IX Guests at Camp
“Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull lies,
Look on thy children in darkness. Oh take our sacrifice!
Many roads Thou hast fashioned; all of them lead to the Light,
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!”
(Kipling.)
About the time the lighter sank, I received a letter from the camp, asking for a man who spoke English, had some knowledge of accounts—a man, in fine, like Thompson—who would come to Messina. Belknap was shorthanded; the work was doubling up on them. Was there any chance of that nice boy, Flint? Would Thompson possibly reconsider? Thompson could not; Flint was in Egypt.
I remember well the day the letter came, if not the date. I was in Florence, spending a few happy hours by the Arno, in the shadow of the Giglio, Giotto’s perfect tower, second among towers only to the Giralda of Seville. There had been a wonderful jaunt from Rome in an automobile, that reminded me of my mother’s stories of her wedding journey through Italy in a traveling carriage. The motor has brought back the romance to travel, that seemed banished forever when the last vetturino sold his traveling carriage, driven out of business by the railroad.
We four—Mr. Parrish the host, Miss Helen Lee, his niece, Charles, the Yankee chauffeur, and I—had passed through Umbria, Tuscany, visited Perugia and Gubbio, stopped at Assisi and Siena, looked at the gem, San Gimignano—but that’s another story.
That golden day in Florence we hunted up our old friend, George de Forrest Brush, the painter, corralled him in his studio and carried him off willy-nilly to lunch at the Trattoria Aurora on the heights of Fiesole. It was too cold to eat in the garden, so after a long look at the blue Val d’Arno with its encircling mountains, the Carraras and the Apennines, we went into the bare little dining-room. Soon the two specialties of the inn smoked on the table, a dish of chicken cooked with red and yellow peppers—the sauce would make an anchorite greedy—and whole artichokes fried to a golden brown, served with melted butter. For those who wanted it, there was a flask of good red Chianti di Broglio; for all there was the rarer wine of friendship.
After luncheon we started in the automobile for the convent, perched on a hill high above Fiesole. When we had made half the distance, we passed an automobile stuck fast in the mire. Soon after we were obliged to turn back on account of the snow; the road runs in spirals; some of the turns are sharp, a true mountain highway, with a precipice on either side. Just as we turned a sharp curve, the machine came to a sudden stop. A tree trunk, big as a railroad sleeper, lay directly in our path, placed across the road since we made the ascent.
“A close call!” muttered the chauffeur, as he put on the brake and stopped the car. If he had not been quick as a flash, we should have had a bad accident. Charles next sprang from the car, dragged the log to the edge of the path and hurled it down the mountainside.
“That dago will have a little trouble to tote you up again!” he chuckled, as the great piece of wood hurtled down the steep.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” our host reassured us.
“Such wickedness as that makes me sick,” said Charles, as he twirled the steering wheel and set the car in motion. We were all silent for the next mile or two.
Which of us was it meant for? Who has so cruel an enemy? We never knew. When I read lately of Mr. Edward Boit and his brother being “held up” and robbed near Vallombrosa, not very far from Fiesole, I wondered if we had escaped the same band of brigands.
“Do you know a man who wants to go down and help Captain Belknap at Messina?” I asked Mr. Brush, as we sped down the incline, leaving Fiesole behind, past the Villa Palmieri where the characters of Boccaccio’s Decamerone lived during the great plague of 1348.
“My son Gerome has wanted to go down ever since the earthquake. I will send him to see you tonight,” said the artist.
That evening Gerome Brush called at our hotel; it was agreed that I should write Belknap, offering his services in whatever capacity he could be useful.
“I am in the automobile business now,” the young man said, “but that’s only temporary. When I go back to America I shall study law. I have been trying to get to Sicily all winter; do fix it up for me!”
It was “fixed up.” Belknap telegraphed us to send Brush, and we all returned to Rome.
“Why don’t you end up your trip by all coming down here?” The question was repeated several times in J.’s letters. As a result, on the 24th of March, Patsy, Gerome Brush and I left Rome for Sicily. We traveled as far as Naples with Mr. Parrish and his niece, who were to sail in a few days for home and could not come with us. The trip from Rome to Naples was a pleasant one, though the spring was very backward. Only a few quince and apricot trees were in blossom; the beautiful vineyards were still dark, without a sign of promise. Hanging from tree to tree in the old classic fashion, the vines made a lovely pattern of delicate black tracery against the fervent blue sky.
