by Mary Contini
‘Alfonso!’ They all cheered.
The armed guards looked over and shook their heads. These Italians had no self-control. The guards were not looking forward to the journey. They’d soon wipe those smiles off their faces.
Just at that moment, young Harry ran forward looking for his father.
‘Dad, come on. They’re serving tea in the ballroom!’
‘What’s for dinner, Harry? Did you see?’ Alfonso was starving.
‘Two sausages on a tin plate and a cup of tea!’
‘Well, what about that! Salsiccie! Couldn’t be better!’
31
3 July 1940: It was now twenty-three days since Alfonso and Domenico had been arrested; endless agonising days without a word of where they were.
Not knowing was agony. Constantly worrying and hoping, jumping at every knock at the door, every ring of the telephone, scouring every newspaper, waiting for every delivery of post.
Twenty-three days and twenty-three nights.
Unable to sleep, Maria had lain awake night after night, weeping with despair. Her mind raced, her emotions ran from anger and fury to waves of panic and sheer terror.
For the third time in her life, Alfonso had left her. Three times she had watched him walk away and three times she had been overcome with despair. Again and again she traced the details in her mind.
She remembered when he had first left Fontitune that early spring morning. Now it seemed like a lifetime away. Domenico was just a baby. When she had called, Alfonso had turned from far away down the hill, had waved and called back.
She remembered when, handsome in his olive green uniform, he had marched past her at the war parade in Glasgow. He had looked at her with his beautiful eyes, happy and proud that he was going to defend his country. She had stood waving and crying, left alone with two children in a foreign country.
Now she wished she could forget the details of the night he was taken. Every tiny detail crowded her mind: the knock on the door, Alfonso sitting on the bed pulling on his socks, Olivia sorting his handkerchief.
She remembered that he had walked down the stairs without looking back. She so wished that he had, that he had looked round again and waved, that she had seen his precious face just one more time.
Sometimes she would fall into a deep sleep and awake as if in his arms. For a split second, suspended on the edge of consciousness, she was with him again. For a delicious moment he was holding her, whispering in her ear, stroking her hair. It was almost as if, wherever he was, he was willing himself to be with her, willing her to know that he was safe and alive.
Then, one morning, without warning, the morning of the 2nd of July, the dream had changed into a nightmare. In a cold sweat, choking and gasping for breath, she felt real terror gripping her. As clear as anything, she heard Alfonso call. She heard his voice; she heard him call her name. She awoke with a fright. She was sure she saw him. She stretched out her arms to him. She opened her eyes. There was no one there. He had gone.
Marietta and the girls had been allowed to visit Alex. Walking through the gates at Saughton, they felt confused. How could it be that he was in prison? Alex was overwhelmed by everything that had happened. He asked about his father all the time. What had they heard? Was there no news? He asked for Johnny. He wondered why his brother hadn’t visited him. They had to tell him that his brother had been arrested as well and that they didn’t know where he was. Alex had heard rumours in the prison. Vittorio had told him that Domenico had been arrested. He had hoped his brother had been lucky.
The girls slept with their mother, trying to comfort her. The interminable waiting was wearing her down.
Anna was working in the shop. Lena rushed in waving the newspaper.
‘A ship’s gone down off the west coast of Ireland! It says it had Italians on board: a lot of Italians.’
Anna grabbed the newspaper. She read the report over and over again.
‘The Arandora Star was torpedoed in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Enemy aliens are being transferred to Canada for internment; Italian males on board. Actual numbers missing not yet known.’
The report said hundreds had drowned. Lifeboats had been spotted by a Coastal Command Sunderland Flying boat in the early hours of the morning. The survivors had clung to scraps of wood for eight hours in the Atlantic.
Anna didn’t want to believe any of it. This was a mistake. This could have nothing to do with her father. She began to cry. She looked at Lena.
‘It has nothing to do with Dad; they took him away in a car, not on a ship.’
