At the Break of Day

by Margaret Graham

  Jack tightened his hold on Nigel’s good arm. He saw the American clasp his arm more tightly round his body. There were ten men in front of them. Nigel’s head was lolling.

  ‘Hold your head up,’ Jack hissed and Nigel did.

  ‘You are hirelings of the Rhee puppet government but you will be given the chance to learn the truth through study and you will correct your mistakes. We shall not harm you. At home your loved ones await you. Obey our rules and regulations and you will not be shot.’

  They were allowed to sit down and Jack found some shade near the edge of the compound. The mud was deep. It soaked through their clothes but all Jack thought of was Rosie reading his letter, waiting for him, and it gave him strength. But only until a peasant came and struck two prisoners in front of Jack and then turned, hitting him and Nigel with a stick, again and again until blood burst from their lips and heads, because his family had been killed in a raid.

  The American, whose name was Steve, stood up and took the stick from the Korean, then the North Koreans moved, pushing through the seated ranks. The mud was in Jack’s mouth and nose and he pushed up with his hands and saw the North Koreans take the Yank, pushing him before them towards the edge of the village. He looked for the Chinese but they had gone.

  Jack rose, staggered and almost fell but then he was on his feet. He followed Steve and clutched a guard. ‘Leave him,’ he croaked. ‘Leave the Yank.’ He was grabbed too. He pulled away but was hit again by the peasant and the blood was running down his face. He turned, called, ‘Look after Nigel,’ and thought of Rosie as they hauled him, shouting, their breath sour, in his face.

  ‘Hang on, bud,’ the American shouted over his shoulder.

  They were hauled to a pit, pushed in and there was white blossom on the branch of a tree which hung between them and the sky. Rifles were fired at the walls so that the bullets ricocheted around them, but they were not hit. The North Koreans laughed and the earth smelled of urine, of faeces, but Jack didn’t look at the base of the pit, or into the dark flat faces. He thought of Rosie and the bines which swung as though in the sea. And white blossom.

  Steve was silent. He stood with Jack, unmoving, until the bullets ceased, and still he said nothing and Jack had no voice with which to speak. Fear had taken it from him.

  They were hauled from the pit and a revolver was placed at the American’s head.

  ‘Confess your crime, imperialist dog,’ the largest North Korean said.

  The American said nothing and the hammer clicked but the chamber was empty.

  The North Korean opened the chamber and showed Jack. There were two bullets. He spun it, closed it. He held it to Jack’s head.

  ‘Confess your crime,’ he said again.

  Jack looked across the space to the other men, some of whom were visible between the village huts. He thought of Rosie, her mouth, her eyes, and said nothing because there was nothing to say.

  But there was no bullet, only the noise of the hammer striking the empty chamber reverberating along the barrel, through the skin into his mind, but Rosie was there, and there was no room for the scream which wanted to leave his mouth.

  The Chinese came then, pushing the North Koreans to one side, shoving Steve and Jack before them, back to the village square, and they sat on either side of Nigel and neither spoke because now their legs and their hands were trembling.

  They drank the water that the Chinese soldiers passed round and when they had gone Jack cleaned Nigel’s wound with the sleeve he had soaked, and dripped water into his friend’s mouth, careful not to let the guards see because one man had been beaten for washing his face with the water. He had insulted the guard by using it in that way.

  They stayed in the village during the day, pressed up against the hut walls in case the US planes strafed the village. Jack lay listening to the bullfrogs, listening to Nigel’s groans, but Steve said little, especially when the North Koreans were near because, he explained, he was American, and the gooks hated them above all else. Jack was glad of his silence. He didn’t want to speak to this man.

  Each soldier in turn was taken to a hut and interviewed by a high-ranking Chinese officer who asked his rank, name and number, and asked why he supported the Wall Street warmongers who had helped South Korea invade North Korea in July 1950. Jack didn’t answer.

  ‘We Chinese believe in a lenient policy to preserve lives so that you imperialist tools can learn the truth. The North Koreans are different. Do not try and escape. They wait for you to do so.’