At Naples we regretfully parted with Mr. Parrish and Miss Lee. Patsy laid in a stock of sandwiches, milk chocolate and newspapers, and we set our faces to the south, prepared for any fate.
Soon after leaving Naples our train broke down.
“E rotto il Westinghouse,” the guard said to each separate traveler in turn.
“Look at Vesuvius, or what’s left of it!” cried Patsy. We had halted within sight of the great volcano. Patsy had not seen it since the eruption of 1906, when one of the twin cones sank out of sight and the whole outline of the mountain was altered, losing much of its distinction. “I never thought to see the everlasting hills change their very shape before my eyes—that gives you an idea of volcanic force!”
On the 25th of March we woke to a wet world. Through the blurred windows of the sleeping-car we looked out upon emerald fields and fruit orchards, between stretches of rough uncultivated land. The way passed through lemon groves, where the trees were covered thick with pale gold lemons, the air was sweet with the fragrance of their blossoms; through vast plantations of blue-green cactus, like those of Morocco; through orange groves where the branches bent beneath the weight of red-gold fruit. Everywhere was that splendid contrast of the red and yellow golds, mixed with the gorgeous dark green foliage of the nespoli, whose fruit ripens much later—now there were only hard little green balls between bunches of long graceful leaves. Here and there the green was softened by rosy peach blossoms, the intenser pink of the apricot, or the queer gray sprawling limbs of fig trees covered with silvery bloom, though not a leaf had yet unfolded.
“How can we be such fools as to linger in a city when the miracle of Spring has begun!” Patsy exclaimed; we all agreed never again to commit that folly of follies. At every station we passed cars loaded with piles of newly sawed American lumber, shipped from Naples and distributed at various points on the Calabrian coast. At Palmi we saw the first ruins. Some little wooden huts had been built on the lower slopes of the hill; on the side-tracks were rows of extra railway carriages, turned into shelters for the poor homeless people. It had been raining desperately until we reached Palmi, where fortunately it held up long enough for us to have a good look at the magnificent olive trees, the finest I ever saw. A whole forest of olives goes climbing up the mountainside, like hoary giants with wild arms tossed to heaven. The trees in Dante’s Inferno, that bled when their limbs were broken, must have looked like these ancient olives of Palmi, centuries old, still the main support of the peasants on whose land they grow. The chestnuts were as fine in their way, sturdy umbrageous monarchs of the wood, but lacking the mystery that above all other trees the olive, Athena’s gift, possesses.
Patsy had an errand at Bagnara. From the midst of a group of sad, listless looking women, who stood watching our train as if it were the one important event of the day, a tall girl in black pushed her way to the front. There must have been some signal agreed upon; how else could Patsy have found the sister of Sora Clara the moment he stepped on the platform at Bagnara? They talked together until our train started, when Patsy slipped something into the girl’s hand and sprang into the car.
“Don’t report me,” he said. “I have turned over a new leaf; I don’t let my right hand know what my left hand does. I reported every franc I gave away in Rome, till I caught on to what it meant. My poor Sanscrit professor had been promised substantial help. I reported the little money I gave him; after that he got nothing more. I was told never to give a single family more than fifty francs. How’s a man who has lost everything he has in the world going to start life again on ten dollars?
The situation of Bagnara recalls Amalfi; there is a fine smooth beach, where the fishing boats are drawn up on the shore. The nets are spread higher up on the sand. Above the lovely scallop of shore the little town perches on the hillside. At Gioia Tauro, just before Palmi, the semicircle of golden beach in the shape of a scimitar, the beryl green water, reminded us of Tangiers.
After we passed Bagnara the train went very slowly.
“At this rate we shall never reach Taormina tonight,” Patsy complained.
“Pazienza, Signorino! chi va piano va sano!” said the guard. “This is the first train that has gone through since the landslide.” This was the first we had heard of a landslide.
“A mere nothing, only the rocks came trundling down from the mountains and broke the track so badly that no trains have run for the past month,” the guard explained.
“Scylla!” We must have been dozing, for we all started when the guard called out the name of the station.
“Look!”
