Polly's Angel (51 page)

So now, sitting in front of the fire with her darning more or less finished, Deirdre was able to contemplate the evening ahead with some satisfaction. Polly would be home very soon and then she, Deirdre, would pop into the oven the eggless, fatless sort-of sponge pudding which she had prepared, and then Polly could read her post. The back door opening brought a smile to her face.

‘That's a grand smell so it is,' Peader said, taking off his earth-caked boots and knocking them on the cobbles and, stepping into the kitchen, he pulled the door to behind him. ‘I hope the girls won't be long. I'm hungry enough to eat me own boots, so I am. Diggin's such hard work . . .'

The abrupt re-opening of the back door again put an end of Peader's words.

‘Mammy! We're not late, are we?' It was Polly, looking flushed and pretty in her uniform, with Monica close behind her. ‘Only me bleedin' bike broke down and I took it in to the MT yard, and one of the fellers said he'd fix it so that I could use it first thing tomorrow. And Monica came out of the Liver buildings as I was passing and so we came on together. What's for tea?'

‘A lovely vegetable pie with beef dripping,' Deirdre said. ‘And I'm just about to mash the spuds wit' a smidgin of milk; then we can eat. Oh, and there's letters for you on the mantel behind the clock.'

Afterwards, she was to wonder what had made her say such a thing in front of Monica, for usually she tried not to remind Monica that there were no letters for her; not any more. But today, for some reason, she simply told Polly about the letters, though she added hastily: ‘You may not want to read them now; wait until later when you're alone, will you?'

Polly was sensitive about letters, too, but she reached up and took the envelopes off the mantelpiece, weighed them thoughtfully in her hand and then went and sat opposite Peader by the fire, whilst Monica, having removed her jacket, put a wraparound overall over the rest of her uniform and began to mash the potatoes for Deirdre, whilst her mother-in-law made gravy with the vegetable water and some cornflour. ‘I'll have a quick glance, just to make sure everything's all right,' Polly said, and slit one of the envelopes, then pulled out a number of sheets. ‘Well, would you look at that! Sunny writes a grand letter so he does, but not usually a – a
book.
' She grinned at Peader, then began to read.

Later she glanced up at Monica, then away again, before shoving the letter back into its envelope as her mother told her that the meal was ready. And presently, when the first edge of their hunger was taken off, she said thoughtfully: ‘Isn't it odd, now, that this letter should have arrived wit' Monica here? Because there's a bit of it which Sunny thought I ought to pass on to you, Monica. I'll read it presently, but first of all I'll tell you that Sunny wrote it on his return voyage, after he'd been in one of those Russian ports, all darkness and ice, which is where the convoys go. He said that he'd decided to go ashore – they're allowed, but they don't think the Russians like it much – and take a look around. A pal of his had meant to go with him but for some reason he wasn't able to, so Sunny went alone. He set off across the ice . . .'

Sunny, in his number ones but with his biggest muffler wound twice round his face and once round his neck and his greatcoat collar turned up, with his thickest socks – two pairs – on his booted feet and his cap pulled right down to his eyebrows, set off across the ice. He was alone, but had already decided that he would not go ashore alone. However, someone from one of the merchantmen or even from another member of the convoy guardships would surely want to get a breath of fresh air. Going ashore alone, they had been told, might well be dangerous. The Russians, or the dock police, at any rate, were a queer bunch. They would not set on a group of sailors, and indeed if they did so it would mean the end of the life-giving convoys, but no one was absolutely sure that they would not pounce on a solitary sailor, using the excuse that he was spying, and obstinately deny that they had even seen the fellow. Might, Sunny morbidly imagine, even claim that the sailor had fallen through the ice and been drowned. They could probably produce a body without too much difficulty, Sunny thought now, eyeing the straggle of dark figures unloading the nearest merchantman. He could not be sure, of course, but he certainly suspected that the men and women who acted as dockers and unloaded the stores were prisoners of some description. Certainly the way the dock police treated them meant that they were, at any rate, not held in much esteem. Life is cheap here, Sunny thought, and was grateful when he saw three muffled figures coming towards him across the quay. He hailed them.

