Constant Tides

by Peter Crawley

  “How did I get here?”

  “There is a man, here. Sottocapo Falanga. He brought you ashore, to our house.”

  Nicholas Lock sits more upright and starts to feel at his face. “What has happened to my eyes? I cannot seem to open them.”

  Mira frowns, not so much at the raw flesh about his cheeks and forehead as at the fact that his eyes, though still coated with a film of oil, are only partially open. His eyelids, she notices, are badly burned, their soft tissue disturbingly charred in appearance. Taking his hands in hers, she lowers them away from his face and presses them gently into his lap. “You have suffered burns, Signor Lock. For the moment, you cannot see and you will need time to recover. Try not to alarm yourself.”

  He struggles to lift his hands again and she holds them down, this time more firmly.

  Mira purses her lips in disapproval and glances first at her father and then at Sottocapo Falanga.

  They, too, grimace in discomfort as they realise the extent of the injuries.

  Turning back to her patient, she says, “It is better that you do not touch your face. Your hands are not clean and it will be better not to risk infection. Please, try to be calm and let us take care of you. We will need to remove as much oil as we can and then we will find a place for you to lie down.”

  What passes for a smile creases his lips, his teeth glowing bright white against his charred features. “Thank you, M…”

  “Mira,” she says.

  “Thank you, Mira. I would like to; I feel awfully tired and my head feels as though it is still aflame. Do you have anything I can take for the pain; it is quite intense.”

  “Signor Lock?” Enzo asks.

  “Yes.”

  “I am Mira’s father, Enzo. I must ask you a question, though I understand it will be difficult for you to answer, so please take your time to think before you reply.”

  “Yes, Enzo.”

  “Sottocapo Falanga has brought you to our house. You are safe here, but I cannot guarantee that you will be completely safe from capture. With your injuries as they are, would you prefer us to hand you over to the military so that you can benefit from better treatment at one of their hospitals?”

  For a few seconds, all the response they receive is his laboured breathing as Nicholas Lock struggles once more to raise his hands from his lap. Again, Mira presses them back down. When he understands that she will not let him scratch the irritation prompted by the burns, he asks, “I should imagine their hospitals will be too busy treating their own men to be concerned with attending to a prisoner of war. Do you have a doctor who can help me? One that you can trust.”

  “We do,” Enzo replies, “he is an old friend. You need not concern yourself; as I have said, you will be safe here.”

  “And you…” Nicholas winces as pain wracks his body. “And you, will you be safe? Having me here will only lead to trouble for you and your family. Perhaps very bad trouble. Can you promise me you will be safe?”

  Mira looks across at her father, widening her eyes in amazement that a man so brutally injured should find the strength to voice concern for others.

  “Safe?” Enzo says, as though he is recalling a distant and pleasant memory. “No one is safe, Signor Lock. Not in Ganzirri, not in Messina and judging by the bombs that fell yesterday and last night, especially not across the water in Villa San Giovanni. What I will promise you is that you will be safe with us. Sottocapo Falanga will not betray your presence,” he glances at the submariner, then at Francesca, “and neither will we. As I have already explained to the sottocapo, we have no love for troublemakers, be they fascists or communists.”

  The spasm of pain twists the Englishman once more and a curious rictus grin infects his face. “In that case,” he mutters, “I don’t have the energy to argue. In fact, if you will permit me, I think I’m going to pass out.”

  Mira, confused not only by his courtesy in asking her permission, but also by wondering exactly how she is supposed to stop him, hesitates. Enzo, Sottocapo Falanga and Francesca are helpless to prevent him from falling as, even in the modest confines of the front room, they are too far away to reach him in time. So, they all watch as he leans, at first haltingly, like a sailboat listing in a blustery gale, and second inevitably, falling faster and faster as gravity draws him down.

