Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Sara’s hands flew to her face. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s as well as can be expected,’ Lily Pallister told her daughter, ‘though his left leg’s shattered and giving him pain. I’ve been to see him. He was one of the last to get out of France - they transferred him up here last week.’

  ‘Oh, Mam, if only I’d known I’d have gone to see him,’ Sara cried.

  Her mother’s face clouded. ‘Well, if you’d bothered to keep in touch with your uncle, you might have heard. You’ve been getting yourself mixed up in this Italian business, I hear.’

  Sara glanced at Louie, who was busying herself at the kitchen range.

  ‘Your mam’s staying at your Uncle Alfred’s,’ Louie explained. ‘He tells a different story from ours.’

  ‘Uncle Alfred stirred up all the trouble,’ Sara retorted. ‘He would have had them all lynched, Mam.’

  ‘I know you’re keen on this lad Joe,’ her mother sighed, ‘but you can’t go interfering with the law, Sara. These people are a danger to our security - like it or not, they’re the enemy, else they wouldn’t have rounded them up. I think Alfred’s right on this one, pet.’

  Louie lost her patience. ‘They’re not dangerous! They’re just defenceless women trying to do their best for their bairns while their men are locked up. It’s what we’d all do, isn’t it, Mrs Pallister?’

  Lily looked with dislike at the woman who had enticed Sara back to Whitton Grange and away from her. ‘The best thing they could have done for their families was to have gone back to Italy when this war started, instead of causing all this bother,’ Lily said heatedly, reaching for her hat.

  ‘Don’t go yet, Mam,’ Sara protested.

  ‘I’ll be at Alfred and Ida’s for the next two days,’ Lily said briskly. ‘And I hope you’ll think of paying your own family some attention instead of running around after those foreigners. You haven’t even asked after Bill and Mary or the bairn.’ Lilly gave Louie a look of accusation as she bustled to the door, as if Sara’s disloyal behaviour was her fault.

  Louie saw the shimmer of tears in the girl’s eyes as her mother banged the back door behind her and went to put an arm about her shoulders.

  ‘Don’t worry, pet,’ she comforted. ‘Your mam’s just a bit upset at finding Tom in hospital - it was bound to be a shock. She didn’t mean to be angry with you.’

  ‘Yes she did,’ Sara said sadly. ‘She had the same look on her face as Uncle Alfred when she talked about the Dimarcos - she doesn’t even know them but she hates them. What should I do, Louie?’ She buried her head into Louie’s soft bosom.

  ‘Don’t let them bully you,’ Louie said stoutly. ‘You stand by your friends. And go and see Tom - you’ll feel better once you’ve seen him, I’m sure.’

  But Sara’s joy at being reunited with Tom was short-lived. She found him nervy and full of bitterness at the injuries to his leg.

  ‘I’ll not run again,’ he said morosely. ‘Left leg’s as useless as a piece of wood.’

  ‘Give it time,’ Sara urged, trying to keep cheerful in the face of his bleak mood. Where was the joking, carefree brother she had last seen off on the bus at Lowbeck? she wondered sadly.

  ‘Time?’ Tom bemoaned. ‘I’ve got all the bloody time in the world.’

  ‘Is Jane Metcalfe coming to see you? Now you’re back you’ll be able to get married.’

  ‘She’ll not want to marry me now,’ Tom said, looking at his sister with desolate blue eyes. ‘She’ll not want to marry a cripple.’

  Sara wanted to talk to her brother about Joe and his family, but she did not have the courage to ask what Tom thought. His mind only lighted on his own problems and she left feeling discouraged.

  On the way home her attention was diverted by a passing car on the Durham Road. It was an unusual sight to see a motorcar on this road since petrol rationing had been introduced and Sara was wondering whose it was when it braked beside her. Eleanor Kirkup threw open the passenger door and beckoned Sara into its leather-smelling interior.

  ‘I’ve got news of the Dimarcos,’ she told her. Sara climbed in and Eleanor drove swiftly to Pit Street.

  Anna clasped her hands nervously in her lap as they gathered about the well-dressed visitor to hear what she had to say.

  ‘It’s not very encouraging, I’m afraid.’ Eleanor looked at them with compassionate eyes. ‘Mr Dimarco—’ she stopped, realising the confusion. ‘Paolo and Benito Dimarco are to be interned in a camp on the Isle of Man - that is where the majority of the men are being sent, it appears.’