‘Hi, there. You from the SS
Rangoon Princess
? Been ashore here before?'

They had not, but wanted to see as much as they could. ‘Which won't be much,' Sunny told them gloomily. ‘I've been ashore several times, but there's really nothing to see. Flat, snow-covered ground, a huddle of wooden huts, and sometimes you see lorries, lining up to take the stuff away from here. As for the locals, if they
are
locals, I've never succeeded in getting so much as a word out of any of them.'

Nevertheless, the four of them walked briskly along the snow-covered quay towards the long line of muffled figures hefting the bags and boxes which were already piling up on the quay. But as he predicted, in a lowered voice, to the sailor nearest him, as soon as they got within ten feet of the working party a couple of dark-clad policemen detached themselves from the group and came towards them, making signals that they were to come no closer, whilst they spoke harshly in their own tongue.

‘Right you are, mate,' Sunny said, and the four of them swung around and walked away from the working party, towards the huddle of huts.

They skirted the buildings and went on past them, into the snow-covered wilderness beyond, but after only a short way it was clear that Sunny's new companions had no urge to explore further.

‘There's nothing but snow and dark,' the man nearest Sunny said disgustedly. He turned to one of the other men. ‘It's a far cry from your neck of the woods, Eggy, but even if you want to see more of it, I don't reckon the rest of us do. We'll be gettin' back, see whether there's any grub going.'

‘Just because my parents originally came from Italy and my brother's been troop carrying in the Med, that doesn't mean to say I want to hang about in this God-awful place,' the man called Eggy said cheerfully. He turned to Sunny. ‘My brother has been taking troops across to Italy for the invasion, and bringing back wounded and so on. Lucky devil! At least he's been warm and not perpetually frozen, like our lot.'

‘Italy?' Sunny said, surprised. ‘Don't tell me we've taken Italy!'

The other man laughed. ‘Well, not yet I don't imagine, though you must know our troops have been fighting their way up from Sicily for months and months now. And my brother . . . but look, why not come aboard the old
Princess
for a noggin and I'll tell you about it. Cooky might find us up something hot, seeing as you're one of our brave escorts.'

Sunny, agreeing, went on board the
Rangoon Princess
and was soon comfortably settled in a corner of the mess deck with a large mug of cocoa and a bacon sandwich and as soon as he could do so he asked Eggy, who proved to be a short, stocky young man with very dark hair and eyes and a swarthy skin, to tell him what had been happening to his brother.

‘My brother is younger than me and so when war came he joined the Navy, whereas I was already in the merchant service,' he explained. ‘Because Ben – that's my brother – speaks pretty good Italian he was given the job of talking to ex-pows and some prisoners who were brought aboard his ship for transportation back to the UK, and he had some strange stories to tell. The partisan movement isn't highly regarded in Italy and the peasants fear them almost as much as they fear the Nazis but even so they readily give shelter to anyone they consider as oppressed as themselves. You can tell by the marvellous way they treated fellows who managed to escape from the Germans, and aircrew who weren't picked up by the jerries but managed to find friendly locals to shelter them. Of course, when they spoke Italian, as some did, it was even easier for them to stay out of jug, I imagine.'

‘Yeah, speaking the language must have helped.' Sunny said, taking a large bite out of his bacon sandwich. ‘And if the allies have only recently been pushing ahead, I suppose you might have been better off in a prisoner of war camp – at least they'd feed you. Or would they head for a neutral country? Switzerland, perhaps?'

‘I wouldn't have tried to cross into Switzerland,' Eggy said, pulling a face. ‘I wouldn't trust a Swiss further than I could throw him and that's a fact. No, if it were me I'd stay shtum in various villages and waited my chance.'

‘That would be all right for you, knowing the language,' Sunny said sagely. ‘It might have been a very different story if you'd been like meself, for instance. I don't speak a word of any language but English – unless you count scouse, of course.'

