Eastern Passage (14 page)

On December 10 the regiment returned to action in Eighth Army’s final attempt to justify Operation Chuckle by breaking out of the sodden coastal strip into the open reaches of the Po Valley. By the 12th our forward companies had overrun the German positions on the Canale Vecchio and the Canale Naviglio and were pushing on. Baker Company had the farthest to go. Its objective, a cluster of farm
buildings called San Carlo, lay a thousand yards beyond the Naviglio. Charlie, in a supporting role, squelched forward to the sparse shelter of a ditch halfway between the Canale and San Carlo, then dug itself in. Able struck out along a lateral track and was soon fighting desperately for possession of a few scattered houses. What remained of Dog Company was in reserve at battalion headquarters, a shattered farmhouse between the Vecchio and the Naviglio.

By dawn next day, Baker had taken San Carlo and was being counterattacked by at least a battalion of infantry supported by tanks and mobile artillery. At this juncture, our commanding officer, Lt. Col. Donald Cameron, hunched over his radio set, heard a static-filled message from Baker.

“…   attack by heavy tanks … look like Panthers … lots of infantry … ammo almost gone … without tank support we’ll soon be goners too … you want us to hang on or try to pull out? …”

The message ended in a burst of static.

The decision Cameron had to make was of the kind that ages men and withers their souls. He
could
not sanction a withdrawal. Too much depended on this bridgehead being held until reinforcements, and especially tanks and anti-tank guns, could reach us.

Holding the microphone close to his mouth, he slowly and distinctly repeated the words: “You
must remain
 … 
You must remain
 … 
Our tanks are coming
 … 
You must remain
 …”

He paused – but there was no reply. Baker’s radio was off the air.

Mired in frigid mud, the men of Charlie Company watched helplessly as the Germans closed in on San Carlo. They watched as Mark IV and Panther tanks methodically shattered each building, reducing each in turn to smoking rubble.

Meanwhile, Able, in houses along the dyke wall, was under attack from two self-propelled guns and a strong force of infantry. Cut off from one another, two of Able’s three depleted platoons fled
back across the canal, leaving only Nine platoon, reduced now to fewer than a dozen men, to hold the position.

Then it was Charlie’s turn. With the leisureliness of those who are assured of victory, the Germans turned on Charlie. The men of its Thirteen Platoon raised their heads during a lull in the bombardment to find themselves staring into the muzzles of a score of German rifles and carbines. Thirteen Platoon vanished and was not heard from again.

The CO did what he could. What remained of Dog Company was ordered forward but, suffering from the effects of seven days of shell-fire and the loss of most of its officers and NCOs, it had also lost heart. Three times it set out for the canal, and three times turned away from the gates of Hell.

Here is Padre Freddy Goforth’s description of the scene at battalion headquarters.

“From dawn until late afternoon the house was under constant bombardment – moaning Minnies, 88s, everything in the book came at us. Early on, a shed on the south side was demolished by a direct hit. There were a lot of casks of
vino
in the shed and a number of men had bedded down amongst them and were trying to rest. The casks were all perforated but most of the men miraculously escaped and ran into the main building, soaked in wine. The wine flowed across the floor behind them and for the rest of the day we lived in the sour stink of
vino
fumes.

“As time passed the place grew more and more crowded. The remnants of Able Company found shelter here, along with those of Dog Company. By this time the battle had begun to look like Armageddon for us. Only Charlie was left in front and the messages coming through were increasingly desperate. ‘The enemy is pressing close.’ ‘We’re running out of ammo.’ ‘What are your orders?’

“I would have defied anyone to tell what was passing through Cameron’s mind as he quietly told the signaller to reply, ‘Help is coming. Hold on.’

“Cameron’s coolness steadied us though we were sure the promise of relief was just a pipe dream. With enemy tanks crawling around a few hundred yards in front and capable of crossing the Naviglio, and remembering that behind us were
two
canals that as far as we knew had not yet been bridged and were impassable to
our
tanks, we couldn’t see we had much of a hope.

“Suddenly we heard the rumble of tank treads outside. Our common thought was, ‘Well, this is goodbye.’

