Jo squeezed her hand. ‘But you must’ve known that when Matty had kids there was a chance of them looking like their grandfather?’
Ivy sobbed. ‘I know − and it frightened me. But Gordon was just like Norma in colouring, so again I said nothing.’
‘But Mark…?’ Jo pressed gently.
Ivy nodded and sniffed. ‘Matty and Norma were going through a bad patch before he was born. Norma had this affair with a man at work – I know ’cos Matty found out. He was furious − been punishing her ever since.’
Jo said, ‘But you knew Mark was Matty’s son, yet you let Norma take the blame. You let Matty carry on believing Mark was the result of some affair.’
‘Well, she’d been unfaithful to my son,’ Ivy said defensively. ‘Why shouldn’t she take the blame? After all those years of secrecy, the truth would’ve killed our Matty.’
Jo shook her head. ‘But Ivy! Holding back the truth has hurt Mark the most − he’s suffered just as much as Norma.’
‘I know!’ Ivy cried. ‘And I love him that much. He’s the image of my Hassan. That’s why he’s always been so special to me…’
‘He needs to know that,’ Jo encouraged. ‘You should tell him, Ivy, the way you’ve told me.’
‘I can’t!’ Ivy said fearfully. ‘I’ve wanted to many times, but I’ve never had the courage.’
‘You will,’ Jo said. ‘Keeping secrets is a lot more harmful in the long run − I should know.’ She gave a rueful look. ‘If my baby had lived, I would have had to tell Mark who the real father was. I know I could never have carried the burden for years like you have. Perhaps Gordon did me a favour telling Mark. At least I found out in time that Mark never really loved me enough.’
Ivy clutched her hand. ‘I was heartbroken when you lost the bairn and you two broke up. Mine and Hassan’s great-grandbairn…’
Jo felt tears sting her eyes and quickly steered the subject away from her lost baby. ‘Did you never hear from him again, then?’
Ivy shook her head. ‘Not directly. He may have written to our old lodgings, but no one would’ve known where I’d gone and the people would’ve changed. Kathy and Abdullah moved to Liverpool when I went home.’ Ivy twisted her handkerchief as she struggled to compose herself. ‘But when me mother died at the end of the Second World War, I found a letter from Hassan that she’d never passed on − probably kept it to re-use the paper, knowing Mam. But it told me he was on a merchant ship, the Baltic, on the convoy runs to Russia. He was hoping to come into the Tyne.’ Ivy’s look was very far away. ‘Maybe he did. But if he turned up at me mother’s she would never have told me. Perhaps she took satisfaction in telling him I was married to someone else…’
‘Might he still be alive?’ Jo ventured to ask.
Ivy shook her head. ‘I made it me business to discover what I could about the Baltic once I found the letter.’ She swallowed twice. ‘It was sunk in 1944 − no survivors picked up. In them seas they never lasted long.’
Jo’s mind sped to Mark in the icy South Atlantic and she found herself shaking. ‘I’m so sorry, Ivy,’ she said quietly.
Mark’s grandmother must have had the same thought, for she said, ‘Would you write to Mark for me − tell him what you know?’ She looked at Jo in hope.
Jo hesitated. ‘I’m not sure it’s fair to drop such a bombshell when he’s so far from home. It’d be such a shock and no one will be there to talk it through with him. I really think you should be the one to tell him, Ivy,’ she insisted, ‘when he comes home. I’ll be around to help you if you want.’
Ivy sighed. ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right. Thanks, hinny.’
Jo stayed late with Ivy. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Ivy said firmly. ‘You get yourself back to your man.’
Jo left Nile Street in the dusk of late evening and went back to her father’s. She was too full of what she had learned to think of returning to Alan’s. She needed time to come to terms with what she knew, and Alan would not want to hear stories about the Duggans. After Jack had gone to bed, she settled down on the settee watching a late film and began to write a letter to Mark.
