A Bell for Adano

by John Hersey

  “Mary Mother of Jesusl” she exclaimed. “Can my eyes deceive me or is that my husband running?”

  It was indeed Fatta, trotting heavily toward her beside Zingone.

  “Something terrible has made him run,” she said to herself. “Perhaps it is true about the gas.”

  When Fatta came alongside she moved out into the street and with an easy lope, trotted alongside him. “What terrible thing is making you run?”

  “Gas,” he said between heavy breaths. “Poison. Germans.”

  Zingone, who was not winded at all, explained to her: “We were attacked as we worked in the harbor. Some of the men could smell it. It smelled like sulphur smoke. I think it may have been sulphur smoke.”

  Carmelina said: “Who said it was gas?”

  Zingone said: “A stranger. He repeated the story of the German counterattack.”

  Carmelina said: “You’d better not run so fast, Fatta, you will explode.”

  Fatta was in truth turning purple, and he gladly slowed down a little more.

  Carmelina said: “I do not believe there was any gas.” But at this time several things happened to make her begin to believe it. For one thing, they came on a knot of people around a man who was lying in the street and vomiting. This man was a certain Buttafuoco, who was sick from having drunk a bottle of wine before going to work. But when he was able to say a word between retches, he groaned: “Gas, the gas.”

  The knot of people evaporated, and they all started running. The sight of the first gas casualty had everyone terrified.

  One of the workers was a young fellow named Lo Paso who until a few weeks before had been an acolyte in the Church of the Orphanage, and the first thing he could think of was ringing the bell of the Church. When he did that, and people through the town heard a bell ringing alone and at the wrong time, alarm spread. Those who knew about the gas became more frightened, and those who did not, ran through the streets asking what the matter was. Soon hundreds of people were running up and down the streets asking each other what the trouble was. Seeing these people helped to persuade Carmelina.

  Then Mercurio Salvatore, the crier, heard about the gas, and he felt it his duty to spread the word. He ran into the Palazzo and up the stairs to the third floor and through the little trap door up the ladder leading to the clock tower and finally out onto the platform where the ancient bell had hung. He stood there and at the top of his crying voice he roared: “Cast Poison Cast Hold your noses, people of Adanol Gas! Poison Gas!”

  The crier’s voice was audible through two thirds of the town, and when Carmelina heard him, she was convinced. She began to scream, as many other women were already doing: “Gas! Poison Gas!”

  Fatta gasped: “Slower, slower.”

  Carmelina thought he was beginning to fail from the gas. Actually the only gas he was failing from was on his stomach, but Carmelina began to scream: “Helpl My husband is dying from the gasl Medical aidl Helpl”

  Carmelina, Fatta and Zingone trotted into the Piazza, where a huge crowd was already milling in fear. Fatta staggered and fell, Zingone fanned him with a handkerchief and Carmelina wept over her poor gassed husband. There were other scenes like this all through the square.

  At this moment Major Joppolo came out on the balcony of the Palazzo, held up his hand and tried to shout for silence. But there was such audible nervousness in the square that he could not make himself heard.

  He sent Zito to get the crier, who was still roaring from the clock tower. It had been the crier’s voice which brought the Major out to see what was going on. Zito hurried up into the tower and got Mercurio Salvatore.

  When the crier reached the balcony, the Major shouted: “Tell them to be quiet.”

  The crier roared: “Silence. Be still. The Mister Major has an announcement to make about the gas.” Gradually the hubbub subsided.

  “There is no such thing as this poison gas,” the Major shouted. “It is a ridiculous rumor.”

  Old Bellanca the Mayor came up beside the Major and said: “Are you certain, Mister Major? It would be a disaster to put them at rest, and then find that there really had been a gas attack.” This showed the infectious power of fear, for old Bellanca was one of the steadiest men in town.

  The crowd meanwhile shouted such things as: “How do you know? ... Fatta here is dying.... I smelled it...”

