The pressure from the Germans was building and the fighting became more ferocious. In the evenings, when we felt safer, we sat in front of the fire and prayed together. We were in Pietro Mattoscio’s farmhouse and the women from the other farms around came to join us for prayers. We exchanged stories and I remember one where they told of an old man, in his eighties, who, when the Angelus rang, used to take off his hat and embrace a tree shaped like a cross and recite a prayer in dialect. When he had said his prayer, he would put his hat back on. What a wonderful profession of real faith.

Otherwise we talked about politics. There were no fascists among us, or at least no-one who would admit to it. In fact, basically, we were all ignorant as far as politics went. We knew about fascism and communism (the latter because it was opposed to the former). We knew vaguely about liberalism, but mainly through freemasonry. We had all been educated in fascist schools. To tell the truth, I had opposed the war from the outset. I was president of Azione Cattolica and when the fascists began to campaign against the religious activities of Azione Cattolica (1938) I began to feel that I was antifascist, but I was rather confused about the issues.

Among the fugitives at Pastini there were two men from San Remo, Lorenzo Pastorini and his son, and the two Cicchini brothers from Roccascalegna. These two liked to talk from the socialist point of view. One of the two seemed to have very clear ideas about socialism and he would turn theories about the regime on their head, drawing distinctions between socialism and communism. I argued with him about philosophy: I quoted Marx, and communism, and superficially I could distinguish the various types of socialism. These were the sorts of arguments which would take place for real later on when we could have elections, but at the time they were conducted with liberality and friendship. We Catholics were less clear about what to do on a political level, but we were very clear about doctrinal issues. We talked about Peguy, Ozanam, Gide, Bloy ....

About this time, British prisoners who were trying to escape towards Bari began to pass through the area. One of them asked me for a drawing of the castle at Roccascalegna which I had made during one of my idle moments.

On December 4 the village was destroyed. From Rio Secco we could see the houses being blown up and soon after the people whose houses had been destroyed started arriving. We fugitives also did whatever we could to help the people who had lost everything. We went up to help them and all we saw was tears and despair. We saved whatever we could carry from the village: beds, mattresses, pillows, blankets, crockery and furniture.

The fascist spy from Paglieta was caught too. What should we do with him? We decided to form a four or five man delegation with Cibotti as leader, to hand the man over to the British. But during the journey we were caught in cross fire between the British and the Germans. So we turned back, carrying some rifles and ammunition which we had found in the fields. We locked the man in one of the rooms while we decided what to do. Some wanted to kill him. But others, especially the women, were moved to pity for the young man who was absolutely petrified and kept crying for mercy saying he was really sorry. One of them deliberately left the door open so he could escape and flee southwards. The others were very angry but basically everybody thought he was just a poor unfortunate fanatic. And anyway, if he had stayed with us he would just have been a weight around our necks and we would never have been able to trust him. The other possibility was to kill him but nobody wanted to do that.