Free And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat Page A

intervals between men. The farm track soon brought us to a narrow dirt road meandering northward over a sun-baked coastal plain between cactus hedges aflame with yellow flowers. These garish blossoms together with the red-tiled roofs of the scattered stone farm buildings provided the only splashes of colour in an otherwise achromatic landscape. As the sun climbed higher, even the blue sky blanched to hueless pewter. Parched grapevines and stunted grain crops in a patchwork of minuscule fields along our way showed only the faintest wash of green through layers of floury dust. The whole countryside seemed to be an incipient desert and no living creature was anywhere visible except for an occasional high-soaring vulture, sharp-eyed for carrion. People and farm animals which might have been expected to inhabit this arid land were nowhere to be seen. As we halted by the roadside for a few minutes’ rest, I drew Al Park’s attention to the absence of humanity.
    He grinned. “No mystery, Squib. They’ve all buggered off to the good ole U.S. of A. And you sure as hell can’t blame ’em!”
    Alex came lumbering up, his face flaming in the heat.
    “Mowat! Get off your butt! Take a patrol to that bunch of buildings over there. Something’s moving.”
    Corporal Hill and his section joined me and cautiously we made our way across some desiccated vineyards into a field which was, incredibly, covered with huge, ripe watermelons. I heard a thuck and turned to see A.K. Long’s face disappearing into a dripping chunk of melon.
    “For Christ’s sake!” I hissed. “You think you’re at a fair? Drop that bloody thing!”
    “No harm, sir,” Long replied gently. “Here, have a slice yourself.”
    The temptation was irresistible. With a guilty glance to assure myself that Alex and the rest of the company could not see us, I joined my men who were now squatting like schoolboys in the middle of the melon patch. Somebody handed me a piece and I was just taking my first juicy bite when a raucous voice bellowed:
    “Yew ovah theah! Which side yew on?”
    From behind the shelter of a low stone wall at the edge of the melon field, three strapping big men wearing camouflage uniforms had materialized, and they were covering us with automatic rifles. For one awful moment I took them to be German paratroopers, then I recognized the insignia on their shoulder patches.
    “Canadians! We’re on your side!” I bawled.
    “Goddamn good thing, buddy. Else yew all be daid shitheads by now!”
    They were survivors of a U.S. airborne division which was to have landed fifty miles to the westward of our beaches. But having been dropped with haphazard abandon during the night, the luckier parachutists had been strewn like confetti across much of southern Sicily, while scores of their unluckier comrades had landed in the sea.
    Before we parted—we to rejoin our company and they to make their way down to the beach, which we assured them was now in Allied hands—I made an exchange with one of them: my .38 Smith and Wesson revolver (about as useful in modern warfare as an arquebus) for his .30-calibre semi-automatic carbine. This weapon was something the like of which none of us had ever seen before, and its possession subsequently made me an object of much envy. On one occasion the batman of the lieutenant colonel commanding the Royal Canadian Regiment stole it from me for his boss. But he reckoned without Doc, who not only tracked the weapon down and got it back but also extracted a priceless bottle of Haig and Haig from the RCR as hush money.
    Alex was not pleased when I reported back to him.
    “First it’s Limey commandos,” he complained. “Now it’s flaming Yanks! Next it’ll be the Mounties’ Musical Ride! Where the devil’s the en emy?”
    Able Company set out to see if it could find him some.
    With Paddy Ryan and his platoon leading, we marched steadily inland, apparently alone in an abandoned world. It was a most peculiar sensation. The