Unconditional surrender (21 page)

The only person Guy ever saw was Mme Kanyi whom he saluted and passed by.

‘Keep clear of civilians’ was one of the precepts of the mission.

Later that month Guy noticed an apprehensive air at headquarters. General and Commissar were almost ingratiating. He was told there was no military developments. No demands were made. On a bonfire in the garden quantities of papers were being consumed. He was for the second time offered a glass of slivovic. Guy had not to seek for an explanation of this new amiability. He had already received news from Bari that Tito’s forces at Dvrar had been dispersed by German parachutists and that he and his staff, the British, American, and Russian missions had been rescued by aeroplane and taken to Italy. He wondered whether the General knew that he knew. A fortnight passed. Tito, he was informed, had set up his headquarters under allied protection on Vis. The General and the Commissar resumed their former manner. It was during this period of renewed coldness that he received a signal:
UNRRA research team requires particulars displaced persons. Report any your district.
This phrase, which was to be among the keywords of the decade, was as yet unfamiliar.

‘What are “displaced persons”?’ he asked the Squadron Leader.

‘Aren’t we all?’

He replied:
Displaced persons not understood
, and received:
Friendly nationals moved by enemy
. He replied:
One hundred and eight Jews
.

Next day:
Expedite details Jews names nationalities conditions
.

Bakic grudgingly admitted that he knew where they were quartered, in a school near the ruined Orthodox church. Bakic led him there. They found the house in half darkness, for the glass had all gone from the windows and been replaced with bits of wood and tin collected from other ruins. There was no furniture. The inmates for the most part lay huddled in little nests of straw and rags. As Guy and Bakic entered a dozen or more barely visible figures roused themselves, got to their feet and retreated towards the walls and darker corners, some raising their fists in salute, others hugging bundles of small possessions. Bakic called one of them forward and questioned him roughly in Serbo-Croat.

‘He says de others gone for firewood. Dese one’s sick. What you want me tell em?’

‘Say that the Americans in Italy want to help them. I have come to make a report on what they need.’

The announcement brought them volubly to life. They crowded round, were joined by others from other parts of the house until Guy stood surrounded by thirty or more all asking for things, asking frantically for whatever came first to mind – a needle, a lamp, butter, soap, a pillow; for remote dreams – a passage to Tel Aviv, an aeroplane to New York, news of a sister last seen in Bucharest, a bed in a hospital.

‘You see dey all want somepin different, and dis isn’t a half of dem.’

For twenty minutes or so Guy remained, overpowered, half-suffocated. Then he said: ‘Well, I think we’ve seen enough. I shan’t get much further in this crowd. Before we can do anything we’ve got to get them organized. They must make out their own list. I wish we could find that Hungarian woman who talked Italian. She made some sense.’

Bakic inquired and reported: ‘She don’t live here. Her husband works on the electric light so dey got a house to demselves in de park.’

‘Well, let’s get out of here and try to find her.’

They left the house and emerged into the fresh air and sunshine and singing companies of young warriors. Guy breathed gratefully. Very high above them a huge force of minute shining bombers hummed across the sky in perfect formation on its daily route from Foggia to somewhere east of Vienna.

‘There they go again,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t care to be underneath when they unload.’

It was one of his duties to impress the partisans with the might of their allies, with the great destruction and slaughter on distant fields which would one day, somehow, bring happiness here where they seemed forgotten. He delivered a little statistical lecture to Bakic about blockbusters and pattern-bombing.

They found the Kanyis’ house. It was a former potting-shed, hidden by shrubs from the public park. A single room, an earth floor, a bed, a table, a dangling electric globe; compared with the schoolhouse, a place of delicious comfort and privacy.

 Guy did not see the interior that afternoon for Mme Kanyi was hanging washing on a line outside, and she led him away from the hut, saying that her husband was asleep. ‘He was up all night and did not come home until nearly midday. There was a breakdown at the plant.’

‘Yes,’ said Guy, ‘I had to go to bed in the dark at nine.’

