A Bell for Adano (17 page)

Quattrocchi said: “I don’t know about most Americans, but I know I can always get justice from you, Mister Major.”

The Major said: “Good day, Quattrocchi. From now on your house will be kept nicely, I can promise you that.”

Quattrocchi left. The Major turned to the three boys. He said: “I don’t know whether you realize yet what you’ve done to this Italian. It’s as if you had cut his arm off. He loved those things you busted up. Now I just told him that you three would be punished severely - as severely as you have hurt him. “

The three boys stiffened up a little.

The Major said: “I’m going to make this your punishment: to have this man’s unhappiness on your conscience, and from now on to keep his house as clean as if everything in it belonged to your own mother. That’s all. You’re dismissed.”

Chuck said: “Yes sir, thank you, sir.” Polack said: “Thank you, sir.”

Bill said: “Thank you, sir. We’ll take care of the house.” Polack said: “Yes sir, we sure will.”

As soon as they were outside, Chuck said: “What’d I tell you about that guy?”

Polack said: “That’s the best goddam guy I ever seen in this Army.”

Bill said: “The thing that got me down was what he said about my mother. Mom was always so proud of her glass. Cut glass it was. I feel like I busted it last night.”

Chapter
17

HAVING weathered eighty-two winters, Cacopardo was not the least cooled in his desire to help the Americans by General Marvin’s behavior.

Every two or three days he would send a note to Mafor Joppolo. Many were silly suggestions. Many were about things Major Joppolo had already done. But one day he sent a note which caught Major Joppolo’s interest.

“To the Officer of CIVIL AFFAIRES:

“I beg to notify, for the necessary steps: Since several months, the small people at Adano does not receive the ration o f olive oil, or other fats, but the officials both o f commune, civil & military staf, have been largily provided for the families & personal friends.

“I am informed, that the small population is therefore compelled to pay at the black market any price, up to Lire 80 per liter (equal to 800 grams). The price fixed by the Fascist government for the supply is Lire 15 ^ an half per kilo (1,000 grams).

“You cannot allow any longer this tiranny against the poorsl”

“Respectfully,

“Matteo Cacopardo.”

The thing which interested Major Joppolo in this note was the fact that old Cacopardo blamed the black market on Fascist graft. Now Major Joppolo was acutely aware of the black market. He had intended for some time to investigate it. Now he did, and what he found was disturbing.

The black market was not the fault of corrupt Fascists. It was not even the fault of the merchants who jacked their prices out of all bounds. It was the fault of the invaders. Demonstrably, it was the fault of the Americans.

There were two reasons why the Americans gave Adano its black market, and the inflation which inevitably went with it. One reason was American generosity. Apparently the Italians thought the Americans were coming to their soil armed mainly with cigarets and candies, for every grown person asked for cigarets and every child shouted in the streets for candies. And the Americans gave what was begged. They also gave C Ra- tions, both cans which they had opened and had been unable to finish, and unopened cans. When they bought anything, they figured the price by their heart. And the second thing was that when they bought anything, and could not find an Italian-speaking pal to dicker for them, they just paid what they figured they would have paid in the United States.

Here are four examples that Major Joppolo dug up, which show exactly how the black market and inflation grew up:

He traced the black market in wine to the house of Carmelina, wife of the lazy Fatta. The very first person who bought wine from Carmelina, on the very first night of the invasion, was Corporal Chuck Schultz. Carmelina’s story to the Major was that the Corporal had just handed her a dollar and walked away. Schultz’s story was that the Italian lady had haggled and shouted and threatened to call the police. In any case, Schultz paid a dollar. The regular price for that grade of wine before the invasion had been twenty lire, or twenty cents.

Four soldiers sauntered into a barber shop one morning, and made motions with their fingers around their skulls that indicated they wanted haircuts. None of them could speak Italian, so they based their payment on what the), had last paid for haircuts in the States. Each plunked down a fifty cent piece and said: “Keep the change, Joe.” The regular price for haircuts had been three lire, or three cents. Shaves had cost two lire. Here in one morning’s work, the barber had made two hundred lire. He retired to a life of leisure, and refused to cut any hair for three weeks, till his money gave out.

