大象传媒

I was in the intelligence corps and in 1944 I was posted to the Central Mediterranean Forces in Italy. I was attached to the 10th Indian Division as forward interrogator in the Arezzo area. Two interesting incidents occurred during my attachment to 10th Indian Division. The first was an invitation by the local partisans who had come out of their hiding places in the mountains to a celebration. About 5 or 6 officers from Div HQ and two or three NCOs came to a small hall in the village of Subbiano, north of Arezzo. Here we were plied with mountains of spaghetti, followed to our dismay by enormous helpings of meat stew and vegetables all washed down by red wine by the tumblerful! There were speeches, and one of the officers from HQ contributed in passable Italian (which I had not yet mastered.) The other incident happened when the division moved forward rather rapidly to take the hilltop village of Rassina. Some trigger-happy German soldier had emptied his machine gun magazine into the wooden vats into which the local co-operative stored their grappa, which was now spraying out and running into the gutters of the main street. My batman, with great presence of mind, collected all the containers he could find including tin helmets, and filled them with the raw, pungent liquid. We were happy for weeks. I found the dress regulations in the 8th Army of which we were part, were more relaxed than elsewhere. It was not long before I adopted some of its customs- a colourful silk scarf in the hot days of summer, and a jacket run up by a local seamstress (paid for with my cigarette ration- I do not smoke!) from a liberated sheepskin, for the cold winters. Flying boots were also the rage.

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