Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [51]
Major Joppolo showed him into his office. “Wizard quarters,” His Lordship said. Lord Runcin affected the slang of his subordinates, but he always seemed to use American slang when talking to his British men, and vice versa, so that many of them understood very little of what he said.
This was the first time Major Joppolo had ever had a t?te â t?te with a real honest to goodness Lordship. He was surprised to find him wearing shorts and an open collar and no hat at all. His Lordship’s deferential manner, as he sat on the other side of the Major’s desk asking questions, made Major Joppolo, who had once been a clerk in the Sanitation Department of New York City, feel quite important.
By way of making conversation, His Lordship pointed a thumb in Quattrocchi’s direction and said: “Your Italian friend is in quite a flap.”
The former Sanitation clerk said: “What was that, Lord? I didn’t get that.”
“Never mind,” said His Lordship. “Well, what kind of a job have you been doing here, Joppolo?”
The former Sanitation clerk said: “Well, Lord, I’ve been doing all right.”
“Doing all right, eh?” His Lordship smiled and made a note of the expression in his notebook, for future use. “What are the best things you’ve done?”
Well, there was the subsidy. The Italians used to pay every family with a son in the Army eight lira a day for the head of the family and three lira for each dependent. Because these people really depended on the subsidy, Major Joppolo had started paing it again at the old rate. He now called it Public!’ Assistance, because he thought that sounded more democratic. He paid it out of fines and income from goods that he was selling, and he had a committee consisting of the Mayor, the Chief of the Carabinieri and a local citizen to determine whether each family needed or deserved Public Assistance. On the first day the town had paid out seventyfour thousand lira.
“Bully,” said His Lordship. “What else?”
Well, to show how the town was financing itself, there was the muslin. A Liberty Ship had come into Adano harbor, and had discharged a cargo of war materials - bulldozers, bridge girders, tents, and some ammunition. Down in the bottom of one hold the unloaders found six bales of white muslin. The skipper of the ship said he had to unload it. The Quartermaster on the beach would not take it. There were no papers for the muslin, no consignment. The muslin had U.S. Treasury markings on it, so it was obviously Lend-Lease, and it was obviously lost. Major Joppolo heard about it, and seeing the rags on the people of his town, he said he could use it. He called his Civil Supply director and told him about the muslin, and the director gave permission to sell it at a fair price. Major Joppolo put two rolls up for sale, and held the other four in reserve. There was such a shortage of cloth in the town that the two rolls were gone in that many hours.
“Good work, Joppolo,” His Lordship said. “What else?”
There was the refugee problem. On the day of the invasion, there were only six or seven thousand people in the town; the others had all run to the hills. Within a few days there were thirty-two or -three thousand. The town got badly crowded, and one reason was that there were a lot of refugees from the town of Vicinamare. These people had come down to Adano because the Allies had been bombing Vicinamare pretty hard before the invasion. Now that