The tremendous rock of Scylla, with the strong castle on the top, springs from the sea like a great many-toned jewel of coral, shading from rose to yellow. The sun shone, the wind blew the surf in great green and white surges against the cliff. Further out the water was pale emerald, with sudden streaks of amethyst; everywhere on sea, shore and cloud lay shadows of sapphire.
Even Patsy was dumb, moved beyond words by that glimpse.
“Their Excellencies saw the castle?” chirruped the friendly guard. “The earthquake didn’t hurt it, more than to crack the outer wall a trifle. They knew how to build in those days!”
“The castle is a trumpery medieval affair,” remarked Patsy, “though it was standing when Robert Guiscard came in 1060, but the rock! In the Odyssey it’s described as the home of a roaring sea monster, with six terrific heads, twelve deformed feet, and three rows of teeth. Look over there—the lighthouse! That marks the whirlpool! ‘Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdis!’”
Across the narrow strait lay the jewel of the south, Sicily! The old name, Trinacria, was given to the island on account of its shape, an irregular triangle with three great points or promontories. It was once a part of the Apennine range, but in some volcanic upheaval it was broken off—as a monarch breaks a link from his gold chain and tosses it to some henchman—and thrown into the Mediterranean, where it shines a brilliant in a sapphire setting, the most coveted, the most disputed of earth’s gems.
Patsy had not spoken for twenty minutes. His dancing eyes had grown grave and steady; the imp, the sprite, the creature of impulse, was gone; in his place was a stranger with grave eyes.
“Villa San Giovanni,” cried the guard. “Il ferryboat per Messina.”
“Ferryboat! Sounds familiar,” said Patsy. “Tumble out, we’re here!”
As Patsy made me comfortable on one of the wooden benches, I saw a familiar face that puzzled me in the crowd of passengers. Where had I met that pale girl with the mouth like a scarlet trumpet-creeper, the thin curved eyebrows like a crescent moon, the deep eyes that looked violet in the distance and were blue?
“I know her,” I said.
“She doesn’t appear to know you,” Patsy murmured. I was so sure I knew her that I began to burrow in my memory, searched pigeonhole after pigeonhole to find just where in a lifetime of impressions that arch face was tucked away.
“It’s Palladia!” I found her at last. “My milliner, lost to us in Rome for three painful years, ever since she went to Palermo to set up for herself.”
I spoke to the girl without more ado:
“Palladia, don’t you remember me?”
“Perfectly, Signora. I have not seen you since the morning I brought you the hat with the primole for Pasqua.”
“And you would not have spoken to me?”
“Pardon me, Signora, may I fasten your veil? I feared you would not recall me.” We were shaking hands warmly now; she was my milliner again, I her client.
“If I bent the hat a little, so? That is more becoming.”
“You have done well in Palermo?”
“Discreetly; I am returning from Naples, where I have been to buy the new shapes, look over the modes. I have some beautiful French straw—if the Signora should come to Palermo?”
“Of course I shall come, just to get one of your hats. I haven’t had a decent one since you left Rome.” Palladia produced her card and, wishing each other buon viaggio, we parted at the dock, Palladia to take the train for Palermo, we to look for a cab.
“No one to meet us! They can’t have received letter or telegram,” said Patsy. “Just as well, nothing like taking our friends unawares. Now they won’t have time to smarten up for us.”
“Will that old rabbit-hutch hold us all?” I asked, looking distrustfully at the only vehicle in sight. The driver understood; he seized the wheel of the battered old cab and shook it violently to show how strong it was.
“This is a most excellent and signorial carriage, Signorino. It needs paint; why should it not? I dug it out myself from the ruins, and the horse too. That blessed animal has cost me a lot of fatigue. It was nine days before I could get him out, nine days sotto le macerie!”
“How much to the Case Americane?” asked Patsy.
“Two francs, Excellency, with a slight token for myself. The Comandante himself set the price. He drives with no other; I am the official coachman of the Americans.”
For a horse that had been nine days buried, the poor little rat of a pony drew the cab bravely through the Via San Martino, one smooth lake of yellow mud.
“There’s Old Glory!” shouted Patsy.
I had been so much taken up with looking back at the desolate streets, at the Tell Tale Tower, I did not know we had arrived at camp. Two Italian soldiers, on guard at the entrance, halted the cab.
“Stop, thou knowest thou canst go no farther,” said the elder, evidently a friend of the driver’s.
