it there came a nerve testing shock not catered for in our briefing; Italian machine guns opened up! Some panic accelerated our departure. Subsequently, we heard of no casualties so presumably the guns aimed high to bolster the impression that we ‘escaped’ against camp authority’s will. Blindly we stumbled and cursed our way through half-grown maize, wheat, and grass, under fruit trees and grape vine until our boots struck metalled road.

Regardless of direction we set off along it, my group of four, through darkness relieved by moonlight and a thousand stars. Occasionally we saluted the novelty of liberty with shouts of “Freedom; liberty at last; England here we come”, and with outstretched arms gesticulated to the night sky. Albeit the general abandonment of camp had been staggered it was amazing how soon we found ourselves evidently alone and quite isolated from other groups.

Now that we had been thrust ‘willy-nilly’ beyond the cosy security of camp, and as the adrenaline ceased to surge, we began to feel the uncertainty of our situation in a completely foreign country and apprehension for the morrow. Comfortable beds stood empty in which we had slept soundly in the assurance that tomorrow would be a mere repetition of today that we would wake to brew a mug of blower-boiled tea.

Now we missed those beds and to hell with the bugs; only luck and effort would produce tomorrow’s needs; we had re-entered the world of responsibility. We did not move far from the camp that night and finally, sadly feeling the lack of those blankets, palliasse and pillow we slept somewhere in a foreign field.

My group was made up as follows: A RAF sergeant who had parachuted into the Mediterranean for urgent reasons for survival; a commando corporal and volunteer from De Valera’s Erin; a huge ‘Geordie’ from infantry or artillery, I do not quite recall; and myself, a sergeant from the second battalion The Hampshire Regiment.

Whilst wasting my time studying German in the prison camp, the Irish corporal had used his foresight and common sense to study Italian. Our immediate future depended on his linguistic skill. With his little bit of Italian and a response from the local Italians (which put paid to all our fears as to how they would respond to our presence among them) we survived the first 48 hours.

Then we heard that Jerry had made a visit to the camp and, incidentally, picked up a few of our chaps who had gone back seeking Red Cross parcels and perhaps even those warm beds. It was a little later, from a slightly higher vantage point, that we saw a small group of our lads recaptured. They were strolling along a minor road some 200 yards below us when a nippy Volkswagen swung round a bend, squealed to a halt, and in seconds they were threatened with three Schmeissers. We needed no further prompting; it was time to move south. “Andare sempre giu alle montagne” was the excellent advice of the locals as they pointed southward (“Keep going along the mountains”).     

Thus began my peregrinations about Italy which would occupy me, on and off, for the next year. I never realised it then, but I had a hell of a lot of walking ahead of me, would make three attempts to cross the front line, and would be recaptured twice before reaching Allied troops. Perhaps I would not have bothered had I known that by next Christmas, three and a half months away, I would be no further down the leg of Italy than is Servigliano. I would be snowed up 50 kms west in the Apennines in the little town of Verchiano, having got there via the Gran Sasso, Rome, Bologna, and Foligno, very roughly speaking.

A military move is seldom successful without accurate information and good maps, of which we had neither. All we knew was that the 8th Army had landed at Taranto and the American 5th Army at Salerno. We did not know Kesselring’s determination to form his Winterstellung south of Rome and there fight it out, helped by the natural barrier of the broadest and highest expanse of the central Apennines, with peaks of 7,000–9,000 feet. Moreover, to travel “sempre giu alle montagne,” abiding by local advice, would take us to the Gran Sasso, the highest part of that expanse where, even as we set out, Mussolini was being rescued from a lofty skiing hotel by Skorzeny and his glider troops with a consequent thickening of troops in that area.

Foreknowledge and a map might have urged us to take a chance, make for Porto San Giorgio and go south by train before the rush started. But this is arrogance for I certainly would not have had the imagination to have thought of such a plan and, in any case, we were still too much in the grip of prison camp ennui to chance such risky projects. I wonder if more intelligent, braver, and better-informed chaps essayed it? At least a map might have prompted us to avoid the higher parts of those bloody mountains.

We kept clear of towns, however inviting they seemed to be architecturally. In the lower foothills they were perched on the hillcrests, walled and ramparted as in medieval times, with steep, narrow, cobbled, alley-like streets designed for mule, ox cart, or shade. Built with rock on rock, they had endured unchanged since the Renaissance and earlier. The farms of the contadini (the peasants and agricultural folk) were sprinkled prettily among the hilly terrain. They were to prove to be our nightly hosts when we sought food and water, our salvation and our lifeblood. We became used to seeing the bullocks straining at the plough or pulling the gaily painted tumbrels, the usual local transport. Water came from the well in the courtyard. It was like being taken back several centuries at a stroke.

Graceful women, were they older or stouter or younger and delightfully slim, barefoot or wearing wooden pattens, carried water in earthenware pots, as shapely as their bearers, on their heads, majestically and magically, hips swaying invitingly, or so it seemed to me. It appeared the habit that they did the carrying while the burdenless menfolk did the guarding of the weaker sex, a throw back to ancient times I suppose.

The foothills were kind and gentle to us, fairly easy to travel through, with the numerous farms offering ample food and barns, stables, and even the occasional bed to sleep in. They were beautiful to the eye, abounding in quaint and novel delights. Today that beauty is increasingly spoilt by urban encroachment, the car and commuter. New—and too often ugly—box-like houses intersperse with the old and more picturesque farm dwellings. Many of the latter have been abandoned to stand as stark empty shells; each one a pile of deteriorating rubbish. The fairy-like hilltop towns are less striking and discernable for new housing, glaringly modern in style and material, that has spilled over the ancient town walls blurring their historic outlines. The foothills were gentle, beautiful and kind, but not so the mountains. They were magnificent, stark, hard and ruthless.

We began to be aware of them as we approached the valley of the River Tronto. This was one of the numerous boulder strewn rivers that tumbled down the Apennine slopes, Adriatic bound. They cut directly across the path of the advancing Allies, each one a natural defensive position for the Germans. Italy was to defy Churchill’s description of the soft under-belly of Europe.

We had kept to footpaths and loosely surfaced minor roads using the tarmacked strade statali (state roads) as little as possible, for on those one might be surprised by what little motorised traffic there was to be found in wartime Italy. Every such vehicle was suspect German or fascist. With each day’s travel we slowly gained height. Slopes became steeper and the roads and paths became less frequent and more tortuous. Nights became colder; bullock cart gave way to laden mule; agriculture changed from seed crop to root crop; tilled fields lessened, and grass and scrub increased. 

