.. And back again

Stage 3

Having now been free for a fortnight they had gained a clearer idea of their situation; the Italian population had proved to be largely friendly, they had found that the German occupiers could, with care and good fortune, be avoided and that it was possible to move around fairly freely on foot. They had also come to realise that their present course was unlikely to be profitable and that they now had to retrace the fifty or so miles that they had already walked and start off again in a completely different direction.

They were almost certainly unaware that already some of their fellows had safely crossed the Swiss border, a distance of about 120 miles from PG 49 - to be fair they had agreed to disregard the option of this destination as having the major disadvantage that they would then be interned there for the rest of the war,- nor were they aware that those escapers who had decided to make use of the public transport system of trains and buses were doing so with a surprising degree of safety and success.

Their best course of action, they now agreed, looked like being to continue on foot and try and reach the Allied forces, currently fighting their way up from the bottom of the country, some 600 miles away at this time. In order to do so on foot, while keeping to the less populated higher ground that they were beginning to recognise as their safest option, they needed to first head eastward, in order to get further into the mountainous spine of the country that would then allow them to follow their southward trajectory.

In other news….

Eric Newby, meanwhile, had by now made good his escape from the hospital, with the help of his new girlfriends father, and had been spirited away from there, under the nose of the Germans and with not a few alarms, eventually to a hiding place in the mountains where he was to stay for some time. The night that my father and his companions had spent in the relative comforts of the rectory at Cornolo, Eric had spent lying concealed in a hastily dug hole in the ground with a false roof of planks and turf and a bottle of wine to keep him hydrated until someone could safely come and release him the next day...hopefully!

Hugo de Burgh, with his companion Reggie Phillips, was, on that same night, within sight of the Matterhorn and freedom, of sorts, in Switzerland.. But they still had some difficulties ahead….

While the two lieutenants who had set off so smartly on the 9th of September, Douglas Clarke and John Birkbeck, had been the first to reach their goal, arriving at the Swiss border some ten days ago, on the 14th. .

Stuart Hood and Ted had, as planned started walking after a couple of days, and were currently in the hills above Fidenza working on a hill farm …” from treading the grapes we ran out one day to watch the bombing of Fidenza… smoke and explosions echoing up into the hills. ‘you can see what rich people they must be these Americans,’ remarked their host, ‘they knock things down and don’t care’”

Dick Carver, with his travelling companion “the Dean” narrowly avoided being recaptured on the 20th of September when they were invited in to an inn when “suddenly a woman broke in yelling Tedeschi Tedeschi (germans germans). There was panic as the inn emptied into the street while two German soldiers tried to force their through. Richard and the Dean grabbed their sacks and raced out of the back door of the pub, through a garden and over a low fence. The Dean, slower and older, tried to jump the fence and failed. One of the Germans emerged from the inn and yelled at him to stop. But he managed to get up and half fall and half clamber over the rickety wooden structure and to run down the slope after Richard. For several hours they lay on an island in a dry riverbed listening for sounds of pursuit, but none came. It was their first brush with the Germans – a sign that life was going to become more challenging. After that they resolved to stay on the high ground...”

As for Elizabeth, now visiting friends in Devon, she had just received an old card from Gerald dated February 2nd… which had done little to put her mind at rest. That night she wrote that she felt ‘very gloomy about Gerald’.

24th September

…. and next morning we duly started off before it was light on an easterly course, fixing our line of march on a brilliant morning star. 

After great difficulty we re-crossed the lake valley at a point north of the dam, but even closer to another power station, from which we were scrutinized by what we felt to be unfriendly eyes. For another two hours we toiled uphill, and eventually came to rest at the house of a friendly farmer, who fed us well and bedded us down in a barn in the village.

