War in Val d'Orcia

by Iris Origo

  JUNE 28TH

  Go to the hospital to visit the Chianciano wounded. The shelling appears to have been in answer to a German battery situated just behind the town. Hear to our great relief that none of our people from La Foce have been killed, [10] and that the whole party in the vat-room, even the old grandmother, reached Chianciano in safety. A boy of fourteen, who had called out some insult against the Germans, immediately received a pistol-shot in the head and was killed.

  No military news of any kind. The Allies still appear to be between Chiusi and Chianciano. But in the night some German tanks have gone northwards, and we see little clouds of smoke and hear explosions all over the valley, where ammunition is being blown up. Undoubtedly the Germans are on the move at last.

  In the afternoon the Germans blow up some houses inside the town, to obstruct the inner road, and also, alas, destroy the magnificent Medicean gateway at the foot of the town. Antonio tries in vain to save it, but does succeed in saving the fine fourteenth century arcades of the old hospital. The Germans say that we must expect some shelling here tomorrow, but that that should be the last day.

  ‘You want der Tommy: well, by Friday you’ll have him!’

  The Montepulcianesi, however, as the end draws near, are more and more jumpy. When I went out this evening, they were standing about in little knots, looking at the ruins of their gateway, and finding some comfort in the fact that the image of the Madonna, which stood in the upper part of the arch, is miraculously intact. Little family parties with prams and bundles were making their way to the shelters for the night.

  The evening news brings little change. The guns go on rumbling, and we go to bed expecting the bridge to be blown up during the night.

  JUNE 29TH, EIGHT A.M.

  Our expectations were realised. At eleven p.m., Allied batteries in the direction of Monticchiello opened fire on the German batteries just beyond Montepulciano, and the firing continued, with short intervals, until four-thirty a.m. The shells whirled just over our heads and fell mostly on the road by Sant’Agnese, about eighty yards from here. The noise was considerable. Benedetta and I left our bedroom on the front of the house, and slept, half dressed, in a back bedroom with Schwester and the other two babies, and the other children were also dressed, ready to go down to the cellar if necessary. Then, at four-thirty, there was a sudden, terrific din. The whole house shook, the walls trembled, there was a crash of falling glass, tiles and mortar. The bridge had been blown up at last! For a few seconds it felt as if the house was falling down—then everything steadied itself, and I hurried to the older children’s room to reassure them and the maids. The children were huddled together, silent but very frightened. There was a little more sporadic firing, but no one paid any attention to it. Most of the Montepulcianesi hurried out into the dawn to look at their bridge—the rest of us settled down to two hours of unbroken, blessed sleep. The Germans have gone at last!

  ELEVEN A.M.

  Not only have they gone, but the Allies are here! The first good news came to Antonio, who (while standing beside one of the Germans who are still left in the town) was hurriedly summoned by a partisan: some English soldiers, he said, were looking for him. He accordingly hurried down into a wheat-field, and there found a small patrol, headed by a subaltern in the Scots Guards, who had actually come from La Foce. He wanted information as to the number of Germans who are still in the town, the lie of the land, the bridges that had been blown up, and so on, all of which Antonio gave him, and in return, he gave us fairly good news of La Foce. The house has only been hit in two or three places, and though the damage inside is considerable, it is not irremediable. All this conversation took place hurriedly, hidden in the wheat, with sentries posted, and just as it was over, a pretty peasant-girl came up with a basket on her head, on her way to town. What next? She said she would hold her tongue, but it seemed safer for the soldiers to take her off with them for a few hours, to which indeed she agreed very willingly. The plan is for the regiment to occupy the town this afternoon. Meanwhile, we are having some German shelling for a change, and Palazzo Ricci and some other buildings have been hit. La Foce has had the honour of being mentioned in the midday bulletin as ‘liberated’—together with Pienza and Montalcino. But we can hardly listen to the news now: we want to see with our own eyes. Every minute, now, the Allies may arrive!

  TEN P.M.

  Well, they have come—at last! All day the partisans have been watching the roads, and at four p.m. the first news reached us: ‘They are coming!’ The news coincided with a burst of German shelling, but meet them we must, so we hurried along the narrow streets, climbing over the rubble and dodging into doorways until we reached the Bersaglio, the Braccis’ stretch of hillside garden overlooking the road to Villa Bianca. And at last, scrambling up the steep grassy hillside, we saw the first British helmet! Beneath it was the round, flushed face of a very young subaltern, who (as we afterwards were told) had no business to be there at all, but had set out on a little reconnoitring party of his own. He was followed by an officer in the R.E. (who wanted to find out about the bridge) and by four or five men. We came forward and greeted them with tears in our eyes—we all shook hands—the peasants brought out glasses of wine. A young partisan sprang up from nowhere and demanded a gun, to fight by their side. Remembering, however, that twenty Germans were still just above our heads, and the fate of Chiusi, I went straight to the point: ‘How many of you are there?’ But the young officer, in addition to breathlessness, had a severe stutter: ‘B-b-b-b-barely t-t-two d-d-d-dozen!’ he brought out with maddening slowness, and I found myself replying crossly, ‘It isn’t nearly enough!’ The young man’s actions, however, were less hesitant than his speech, and as soon as the partisan was able to tell him in what part of the town the Germans were, he and his men set off there at once. We then hurried back, and under the arch of the old gateway of the town we met the other platoon. Very strange it seemed, to see them marching up the Montepulciano street—and oh, what a welcome sight! In every doorway there were beaming faces to greet them. Remembering the fate of Cetona, the population abstained from too loud rejoicings, but I heard one old man saying, as tears streamed down his cheeks, ‘I don’t mind dying, now that I’ve seen them arrive!’