We descended a very deep slope to the river by the side of which ran strada statali number four, thereabouts called the Ascoli-Piceno road, which led from the Adriatic through the town of that name, across the Apennines and on to Rome. It was the first really busy road we had come into contact with and carried frequent military traffic.

Owing to the steep slopes of the river valley and a very winding road and river, the crossing of both presented a problem. Even at a fast run, once we broke cover, to cross the road then ford the river and reach some cover up the far slope would take several minutes. We were still uniformed and recognizably British.

Help was at hand. Between the road and the river was an Italian lad about twelve years in age. We were in somewhat sparse cover some one hundred yards above him, but he spotted us and recognised our difficulty and what we were. He kept glancing left and right to check whether the nearest bends were clear of traffic and suddenly signalled us to run down and cross. Alas, we were not yet aware that Italians signal such an approach with a downward motion of hand and arm, whereas we use the upward movement, so we thought he meant us to duck down for cover. This we promptly did to his obvious amazement. Fortunately, between traffic he persevered until we caught on to his meaning and finally were able to dash down, shout “Grazie”, cross road and river, and quickly scramble for cover. The rest of the climb was much safer. From now on it was to be real mountain. 

It was already late afternoon. We were gaining height and anticipated a cold night. Human habitation was becoming rarer. We were climbing into the Monti Della Laga with peaks of 3,000–6,000 feet. Established roads entered into this massif but all came to a dead end.

As we entered this difficult terrain, trouble had been brewing for escaping POWs.

Chapter 6—A Setback

It was in the form of republican fascist and SS edicts. On September 16th the radio had announced, unknown to us but not the locals of course, that all Italian military personnel were to report to the nearest German military headquarters, and that anyone harbouring or feeding British POWs would be punished by military law, i.e., probably shot. This meant that a good part of the Italian army was now on the run and would stay that way for reporting back would lead only to slave labour or worse, for most had decamped. At least they had doting families to help them. For most escaping POWs things looked rather grim but many of those Italian families would, after taking a good grip on themselves, give us equal aid.

Travel was now much harder. Keeping a general southerly direction was not easy. Roads led into tracks that led into dead ends. Accommodation was more difficult to find. One day we reached an isolated village and our Irish chum did his best to get travelling direction. We desperately needed a guide. As he tried his small Italian on a couple of villagers there came an excitable commotion of recognisable shouts of, “Tedeschi, Tedeschi.” Young men, obviously deserters from the Italian military, came scampering down the street and in passing us and recognising us for what we were shouted at us, “Via, via, scapa,” (away, run). We joined the flight from the village.

This was our first experience of a ‘Rastrellamento’ or rounding up of persons of military age to serve with the fascists or work for the German war effort. We hid in the scrub ‘busco’ near the village, all comrades together in our joint peril. They shared their cigarettes with us, bless them, and gave us news as to what was happening. As dusk approached and the danger over, they slipped back to their homes in the village. We followed but any request for food and accommodation was refused. “Abbiamo paura,” literally ‘we have fear’ came the reply. We did not press our point of view but later, unobserved, crept back to hide in a barn in the ‘fienile’ or hay loft. Alas an old crone came across us and set up such a wailing that we abandoned our beds of hay and left the village. Night travel was arduous and eventually, exhausted, we slept, or tried to sleep on the mountainside. My God it was cold, and we vowed never to try it again and never did. But this was the only refusal for succour we ever had from the Italian contadini. Later, as their hearts hardened against the Tedeschi they learned to live with death threats, and quite a few were to die as a result of them.

Had we been travelling with a map, not only would we have found a better, easier route, but one could have remembered more easily the route taken. Suffice it to say that we became completely lost in what the Americans called ‘high country’. By good fortune the weather was sunny and kind, otherwise we would have been in real trouble without a guide. By mid-day we were making our way towards what was clearly a long mountain ridge. I feel sure, having pored over the maps of the mountains massif of Central Italy, the Monte della Laga and the Gran Sasso, that it was the ‘crenella’ (main ridge) of the Apennines, probably near Monte Gorzano.

Since dawn we had been slowly climbing, following faint footpaths which too frequently died out, traversing grassy plains, probably summer sheep pastures, often being trapped in dead end re-entrants with no alternative but to retrace our steps. Now this ridge, after so many false skylines, became our goal, after which the downward slope would solve all our problems, and once more bring us to civilization. All morning we had not seen a vestige of human life.

Then we saw black clouds to our right. At first it seemed they would miss us, but we soon realized it was nimbus cloud building up rapidly. Relentlessly it gradually stretched over us and, just as we reached the crest and before we could explore the view beyond, the torrents of rain fell upon us.

Within moments we were engulfed in a violent storm with not the slightest cover in sight. Lashed by violent wind and slashing rain we were in moments soaked to the skin. All of us, without thought of paths or direction, broke into a run down the much steeper, farther slope in a kind of panic. We reached a mass of afforestation and, as we plunged down the thickly treed slope, we could see the flashes of lightening stabbing the ground, at times dangerously close. There was a distinct sulphurous smell similar to when mortar bombs fell nearby, but the noise of the thunder outdid any mortar bombardment I had ever heard.

In all my life only Hollywood could have concocted a storm like this one except we were in it and not watching from the comfort of plush one shilling and sixpenny seats. The experience continued seemingly forever as we blundered and rolled downwards, until suddenly we fell out of the trees on to a typical ‘mulattiere’, a narrow but to us a substantial track. What a relief it was to find the clearest path and sign of civilization that we had seen for hours, and this despite the still pouring rain. We were dreadfully wet and cold but gradually the rain eased off and finally stopped.

Naturally we took the downward direction of the path. We had had our fill of the ‘high country’. The experience had shaken and mauled us badly and we longed for the meanest ‘baracca’ (hut) so long as we could build a fire and dry ourselves out. The track flanked the steep mountain slope, but progress down was swift and easy.

After a mile or so it was no mere ‘baracca’ we came across but quite an adequate dwelling in the style of a ‘cantoniera’ (road inspector’s house), or more probably a ‘casa di guardia forestale’ (forest keeper’s house). Being government officials these ‘guardia’ were suspect, but we were made quite welcome and shown into a room where we could effect a quick change of clothes as far as our packs could afford. 

