The Search for Joyful (26 page)

On the other hand, there were the tanks that never reached us, the abandoned trucks with boxes of supplies from soap to bandages, and presumably batteries. All the things we so desperately needed.

When we entered the outskirts of the city, the general began to talk. “There's no way to take Monte Cassino and not the monastery. I requested Fifth Army Intelligence to furnish all available information regarding it. The answer came back promptly. They had none. Nothing at all. It sits atop Monte Cassino, but they had no interest in it. Whether it is occupied by a German garrison no one thought to enquire. Although it has been a thorn in our side from the beginning, no one bothered to discover if the building has been reinforced over the years, and if so, with what.”

I kept my eyes on the road. I didn't know how you replied to a major general.

“Therefore,” he said, “this trip into Naples has become necessary. In the middle of a battle it is necessary for me to stop everything and go to the library. That, young woman, is exactly where we're headed, the library!”

I hope we get there,
I answered silently. Following his directions, we'd left Route 6 and were prowling about in some corner of Naples, totally lost. But generals have plenty of practice in map reading. He calmly spread out a colorful assortment of road maps, on his lap, on my shoulder, on the dash, and got us to the library ten minutes later.

I helped him pull down volumes as old as the librarian, who, once he understood our mission, brought out ancient compendiums from storage. One was in English, and from it I absorbed a bit of the history of the Monte Cassino monastery. Founded in the sixth century by St. Benedict, the monastery was almost entirely rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and converted into a fortress in the nineteenth. The only entrance was by a narrow, low archway of stone blocks, each thirty-five feet long. The walls were a hundred fifty feet high, of solid masonry, ten feet thick at the base, and faced with cream-colored Travertino stone. It comprised a cathedral, a seminary, a fully equipped observatory, and a college for boys. Its famous library ran the entire length, with workshops for paper making, illuminating, and bookbinding.

The general sat at a table and made notes. An hour and a half later he closed the last reference book and looked over at me. “I would be pleased if you would dine with me, Miss Forquet.”

I gulped only once. “I am hungry,” I said.

Outside there was an American four-wheel drive parked next to our car.

“Take that one,” he said.

“But—?”

He waited, looking at me quizzically.

“Yes sir.” Military necessity, I would say to any American MP who tried to arrest me, a general at Cassino needs a four-wheel drive.

I liberated the American vehicle, hot-wiring the ignition as Crazy Dancer had taught me. This was more like it!

The general had invited me to dine, and dine we did. We were escorted with bows and compliments to the best table in the best restaurant in the city, whose only wall was bolstered by sandbags.

“I don't suppose the menu is to be believed,” I said, looking over the elaborate bill of fare.

General Tuker chortled and read aloud such specialties as duck, prime rib of beef, and Yorkshire pudding. I craned to see. These items were indeed listed in a flowing, calligraphic hand.

I looked at him questioningly.

He was delighted to inform me, “Stocked from the senior officers' mess. We have the food, they have the atmosphere.”

“What a great idea,” I said approvingly as I looked out over the bay. It was a magnificent panorama. Perched on a hilltop, we were unable to see the pulverized destruction.

Wine with the meal, and my tiredness floated away. Alongside the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was the best pasta I'd eaten before or since, made with mussels, calamari, prawns, and scallops baked in a mushroom sauce. By the second glass of wine I forgot I was dining with a major general and commanding officer of a division. He was a fascinating conversationalist, a scholar, and author of several military treatises. I wondered what he would have to say about Cassino after the war. I hoped he could report that we'd won it.

Over claret he discussed the problem of the monastery. “A thousand-pound bomb, even if well placed, would be quite useless.”

“It's a shame that such a beautiful old building must be destroyed at all. You don't suppose the monks still inhabit it? Are you certain they were evacuated? And what about the art treasures and documents?”

“The Germans are good about sparing art and documents. About the abbot and any remaining monks, I don't know. They may have also given shelter to refugees. It's quite possible. And someone thought there was a deaf-mute servant. In any case we'll give notice before we attack, broadcast a warning.”

