The captain’s eyes went quickly to the long, thin knife at the man’s belt, and the commando nervously, almost apologetically, fingered its steel hilt.
“What have they gone back for?”
“The lady’s trunk, sir. We couldn’t get it in the boat. There wasn’t room with the rest of us. They’ve gone back for her trunk. Quite a large one. Old-fashioned kind with a hump on it, you know.”
The captain put his hands on his hips and studied the little man.
“Sir?” the commando began.
“Yes, I know. And I wish it was beer, but there isn’t any.”
He called softly into the companionway, “Joel, oh, Joel, get some water on. There’ll be five teas wanted in a moment.”
CAPRI
SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 18, 1943—The day after the island of Capri was taken and before any of the admirals and generals had found it necessary to inspect the defenses of its rocky cliffs and hazardous wine cellars a group of sailors from a destroyer in the harbor strolled along one of the beautiful tree-lined paths. They were inspecting defenses too, the island’s and their own, and they found their own lacking in initiative. The hill was steep and there were gardens above and below the path.
As they strolled along a shrill little voice came from under a grape arbor below the way. “I say,” said the voice.
The naval men looked over the low wall and saw a tiny old woman—a little bit of a woman—dressed in black, who came scrambling from under the grapevines and climbed up the steps like a puppy. She was breathless.
“I hope you won’t mind,” she panted. “It was very good to hear English spoken. I am English, you know.”
She paused to let this tremendous fact sink in. She was dressed in decent and aging black. She never had made the slightest concession to Italy. Her costume would have done her honor and protected her from scandal in Finchley.
Her eyes danced with pleasure, wise, small, humorous eyes. “They speak Italian here,” she said brightly, and it was obvious that she did not if she could help it. “And the Germans came,” she said, “and I haven’t heard much English. That is why I should like just to hear you talk. I like Americans,” she explained, and you could see that she was willing to take any kind of criticism for this attitude. “I haven’t heard any English. The Germans came, but I said that, didn’t I? Well, anyway, the war came and I couldn’t get out, and that is three years, isn’t it? And do you know it has been a year since I have had a cup of tea, over a year—you will hardly believe that.”
The communications officer said, “We have tea aboard. I could bring you a packet this afternoon.”
The little woman danced from one foot to the other like a child. “N-o-o-o,” she said excitedly. “Why—what fun, what fun.”
Signals said, “Is there anything else you need, because maybe I could bring that to you too?”
For a moment the old bright eyes surveyed him, measuring him. “You couldn’t—” she began, and paused. “You couldn’t bring a little pat of—butter?”
“Sure I could,” said Signals.
“N-o-o-o,” she cried, and she began to hop like a child at hopscotch. She held up a finger. “If you’ll bring me a little pat of butter I will make some scones, real scones, and we’ll have a party. Won’t that be fun? Won’t that be fun?”
She danced with excitement. “Imagine,” she said.
“I’ll bring it this afternoon,” said Signals.
“You see, I was caught here and then the Germans came. They didn’t do me really any harm. They were just here,” she said seriously. “All of my people are in Australia. I have no family in England any more.” Her old eyes became sad without any transition. “I don’t know how they are,” she said. “I have had two letters in three years. It takes nearly a year to get a letter.”
Signals said, “If you will write a letter I’ll pick it up when I bring the butter and tea and will mail it at the first port.”
She looked at him sternly. “And how long will that take to get to Australia?” she demanded.
“Oh, I don’t know. A few weeks.”
“N-o-o-o,” she cried, and she began to dance again, little dainty dancing steps, with her arms held slightly out from her sides and her wrists bent down. Her shrill little bird voice laughed and her pale old eyes were wet. “Why,” she cried. “Why, that will be more fun than tea.”
SEA WARFARE
SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR THEATER, October 19, 1943—The plans for Task Force X were nearly complete. The officers had coffee in a restaurant in a North African city. The tall, nervous one, a lieutenant commander and a student of mines—contact, magnetic, and those vibration mines which react to the engine of a ship—leaned over the table.
“I conceive naval warfare to be much like chamber music,” he said. “Thirty-caliber machine guns, those are the violins, the fifties are the violas, six-inch guns are perfect cellos.”
He looked a little sad. “I’ve never had sixteen-inch guns to compose with. I have never had any bass.” He leaned back in his chair. “The composition—the tactics of chamber music—are much the same as a well-conceived and planned naval engagement. Destroyers out, why, that will be the statement of theme, the screening attack, and all preparing for the great statement of the battleships.” He leaned back farther and tipped his chair against the wall and hooked his heels over the lower rung.
A lieutenant (j.g.) laughed. “He always talks like that. If he didn’t know so much about mines we would think he was crazy.”
“You haven’t been in battle, in a good naval engagement, and you don’t know anything about chamber music,” said the lieutenant commander. “I’ll show you something tonight if you’ll go with me.”
The jeep moved through the blackout. The streets of the city were fined with military trucks and heavy equipment, all moving toward the harbor where the ships were loading for Italy. The jeep, running counter to the traffic, climbed the hill and went over the ridge and into the valley on the other side, into a valley which had at one time been a place of vineyards and small country houses. But now it was a vast storage ground for shells and trucks and tanks, lined and stacked and parked, waiting to get aboard the ships for Italy. The moon lighted the masses of material getting ready for war.
“Where are you taking us?” the lieutenant asked.
“You’ll see. Just be patient.”
The jeep pulled up to a very white wall that extended off into the distance and disappeared into the pearly in-definiteness of the moonlight. A high gate of iron bars and spikes opened in the wall. The lieutenant commander went to the gate and pulled a rope that hung there, and a small bell called softly. In a moment a white-robed figure appeared at the gate, a tall man with a long, dark beard.
“Yes?” he asked softly.
“May we come in?” the lieutenant commander asked. “May we come in for evensong?”
“Yes. of course,” the brother said. He pulled at one side of the gate and the hinges cried a little.
Inside the wall was a lovely garden in the moonlight. No war material at all. Everything was cut out except flowers and the little sound of running water and the thick outline of a sturdy church against a luminous sky. The lieutenant (j.g.) said, “You speak very good English.”
“I should,” said the brother. “I was born in Massachusetts.”
“American?”
“We come from all over. We have Germans and French, and even a Chinese. Some Russians, too.”
The party moved slowly up the path and came to the little fountain which made the dripping sound and put a cool emphasis on a hot night. “The song has already started,” the brother said. “Walk quietly.”
The way went among the walls of flowering shrubs and then up two outside steps, and then into a dark hallway, and finally through an entrance into a place that was familiar and strange. Over the rail and below was the body of the church, only you could not see it, for only one candle was burning, and it merely suggested the size and height. It picked out a corner and an arch and a point of gold, and your mind filled in the rest. Lined below, just visible, were the rows of the white brothers. And then their voices came softly and swelling, singing the ancient music, the disembodied and unimpassioned music, of which Mozart said he would rather have written one chant than all his own. The evensong rose higher and higher, and it was rather like the dimness of the arched roof overhead. The great, vague room swelled and pulsed with the sound, and then it died and one single voice took it up and the others joined in and the candle flame darted about on its wick.