Changed and feeling much better our thoughts were on food, but such thoughts were put out of mind by new arrivals. These were young men who had fled from the valley below. They brought news of a further German and fascist rastrellamento of the villages in the valley hamlets.

That night we and about twenty to thirty ‘giovannetti’ (young men) slept in a spacious wooden barn. In its centre we built a huge fire from the ample supplies of wood stacked around us. Close to this we spent a far more comfortable night, albeit extremely hungry, than had been our experience the night before.

Next morning, we continued down the mountain track with the Italian fellows, who hoped to find their villages free of Germans; and so it proved. I recall our saying goodbye to one Italian lad who could speak a few words of English. At the time he was also pricking a couple of hen’s eggs provided by his doting family no doubt the day before, prior to sucking down the contents. It reminded me that we had not eaten for two days, and I was damned jealous about those eggs. For my taste I would have fried or boiled them. However, on we went for the villagers were still uncomfortably nervous owing to the constant German activity in that district.

We were still fairly high up in ‘pian alti’, or high grasslands, in which roamed large flocks of sheep, each one in the charge of at least one shepherd. Towards noon we could see another village or small mountain town ahead of us. By this time, we must have been in the southern part of the Monti della Laga, with the Gran Sasso itself but two or three days’ walk ahead. The village may have been Grognaleto, but this is only a guess.

Before we reached the townlet, to our immense surprise, we encountered a group of a dozen or so Yugo-Slavians. They were the genuine article and easily recognisable as such for they wore clothes that were typically history and geography book Yugoslavian; sheepskin fore and aft hats and those peculiar trousers, rather like the Anglo-Indian jodhpurs, together with their pointed toe footwear.

They too were fellow prison camp escapees and were existing in a couple of shepherds huts constructed from stone and sods of earth. They were living mainly on potatoes baked in the hot ashes of their fires. We conversed as best we could in pigeon Italian plus hand signs, so confirming our nationalities. We shared a potato with them and then walked on to the village hoping to scrounge some better ‘tucker’. 

Tilled fields adjoined the village and here were the potato fields, our recent companions’ source of food. The altitude was too high for much grain apparently. The village or little town hung on the side of quite a steep slope, so we descended along its main, narrow cobbled street and were soon on its far side. Before turning back to try our luck at obtaining some accommodation and food for the night we rested by leaning over a low wall. The street we were in continued steeply down for another thirty or forty yards then turned left sharply to run into a wider road, a more important road, for it was tarmacked. 

With mild interest we looked over and below us, but thirty feet down were German lorries with young German paratroopers climbing out of them. A few of them already debussed were looking idly about them and on glancing our way our eyes met theirs and stayed locked for the merest seconds. “Jesus Christ, it’s Jerry,” said one of us and, as one man we turned round and ambled slowly back up the street into town. Our amble rapidly changed into a hurried retreat for surely this was another rastrellamento. We left town, collected some potatoes, and made our way back to the Yugoslavians to warn them. We slept quite warmly in the huts that night and our empty stomachs had to be satisfied with a couple of baked potatoes.

The next day was one of brilliant sunshine. We emerged from the huts in which we had slept the sleep of the exhausted and lounged, unwashed and unshaven, lacking the energy to do anything but enjoy the sun’s warmth. We had undergone three hard and even traumatic days in the mountains with very little food. We were uneasy, wondering what ‘Jerry’ was up to in the village only a mile or so away. Our Slav companions were well equipped with modern rucksacks bulging with necessities. One of them decided that things were getting too hot, that the Germans had not come to the village for no reason and, donning his rucksack, climbed directly out of his dilemma by trekking straight up a very steep mountain slope. We felt he was doing the right thing, but would not summon the effort to follow him. Instead we lay following his slow, arduous progress until he disappeared over a crest.

During the night other British POWs had joined our group, including some Royal Navy men. We lounged in the morning sun idly, watching the flocks of sheep which had appeared and were moving slowly across the hillside one thousand yards away, accompanied as usual by their straw-hatted shepherds looking like sombreroed Mexicans. As they grazed, they slowly came towards us. After some time, the adrenalin inexplicably began to flow; something was wrong! “My God! —too many shepherds!” Too late out of the brush ran a blonde youth pointing his machine pistol at us and yelling, “Hande hohe!” (‘hands up’ in English). He was one of Herman Goering’s parachute division. Other ‘shepherds’ soon joined the first and so we were once more in the bag—official POWs again.

We waited as ‘Jerry’ scoured the valley rounding up a few more unfortunates, both young Italians of military age and escapers. Then we were herded down into the little township. These crack front line troops, who were obviously enjoying their day out as though they were doing some boy scout stunt, were very chatty. On the road back I chatted with the leader of the German group, a hauptman and his leutnant, who could speak good English. Wanting some profit out of this sad affair, I pointed out that we were all pretty hungry after being hounded by his lads from all points of the compass. They promised that they would procure us food as soon as they got back to town. I had added that there had been nothing forthcoming from the villagers or the townsfolk, hoping thereby to help them. It was not so. On our arrival the hauptman shouted some orders to his lads and some of them darted off, burst into houses and reappeared carrying loaves, cheese, and sausage or ham, all of which they handed over to the prisoners, much to our chagrin.

This was the first we saw at close hand of the German reaction to the Armistice; to them Italian perfidy. As usual it was the poor old contadini who suffered. There was more to follow. Two smartly dressed carabiniere, the area’s total complement no doubt, in their navy-blue uniforms and red slashed breeches were parading up and down the main street. Arm in arm, a style quite legitimate in Italy, they strolled to and fro bravely trying to appear nonchalantly important, and, perhaps, a little pro-Axis (the German-Italian one of course). Unknown to them they were being mimicked by a pair of young Paras whose gestures were grossly over feminised. Their performance was brought to a close when suddenly they shoved the carabiniere so violently from behind they finished on the cobblestones. It was becoming apparent that any Italian north of the front line who was not clearly republican fascist was in for a rough ride.

The afternoon was still young when we were taken from the village by lorry and made a short halt at a small establishment where this company of Paras were based. A young German had been trying his fifth form English on me. I am sure he was little over 18 years of age. This gave me a chance to scrounge, for in showing me where he slept, he proudly produced some packets of sugar, as rare as gold dust in Italy. Although rudely interrupted by shouted commands from below, I left with one of the highly valued packets in my possession.

