| OCR Text |
Show UA 13 ell for AdattO KS John Herseu f3 TIIE STORY THUS FAR: The Amerl-can Amerl-can troops arrived In Adano, with Major Joppolo, the Amgot officer In charge. Sergeant Borth was In charge of securl. ty. The Major was determined to hold the confidence of the people and to re-Place re-Place their bell stolen by the Nazis. Despite De-spite orders Issued by General Marvin, barring carts from the city, Joppolo re-called re-called the order, to permit food and water wa-ter to enter the city. Cacopardo tried to fnrnlsh the General with information on German troop movements but was tossed out. Tina told the Major about her sweetheart, a prisoner of war, and asked the aid of the Major In locating him. The Major felt some Jealousy but promised help. CHAPTER XV Polack said: "A lousy unfair war." Bill said: "Le's go to bed." So they went to bed. Polack heard Chuck crying in his bedroll, and he said: "Smatter, Chuck, feel sick?" Chuck sobbed: "Hell of a war.". Polack said: "Yeah, hell of a war, Chuck, go to sleep." When Major Joppolo arrived at his office next morning, two visitors were waiting for him. One was Quattrocchi, owner of the house where Chuck, Bill and Polack were billeted. But Quattrocchi had to wait, because the other was Lord Runcin, one of the Amgot higher-ups. higher-ups. The Allied Military Government Govern-ment was, and still is, a joint British-American affair, and as In the higher echelons of the military command, com-mand, American and British officers offi-cers were sandwiched in with each other.' Lord Runcin was near the top. Lord Runcin was a man of about fifty. He had wavy blonde hair and bright eyes which seldom looked straight at whoever he was talking with. He took snuff. Aside from the fact that he had a purely colonial colo-nial point of view toward the Italians, Ital-ians, he was considered to be a pretty pret-ty good man for Amgot. Not the least of his attributes was his energy. en-ergy. On this particular morning, it was only five minutes past eight, and yet Lord Runcin had been on the road since six thirty, had taken ' breakfast on American rations in a Tjohpat flplrl nnd had been waiting patiently for his Amgot representative representa-tive in Adano for fifteen minutes. He was making a round of interviews, inter-views, to try to pick up the best examples ex-amples of Amgot work from each of the occupied towns. Major Joppolo showed him into his office. "Wizard quarters," His Lordship said. Lord Runcin affected affect-ed the slang of his subordinates, but he always seemed to use American slang when talking to his British men, and vice versa, so that many of them understood very little of what he said. This was the first time Major Joppolo had ever had a tete a tete with a real' honest to goodness Lordship. Lord-ship. He was surprised to find him wearing shorts and an open collar and no hat at all. His Lordship's deferential manner, as he sat on the other side of the Major's desk asking questions, made Major Joppolo, Jop-polo, who had once been a clerk in the Sanitation Department of New York City, feel quite important. By way of making conversation. His Lordship pointed a thumb in Quattrocchi's direction and said: "Your Italian friend is in quite a flap." The former Sanitation clerk said: "What was that, Lord? I didn't get that." . . . "Wovpt mind." said His Lordship. "Well, what kind of a job have you been doing here, Joppolo?" The former Sanitation clerk said: "Well, I've b.een doing all right." "Doing all right, eh?" His Lordship Lord-ship smiled and made a note of the expression in his notebook, for future fu-ture use. "What are the best things you've done?" Well to show how the town was financing itself, there was the muslin mus-lin A Liberty Ship had come into Adano harbor, and had discharged a cargo of war materials-bulldoz- ers, bridge girders, tents, and some ammunition. Down in the bottom of one hold the unloaders found six bales of white muslin. The skipper of the ship said he had to unload it The Quartermaster on the beach would not take it. There were no naoers for the muslin, no consignment- The muslin had U. S. Treasury Treas-ury markings on it, so it was obvi-T.md-Lease, and it was ob viously lost. Major Joppolo heard about it, and seeing the rags on the Se of his town, he said he couM 5 He called his Civil Supply director and told him about the mus-U mus-U and the director gave permission permis-sion to sell it at a fair price. Major Joppolo put two Tolls up for sale, and held the other four in reserve There