She slid out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown, jerking the belt tightly round her waist, her face blazing and her full mouth set tight. The neighbours either side had already complained umpteen times about the goings-on and she knew she had got a name for herself in living with three men, the more so because she was as sure as she could be that Nat had let it be known that she and Ken weren’t married.
When she flung open the kitchen door she saw there were three other men besides Ken, Nat and Terence sitting round the table with cards in their hands. The place was a mess of beer bottles, whisky bottles and glasses, plates of chitterlings and other food mixed in with spills and debris. A beer bottle was lying smashed on the floor, fragments of glass swimming in a pool of liquid no one had even bothered to attempt to mop up.
Nancy ignored the other men, walking across to Ken who was slumped in his chair, cards in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other. ‘Isn’t it time you called it a day? It’s gone midnight and you told me you’ve got to be at the docks for six in the morning.’
The singing had stopped at her entrance, and now Nat said, his voice thick and slurred, ‘Pushy with it, isn’t she? Never thought I’d see the day when you put up with being henpecked, Ken.’
Ken sat up straighter, the silly smile that had been on his face disappearing. ‘Get back to bed. Now.’
She should have left it there. For ever afterwards, when she thought of the events of that terrible night, she knew she should have turned on her heel and gone back to the room and locked the door. Instead the resurgence of the old Nancy caused her to stand her ground and say, ‘Are you coming with me?’
‘Oh, I get it.’ Nat sniggered. ‘She wants a bit, Ken. She’s a brazen one, isn’t she, treating you like a stallion at stud?’ He grinned at the others. ‘Her old man was no good in bed but then our Ken came along. Can’t get enough of it, can you, Nancy, eh?’
‘Shut up.’ Nancy glared at him.
‘Don’t tell me to shut up in my own house.’ Nat stood up, moving so that he was between Nancy and the door. ‘You need to learn some manners, you do. You women think you’re everything these days since the war started. Taking men’s jobs right, left and centre in the factories and on the buses and what have you, even in the army and the air force. Whores most of ’em are, that’s the truth of it, like you, doing the dirty on your man and running off and leaving him and your bairns.’
The atmosphere in the kitchen had changed. Nancy felt a trickle of fear run down her spine and she told herself she mustn’t show she was frightened. Ken was still sitting in his chair, and now she said, ‘Are you going to let him speak to me like that?’
Ken looked at her. Nancy had properly shown him up in front of his mates coming into the kitchen and ordering him about as though she owned him. Made him a laughing stock. And it wasn’t the first time she’d presumed to try and tell him what to do. She was a lead weight round his neck, damn her, and he rued the day he’d taken up with her. He shrugged indifferently, the look on his face and the action speaking volumes to the men watching them.
Nat smiled. From the first time Nancy had entered the house she had grated on him, with her hoity-toity air and uppity ways. She’d made no secret of the fact that she considered it all beneath her and he’d longed to take her down a peg or two, but she was Ken’s bit on the side and so he’d stayed his hand, biding his time. He was well aware Ken had got fed up with her, in fact he’d been amazed when Ken had arrived with a woman in tow – it wasn’t his style – but Nancy had clung on and lasted far longer than he’d expected. But it seemed like tonight was the night he could scratch this particular itch. He looked straight at Ken.
‘You got any objection if me and the lads teach her a few manners?’
Ken knew what Nat was asking. Years ago he’d watched a rape down at the dockside in Sunderland’s East End; a couple of blokes had got a woman drunk and then had her on the cobbles of the pub’s back yard. He had been as hard as a rock and found it difficult to walk home. Now he felt a shaft of excitement shoot through him. Nancy had brought this on herself, he told himself as he shrugged again – what decent woman would come into a room in her nightclothes knowing that several men were three sheets to the wind? It was asking for trouble. And maybe that’s what she secretly wanted. She liked her sex, she always had.
‘Be my guest,’ he drawled.
‘Ken?’ She moved behind his chair, unable to believe he could mean it, and then, as a couple of the men laughed, kicking back their chairs as they stood up, her eyes shot to the back door that led into the yard.
She nearly made it before they were on her, and as she gave a despairing scream she heard Nat say, ‘Shut her up,’ and an arm seized her round her middle from behind as a hand clamped across her mouth. As she was turned round in the man’s grip her eyes registered three images. Nat was sweeping everything on the table on to the floor, bottles and all. Two of the men were already obscenely unbuttoned and advancing towards her, and a third, she thought it was Terence, was saying, ‘Gag her, gag her,’ as he held out a filthy-looking piece of rag. Then blind, primitive panic had her struggling and kicking, but the more she fought the more she realized how helpless she was against iron arms and hands that bore her down onto the table.
The gag was stuffed into her mouth and her clothes ripped away and she heard them whoop and laugh at her nakedness. Her body was stretched out on the table while someone with hands like steel held her wrists above her head and others parted her legs and pushed down on her ankles. Their hands were on her breasts and all over her body, hard and pinching and kneading her soft flesh, obscene words and drunken laughter adding to her terror. She heard Nat say, ‘Me first, me first, you’ll all get your turn,’ and then pain stabbed through her as he brutally forced himself into her, his stinking breath on her face as he called her vile names and bit at her lips against the gag. No sooner had he shuddered and expended himself than the next one entered her, laughing hysterically as the others urged him on with ribald obscenities.