The young man, with a few comrades, made up an escort to take us, again by lorry, to a school a few kilometres away for safekeeping for the night. The building showed clear signs of having been used recently for its original purpose and was clearly a makeshift prison and, hopefully, only a temporary barracks. We were left to our own devices in a classroom but were well guarded. Most of us were famished and soon set about eating the food procured for us in the little mountain town—with hardly a thought for its previous owners, I fear.

Later on, the young English-speaking Paratrooper called me out from the classroom, not without come sarcastic comments from my British comrades, and took me to the classroom opposite, across the corridor. Here were the off-duty other ranks settled down for the night, and the object of the visit seemed to be social. Conversation ensued with the help of my poor German and their comrade’s English, plus quite a bit of help and interest offered by their English-speaking lieutenant, who popped in every now and again and was obviously quite aware of my visit. All this went happily along with the occasional snort of Schnapps—or was it purloined local Italian Grappa?

They were mainly young chaps between 18 and 23 years of age and seemed like a group of keen, intelligent local lads. We had quite a free exchange of views about the war, well laced with a firm, mutual sympathy for the ‘Poor Bloody Infantry’ who had to fight it. I gathered they were pleased to be in Italy and not Russia. When the subject of bombing cropped up, it rather spoilt the evening however. The sister of one German lad had been killed recently in a RAF attack on Hamburg (this was information to me), and as he went on about this it looked as though he blamed me for it. I expressed regret for the killing of ‘innocents’ but insisted that Hitler had started it with the Blitz back in 1940 and enlarged upon this with some ‘bomb in backyard’ talk of my own. On continuing his ugly mood, to my relief he was shouted down by his comrades. As we re-crossed the corridor, I wished my young, pleasant German friend with the schoolboy English ‘good luck’ and that he must ‘keep his head down’. If we had met on some peacetime camping ground, we would have made good penfriends. His near future would be sorted out on the River Garigliano and at Monte Cassino no doubt. I hope he did keep his head down. But he was better killed than killing.

The next day we were taken to Rome. Business was mixed with pleasure for the lorry that carried us. To our delight, we were allowed to meander through the city on an unofficial tour. One stop was made not fifty yards from one entrance to the Vatican City. We could see Swiss guards in their colourful uniforms at the gate. The square we were in was being busily crisscrossed by Italian public, black-dressed priests and nuns, the odd ‘soldat’, and so we discussed the chance of a dash through them. We decided it could turn into a bloodbath of the innocents, not to mention us, and maybe the Swiss guards would not let us in, in any case. We stayed put.

From Rome we journeyed northeast for another 30 kms to Lago Bracciano, to a former Italian seaplane base on the edge of the lake. This was another makeshift prison camp—a rapid conversion job, of necessity an amateurish effort. A fence of a mixture of barbed wire and cable had hurriedly been erected around one area of the base to form the prisoners’ compound. Nearby notices swore that thousands of volts of death-dealing electricity surged through this. We guessed it to be a bluff, but no one tried to prove it. The real deterrent to escape was the force of frontline troops, Paras again, who were our temporary guards. Lacking watch towers and other such aids, they were depending on being really trigger-happy should a POW approach too near the wire.

Inside the perimeter the prisoners were housed in a collection of administrative buildings, workshops, hangars, and so on. Because of this, latrines and wash houses tended to be separate from the nighttime accommodation, and this caused problems. Should one want to relieve oneself after lights out, a tricky situation arose because our friend Jerry was apt to fire at anything that should move in the open. Other than that, being a frontline soldier, he was quite an amicable, helpful sort of chap; but he did not intend to fall foul of his CO for losing a prisoner. On that score ‘he played for keeps.’

Naturally, we complained to the Feldwebel in charge. He assured us that the matter would be dealt with; but at night the bullets continued to fly, much to our discomfort.

The chances of becoming a casualty did not end with the coming of daylight, but as a result of Allied, not German, fire. As far as the former were concerned, the camp was still an enemy airbase and therefore a legitimate and tempting target for our pilots; thus the camp was the victim of several attacks from roving fighter pilots, and it was an unusual sight to see both prisoner and guards prostrating themselves on the ground as bullets and cannon shell sprayed among us. Fortunately, the prize targets were the seaplanes anchored near the lake edge; many of them bursting into flames and so raising cheers from a cowering audience. (Advantage was often taken because of the immunity of the official prison camps. I frequently watched the drilling and manoeuvring of both men and tanks from a Panzer unit camped and camouflaged in the shadow of the campo concentramento at Capua). These air attacks came without warning, and there were sighs of relief and mutual concern for each other—both friend and enemy—as the attacks ended as suddenly as they started. It was good to see our side ‘bossing’ the air.

After a few days we were loaded onto a train Germany-bound. We knew this from quite a jolly speech, delivered in perfect English, by a German officer. We entrained, so many men to each goods wagon. Then we were issued black bread and cheese to be rationed over the next 24 hours or so. In the centre of the van was an empty oil drum for toilet needs. The doors were then slid to and bound with wire from the outside. We were left to our own resources with no guard in the wagon, thus to await arrival at our destination or a stop for a drink or rations if needed. Guards were stationed in wagons here and there along the train.

In the event of an air attack, we would be quite trapped and helpless; but fortunately for us the Allied forces were not yet ready to start the systematic pounding of Wehrmacht communications that they intended. We made a few stops, often in tunnels, possibly as a precaution against threatened attack, but made steady progress—arriving eventually in Firenze. We had been travelling since early morning and it was now late in the afternoon. Our train was alongside another in the station, and with some difficulty we communicated through a glassless but grilled window of tiny dimensions high up in the side of the wagon. They were youngish Italian men and women enrolled for labour in Germany or trapped for the same purpose by the rastrellementos.

We were lucky enough to be travelling in the same wagon as the navy lads retaken prisoner on the same day as ourselves on the pian alta down in the Abruzzi province. During their sojourn at the seaplane base, by enterprise and luck they had come across two files in the ex-workshops and smuggled them aboard the train. With additional enterprise, they had organized shifts to put the files to use on the adequately sized ventilator panel positioned at floor level just above the left buffer when facing the rear of the train. But for a short, final attack on it the job had been completed before Firenze. Once removed, it was easy for a man to crawl through onto the buffer and then, with care, jump clear of the train.

