He came into the medical orderly’s room timidly; first his umbrella, then the rest of him. Seeing us- the orderly sergeant and I were officially inspecting the sink- he stopped. He was perhaps not so old as he looked, but his small figure, his thin beard, his round spectacles, and his respectable dark suit showed that he belonged to the Institute d’Arte which provided our company with billets.

I greeted him in French, and he asked whether M’sieu Pratt, our medical corporal, was in. I said that he was out, but could I help him? His shyness eased slightly when he saw that although an officer I did not bite. He had called because the kind M’sieu Pratt was going to help him move a plaster-cast. He led the way into the next room.

Here plaster-casts of Roman heads, of women, children, wolves, and stray limbs littered walls and benches. The company had treated the art school carefully. Rooms had been cleared of pictures and casts before they were used as sleeping-rooms and, apart from an occasional orange in the open mouth of the wolf on the landing and a tin hat, a pipe, and a pair of spectacles on Nero, the Sappers were proving to be considerate guests. The room to which the old man led us, tapping his way carefully with his umbrella, was a reserved room, “Out of bounds” to troops. Here he pointed to a brown-paper parcel. No parcel has ever looked more like a parcel of a head of Julius Caesar. There was also a leg he wished to take and a baby’s head. He explained that the Professor- he spoke with respect and awe- was too ill to come, and he wished to take these things to the Professor, with whom he lived. He himself was, he explained, a sculptor.

I remarked that the parcel of Caesar’s head was heavy for him. “I was robust and big before,” he said, “but now . . .” He indicated the discrepancy between the size of the top of his respectable trousers and his own waist. Truly there was room for two of him. His jacket sagged.

“The Professor is very ill; he can not stand,” he said, “but I can manage.” I doubted that.. “We get only six grammes of bread every twenty-four hours. One can buy in the Black Market, but the Professor and I, we cannot go out and act so.” I save him a cigarette, and his gratitude was embarrassing. He sucked the smoke into his mouth avidly, blowing long thin streams upwards. The dubious answer “You should have thought of this four years ago” did not seem to apply to the courteous and courageous sculptor.

It was wrong for the orderly officer to keep the orderly sergeant waiting in his rounds to give cigarettes to civilians. But we erred still more by offering to fetch some volunteer sappers from the canteen to carry the casts to the Professor’s flat. But that would do tomorrow; M’sieu Pratt would assist him. He seemed unwilling to trouble us. I overcame his good manners enough to persuade him to accept a packet of cigarettes and we escorted him tapping slowly on the tiled floor, out of the room and down the stairs to the entrance hall. Here he went into the porter’s lodge, opposite to our Q. stores, for war makes strange neighbours.

The orderly sergeant and I went into the dining-hall after inspecting the guardroom and the prisoners. Here we watched steak-and-kidney pudding being dolloped into mess tins, which then received potatoes, carrots, and a piece of Yorkshire pudding.  Then the other mess tin was filled with stewed dried fruit and custard. Each sapper took a segment of a round loaf and, balanced deftly a mug of tea, and went off. There were no complaints, though someone considered the bread a little hard.

As we watched the food the pair of us thought of the Professor and our new acquaintance, with their six grammes of bread for twenty-four hours. Obviously the Army’s rules were reasonable; if troops could give or sell or barter Army rations to civilians the Army would go short, and shipping space is precious.  And although if a soldier gave one tin of bully to a civilian it might make no difference, one pace begins a journey of ten thousand miles. It was a wise instruction, then, that food shall not be given to civilians. And, even if we did not see any reason in the rule, an order is an order.

So that when the orderly sergeant and I reached the privacy of the yard where we inspected the swill bins we both looked guilty as we each produced a few crusts of bread from our pockets. “Go and fetch him, sergeant,” I said, “and be discreet.”

The little old man came, inquiringly, and we waited until two sappers tipped the contents of their mess tins into the bucket and went off, I stammered and blushed. It was nothing, please excuse us, a handful of crusts, quite fresh bread, we understood things were difficult, please to say nothing to anybody. It was forbidden. Such a small thing if he would be so good.

He was so good. His eyes, pale behind the strong lenses of his spectacle filled. He put the five crusts into his pockets and pulled out the flaps. He wrung my hand, and would make haste to the Professor. We were “gentile,” it was like the English; about the other, he understood, all the world would come else,

We watched him go off, tapping his way at double speed, towards the Professor.  The sergeant and I were silent.  “That’s all, thank you, sergeant, Er- better keep this to ourselves. I’ll meet you in the dining-room for tea.” He saluted very efficiently and I went to the mess, to eat far too large a dinner.
David Scott Daniell
The Manchester Guardian; Feb 16 1944