by Leah Fleming
There was nothing they could do for those men in the wreckage. The fire service would see to their bodies. Tonight some poor mother would receive a telegram telling her the worst had happened. All over the world such telegrams were winging their way to families. What if her Roddy ended up like that?
They drove back into Lichfield in silence. The outing that had begun with such jollity had now ended in sadness.
‘Are you all right?’ Celeste whispered to Ella. ‘It can’t be Anthony. He’s transferred to Coastal Command now.’ Not that this was any comfort to Ella. He was being stationed further north and she couldn’t stay with him often.
‘I know, but to be so close to such a horrible thing. It brings it all home. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to live a normal life.’ Ella was close to tears.
‘It’ll end one day and we’ll soon forget the bad times, you’ll see,’ Celeste lied, knowing she’d never forgotten those terrible images of the Titanic splitting in two and the screams of the dying in the water. They still haunted her dreams.
When they reached Red House, the door was wide open and Selwyn was hovering in the doorway with a strange look on his face.
‘What’s happened?’ Celeste asked. ‘Is it Archie?’ She felt weak at the knees, fearing the worst.
Selwyn broke into a grin. ‘Nothing like that. We’ve got a visitor.’
‘But I’ve got nothing in the house but leftovers,’ she began. She was so tired she couldn’t be bothered with entertaining, not after what they had just witnessed.
But there, standing in the hall, she glimpsed a tall officer in American uniform, his cap cocked over his eyes at a rakish angle.
‘Hi, Mom.’
‘Roddy, oh, Roddy.’ She fell into his arms, all weariness instantly forgotten. My son has come home at last. Oh, thank you, thank you, she prayed.
‘The last time I saw you, you were in short pants,’ Ella laughed. ‘Look at you now, the all-American Boy. I can’t believe it’s over twenty years ago.’
‘And you were a pain in pigtails,’ he quipped, eyeing her up and down. ‘And who is this little beauty?’
‘This is Clare. Say hello to your uncle Roddy.’ But Clare clung onto her, burying her face in her shoulder. ‘She’s just shy; she’ll get used to you. I can’t believe it’s you! How did you pitch up here?’
‘By courtesy of Uncle Sam, First Class all the way across the Atlantic, zigzagging to avoid the U-boats. What a trip! Half the guys spent it retching over the side. Not quite the Cunard liner-style in luxury but we got to Liverpool in one piece. My God, what a sight for sore eyes that was, battered but still standing, like most of Britain, from what I’ve seen. I pulled a string or two, and got some leave to see my folks. I just had to see Mom.’
‘I could’ve walked past you in the street. You’re so American. Nothing wrong with that, of course,’ she added hurriedly, ‘but some of the guys stationed here are a bit rich. Candy for the kids, and nylons for the girls . . . with conditions,’ she winked, ‘if you catch my drift?’
‘Don’t worry, I bought candy for the baby but nothing for you.’ He held out some chocolate in his hand. Clare didn’t need any persuading to grab it from him, her shyness miraculously gone.
Later, they walked down Market Street, pushing Clare in her folding pushchair.
‘I’ve never seen Celeste so happy as when she walked through the door and saw you,’ said Ella. ‘You are the best gift of all for her. She worries about you.’
‘I know, but I’m here now. Don’t know where next.’ Roddy looked round in amazement. ‘Nothing seems to change much but it’s all so much smaller than I recall.’
‘How could it change? There’s a war on. We’re all routine bound. Funny how life just goes on, war or not.’
‘And your new husband?’ Roddy smiled. ‘You were pretty quick off the mark,’ pointing to the pushchair.
‘Why not? Babies are our future, our hope for a better future. Are any of yours on the streets of Akron?’
He looked down at her with a sheepish grin. ‘Not that I know of,’ he replied. ‘You’ve changed too.’
‘I should hope so. I’m a mother now.’ They were ambling in the direction of Cathedral Close. ‘Remember this? We used to come in here to hear you sing.’
