The Secret Rescue (11 page)

CHAPTER 6

Under Attack

E
arly that afternoon, the Americans followed Gina down the main street of Berat, a town of about 10,000 flanked by the Osum River on one side and a terraced hill of white homes with large windows and red-tiled roofs on the other. Overlooking it all loomed a thirteenth-century castle. One of the country’s oldest settlements, Berat dated to between 2600 and 1800
B.C.
and was long occupied by merchants and craftsman. Its strategic location along trade and military routes during the Ottoman Empire had made it an important town, and many of the buildings from that period were still well preserved.

Hundreds of people cheered, sang, and waved as the large group, including Shumway sitting astride his horse and a few medics and nurses riding mules, passed by. Some threw flowers and saluted the party, while at least one man snapped pictures. Confused by the unexpected and passionate welcome, some of the Americans basked in the attention. One medic even returned a salute. Others, however, worried that if this many people knew they were in Albania, the Germans were sure to find out, as well—if they didn’t already know.

The Americans soon learned the reason for the enthusiasm. Gina had sent a messenger ahead to alert the town that the Americans were coming, and the townspeople thought they were the first of a long-awaited Allied invasion force sent to liberate them from the Germans. Seeing the nurses hadn’t dissuaded them from the idea, since they were used to female partisans fighting side by side with men. For the Americans who were counting on finding their own liberators in Berat, it was deeply unsettling to realize that these people were looking to them for help.

As the party made its way down the street, they passed several shops before Gina stopped in front of a simple, three-story hotel that despite its humble appearance was named the Grand Hotel Kolumbo. A round-faced man in his late thirties wearing a short black coat, gray trousers, and black boots that came up almost to his knees greeted them in English and spoke with Gina and the pilots for a few moments before motioning for the others to follow him into the hotel. His name was Kostaq Stefa, a partisan who, like Gina, had learned English at the Albanian Vocational School and taught there for several years. The father of four children at the time, Stefa had remained in Berat during the war to take care of his family, including his elderly parents. He served as the partisan chairman of the historic quarter of Berat while his brother and three brothers-in-law were fighting with the partisans.

While several partisans carried Shumway upstairs to a room in the hotel to rest, Stefa escorted the others into the dining room and announced to the great delight of the American men and women that the hotel would serve them a meal. While they sat at a long table and waited for food to be served, Stefa suggested they pool whatever American money they had so they could buy a few items they might need. He would exchange it on their behalf and take some for the cost of the meal. They agreed; and when Stefa returned, he gave the Albanian money to Thrasher, the pilot and senior officer in the group.

The Americans ate a lunch of mutton, cornbread, vegetables, and the sweet soup Hayes, Rutkowski, and the others had enjoyed so much before. It was the most the Americans had eaten since arriving in Albania, and they savored every bite. When they finished, Stefa, rather than Gina, assigned them to various homes in town and quartered some of the nurses, including Watson, in the hotel. Jens and Lytle, a nurse from Kentucky, would go with Stefa, who seemed to have been designated the Americans’ new leader and who perhaps, the group thought, could lead them safely to the coast where they hoped to find a boat to take them back to Italy.

Hayes was paired with medics Owen, Abbott, and Cruise, and they were briefly introduced to their host, an Albanian named George, who told them to meet him outside the hotel in a few minutes. In the meantime, they ran upstairs to check on Shumway, who was settled in a bed in a barren room with white plastered walls. Though the room was cold, Shumway appeared comfortable. It was the first bed any of them had seen since they’d been in Albania, and the men suspected Shumway would rest easier that night than any of them.

Assured their friend was safe, they took their leave and stood outside the hotel, watching people roam the streets. Many of the men who appeared to be partisans carried various weapons and wore homespun woolen clothes and parts of German and Italian uniforms they’d found or taken. Almost everything about Albania was so strange and different to the medics that they weren’t surprised to also see Italian officers and enlisted men in uniform milling about the town despite Italy’s surrender to the Allies a few months before. These soldiers were as stranded as the Americans. After the Germans had invaded, tens of thousands of Italians had run into the mountains fearing that they would be captured or killed, and many now earned just enough from doing menial tasks to keep themselves from starving. Between one thousand and two thousand Italians were thought to have joined the German forces. Others joined the partisans, but the partisans were mostly interested in their weapons, equipment, and coats and resented the Italians for the way they had treated them when they ruled the country. As many as a hundred Italians a day would perish in the harsh winter ahead.

George came out of the hotel along with four other medics, including Wolf, and told Hayes and the others in his group to follow him. They had only walked a short distance down the road before they arrived at an Albanian bar with a handful of local men perched at tables and nursing their drinks. George introduced them to the bar’s owner, an English-speaking man who would host Wolf’s group of medics that night.

As the Americans seated themselves, the bar owner asked if they wanted some schnapps. Hayes rarely drank, but the others wanted to try it. The man brought out four glasses and poured about an ounce of clear liquid in each. The three men downed their drinks, one at a time, until only Hayes’s was left. They motioned for him to take it until he finally picked up the glass and swallowed. Before he knew it, his throat burned as if it was on fire, and the top of his head felt like it was going to explode. The other men laughed as Hayes tried to regain his composure. They had just had their first sip of raki, a potent and treasured Albanian spirit made from distilled fruit.