  Anna grasped Sylvia’s hand. ‘Where is that?’ Anna asked for them both.

  ‘It’s an island off the west coast - not so very far,’ Eleanor tried to reassure them. ‘And it’s possible that from there they might be released, if they agree to help in the war effort.’

  ‘And the others?’ Elvira asked in her high-pitched voice.

  Eleanor took a deep breath, dreading their reaction. ‘Your husbands have been selected for deportation.’

  Elvira stifled a cry.

  ‘Where?’ Anna demanded. ‘Back to Italy?’

  Eleanor shook her head. ‘Australia and Canada have agreed to take internees.’ She omitted to add what her contact in the Foreign Office had said, ‘They’ve grudgingly agreed to take the dangerous ones.’

  ‘So far away!’ Anna cried and reached for Rosa who flung her arms about her mother. ‘Can we see them before they go?’ she gulped.

  Eleanor’s heart ached for them in their distress. ‘They may already be on their way. Your husbands have been allocated tickets on a ship from Liverpool - it sails in the next couple of days. It’s called the Arandora Star.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Arturo and Davide were locked in discussion about what should be done. Someone somewhere was playing a harmonica and they shared a cigarette to mask the stench of hundreds of unwashed bodies closeted together in their rusting prison.

  ‘I want to go with you, Papa.’ Paolo broke in to the dispute. ‘They can’t separate us. I’ll swap papers with Uncle Davide.’

  ‘No, Paolo.’ Arturo refused. ‘Gino says you and Benito have a better chance of getting home if you are taken to a British camp. The rumours are that our group will be deported.’

  ‘What does Gino know!’ Davide exclaimed, breaking into a fit of coughing.

  Arturo looked at his elder brother in alarm. He looked ten years older since the ordeal of arrest and confinement, his face tinged with yellow and his eyes darkly ringed. Yet even in these wretched conditions Davide would not speak to his estranged brother Gino who lived among the Scottish faction and had not come to Domenica’s wedding. Gino was to be deported with them and Arturo suspected that accounted for Davide’s reluctance to sail. But it was a shock for Arturo to see his ebullient elder brother so subdued and indecisive, looking to his son Benito for guidance in everything. The brother he had once admired and looked up to was now a sick and frightened old man.

  Paolo took his father aside. ‘See how ill Uncle Davide is? He’ll not survive a long sea voyage, Papa. Let me take his place and Benito can look after him.’

  Arturo considered his eldest son. From a small boy, Paolo had been like his shadow; quiet and sensible, loyal and loving. He had grown from an affectionate child into a cheerful youth and was now his best companion. Arturo was secretly thankful of Paolo’s insistence that they should stay together; he had been miserable at the thought of their imminent separation.

  So Arturo agreed to the plan to switch papers and the next day Benito and Davide were moved out with dozens of others. The selection had been haphazard and random for many of them and Gino had told Arturo that he had simply been picked from a line and told to stand on one side. Now, like Arturo and Paolo, he had a passage on a boat.

  Word filtered back that the first group of men had been sent to the Isle of Man and, the next day, Arturo, Paolo and Gino were herded in to trucks along with hundreds of other compatriots and transported to Liverpool. W
hen they saw the size of the ship they were to board, Gino laughed, ‘We’re no going on a wee ferry trip, here - more like a bloody cruise.’

  ‘She’s flying a swastika,’ Paolo noticed. ‘There must be German prisoners on board too.’

  ‘Aye, that’ll really impress the Nazis,’ Gino joked. ‘Just Hitler out for a wee paddle they’ll say.’

  But even his humour was blunted by the hostility of the soldiers who pushed them up the gangplank of the Arandora Star with their rifle butts. A man in front of them carrying a small suitcase of possessions had it snatched away and opened. His clothes spilled out and a soldier picked up a pair of drawers with his bayonet and held them aloft. The suitcase was tossed on a huge pile on the deck and, when the man protested, he was struck in the face and pushed down below deck.

  Arturo was searched and his watch and chain taken, while Paolo’s pockets were emptied of the few coins he had left.

