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By Root 1759 0

the battle had gone beyond Vicinamare, they wanted to go home, but there was no transportation. One day the Major saw a German bus driving down the street. An American soldier was driving it. Major Joppolo said to himself: “I could use that bus.” He asked around and found out it belonged to the Engineers. So he called the Motor Officer and said: “I’d like to use that bus of yours one day a week.” The Motor Officer said it would be okay with him if the Major had proper permission. So Major Joppolo called the Adano base commander, who said it would be all right. And a few days later one busload of cheering, laughing people had started home. Now Colonel Sartorius, head of Amgot for the Province of Vicinamare, heard about the bus a few days later, and he got sore, and told Major Joppolo not to do that any more. “Sometimes,” Major Joppolo said, “I think Colonel Sartorius is an awful dope.”

Lord Runcin said: “Do you mean you think he takes harmful drugs?” And his Lordship dipped into his snuffbox.

Major Joppolo said: “Oh no, Lord, I just mean he’s stupid.”

“Dope, eh?” His Lordship said, and put the expression down in his book. “Very good, what else?”

Well, Lord, the people of Adano were so contented under the Americans that they offered of their own accord, without anybody suggesting it, to maintain the little American cemetery on the outskirts of town. So they built a fence around it and painted it white, and Russo the old stonecutter was making headstones, and every Sunday the people took flowers up and put them on the graves of the boys who had died taking the town.

“I say,” His Lordship said, “damned touching. What else?”

Food was pretty good. In the first days, the Major had found five cars of wheat on a siding at the railroad station, had had it ground into flour, and had been able to spare some for the neighboring hill towns, which were starving. He had given one baker a very heavy fine, three thousand lira, for baking soggy bread, for refusing to sell it on credit, for refusing to take American invasion lira, and for having dirty hands; and since then the bread had been pretty good from all the bakers. He had taken steps to send the fishermen out. He had arranged for the people to have pasta, which they had not had for eight months. Food was all right.

“Good,” said Lord Runcin. Every time His Lordship took snuff, Major Joppolo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head and he almost forgot what he was talking about. “Anything else?”

Well, cleaning this town up was something like Hercules and that stable of his. But fortunately the Major had some experience with sanitation. When the Americans came into the town, one old man was charged with keeping it clean. All he had the strength to do was sweep off the sidewalk in front of the Palazzo and carry away Mayor Nasta’s s garbage. Now Major Joppolo had a crew of forty-five men working. They had eight refuse carts and an Italian truck which had been converted into a water truck. It sprayed the streets every morning.

“Water,” said His Lordship. “Positively pansy.” The Major didn’t understand that expression, but he took it as a compliment.

“Oh sure, Lord,” he said, “this town is much better off than it was before we came in. You can’t imagine how these people were ground down. Why, they’re so used to being afraid of officials, and so used to making out forms and being hauled up to court and having carabinieri ask them their names, that they all put their last names first and their first names last, the way it goes on official papers, all the time. Just like the Chinese.

“Lots of them have told me that they’re better off now than they were before. For one thing, they can congregate in the streets any time they want and talk about whatever they want to. They can listen to their radios. They know they can get a fair trial out of me. They can come to the City Hall and talk to me any time they want. Mayor Nasta had office hours from twelve to one each day and you had to apply for an audience weeks in advance. I told you about the streets being clean. Oh, there are lots of ways,