25th September

In the morning, under a sun gradually fading into stratus cloud, we washed ourselves and our clothes. The sun finally retired before our clothes were dry. By three pm we were again overlooking Malaberti’s valley and the village of Rompeggio. The rain had begun, so we stayed till the evening in a cow shed. We supped in an outlying cottage, but had to go into the village in heavy rain for our bed. This - in a primitive and draughty barn, with little or no hay – we shared with another fugitive; a revoltingly dirty and loquacious little man, who regrettably talked French.

26th September

We did not dally in the morning and soon were passing Malaberti’s farm, we hoped unobserved, for we did not want again to set in motion their immense hospitality. But they saw us and called us in. They gave us as good a breakfast as before, and appeared delighted to see us. “Bonne chance, monsieur” Madame said to me,as we took our leave. “Nous avons eu de la bonne chance, Madame” I replied. By midday we were in the nolo valley; we were taken into a pub by an Italian and given wine. outside we saw the priest we had stayed with previously; he seemed somewhat embarrassed to see us. We did not know whether he feared we would invite ourselves in again and whether he disliked a public connection with such notorious characters.

We continued down the Cornolo valley in the direction of Bardi so as to avoid the Bedonia forests. An inebriated little man went with us some of the way and gave us a meal in his house before we parted. Progress with him was slow, as he would stop every time he wanted to talk, and that was almost continuously. That night we were entertained to dinner by two ladies seeking refuge from the air raids – one a horribly vital noisy sort of woman, and the other only lately returned from Montmartre. We felt it was well we were three.

27th September

Next morning we went by mule tracks along the hills south of Bardi, and fetched up in heavy rain at a farmhouse about three miles from the town . We sheltered for a time here and then tried again. We crossed a wide river bed, narrowly missing a car on the road parallel to it, which ran down north to Bardi. The castle rock looked very black and close, and was for the first time above us, and not vice versa. Across the river we finally came to rest in a well to do farmhouse, in which the Italian owner was harboring two Jugoslavs, escaped from Rezzonella camp. We conversed all the evening, between meals, and went to bed in the dutch barn, which was both damp and cold. “Do you hear from your family at all?”  Peter asked the Yugoslav colonel. “No” he said, “the Germans have killed them all”. There was a silence. “Alexandrievitch here” he went on, pointing to his immense, villainous looking and non-speaking companion “has lost 11 close relatives: I have only lost seven”. In the dutch barn with us were a cat, which ate the cheese in my haversack, and a dog. In the morning the dog came with us.

28th September

We went through damp, misty woods, hoping Bardi was on our left. When quite near the village of Tosca, (which we had passed through on the night of the 14th) we went into a cottage to shelter from the rain. We were warmly welcomed and brought to the fire; we were given eggs and wine. The son of the house was a prisoner in England – it may have been the daughter's fiancé – we were not sure, and this was reason enough for them to treat us well, it seemed. During a slight check in the rain, we insisted on starting off for San Martino (the one near San Mariano, and our jumping off place for crossing the River Taro);  we could not prevent the daughter and her married sister or sister-in-law coming with us to show us the way through the woods; we should never find it alone, they said. Before long the rain came down heavier than ever, and we took refuge in a woodman's hut; we lit a fire and waited for the rain to stop. The girls lent us their umbrellas to fetch wood and the dog Tosca got as near to the fire as he could. After an hour or so it became obvious that the rain was not going to stop, and so we were taken a mile or so down the hill to a cousin's house. Here we again monopolised the fire and tried to compete with their talk; the man mended my boots, and various girls darned our socks; one of these we recognized as being the daughter of the man who had given us a good breakfast a fortnight before. Our guides took their leave before supper, which consisted of a rather revolting concoction called polenta of maize – grano turki. We slept in a barn and were cold.