  ‘You canny find a bloody penny on me, pal,’ Gino pulled out his pocket linings. ‘Royalty don’t carry money.’ But the guards did not like his insolence and hit him in the back with their rifle butts, swearing at him as he staggered against Paolo.

  The Italians were thrust below to the bottom deck where there was chaotic confusion as men jostled for space for themselves and their relations. Gino disappeared for ages, eventually returning with a report on the ship.

  ‘The ballroom’s full of German Jews,’ he panted, ‘and they’re trying to keep them away from some captured German sailors - bloody punch up’s worse than Ibrox. But if we move we can get a wee cabin on the mess deck - nice and cosy.’

  Arturo looked at Paolo. His son was already looking green and they had not yet pulled anchor. Here in the bowels of the ship, with the claustrophobic press of bodies, he knew his son would suffer miserably.

  ‘Come on,’ urged Gino. ‘We canny hang about - they’re putting up barbed wire.’

  Paolo nodded quickly and, grabbing their jackets, they followed Gino along a warren of narrow corridors. He mollified a suspicious guard with a couple of cigarettes he had tucked in the lining of his cap and found them a cabin with two other Italians, Cesare and Lucca, who originated from Milan. They were political exiles who had been working for an anti-fascist organisation in London.

  ‘That’s bloody bad luck,’ Gino commiserated. ‘And now you’re stuck in the same boat as a bunch of Nazi sailors. Sante Giuseppe, what madness.’

  ‘It’s blind panic on the part of the government,’ Cesare replied in a cultured voice. ‘We’ve been in England since 1922 and we know who the Italian fascists are in Britain. Yet no one has asked us for information.’ He regarded them dolefully through round spectacles. ‘They just see a foreign face or hear a foreign name and decide to lock us all up - the snakes in with the lambs.’

  ‘And have you seen many Italian snakes on board?’ Gino asked, curious.

  Cesare shook his head. ‘Snakes have the habit of wriggling out of reach. All I see on this ship are a bunch of shopkeepers and waiters - you’re about as politically aware as sheep,’ he said with a touch of disdain.

  The phrase ‘lambs to the slaughter’ came into Arturo’s mind, but he kept the thought to himself. ‘Where are we being taken, do you know?’ he asked.

  Cesare lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes as he replied, ‘Canada. We’re lucky - some of the poor blighters are being shipped to Australia. Imagine being stuck on a ship like this for weeks.’

  In the early hours of July 1st, the Arandora Star set sail into the North Atlantic, unescorted and flying the Nazi flag to denote to the enemy that they carried German prisoners. Paolo was sick before breakfast time, but as breakfast did not materialise he spent the rest of the day retching spittle as the ship rose and fell among the white spume.

  Gino played cards with his Milanese cabin mates while Arturo attempted to sleep. But insomnia had plagued him since his arrest and he made them all edgy with his restlessness. Constantly his thoughts went back to Anna and Rosa and the grandchildren and wondered how they would cope without him for so long. Canada was another world away; how would he ever return home from there? Bobby was too young to take the responsibility of the family on his narrow shoulders and Joe…

  Arturo felt a great stab of regret when he thought of his son Joseph and the times they had wasted quarrelling. Perhaps he had been too hard on Joe, expecting him to be as compliant and dutiful as Paolo, suppressing his extrovert nature and disapproving of his lively friends. And had he been right to discourage Joe’s liaison with Sara? Arturo wondered. But then, how could he have known how little time for happiness had remained to them all before this hateful war had destroyed their lives? Soon Joe would be fighting for the Allies, possibly even against people of his own blood. Arturo turned to the wall to hide the tears of desolation that trickled down his leathery face and dampened his thick moustache.

  Early next morning Arturo woke from a fitful doze to see Paolo gazing out of the porthole at the dawn. It shone pink on his square, open face, for a moment as vulnerable as a child’s. Seeing his lips move noiselessly, Arturo suddenly realised his son was praying. He looked away quickly, not wanting to intrude on the intimate act, but Paolo sensed he was being watched and turned to see his father awake.

  ‘Papa,’ he smiled.

  There followed an almighty boom which shook the whole ship. The others woke up instantly and Gino blasphemed as the vessel juddered like a wounded beast.

