And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat

Author:Farley Mowat
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: World War II, War, Canadian
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
Published: 2012-04-12T05:00:00+00:00

PART III

And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.

And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid

Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,

Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,

And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.

WILFRED OWEN “The Show”

THE ORDER READ: “1ST DIVISION will now proceed to a rest area, where the troops will enjoy a period of relaxation and the rewards for a job well done.”

One hellishly hot morning in early August we loaded ourselves aboard a convoy of open trucks and set off on a hundred-mile trek to the southward. Late in the evening we arrived, dust-choked and dehydrated, at our destination a few miles from Grammichele, the scene of our first real action short weeks earlier.

One look at the rest area was enough to give us pause. While the base troops, headquarters staffs, supply services and those who seldom if ever heard a shot fired in anger took over comfortable billets in the coastal cities of Catania and Syracuse or in resort hotels at regal Taormina, the fighting soldiers of 1st Canadian Division found themselves banished to the desolate and dreary interior of the island.

Our portion turned out to be a scorched and stony plateau which distantly, and tantalizingly, overlooked the green plains of Catania and from whose arid heights we could, with binoculars, just glimpse the far blue waters of the Mediterranean. Here, under an implacable sun, amongst scant thickets of bamboo and clumps of cactus, we were fated to remain for the balance of the month to enjoy our relaxation and rewards.

It was not a matter of choice. Under pain of summary punishment, we were confined to the Brigade area. No leaves of any sort were granted. All towns and cities (even dusty little Grammichele which we ourselves had captured) were placed strictly out of bounds. We were forbidden to fraternize with Italian civilians. We were forbidden to supplement our issue rations either by barter or purchase. We were not even permitted to buy vino, and were expected to rest content with an issue of one bottle of beer per man per week, and one bottle of whisky per officer per month.

As if this was not bad enough, hardly had we settled into the bivouacs which we built ourselves out of bamboo, groundsheets and straw, when we were set upon by a horde of tormentors.

Possibly in an attempt to justify their existence, non-combatant officers of every rank began to arrive in a steady stream of jeeps and staff cars, and subjected us to interminable pointless persecutions including detailed inspections of everything from carburetors to foreskins. When these busybodies grew fatigued from examining our latrines, cookhouses, underwear, first-aid kits, etcetera, they demanded ceremonial troop inspections which required long hours of preparation followed by equally long hours in parade formations under a blinding sun, while we waited for some VIP to make his brief appearance.

During a single week we were subjected to three such purgatories: once by General Montgomery, once

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