I’m just south of Rimini, and I am writing this letter surrounded by Greeks! I spied an artillery battery and wandered over to the command post – 8th Army is clearing the approaches to the city, which are full of paratroopers and dug-in tanks – only to be met with a lot of yelling and screaming. Apparently the field I’d just strolled across was in the sights of a German machine gun. I suppose they must have been having a nap. The bloke in charge, a captain, was pretty cross with me, especially when he discovered I was, of all things, a painter. But then it turned out we’d been in different parts of the same battle in ’41, up in the mountains. After that we got on like a house on fire. They have reasonably good coffee and a splendid view of the German lines. Lots of chat about Greece. It turns out that Captain Leventis and his men are all diehard royalists. They seem to think they’re fighting for the return of their king, and that all this other stuff is just a distraction. The captain even told me, with a rather unsettling gleam in his eye, that EAM were as bad, ‘no, worse, than the Germans’. I asked if they knew any rembetika songs and they looked at me as if I’d turned into Stalin himself. Instead they sung me something that sounded robustly patriotic, though I couldn’t understand the words. That sort of music all sounds the same, somehow. I think they’ve forgiven me now. I’m going with them when they attack tomorrow. I want to fight beside Greeks, just once.