  Enzo stands up, slowly, and straightens his back. “Mira, go to Dottore Roselli; tell him of this man’s condition and ask him to come with whatever medicines and dressings he has left. Tell him that though his old bones may object to being disturbed at this hour, if he does not come right away, he will no longer be the beneficiary of fresh fish on Fridays. And do not go by the road, there are too many patrols: take one of the boats and row across the lagoon.”

  He studies the prone figure for a moment and scratches his head in thought. When he has reached a conclusion, he looks at his wife. “Francesca, if you have clean sheets, make up Mira’s bed. Sottocapo Falanga and I will clean this man, and as soon as we have finished, we will bring him.”

  “You are going to keep him here?” she asks, incredulous. “An enemy?” She glances at the photo above the stove.

  Her husband glares at her. “He is not our enemy, Francesca; he has come to us from the sea. And you know very well, I cannot ask our neighbours to put themselves at risk if I am not prepared to do the same. Go on, woman, hurry now.”

  Francesca scuttles from the room.

  Mira pauses by the door, her eyes shining warm in the light of the hurricane lamp. “Thank you, papà.”

  Enzo smiles, perhaps a shade resignedly. “Thank me by being careful, eh, my daughter? And think of some excuse in case you are challenged. Now go. Make your feet soft so no one will hear you.”

  She lifts the latch on the door and is gone, leaving her father and Falanga to begin their cleaning.

  Enzo takes a strip of cloth, the bowl of water, the olive oil and the paste off the table and kneels beside the Englishman. With Falanga’s help, they role the unconscious figure over onto his back. “Now, let’s remove the rest of his shirt and his shoes. Pass me that fillet knife,” he nods in the direction of a sideboard, “and we’ll cut off his shorts. You know how to polish wood, Sottocapo Falanga?”

  He nods, a little uncertainly.

  When the recumbent figure is naked, Enzo takes a strip of cloth and folds it into a round pad. “Like this, eh? Then, take some of the salt and sugar paste onto the cloth and dip it into the olive oil.” He does so and holds his cloth up so that the other man will see how much or how little paste he has put on the cloth. “Use only a little; we don’t have much. Then, wipe as much of the fuel oil off the skin as the cloth will clear, allowing the cloth to absorb it.” He paws at Nicholas Lock’s right forearm. “Remember, the paste is abrasive and we do not want to break the skin, so do not press too hard. When your cloth is dark,” again he holds it up, and whereas before there was a fresh white ball of cloth, now there is a gluey black mess, “leave it and use a fresh piece.”

  For the better part of an hour, they work, alternately dipping, wiping and discarding pieces of cloth; the silence disturbed only by the occasional mumbling of the invalid whenever they clean too close to his wounds.

  When the silence of their concentration weighs too heavily on him, Enzo asks, “Your submarine? Was it completely destroyed?”

  “For certain, Signor Ruggeri. We have come from Taranto and our journey was made all the longer by having to avoid so many British warships. When we surfaced, the hatch was opened and all that foul air of bodies confined for too long in too little space escaped and was replaced by fresh air. This air is like a drug and it causes me to dream of the Mistral, the cool wind that blows from the north. I was standing at the bottom of the conning tower, thinking of the wind when all of a sudden there was a mighty explosion and I found myself outside the submarine, swimming through the oily, fiery water.”

&
nbsp; “You were indeed very fortunate, eh?”

  “As God is my witness, Signor Ruggeri.” Sottocapo Falanga crosses himself and kisses his knuckle. “I’ve heard the bombing here has been terrible and last night, we could not pass through the Strait until it had finished.”

  “It has been bad, that is true,” Enzo says. “Before dawn on Wednesday, they bombed Messina: the ferry slipways, the train yards, the oil depot. I tell you, my mother would have been able to smell the burning oil in heaven so high was the pall of smoke. Later, during the morning, they returned with over 200 aeroplanes to complete the job, and yesterday, as you know, Villa San Giovanni and Reggio di Calabria received the same punishment. I suppose it is because of all those tanks and troops the Germans are sending across from the mainland. Do you know how the invasion is going?”