29th September

We were conducted by two of the women to the ridge overlooking San Martino and the San Mariano plateau. we breakfasted and washed short of the former village, and when we arrived there we found a crippled who showered advice on us as to the best way to cross the river Taro. as his plan did not altogether coincide with ours, we eluded him and made our way in the direction of Fornovo del Taro. We had an excellent midday meal at the house of an Italian sergeant major, who was already entertaining a party of British ORs. After the meal we moved to a hillock closely overlooking the river and railway. Here we stayed in a thicket till dusk; Tosca spent most of his time hunting rabbits and by his excited yelp's making us feel somewhat conspicuous. Nonetheless we approached the railway as planned. I had gone under a bridge crossing the bed of a stream and was reconnoitring a place to take to the water, when we became aware that we were being observed from above by an individual in a peaked cap. This turned out to be an Italian railwayman; he pointed out to us the shallowest place, and we started crossing. The current was extremely strong, the bottom unlevel, being made up of big round stones, and the water was nearly waist deep. We had difficulty in keeping our feet and in maintaining our course. The width of water was about 80 yards. The dog showed great agitation and eventually took to the water a couple of hundred yards upstream; this enabled him to land at the same point as ourselves. When we had gained cover on the far side, we wrung out  our trousers and put on our boots again. Peter, who had been feeling unwell all afternoon, was now sick. as it was quite dark, we continued on an Easterly course, hoping to strike a house. This we did in about an hour and spent the rest of the evening in a small room with a hot fire and at least 25 people in it.

30th September (GIC’s birthday)

The next morning we started early, the immediate task being the crossing of the Parma- Spezia road which was about four miles ahead. We breakfasted well at a farm, which belonged to one of last night's company. Tosca caught a rabbit quite soon after this which we gave to a woodman who showed us a covered approach to the main road. We watched a certain amount of German traffic passing, and slipped across during a lull. We had not long left the immediate area of the road, when a large convoy, moving South, halted for about 45 minutes just where we had been waiting. A pub just down the road, kept by a fascist, had been pointed out to us as a usual halting place for convoys. The next three or four hours we spent climbing up the hill faces which we had so often looked at from the other side of the river. By the late afternoon we were over this very wild and deserted watershed, and were descending again down to the river Parma. This we crossed and, falling in with a young Italian, we were taken to his village, and introduced to a french-speaking couple, who entertained us well, and put us in with their cows for the night. Peter was still feeling far from well, and spent a disturbed tonight .

1st October

It was wet the next day and we found the mist a handicap. About midday we were overtaken by a priest who directed us to his house; he put us in a rest house and set his men to wait on us; they brought us food, wood for a fire and water. Our shoes were mended (though they failed to hammer down the nails properly we found out later) Peter was given medicine, and me a pair of black trousers. Van's shoes were by now in a very poor state, and his feet considerably blistered. We dined in the priest's house that evening and again went there for breakfast.

2nd October

The priest had expressed a wish that we should give him Tosca, and this we did though not with unanimity. We did a lot of roadwork during the morning, the roads being minor and reputedly free from Germans. We lunched at a mill, and soon after crossed a lesser main road, on which we saw German motorcyclists; also a party of South African O R 's from Fontanellato (we were of course still not very far from Fontanellato,On account of our excursion to the Trebbia.  We had a laborious afternoon, mostly along the side of a stream; we were all feeling out of sorts or lame. We had a good billet that evening near Gombio, and started off again somewhat restored in the morning.

3rd October

We crossed a big main road, from Reggio Aemilia, fairly early on, assisted by an old man. We were now in purely agricultural country – no mountains and few woods  - which we found comparatively easy going and pleasantly level. At about 10:30 we walked through a large and tidy yard, and seeing a man, I asked the way. As a result, we were shortly taken inside; Maps were produced, Van was allowed to see what he could get out of the wireless, and we were all given Marsala. Soon signor Bazani himself came in along with other members of the family. We stayed to lunch and were shown around the farm. Also – a great acquisition – we were given reasonably good maps; 1:250,000 instead of the 1:100,000 which we had been using so far. It must be said that Peter had to work very hard to get the maps. This was a pleasant,comfortably well-to-do household, enjoying a much more civilised standard of living than any we had seen so far. The son we had first seen had his business in Reggio Aemilia where, he said, was Rommel’s HQ. The family appeared to own a considerable acreage of land, and itself farmed the fields near the house.