Our American transport got us back to the front in record time.

 
OUR TROOPS HUDDLED against winter snow turned to slush. A grayness lay over the mountain like a scrim. Below in the valley it was no better: the marsh was a sea of mud. The depressing landscape matched the uncomfortable circumstances in which the waiting men found themselves. They were too miserable to sleep or read. Water was rationed, as it had to be brought seven miles by mule, so shaving was out. Although one enterprising soldier was using the dregs of his tea to moisten his stubble. Several men had settled down to writing letters home. Most sat and stared at the monastery. Everyone knew by now that its total extinction was imminent. We had been told officially that reinforcements in the form of the 4th/6th Rajputana Rifles were on the way. Two more battalions of Gurkhas held the valley.

The objective was point 953, a promontory close under the defending walls of the monastery. It seemed an appalling route to me, but then, as my friend had told me, the Gurkhas were renowned as mountain fighters. Somewhere, although they had not yet arrived, was a company of Maori sappers, also known as New Zealand's “wild Irish.” Their job was to remove those deadly
Schuh
mines with which the place was strewn. This was difficult, as they were simply little wooden shoeboxes with a minimum of metal, making mine sweepers all but useless, while the snow hid them from visual detection. When they did show up, the Maoris were a cheerful bunch. They didn't bother with salutes, but waved smilingly at their officers.

With the addition of so many troops the plan must be to attack simultaneously, again from the southwest and the north, a route that had been chiseled out by the Americans in the first, failed attempt that preceded my tour of duty here. But with the seasoned Indian division backed by the 2nd New Zealand, it was felt we had a chance. The wait now was for all these forces to get into position. If they attacked with strong air cover it might work. I frequently checked the sky—slate and gray, but no shielding fog.

I heard engines and glanced up. Not the Mitchell medium-range bombers we were expecting but Flying Fortresses all the way from Africa. Weren't they early? The troops from India had barely arrived, and the New Zealanders weren't in position yet.

The planes, dipping slightly, flew directly at the monastery. The bomb bays opened. Were the monks still there? Were they kneeling at the altar chanting the antiphon of the Blessed Virgin? The explosions sent up tremendous clouds of brilliant orange, punctuated by smoke and dust shot through with yellow flashes. Had they finished “Beseech Christ on our behalf” before those words were swallowed in this unchristian baptism?

When the smoke cleared, there was a murmur from the troops. It was a miracle. The monastery stood. Seemingly, it had not been affected by this first deadly run. A second pass, and a third. It stood, with no discernible damage. At 1400 hours it was the turn of the Mitchells. As each successive smoke cloud dissipated, the pounding began to show. The windows appeared larger and their frames were jagged. There was a fissure in the walls, and the roof was beginning to look uneven.

Then, as I watched, the west wall of the building collapsed. I remembered the refugees—had they knelt and chanted with the monks? Tuker had mentioned a warning salvo. But there was none. The planes had appeared too early out of the sky.

Demolishing the monastery was only part of their job; they were to provide air cover for the assault. But when the monastery crumbled, they considered their mission accomplished and left, with Tuker shaking an impotent fist skyward.

The fury of the bombing had been fury in a vacuum, wasteful and tragic. That beautiful centuries-old abbey was gone.

The planes had gone too. Whether deliberately or not, Air Command had not been given the full picture. The monastery was the target, they wiped it out, they left. Air cover was not on their agenda. Too many generals, too many egos vying for headlines back home. Egg would have said, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

Planes or no planes, the attack was ordered, and hell opened before my eyes. They moved out, two platoons, the third following in reserve. They crawled silently along Snakehead Ridge toward point 953. The men set their feet so as not to dislodge a stone or stumble. It was easy to turn an ankle carrying a heavy Bren gun or a flamethrower.