‘Sure. It feels like that was a lifetime ago. Reading our newspapers, I was expecting the whole country to be flattened. This looks untouched.’
‘Don’t be fooled, we’ll all be touched before this is over. At least we’re doing something across the Channel now, giving the enemy a dose of their own medicine. But let’s not talk about the war. How long do we have to put up with your bad jokes?’
They paused to look up at the familiar façade of the West Front.
‘I’ll be off tomorrow. I don’t know where, of course, all hush-hush.’
‘So soon?’ Ella felt sad as she made for the West Door. ‘Want to go in, for old times’ sake?’
‘Why not? Who knows when I’m back again? Might as well have a last look at the old place. Do you remember how Grandpa Forester always had sweets in his cassock pocket? If you fidgeted, he gave you a mint ball to suck on.’
‘I liked his liquorice Imps, those tiny tic-tacs that hit the back of your throat to help you sing better. He was such a nice old man and he was so kind to my mother.’
‘Mom wrote to me about May. I should have written but I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I’m glad she told you. I do miss her, especially here,’ Ella added, walking along the aisle.
‘I miss not having Mom in my life too,’ he replied as he followed her.
‘I feel so happy to have Clare and Anthony, and the Foresters too,’ she continued. ‘Your mother’s been wonderful.’ She stopped and turned to face him, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Why did you leave us?’ She asked the question that had been unspoken for years.
‘I didn’t. I never intended to go with Pa but it all got out of hand, and I was too young to realize what he was doing until it was too late.’
‘But you could have come back with Celeste. We missed you.’
‘I know, I was young and didn’t think, and later on it wasn’t that simple. There was Grandma. She was having a rough time with my father’s drinking. I just stayed until it was too late to return and now I have my business to go back to.’
‘So I hear, and very successful too. Never thought of you as a truck driver.’
‘Don’t be such an English snob,’ he laughed. ‘I’m an officer now,’ he tapped his lapels. ‘So behave yourself.’
They walked around the rest of the cathedral in silence, just like any other tourists, feet echoing on the stone slabs. Everything of value had been boarded up and removed, and it felt cold and empty. Ella was glad to be back outside in the sunshine.
‘Time to go back. Mrs Allen’s Woolton pie awaits us, I fear. You have been warned.’
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ Roddy said.
She looked up at him, puzzled. ‘What?’
He was pointing across the Close to the narrow entrance on Beacon Street. ‘We have to complete the tour, if I’m not mistaken, and go to Museum Gardens to see that old sea dog.’
‘Captain Smith! I thought you would have forgotten him by now?’
‘Never. We must do the whole tour. Without him, neither of us would be here to tell the tale,’ he insisted.
It was as if they’d taken up where they had left off all those years ago. Her big brother was back on form. ‘Now let me tell you how I met the captain’s real daughter. You’ll never believe this.’
Roddy pushed Clare as Ella filled him in with her story unaware that he was eyeing her with renewed interest. She would stop the traffic at his base with those looks. Perhaps if he’d stayed in England who knew . . . he sighed. Now she was spoken for and out of bounds. Served him right for leaving his return so long.
110
The Italian Campaign, 1943–44
‘Hit the dirt, Padre!’ yel
led a voice from a foxhole as a mine detonated close by. Frank jumped, automatically covering his head, his face flat down in the mud as he prayed. He knew combat was no respecter of dog collars. He was well blooded now, and bone-achingly tired. The Anzio landings had been easier than they thought, but now they were bogged down after a German counterattack, pinned down against strong defence lines.
The fighting to liberate North Africa seemed a long time ago and so many of his comrades had been lost along the way, blown up, shelled and ground down by overwhelming fatigue. Now a quick route from Naples to Rome was not going to happen. It was going to cost them dear.
His colonel often joked that Frank had taken to battle like a monk to prayer. But he was so numb and felt more and more like an automaton as he jumped from one muddy foxhole to the next, bent double in case of snipers. He’d taken to wearing a Red Cross brassard around his arm. It had already saved the lives of men stuck out there alone, wounded or dying, when he went to give them the last rites, or carry them back. Not all the enemy was heartless. Some infantry soldiers respected the skill and sacrifices made by the other side and held their fire. Others didn’t.