was such a shortage of cloth in the town that the two rolls were gone in that many hours. g -Good work, Joppolo," His Lordship Lord-ship said. "What else?' There was the refugee problem. On the day of the invasion, there Tnnlv six or seven thousand peo-the peo-the town; the others had all P 7n the hills. Within a few days we thirty-two ' -three thousand thou-sand The town got badly crowded, A one reason was that there were ,nt of refugees from the town of a lot oi relu& le had come rrrSabeLuL the Allies haTbeen bombing Vicinamare pret-t pret-t hard before the invas.on. Now that the battle had gone beyond Vicinamare, they wanted to go home, but there was no transportation. transpor-tation. One day the Major saw a German bus driving down the street. An American soldier was driving it. Major Joppolo said to himself: "I could use that bus." He asked around and found out it belonged to the Engineers. So he called the Motor Officer and said: "I'd like to use that bus of yours one day a week." The Motor Officer said it would be okay with him if the Major had proper permission. So Major Joppolo called the Adano base commander, com-mander, who said it would be all right. And a few days later one busload of cheering, laugnmg people peo-ple had started home. Now Colonel Sartorius, head of Amgot for the Province of Vicinamare, heard about the bus a few days later, and he got sore, and told Major Joppolo not to do that any more. "Sometimes," "Some-times," Major Joppolo said, "I think Colonel Sartorius is an awful dope." Lord Runcin said. "Do you mean you think he takes harmful drugs?" And his Lordship dipped into his snuffbox. Major Joppolo said: "Oh no, I just mean he's stupid." "Dope, eh?" His Lordship said, and put the expression down in his book. "Very good, what else?" Well, Lord, the people of Adano were so contented under the Americans Ameri-cans that they offered of their own accord, without anybody suggesting it, to maintain the little American cemetery on the outskirts of town. So they built a fence around it and painted it white, and Russo the old stonecutter was making headstones, and every Sunday the people took flowers up and put them on the graves of the boys who had died taking the town. "I say," His Lordship said, "touching. What else?" Food was pretty good. In the first days, the Major had found five cars ttviia.ii'arxs I I I I II mmmmm v-snv , , "Can't afford to let these people be too happy, you know." of wheat on a siding at the railroad station, had had it ground into Hour, and had been able to spare some for the neighboring hill towns, which were starving. He had given one baker a very heavy fine, three thousand thou-sand lira, for baking soggy bread, for refusing to sell it on credit, for refusing to take American invasion lira, and for having dirty hands; and' since then the bread had been pretty good from all the bakers. He had taken steps to send the fishermen fisher-men out. He had arranged for the people to have pasta, which they had not had for eight months. Food was all right. "Good," said Lord Runcin. Every time His Lordship took snuff, Major Joppolo's eyes nearly popped out of his head and he almost forgot what he was talking about. "Any-thing "Any-thing else?" "Oh sure, Lord," he said, "this town is much better off than it was before we came in. You can't im agine now Uiese tcuyic c 6" down. Why, they're so used to being be-ing afraid of officials, and so used to making out forms and being hauled up to court and having cara-binieri cara-binieri ask them their names, that they all put their last names first and their first names last, the way it goes on official papers, all the time. Just like the Chinese. "Lots of them have told me that they're better off now than they were before. For one thing, they can congregate in the streets any time they want and talk about whatever what-ever they want to. They can listen to their radios. They know they can get a fair trial out of me. They can come to the City Hall and talk to me any time they want. Mayor Nasta had office hours from twelve to one each day and you had to apply ap-ply for an audience weeks in advance. ad-vance. I told you about the streets being clean. Oh, there are lots of ways, Lord, and if I have anything' any-thing' to do with it there'll be lots ' more." His Lordship was getting a wee bit bored. He dipped more and more frequently into his snuffbox and looked out the window. "Fine show, fine show," he said. "Anything bad In this town?" "Yes, there is, Lord," the Major said. "One