  Major Joppolo said to Mercurio Salvatore: “Tell them to be quiet for a minute. I want to telephone.”

  The crier silenced the crowd again, and Major Joppolo went to his phone and called Lieutenant Livingston.

  “Hello, Captain,” the Major said. “How are you?” “Fine, fine,” the Lieutenant said cordially. “When you going to come down and have that drink with me?” “Any day now,” the Major said. “Say: is anything unusual going on down there?”

  The Kent-Yale voice was a little strained as it said: “Yeah, funniest thing, you know that motor ship I was having raised?”

  “Yes indeed,” the Major said, “that sure was a swell idea you had.”

  The Kent-Yale voice was unsure of itself: “Yeah, but this morning I was just getting the workmen going on unloading it, when they all up and ran away. Do you think I wasn’t paying them enough, or what? I don’t know much about these wops. What do you think the trouble was?”

  The crowd outside the Palazzo was beginning to get anxious again, and it hummed. The crier shouted it down again.

  The Major said: “You haven’t had any casualties or anything like that down there, have you?”

  “Just two crazy bastards who fell in the water and couldn’t swim. We’re giving them artificial respiration.” “You haven’t had anything that would make you think there was a gas attack on, have you?”

  “Say, are you crazy? What the hell are you trying to do, pull my leg?”

  “No, Captain, not at all. The reason your workmen ran out on you was because some agitator told them there was a gas attack on and they all got scared.”

  “Is that a fact? Well, gee, I’m glad it’s nothing I did.” “I’ll try to have your workmen back to you in an hour.” “Golly, thanks a lot, fellow. That sure takes a load off my mind.”

  “Well,” the Major said, “I want to thank you for going to work on that thing so fast. The Navy sure can get things done when it tries.”

  “Aw, that’s nothing,” the Lieutenant said. “Say, how about coming down this afternoon and having that drink with me?”

  “Don’t mind if I do. Matter of fact, I’ve got a little problem I want to talk to you about. You seem to be the only guy that can get anything done around here.”

  “Be glad to help you if I can,” the Lieutenant said. “Five thirty?”

  “Make it six,” the Major said. “Doubt if I can get away before six.”

  “Six it is. Thanks a lot for fixing me up.” “Thank you, Captain, you’re the fixer.”

  Lieutenant Livingston shook his head as he hung up, and he thought, you sure can’t tell about a guy from the first impression....

  The Major went out on the balcony again and said: “I have definite information that there is no poison gas attack going on or expected. You are perfectly safe.”

  There were shouts of disbelief.

  The Major said: “Look: I can breathe deeply and it has no effect on me at all.” And he heaved two or three exaggeratedly big breaths.

  A voice shouted: “It is all very well to breathe on a balcony. The danger is in the street.”

  “Very well,” the Major said: “I will come down in the street with you and show you.” And he went down into the street and breathed deeply there.

  By this time Fatta was convinced by the solicitude of his wife and friends that he had been gassed. “I am paralyzed from the waist down,” he shouted.

  Major Joppolo shouted back: “That is nothing new, lazy Fatta.” The crowd laughed. The people were beginning to be with the Major.

  One of the workers said: “I smelled it plainly at the corner of the Via Barrino and th
e Via Dogana.”

  “All right,” the Major said, “come with me.”

  And he led the huge crowd down the Via Dogana to the corner of Via Barrino. There he stood on the curb and breathed deeply. “All you smelled here,” he shouted, “was the fish market three doors down.”

  Another of the workers shouted: “I smelled it at the corner of Via Vittorio Emanuele and Via Favemi, near the Cathedral.”

  So they all went to that corner, and the Major breathed deeply again, and he shouted: “All you smelled here was the fumes from the sulphur refinery. If you look you can see the yellow smoke coming toward us.”

  Another shouted: “I smelled it in the alleyway called Piccolo.”

  But the Major shouted back: “I am not going to spend all morning sniffing at this town. I am already too familiar with the smells. That was probably horse dung that you smelled.”