By right of resourcefulness the three sailors were the first to go, and the manner of their departure was bravely conducted. Being the first they would be the guinea pigs in testing the placing and efficiency of the train guards. It was still daylight, the train was travelling at a steady goods train speed, we were still in Firenze, yet with the speed and slickness of a stick of parachutists jumping clear of a plane, they went through the hole, carrying nothing to aid agility, sprang clear of the train from the buffer, rolled down a short steep embankment, sprang over a low wall and dropped a dozen feet to a quite busy road below. A chap was stationed at the crack in the sliding doors and another at the high window to observe what progress they could. I wish I could report in this book what happened to them after they hit the pavement. I could imagine them walking nonchalantly but purposefully to merge with the street goers. In whose flat did they sleep that night?

Our Jerry guards, once the train was on the move, must have relaxed, expecting no trouble, for there was no reaction from that quarter. The second group went as we slowly climbed the Apennine foothills. By now it was dusk. Still no alarm was given. Jerry was evidently trustful of his sealed wagons: this was encouraging.

Our group went next, four of us, but only three would go. We could not persuade the big Geordie to accompany us. It was some time before we could make our attempt because we kept running through lengthy tunnels because of the hilly terrain. The darkness would have added considerably to the risk, and we did not fancy dropping under the wheels of the train by missing our footing on the buffer.

At last we cleared the tunnelled section of the line to find that it was dark. We tried to persuade the Geordie once more but no, he opted out. Then the train stopped. We decided to go even though the guards now would be more vigilant. Still, it was dark and a slight rain was falling; this might keep their heads down. First went Paddy, the Irish commando, then the RAF sergeant. It had befallen me to go last—third man of the third group; was this lucky? Taking a deep breath, I crawled out and sat on the buffer, I pulled my kit bag through the hole. The damned thing had to be white, albeit a bit dirty! My feet slid to the ground and I peered beyond the truck edge, right and left. I could see very little, but nought of the guards. Good! my chums may not have aroused anybody. I stepped clear of the train and my feet crunched on the loose ballast. With a grin on my face like that of a wretched schoolboy scrumping apples from an orchard, but with the hair on the back of my head feeling as though it were standing erect, I crossed the railway line, then another and then came yet another with empty carriages on it. We must be in the sidings and goods-yard attached to a station. There was still no burst of automatic machine gun pistol fire, but there came a low whistle and faint call, “Art! Art!” I ducked under a truck and crawled over to join the other two on the far side. With eyes peeled for trouble we quietly moved down the sidings, found an opening on to a quiet road, and filled with elation we strode uphill into the darkness of the hills.

The rain petered out, we joined a bullock cart track and half hour later we spotted a light up ahead. Within minutes we were greeting a contadini family sitting on their porch by the light of their carbon lamp. “Buona Sera. Da dove siete? Siamo Inglese.” (Good evening. Where are you from? We are English.) We were soon seated among them. Hard luck, we had missed the evening meal, but they made up for it with wine, bread, and nuts. Meanwhile we laughed as we munched, and the wine took hold and we clumsily related our escapade to the delight of our audience. They were genuinely happy at our good fortune; we were free once more and very, very happy.

Only when I acquired a map could I recall routes and place names; but, after long examination of an old map of the area, I regard the place of our escape as a small station near the town of Vernio. And so started our second trek down to the front line. We now had an additional 200 miles to do just to get back to where we were recaptured near the Gran Sasso. We started the very next day. 

Chapter 7—The Road South Once More

We were back in the Apennines, but even without a map we could visualise the great extra distance farther north we were than before our recapture. Never mind, we were once again in the foothills and not those grim mountains of 2,000 metres plus; and we were free. We were back in the foothills; for the escaping POW the land of milk and honey, the land of the contadini for whom our respect and esteem would increase as we experienced the generosity and value of their help and friendship. There were plenty of farms so there would be pastasciuta and polenta to eat, not damned potatoes and precious little else; and a variety of wines, for each farmer pressed his own grapes and created his own distinctive wine; ‘che vita!’ What a life. There was further bounty to be appreciated. We were near tobacco growing areas and could obtain cigar and cigarette tobacco leaf, either of which, crushed and rolled, made a passable fag.

At first, progress south was fairly slow. Italian families became increasingly willing to share their meal at their board rather than just give us food handouts of bread and nuts. Morning would start with a sluice at well or pump in the yard of whichever family had given us hospitality the night before. We may have slept in barn or bed, mostly barn of course, in the company of the warm and so gentle bullocks, the medieval tractor power. Their body heat warmed me on cold nights and their occasional grunts and snorts reassured me. (They have almost disappeared now, except some kept in stalls for meat. I regret their passing and truly miss them each time I return to Italy).

As the family, grandparents, parents, sons and daughters trooped out to the fields bearing their zappas and taking, perhaps, their pair of bullocks, so we would start off along the dusty, white track. Often, after a climb, we would rest for a smoke of our new-found tobacco, seldom smoking on the move. If we passed through a farmyard, we would take a drink of water and, if there was anyone about, one could easily be induced to take a glass of wine. This would lead to a chat and often another glass. At midday we might sleep off a bit of the morning, siesta fashion or, if very lucky, be invited to a bit of lunch.

Our route south lay between the main line railway Firenze–Bologna and road Route 65 which wound between the same cities via Il Passo di Futa (Mtn. pass). It passed near such towns as Barbarino, Cavallina, and Trebbio and then, turning east to cross Route 65, it continued along the west-east line of 900 metre peaks that stretch 15 kms above Firenze and so crossed the Route 67 Pontassieve-Ravenna at Rufina.

The sequence of events along that route are not so easily recalled. Near Barbarino and Cavallina we had a stroke of luck and were to take tea in the English fashion with an English lady (I do believe there were cucumber sandwiches—or is it a fond thought). One afternoon we were seeking information as to our route from an Italian couple and were eagerly told to get help from an English lady who lived in the nearby Castello. (In England it would have been ‘The Hall’). It was an imposing building sporting an elegant tower and set in tidy grounds. Not finding a more secluded door, we paid our call at the main entrance, if you please, and our knock was answered by a young maid who dashed off double quickly to fetch the mistress. I suspect she might have been plagued by such visits; after all, a real English lady! But in coming to the door, she greeted us charmingly but quickly directed us to the rear of the house via an obscure path; no! —not to the tradesman’s entrance, but with apologies and for reasons of security; she did not trust all her staff.

