by Leah Fleming
Clare looked up, puzzled, crunching her toast as the two women clung together. ‘More soldiers?’
113
Italy, 1944
You get used to anything given time, Roddy thought as he stumbled out of the cattle truck, blinking in the harsh sunshine, at another camp somewhere in the hills of Italy. He hoped it was better than the last transit camp, the one they called the ‘Film Studio’ somewhere outside Rome, and about as near as he would ever get to the Holy City.
After the ambush, it was hands up and a long march with dogs snarling at his heels. They were lucky not to have been shot on the spot but the German officer was an aristocrat of the old Prussian military school with some respect for the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, they’d been stripped of valuables – watches, cigarette lighters, rings – and kicked around as they stumbled through the rocky terrain, before being herded into cattle trucks and driven for miles without food or water until they’d arrived, exhausted, at a holding camp. Men were standing around looking at the new arrivals with bored curiosity.
There was a roll call of sorts, dividing them into sections: British, American, French and others. It was like some rancher’s roundup, being corralled into compounds. All he could think of was food and water.
They didn’t stay long before it was back into rail trucks heading north to yet another camp, smaller this time, remote with a stunning view of the mountains. This view was masked by barbed wire fencing, guard posts and guns, reminding everyone they were going nowhere fast. Roddy gathered that they were near a battered city called Arezzo, famous for its paintings, but that meant nothing to him. He was just glad to be out in the fresh air, trying to get used to the idea of being a prisoner of war.
To be in the power of the enemy, reliant on him for food and shelter, to have to obey his orders and his whims and fancies, was a constant humiliation. There were rumours of escapees being shot and any peasants who helped them meeting a similar fate; a grim prospect that wouldn’t change until the invading troops pushed the enemy back north out of Italy. Easier said than done, as Roddy knew only too well.
The faces of his fellow officers said it all: suntanned, lean, gaunt and edgy. How would he cope with the boredom of it all? How long before they went further north to Austria or Germany? He looked round to see if there were any others from his division, any familiar faces from the landings, from training days, accents from Akron or Ohio, even. No one.
Roddy was glad he didn’t have a girl back home, worried sick by him being posted missing. Will and his mother would know some time soon. That was enough. He trusted that she would write on receiving his Red Cross postcard telling them he was a prisoner of war but not injured. He’d been lucky. His colonel still lay on the mountainside where he fell. He would never leave Italy. What Roddy would give to be driving some huge truck down an interstate highway, king of the road, stopping at a diner for steak and fries. Will and the Freight Express business felt a thousand miles from where he was standing.
Their chow was some sort of pasta soup slop, topped up with rations from their Red Cross tins. Funny how food, however meagre, becomes the focus of all your thoughts when you’re hungry, he sighed. There was so much time to fill. Time and boredom were the enemies now.
Books sent in were passed around carefully, but they were instructional, religious, classical literature, not the sort of books most of the men wanted to read. Any port in a storm, though; anything to take the mind away from the present had to be welcome.
He was messed in the officer compound. They were a mixed bunch with stories to tell of their campaigns that after a week or two you could reel off word for word. Everyone had plans to escape, but without a decent smattering of the lingo it would be impossible to make a run for it. No one would get further than the road end before being recaptured. In fact, they’d have a better chance dressed in German uniform, so many of them being tall, fair, blue-eyed, but would then run the risk of getting their throats cut in some dark lane by the partisans known to be lurking in the hills.
There were classes in everything, from chess, Italian, Hebrew and Polish, animal husbandry, beekeeping, nautical knots and kite flying. If you had some sort of specialist knowledge, it was shared with someone to keep their minds off flinging themselves at the wiring and getting shot.
What could he offer but stories of trucking round the States, the best stopovers, tyre manufacturing and the history of the rubber industry in Akron? Surprisingly, he did have an audience at his talk. There were church services for the devout but they did not appeal to Roddy. After what he’d seen in battle he doubted any universal deity was in overall control of this war. All he could think of was getting out of this pen.