  Another workman shouted: “But the center of the at-tack was `ûie harbor. That is where L11 C gas really WaS.’ So the Major went and breathed deeply in various points of the harbor. His final breathing point was alongside the motor ship Anzio. “And now,” he said, “who is for going back to work?”

  All but two of the workmen reported back to work. One was the stranger, who had disappeared. The other was the lazy Fatta. He had had enough for one day.

  Chapter 28

  “OH dear,” said Private First Class Everett B. Banto, clerk in A.P.O. 917, in a second floor room in one of the annexes of the Saint George Hotel in Algiers.

  He was reading somebody else’s V-mail letter, the envelope of which was open. Private Banto was a mail clerk. He had also been a mail clerk in Greenton, Vermont, before the war. Even in Greenton, he had been very concerned about the way America was behaving herself in the world.

  “Oh dear,” he said, “I don’t see how we’re ever going to win the war.”

  “What’s itching your pants now?” said Sergeant Walter Frank, another clerk, who was reading somebody else’s copy of Collier’s.

  “Listen to this,” said Private Banto. “It says here: `Why the hell do we have to give the Frogs and the Limeys and the Chinks all the stuff we make? Seems to me we’ve played Santa Claus long enough.’ Oh dear.”

  “Christ almighty,” said Sergeant Frank, “what’s a matter with that? God, it makes me vomit to see these Frenchmen driving all over the place when my folks at home can hardly even drive to the A. & P. to get their food.”

  -”Walter, that’s not a very good attitude, is it? We won’t make many friends in the world that way.” “Well, the hell with ‘em.”

  “Goodness, Walter, that’s a selfish way to talk.” “I say the hell with ‘em.”

  Private Banto put the V-letter back in its envelope, .and put the envelope in its proper cubbyhole. He picked up one of the mail pouches frnm the frnnt cut the wire binding and began to sort the contents, most of which consisted of tempting memoranda, not enclosed in envelopes.

  “Gosh, Walter,” he said, “we Americans certainly go in for a lot of paper work. Look at this stuff from the front - from the front, where they’re supposed to be fighting. I don’t see how we’re ever going to win the war.

  Sergeant Frank, who was trying to read a story, said testily: “So what the hell’s the matter with a little paper work?”

  “And look at this. Gosh, but we’re inefficient. Look here, this is supposed to be addressed to someone in the 49th Division which is over there, and it’s from someone else in the 49th Division, right there too, and they sent it all the way back to Algiers. Isn’t that terrible?”

  “Oh yes, it’s just terrible!” said Sergeant Frank, imitating Private Banto’s voice.

  “Well, what should I do about it, Walter?”

  “You can jam it up your ass for all I care,” Sergeant Frank said harshly.

  “Why, Walter,” Private Banto said. When he had recovered from the shock, he said: “Seriously, Walter, what should I do with it?”

  “Well, if it don’t look important, you can throw it in. the dead letter basket, that’s what we usually do.”

  “You couldn’t do that, Walter.”

  “Hell you couldn’t. You just said yourself there’s too goddam much paper work. What the hell’s one paper more or less?”

  “It might be important.”

  “Well, look at it. What the hell is it about?”

  “It says: `For information. Re carts, Adano.’ And then it has something about an order that General Marvin issued, and then apparently a certain Major Joppolo countermanded the order, or something.”

  “It’s about General Marvin? Throw it awayl That sonofabitch.”

  “Oh no, I wouldn’t dare.” And Walter put the memorandum in the pouch to go back to the front.

  “Now don’t bother me,” Sergeant Frank said. “I’m reading.”

  Private Banta kept on sorting. “Oh dear,” he said in a few minutes, “listen to this, here’s a thing about a captain that’s being sent back because of behavior unbecoming to an officer. I don’t see how we’re ever going to win, dear me.”

  Chapter 29

  MAJOR JOPPOLO showed up at the Navy Club for his drink at exactly six ‘clock.