“What dost thou say? I, who drive to the door of the barracks four times every day at least! Mayst thou die of an accident!”
“Never, unless there is an officer in thy cab. These be strangers, without a written pass from the Comandante; they cannot enter!”
“Archpriest, I say! Mayst thou be stricken with—“
“Oh, come now, officer,” Patsy interrupted persuasively, “you will not make the lady walk through this mud! We are friends of the American Comandante. He expects us.”
The soldier was firm; we could not pass.
“Peace, I will inform the Sor Comandante,” said a new voice. It was Gasperone; I recognized him from J.’s description. He put his finger to his lips and tapped gently at the door of the small neat wooden cottage nearest the flag.
“Behold a lady and two gentlemen, who have driven up in a cab,” said Gasperone through the half-opened door. “Shall they be sent away or allowed to enter the camp?”
J., standing at his drawing-board, looked from the window.
“Good Lord,” I heard him cry, “they’ve come!”
Our plan was to spend the afternoon at the camp and push on that night to Taormina, an hour and a half distant by train. Captain Belknap received us most kindly and showed us about the camp. What had been accomplished was a miracle; the place had already begun to look like a neat, well laid out American village.
“We save every tree we possibly can,” said Belknap. “Each lemon tree brings an income of at least ten francs, the mulberries even more.”
Belknap and J. fought hard for the life of every tree that did not actually interfere with the construction of the buildings. Some of the streets have long lines of lemon trees, with here and there a fig tree. They saved a double row of shade trees, for which the guests at Hotel Regina Elena will some day bless them.
As we were inspecting the site of the hotel, the heavens opened and the flood descended. We hurried to the office for shelter and admired the trim row of ledgers, the typewriter, the letter scales, the red, white and blue silk cord that Uncle Sam makes for his own special service, all the tidy paraphernalia of the Chief’s workroom. I peeped into the drafting-room, partitioned off with a wooden screen from the office. It looked nice and professional, with sheets of architect’s paper, opaque white, semi-transparent blue, yellow tracing, compasses, T squares, all sorts of fascinating architectural tools. On the wall hung the neatly drawn plans of the hotel; on the drawing-board was the ground plan for the Queen’s hospital at Villaggio Regina Elena.
“May we look?” Patsy asked.
“If you will not touch,” J. glanced up from his work. “Mind that India ink!”
“I can’t let you go on to Taormina in such a tempest,” said Captain Belknap. “If you will put up with what we can offer, I should be glad to have you spend the night at the camp.” This was more than we had dared hope for; Patsy was in the seventh heaven.
“It’s a reward for bringing down the new recruit,” he whispered.
Brush, the “new recruit,” was sent almost immediately to Reggio, where Wilcox found him an invaluable assistant.
I was shown to my quarters—the room that had been Mr. Bicknell’s—in a small frame house, sixteen by sixteen. It was divided into two rooms by a wooden partition with a door; there was a well fitted window with a sash curtain in each room. Behind the house was the famous kitchen, of which we had heard so much. It is a tiny convenient place with a cement floor and walls, a stone table with little holes for the live charcoal, and grates to go over the fire. My room had a table, chair, washstand with jug, basin and pail. Gasperone brought me hot water and took my boots and dress to brush. In the corner of the room was a most ingenious and convenient bed. Some springy boards were nailed rather loosely to an upright head and footpiece; the boards were almost as good as a spring, the mattress and pillow of sea-moss were comfortable enough for anybody, not born in Sybaris.
I sat down and looked out of the window towards the tool house, the center of interest for the moment. The men had knocked off work, and were passing in file, very slowly, before the open window, where the paymaster sat, paying each man what was due him.
After our long journey, our harassing drive through ruined Messina—where the reality surpassed all descriptions—the exquisite neatness, the order, the comfort of the Zona Case Americane, brought a sense of well-being like oil poured on a burning wound. I sat for an hour in that fragrant little wooden room, while the rain drummed with soft fingers on the roof, and went over the history of our journey step by step, tested link by link the chain of chance circumstances that had drawn young Brush, the new recruit, from the garage in Florence to the camp by the Torrente Zaera.
