by Mary Contini
‘I’m sorry. Alfonso, I’m sorry.’
He stroked her hair.
‘Non ti preoccupare. You know I love you all. I’m sorry too. I just tried my best.’
Standing on the dock waiting to board the ferry at Calais, Olivia felt very frightened. This ship looked much bigger than the one on which they had crossed on the way out. It was dark and threatening. The dock was full of soldiers, French and British, with packs and knapsacks jammed with supplies.
Long queues of families wound their way back up the road, with carts laden with everything they owned: pots, pans, blankets, suitcases, bicycles strapped at the side. Olivia noticed many groups of children on their own, labels hanging round their necks. Italian, Polish, Belgian. There were many children, both ragged and well dressed, standing forlorn, hand in hand, reassuring each other.
In Rome a few of the older boys had been told to keep their guns, just in case they needed them. This had frightened the girls more than anything. Why would a fifteen-year-old boy need a gun? How would he even know how to use it?
They had travelled a different way back on the train, through Genoa and Nice, nearer to the coast. They were so glad to be going home that they had tried not to pay attention to the long columns of soldiers marching inland, the ugly grey tanks with gun barrels pointing out aggressively, and the aeroplanes criss-crossing the sky like an orderly, ominous flock of birds.
The camp leader showed the guards and customs officers his communal passport for the 384 children. The guards were not happy. They wanted identification as proof that the children that they were taking out were the same ones that they had brought in. But there was no solution to this as there was no detailed list. Three ships sailed without them before the Italian Consul from London finally contacted the French border police to gain permission.
It was almost dark when they left the shores of France. The girls stood at the railing on deck, innocent little Fascist holiday-makers, desperate to return home to an uncertain fate. Alert, they heard some adults talking.
‘We’ll be lucky to get off this ship alive.’
‘The soldiers said there’s a real risk of us getting scuppered by a U-boat.’
Mines and submarines could blow them into the sky. Planes overhead could bomb them and blow them into the sea.
The crossing terrified Olivia more than anything in her life. As the sky darkened and the ship lurched in the swell, she was overcome with a premonition of danger. The noises around her – whispering, seagulls, fog horns, sirens – faded into a dull background buzz. The crippling knot in her stomach was the only sensation she felt.
In the event they crossed safely, with no sign of the dangers that had haunted her. After an overnight wait on the dock at Dover and a slow train journey up to Edinburgh, she arrived home.
She felt traumatised and exhausted. She hadn’t closed her eyes for forty-eight hours, fearful of slipping into unconsciousness and never waking up again.
When eventually she stepped down onto the platform she looked around her, dazed and confused. She stretched her back and neck to ease the aching from sitting huddled on the floor of the packed train.
‘Olivia? Olivia? Carissima.’
She looked up. There was her father. She was safe.
She fell forward into his arms and burst into tears.
26
Cockenzie
1939
Cesidio was sitting on the rocks. His eyes were drawn to a small fishing vessel off to the east. It was probably the Day Spring. He had seen John Dickson sail this morning when he had been at the harbour at Port Seton looking for fish. He said he was going to the Isle of May and would be back by the afternoon. Cesidio would go along and see the catch. He needed four stone of haddock at least.
It was a lovely autumn afternoon; the sea was like glass and the coast of Fife was clearly visible in the distance.
He reached for his rosary beads in the pocket of his white apron. He sat quietly, thoughtful in prayer. He often came down here to think. It was very peaceful, with an ever-changing horizon depending on the weather and the time of year. Sometimes he thought it was even more beautiful than home in Italy.
The war had arrived on their doorstep. Yesterday German planes had flown overhead, dropping bombs near the Forth Railway Bridge. A locomotive had been crossing the bridge at the time but the bomb had luckily missed.
Last night news came through that a battleship had been sunk off the west coast. This afternoon the Evening News ran photographs of missing seamen, long lists of names of men lost at sea. Marietta had shown him a picture of one of the fishermen from Port Seton. They had both been shocked.