He did go to the Italian lessons on offer because he never knew when it might come in handy. The Italian-American priest who took the class was more American than Italian, but he made a decent stab at it.
Despite his misgivings about religion, Roddy liked what he saw about the padre, Father Frank. He was short and dark, younger than he, but with a gentle calm way about him. He’d saved the lives of two soldiers in a dugout. Even German soldiers drew the line at shooting priests giving the last rites. His latest idea had been to start up a music club with some records and a wind-up gramophone that had been sent into the camp. The music was mostly classical, of course, but it did the spirit good to listen and let the images roll over in one’s mind.
Today, they were listening to Dvorak’s New World’ Symphony, full of folksy tunes and spirituals that made Roddy yearn for the wide-open spaces of Ohio.
‘I’m thinking we should start a choir,’ said the padre. ‘We’re hoping to have a concert, a show of sorts. If I can get ten or twenty voices together, we could do a spot or two.’
‘Count me out,’ said the guy next to him. ‘Tone deaf, I’m afraid.’ Why then was he listening to music? Roddy pondered.
‘Can’t read music,’ said the next man, rising to leave.
‘Who said anything about music?’ laughed the priest. ‘We’ll just sing from memory until we get some sheet music sent over.’ He turned to Roddy. ‘How about you, Captain Parkes?’
Roddy was halfway through the door and held his hands up in horror. ‘The last time I did any singing in public I was in short pants,’ he laughed.
‘Where was that?’
‘Lichfield.’
‘Litchfield, Connecticut?’
‘No, Lichfield Cathedral in England. Be seeing you . . .’
‘Hold your horses. Sounds like I’ve got my first recruit, a choral scholar, no less.’ The padre went after him.
‘Hell – I mean, sorry – no, Padre. I’m not sure what will come out if I open my mouth now.’
‘None of us does, that’s the challenge. We’ll take what comes, Captain, and work on it.’
Suddenly it had become ‘we’. Roddy groaned. ‘Call me, Roddy, Padre.’
‘See you tonight at sundown, Captain Roddy. Might as well make a start. You never know what tomorrow will bring. We may have a Caruso hidden in our midst,’ he laughed, pleased with his new recruit.
How did I get myself into this? Roddy grumbled, knowing he’d turn up. What else was there to do in this hellhole?
Frank had finished his sick visits. There was a hospital of sorts, not very well equipped, but the doc eked out his first-aid kit and demanded they got their due supplies from Red Cross stores. He looked exhausted, in need of a rest himself.
‘You go and have a smoke,’ said Frank. ‘I can take over if you point out the ones who need attention.’
He’d heard confessions and written a brief note home for a guy who was flat on his back with fever. He was glad to be useful. The latrines here were a disgrace, little more than a board with holes in it, and the faeces were carried on the duckboards and into the huts no matter how careful they were.
‘It’s the infection I fear most, the big T, typhus,’ said the doc. It was hot. There were flies. The work parties in the fields came back sunburned, bit
ten and exhausted, but it gave the fittest men a chance to work off their frustration. Boredom was the true enemy here. No one knew anything of the outside world and what was going on. The latest arrivals to the camp were pounced upon for news of the coming Allied advance, but the push north was slow, too slow ever to overtake this place and set them free.
Frank was curious about the surrounding district. It was tantalizingly close to where his father had been born. He could not be far from the Bartolini farmstead. He tried to recall the letters that had come from his father’s family in Tuscany, how his father had said they had a smallholding clinging to the hillside near to the famous walled city of Anghiari, somewhere close to where Michelangelo was born. To be so near and yet so far . . . Why hadn’t he taken more notice of his family history?
There were a few locals in the employ of the camp after the declaration in September 1943 that split the Axis partners from each other. It had been a lax regime until the Germans had taken over and tightened security. There was a stand-off between the two sides now. There was an old priest who called on the commandant and was allowed to make contact with Frank. When he’d heard his surname was Bartolini, he’d offered, at great risk to himself, to make contact with the family through a secret network.