We found the spot indicated: a grassy nook at the bottom of some steps descending a stone wall of about ten feet height. The ground sloped away downhill, but we were well secluded from the house. The maid, our lady, and her mother came down the steps after a while carrying napkined trays on which was set an English afternoon tea that might well have come straight from Eaton Square. The ladies were all grace and charm, completely ignoring our stubbled chins, dusty gear, and dirty hands and entertained us as though we were in Eaton Square. Signora Scarretti (or Scarletti) or so she was, apologised for the brew of tea, “Black market! Red Cross Parcels you know,” and we forgave her gallantly. She was the English wife of an Italian banker; this was their residence in the country, it being unsafe in town. We all became quite relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed swapping war news, personal details, and other chat. On taking our leave she directed us to a deserted cottage, derelict but good cover. That evening she and her husband turned up bringing food and wine and we discussed what help we needed. Next day they smuggled to us sufficient clothing to make us appear more civilian in appearance, and in the evening more food and wine. They assured us of further help, but when they left we decided that we would go in the morning. Even in that short time local folk had become aware of our presence and we feared trouble rebounding on the lady, husband, and mother—and we were bored with the inactivity of just waiting. Perhaps they could have expedited our escape, or perhaps we were a dangerous embarrassment to force our needs on them by staying. We went without seeing them again. Her English connection made Madam Scarretti too open a target.

In the early ’60s I managed to refind the Castello after an afternoon’s search by car. Alas, it seemed quite empty and, in any case, I surrendered to the fear of an embarrassing intrusion, so this time I did not approach the front entrance.

On another occasion we nearly walked right into Jerry’s arms but for a chance of timing. We had eaten well and then slept comfortably in some outhouse of a very large establishment which concentrated on growing olives (—or was it grapes?) In the morning we walked to the house to thank our hostess again before we left. It was quite a large building, being not only house but offices and workrooms. A spacious open-ended corridor ran right through the middle of it from front to rear, and its entrances, front and back, were reached by wide staircases of twenty or so stone steps as the house stood atop a rise. A secondary road ran up to the front entrance, winding uphill through trees and bushes. We were standing at the top of these steps saying goodbye to the Signora when around the nearest bend of the road sped a German gun carrying motorcycle combination followed by a military car. They pulled up at the bottom of the steps and out of the car came a German officer, who began to ascend the steps quite rapidly. We turned from the Signora and began to walk down the corridor to the rear steps as nonchalantly as we dared. As we began to descend them, we heard the Signora and the German greet each other. Out of sight, we ran round the house and into the cover of the trees and bushes from where we could observe the front entrance. Nothing seemed amiss. The motorbike combination escort stayed at the foot of the front steps, and the officer and our hostess had disappeared inside. Soon the Jerries departed and so did we. A little unfortunate timing and we might have been ‘in the bag’ once more.

Since leaving the train we had sometimes wondered where all the other thousands of escaped POWs were. On the road we did once meet with a couple of English chaps and to mutual amazement we soon realized that we all had escaped from the self-same wagon. These two had been the next to go after us but further up the line. Those Navy lads had really started something worthwhile. I wonder, did they all escape? All save the chap who would not chance it with us perhaps. When the doors were finally flung open, was he the sole occupant? The mind boggles.

Later on we entered a farmyard to ask for a drink. The pretty lass we spoke to asked us to wait and then, surprisingly, dashed across the field to where one or two of the family were working. She and a bronzed young man returned, and the latter replied to our request made in atrocious Italian, “Conosceremi?” (Do you recognise me?) in equally atrocious Italian; but we in our ignorance did not know that it was atrocious Italian. He was, of course, an Englishman, for he then broke into English to our surprise. He had been allowed to merge into this family, did his daily stint in the fields, and was to all outward appearances an Italian. He would, likely enough, take the pretty lass back home to England and marry her. Lots of us did. Many of us stayed put in this manner. After all, it was only another way of obeying Field Marshall Monty’s orders. During the stage of our journey when we were traversing the hills to the north of Firenze, we had many panoramic views of the city, with the Duomo clearly visible of course. It was all so beautiful; I was falling in love with Italy. We were tourists at a distance only, for we had no thought of descending to appreciate the finer details. There was a chap living down there who was going to be of great help to me. His name was Silvano Pettrazzoli, and his mother owned a leather goods shop right near the Duomo.

It was in this area that we made a call at some ecclesiastic establishment of interest. Paddy, our son of Erin, was quite keen on making such calls, being Catholic and all, and had taken us into many a church to seek the priest’s blessing and, hopefully, help in getting a meal and a place to sleep. But this was a huge place. Nevertheless, it seemed safe so in we went. It was not long before his Irish charm and terrible Italian had gained attention. We were taken to a private chamber by a priest and were joined by a nun. She was a bit high up in her order, I do believe, and was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was French, from an aristocratic family, and spoke good English. Her home had been in Paris. Why she should have given us her time, patience, trouble, and good-humoured conversation—not to mention useful advice—I do not know for we were a rough looking trio; but she did. She also had hot milk, bread and salami brought to us. She also mentioned that ‘Jerry’ was quite a frequent visitor (as military tourists, of course) hence the private apartment. I do believe the place was near Monte Senario, but I cannot be sure. When more important duties overtook her, she escorted us safely out and saw us on our way.

We crossed the River Sieve at Rufina by the town bridge, then the main road, skirted a large piazza (square), slipped into a back street, and then through the town as rapidly but unassumingly as we could. Our recently acquired articles of civilian clothing made us less noticeable but, as usual, my sun-bleached, blonde hair screamed Anglo-Saxon. We met with no trouble, but busy bridges were often under surveillance by plain clothed fascisti often referred to as ‘squadristi’, or even amateur ‘bounty hunters’, and were better avoided.

Shortly after this I split away from my two comrades and continued south alone. One evening, after sharing a meal in a house we passed a more than usual convivial evening. As a general rule Italians seem to shun the risk of inebriation as though it were a social disgrace. However, Paddy became merry and as we were being shown the way to the fienile (hayloft) for the night’s rest he broke into raucous shouting and singing at the very time when quiet was not only socially desirable but, out of respect for our host’s dignity and safety, most prudent. I protested at which Paddy became quarrelsome to the point of being pugilistic. This embarrassment and the fact that I had been feeling the need to travel more quickly towards the line before winter fell upon us, decided me to make the break. On the road the next morning at a smoking halt I expressed my intention and, after apportioning me my share of our tobacco, I left my two very good chums; soon after I had a great stroke of luck and quite an adventure.