The black market in prostitution was serious. Demand was naturally high, with a newly arrived Army. Supply was rather low, what with the timid girls who had run into the hills. Now their standard price before the invasion had been, believe it or not, five lire, or five American cents. In making their propositions in the early days, American soldiers who could not speak Italian had used what they thought to be international sign language: they had raised two fingers, representing an offer of two bucks. There was some confusion at first, when the girls thought they meant two lire, or two cents, and for a time they refused to do business. But later they caught on: two hundred lire a piece. Business flourished then and so did the black market.

The welfare of the town was really threatened by the black market in food. Peasants, instead of bringing their grapes and melons and fresh vegetables into the town market, would go to the various bivouac areas and hang around the edges until they could catch a straggler. Then, in the heat of the day, they would tempt the Americans with cool-looking fruits, and would sell them for anywhere from ten to twenty times the proper prices. It got so bad that city people would buy what little fruit did reach the town market, and would take it out into the country to sell it to the foolhardy Americans.

To stop, or at least to curb, the black market, Major Joppolo did three things: he put the town out of bounds to American soldiers, who from then on could enter only on business; he had the Carabiniers stop all foodstuffs from leaving the town; and he fined anyone caught selling over-price or under-measure three thousand lire - a lifetime’s savings for a poor Italian peasant

Chapter
18

SERGEANT TRAPANI’S having addressed the purple slip reporting the countermand order on the carts to the wrong person did not help much. As soon as the wrong person opened up the envelope and read the slip, he forwarded it to the right person.

The right person was Lt. Col. W. W. Norris, G-One Officer of the 49th Division. The wrong person put the purple slip on his desk. Col. Norris, who was burdened down with much too much paper work, did not even read it all the way through. He just read the first part, about General Marvin’s issuing the order that carts should be stopped on the outskirts of Adano.

Then he wrote in pencil on the upper left hand corner of the slip: “Usual copies for Division files. One extra copy to be sent to Colonel Middleton marked `For General Marvin’s Information.”‘ And then he tossed the slip in his outgoing basket.

A couple of hours later a Technical Sergeant emptied Col. Norris’s outgoing basket, and in time got around to making three copies of the purple slip for the files of the 49th Division, where they would be buried, never to be seen again. One copy went under M.P.’s, one copy into the Personnel file, and the third into the Intelligence files under Occupied Territory, Disciplinary Measures. The Technical Sergeant recopied the purple slip, so that he could make a clean top copy for Colonel Middleton and the General. He wanted to get ahead. He didn’t want to do anything sloppy. He was so careful in his typing that he didn’t even notice what the purple slip said.

The Technical Sergeant put the four copies and the original purple slip into Col. Norris’s incoming basket.

It happens that Col. Norris had an assistant, one Lieutenant Butters, who was very inquisitive. He annoyed the Colonel often by reading over his shoulder. He always wanted to know what the Battle Order was the moment it was drawn up, before it even went to regimental commanders.

The only advantage of Lieutenant Butters’ curiosity was that he usually read Colonel Norris’s mail more carefully than either Colonel Norris or his Technical Sergeant.

The morning after the Technical Sergeant put the purple slip and the four copies into the Colonel’s incoming basket, Lieutenant Butters got up bright and early, dressed, shaved out of his helmet, and before breakfast went to Colonel Norris’s desk and went through his incoming basket.

When he came to the purple slip and the four copies, he took the papers out of the pile, read until he had finished, put the pile back into the incoming basket, and then tucked the purple slip and the four copies into a portfolio on his own desk.

Later in the day, when the Colonel was out to a conference, Lieutenant Butters took out the purple slip and the four copies. He called the Technical Sergeant over to his desk.