Now, after the last bombardment, he must scour the battlefield for dead and wounded on both sides, dragging the living on his back to safety. It was the least he could do. They were family, brothers in arms, they needed him, but he wondered how long he could keep up his strength, not to mention his courage. The shells of Anzio Annie were coming closer, and his prayers were getting more fervent as he crouched. ‘Better pray us out of here, Father,’ someone yelled.
This was his life. Side by side with the men as they fought their way northwards in clothes that never dried, sodden boots, sleeping on mud, fortified only by dried ‘C rations, since they arrived in Italy. How could anyone sleep in a blanket and shelter when they were waistdeep in water and mud, gunfire their lullaby?
Later he would perform his daily ritual of removing dog tags from the corpses, trying to match their identity, sometimes with so few remains. Ever present was that overwhelming sweet stench of death in his nostrils. Waiting with the bodies as trenches were dug was the worst bit. There were so many sometimes that they were stacked up like logs. They laid the remains in neat rows, arms and legs buried as best they could, adding them to bodies that were limbless. Each burial service got harder when so many young boys he knew were snuffed out in a split second of mortar shelling or by a sniper’s bullet. The slaughter here was more like a massacre.
Sometimes there was only a thumb left with which he could make a decent print for identification. Looking over the row, Frank felt a part of his heart was dying with each burial, each familiar face. How could he say blessings over such a waste of youth? But it was his job. When the canvas covered over the temporary grave it was time to face the mountains of condolence letters he must write. Sometimes he was so weary his pen just wouldn’t move and he stared into space for hours on end, praying for the strength to repeat this baleful duty all over again. They were hunkered down under the mighty guns from the Alban Hills, unable to break through. Only an aerial bombardment would destroy the menace of this advantageous placement. The enemy’s sights were fixed on any movement on the beachhead, making progress impossible.
If he managed to sleep, nightmares would haunt his dreams; he’d see a boy clutching the Union flag, pleading to live. ‘Don’t let me die, Padre. I don’t want to die.’ There was nothing he could do but hold the boy’s hand as his eyes glazed over into blessed unconsciousness. Frank saw once more the German soldier who had held a photo of his child to his lips, crying. ‘Father, help me, hear my confession.’ He had prayed over him, giving him the last rites as he would to any of his men. How did he know whether the man was here out of choice or drafted, coerced, sick of war and pain and battle?
Some of his troops cursed when they saw him approaching – ‘Get out! Go some place else. We want none of you’ – but they were the exception. Mostly they were relieved when he turned up like a dog sniffing the scent of where they were hiding, handing over mail, delivering messages, listening to their complaints or just sitting with them, having a smoke.
The toll on his fellow chaplains was beginning to show and there were few replacements. The Catholic priests never filled their quota. Those remaining felt they weren’t doing enough, unable to reach all the men who needed them. For every moment of action there was an hour of boredom and waiting, when services could be held to give men strength and hope.
Frank was hoping the next push would lead them north. He wanted to visit the Holy See, listen to Italian voices delirious at their liberation. His father’s language rang in his ears. There would be a few precious days of leave and recuperation while they caught up with all the bureaucracy that was demanded of them. But while he was away, who would take his place? There was no time for the luxury of grand silences and spiritual retreat into some monasteries. He would take off only as much time as these men, not an hour more. How could he look them in the eye if he returned well fed, in clean uniform, refreshed when they were exhausted?
He wondered how Paul, one of the Jesuit fathers whom he’d met on training, was faring further up the line. He envied the Jesuits their military discipline. They had a head start over him and they were the largest cohort of Catholic priests out here, close to the men yet set apart by their calling. He’d seen such bravery from them, such sacrifices. They were just human, after all, fallible, fearful men, wondering who would make it to the next Mass or how many of their men would ever return back home. Fear was a great leveller.