  Falanga shrugs, briefly, before bending back to his cleaning. “No, they don’t tell us much; they don’t want us to think the defence of Sicily is a lost cause.”

  “Is it?”

  “You had better ask Generale Guzzoni. He knows better than me.”

  “Where are you from, sottocapo?”

  “Me?” He sighs, a long and constant outgoing breath of despair. “From everywhere and nowhere. I was born in Puglia and raised in Naples, before going wherever there was the promise of employment. One day, there wasn’t, so the Fascists found work for my idle hands in the navy.”

  “Driftwood, eh?”

  Falanga smiles. “Yes, driftwood. Plain and simple driftwood.”

  Enzo holds the Englishman’s arm and rests his hand against his own thigh. He dabs his ball of cloth in the bowl of paste, wipes at the back of the blackened left hand and inspects the congealed residue of what he has removed. When he is happy the hand is sufficiently clean, he moves on to the fingers and notices Lock’s signet ring. He wipes it and studies the simple engraving on the face, his thoughts for a moment distracted from his task.

  “I have been thinking, sottocapo,” he says, leaning back to rest. “I think it would be best for you to leave now. You must go and report to whoever it is right for you to report to before they come searching for you.”

  Without looking up, Falanga replies, “There is no one to search for me, Signor Ruggeri. As far as they are concerned, I have drowned with the rest of the crew. You see, as I neared the shore I believe I heard the motors of a Motoscafo Armato Silurante, one of our fast boats. They were probably searching for survivors.”

  “Did you not try to attract their attention?”

  “No,” Falanga sighs. “By that time, I was as near the shore as I was to them and in the dark, they did not see me.” Now, he too sits back on his heels. “And besides, I decided that if I was rescued, I would only find myself sent back to another of those tin coffins and to survive one sinking is a blessing, to risk the same again would only serve to tempt fate beyond all reason. No, Signor Ruggeri, I would rather take my chances hiding out in the hills and from what I have heard, the Germans will only be able to hold Sicily for another month at best. Generale Guzzoni is telling everyone that he will never give up; that he will fight to the last man.” He scoffs. “In my experience, when a general makes bold proclamations of this nature, it usually means he is about to run away, and believe me, I have no intention of being his last man. Do you know anyone who will help me?”

  Enzo thinks for a while. “Yes, I believe I do. When Dottore Roselli comes and if there is enough time before first light, I will take you to the house of a friend.”

  They bend forward and set to finish their cleaning.

  “Signor Ruggeri?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think I am a coward?”

  Again, Enzo considers. “Sottocapo Falanga, it does not matter what I think.” He pauses and sighs. “But I will say this, a coward uses his head where a fool loses his life and if I had not run from many storms, by now I would be sleeping with the fish and my family would have starved.”

  “Then perhaps you should stop calling me sottocapo and call me Filippo.”

  “As you wish, Filippo. Come, we have nearly finished. Let’s get him into the next room and into the bed.”

  The front door opens and Mira enters, followed slowly by an elderly gentleman who is bent almost double, his hair wispy white, his shoulders small and round.

  “Hurry up and close the door,” Enzo barks. “Ah, Dottore Roselli. Good of you to come. Mira, were you seen?”

  The doctor grumbles, “Do you seriously believe I am young enough to be playing at fugitives? Of course we were seen. A German patrol stopped us as we were crossing the main road.”

  Mira grins. “Not to worry, papà. The Dottore told them we were on our way to deliver a newborn and he told them they had no right to prevent him attending a mother to be, especially when any one of them might be the father.”

  “Now,” Dottore Roselli begins, “what is so urgent that you threaten to deny me my fish?” Bent as he is, he cannot miss the figure lying on the floor. “Oh, I see.”

  Enzo grabs at a strip of cloth and lays it across Nicholas Lock’s groin.

  “Papà,” Mira groans, “Modesty is all very well, but you forget I–”

  “Yes. Come, Filippo,” Enzo says, ignoring her, “let’s get him into the bedroom where the Dottore can examine him in peace.”

  They heave the Englishman up from the floor.