‘Those poor boys; they look no older than nineteen or twenty, no older than Johnny. How unbearable for their families: imagine having to look down a list to see if your son’s name is on it. Please God we never have to face that.’
They had heard about it first on the news at nine o’clock last night.
‘HMS Royal Oak sunk in Scapa Flow, eight hundred lost.’
Everyone in the shop had stood still. Many of the young men had already been called up, most into the Navy because of their experience at sea. Some of their boys could have been on the ship and might be lost. It was barely six weeks since the war had started and already the losses were mounting up.
Most of the fishermen in the shop had fought or lost friends in the last war. They’d been down this road before.
‘Bloody wars!’ One of the fishermen kicked the side of the counter in frustration.
Usually Marietta operated a no-swearing policy, almost impossible among these men used to a harsh life at sea. Offshore almost every other word was an expletive. But this time she had let it go. She had felt exactly the same herself.
Reports this morning said that a German U-boat had slipped through the defences in Scapa Flow and blown the Royal Oak out of the water. The older fishermen were angry. The Admiralty should have had better defences set out before they left ships in anchor.
Anna came down to the rocks looking for her father. She sat beside him, quietly looking over the water.
‘I can’t believe so many men drowned last night. The sea looks so calm and safe today but it has taken so many lives.’
Cesidio looked at his daughter. She was just the age Marietta had been when he had proposed to her. Anna looked very like her mother, very beautiful. It was such a joy to see her blossom into a young woman.
‘The sea doesn’t take life, Anna. God takes life. When a soul is ready for God, he chooses the time.’
‘I don’t believe that. I can’t love a God who destroys so many families.’
‘Don’t forget, God is your father. He always knows what is best.’
Anna was silent. Sometimes she didn’t understand her father’s faith.
Lena came down and stood at the shore. She called to them to come in for tea.
Cesidio heard her but didn’t turn round. He was looking intently into the distance. Far away towards the right, high in the sky, he could just see a large dark shape. He put his hand over his eyes. Faintly above the wash of the waves he could just pick up the drone of an engine. He stood up. A second black shape appeared and then a third.
They weren’t birds. They were aeroplanes. It was another air raid.
The larger plane swooped up higher than the other two. They were moving fast. When they were parallel to him out in the Firth he heard the rattle of machine-gun fire.
Aware of Anna behind him, he turned quickly, ‘Anna, get back. Get back. They’re German planes!’ As he shouted, the three planes swooped noisily overhead, travelling at great speed back out towards the sea.
‘Oh, my God.’ The war had arrived.
The noise of more gunfire echoed against the wall of the house. The larger four-engine black plane had a swastika visible on its wing. The two Royal Air Force planes chasing it were lighter and faster and could swoop round it, dive underneath and pull up behind, firing again into its tail. There had been
no warning siren, no air raid, but the firing itself was enough to bring everyone down on to the rocks.
Out in the Firth, the Day Spring looked vulnerable. A stray bullet could easily sink it. The German plane flew higher, trying to escape its attackers but, just as it looked as if it would get away, the British planes fired a further round of ammunition.
The German plane’s engine spluttered, it keeled over and dropped, screeching, into the sea, left wing first. The RAF planes circled around for two or three minutes examining the wreckage.
Relieved that the danger had passed, everyone at the water’s edge clapped. The plane must have been heading for Edinburgh or Rosyth.
‘There’s a man in the water. Two!’
They watched as the Day Spring made its way to the floating wreckage of the downed aircraft. Seeing the boat sailing towards the German pilots, the RAF planes circled once more. The pilots in the cockpit waved down to the cheering crowd before flying off.
Everyone rushed along the street to the harbour at Port Seton, lining up along the pier to wait for the boat to come in. Someone called the police station at Prestonpans. Marietta sent Alex to get Dr Black but he was already on his way.