The Germans opened up. Withering fire caught the climbers in the open. Machine guns, mortars, grenades—and mines, the area had not been properly cleared of mines. The rubble that had been the monastery now provided ideal cover for German gunners.

Our men were picked off. Stretcher bearers began bringing down the wounded. I passed among them with gauze and morphine. The Rajputana Rifles reached what looked like a belt of scrub. Instead, it was a thicket of thorn, breast high. I began pulling them out of wounds along with shards of barbed wire. I had never seen such vicious lacerations.

Their colonel was shot through the stomach and lay looking up at me. I stopped the bleeding. The morphine was used up. We were short of basic supplies. I had to watch him die. There was one Gurkha stretcher bearer who again and again climbed over those exposed crags to bring in another fallen shape. He must have made sixteen trips into that inferno. This time he was halfway back when the soldier at the other end of the stretcher was hit, and fell, barely fifty yards from me. I rushed out and grabbed his end of the stretcher. He struggled to his feet and tried to help, but ended up leaning on my shoulder. Somehow, the Gurkha and I brought them both in.

The Gurkha nodded at the chaos we had just left. He was asking for my help, and I went with him. A barrage of mortars exploded around us. When it cleared sufficiently to see, the man we had come after was dead. The Gurkha signed that he had spotted someone farther on, but by now I was confused as to where I was and where our lines were.

A shape loomed out of the dust. Another stretcher bearer—only something was wrong. He was wearing the wrong uniform. I stood still, grooved into the rock I stood on. He'd have to kill me, of course. Instead he said, in passable English, “You're lost?”

I nodded. I couldn't speak.

“That way.” He pointed. “South of that rock. That's where you want to be.”

“
Danke schön,
” I whispered, hardly getting it out.

“English?” he asked.

“Canadian.”

“Good luck,” he said, and disappeared in the other direction.

“Good luck—” But he had gone.

My Gurkha, who had stood silent and motionless during this exchange, told me such meetings between the lines were not uncommon. Unofficial, unsanctioned, it nevertheless happened as both sides respected a mutual low-level grunt truce and evacuated their wounded.

The attack was repulsed, and the Germans held on to the Gustav Line. It was almost three months later that our forces took Monte Cassino.

 
I REMEMBER HEARING several wounded praying in Polish. I had come to recognize these brave fighters in their long gray-green coats. They had lost their homeland early on, but now, as the Germans retreated, they had hope for the first time. The final operation itself was spearheaded by a Canadian corps under Major General Sir Oliver Leese. The way it played out, as I heard afterward, Leese, by taking and holding the Liri Valley, strengthened us at Cassino. The combined pressure breached the German defenses in a number of places, and allowed the Americans to push up the coast, while the British entered the valley. Cassino, that great wall, fell to the Polish Corps May 18, 1944.

The Germans could not withstand this concentrated drive and gave way even in the Alban Hills. The road to Rome was wide open.

Many times in these last months my hand strayed to Egg's crucifix, which I wore inside my shirt. On the same chain was tied a gray and white feather. I thought of Crazy Dancer at the most unexpected moments. I think because I expected to be dead by now, and I wanted him to guide me as he had that old chief. I wanted to walk in his moccasins.

It was haphazard, I felt, whether one survived this madness or not. It depended on such things as going for a drink of water or scrounging up more morphine, or deferring getting the bandage rolls that were needed. You were or you were not in a certain place when the shell made a crater of it. Nurse Lander could have asked someone else to dump the basin. Nurse Lander could have stayed in Canada and not volunteered in the first place.

Funny, I didn't know where in Canada she came from, or even her first name. All I remembered—she was the one who kept everybody's spirits up, the first to wade into the mud and help with the plasma. She didn't hesitate to drag a dead soldier to the burial row, her blond hair flying. And her own body had been added to the pile. I hadn't had time to think about her until now. I thought about the German stretcher bearer too. I hoped he'd survived.

I stroked my feather and Egg's cross. I'd been kept alive and relatively sane. Soon I would be entering the Eternal City.