Hayes, Owen, Abbott, and Cruise followed George to his home after they parted ways with the bar owner and his charges for the night. The men walked along the hilly streets of Berat with a cool wind escorting them, and George warned them that they would need much warmer clothes for the quickly approaching Albanian winter. He said he would find some for them and suggested they stay at his house until spring. The men exchanged surprised glances, and one of them quickly spoke up. The medic explained that though it was a generous offer, they had no intention of remaining in Albania through the winter and hoped the partisans would lead them to the coast. That wasn’t possible, George said, because the partisans didn’t control the coastal areas. The news startled the men, and it reignited their concerns about how much they could trust the partisans.

When they arrived at George’s home, they were surprised to find it decorated with couches, handwoven rugs, and pictures. He even had electricity, which they had not yet seen in an Albanian home. George’s teenage son brought out a pot of tea and cups, and they sat around a table enjoying the warmth of the drink while George told them about starting his own diner in America in the 1930s. He’d come back in 1939 to get his wife and children after he’d found some success, but then the Italians had invaded, and he and his family found themselves trapped.

The men talked for hours until George’s son cleared the dishes, and George took them back to the hotel where they were served a dinner of liver and vegetables, the only selection offered. Hayes’s lifelong aversion to liver was tempered by his hunger, and he managed to eat several bites of it along with everything else on his plate.

When they returned to George’s house that night, Hayes and Cruise were given a room to share. Though George apologized for having only one bed to offer, the men had come to appreciate every small luxury, including the fresh water they were given to refill their canteens and the towels they’d used for washing in a small basin of water. While Cruise slept in the bed, Hayes took off his uniform for the first time since they’d crash-landed and slept soundly on the floor on a soft mattress with clean white sheets and a blanket.

They were so grateful for George’s hospitality that when he offered them tea the next morning and apologized for not having sugar, an expensive and scarce item few in Albania could afford, they offered him the box of sugar cubes Abbott had taken from the plane. After their tea and a small breakfast, George escorted the men through town to meet the other Americans. Their path took them along the busy main street, where locals bought and sold fruits and vegetables and a butcher used an ax to chop off pieces of meat from a carcass hanging from a tree limb.

When they finally arrived at the meeting place, a former school, they were led to a large room on the second floor. Stefa stood in front giving orders to several men while dictating to one who typed. Jens and Lytle were also there. The night before, Stefa had taken the two nurses to his home to meet his family, including his wife, his children, and his parents. The women had even played a few rounds of cards with Stefa’s mother before being given the chance to bathe and to sleep in a bed for the first time since their arrival.

As the rest of the Americans filed in to sit in wooden folding chairs, they waited anxiously to hear about plans for their escape. Outside the room a group of men bellowed out partisan songs, and when they finished their performance, Stefa and another partisan leader named Gjin Marku began an hour-long speech about Albania’s troubled history. They talked about the prestigious Albanian Vocational School and how much the partisans desperately needed the Americans and British to send them arms and supplies so they could liberate their people. Though the Americans listened patiently, they kept waiting to hear some reference to how the partisans were going to help them get to the coast, but it never came.

Stefa finished the lecture by teaching the Americans the partisan salute, a clenched right-handed fist touching the right side of the forehead and accompanied by the phrase
Vdekje Fashizmit,
which meant “Death to Fascism.” They learned the proper response, which included the same salute followed by the words
Liri Popullit,
or “Freedom to the People.” The rival BK, of which the Americans were still unaware, also had a slogan:
Shqipëria Shqiptarëvet,
or “Albania for the Albanians,” to which the proper reply was
Vdekje Tradhëtarëvet,
or “Death to the Traitors,” meaning the partisans. When the speech finally ended, Thrasher and Baggs asked Stefa what they all wanted to know, but the Americans didn’t receive the answer they’d hoped for. Stefa simply replied that he had to “make preparations,” a refrain they’d hear from him often. In the meantime, he told them, the Americans would see Berat.

For the next two days, while Shumway recuperated in the hotel, spending some of his time taking pictures of a horse-drawn taxi on the street or scenic views from the rooftop with the little bit of film he had left in his camera, the other Americans were paraded around Berat with Stefa in an old orange Fiat truck. At many of the places they saw—the martyrs’ cemetery, the castle towering over the town, a hall where partisans performed a play, and local partisan headquarters—they heard more speeches about the virtues of the partisan movement, which were often feverishly accompanied by the salute they were expected to return. Though they knew Stefa was likely following orders, the Americans were growing impatient with the endless propaganda they heard, but they were helpless to do anything about it.

At night, they were once again parceled out into small groups to various homes or to the hotel. Most were sent to a different house each night. At one of the houses Jens stayed in, her English-speaking host told her that some of the people the Germans had taken away had never come back. Those left behind had hidden or buried any items of value to prevent them from getting into German hands.

On their third night in town, the Americans went back to the hall where they had watched the partisans perform and expected to hear more propaganda. Instead, a man played an accordion for their enjoyment before the partisans showed the Americans an Italian movie.

Though the conditions and the food in Berat were far better than what they’d had in the villages, several of the Americans were starting to suffer from severe diarrhea, or, as many in the military called it, “the GIs.” Also of great concern to the Americans was what they had noticed while being driven around town. The photographer who had snapped their pictures as they entered Berat had posted half a dozen photos of the uniformed Americans in the window of his shop on the main street for all who passed by to see.