‘Fetch Nurse Swan. They may be injured.’
John Dickson chugged the heavily laden Day Spring into harbour. As well as a hefty catch of fish he had lifted three German fighter pilots from the sea.
They were badly injured. One had a severe eye injury; the other two had bleeding wounds and cracked ribs. Constable Alex Craig and Dr Black were waiting, each keen to get hold of the Germans first.
As the boat tied up, Alex Craig jumped down and the injured Germans were hauled ashore on stretchers.
Anna was shocked.
‘Papà, they’re just young men. They look nice.’
One of the Germans could speak quite good English. He was a tall, fair-haired man wearing a dark high-necked sweater and thick fur-lined leather jacket; he had blood pouring from his face. He was anxious to explain that they had not been attacking. ‘We were taking photographs. We had no bombs.’
The German pulled a thick gold ring from his pinkie finger.
‘Here,’ he pushed it into the skipper’s hand. ‘Thank you for saving us.’
The pilots had been in trouble out at sea, barely hanging on to the broken wing of the plane. If the Day Spring had not come to the rescue they would probably have drowned.
The story reached the newspapers, even the national press. This was the first German plane of the war to be shot down, a twin-engine Heinkel bomber: the first of thousands.
Constable Craig took the men to the police station on Links Road. Their clothes were ripped, soaking wet and covered in blood. One of the men had terrible injuries to his arm. Dr Black cut his clothes from him and did what he could to stem the flow of blood.
Alex Craig, a tall, strong gentle man, had recently been transferred to Port Seton from Dunbar, further along the coast. His young wife was the daughter of the Tognieri family who had the ice cream shop in Dunbar.
Sorry to see the airman in such a bad state, Alex Craig fetched one of his suits for the German boy. Weeks later a brown paper parcel arrived from Edinburgh Castle where the Germans had been sent. It was addressed to Constable Craig and contained his suit, neatly folded with a German war medal tucked in one of its pockets.
From then on, the black-out restrictions were enforced with even more severity. The war was real and, as news of evacuation and impending rationing filtered through, they went into the dark, cold winter with trepidation.
1940
The winter trundled on. The bench in the Cockenzie café was less full now, as more and more of the young lads were called up. The older men and soldiers home on leave took up the spare places. Every night at nine they sat listening to the wireless, keeping abreast of the news. Through winter and into spring, things changed in fits and starts. News was good one day, bad the next.
At night Alex Craig and Harry Stevenson, the other local policeman, got into the habit of popping in to see that all was well. Often they would sit with Cesidio and Marietta over a glass of wine and a fish supper and chat about the day’s events.
Rationing was introduced and, in the shop, ration books had to be stamped to share out chocolates, ice cream, sweets. The fish and chip shop did brisk business. Fish was still plentiful; the older fishermen went out and landed their catch on the Boat Shore, just as they had always done.
Marietta kept chickens at the back of the house. She had fresh eggs every day, a luxury now in town.
Petrol rationing had curtailed Alfonso’s journeys down to Cockenzie. He had only visited once since December. Now, if they needed provisions, Cesidio went to the shop in Elm Row by tram. Marietta made their pasta by hand most days, just with flour and eggs.
The news was mixed, some good, some bad. The initial reaction to the declaration of war had eased. The ‘phoney’ war seemed to be a mixture of sporadic bombings, accidents caused by car crashes in the black-outs and news of minor battles in Europe, nothing as drastic or as frightening as had been anticipated. Children had been evacuated all over the country. Some started to make their way home. The feeling was that, after the first alarming skirmishes, the war might pass them all by.
This feeling of complacency began to change when gradually success swung in favour of the Germans. The British army had gone in aid of Norway but with little success. Things were starting to look ominous.
