Eastern Approaches (60 page)

Then, one evening, in the second half of September, I received a personal signal from General Wilson. I could tell from Sergeant Campbell’s face, as he handed me the crumpled half sheet of paper, that it contained something out of the ordinary, something, that is to say, that would probably mean a change of plan, and I took it without enthusiasm.

It was quite short. It told me, in a dozen words, that Tito had mysteriously disappeared from Vis and that I was to come out at once and find him. It added that B.A.F. would land an aircraft at Bojnik to pick me up at the first opportunity. Mentally consigning B.A.F., Tito, General Wilson and everyone else concerned to perdition, I stuffed such kit as I had into my pack and, after saying goodbye to John Henniker-Major and sending a farewell message to Koča Popović, set out on a dreary all-night march to the landing-strip.

T
HERE
could be no doubt about it. Tito had gone. As an indignant telegram from Mr. Churchill put it, he had ‘levanted’. One morning Vivian Street, who, in my absence, was in charge on Vis, had gone to visit him with a message from General Wilson, only to find that he had disappeared from the island without leaving a trace. Inquiries as to his whereabouts only elicited evasive replies. It was the old story, so familiar from Moscow days: he is sick, he is busy, he has gone for a walk. The more responsible members of the Marshal’s entourage seemed to have gone too; the others, if they knew anything, were too nervous to reveal it. On further investigation, it was discovered that an unidentified Russian aircraft had landed on Vis and taken off again, presumably with Tito on board.

This sudden, unexplained departure did considerable harm to our relations with the Partisans. In London and at Caserta it was felt, not unnaturally, that such secretiveness was highly offensive, especially when it was considered that without our support Tito would never have been able to remain on Vis, and that the present phase of the war called for the closest co-operation between allies. Moreover, in Tito’s absence, there was no one from whom decisions could be obtained or with whom the day to day business of liaison could be conducted in a normal friendly way. As a result, the causes of friction multiplied and relations deteriorated.

Clearly the first thing was to find him again. There was no point in my going to Vis, let alone staying there. From what Tito had told me before I had left Vis, it seemed to me that the most probable explanation of his departure was that he had gone inland to co-ordinate the final phases of the struggle for Belgrade. The best place to look for him seemed to be Serbia, and I accordingly decided to go back there. Once again my hopes of being in at the fall of Belgrade revived.

Before leaving Bari, I made, with the help of our Intelligence Staff, a careful review of the military situation in Serbia, and, as a result of
this arrived at the conclusion that Peko Dapčević, now thrusting northeastwards through western Serbia, was on the whole likely to reach Belgrade before Koča Popović. The big marked map at my Rear Headquarters, brought up to date in accordance with the latest situation reports, showed that his forward troops had just reached the town of Valjevo, in central Serbia and it was here that, a couple of nights later, I was landed by Balkan Air Force complete with a jeep and a wireless set.

I was met by Freddie Cole of the Durham Light Infantry, my liaison officer with Peko Dapčević, who had been dropped in some considerable time before and had accompanied First Corps on their epic march eastwards, taking an active part in the heavy fighting which had marked those eventful months. With Dapčević, never an easy man, and with his officers, he had established cordial relations and now his popularity had been further increased by the very timely air support which he had been able to call to the aid of the Partisans.

First Corps found Valjevo a tough nut to crack. The retreating Germans, for whom it was a key point, had decided to hold it at all costs and the garrison had settled down to a last man, last round stand, centred on the fortress-like barracks, round which they had built up a well-planned system of defence. In the ensuing battle the Partisans suffered heavy casualties and did not succeed in dislodging the enemy until a pair of rocket-carrying Beaufighters, summoned from Italy, administered the
coup de grace
to the beleaguered garrison by swooping down and discharging their rockets at point-blank range into the barrack buildings.

For the crew of one of the Beaufighters this was their last operation, for, as they started to pull out of their dive, they ran into a final burst of anti-aircraft fire from the Germans, which sent them spinning to destruction a few hundred yards away. Their bodies were recovered from the wreck of their aircraft and we buried them with full military honours in the graveyard of a little Orthodox church near the spot where they had met their death.