As he ducked into his foxhole he felt ashamed to find himself touching the little talisman deep in his pocket, the scarpetta d’Angelo, the baby shoe. At first it had smelled of home and the scent of Mamma’s soap. Now it was grubby with dust and mud from his fingers, but it was still there and so was he.
His men viewed him as indestructible. ‘Stick with Father Frank, he’ll see you right,’ they’d say, introducing rookie replacements to him with a grin.
They looked on him as a kindly parent, even though he was not much older than many of them. The Cross on his lapel set him apart but not so far apart that they couldn’t joke and fool around in his presence. There was time for personal stuff, talking about a letter from home with bad news, a boy with a niggle in his groin that meant a trip to the VD clinic and subsequent confession. He looked over them as they prepared to defend their trench, knowing mothers had laboured to bring these boys into the world, had brought them up with care.
There must be a better way than this, he prayed. When this war was over he’d work to make sure no more boys had to pay such a price as the lads at the Anzio beachhead. Being in the forefront of battle had changed all his views, opened his mind to the possibility that just because a man wasn’t born a Catholic he was destined for Hell. There were good men of all faiths and none, living brave lives here. They were on the right road too. Nothing was black or white any more. If he got out of here alive, how would he ever be able to settle back into the old rigid beliefs?
‘Anzio Annie is giving us hell again, Padre,’ yelled another voice, suddenly blotted out by a huge explosion and cries for help. It was time to go over the top and search them out. Frank scrambled to his task, trying not to let his hand shake as he crossed himself. ‘In mano tuo, Domine,’ he prayed, crawling on his belly for what seemed miles in the direction of the moaning.
If there was one thing he hated it was to hear a boy crying out in pain with no one to administer morphine. Dying alone in a crater didn’t happen on his watch if he could help it.
Bullets whizzed past him, but on he crawled. His men said he was their bird dog, able to sniff out the wounded by instinct. He didn’t know about that. It was more dogged fear and determination that made Frank crawl on as the voice in front of him grew weaker even as he drew closer. He saw two boys hunkered down, one shot through the head, his eyes staring at the sky in surprise, the other shivering in shock and clutching his belly.
There
was no time to waste. Pressing the first-aid pad onto the wound and giving him a shot of morphine, Frank just had time to close the eyes of the dead boy and say a few words of prayer as best he could. ‘No, Father, he’s Jewish,’ the injured boy whispered only half conscious. So Frank prayed the Shema over him, suddenly aware of a shadow blocking his light. When he looked up he saw the muzzle of a rifle and the grey-green pants of an enemy soldier, watching him. Then he heard the words that chilled his heart: ‘For you, Father, the war is over.’
111
Italy, 1944
Captain Roderick Parkes stared up at Death Mountain, his hands frozen to his binoculars, eyes half shut with fatigue after night upon night of a sleepless bombardment. For two months they’d been stuck here right in the firing line from the fortress on the Apennines. What a hellhole of slaughter it had been with some battalions now down to single figures. How much more punishment could they stand before they snatched Santa Maria Infante, the surrounding hills and moved northwards?
Now the roar of engines roused a thin cheer as bombers flattened the ancient fort, buildings crumbling to dust and ashes before them. It was the only way.
Roddy was hoping for news of a breakthrough at Anzio, but they were pinned down and Rome hadn’t fallen yet. Their own push had ground to a halt, stuck in this godforsaken mud, scrabbling for cover, but just glad to be alive.
He stared up at the barrier of mountains, knowing it would take weeks to clear them. Why had he volunteered when he could have been sitting safe back home? Was it for just this moment, for the chance to look death in the face, to lead his men to slaughter, to live like filthy animals exposed to frost and snow and covered in vermin? Was this what it was all about? This Italian campaign felt like a forgotten front, all mud, mules and mountains. They’d spent a miserable Christmas holed up in a bombed-out chapel and someone had started out playing ‘Silent Night’ on a mouth organ. He’d felt such a pain of sadness and longing for home. As these weary troops bowed their heads, he sensed tears flowing, the fear that so many would never see home again.