  He comes to and struggles, his sinews tightening, his anxiety rising, his hands gripping tightly the arms of his porters.

  Mira bends to his ear and whispers, “Signor Lock, my father is only trying to help you to the bedroom,” she hesitates, “to my bedroom. Be a good boy and try to relax. Soon, you will sleep.”

  And as a baby calms at a mother’s cooing, so he loosens his grip and falls tranquil.

  Enzo glances, then frowns at his daughter as much to say that he disapproves of the power she has so quickly assumed over a stranger, albeit an injured, barely conscious stranger.

  Mira smiles and returns his look with one leaving him in no doubt that however long he should live, he will never understand the subtle influences of her gender. “Now, papà, be careful with him,” she adds, rubbing salt into the wounds of his ignorance.

  “Enough, the two of you!” Dottore Roselli grumbles, raising his hands above his head in appeal. “I don’t know; keep an old man from his sleep while you busy yourselves scoring points off each other. Francesca, you had better assist me; these two cannot keep from their ridiculous competitions.”

  Chapter 5

  Mira, Filippo Falanga and Enzo sit in silent expectation, the patient’s nearest if not dearest awaiting the outcome of his operation.

  When Francesca returns, Enzo looks up. “How is he?”

  “The good doctor says he has seen worse; that is good. But he also said the last person he saw in such a pitiful state was you, the day he met you, all of thirty–five years ago, and that is bad.”

  Enzo sniffs, hunching his shoulders and splaying his hands. “That is just like the good Dottore, eh? Always the good news corrupted with a spoonful of bad. How long will he be with his examination?”

  “Do you have somewhere to be?” his wife asks.

  “No, I have nowhere particular to be. What with all that noise during the night I should think any sensible fish is covering his ears at the bottom of the Strait. However, this gentleman,” he nods at Filippo Falanga, “has to have a place to stay. It is a question of whether I take him or Mira takes him.”

  Francesca carries a bowl, once white but now pink, piled with scraps of cloth, most varying shades of crimson, others vividly scarlet. “Then, husband of mine, you must take Signor Falanga. Dottore Roselli would like to speak with Mira before she opens the café; there are medicines he does not have which he believes Mira may be able to procure for him.”

  “Yes, I thought as much,” Enzo says. “Come sottocapo,
sorry, Filippo, you look clean enough and what with the curfew, we are not likely to have to shake hands with anyone.”

  “What about the patrols?” Falanga asks, his unease evident in the perpetual quivering of his legs.

  “Don’t concern yourself. They change over at about this time; we will not be troubled. Let’s go.”

  “Papà?”

  “Yes, Mira?”

  “Please be careful, you know what we say.”

  “Ah, yes: the appreciation of a good deed is to be measured in bruises.” He pauses by the door. “If Dottore Roselli has what I believe he has in store for you, I suggest you do the same.” He looks hard at her, then ushers his charge out of the door and they are gone.

  “Francesca,” Dottore Roselli calls from the bedroom, “where are you with those clean cloths? And if you have it, bring me some ground turmeric, this gash on his shin refuses to stop bleeding.”

  By the time the good Dottore has completed his examination and treatment, and cleaned his hands and clothes sufficiently to make himself respectable, light is tiptoeing stealthily over the peaks beyond the water.

  “Please, Dottore Roselli, sit at the table, Mira will make us coffee.”

  “Real coffee?” he asks in surprise, lowering his creaking bones onto the chair.

  “Yes,” Mira replies.

  “Not that terrible chicory stuff the Germans drink?” He removes his round spectacles and runs his hand across either side of his wrinkled face, as though he is encountering great difficulty imagining what his ears are hearing.

  “No, Dottore, real coffee.”

  “Please, Mira, Francesca, if you have need of my services at any time of day or night, please feel free to call. Why, I might even put you on my round of daily visits.”

  “We don’t have that much, Dottore,” Mira replies, “and the black market price is beyond our pocket.”

  “Then, where do you get it from?”