The sudden fall of Valjevo took by surprise many of the local inhabitants who had come to terms with the enemy and now had not time in which to make good their escape. They included followers of Nedić,
the quisling Prime Minister, and Ljotić, the leader of the Serbian Fascist Party, as well as some Četniks. The façade of one man’s house was still decorated with the inscription in yard-high letters: ‘Long live Ljotić. Death to the Bolshevik Rabble’, which, despite frenzied last-minute efforts, he had not succeeded in erasing. The house in which we ourselves were quartered belonged to a leading Četnik, who, while expressing the warmest attachment for the Allied cause, clearly found the departure of the Germans and the arrival of the Partisans somewhat disconcerting. After we had been there a day or two, he disappeared and we concluded that we should not see him again. A few days later, however, he reappeared, still nervous, but considerably relieved, having been tried as a collaborator, condemned to pay a fine to Partisan funds, and then set free.

At this time in Valjevo there were numerous other arrests and trials on charges of collaboration with the enemy, but, as far as we could ascertain, the sentences passed were on the whole light and there were relatively few death sentences. To the population, after all they had heard, such moderation on the part of the Partisans seemed too good to be true, and, there was, not unnaturally, much speculation as to how long it would last.

Valjevo was a sizable market town, far larger than any of the villages we had seen so far. The shops were well stocked with local produce and German-made goods, and there was a restaurant where we could get our meals. Our Četnik landlord, whatever his political record, was a man of good taste and education, and his house, with its wide windows opening on to a sun-drenched courtyard trellised with vines, was filled with readable books and pleasant pictures and furniture. Clumping about in our hob-nailed boots on his well-polished floors, and gaping into the well-stocked shop-windows, we hardly recognized ourselves in our new role of town dwellers.

We had not been in Valjevo long when it started to fill up. Daily more members of Tito’s military and political entourage kept arriving, presumably ready to move into Belgrade at the first opportunity. Familiar faces began to make their appearance in the little inn where we had our meals, and one day I found myself face to face with Crni.

Hitherto I had not thought it worth while to raise with any of the
Partisans with whom I had come into contact the question of Tito’s whereabouts, but this encounter gave me the opportunity I needed. Crni, I knew, had sufficient grasp of the situation to appreciate, if it were explained to him, the resentment which was being caused in London and Caserta by Tito’s disappearance and, if he chose, sufficiently sure of himself to help me clear the matter up.

Making no attempt to hide my feelings I told him plainly how Tito’s conduct was viewed by the Allies and added that I would be grateful if he would at once convey to him a personal message from me. This he agreed to do, explaining that he was in wireless touch with the Marshal, who was at present in the Vojvodina. I accordingly sat down and drafted a stiff signal to Tito, emphasizing the effect which his absence was having on our mutual relations and asking for an early interview. To this there came back within a few hours a friendly answer from Tito, saying that he hoped we should meet in a few days. The deadlock it seemed, had been broken, though the resentment was to linger for some time.

Not long after reaching Valjevo, I received signals announcing the arrival of Vivian Street and Charlie Thayer. Vivian, whom I had at last reluctantly agreed to release in deference to repeated representations from his regiment, was due to join a battalion of the Rifle Brigade in Italy in a few days’ time, and this was in the nature of a farewell visit. Charlie, an old friend from Moscow days, who after numerous vicissitudes, had been seconded from the U.S. Foreign Service, now reappeared, with crossed sabres on his collar and an eagle on his shoulder, in the guise of a Colonel of Cavalry, thus harking back to a remote past when he had played polo for West Point and served, very briefly, under the command of the distinguished but irascible officer later to become famous as General Patton. His official designation was second in command to Colonel Ellery C. Huntington, who had succeeded poor Slim Farish, killed a few weeks before in Greece, as Commander of the U.S. Military Mission to the Partisans. I had hardly seen Charlie since the war. I looked forward to having with me someone who had shared my experience of Russia and who, like me, would be able to detect the reflections of Moscow so readily discernible in the Jugoslav scene.

The military situation was now rapidly approaching a climax. The Red Army, having crossed the Danube, was advancing on Belgrade from the north and the east, and Crni confirmed that Peko Dapčević’s troops were to furnish the Partisan contingent for the great battle which was now imminent. A large-scale daylight supply drop by Halifaxes of the R.A.F. brought the Partisans arms and ammunition for the coming offensive. Watching the great white nylon parachutes billow out and come floating down, I reflected that in Serbia, at any rate, this method of supply would soon be outdated. The fall of Belgrade could no longer be far removed.