  When Jack came out the North Koreans were there, waiting.

  They took Steve too and now they knew that he was American, but there were others who were aircrew and they became the targets of the interrogation instead.

  The day passed and at six p.m. the guards came round with sorghum which Jack and Steve ate from cigarette tins because they had lost their hats in the mêlée. A British Sergeant came round too and said that more marching was expected tomorrow and there’d better be a better exhibition than there was today or he’d want to know the reason why.

  It raised a smile, it raised morale, and Jack watched the flares and the tracers in the sky, and wondered how this could have happened when they thought they were going home, when he thought he was going home to Rosie.

  CHAPTER 19

  The landlady stopped Rosie in the hall in March as she searched the wire letter-box for the letter that just might be there. The woman’s hair was newly permed and smelt as Norah’s had. She wore lipstick and an overall and crossed her arms over her sagging breasts. There was a cigarette in her left hand and the ash drooped, then fell on to the linoleum.

  ‘You’ve put on a lot of weight. You must think I’m daft. You’ll have to leave when that baby you’re carrying’s due. I wouldn’t have that sort of thing here, even if you were married.’

  The woman sucked on her cigarette again. There were lipstick marks against the white of the paper. ‘This is a decent establishment. No place for the likes of you. You’ve got to go before it’s born.’ She exhaled smoke as she spoke, nodded and turned, dropping more ash.

  It was the ash that Rosie watched, not the woman who walked back into her room which opened on to the hall. As she opened the front door she watched it blow, then crumble to nothing. She shut the door behind her. She wanted to slam it against the words which she could still hear. Mrs Eaves had said this might happen.

  She walked down the steps to the pavement, then turned and looked back at the house, at the peeling balustrade, at the door with its bubbling paint. Where could she go? Fear swept through her. She tugged at her skirt, easing it around her swelling waist where two safety pins were now clasped together. Who would take her and a baby?

  The pavement was damp and footsteps were muted all around. She couldn’t go to Mrs Eaves; it wasn’t fair and there wasn’t room. She called in to the butcher’s where the smell of meat made her want to retch. There was a queue, there was always a queue, and the woman in front of her wearing a headscarf knotted at the front over her curlers laughed when the butcher brought his cleaver down on to the scarred and stained wooden block and shouted, ‘It’s 1951 and it’ll take three books this morning, ladies, to buy a pound of meat.’

  We know that, Rosie wanted to shout. But where can I find somewhere to live and what about the boys fighting out in Korea? Who knows about them, or even cares? And now the Chinese have been routed, will they come home? Oh God, I wish he’d come home. I wish he was safe.

  She picked up Mario’s order, and carried it to the shop, heaping it on to the table, laughing as Mrs Orsini shouted upstairs to her husband, ‘So now the meat is here, Rosie is here, a customer is here, but you are not.’

  Yes, she laughed but the laughter was empty because the fear inside her was building, making her weaken and she mustn’t do that. She eased herself through the streamers between the kitchen and the café, smiling as she poured coffee for the three young men who stood waiting, knowing that there would be no tips from them. They wer
e in worn coats and shapeless sweaters.

  One of them stirred his coffee at the counter. His hands were red and chapped. He looked up at her. His glasses were steamed up and she smiled again as he took them off, rubbed them, replaced them.

  ‘Luke said you might be able to help,’ the boy began. ‘We play New Orleans style.’

  The others at the table behind weren’t drinking, they were listening, and Rosie nodded. She mustn’t think of Jack coming home, she must think only offending for herself and the child. ‘Tell me about yourselves. What have you done so far? Where have you played?’

  As she listened the panic subsided. Yes. It was all right again. She must always believe that Jack was safe. She must concentrate on the new life. That was her job. She must work now, that was all, harder than she had ever done in her life before. She must save enough to tide her over for the birth and a few weeks afterwards and then she would manage. Mrs Orsini hadn’t said yet that she could bring the baby to work with her, but she might.