We were accompanied on our way by the younger members of the family and were set on our course for Castello. On approaching the woods below Castello we were advised by a French-speaking signora not to go any further as a German major from Reggio was shooting in the woods and had various servants and soldiers acting as beaters. Accordingly we made a detour, being accompanied some of the way by a more or less English-speaking student, who had a short time before talked with Attie Brooks and his Kings Own companion; they had said they were on their way to the coast between La Spezia and Livorno.

Beyond Castello we rejoined our line of march, and spent the night at a farm where they had just begun the grape harvest. The country was now one of large isolated farms, characteristic of the more prosperous agricultural areas, and more suited to our special requirements than the districts where everyone lived in labyrinthine close built villages; in these latter secrecy was almost impossible, and also we found there were always at least two or three reputed fascists in such communities.

4th October

The next day we crossed two rivers and two roads, both minor obstacles, by midday.  We dozed after lunch in a chestnut grove having climbed high above the river valleys, and during the afternoon we descended gradually towards Lama da Mocogno, and its main road.  We kept to the south of Lama and halted for the night about two miles short of the road, which here ran along a ridge, fortunately with wooded approaches. We found another large farm for our nights lodging, much more spacious and much less poverty stricken than those of the village farmers.

5th October

The main road presented no difficulty and soon after crossing it we got into a river valley running more or less East, which we followed for the rest of a hot and sultry day. We saw several lots of Fortresses going north, and heard an attack by German fighters, as far as we could see without results;  later on we heard heavy explosions in the Bologna or Modena direction. We had two or three minor roads to cross and from local reports it seemed that German traffic on them was fairly regular, although not heavy; there was, it was said, an AA battery HQ a few miles to the south. We came across two Greek officers who were going in the same general direction as ourselves. We also took advantage of the weather to have baths in the stream; my own ablutions were interrupted by two bullocks, which had temporarily evaded the small girl who was driving them and which sought sanctuary from her in the same pool as myself. 

Van was very lame by five o'clock, and we therefore stopped early at a small secluded farm on the edge of a bit of woodland. They were very poor. Seven Lambs and four ewes -  which bred twice a year, they said,  the usual two working bullocks, one cow, three cats, two children, and two rooms in their house seemed the sum of their possessions. The maize cobs hanging from the ceiling seemed almost to be counted, though fortunately this was not demonstrated, as we did not have to eat polenta. We went to bed, without foreboding, in the shed; when we were bedded down, shut in and in the dark, we became aware that one of the beasts had a bell around its neck. We were reminded of this fact throughout the night.

6th October

An old and agile man – the superannuated father – showed us through his home woods the next day and we emerged into a rocky, hot and barren bit of country, cleft by deep valleys and most unattractive. At a village shop Van brought a pair of cardboard shoes for 150 lira - cheap at the price. They fell to bits within 48 hours. Thence we climbed up onto a green sufficiently wooded plateau – the soil of a south Devon red, and of the same light character; it was a well ordered, unextravagant piece of country. We soon fell off this plateau into a more familiar land of stones and woods and steep hills, and had to consider the crossing of the main road and the railway between Bologna and Pistoia. Our plan was to cross the latter over a conveniently placed tunnel and thus we had only one obstacle to tackle. We observed almost continuous German traffic on this road but found cover on both sides of it and so slipped across without difficulty.

We went on for another couple of hours, until as night fell we find a household more than ready to receive us. the father - or his eldest son who was not there was - a colonel; we could not make out which. Three daughters added considerably to the volume of talk, and their young brother successfully exchanged his cheap, but active, watch with Peter's more valuable but temporarily stopped one. Peter was clearly reluctant to do this deal, but could not produce any short-term arguments to avoid it. There was also a magnificent youth, aged about 20, the fiancé of one of the girls. he, with great secrecy, informed us that his commander would like to see us, to lay important proposals before us, and accordingly the appointment was made for nine a.m. the next morning.