thing." "I wish all of our towns had Just one thing wrong, Joppolo." "Well, this isn't exactly bad, Lord, and maybe it'll sound a little silly to you." : "My job," said Lord Runcin, taking tak-ing snuff grandly, "is to make sense out of silly things. What is it, Jop-nolo?" "Well sir, this town needs a bell." "A bell? Why, Major, I heard such a jangling of bells at eight o'clock this morning, you might have thought it was Christmas day." "Yes, but this is a special bell, Lord." "I didn't know they had any special spe-cial bells." "This one was seven hundred years old. It was just about the most important thing in the town, to hear these people talk. Mussolini took it away . . ." And Major Joppolo Jop-polo told how' the bell had been crated up and shipped away to make gun barrels, and how the people peo-ple had come to him about it, and how he had tried to track it, and had found that it was almost certainly cer-tainly melted down, and at any rate was in unoccupied territory. Lord Runcin' s colonial attitude cropped up. "Surely," he said, "these people can get along with the bells they have. We can't afford to be too sentimental, you know, Joppolo. Can't afford to let these people be too happy, you know. Can't afford to let discipline get too loose." "Lord, I can't see that happiness and discipline don't go together." "Young man," said His Lordship, taking a sniff for emphasis, "I think I've had a little more experience in these things than you have." "Every time I've done something for these people," Major Joppolo said, "I've found they did two things for me just out of thanks." "Well what do you want me to do about this bell?" "I just wondered, Lord, if you could suggest a way to get them another bell. Not just any bell, you know, but one that could take the place of the one they lost." "Every time I need something out of the ordinary," His Lordship said, "I make application to the United States Army. They have the most extraordinary things, you know. They gave me a jeep. They gave me my choice of pipes, good briar, too, went from Scotland to the U.S.A. and all the way back here to Algiers, by way of the U.S. Army. Some one told me about these electrical elec-trical razors, and they even got me one of those, but I can't use it because be-cause of this Italian current, wrong current, you know, not like our current. cur-rent. I suggest you try the U. S. Army, Joppolo." "I haven't had quite the same kind of luck with the Army, Lord. You got some friend, or something? Who do you ask for all these fancy things they get you?" "Just write General Wilson, W. B. Wilson, Quartermaster Depot, Algiers. Al-giers. General Wilson told me he'd try to get me anything I wanted. Just use my name, Joppolo, he'T find you a bell. I'm sure of it." Major Joppolo wrote down Gen eral Wilson's name and address "Thank you, Lord," the Major said i.nat SUUI1US lliVC !(- HUB11"' vv.. I sure want to get a bell for this town." Lord Runcin clapped his snuffbox shut and stood up. "Well, Joppolo, sounds to me as if you were doing a wizard job here. Keep it up. If you have any troubles, just give me a buzz." And His Lordship left, on the verge of a delicious sneeze which he had been saving in his nostrils for ten minutes. Major Joppolo stared out of the window, and he was wonderfully happy, with the double happiness of accomplishment and praise for it. He was drawn back from his pleasant pleas-ant daze by a torrent of Italian. It came from Quattrocchi. "You Americans think you are so civilized, you think you are doing us a favor by disembarking on our shores. You are no better than the Germans. The Germans never did anything in this town such as your men have done. I gave you my house. I did not mind giving you my house. I thought the Americans were civilized. You are the one who told me they are civilized. You said they would fake care of my house as if they owned it. You are a liar." Having been praised so recently. Major Joppolo was stung by this dispraise. "What do you want?" he said sharply. "Stop this babbling and tell me what you want." "I- don't want anything. What I have lost I can never get back, so how can I want anything?" "If you don't want anything, why are you taking up my time?" Quattrocchi spoke sarcastically: "I'm sorry if your time is so valuable, valu-able, Your Worship." And then he spoke angrily: "I have lost some things which were valuable to me, too. I went to my house this ariorn-ing, ariorn-ing, to get some things I had left behind. And what did I find? (TO BE CONTINUED) |