“Then someone peered out a window and yelled ‘They’re ours!’ and then we knew how the boys must have felt at the siege of Lucknow so long ago when they heard the skirl of the pipes approaching. Coming up the road toward us was a squadron of British Columbia Dragoon tanks swinging their seventeen-pounder guns from side to side. We heard later that the first of them had crossed the Lamone before the bolts on the bridge were tight.”

The Dragoons wasted no time. Finding a ford, the tanks rumbled over the Naviglio, firing as they went. One appeared outside the ruins of the house where a remnant of Charlie Company was making its final stand. As it nosed around the corner of the building, it was hit by a German anti-tank shell. The wounded gunner crawled out of the turret and some of Charlie’s men raced out and dragged him under cover. All the gunner said was “Did we make it in time?”

They had made it in time.

Early one afternoon, at an hour when sensible people were letting their dinners digest and avoiding the heat of the day, Fran and I drove along a track beside the Canale Naviglio toward a cluster of white houses glistening in the sun. We drove into a courtyard flanked by spanking-new buildings standing four-square under red-tiled roofs. I thought that if
this
was San Carlo it surely was risen from the grave. I got out and stood uncertainly, waiting for a sign. All was
motionless except for a garishly green lizard scampering across a newly laid stone pavement.

Then a door opened and a slim young man came out. He advanced somewhat timidly for, though Fran and I could not know it, we were the first foreigners to come here since the war.

“Si, signore,”
he replied in answer to my question. “This is San Carlo and you and the
signora” –
he smiled at Fran – “are very welcome to Casa Balardini. Please to come in.”

We were received in the cool, dark room reserved for ceremony. Roused from their naps by a stentorian cry from Signore Balardini, a big man with straggling moustaches and a belly that gave him presence, the rest of the family came stumbling, running, and striding into the room. Spanning several generations, there seemed no end to them. They clustered around us, touching our shoulders, smiling, laughing, and bombarding us with questions.

Although we were being treated as honoured guests, I was uneasy. How were these people going to react when they realized I was one of the
soldati canadesi
whose guns had contributed to the wartime devastation of San Carlo?

I need not have worried. A middle-aged man thrust a glass of wine into my hand.

“Canadese, no?
I am captured by you boys in Sicily in 1943. I work for your engineers. They put me in
canadese
uniform and I learn to speak English good.
Canadese molto bene!”

Relieved, I explained why we were here. Far from souring the mood, this seemed to warm it even more. However, if the Balardinis harboured no resentment toward Canadians, their feelings toward the
tedeschi
(barbarians – as most Italians called the Germans) were another matter.

“When you kick the goddamned
tedeschi
out of here that time, everything gets smashed. Too bad! But don’t matter so long you got
those Nazi bastards out. We can fix everything so long we are free from those sons of bitching fascists!”

The sentiments of this fervent little speech, repeated in Italian, were vehemently echoed by the family, who now seemed intent on making us one of them.

Frances, who had edged to the door to get some breathing space, was now frantically waving at me. “They’re taking the luggage out of the car!” she cried.

They were indeed, having apparently decided we were moving in to Casa Balardini. Only with great difficulty was I able to convince the family we could not stay. There was, however, no gainsaying their demand that we must eat with them before travelling on.

While the women rushed off to prepare the meal, men and children proudly escorted us around the farm. It embraced just three hectares – about seven acres – and everything that had stood or grown on this small piece of earth had been obliterated during the winter of 1944. Now the land had come alive again. Grapes were forming on neat rows of vines. Young orchards were thriving as peaches and cherries ripened. One supple lad swarmed up a tree and showered us with firm-fleshed fruit.

Every inch of soil was in use. Corn grew between the vines and in the aisles between fruit trees. Cabbages, tomatoes, eggplants, and other vegetables flourished between the rows of corn. Narrow strips of wheat crowded to the very edge of the road. There were no weeds on the Balardini farm – there was no room for them. Cows, mules, pigs, goats, chickens, and ducks lived in and around the outbuildings. The place was a living supermarket – as it had to be in order to feed so many human mouths.