Chapter Nineteen
Early June, 1982
The seas had been rough and the weather had worsened over the past two weeks, Mark wrote in a letter to Brenda. Their ship now lay tossing in Falkland Sound or ‘Bomb Alley’ as it was grimly nicknamed, rain pounding noisily on deck. But he mentioned nothing of the reality of war, or his private fears. Only to Skippy and his other mates could he talk about such things.
‘Our radar system’s about as effective as Nelson’s telescope,’ Skippy joked grimly, ’specially when it’s choppy.’ Their vulnerability to enemy air attack had been brutally learnt. Time and again they had been exposed to sudden enemy planes swooping so low they went undetected by the ship’s radar. The fleet had no airborne early-warning system. Their protection came from the handful of Sea Harriers operating from Invincible and Hermes and the larger destroyers with their Sea Dart missiles. But even these weapons could not engage targets at low level. On Gateshead, they relied mainly on two large guns and a handful of smaller outmoded anti-aircraft cannon.
‘I’m sure they had these in that Second World War film The Cruel Sea,’ Mark laughed.
Up would go their helicopters, trailing radar decoys, but they had grown used to constant air-raid warnings, the shouts of ‘Take cover!’ and the scream of Argentinian aircraft whooshing overhead. As one of the Damage Control Party, Mark had lain on a cold steel floor behind watertight doors in flash hood and gloves, ready to deal with fires breaking out should they be hit. It was a time of taut nerves, listening to the din of explosions and the return bang of gunfire from above, helpless to do anything but wait. Skippy always seemed to want a pee at such times and would head for the bucket.
‘It’s the cold floor,’ he complained.
‘Haway and get down man!’ Mark shouted, knowing his legs could shatter in the aftershock if he was standing up when they were hit.
During those long moments of fear, lying face down with his hands over his ears, Mark’s mind often wandered to thoughts of home and those he had left behind. He saw Ivy at her door in the May sunshine, chatting to her neighbours, and Brenda sitting in the park with her workmates eating a lunchtime sandwich. Images of his estranged family came to mind and he thought with a grim satisfaction that he had proved to them that he could make something of himself. If he ever came home safely, he would make them acknowledge what he had done. Like his great-grandfather Mathias, to whom Ivy so fondly referred, he had fought in war and protected others, which was more than his bullying father would ever do, Mark thought fiercely.
At the end of one attack, Skippy nudged him and asked, ‘What you covering your ears for?’
‘To drown out your terrible singing,’ Mark replied with a grin of relief.
His ship had offered valuable protection to the landing of the first British troops to storm San Carlos on East Falkland two weeks ago, he thought with pride. It had been a hellish week of conflict, with the loss of sister ships Ardent and Antelope and the Type 42 destroyer Coventry. Yet it had ended in the decisive retaking of Goose Green by the Paras. That Sunday, a special service had been held on board to remember their dead comrades and it had been a sombre moment, gazing out over the icy swell of Falkland Sound, thinking of those who lay beneath it who would never see home again.
The following day, they had witnessed the arrival of 5th Infantry Brigade on various landing craft being ferried to the beaches in San Carlos Water.
‘Colin’ll be among them,’ Mark had told Skippy excitedly. Their friend had written to Mark from the QE2, telling him he was with 16 Field Ambulance. ‘Don’t know how many miles I’ve done round this deck in my union jack shorts!’ Colin had joked. ‘Grub’s good, films are crap. By the way, I’ve finally popped the question to Marilyn and she’s accepted. Or maybe it was the other way round! Anyway, we’ll have a bloody big
celebration when we all get home!’
With the replenishing of supplies had come a postcard for each of them from Jo, which had puzzled Mark more than it cheered him. It was a dull picture of Wallsend library and simply said, ‘Good luck from Jo.’ Skippy’s had a couple of kisses under her name.
‘Why the library?’ Mark questioned. ‘Is it supposed to remind me of that terrible Jericho Street? And just good luck − is she being sarcastic?’ Such a short, begrudging message, he thought. Why send one at all?
‘You read too much into things, man,’ Skippy answered. ‘She said the same on mine.’
‘So what does it mean?’ Mark asked in annoyance.