At Valjevo, as in so many other places, in the desert, in Bosnia, in Italy, Dalmatia and Serbia, we would turn our wireless set in the evenings to Radio Belgrade, and night after night, always at the same time, would come, throbbing lingeringly over the ether, the cheap, sugary and yet almost painfully nostalgic melody, the sex-laden, intimate, heart-rending accents of Lili Marlene. ‘Not gone yet,’ we would say to each other. ‘I wonder if we’ll find her when we get there.’ Then one evening at the accustomed time there was silence. ‘Gone away,’ we said.

Vivian and Charlie had scarcely arrived at Valjevo when we moved eastwards to Arandjelovac, some forty miles due south of Belgrade. Now that we had jeeps and that many of the roads were in Partisan hands, travelling was easy, and we reached Arandjelovac in an hour or two. Once a well-known watering place, frequented by fashionable invalids from Belgrade, it was now in a sorry state, with its smart hotels blasted and scarred by shell-fire and the neatly laid out public gardens trampled under foot during the recent heavy fighting. From a broken pipe near the Kurhaus, mineral water was bubbling on to the grass, and we were able to fill our water-bottles with what was reputed to be a sovereign remedy for digestive disorders.

This was just as well. We had been given a rousing reception by the people of Arandjelovac, who, after filling the jeep with bouquets of flowers, forced upon us food and drink of every kind and description. On top of all this, I was warmly greeted by a bibulous-looking individual who announced that he had once been chef to the British Legation
in Belgrade and was most anxious to resume his connection with the representative of His Britannic Majesty.

We needed a cook and so I took him on; after which we enjoyed, for the rest of our brief stay in Arandjelovac, almost the best food I have ever tasted, perfect alike in its admirable materials and skilful preparation. Pork, for which Serbia is rightly famous, dominated our diet, the juiciest, tenderest, most succulent pork imaginable. There was roast pork, and grilled pork chops, and pig’s trotters and sucking-pig and bacon and ham and innumerable kinds of pork sausages, all swimming in the very best butter and lard. It may sound monotonous; it may even sound slightly disgusting. But at that time and in that place, after years during which such things had existed only in one’s dreams, it was highly enjoyable. We felt that we were at last enjoying the fruits of victory.

Nor was the preparation of pork by any means the only branch of his art at which this admirable man excelled. The richest soups; the most delicious omelettes; the most luscious preserves; layer upon layer of the lightest pastry mingled with the freshest cream cheese; all these delicacies, washed down by a variety of excellent wines, were lavished on us daily. Although we did not spend more than two or three days in Arandjelovac it was only by generous use of the local mineral water that any of us managed to avoid the effects of this constant overeating.

Our cook had but one failing and that, as I had suspected from the first, was a taste for drink. When, after each meal, he appeared to receive our felicitations, there would be a marked unsteadiness about his legs, a tendency to sit or even lie down suddenly, coupled with a no less disconcerting tendency to burst loudly and abruptly into song. It was this weakness that brought our happy association to a premature end. When the time came for us to leave Arandjelovac, he was in no state to travel and had to be left behind.

As it turned out, our departure from Arandjelovac was a sudden one. On the night of October 19th, as we sat at dinner, we received the news that the final phase of the battle for Belgrade had begun. On learning this, we made arrangements to leave for the front at first light.

October 20th dawned fine and fairly clear. It had rained during the night and the lanes were muddy. With the Americans, we had three jeeps between us. Charlie Thayer, Ellery Huntington and an American Sergeant set out in one, Vivian Street and I in another, and Freddie Cole and his two wireless operators in a third.

At first we followed country lanes and cart-tracks, between high green hedgerows glistening with raindrops. The fresh, moist landscape, a mixture of greys and browns and greens, had the softness of a water-colour.

Entering a village, we found it full of the Red Army. Even in this Slav country the Soviet troops looked strangely outlandish, with their high cheekbones, deeply sunburnt faces and unfamiliar uniforms. But they seemed to be getting on well enough with the local population, laughing and joking with the village boys and girls in a kind of composite Slav language, midway between Serb and Russian. Red flags hung from some of the windows, and at the entrance to the village a triumphal arch of cardboard had been erected in honour of the liberators.