What was the point, though? Unless the Allies came soon the prisoners would be shipped north in trucks and he’d never get a chance to meet his father’s relatives. His choir was coming together, at least, with a bit of arm twisting, slow to gel in harmony. Captain Roddy had a decent bass voice, much to his surprise, and they’d found a few tenors. He was enjoying licking this motley crew into shape for the concert party, aiming for a barbershop harmony. They sang ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ and ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. Corny, but everybody knew those tunes.
He was getting along well with Roddy Parkes. They’d met at the lecture on the Titanic by some guy whose uncle had been on board, reeling off all sorts of facts and figures about the disaster. Most of the men had long forgotten the sinking. His lecture was as dry as dust until Roddy stood up and said, ‘My mom was on board,’ telling them the story of how she had befriended a woman and her baby in a lifeboat and how they had all ended up living in England together, and how he’d met the real ‘unsinkable Molly Brown’ in Washington, DC. They discussed how the First Class passengers got the best treatment while the Third Class men never stood a chance once the ship began to sink.
Frank had then chipped in with his own story. ‘I’m here too because of the Titanic. My father’s first wife, Maria, was lost on that ship.’ Frank added, ‘And his baby. They were never found, but my papa was convinced the baby lived because he found this.’ He pulled out the lace boot, grubby and crushed. ‘He still believes this was hers.’ He passed it round the men. ‘It was given to me for safekeeping. My papa says if it could survive the Atlantic it might stop me being seasick.’ He paused and then laughed. ‘It didn’t. I threw up all the way. I should throw it away but I won’t. It was some little kid’s shoe.’
‘Shoes are lucky. They put them in the roof of a house for protection. Don’t ask me why they just do,’ said one of the men in the audience.
Everyone began to talk about the myths and legends of that ship. How there was supposed to be a mysterious cursed Egyptian mummy on board, a safe full of stolen diamonds, and the ghosts of the riveters of Belfast hammering in the hold, accidentally trapped after their shift. It was after the lecture that Frank found himself in step with Roddy again.
‘Funny how we both have the Titanic in our lives,’ he remarked. ‘My mother is Irish and she lost her sister, my auntie Lou, on that ship. My parents met in church on one of the anniversaries.’
‘My mom left her husband and took me to England for a while to get away. She said it was seeing that ship go down that made her face facts and walk away. I know your Church doesn’t hold with divorce, but my father was cruel.’
‘It’s the Church that teaches against divorce, in theory, but I’m not sure I’d want to see my mum living with a wife beater. It was bad enough living with the portrait of my father’s first family on the wall like a precious icon. For years I thought we kids were second best. How can you ever compete with a dead baby?’
‘Is that why you became a priest?’ asked Roddy. He raised his eyebrows. This question was a bit of a cheek but he was curious.
‘Who knows? Could be. I never wanted to be anything else. My sister escaped into the theatre on Broadway; she’s just in the chorus but Patti’s got talent. Jack, on the other hand . . . well, that’s another story. We’re chalk and cheese. I suppose one of us brothers had to be the good guy. He’s out somewhere in the Pacific last time I heard.’
It was strange how camp living had made him share the sort of private stuff he’d not shared with his parishioners. Roddy was a fellow officer, someone he could identify with, an outsider with a glint of life still left in his eye, determined to survive.
‘I need to get out of here soon before they ship us north. I want to get back to my men. There’s still some fight left in me. I reckon if I walk south, I might make it,’ said the captain one night after rehearsal.
‘Not looking like that,’ replied Frank. ‘Locals can be slow coming over to our side. You look too American to get past the square, though it would be good for morale for someone to make a run for it.’