‘Anna, look at this.’ At the bottom of the page Lena ran her finger along a sentence. Anna read it again and again. The report was from a survivor.
‘I felt sorry for the poor Italians, whose average age must have been about 60. They did not know what to do, and many of them hung on to the ship for dear life.’
Anna fainted.
On Thursday evening the disaster was broadcast to the nation. In Glasgow Maria and her daughters listened to the BBC radio news bulletin at nine p.m. It confirmed the rumours that they had heard flying round the Italian community. The Arandora Star had been travelling to Canada to deport internees. It had sunk within half an hour of a torpedo strike, with a massive loss of life.
Rumours circulated that survivors had landed in Greenock on Wednesday. Newspaper reports showed a group of British survivors, some of the soldiers who had been on board guarding the prisoners. There must have been Italian survivors as well.
Maria was traumatised. Could Alfonso or Domenico have been on board? And Tony. Margherita still didn’t know where her husband was. If they were on board could they have survived?
Olivia managed to get through on the telephone to Anna.
‘What have you heard, Anna? Do you know anything?’
‘Olivia, it says in the paper more than four hundred Italians are lost. I keep thinking my father couldn’t swim. He couldn’t swim.’
Olivia hadn’t thought about that. She didn’t want to think about that.
‘We don’t even know if they were on board. We don’t know. We mustn’t think the worst.’
‘How can we think anything else?’
The report in the Edinburgh Evening News that night shocked them all. It said that the prisoners had panicked and fought among themselves, that the Germans had pushed the Italians aside. That they had caused increased fatalities because of their cowardice.
When the women heard about this they wept. Surely their husbands and sons couldn’t have been on board. They would not have behaved like that.
Finally on Friday, the Brazilian Consul in Glasgow issued a list of survivors, a list of the eight hundred or so men brought ashore in Greenock. A phone number was listed for relatives looking for information.
Italian women all over Scotland were frantically trying to get through. After trying for what seemed like hundreds of times, Anna eventually got through. The woman on the end of the phone sounded distressed.
‘Can you spell the name please.’
‘D … i … C … iacca,’ Anna’s voice shook.
‘Yes, Di Ciacca survived. I have a Di Ciacca on the list.’
Anna’s heart was thumping. She took a deep breath to stop herself panicking.
‘Do you … do you have the first name? The initial?’ Was it her father or her brother? Anna knew Uncle Louis and his son Harry were missing as well, and many other Di Ciaccas, all her uncles and cousins.
‘L …’ The woman hesitated. ‘Yes, Louis. Louis Di Ciacca. That’s all just now.’
‘What about C? C for Charlie? Or J for Johnny? Please check. How about G then, G for Giovanni. My brother is called Johnny and Giovanni.’
‘No, sorry, my dear. Nothing on this list. This is the survivors’ list. There’s nothing else on it.’
Anna phoned again the next day. The lists of those missing had been released.
Another voice answered the phone.
‘Yes, I have two Di Ciaccas li
sted as missing.’
Anna held her breath. Was Johnny on the boat with his father? Is that where he was?
‘Aristide Di Ciacca.’
That was Anna’s young cousin, Harry, Uncle Louis’s son. Harry had drowned. Anna drew in a sharp breath, shocked. He was just her age.
She didn’t hear what the voice said next.
‘Hello. Hello. Are you still there?’
Anna shivered. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m here. Can you repeat that, please.’ She could hardly breathe.
‘C. Di Ciacca. Yes I can confirm, C … e … s … i … d … i … o Di Ciacca is listed missing.’
Anna couldn’t think. Tears rolled down her face.
‘Yes. Yes. That’s my father.’ Irrational relief swept over her. At last she’d found her father. ‘Is he all right? Is he safe?’
Her voice was trembling, odd.
‘No, I am sorry, my dear.’ The voice on the other end of the phone was full of compassion. ‘He is reported missing, presumed drowned.’
Anna dropped the phone.
Marietta and Lena had been standing transfixed, listening. Neither said a word.