  Meanwhile, a German shell had dropped just outside this house, and we herded all the children down to the cellar, as it seemed probable that there would be more German shelling during the night. When I came upstairs again an English officer was at the door: ‘Are you Marchesa Origo? The whole Eighth Army has been looking for you!’ It was Major Petre, who, he explained, had spent last night at La Foce (in the nursery, among the Kate Greenaway pictures—‘very odd’, he said, ‘in the middle of a battle’) and who brought me the exciting news that my cousin, Ulick Verney, is at G.H.Q., only a few miles away. La Foce, he says, is still standing, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have rather a shock when you see the rooms’. Now, an hour ago, he has come back again with his delightful colonel, Derek Cardiff. I wish very much that I had a clean frock to put on in their honour, but, of course, have only the same clothes which I have been wearing ever since I slept in them in the cellar at La Foce. They are very reassuring about the flying bombs in England, saying that their damage, although extensive, is too erratic to be considered a serious military menace. We sit talking by the uncertain light of the only lamp—now and again a shell falls outside—the Braccis produce glasses of wine, Colonel Cardiff has some biscuits—we discover mutual friends at home. It is like a party in a dream. The colonel offers to take us back to La Foce with him, but the shelling seems to be increasing, and one of us must stay with the children in the cellar. So Antonio, who can at once start work at home, goes off with the officers, and I descend to the Braccis’ cellar, where we all spend an extremely stuffy, crowded and unpleasant night. At one a.m. the house is hit, but with damage only to a top-storey room. And my thoughts are too agreeable to be disturbed: our long nightmare is over at last.

  JUNE 30TH

 
A very English day. The Scots Guards leave the town, but the Coldstreams, who are attached to a South African division, take their place, and attack a position below the town held by the Germans, from which they had been firing on us.

  The steep, narrow streets of Montepulciano are filled with British soldiers, and all the population is out to greet them. A doorway suddenly bears the sign, Comitato di Liberazione. Partisans with tricolour armlets and guns slung across their shoulders stand at every street crossing—children crowd round the tanks—pretty girls in their best frocks walk up and down arm in arm with a glance at the soldiers over their shoulders. Old Italian uniforms, too (hidden by their owners for many months) are suddenly to be seen again. The shops are all flung open, so are the house doors, so are our cellars and our hearts. It has been so long, so long! The soldiers walk about the town, grinning a little sheepishly when someone tries to embrace them, accepting the glasses of red wine, giving some sweets to the children, friendly, detached, a little bored. They have done it all before. But to us it is new—and still almost incredible. I find myself talking to the first soldier I meet for the sheer delight of hearing English spoken. Then I go into the Comune and act as interpreter for Bracci with the A.M.G. officer, explaining to him Bracci’s odd position as an ardent anti-Fascist yet mayor under Fascist rule. An occasional German shell has still been falling in the morning, but no one pays any attention to them, and by midday they cease. A young captain in the Coldstreams comes back to lunch, and we talk of mutual acquaintances in England—of the flying bombs—of Gloucestershire. My sense of unreality increases and is brought to a climax when, turning round, I see my cousin, Ulick, standing in the doorway.

  JULY 1ST

  And now we have come home. This morning Ulick sent a staff car to fetch us, and Schwester Marie and I, with the two babies and Benedetta, triumphantly drive back over the road which we had taken—so much less agreeably—ten days ago in the opposite direction. (The other children are to follow in a few days.) Plenty of shell and bomb-holes on the road and in the fields, and as we got nearer home we looked out anxiously for damages. At the Castelluccio there are some large shell-holes; the clinic, too, has been badly hit. Then, as we drive up to La Foce, chaos meets our eyes. The house is still standing, with only one shell-hole in the garden façade, another on the fattoria, and several in the roof. The latter have been caused by the explosion of a mine, the Germans’ parting gift, bursting on the road to Chianciano, not thirty yards from the house. An enormous crater marks the spot, but has not blocked the road, since the Allies merely made a diversion into the field beside it.