The manner in which the whole American working party was brought together is well illustrated by the story. If Mr. Parrish had not been in Florence, if he had not hunted up Mr. Brush, if that letter from camp had not come the day we lunched at the Trattoria Aurora, we should not have had one of our most useful and faithful workers; and young Brush would have missed one of the great experiences of his life. Mr. Griscom felt that one of his practical difficulties was that all the help he could hope for must be drawn from the American colonies in Italy, the Government agents, consuls, artists and missionaries. If this was a difficulty—which I question—the way it was overcome both at the Embassy and the camp was magnificent. Whatever tool he had, Belknap worked with and found it a good tool. It may have been his nature—he is the kind of workman who never grumbles at his tools—but the character of the helpers surely counted for something. Our consuls were never found wanting. Bayard Cutting from Milan, though out of health at the time of the earthquake, went down to Messina with the first relief party, and from that time on he was faithful to the great work. Bishop at Palermo, Crowninshield at Naples, Smith at Genoa, did magnificent service, working day and night, without thought of sparing themselves. The spirit of the officials and volunteers was almost without exception altruistic. Every man was trying to help the other out; all were matched in the great race for service. Sailors, consuls, artists and missionaries have something in common surely; it was just that something that made them of so much use. They are not machines; they have not been warped and deformed by the commercial slavery that is sapping the life-blood of our people. Mammon, the slave-driver, may crack his whip; it does not frighten them. Their time is not money, it’s beyond price, so they spent it freely for their suffering brothers and never counted the cost.
J. had written that the nights were cold. I unpacked my hot-water bottle and my traveling rug; I was just on the point of calling Gasperone to fill the bottle, when J. looked in. His eyes brightened at the sight of the rubber bottle.
“Are you going to use this?” he asked.
“Oh, no! I always travel with it, in case of illness.”
“If you are sure, I will have it filled; Belknap’s taken cold. You brought the rug; will you need it?”
“No, no! There are plenty of blankets.”
“You think so? Then I will take this for him. Some of the men have been greedy about blankets; he has less than any man in the camp.”
“Take them, take them of course!” J. went off with bottle and rug; I piled every garment I had with me on my sea-moss bed and tucked myself up comfortably. What sort of man was this Chief who inspired such devotion?
It must have been after midnight, for the cocks were crowing, when I was awakened by the sound of gunshots, followed by loud shouts and the noise of hurrying footsteps. I listened, as I never listened before.
In the distance a dog bayed; some vagrant cur had escaped in spite of the stringent orders to shoot all dogs and cats on sight. The flash of a lantern next, the clank of a sword-belt as if one buckled on his weapon as he ran, more footsteps, at first light and hurrying, then slow and heavy,—the tread of men who carry a burthen: they passed the door, grew faint, were lost in the silence of the night. Through the upper uncurtained window-panes the haggard face of the gibbous moon looked from an angry sky.
I asked at breakfast what the commotion had been. No one had heard the noises of the night; it was suggested that I had been dreaming. Months after, Patsy told me what had happened.
“You remember the two soldiers who challenged us when we reached the camp? They had to keep a strict watch at night so that the building materials and tools should not be stolen. The soldier on duty fell asleep at his post. He was wakened suddenly by the steps of his comrade, come to relieve him; before he was fully awake he caught up his gun and shot the poor fellow, who, as it happened, was his best friend. I had it from the cab-driver, never a word of it at camp of course!”
That morning Patsy hunted up the Avvocato Bonanno, and through him made several interesting acquaintances. He lunched with some officers, and recognized among the dishes served certain canned meats sent out from America for the profughi.
“The Sicilian peasants simply won’t eat them; they’d rather starve,” Patsy explained. “The only thing to do with the quantities of tinned food we sent is to feed it to the army; they’re not so particular. Another time when we want to help such people in a plight like this, we should send flour and corn-meal and trust them to turn them into macaroni and polenta, their two staples of life. We’re so fond of change, so keen about new foods, that we give old standbys, like hominy and oatmeal, new fancy names every year, just to sell them. An American believes something new is better than anything old. An Italian only admits a thing good that has been so proven by the centuries. Have you room in your bag for this?” Patsy handed me a pound package of Salada Ceylon tea.
“Where did you get it?”
“Bought it! We sent these poor devils half a cargo of tea! They did not know what on earth it was good for, tried to smoke it, chew it, use it as snuff—no go! Finally they put it on sale; now foreigners in camp and on shipboard can buy it at a fair price! The money is put into coffee; that is the very breath of life to a Sicilian.”