7th October

Real marmalade and boiled eggs for breakfast greatly encouraged us, and we received the Capitano at the appointed time with due ceremony. He was, as we had suspected, a Banda leader; he had already two English offices under his wing and proposed to organize his command so as to hinder the Germans to the maximum extent when the time was right. We had already encountered similar proposals from the Yugoslavs nearby. My view was that the action contemplated would almost certainly not take place for many months and might then come to nothing. Our own plan of regaining the British lines was in progress, was tangible, and already halfway to success. In no circumstances would I be deterred from going on with it. As, therefore, we had already discussed the matter, Peter told the Capitano that we admired his initiative, but that we too had our task before us, and so must refuse his offer. The Capitano received this well, and soon we set out again, accompanied for the first couple of miles by the Capitano and his lieutenant. The rest of the day was very wet indeed. We had a short respite at midday when we lunched at a farmhouse, and again about 4 when we sat in front of a cottage fire for an hour. In spite of the rain we made fair progress and by nightfall we were within a mile or two of the Bologna - Firenze main road. (The railway here ran in a very long tunnel and was nothing to worry about). We called at a farm and had practically our first refusal. In what was left of the light we made our way to the next building, about half a mile away, and soon were glad that the other had refused us. Two brothers, with various attached women and children, took us in without any hesitation. Peter had a bed for the night, Van and I being in with the cows.

8th October

In the morning the younger brother made a very good job of my boots - in fact his repairs were to last for nearly three weeks. On leaving the house in the morning, we presented the family with a pot of honey that we had been given, but were unable to refuse a counter gift of cheese. The sentiment of these people was very anti-German, the elder brother having fought in the last war; both the brothers were tall, well built and dark, clearly men of character and resolution.  The elder conducted us to a farm about five miles away on the other side of the main road; he gave us umbrellas, as it was pouring with rain which we returned on parting. By midday we reached a village where there were many traces of Germans; they had been foraging there that morning, and we had no difficulty in picking out their wheel tracks. We followed these tracks for a few miles, and eventually came to a villa in some fir trees, to which also the Germans had clearly been, though they appeared to have departed as well. While pondering this, a well-dressed woman appeared, who turned out to be English though married to an Italian. She said the Germans had inspected her house with a view to making it an HQ and so would probably return. She gave us a hurried meal, and we continued on our way. We got on well and by the evening were overlooking the bigger of the two Bologna - Firenze roads the other we’d crossed in the morning. There was a lot of German traffic here and immediately below us, we learned from some Italians mounted on quite respectable ponies, was a road house which the Germans frequented. We accordingly planned to cross half a mile to the south. This we did in the dark without mishap, but we spent some hours finding a lodging on the far side. Our eventual host was a well to do farmer, owning his own land, in which he took a tremendous pride. His cow-house was the best we had slept in, having good standing for 20 animals, and being well ventilated and warm.

9th October

After breakfast, the farmer put us on our way, pointing out to us as we went the excellence of his properties, and when we got beyond his demesne, we were stopped every few hundred yards to turn around and admire it from afar. Van had been given yet another pair of old shoes here, but they were little better than those he’d discarded and he was much handicapped.

We walked up and down some very steep hills during the morning, largely through chestnut woods; we had some wine from a priest about 11:00 a.m. which made me feel very weak about the knees and more than usually unwilling to cope with the hills. We had lunch with yet another priest overlooking the deep valley in which the Imola - Firenzuola road ran; we saw convoys of tanks and half-tracked vehicles going north - it looked rather like the route for recovery vehicles. After lunch we descended the hill and approached the road. We could not avoid travelling along it for about 400 yards, but we completed this safely, shortly before a German staff car passed. We climbed up the opposite hillside and halted at a church;  it was essential to do something about Van’s shoes, and after a good deal of talk we got him some boots with wooden soles, which served for a time.