大象传媒

It's a fine December evening and I am just about to enter the "Kursaal" cinema in down-town Bari when the first KERRUNCH of bombs, quickly followed by anti aircraft fire, prompt a chsnge of mind and I forgo the charms of Miss Sonja Heinje and the more tempting Glenn Miller music and head back to the docks, where I work and live and where the Germans have decided to do their murderous mischief. Just to prove they're not joking a stick of bombs falls a couple of blocks to my left - must have got the German adrenalin working too early because it's quite a way off target but too close to me for comfort. As the sound reverberates through the air I also hear a voice "Hey Johnnie" -we are all "Johnny" to the locals. Why I stop I don't know, but I do. In a doorway the man, and what appears to be his entire family are huddled in the cold, cavernous dark calling on heaven and all the saints to deliver them from this noisy hell. "What's happening?" he asks. Without stating the obvious I try to assure him that it will all soon be over and we shall soon only have the normal cancophony of ordinary italian city life back with us without the terrible racket of guns and bombs and anyway the planes have now found their target and are concentrating on making life difficult around the harbour so not to worry. With which I continue my ducking and dodging run towards the docks until I find my way blocked by a sizeable pile of rubble - the result of a second load of mis-placed bombs. It stops me in my tracks but before I can decide my next move the doors of the small civil hospital to my right burst open and a clutch of very terrified young women surround me. More cries for "Johnnie" to help them as they shriek and cry around me. The general idea being that I get them away from the mayhem around them as soon as I darned well can. A glance back at the harbour, now only four hundred yards or so away, and decide to get these girls to a safer place before I head home. I shepherd my flock back through the old town, fear making for pretty swift progress, and soon we are on the wide avenues of the modern city. The majority of the girls disappear on their separate ways just as quickly as they had appeared at the hospital gates some minutes before. That is with the exception of two girls who beg me to take them just a few more yards to the home of one of them. So it turns out that within minutes I am back at the doorway of the old man and his wailing family. At the sight of us the wailing turns to cries of joy and relief and one of the girls is being embraced by all and sundry. "A miracle" seems to be the the word on everyone's lips. And I guess it is in a way because it appears that I have brought home the prodigal daughter and somehow, by accident, have answered their collective prayers on this most horrendous evening. I untangle myself from embraces of all and sundry and with a thousand "Grazies" ringing in my ears plunge back into the old town and towards the raging inferno that is now the harbour. The bombs are just finishing off their night's work as I cross the coast road and enter a devastated dock area. It is still only early evening and there is a long and dreadful night ahead, the horror of which will stay with me forever - as will that small incident of happy coincidence on the evening of 2nd December 1943 - when Bari became the "Little Pearl Harbour" with the loss of l7 ships and thousands of lives.

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