Chapter 8—I Go It Alone

Now alone, I made a determined effort to cover ground. I strode out along a straight track which stretched ahead to the horizon, climbing a ridge gradual enough to allow me to maintain a good pace. Not until past midday did I pause for a good rest and some thought. I was a bit short of the crest of the ridge along which ran some sort of a road. Being lower down and because the stretch dead ahead of me was lined with buildings I could not see much of the road, so I made the final approach with care. I turned left along a track which ran beside the backyards and gardens of the buildings, parallel of course to the road proper, and here I met the first person I had seen since I left my two chums. Being mapless I did not know that the place was called Consuma and that the road was the busy Strada Statale Route 70 Firenze to Arezzo. But I do remember all this clearly because it was the place where I acquired a map.

The person was a mere youngster about eight years old and, after greeting him with a “Buon giorno,” I followed that up with two of the three most important words of the Italian I had so far learnt. I could no longer leave the talking to Paddy. The three words were, “Mangiare, bere, and dormire”, (food, drink, and sleep) and I used the first two. I could not have asked a better person for he responded immediately, although he was about to give me one hell of a fright. He beckoned me to follow him (using the same signal as did the lad who helped us to cross the Ascoli–Piceno road down south), through a gate and up a sloping path to what I thought would be his mother’s kitchen door. In we went, into a short corridor, however, not a kitchen, along this and then he ushered me through another door. He was an intelligent lad and I had said, “Mangiare.”

There I stood in a restaurant, long stout stick in hand (self-preservation for the use of), pack on back, grubby, gleaming blonde, unshaven, looking every inch the English POW on the loose, and the restaurant facing on to a fairly busy main road. For a few seconds, quite a few seconds, every one of the clientele stared at me before resuming their lunch, the pause in their polite conversation changing distinctly to a noisy acceleration of chatter. The waitress, after an understandable hesitation, showed me to a small, vacant table, bless her it was against the back wall next to the convenient back exit. The kid said something to her, his mama, of course, and she replied and sent him off with a pat on the back, turning to me with a shrug as though saying, “What will the little bugger do to me next?”

With a smile she asked me something that I took to mean would I take the full lunch? So, without a single lira to my name, I said, “Si.” It saved awkward poring over a menu and, anyway, with wartime restrictions trattorias (small average restaurants) would probably only field one fixed meal. As I waited, watching the road outside with one eye and other people eating with the other, I thought, ‘What the hell! Let’s enjoy the condemned man’s last meal.’ The sight of the dish of pastasciuta placed before me cheered my thoughts. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound, not that I had the one nor the other’. At best ‘Jerry’ might not drop in, although his vehicles passed by every once in a while, and at the end of the meal I could offer to do the washing-up and then beat it.

As I ate a man left his table, came over to mine and, in Italian, asked to borrow my salt cellar. In doing this he was able to leave a small, folded scrap of paper by my plate before returning to his wife. The note, for such it was, I surreptitiously perused as soon as possible. The English wording struck me with violent surprise, “Wait till the restaurant empties—will help you.”

Before my meal was finished the place emptied and, urging me to finish, he posted himself at the door making the odd comment he thought necessary, in quietly spoken English, without accent. I recall one such, “Look out! There’s some Germans stopping just up the road. Oh, it’s alright, they’ve gone the other way.”

I was soon safely upstairs in the couple’s room, for it was also a little guest house. They both spoke perfect English, so much so that I wondered if they were English, but I curbed my curiosity; it was better not to know too much about people who helped you in those days. They did not fit into a low grade albergo (hotel) in a tiny, backwater stopping place for drivers near the top of the ‘Passo di Consuma’. The man asked me my needs and I was quickly in possession of a penknife, cigarettes and, above all, a decent map of Italy. I refused money as useless to me but suspect that he paid my lunch bill. There were plenty of possible reasons why they should be keeping a low profile in this little one-street place, but I departed still idly wondering who they were. He conducted me, via the back path, out of the town to a good spot for crossing the main road, advised me on my best immediate route and after firm handshake and encouraging words, I was soon descending a slope and heading south, for the first time knowing precisely where I was heading and the best way to get there.

My new map showed me that I was quite clearly travelling south/southeastward, parallel to a mountain chain on my right called the Pratomagno, which stretched from Consuma for about 30 kms almost to Arezzo. To the east of my route and parallel to it and the Pratomagno flowed the River Arno until it turned westward to the south of the mountain chain and then north/northwest on the other side of it and thence through Firenze and westward on to the Ligurian Sea. Thus, this mountain zone lay in a huge loop of the River Arno.

With the aid of all this information, I determined to travel cross-country between the Pratomagno and the Arno and then cross the river at the little town of Rassina; and this I did. I crossed, against my better judgement, at the town bridge. I felt hot and tired that day and just could not face the effort of wading, or worse, through the river. So I crossed the bridge and then the main road without being accosted by the enemy and then wended my way carefully but purposefully through the town. I received many curious stares from the townsfolk, but no plain-clothed fascisti agents accosted me. Uniforms were avoidable if spotted in time. 

The town, being small, was soon traversed and I turned off the main road on to a lesser road that went eastward. On the outskirts of the town, on the left of this road I lay up in a copse of bush and tree to rest and roll myself a fag. I felt very hot and peculiarly shaky.

When I had stopped perspiring, I continued my way by this small road which ran beside a tributary of the Arno. The water looked inviting, so I stripped off among the huge boulders at the river’s edge, bathed with Red Cross parcel soap and, partly hidden by boulders did my dhobying (washing clothes to you civilians). Dog-tired, I intended to hang around for what remained of the afternoon and then find a place to sleep and eat.

The water, being fresh from the mountains, soon struck very cold but, just as I was about to paddle out of the river, I heard the tinkle of many little bells, sheep and goat bells. A flock approached the river to be watered, ushered by a dark and pretty ragazza (young lass) of about 17 years of age. I was still naked.

This was awkward. She could not avoid seeing vests, pants, etc., drying on the boulders, nor could she avoid seeing parts of me; not that she tried very hard so to do, for I could see her grinning and then turning away, thoroughly enjoying the situation. There was nothing to do but wait, up to my thighs in cold water, until the flock was satisfied and at last tinkled its way back to the fattoria (farm). An hour later, as farm work for the day was ending, I followed them to request “da mangiare” and “una posta per dormire” (food and a place to sleep) “per favore” (if you please).