  There were about twelve officers sitting around in the upstairs room of the villa that Lieutenant Livingston had fitted up as a club. There was the port operations officer, his exec, the port communications officer, the mine, boom and net officer, two or three men from an SC boat, and the rest were from a destroyer that had helped escort some merchant ships across from the mainland Lieutenant Livingston introduced Major Joppolo around, and he had apparently been telling the others what a good guy the Major was, because their responses were cordial.

  “What’ll you have?”

  Major Joppolo, who was not much of a drinker, said: “What’ve you got?”

  “Well, Scotch mostly. Little bourbon, couple bottles of gin, and Lieutenant Commander Robertson here brought us a bottle of rum. You can even have some wop wine if you insist, though why anyone would drink that stuff beats me.”

  “Let’s see,” the Major said, “what’s everybody drink”Different things, whatever you want,” the Lieutenant said. “How about some Scotch?”

  “If that’s what you have the most of.”

  So the Lieutenant poured out some Scotch for Major Joppolo. He made it strong and the Major coughed on the first gulp.

  “Say,” the Lieutenant said, “you sure have these wops charmed. How’d you ever get ‘em back down here so fast this morning?”

  “Guess I’m a kind of pied piper,” the Major said. “I had to pipe through my nose this morning.” And he told how he had sniffed all over town to disprove the gas attack.

  The Navy enjoyed this story and decided that Major Joppolo was all right.

  They talked for a while about how the invasion was going, and about a destroyer that had been hit by a Jerry divebomber, and about the Italian Navy, and then, as Major Joppolo started in on his second drink, about the big part the U.S. Navy was playing in the whole operation.

  One of the officers said: “That first landing was really something. Thousands of ships from God knows how many ports, all going at different speeds and on different courses. Jesus, I don’t see how they did it.”

  Another said: “And I hear that every ship was on station within ten minutes of H hour.”

  “Yes sir,” said Major Joppolo, whose tongue was becoming pleasantly loose in his head, “I take my hat off to the Navy.” And he raised his glass.

  “God’s teeth,” said Lieutenant Commander Robertson, “that’s the first Army man I ever saw that was willing to give the Navy credit.”

  “Navy’s the only bunch that can get anything done around here,” the Major said. “Don’t know what I’d do without this fellow Livingston. “

  Livingston glowed but said: “I haven’t done anything, Major.

  “Don’t hand me that stuff,” the Major said to Livingston. Then he turned to the others. “Listen, every time I try to get anythin
g out of the Army, they tell me to put it in writing. Now Livingston here... “

  “That reminds me,” Livingston said. “You said you had something on your mind this morning.”

  “Matter of fact, I have. Since you’ve been getting all the results, I thought maybe - “

  “Want to go in the other room?” Livingston asked politely but importantly.

  “Nothing hush-hush,” the Major said. “Might as well tell you right here.”

  And he told about Adano’s seven-hundred-year-old bell. He told how it had been taken away, and about what he had done to try to get another. Two drinks had made his mind relax, and he told his story beautifully.

  He made the town’s need for a new bell seem something really important, and he made the bell seem a symbol of freedom in Adano. He made it seem as if the people of Adano would not feel truly free until they heard a bell ringing from the clock tower of the Palazzo. And not just any bell. He described what he thought was needed in the bell: a full, rich tone; no crack of any kind; and a touch of history that would mean something to the Italians.

  His story was nicely told and his audience was just right. The Navy has a quick sense of tradition. All the folderol -saluting the quarter deck, the little silver buck to mark who should be served first in the wardroom, still calling the captain’s court of justice going before the mast, the marvelous poetic orders like: “Sweepers, man your brooms: clean sweepdown fore and aft” -these things made Navy men able to grasp the idea of the bell, and be moved by it.

  Major Joppolo finished: “And that’s all it was, Liv ingston. I think I want to get this town the right bell more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

  Commander Robertson was the first one to speak: “Seems to me we ought to be able to find a bell,” he said.