In Glasgow, Margherita and Olivia went to the Brazilian Consul to find out for themselves. They set off, leaving Gloria and Filomena with their mother.
‘Gloria, stay by the telephone. Answer it for mother if it rings. Can you do that? Will you be all right?’ Olivia didn’t want to leave her younger sisters alone. ‘Yes, we’ll be fine.’
Later on the telephone did ring.
Gloria answered it and, hearing one of her cousins, passed it to her mother.
‘Zia Maria. I’ve been to the Brazilian Consulate. My brothers and father are safe. I saw A. Crolla on the list. Zio Alfonso must be safe. Zio Alfonso is safe.’
This time Maria collapsed on the floor.
She gulped, trying to get the words to escape from her throat. She put her hand on her chest.
‘He’s safe. He’s safe. Alfonso is safe.’
‘What about Domenico? Did you see anything about Domenico?’
‘No, Zia. I saw Emidio and Giovanni Crolla on the list.’
‘Thank God. Who else? Can you remember? Who else?’
‘I can’t remember. There were about 250 names. Survivors. I can’t remember.’ The young girl started to cry. She was confused. It was all so confusing.
Maria sat all afternoon with Gloria and Filomena and waited for the girls to get back. She was worried about Domenico. Had he been with his father? Why had his name not been on the list? But at least she knew Alfonso was safe. And Giovanni and Emidio. My God, it was all their men who had been on that ship. The enormity of it started to dawn on her.
There was pandemonium in the Brazilian Consular Office. It seemed to Margherita as if every woman or girl who had been at her wedding a few months earlier was here in the room. The poor women were distraught. Some were screaming with grief, some collapsed on the floor, some had good news and left quietly, overwhelmed with guilt.
Eventually they got a chance to squeeze through the crowd and look at the list. There were so many names, so many names: pages and pages of names of Italians who had drowned. The newspaper reports had been right. There were over 450 Italians missing. It had been a disaster.
It was late when they left to go home. They were afraid that they wouldn’t get back before the enforced curfew.
Anxiously Gloria watched at the window, pulling aside the black-out curtain, ears alert for any sound. Eventually she saw the girls at the end of the street. She opened the door and rushed, excited, to the end of the garden.
‘We know, we know. Papà’s all right. We know.’ As she put her arms out to embrace her sister, she stopped. She looked at Olivia. Her face was red and swollen with crying. ‘What? What?’ Gloria knew something was wrong.
Maria was at the door. She looked at Margherita. Neither woman said a word.
Margherita walked forward and put her arms round her mother and held her tight. Very tight. Without a word between them, Maria understood.
The message from her niece had been wrong. It was Achille Crolla who had survived, not Alfonso.
Maria screamed. This was what she had been afraid of all her life.
Edinburgh
6 April 1947
The Easter Services were always Maria’s favourite. The week-long celebrations of the Lord’s Death and Resurrection acted as a balm for her tortured spirit. She gradually came to terms with the loss of her husband.
Her brothers-in-law, Giovanni and Emidio, were waiting for her and her family at the back of the church. They had been among the lucky ones. They had survived the sinking of the Arandora Star, hanging on for eight hours in the freezing water, hearing the voices around them, praying to the Madonna and calling for their mothers, gradually fading into oblivion. Of the 734 Italians on board, 486 had been lost.
After their rescue, the brothers, along with about 200 other survivors, had been indiscriminately transferred, without even a change of clothes, back to the dreaded Warth Mills. They had still not had any contact with their families since they had been arrested on 10 June, apart from a card on which they had been told to write their address and the words ‘I am alive’. By now the frenzy of hatred against the Italians in Britain had reached fever pitch and, instead of being treated with compassion after their horrific ordeal, they had been punched and kicked and their remaining belongings stolen. They had then been deported yet again, this time on the Dunera, bound for Australia. The conditions on the journey had been unspeakable, fifty-five torturous days in which the men endured hunger, illness, beatings and suicides. After four years of forced internment in Australia, they had eventually been transported back to Edinburgh to take up their lives once more. After the war many soldiers had been court-martialled because of their maltreatment of the internees.