  ‘We’ve been hit!’ Cesare shouted, scrambling from his bunk fully dressed. Opening the door he saw the corridor was plunged in darkness, and others were spilling out of cabins in the rush to escape as the sirens wailed. The next minutes were ones of horrifying confusion as men groped and cried out one another’s names. Arturo was paralysed with fright. He had no idea what they should do; there had been no boat drill in the event of an emergency and he did not know where to go.

  ‘Bloody hurry up, Arturo!’ Gino swore at his brother.

  ‘Haway, Papa,’ Paolo coaxed him, his voice betraying no alarm and Arturo marvelled at his coolness as he pushed him firmly after Gino.

  They stumbled up the corridor looking for a door that would allow them onto the open deck. The ship was already listing, making them stagger as if drunk and knock into the other passengers. Someone found a door.

  ‘The poor buggers below!’ Gino shuddered as they felt the blast of fresh air on their faces and pushed their way outside. Arturo felt horror grip his stomach to think of the scores of men stuck beneath them on ‘A’ deck, locked in by barbed wire, trapped in the pitch black.

  ‘This way, Papa!’ Paolo urged, dragging him by the arm.

  No one seemed to be in charge and no officers were coordinating an evacuation. Gino spotted a group of Italians attempting to loosen the ropes of a lifeboat with little success. He went to help. Precious minutes passed as they failed to release the boat, then two young German prisoners pushed their way to the fore, shouting instructions that no one could understand.

  They managed to winch the lifeboat over the side and there followed a desperate scramble for places. The German sailors went onto the next boat, but there were now hundreds of men on deck hoping for rescue. Even Arturo could see the number of lifeboats was totally inadequate for the overcrowded ship. Some were already jumping into the choppy grey waters of the Atlantic, fifty feet below, while others were throwing things they thought might float into the water and jumping after them. A barrel went hurtling into the sea and landed on a man below; a slipstream of blood oozed from the man’s head as he sunk into the steel-grey water.

  ‘Lifejackets!’ Gino cried, grabbing at the cork ones he found stowed in a locker. ‘Stick this on,’ he told Arturo.

  An officer near them was wielding a hatchet to cut the ropes of a raft that was strapped to the railings. Paolo rushed to help him and together they hurled it over the side of the sinking ship.

  ‘Jump, Papa!’ Paolo ordered.

  ‘I can’t swim,’ Arturo argued. ‘You go.’

/>   ‘You’ve got a lifejacket on, you’ll be all right.’ Paolo pushed him to the railings.

  ‘I’ll jump with you,’ Gino said and grabbed him. ‘Close your eyes and pray like hell.’

  ‘You too?’ Arturo turned anxiously to his son.

  ‘I’ll follow,’ Paolo assured him and helped Gino heave his father on to the railings.

  Arturo closed his eyes and felt himself rushing through cold air, hitting the icy water with a smack that nearly knocked him out. He howled from the shock of the fall and the excruciating cold of the sea. All around him, figures bobbed and splashed in the half-light, crying for help. Only yards away he could see where the metal bow of the ship had been torn by the treacherous torpedo, the sea gushing into its gaping side. The flimsy swastika had not saved them from a deadly U-boat.

  Straining around for Gino, Arturo could see no sign of his brother and he became aware that his saturated clothing was dragging him down. He clung to the cork jacket which bobbed around his neck, loosened in the drop, and called out Gino’s name.

  Steadily Arturo began to lose sensation in his legs as numbness gripped him and he became strangely calm as he realised he was going to die. He began to pray, then hands from behind grabbed his lifejacket and he found himself being hauled on to a raft. Arturo tumbled backwards and looked up in to the face of Cesare, the anti-fascist.

  ‘Paddle like hell!’ an officer commanded.

  ‘Gino?’ Arturo gasped. ‘And Paolo?’

  ‘I haven’t seen them,’ Cesare answered, heaving Arturo to a sitting position. The men on board began to paddle frantically with their bare hands.

  Arturo looked back at the dying ship and searched for Paolo’s stocky frame. They were still close enough to make out faces, but he could not see his son, so perhaps he had already jumped. Young German sailors were stripping off and plunging naked in to the sea; fully clothed men were swiftly drowned by their sodden clothes. He watched a packed lifeboat being lowered precariously, but it hit the ship’s bow at an angle and lurched in to the water, tumbling passengers on top of each other and tossing them into the sea like rag dolls.