  But where to live while she had the baby? She pulled herself away from that thought. It was March, she had until June and she must listen to this boy because bands like these were her future. She would be like Bob, manage, guide, but always care. That’s where she must put her energy; not into thoughts of Korea, not into fear for herself.

  ‘We’re playing at a club two blocks away tomorrow,’ the boy told her.

  ‘I’ll come and listen.’ Rosie smiled. ‘We’ll talk some more after that.’

  She served all morning and in between made bookings over the phone, dropping in her coins, holding a hand to one ear, haggling, always raising the offers to something better while Mrs Orsini clucked and made her eat sandwiches because now she was eating for two.

  ‘But it’s too much. I haven’t got an army in there.’ Rosie smiled at the plump Italian woman. She wasn’t hungry but she ate because this was Jack’s baby and hers.

  After the lunchtime rush she took a bus to Middle Street, slipping down the alley, letting her scarf hang down over her body because no one must know, least of all Ollie whom she was going to see. Perhaps Jack had written and Harold hadn’t forwarded the letter.

  She pushed open the gate into Jack’s yard. Paper had blown into the corners. Lee’s old bike was rusted and broken, lying on the ground with the wheel at an angle. The curtains were drawn. The door was locked but she knocked anyway. She wanted to hear some sound, and to touch something that Jack had touched. She wanted to stay where he had been, just for a moment, and hear the echoes of their laughter.

  Harold came then, out through Grandpa’s yard. He stood at the entrance to Ollie’s. ‘I thought I heard something.’

  He was looking at her body and Rosie held her scarf in a bunch. ‘Hello, Harold. I just wondered if any mail had come?’

  He looked up at the house where the windows were like blank eyes. ‘No. I’d bring it to you, honestly I would.’ He was looking at her face now, not at her body, and she believed him, and everything hurt within her. But how could there be so much pain when she knew deep inside there would be no letter? Was she very stupid?

  ‘It looks so empty.’ She looked back at the house.

  ‘Ollie’s gone. He’s got a job building the new town outside London. Norah wants to go when it’s finished.’ Harold nodded his head towards Grandpa’s house. ‘I don’t though. It grows on you.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘What about the mail, though? What if it comes to Ollie, not to Number 15?’

  Harold nodded. His moustache needed a trim. ‘She’s picking it up. Don’t worry. I’ll see you get any news.’ He turned, then looked back over his shoulder. ‘I’d ask you in but …’

  ‘She still feels the same then?’

  ‘Yes. Says your grandpa would too.’ Harold shrugged. ‘You’re OK, though, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, no worries. I’m fine.’ She walked out of the gate, watching as he turned back into the yard where she could no longer go. She could see that the roses were still there.

  ‘Prune them for me, Harold,’ she called softly and he nodded.

  ‘I will. I like them. It’s the scent, you know.’

  Yes, she did know.

  She walked to the rec, sat on the swings and wanted to go to Herefordshire again, paddle in the stream or go back to Pennsylvania and swim in the lake, let it soothe, listen to the ripples, but now was not the time. Now she must work. The wind was cold, too cold, and so she walked back to the bus, past the warehouse where she and Jack had walked with the cheeses and she could hear their laughter again, feel his closed-mouth kiss.

  Back in Soho there was music coming from the basement clubs and she pushed her way through to the bars of the pubs which lined the road to the café. She took a job as barmaid three nights a week, starting when the café closed, leaving the other evenings free to listen to groups, practise with them, build up the business.

  It would be good for her, she told herself. There would be less time in the bedsit, less time listening to the hissing fire, to her own breathing, to her loneliness. Less time to worry about where she would live, because so far none of the landladies she had asked would take a child.

  The next night she listened to the new band and the pale young man who played the banjo. She heard its sharp tones cutting through the collective improvisation, through the murmur which continued from the dimly lit tables all around, and later they talked over glasses of beer and he told her that he played the guitar too and Rosie was glad.