Coming out of the church the men greeted their relations. Giovanni handed Vittorio a parcel wrapped in jute sacking.
‘Buona Pasqua, Vittorio. Ecco. Can you believe it? A pacco from Fontitune!’
‘Grazie, Zio Giovanni!’ Vittorio was excited. ‘Who is it from? Is there any news? Is there a letter?’
Giovanni gave Vittorio an envelope.
‘It’s from Pietro. Read it to your mother later.’ He shook his head. ‘La guerra, la guerra! All my life, Vittorio, I’ve seen war and destruction and, believe me, it’s no answer to anything.’
Both Giovanni and Emidio had aged. They were thin, with greying hair, but still determined and strong. Only their eyes reflected the deep sadness they had lived through. They were aware of their responsibility for their poor brother’s widow and her family.
Giovanni kissed his sister-in-law. She was an old woman now, her hair grey, her face wrinkled and lined, the strain of her loss etched on her face.
‘Maria, Tutt’a posto? Is there anything you need?’
‘No, grazie, Giovanni. Grazie.’ She always felt comforted when she saw Giovanni. When he had first returned from Australia he had sat with her for a long time and talked to her about Alfonso.
Vittorio wanted to get home. He was itching to open the pacco and read the letter.
‘Iami! Mamma. Come on. Let’s get home. I’m starving!’
At home in Brunton Place, Olivia was in the kitchen, rolling out some fresh pasta. She had flour all over her apron. The table was set, some spring primroses decorating the centre. She had the radio on. The Italian station was broadcasting Gigli.
Olivia could hear her youngest sister laughing from the bottom of the stair. She was such a tonic, Filomena, always full of fun; she swept into the kitchen followed by her mother and Gloria.
‘Where are the boys? I don’t want to cook the pasta until they arrive.’
‘Olivia, my darling, here I am.’ Vittorio came in behind his mother, kissing his sister. ‘That smells good. Look!’ He put the pacco on the table. ‘Our first pacco from Fontitune in seven years!’
They stood and waited as Vittorio cut through the strin
g with a sharp knife. The familiar pungent smell of pecorino and salsiccie filled the kitchen. They looked at each other incredulous. It was just the same. Exactly the same! Maria blessed herself.
Gloria, Olivia, Domenico, Maria, Vittorio, Filomena, c. 1947
‘Grazie a Dio! Thank God. Smell the cheese, Filomena. Do you remember it? Do you remember when we opened the pacco like this with Papà?’
‘Mamma, there’s a letter from Pietro.’
Maria sat down at the kitchen table. She took a deep breath.
‘Read it, please, Vittorio.’
The girls sat down as well, preparing themselves for the news.
‘Read it.’
‘Carissima Maria, Carissima famiglia,’ Vittorio began. Maria put her hand over her mouth. Gloria put her arms round her mother. Thinking about their family brought all the emotions of the last years rushing to the surface.
‘I have heard the terrible news of the death of my brother. God Rest his Soul.’ Vittorio’s voice broke. Tears fell from his eyes, blotting the ink on the blue paper. Olivia took the letter gently from him. She continued.
‘We too have suffered in this terrible war. In the beginning our young men were all called up to fight. They had no stomach for it. They had no desire to fight, least of all against our Allies in the last war. But they went. They did their duty for their country, although many never returned.
‘Picinisco was used as a confine libero; many enemies of the regime were confined here high in the mountains. Life was hard, but we are used to hard times, aren’t we? We know how to cope.
‘But from September 1943, when Italy surrendered and Il Duce fell, it was our turn to suffer. Overnight the Germans became our enemies.
‘Fontitune and many small villages along the tratturi lay on their line of defence, the Gustav Line. We were right in the path of the battles to defend Rome from the advancing armies.
Italian men interned on the Isle of Man, 1942