‘It is always breaking. It is quite worn out. He cannot get the proper fuel. And all the cables are rotten. The General does not understand and blames him for everything. Often he is out all night.’

Guy dismissed Bakic and talked about UNRRA. Mme Kanyi did not react in the same way as the wretches in the schoolhouse; she was younger and better fed and therefore more hopeless. ‘What can they do for us?’ she asked. ‘How can they? Why should they? We are of no importance. You told us so yourself. You must see the Commissar,’ she said. ‘Otherwise he will think there is some plot going on. We can do nothing, accept nothing, without the Commissar’s permission. You will only make more trouble for us.’

‘But at least you can produce the list they want in Bari.’

‘Yes, if the Commissar says so. Already my husband has been questioned about why I have talked to you. He was very much upset. The General was beginning to trust him. Now they think he is connected with the British, and last night the lights failed when there was an important conference. It is better that you do nothing except through the Commissar. I know these people. My husband works with them.’

‘You have rather a privileged position with them.’

‘Do you believe that for that reason I do not want to help my people?’

Some such thoughts had passed through Guy’s mind. Now he paused, looked at Mme Kanyi and was ashamed. ‘No,’ he said.

‘I suppose it would be natural to think so,’ said Mme Kanyi gravely. ‘It is not always true that suffering makes people unselfish. But sometimes it is.’

That evening Guy was summoned to general headquarters. A full committee, including even the Minister of the Interior, sat grimly to meet him. Their manner was of a court martial rather than a conference of allies. Bakic stood in the background and the young interpreter took over.

Guy would not have been surprised had they left him standing, but the second-in-command rose, brought his chair round the table for Guy, and himself stood beside the interpreter.

Kanyi’s electric plant was again in difficulties. A single pressure-lamp lit the flat faces and round, cropped heads. All three military men were younger than Guy but their skin was weathered by exposure. All smoked captured Macedonian cigarettes and the air was heavy. The second-in-command offered Guy a cigarette which he refused.

The Minister of the Interior had a short white beard and hooded eyes that lacked shrewdness. He did not know why he was there. He did not know why he was in Begoy at all. He had enjoyed a sharp little practice in Split, had meddled before the war in anti-Serbian politics, had found himself in an Italian prison, had been let out when the partisans briefly ‘liberated’ the coast, had been swept up with them in the retreat. They gave him a room and rations and this odd title ‘Minister of the Interior’. Why?

The interpeter spoke. ‘The General wishes to know why you went to visit the Jews today?’

‘I was acting on orders from my headquarters.’

‘The General does not understand how the Jews are the concern of the Military Mission.’

Guy attempted an explanation of the aims and organization of UNRRA. He did not know a great deal about them and had no great respect for the members he had met, but he did his best. General and Commissar conferred: Then: ‘The Commissar says if those measures will take place after the war, what are they doing now?’

Guy described the need for planning. UNRRA must know what quantities of seed-corn, bridge-building materials, rolling-stock and so on were needed to put ravaged countries on their feet.

‘The Commissar does not understand how this concerns the Jews.’

Guy spoke of the millions of displaced persons all over Europe who must be returned to their homes.

‘The Commissar says that is an internal matter.’

‘So is bridge-building.’

‘The Commissar says bridge-building is a good thing.’

‘So is helping displaced persons.’

Commissar and General conferred. ‘The General says any questions of internal affairs should be addressed to the Minister of the Interior.’

‘Tell him that I am very sorry if I have acted incorrectly. I merely wished to save everyone trouble. I was sent a question by my superiors. I did my best to answer it in the simplest way. May I now request the Minister of the Interior to furnish me with a list of the Jews?’

‘The General is glad that you understand that you have acted incorrectly.’

‘Will the Minister of the Interior be so kind as to make the list for me?’

‘The General does not understand why a list is needed.’ And so it began again. They talked for an hour. At length Guy lost patience and said: ‘Very well. Am I to report that you refuse all cooperation with UNRRA?’

‘We will cooperate in all necessary matters.’

‘But with regard to the Jews?’

‘It must be decided by the Central Government whether that is a necessary matter.’