I made my requests in the farmyard and, of course, out came the maiden who had disturbed my laundry efforts to whisper and giggle to them, obviously telling them that their would-be guest was none other than the nude Inglese she had spotted in the river below. Her parents were made of understanding stuff and unashamedly enjoyed the joke, greeting me warmly and ushering me into the kitchen as an assurance of their hospitality. As I write I can savour their acceptance of me, and it brings a tear to the eye as I recall their goodness and the goodness of so many other Italians to the British POW on the run.

Not enough has been said of this. That evening I spent in convivial company and shared the rest of the night with my old friends the bullocks, as I slept in a manger by their side. I was off again next morning.

Having crossed the River Arno, I was in the district called the Casentino, an area famous for its nuts, especially walnuts. The secondary road I followed took a turn round the north of a ridge, peaking at 1400 metres, the Alpe di Carenaia. This separated me from the Val Tiberina, the valley of the Tiber, along which lay my route south.

This road writhed its way into higher ground with clifflike slopes either side, as though through a narrow gorge. It was sufficiently well metalled to serve motor vehicles, and this was nerve-wracking for, unless I heard a motor vehicle in good time, the blind bends were so numerous that a car could be upon me in no time and only Jerry or fascisti used motor transport, and in a gorge there was nowhere to run.

In the end I scrambled up a very steep slope, veritably crag climbing, and was vastly relieved to reach the top without mishap, but felt much safer as a consequence. Soon after this feat I was lodged, dined, and wined in a pleasant villa owned by a townie from Firenze and slept in a real bed. So was effort repaid.

Eventually rounding the top of the Alpe di Carenaia, I made the southward turn and entered a well-forested district. By now I was using narrow footpaths and, feeling tired and unwell, made frequent stops. I was hot yet shivering by turns, dozing frequently but too unwell to worry about it.

Suddenly awakening from a feverish doze, I was aware of a young man and woman standing over me. I was lying right across their path and they, I suppose, were wondering what they had stumbled across. I can remember talking to them and after that I can recall nothing.

I must now jump forward about eleven years to the late 1950s when out of the blue I received a letter from a Silvano Pettrazzoli who lived in Firenze with his wife and family which began to bring back to mind vague memories of this event. He reminded me in his letter of having met me in the Casentino and suggested that I and my wife make a visit to Firenze and stay with his family for a short holiday. 

I had no wife, but I did have a girlfriend and a recently purchased motorbike, a Norton 500 cc, my first mechanically propelled vehicle. Intrigued by this mysterious call from the past I wrote back accepting his offer and the chance to fill in this gap in my memory.

We chose to meet at his place of business so, on the day of arrival I, with my girlfriend on the pillion, motorcycled slowly down a street near the Duomo searching for Silvano’s leather goods shop and so renew our acquaintanceship.

Suddenly I spotted a gesticulating young man trotting towards me up the middle of the street already thronged with people and vehicles. He was dark and swarthy, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, and his smiles and waves were definitely directed at us. I turned to Patricia, my girlfriend, and said, “I’ve no idea who he is. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”  But there was no doubt that he certainly knew me.

I pulled up, we greeted each other, I with some diffidence, and I introduced Patricia. Silvano conducted us to his shop where his wife greeted me obviously as a known acquaintance. I was quite puzzled but played out the act as though I remembered them. Later that afternoon, I followed after the Italians in their car to their home. For the rest of the week, we made no reference to the war period, being too busy sightseeing and conversing about current situations, domestic and business. Having explored Firenze in detail, something denied me when I was walking through those hills to the north of the city back in ’43, the weekend gave Silvano the chance to close shop and away we went to visit his father-in-law in the Casentino. Our road was the same route 70 which crossed over the Passo da Consuma and, surely enough, we made the usual travellers’ stop at the small town of Consuma for Capuccinis where I had, by chance, lunched in the restaurant at the little boy’s invitation back in ’43. Naturally I made a rapid search for the place but, lacking time or perhaps due to change, I could not find it. We continued our way in Silvano’s car but, a little out of the town I was able to recognise where the donor of my precious map had helped me cross the road safely. As the car accelerated past, I was spared only a brief glance down the southern slope of the ridge and along the cross-country route that had led me to my first meeting with Silvano in the Casentino. In the car we would be there in a few hours; on foot it had taken me at least three days back in ’43.

We were presently received by Silvano’s ‘suocero’ (father-in-law) and again I had the puzzling experience of being remembered and yet being unable to resurrect the slightest recall of my short sojourn in the neighbourhood. 

By this time, I believe Silvano recognised my difficulty in bringing back the past for, next morning, he suggested a stroll. We followed the woodland paths and after a while stopped quite abruptly. “This is where we found you lying,” he said and continued to describe the event with plenty of detail as though to nudge my memory chords. This I could recall, but was soon at a loss once more as, continuing our walk, he explained how his wife (then fiancée) and he had helped me along the path, he carrying my pack. We soon stopped at a cottage quite modest in comparison with that of his suocero. Here the family were in their Sunday best with the menfolk freshly shaven for the coming week and the Sunday walk to the nearby town for the weekly attendance at mass. Again they remembered me, but not I them. Enjoying the usually proffered hospitality to unusual guests, thinly cut prosciuta and salami and wine (delicious!), they reminisced and pointed out younger members of the family in late teens or early twenties now who had been so high when I was there before. As Silvano explained, this was the family who had taken me in, put me to bed, nursed and fed me, and with great difficulty and effort managed to procure me precious quinine. It would appear that, apart from a type of influenza, I had suffered from the Italian form of malaria. (When at last I met up with Allied troops, I found them using full anti-malarial precautions and in the rest camp at Salerno we all slept under mosquito nets.) What can one say of people like this who would respond so readily to need and take into their homes complete strangers, at considerable risk, costs, and effort, and over a period of a fortnight nurse you back to health? Compare such generosity with Britain of the 1990s offering the needy the comfort of a cardboard box and the pavement for rest. This interlude in my wanderings remains even to this day almost a complete blank in my memory even up to my parting from the family.            

Before returning to my narrative continuing my trek south, I would mention that the nearby townlet, perched on its crag is called Caprese Michelangelo and is the birthplace of that greatest of all the Renaissance painters. In the months to come many of the area’s menfolk gave their services to the partigiani and quite a few lost their lives. Here too there was quite fierce fighting when the Allies advanced through the Casentino.