‘Well, I dunno about that,' Eggy said. ‘Ben talked about other fellers who'd been taken prisoner but escaped, or who had been sheltered by fishermen and so on, and none of them had a word of Italian to their names. Not when they first got there, though I think most of 'em picked some up. Why, he picked up one feller who had some Italian, and he told him he'd been in a remote little village in the Calabria area of the country, being hidden by a peasant family and fed on whatever they could spare – mostly goat's cheese, unleavened bread and grapes – when a cousin from another village came visiting. She was a pretty thing, and was getting married. The old woman I was staying with was a noted dressmaker, apparently, and this girl had brought her some material to make up into a wedding dress. It was pretty stuff, real quality, not the sort of thing you would ever find in a remote hill village, so this young feller asked her where she got it. She beamed at him and said it had been given to her by a young sailor that her father had fished out of the water quite early on in the war. She said he was English, couldn't speak a word of Italian, and was carrying the material wrapped round his body under his clothing. It wasn't spoiled by the seawater for it was wrapped in some sort of oiled paper, and when he moved on somewhere else, after weeks and weeks of staying with the young bride-to-be, he gave it to her. The feller told Ben it was really pretty, a sort of cream-coloured silk covered with bronze poppies.'

Sunny stared, his sandwich halfway to his mouth. ‘Are – are you sure? What was the feller's name, did the girl say?'

‘I dunno, I can't remember. Ben may not ever have told me his name . . .'

‘No, I don't mean the story teller's name, I mean the – the chap who they fished out of the 'oggin with the silk wrapped round him,' Sunny said quickly. ‘What was his name, d'you know?'

Eggy wiped his hand across his mouth and after a few moments' thought, shook his head. ‘No, I doubt that Ben would have remembered it, even if the girl had mentioned it to the other feller. No, she wouldn't have used a name, them being foreign to her. And it might not have been too safe anyway, what with the jerries and everything.'

‘The thing is,' Sunny said, his mouth suddenly dry. ‘I've a pal called Martin O'Brady who was lost at sea when his ship went down. His wife is a dressy little thing and he got me to buy him a dress length of silk whilst I was in Gibraltar. I did as he asked and bought him a length of cream-coloured silk covered with bronze poppies. It was very unusual stuff, and . . . well, it seems strange . . . Martin's my girlfriend's brother and if it was him they fished out of the 'oggin, and he's still alive . . .'

Eggy, finishing up his own sandwich, shrugged. ‘Bit of a coincidence, but things like that's always happening in wartime,' he observed. ‘I can't think two sailors would have a dress length of material like that. I bet it was your pal, Sunny!'

And Sunny, grinning broadly, said that he suspicioned it was, too. But though the pair of them talked for some while after that, they could come to no firm conclusion. ‘I wonder if I ought to write to Mart's wife, tell her the story?' Sunny said at last as the two of them stood once more on the windy quay, with loose snow blowing into their faces. ‘I don't want to raise false hopes, but . . . well, what would you do, Eggy?'

‘I'd just tell her the story and let her make what she could of it,' Eggy decided, after some thought. ‘No, tell your girl, let her decide. But if it were me, I'd rather have hope than none at all, wouldn't you?'

‘I think I would,' Sunny agreed after a moment. ‘If only someone had mentioned a name . . .'

Eggy, shrugging, watched him climb down the rope ladder, and, as Sunny's feet met the quay, he thought of something else. ‘Hang on a mo, old feller,' he shouted, cupping both hands round his mouth so that his voice carried clearly across the ice. ‘One thing me brother did say – the girl said he called her “alanna”, or something like that. If that's any help, of course.'

Sunny turned and grinned up at him. ‘Oh, the times I've heard Martin use that word, me ole shipmate! That decides it; I'll write to my Polly this very night.'

Polly and Monica danced around the table and hugged each other when the letter was read, and even Peader and Deirdre allowed that ‘It looked as though Monica had been right all along, and Martin was still alive.' No one said that he had been alive in 1942 but might well have died in the interim, but it was probably at the back of every mind. Monica, however, pointed out that had Martin been taken prisoner they would have been informed, but that, living on the country as it appeared he was, he could scarcely have let anyone know his whereabouts.