She lost consciousness at some point, only to come round in the midst of more violation and defilement before once more the blackness overcame her. As she descended into it she knew she was going to die and she was glad . . .
She awoke in her own bed, the light through the thin curtains telling her it was morning. For a second she wondered why she was hurting so badly and then she remembered, trying to sit up as she groaned and whimpered. She was naked and surrounded by the smell and stickiness of them, her limbs so stiff and aching that she moaned and cried out as she flung back the covers and sat on the side of the bed, her head swimming.
They had raped her, on and on and on and Ken – Ken had had his turn. Again she moaned, like an animal, and it was the sound of her own voice that caused her to straighten and attempt to stand up.
She stood trembling and nauseous, looking down at herself. Blood and semen were caked on her legs, along with bruises and bite marks on her breasts and stomach. The remains of her nightclothes were lying on the floor next to the bed where they had been thrown. Had it been Ken who had carried her in here when they’d finished with her? It must have been. Had he calmly lain down and gone to sleep before getting up for work later?
She looked at the alarm clock next to the bed. It was seven o’clock. That meant she was alone in the house because the three men had been on an early shift at the docks.
She staggered to the wardrobe and took out her spare nightie, wincing as she pulled it over her head. She knew what she was going to do but first she had to wash the smell of them away. When she threw herself into the Tyne she wanted nothing of them on her.
She heated kettle after kettle of water on the range, pouring it into the tin bath until it was full to overflowing and almost scalding hot. When she lowered herself into it, scrubbing brush in hand, the heat almost overcame her but she welcomed it. She scrubbed herself for a long time and the water changed colour until it was red and quite cold before she stood up and dried hers
elf.
Someone had brushed the debris from the night before into one corner of the kitchen and the table now held a few glasses and bottles but she didn’t look at this. Instead she walked back into the front room and dressed herself before putting on her hat and coat and shoes. She looked at herself in the mirror on the inside of one of the wardrobe doors. Even clothed she looked bashed about, she thought dispassionately, a numbness having taken over her mind. Her lips were swollen and cut, one eye was almost closed and a great bruise stained her forehead. But it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t stop her doing what she needed to do. But first . . .
She carefully slid her fingers to the back of the stout mahogany wardrobe until she felt the package Ken had wedged in there between the wall and the wood. Drawing it out, she held it in her hand for a moment. Ken had called her stupid more than once lately, but she wasn’t so stupid that she didn’t know where he had his hoard of money hidden. He thought he was so clever, hiding it from her, but she’d known where his money was from almost the first day he’d secreted it there. She had never investigated to find out how much there was – it was his money and his business – but she had been disappointed he hadn’t trusted her enough to be open about it. How strange, she thought now, that she had been bothered about something as trivial as that.
She walked over to the bed and emptied the contents of the parcel onto it, notes fluttering out. Even in the midst of the strange deadness in her senses her eyes widened. She knew Ken had a thing about banks and building societies; he didn’t trust them, saying they were part of the establishment and as such no friend of the working man. Privately she’d always thought that the reason Ken was wary of depositing any cash he had into such institutions was because he thought they might ask awkward questions, like how did a docker manage to acquire and continue to acquire wealth beyond his means? But it suited her now that he had preferred to hide his money away, oh, yes. And there was a small fortune here, more than she could have imagined.
Fetching the box of matches from the small mantelpiece over the black-leaded fireplace which had the embers of yesterday’s fire still glowing faintly in the grate, she lit a few of the notes, piling more on top once they were well alight and watching as the bedclothes began to smoulder and then burst into flames. Smoke was billowing out into the hallway when she left the room but she didn’t hurry, walking through to the kitchen and fetching out the old rusty tin of paraffin that had been stored in one of the cupboards ever since she had come to live at the house. She had a little difficulty in unscrewing the lid but once it was off she sprinkled the paraffin over everything until the tin was empty. Throwing it on the floor, she lit the first match and then jumped back as the flames instantly took hold. She stood for a moment more and then opened the back door into the yard, shutting it carefully behind her and walking across the slabs to the gate into the back lane.
The Tyne with its deep black depths of fast-flowing water was beckoning . . .
PART FOUR
Hell Has Many Forms
1944
Chapter Fourteen
The morning was soft, bright yet ethereal, but the sun was already warming the air and Jed knew by midday it would be very pleasant. He had never given any thought to Italy, or to any other countries apart from Britain come to that, until he had been sent overseas not long before Italy completed her military about-face by declaring war on Germany in October the previous year. Germany had been her ally until little more than five weeks before this, but when the Italians had surrendered the wave of atrocities and looting that the Germans had engaged in had shocked new recruits like him. The old hands had been far more philosophical about the reign of terror by the Nazis.