‘It means she still fancies me,’ Skippy teased. ‘But good luck and good riddance to you.’ Mark had dropped the subject and stuffed the postcard in his locker.
Over the next few days, Mark had imagined Colin and the troops of 5th Infantry trekking across the inhospitable barren hills, digging in grimly as the incessant rain filled their trenches. But a few days later, plans appeared to have changed, for the amphibious fleet were preparing to evacuate the troops from San Carlos bay and take them round by sea to Fitzroy. They knew this, for their captain, addressing them in the mess hall, had instructed them that they would be providing cover for the dangerous operation. The land forces had soon become bogged down in the mud in their attempt to march across the island with heavy equipment. All would have to be conveyed by sea. They would be within easy striking range of the airport at Stanley and so the operation would take place overnight.
That night, they sailed with the command ship Fearless, which carried the infantry. The chief chef on Gateshead, who had been part of the gun crew, had been taken ill with appendicitis and Mark, who had had some gunnery training, was chosen to take his place at an oerlikon gun on the upper deck. In the dead of night, having skirted round the south of the island, they rendezvoused off Fitzroy and waited for landing craft to come out and collect the troops. But as they peered into the darkness through the pitching seas and driving rain, none came.
Eventually, towards dawn, Mark saw two of Fearless’s own landing craft set off for the shore, none having appeared from Fitzroy. He could just make out the dark shapes in the water. Then the two ships were turning back for San Carlos, the danger of daylight approaching fast.
‘They can’t possibly have offloaded all the men,’ Mark puzzled to his shipmate on the night watch.
‘It’s too dangerous to hang around any longer,’ the other shrugged. ‘They must know what they’re doing.’
The next day the tactic seemed to have switched to using Fleet Auxiliary Landing Ships to ferry the men round, but no frigates in the Sound were called on to protect them.
‘We’re too much of a sitting target,’ Skippy said, ‘ships of our size.’
‘But they will be an’ all,’ Mark pointed out. Still, they took heart from the lessening of air strikes in the past couple of days, and morale was further raised when the captain ordered that the ship’s deep fryers in the galleys be turned on for the day so that they could stoke up with a mountain of chips.
The morning of 8 June dawned bright and still, the pale sun lifting over the stark mountains, dazzling the eyes but giving no heat. It was these mornings of such crystal-clear visibility that they all dreaded. They hugged the coastline of Falkland Sound for shelter, moving slowly in the shallows between the mainland and an island. The waters were so calm and shallow that in the dining hall they could hear the eerie noise of propellers churning up the gravel on the sea bed.
***
Colin found it strange that they should be gliding into Fitzroy Bay as the sun came up and dropping anchor. Two days before, he had been on a fruitless voyage abroad Fearless to the very same inlet but under the cover of darkness. He had drawn courage from thinking of Mark and Skippy aboard HMS Gateshead which he had seen escorting them. What tales they would have to tell each other when they got home! he grinned. That night, there had been some confusion over landing craft and he had found himself being ferried back once more to San Carlos and disembarking. Maybe this time they would get ashore, for he could not bear to see San Carlos Water again, he thought impatiently. There had been too many frustrating days and nights dug in around the boggy west of the island, making no progress towards the enemy at Stanley.
At the last minute 16 Field Ambulance had been ordered aboard the Sir Galahad to join the Welsh Guards, and it was this which had delayed their departure by several hours. Colin was surprised they had sailed that late, but it was still only seven in the morning, not quite broad daylight, and they would soon be disembarking to the relative safety of land.
He took in the view of low gorse-covered mountains and glassy still water reflecting the early sunlight. Colin wanted to remember it, so that he could tell Marilyn, as she was bound to ask for every detail. He thought with longing of her easy smile and her calm efficiency which would bring the comfort and order to his life that he had always craved. His boyhood had been spent in a chaotic household, where he seemed to be in charge as much as anyone else. But Marilyn was a constant quiet support; someone he could always rely on when his family let him down or got on his nerves. He knew how much she cared for him, just as he had grown to care deeply for her over the years.