At length they parted. On the way home Bakic said: ‘Dey mighty sore with you, captain. What for you make trouble with dese Jews?’

‘Orders,’ said Guy, and before going to bed drafted a signal:

Jews condition now gravely distressed may become desperate. Local authorities uncooperative. Only hope higher level.

Next morning he received in clear:

P/302/B Personal for Crouchback. Message begins Virginia gave bath son today both well Crouchback message end. Kindly note Personal messages of great importance only accepted for transmission Gilpin for brigadier.

‘Query “bath”,’ Guy told his signaller.

Three days later he received:

Personal for Crouchback. Our P/302/B for bath read birch. This not regarded adequate importance priority personal message. See previous signal Gilpin for brigadier.

‘Query “birch”.’

At length he received:
For birch read birth repeat birth. Congratulations Cape.

‘Send in clear Personal Message Crouchback Bourne Mansions Carlisle Place London Glad both well Crouchback. Message ends Personal to brigadier thank you for congratulations.’

Virginia’s son was born on June 4th, the day on which all allied armies entered Rome.

‘An omen,’ said Uncle Peregrine.

He was talking to his nephew, Arthur Box-Bender, in Bellamy’s where he had taken refuge while his flat was overrun by doctor, nurse, and his niece Angela.

The club was rather empty these days. Most of the younger members had moved to the south coast waiting for the day when they would cross the channel. There was no air of heightened expectancy among the older members. They were scarcely aware of the impending invasion. Social convention, stronger than any regulations of ‘security’, forbade its discussion.

Box-Bender could not regard the birth of a nephew as happy. He had been disconcerted by Guy’s marriage. He had counted the months of pregnancy. He regarded the whole thing as a middle-aged aberration for which Guy was paying an unnaturally high price to the eventual detriment of his own children’s inheritance. ‘Omen of what?’ he asked rather crossly. ‘Do you expect the boy to become Pope?’

‘The idea had not occurred to me. Awfully few of us have become priests in the last generation or two. In any case I should hardly live to see his election. Now you suggest it, though, it is a pleasant speculation – an Englishman and a Crouchback in the chair of Peter – just about at the turn of the century, I suppose.

‘Virginia has taken to religion in an extraordinary way during the last few weeks. Not exactly piety, you know; gossip. The clergy seem to like her awfully. They keep coming to call as they never did on me. She makes them laugh. They seem to prefer that to good works – though, of course, she hasn’t been in a state for them anyway. But she’s a much jollier sort of convert than people like Eloise Plessington.’

‘That I can well imagine.’

‘Angela has been a great help. Of course you must know all about child-birth. It has all been rather a surprise to me. I had never given it much thought but I had supposed that women just went to bed and that they had a sort of stomach ache and groaned a bit and that then there was a baby. It isn’t at all like that.’

‘I always moved out when Angela had babies.’

‘I was awfully interested. I moved out at the end but the beginning was quite a surprise – almost unnerving.’

‘I am sure nothing ever unnerves you, Peregrine.’

‘No. Perhaps “unnerving” was not the right word.’

In HOO HQ there was stagnation in the depleted offices. The more bizarre figures remained – the witch-doctor and the man who ate grass – but the planners and the combatants had melted away. In the perspective of ‘Overlord’, that one huge hazardous offensive operation on which, it seemed, the fate of the world depended, smaller adventures receded to infinitesimal importance.

‘Brides in the bath’ Whale ordered not a holocaust, but a relegation to unsounded depths of obscurity in the most secret archives, of mountains of files, each propounding in detail some desperate enterprise, each bearing a somewhat whimsical title, all once hotly debated and amended, all now quite without significance.

Ian Kilbannock, without regret, realized that he had passed the zenith of his powers and must decline. He was already negotiating for employment as a special correspondent in Normandy. That was near home and the centre of interest, but competition was keen. Ian had his future professional career to consider. His brief experience as a racing correspondent seemed irrelevant to the Zeitgeist. The time had come, Ian believed, to establish himself as something more serious. There would be infinite scope, he foresaw, during the whole length of his life, for first-hand war ‘revelations’.