Late that afternoon, we sampled its produce. The dishes were too many to remember but I know we ate chicken and kid with a dozen different vegetables, and filled our plates from countless pasta dishes redolent of herbs, spices, and sharp white cheese. Wine flowed freely.

Not until we had eaten and drunk rather more than our fill did the talk turn to the December day when Operation Chuckle had sent Baker Company to Casa Balardini. What remained of the family, deprived of most of its men by military service and German labour round-ups, had taken refuge in the cellars.

“There were only about thirty
canadesi
here,” we were told, “then whole companies of
tedeschi
with many
carri armati
[tanks and self-propelled guns] surrounded the
casa
and blew it to pieces, room by room. The noise was so bad our one remaining pig burst out of its sty and ran right toward a tank, and the
tedeschi
shot it with machine guns.… Everything that moved got shot. You could smell blood everywhere.… My cousin Maria had turned eight the day before; a big girl but thin because there was so little food. She must have been too hungry to think straight. She had sneaked out to what was left of the vegetable garden. When the shells came she just disappeared. Later we found her feet and one arm.… Some of the shells had phosphorus inside them, and when they exploded everything was sprayed with fire. Water wouldn’t put it out. My aunt was hit by a piece of that stuff and it burned a hole right into her belly. A Canadian soldier bound it up but she died anyway, screaming and screaming.”

As the German assault grew fiercer, the surviving Balardinis huddled in a stinking vault below the cattle stable. Then a salvo of shells brought the roof down and the walls tumbled in. One old man was killed and a young woman suffered a crushed thigh. The cattle were all killed.

After overrunning the ruins of the farm, the Germans herded the few surviving Canadians able to walk (the Balardinis thought there were no more than ten) into captivity but did not discover the Italians in their hole. These survivors emerged two days later to find the destruction so complete they abandoned the place to seek refuge with relatives beyond Bagnacavallo.

“When we did come back,” the oldest woman told us, “we found everything broken or gone. The next winter was hard. We lived through it. We went to work. And now” – she gave me a gap-toothed grin – “well,
here we are!”

It was late when, laden with gifts of wine and fruit, we left San Carlo. I also took with me a souvenir of a different kind – a shell fragment from a heap that had been collected from the fields during recent cultivation, a small part of the harvest of steel we and the Germans had sown.

Beyond San Carlo, we and the highway hugged the coast until we reached the port of Ortona on a headland which since ancient times had dominated the world around until, between us, we and the Germans succeeded in reducing much of this city of twenty thousand people to rubble.

Just beyond its ruins we came upon the Moro River Military Cemetery. Here fourteen hundred men of First Canadian Division rot in incomparably beautiful surroundings overlooking the Adriatic. Amongst them is Major Alex Campbell, once my company commander. Alex, an indomitable mountain of a man, was killed on Christmas Day 1943. His father had died in battle with the Kaiser’s Germans on Christmas Day 1916.

Fran and I wandered about the battlefields. One morning we visited an observation post where I had spent some of the most terror-filled hours of my life being sniped at by a German 88 mm gun. Now the farmer who owned the land came over to pass the time of day. He offered us a drink from a straw-covered bottle, but even as I sipped the wine my ears were tautly attuned for the shriek of an incoming shell.

We walked along the now-deserted San Leonardo track which had once been the main highway for an army. Beyond it we came to a gully where Doc McConnell, my batman, had dug me a luxurious
foxhole – but had forgotten to take into account the cumulative effect of the almost ceaseless rain, which one night brought it all down on my sleeping head.

I had another memory of this gully.

Early in March, the sun had returned and the shell-churned ground had begun to thaw. One day I came upon an old woman prodding the ground with a brass rod from a bedstead. She had no business being there, for all civilians had been evacuated, or so we thought. I questioned her and found she had spent that ghastly winter hiding in an abandoned German dugout. For company she had had her daughter and granddaughter – both of whom had died before the new year began. For months this old woman had endured the unendurable, emerging only to grub for roots and anything else edible – while waiting for the war to end and the ground to thaw so she could bury her dead.