“Did you see these?” the Lieutenant asked.

The Technical Sergeant, who was afraid he had made a mistake in typing, said merely: “Yes, sir.”

“Well, that Major was right,” the Lieutenant said. The Technical Sergeant, who hadn’t the faintest idea what the purple slip was about, said: “He was?”

The Lieutenant said: “Sure he was. It’s easy to see he was. And if General Marvin ever lays eyes on this Information copy, it’ll be just too bad for the Major.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Technical Sergeant, to be on the safe side.

Lieutenant Butters said: “Here, you file these, I’ll take care of the Information copy.”

“Yes, sir,” the Technical Sergeant said, taking the copies.

The Lieutenant said: “That Marvin trimmed me down once for something I didn’t do. I never have liked him. I don’t know this Major, but I think it would be a shame if he caught a trimming just for this.”

“Yes, sir,” the Technical Sergeant said. Then he frowned and added: “You aren’t going to get me in trouble, are you, sir, like when that letter to Colonel Norris from the P.R.O. got lost’?”

“No, don’t worry,” the Lieutenant said.

But the Technical Sergeant did worry for several days, until he got up the courage to ask the Lieutenant: “Sir, what did you ever do about that Information copy I made for General Marvin? You didn’t throw it away, did you? Colonel Norris is liable to ask me about it.”

“I wish I had thrown it away,” Lieutenant Butters said. “I didn’t have the guts. I put it in the courier pouch for Algiers. You know how much stuff we’ve been losing on that run. I thought maybe -”

The Technical Sergeant, relieved of his worry, smiled and said: “It might get lost accidentally on purpose?”

Chapter
19

MAYOR NASTA had just come out from his daily repentance before Sergeant Borth. He walked across the way to the broad sidewalk in front of the Palazzo. Every day knots of people gathered on that sidewalk, some just to pass the time of day, some to air their perennial complaints, some to get in touch with the town’s mean little lawyers, whose office was that sidewalk.

Mayor Nasta walked up to one such knot. There were about ten people, and he found that they were discussing the war.

He waited for his chance, and said: “I got some news from the interior yesterday afternoon.”

Mercurio Salvatore the crier was so far gone in boldness that he said: “We have no desire for news from the one who is no longer Mayor.”

Mayor Nasta remembered the time when he would have put the crier in jail for a whole year for saying something like that, but now he said: “This news came from the son of your friend Afronti, the noisy cartman. The boy deserted on the first day of the invasion and he is now here. Perhaps you know him. He is an honest boy.”

The Mayor’s poison was beginning to take hold. “If that is the case,” said the lazy Fatta, who was to be found on this stretch of sidewalk every morning, “if that is the case, what did he say that was so interesting?”

“He said that our friends the Germans are mounting a counterattack.”

“There is nothing new in that,” said Father Pensovecchio. “They have counterattacked before. They counterattacked near Vicinamare and it did them no good. They were thrown back. They will be thrown back again.”

“Not this time,” said Mayor Nasta. “This time they will employ five fresh divisions. They have the crack 29th Panzers and the Pilsener Division. These are good troops. This time they will not be thrown back. They intend to push the Americans into the sea.”

The lazy Fatta, who had no sense about the news, said: “When will this attack come? I think I will go to the hills.”

Mayor Nasta looked very important, as he used to in the old days. “I should not tell you this,” he said, “but the attack will begin on the morning of the twenty-third, at four o’clock in the morning. You can expect the Americans to be pushed into the sea between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-eighth.”

The impressionable ones were beginning to believe him. Laura Sofia, the unmarried one, who stood about on this sidewalk in the belief that she might catch a husband that way, said: “The twenty-third, that is next Wednesday.”

But Mercurio Salvatore, who had been treated well by the Americans, refused to believe that they were leaving. “I do not believe it,” he said. “The Americans will stop the attack.” Even the crier was now willing to believe that there was going to be an attack. All he would not believe was that the Germans would succeed.