Colin was suddenly struck by how Jo would have loved this view. She would have pointed to the highest peak and said, ‘Last one up there’s a sissy!’ and raced him for it. He had received a letter from her three days ago which had greatly cheered him. Now he regretted the way they had argued on their last meeting and how he had made no attempt to patch up their quarrel. He realised he had tried to punish her for going to live with Alan and turning her back on her old friends. Deep down, he was still angry that she had spoilt things with Mark. He would have liked them to have married.
But he saw now that it was impossible to stay angry with Jo for ever; she would not allow it. Other families, like the Duggans, could quarrel and fall out and never speak to each other again, but that would never happen with Jo. He wished now that he had been more sympathetic when she had miscarried, but he had been young and quick to blame. He thought fondly of his infuriating, impulsive, loving sister and how pleased he had been to see her standing waving on the quayside as if there had never been a rift. He vowed he would write to her in his next spare moment. All he wanted now was to get off the landing ship, dig in and get the dressing station established.
‘I’ll race you to the top, bonny lass,’ he whispered, smiling to himself. Whistling cheerfully, Colin looked ashore and waited impatiently to be offloaded from Sir Galahad.
Chapter Twenty
‘Air-raid warning, green!’ came the message over the ship’s tannoy in the late morning. Mark and Skippy dropped the dice they had been playing with and scrambled to their action stations.
‘Remember you owe me a fiver!’ Skippy shouted at him as Mark made for the upper deck.
‘I’ll win it back.’ Mark grinned. ‘You just have a nice lie-down while I go and fight the Argies.’ Skippy gave him the V-sign and disappeared.
Out on deck in the winter sunshine there was a clear view of an empty sky. After the initial rush of adrenaline, Mark felt the anti-climax of no action. Time crept on and his stomach began to rumble for dinner. He thought of Skippy and the others below, probably scoffing bacon and egg butties to relieve the tension of waiting.
Then, just as he began to relax, the calm was split by an urgent announcement over the loudspeakers: ‘Air-raid warning, red! Enemy aircraft on the starboard side and closing! Full steam ahead!’
He saw the aircraft a split second before he heard the thundering boom of their Seacat firing at the swooping Skyhawks overhead. Then the din of firing erupted all around as they trained their guns and peppered the sky. They caught one and it exploded in a blinding flash, the debris scattering on the sea. Two bombs hit the water either side of them, sending up a deluge of water that momentarily blinded the gun crews.
The jets tu
rned and came at them on the port side. This time there was a thud and then a deafening blast as a bomb ripped through the ship just forward of the bridge. Another struck the bulkhead and there was an almighty explosion from below as a boiler blew up. Within minutes, dense white smoke began to belch up and the ship went dead in the water. The Seacat was out of action, but they carried on firing with small armaments and machine guns − anything they could lay their hands on. Mark did not know how long the attack went on, but it seemed an eternity. His gun caught the tail of one fighter plane, which moments later dropped abruptly into the sea.
But fire and thick black smoke were now engulfing the forward, below which was the mess deck where a first aid station was laid out. Mark knew that Skippy was confined in that part of the ship.
Suddenly the jets were gone, their target mortally wounded. The call came to abandon ship. Men were rushing around in survival suits, making for the fo’c’sle where they had been told to gather. Some were emerging from the inferno below, being helped to the fresh air by those above. Mark did not hesitate. He had to find Skippy. Ignoring shouts from his fellow gunner, Andy, he dived below deck, going aft.
He groped along dark passageways, the acrid smell of smoke stinging his nostrils and making his breathing laboured. The door he came to was jammed, but he heard banging from a nearby hatch. Levering it up, he found a gasping sailor on the other side, his hair singed and his face blackened with smoke. Mark hauled him out and pushed him in the direction of the stairs. He lowered himself into the darkness of the mess deck, promising himself he would just give it five more minutes to find Skippy then save himself.
He was met by a vision of hell. Part of the mess hall was flooded, with water pouring down from burst pipes above. There were wires on fire, throwing a lurid light on the horrific scene. Men were running past him with hands raised, their burnt faces bloated, screaming in agony.
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 106