Jed and his unit had been part of the Allied force trying to inch its way up the boot of Italy – ‘like a bug on one leg’ as Winston Churchill had put it – and they had run into stiff resistance north of the Volturno river. The Nazis had transformed the lovely Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino into an almost impenetrable fortress, and at the time Jed had feared that every single British soldier would be wiped out. The Apennines made ideal shelter for Nazi machine-gun nests; there were few roads and the land was marshy. Fog had hampered Allied planes and winter was around the corner. That had probably been his lowest point since he’d joined up.
He stretched and his stiff limbs protested at the movement. He and several of his comrades had spent the night sleeping on the covered verandah of an Italian farmhouse, and although the long, low, stone building was beautiful on the outside it offered nothing in the way of luxuries. Not that they expected any. The area was full of crumbled ruins of buildings, and although it had become clear that Germany would lose the war, the Nazis were an enemy with whom you took tactical liberties at your peril. The German army was tenacious, ruthless, frugal and well led, and counter-attacked whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The area bristled with Italian partisans who, although mostly an undisciplined rabble, were brave and fought well. Many of them were clothed in rags without boots and were armed with antiquated Italian and Turkish weapons. They had passed one such column on the march the day before, and Jed had silently reflected that it was one of the most heterogeneous collections he’d ever seen or was likely to see. There had been mules, donkeys and horses; old men, young men and girls; and every conceivable garment from umbrellas to wooden shoes. The convoy had been singing and smoking, shouting and laughing in a fantastic moving caravan of humanity, and Jed had found himself wondering what they thought of him and his comrades. He and the others were making their way back to camp, having got separated from the rest of their patrol in an ambush two days ago. The patrol hadn’t realized the village they’d been approaching was Nazi-held and had been hopelessly outnumbered. He and a few other men had escaped via the river which had been about two hundred yards wide with a very strong current. They’d been swept miles downstream but had finally managed to wade out in thick mud which had come to halfway up their calves, exhausted, soaked and disorientated.
The partisans had fed them and directed them to the farmhouse – a ‘safe’ house – for the night as well as giving them instructions on how to get back to their camp safely. Their leader had told Jed his convoy had passed the army camp some time before where they had been given medical supplies and food, along with several of their number who were sick and wounded being treated by the British MO.
‘We help each other, si?’ the rugged, bearded brute of a man had said cheerfully. ‘We kill Germans. Filthy pigs.’ And he’d spat on the ground.
Jed had been only too happy to agree.
He stood up, stepping over the rest of the men who were still asleep, and walked to the edge of the verandah where he stood looking out into the still morning. When they had arrived at the farmhouse the night before, they had found an elderly man and his wife working, the woman washing cans and the man carefully mending a cracked pipe stem with thin string. They looked an old couple, bent and grey-haired, but probably neither of them had yet reached sixty years of age because their youngest child, a boy of no more than ten or eleven, had been asleep on a bed in an alcove of the one main downstairs room of the farmhouse. The couple couldn’t speak a word of English but when he had mentioned the name of the partisan leader as the man had told him to do, they had been all smiles and nods, feeding them bread and cheese washed down with red wine.
Jed breathed deeply of the morning air. The smell wasn’t the same as England – it was more Mediterranean and carried a hint of olive groves and sun – but here, away from the camp and standing in this Italian farm, he missed home more. And then he caught the thought, mentally chiding himself – who was he kidding? It was Cora he missed. Cora. He closed his eyes. He rarely let himself think of her – it was too weakening, too painful, and most of the time it was enough to get through each day, hour by hour, minute by minute, never knowing if any moment could be his last. He had lost so many of his companions, so many friends. James Casey, who’d joined up the same day
he had – a German Panzer had done for him. Dead and wounded from both sides were spread all around the battlefield and there was barely enough left of James to bury. But bury him they had, although there had been no ceremony, no ritual about it. James’s death had hit him the hardest, not only because he had been the first of their group to die but because he had genuinely liked him. James had talked about his home, his family, his dog, things that mattered, and few soldiers, including him, did that.
Stop thinking. It was something he told himself all the time. He could get through each day if he didn’t think, and in that regard being in the army was ideal. He just had to obey orders and get on with the business in hand, that of driving the Nazis out of Italy. Sounded simple when you put it like that. He smiled as he opened his eyes and then froze. Several German soldiers were standing no more than twenty yards away and they had their guns trained on the verandah.
It was instinct, not bravery and certainly not common sense, to reach for his gun, and as he did so he heard the shots a millisecond before they slammed into his body, catapulting him backwards. There was more shooting, noise, shouts, screams going on above him as he lay on the verandah but he must have banged his head because they were vague, as though through a thick fog, and then there was nothing at all.
He came to as he was carried into an advanced dressing station by two German stretcher-bearers where he was placed on a metal table. He wanted to speak, to ask after the others, but he felt sick and weak and the blackness was closing in again. This time, however, he didn’t lose consciousness completely because he could still hear. There were German voices, one in particular barking orders, but he didn’t speak the language so he had no idea of what was being said.
When he felt hands moving over his body he forced his lids open again to see a German surgeon with dispassionate eyes checking him. Realizing he was conscious, the man said coldly, ‘You have been shot, yes? And lost a considerable amount of blood. I will do what I can.’
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