  In the garden, which has also got several shell-holes and trenches for machine-guns, they have stripped the pots off the lemons and azaleas, leaving the plants to die. The ground is strewn with my private letters and photographs, mattresses and furniture-stuffing. The inside of the house, however, is far worse. The Germans have stolen everything that took their fancy, blankets, clothes, shoes and toys, as well, of course, as anything valuable or eatable, and have deliberately destroyed much of sentimental or personal value. Every drawer of my writing-desk has been ransacked, and stained or torn-up photographs, torn out of their frames, strew the floors. In the dining-room the table is still laid, and there are traces of a drunken repast; empty wine-bottles and smashed glasses lie beside a number of my summer hats (which presumably have been tried on), together with boot-trees, toys, overturned furniture and W.C. paper. In the library, where the leather has been ripped off the armchairs and some books have been stolen, more empty bottles lie in the fireplace. The lavatory is filled to the brim with filth, and decaying meat, lying on every table, adds to the foul smell. There are innumerable flies. In our bedroom, too, it is the same, and only the nurseries, which the maids have been cleaning ever since they arrived (five hours before us) are habitable. Some of the toys have been stolen or deliberately broken, but curiously enough, the English Kate Greenaway alphabet is still upon the wall, and the children’s beds are untouched. So we put the children to bed for their afternoon nap, and then go on investigating the damage. There is no water in the house, and also, of course, no light.

  Antonio is away, having had to go down to Chianciano to take up his work as mayor, and cope with the spearhead A.M.G. officials, but in the farm courtyard, in a wilderness of refuse, gravel and waste paper, a few men are standing about gloomily. They come forward to greet me—and later the fattore, too, appears, and with tears in his eyes takes both my hands in his. He and his family are all safe, but have had a very bad time. And he gives us tragic news. Gigi—our beloved gardener, with his crooked mouth and limp, with his passion for flowers, and his short temper and wry smile—Gigi has been killed by a shell in the ditch in which he had taken shelter. It was not even possible, owing to the mines that are strewn in the woods, to bring his body back to the graveyard for burial, and his son has buried him in the woods where he fell. One of the peasants of our home-farm, Giocondo, has also been killed by shells, and two children from another farm, and the Capoccia of Chiarentana, Doro; all these, too, are buried in the fields where they fell. [11] And all the survivors are profoundly downhearted. At least ten of the farm houses they say (later on we learn that it is fifteen) have been destroyed, and those that have not been shelled, have been looted. A third of the cattle and sheep and pigs have gone (either stolen, or killed by shells); all the chickens and turkeys, and many of the farm instruments.

  I go back into the farm, and there, crouching under a sofa, I see a black shadow. I whistle, and, half incredulously, he crawls out, then leaps upon me in wild delight, and from that minute never leaves my side. It is Gambolino, the poodle, miraculously safe, but pitifully thin, and so nervy that the slightest noise sends him trembling under the nearest bed. But our other dog, Alba, the pointer, was not so lucky. The fattore tells us that he found her inside the fountain with a wound in her side—dead.

  In the lower part of the property, where the French coloured troops of the Fifth Army have passed, the Goums have completed what the Germans have begun. They regard loot and rape as the just reward for battle, and have indulged freely in both. Not only girls and young women, but even an old woman of eighty has been raped. Such has been the Val d’Orcia’s first introduction to Allied rule—so long, and so eagerly awaited!

  JULY 5TH

  But now, at once, we must begin again. On the first day Antonio set the men to reaping. There has been an accident in one field already: a mine has blown up an ox-cart, killing the oxen and smashing the driver’s legs; there will no doubt be others. But the harvest will be saved.

  We cannot hope that the Allies, who have already enough to do in clearing the main roads for the troops, will be able to help us with mine-detectors. But the resourceful postmaster of Chianciano, who says he has some knowledge of explosives, has volunteered to attempt the job, so we will try to clear at least those mines and bombs that are lying on the surface. The Germans have been very lavish: in the mine just outside the garden door, alone, they laid three quintals of dynamite.

  We have now been round the most damaged farms. Of those on the Castelluccio ridge, two—San Bernardino and Poggiomeriggi—are totally destroyed; in the others, one or two rooms still have a roof, no more. In all of them the looting has been thorough: either the Germans or the Goums have taken all that was not destroyed by shells or fire. In one farm thirteen people are sleeping in two beds, and the neighbour’s family, nine persons more, are camping downstairs in the stable. At Lucciolabella eleven people are sleeping on the floor. All the farms have lost their cooking utensils, their linen, most of their blankets, and their dearly-prized furniture (la camera in nocino degli sposi [12]), bought one piece at a time, year by year, and all their clothes, except those on their backs. The houses at Chiarentana—a medieval group of houses around a stone courtyard, which have seen other wars, other invasions—are almost equally bad. Here, in addition to the destruction caused by shells, the inhabitants have suffered the looting of the room in which they ha
d walled up their most valuable possessions; the Germans discovered, by tapping, that the wall was hollow. One young woman, who is expecting a baby, has seen its whole layette deliberately burned before her eyes. Since they have no furniture left, and the roof lies open to the sky, their few remaining possessions are being devoured by mice. In all these farms there is no doubt as to what must be done first: we must get a roof on to at least two or three rooms before the winter. The furnaces which make the tiles and bricks are not working now for lack of lignite, and transport is an almost insuperable problem. But I expect that we shall manage somehow. [13] Glass for windows, however, will be practically impossible.