  ‘It’s more flexible, but keep the banjo too. You can play well. Come to Mario’s Club on Thursday. I’ll have fixed you a few gigs by then. I take ten per cent.’ She looked away as she said this. His coat was so shabby, all the musicians were poor, but so was she, and so would her baby be, unless she charged the rate that Luke said was fair, unless she worked until she dropped.

  The boy smiled, and shook her hand, and they sat up talking about the clean and emphatic rhythmic backing that the banjo had always given, about the Big 25 Club in New Orleans where he had always wanted to play. Rosie nodded, her eyes sore with tiredness, but she needed to know her groups, to care about them, to find out their strengths and their weaknesses.

  She worked at the bar the next night, pulling pints, smiling, wearing loose clothes to hide her shape, but her legs ached and her arms and her face from the smile that had to be there.

  There was a letter in the wire rack on her return but it was not from Jack, it was from Nancy. She read it by the light from the small table lamp Mario had given her, hearing the plop of the gas, smelling it. Sipping cocoa, which was all she could face after an evening of beer-laden breath and nicotine-heavy air.

  Lower Falls

  March

  My dearest Rosie,

  Do hope that all is well with you. Your groups seem to be coming along well. Uncle Bob tells us you’ve written about this guy Luke and his band. Sounds interesting. Maybe if he comes over, you could come too. Perhaps with Jack when the war’s over.

  I hope to God it comes soon. It might take some of the panic out of things over here. Then ‘pinkoes’ like us might just be able to get some sleep at night without some nut ringing up and shouting – Reds go home – over the line! Then we might get back to being fifty instead of ninety.

  It’s not being helped by the Rosenberg trial in New York City. My God, how tempers are rising all around.

  It would cheer us both so much if you could come out to see us. But maybe you need to put in time at work, especially when you’re just trying to get the restaurant on the road and the groups too. We understand.

  All our love,

  Nancy

  The paper was cold. The heat didn’t reach across to the bed and Rosie wanted to read of the maples and oaks at the lake, the target on the garage, the barbecue, Mary. She didn’t want to hear of tension, of heartache, because she couldn’t go back. All she could do was lie to the people she loved. The people who needed her right now.

  Her legs were throbbing, her head ached.
She lay down and pulled the knitted blanket up round her head. She wanted to be in her bedroom at Lower Falls, she wanted to be back where Nancy’s arms could take away the pain, where her laughter broke into her loneliness. But she wanted to be here more, waiting for Jack, in case he came, in case he wrote.

  That night she dreamed that he wrote, but March became April and there was no letter. There was just work, but the money was mounting and she sent in an application for an Unmarried Mothers Home. She was accepted but the letter was cold and the list of garments and equipment required was long.

  So she worked on Sunday at the pub also and they said they would take one of her groups on a Friday night, unheard, because her reputation was growing. She slept well that night but couldn’t face more than cocoa.

  Towards the end of April, the UN forces retreated as the Chinese poured in reinforcements, and the newspaper ink came off on her hands as she read the piece again and again at the Orsinis’ kitchen table and cried because now he wouldn’t be coming home soon, the UN forces would have to go on fighting and there had been no letter.

  She cried and couldn’t stop and Mrs Orsini held her.

  ‘He won’t be coming home yet,’ she whispered as she felt the heat from the older woman’s body.

  ‘One day he will. I know he will, if he loves you as we do,’ Mrs Orsini said. ‘You are a good girl. He cannot fail to love you. You must wait. You must be patient. You must not give up.’

  That night as she lay in bed she wondered how long hope lasted. How long she could bear such loneliness. And how could she bear it if he died and she was never told? But Mrs Orsini said that Ollie or Harold would tell her and Rosie knew that she was right.

  She worked throughout April, barely noticing the leaves sprouting on the clubbed trees, barely noticing the blocks of ice melting outside the French restaurants along the back streets. She listened to groups, listened to booking managers, and always increased the fees so that the ten per cent she took left the boys with the original offer.