There was just a chance someone might help them find a safe place for Roddy and give Frank a chance to see his folks, if only for an hour or two. He couldn’t leave the camp. He wouldn’t leave his post, but to be so near and yet so far . . . Surely they could cover for him for an hour or two, if they were in the fields. It would take some plausible bribery and prayer to find Roddy a way out but it wasn’t impossible, given outside help. It was worth a try but he’d say nothing to raise hopes until he was sure.
114
Ella’s students were being clumsy this November morning, none of them grasping what she was demonstrating. All they could talk about was the huge explosion that had rocked the Midlands two days before, shattering windows everywhere, causing people to fear a rocket attack. Someone said an arsenal had been bombed. Others said a whole city had been blasted away. Lichfield shuddered with its impact as if an earthquake had struck, but there was nothing reported on the news.
Ella looked up at the skylight of the studio. A pool of light was streaming down onto the floor. It was funny how she no longer felt comfortable in this space, or in her own studio, both of which had been her boltholes, her creative space. Her studio at Red House was a mess now, an empty workshop, just a chilly broken barn. Her own half-finished work stood accusingly but she shut her eyes to it. It was no longer a place to linger, and now that much of her work had fallen on the floor, smashed by the quake, it summed up her feelings.
Here was her proper work, instructing young students in the rudiments of stonemasonry and carving at the art school. It paid the bills and she didn’t have to deviate from the syllabus: basic tool work, stone recognition, and carving and copying basic motifs. Her time was spent supervising and correcting the errors of the novices whilst watching the clock to see when it was time to return home. She would count down the days until the college holidays, looking forward to spending more time with Clare.
It was many months since that first news of Anthony and the return of his personal belongings that had been packed so neatly in a box.
Every item still smelled of his Players cigarettes: photos in silver frames with smudged fingerprints where he’d touched them, his books, socks, shaving kit. What a pitiable collection of objects to sum up a life. She still couldn’t bear to open the two letters he’d left: one for Clare and one for herself.
Condolence letters were still arriving from his friends’ parents and old schoolmasters; letters she painstakingly answered.
The hardest one to answer was from Captain Smith’s daughter, Mel Russell-Cooke, whose own son, Simon, had perished in the sea on a similar exercise to Anthony’s in March. How brave, stoic and
resolved his mother was, accepting that there was little hope of rescue after ditching in the sea in winter.
The best resource we find, and I’m sure you’ll do is in keeping busy. I’m driving ambulances in London, digging for victory in the garden and helping out in the village, but you must know only too well how to deal with such a terrible loss, my dear.
I am not dealing with it, Ella sighed. I’m just putting it out of mind, pretending it never happened, pretending that my husband will walk through the door any minute and that all this is just a nightmare. She paced up and down trying not to get exasperated by the feeble efforts in front of her. Work, work, work, yes, that was the answer. At least Roddy was safe, even if he was in a POW camp somewhere in Italy. They’d received only two postcards but had sent Red Cross comforts parcels as often as they could.
When would this bloody war end? Hadn’t they all suffered enough? The Allies had landed in Normandy, in Italy, in the South of France, but still the wretched battles kept raging. Would Clare ever know any other life? Ella felt so bitter inside, so angry and frustrated that the colour had gone out of her world. The joy of being loved and cherished was over. It was so unfair. How would she ever thaw out into a semblance of the woman she had once been?
Archie was returned from Portsmouth to Celeste. Selwyn went on his own merry way, drinking far more than was good for him. Hazel was counting the days until her husband returned from the Far East. Ella felt resentful and jealous of them all.
Catching a glimpse of herself in the glass of the cupboard was a shock. I don’t like you very much. She sighed realizing sadness had aged her. There were dark circles under her eyes, lines across her brow. The first grey hairs were streaking through her unruly mane, habitually tortured into a severe bun. What was the point? There was no one to dress up for and Clare didn’t mind how she looked. She’d stopped visiting Museum Gardens and Captain Smith. He was only a lump of bronze, after all. How stupid to make a statue the recipient of all your hopes and dreams as her mother had done.