It was not until towards the end of May that Alfonso visited Cockenzie again. He had telephoned Cesidio to warn him he was coming and had the car loaded with the order. When he arrived, Cesidio was shocked at his appearance. He looked smart and clean-shaven as always but, instead of the lively, optimistic Alfonso they were used to, here was a worried, anxious man.
‘Alfonso,’ Cesidio embraced him, happy to see him. ‘Come through, my friend, come through.’
Marietta came forward to embrace her compare. The men sat down. Marietta poured Alfonso a glass of wine and put some bread on the table.
‘Grazie, compare. I smelled the smoke-house when I came into the High Street, Cesidio. Are they smoking fish?’
‘Yes, they’ll be smoking salmon or maybe haddock. Alex!’ He called his youngest son through from the front shop. ‘Alex, go along and ask James for a smoked salmon for Zio Alfonso. Tell him I’ll square it with him later.
‘Come stai? How are things in Edinburgh?’
‘Not too bad. Everyone is well.’
‘How is the new bride? I can’t believe it’s so long since the wedding. What a lovely day we had.’
‘Margherita is in Glasgow now, so we don’t see her very often. ‘Marietta,’ Alfonso called through to the back kitchen, ‘Great news. Margherita’s expecting! My first grandchild is on its way!’
‘Auguri! Congratulations!’ Marietta heard the news as she came through with two plates of thick minestrone soup made with chunks of cabbage, carrots, onions, celery and some broken pasta. She added some chunks of dry bread and grated the crust of some cheese on top. ‘What lovely news. That’s just what we need to hear.’ She showed Alfonso the crust of cheese. ‘I hope you brought me some cheese. This is my last piece and it won’t last much longer. I’ve cooked a bit of skin in the soup for you.’
‘Don’t worry. I have kept some for you. There are no deliveries. But there are still some ships coming into Leith Docks. There is always something on board I can get my hands on.’
Marietta went back through to the front shop. As soon as she was out of earshot Cesidio leaned towards Alfonso and lowered his voice.
‘Alfonso, I’ve heard that Germans living here have been called up for tribunals. A chap from Musselburgh has been interned. He’s been living here for forty years. Have you heard anything? Will they come for us?’
Alfonso Crolla, alien no. 686356, 11 September 1939
‘We have to realise that we are vulnerable. They already see us as aliens. The thing is, if they call you for a tribunal, at least t
hey’ll allow you to explain your position. It’s obvious your allegiances are to Britain. You’ve done so much good down here, even in this little community.’
‘But, Alfonso, my friend, what about you? Are you not in a vulnerable position; with your involvement with the Fascio and everything?’
I’m sure the Italian Government will support us if things get tricky. I’ve known all the officials in the council in Edinburgh for years. They know me. They know we believe in co-operation between our two countries.’
‘It is a worrying time. So many lads here are already at war. We’re lucky in a way, our sons are on the sidelines.’
Alfonso looked behind to see if anyone was listening. He spoke in dialect.
‘Cesidio, attenzione! I need to warn you. Keep your head down.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve had a letter from London. There’s a lot of bad feeling building up against us. The newspapers are firing up anti-Italian feeling.’
‘Why are they doing that? What good will it do?’
‘There is talk of a “Fifth Column”. They’re saying that we Italians are all over the country and that some of us are potential spies, subversives, enemies.’
‘Do you think that’s true? You know the Italians better than I do. Have you seen anything? Tell me, Alfonso.’
‘It’s nonsense. Utter garbage. Do you and I look like spies? We’re just patriots. We love our country. What’s wrong with that? It’s the same love that made us fight in the war: isn’t it, Cesidio? What’s wrong with that?’ Alfonso was losing faith in his own judgement.
‘What’s going to happen?’
Alfonso had been avoiding the question. He was very concerned. ‘The news is bad, Cesidio. The Germans are pushing the British army back towards the coast. I have heard that Mussolini is thinking of siding with the Germans.’
‘Yes, but he is still neutral, isn’t he? Italy is not going to war against Britain surely?’
