On a Wing and a Prayer

by Ruby Jackson

  ‘From Sicily,’ explained Chiara as she saw Rose admiring them. ‘And, Papa, what is in your pesto sauce?’ She turned to Rose. ‘It should have basil leaves but there is no basil. In spring he uses wild garlic leaves, equally delicious…’

  ‘But only if you pick before the flowers come, Rosa,’ said Nonno, ‘and yes, Francesca, I have not the wild garlic so just eat, yes.’

  For some reason that was when Rose remembered Sam and the generous Italians who had sheltered him in Tuscany and the Italian priests who had seen that letters from escaped prisoners of war eventually reached their parents. While they ate the delicious food, she told the Rossis all about Sam and about Grace, whom he loved.

  ‘And, would you believe, even Grace thought that Sam was in love with our friend Sally.’

  ‘That is a good happy story, Rosa. I think my compatriots would say, “We must care for this boy because he needs us. One day, who knows, a child of ours may need the help of a stranger.”’

  ‘I wish everyone thought the way you do, Mr Rossi.’

  ‘Most people do,’ he said with a smile. ‘And now you two must make beautiful for the social. Mamma and I have packed the boxes, Francesca, and we must go now. Mamma will take her keys and so you make sure to take yours.’ Then he spoke in Italian and Rose had no idea what he was saying.

  Francesca, however, laughed. ‘So typically Italian, Rose. One of Mamma’s friends has her nephew staying for the weekend – Nicco, he’s eight and an angel. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Nicco wants to come home with Nonno, who will leave the social early, and so tomorrow morning we will have another place at the table. Five, almost as difficult as at your house.’

  They laughed and hurried off to change.

  Francesca wore a rather prim, short-sleeved white blouse but her skirt was a glorious red circle of pure silk. Around her waist was a broad black belt and on her feet she wore toeless black court shoes. She tied back her hair with a silk scarf the exact colour of her skirt. Rose wore her last summer’s best dress of green cotton, with a sprinkling of yellow buttercups embroidered around both the hem and the sweetheart neckline. On her feet were heeled white sandals.

  ‘You look super,’ she told Francesca. ‘That skirt is glorious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen real silk.’

  ‘Thank you. I love it. It began life as my Yorkshire grandmother’s parlour curtains. Mamma found them in a trunk and had a skirt made for me and a blouse for herself. Waste not, want not – or should it be, “Make do and mend”?’

  ‘Either or both. You’ll be the belle of the ball.’

  Francesca laughed. ‘Everyone’s seen it before.’ She hesitated and then walked over to her lovely dressing table. ‘Would you like to wear these? They’re daisies, not buttercups, but they would look lovely in your hair.’ She held out two bone hair clasps. Each was a large white daisy with a bright yellow centre.

  Rose, who had been feeling a trifle underdressed for a social, looked at the lovely clasps, took them from Francesca and held one on each side of her hair which, for once, she had allowed to hang down her back. ‘I’d love to borrow them, thanks, Francesca, and they do, if I may say so, look great.’ She fished in her bag. ‘The least I can do is let you use my Theatrical Red,’ she said, handing her friend her lipstick.

  ‘Matches perfectly. Thank you.’

  Feeling quite pleased with themselves, the girls picked up their coats and hurried downstairs.

  ‘The hall is just around the corner and we can make a grand entrance. Have you been to a church social before?’

  ‘Of course. I’m C of E and our vicar, Mr Tiverton, really tries to make the church the heart of the community.’

  ‘Then you’ll be quite used to all Nonno’s customers coming up to ask you a million personal questions – oh, and the priests, of course. There’s two of them: Father Geddes, who pretends that he hasn’t a serious bone in his body, and Father Danco, a Belgian refugee, who has only terribly serious bones in his. Poor man, he ministers especially to local refugees – we have several – and I suppose it’s hard to laugh when you’ve been forced to flee from your home.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Francesca. I just know I’m going to have a really wonderful time.’

  They did. They chatted for a few minutes to Francesca’s mother and grandfather, their friends and the eight-year-old Nicco, who was, as Francesca had said, delightful. Next, as Francesca had forewarned, they ran the gauntlet of the elderly but razor-sharp priest. Rose was introduced to so many people that she eventually gave up trying to find some way to remember them. Besides, I’ll probably never meet any of them again, she decided.

  They were in great demand, but Francesca confessed to Rose that she was still ‘rather fond’ of her cavalryman. ‘He’s in North Africa and writes as often as he can.’

  Rose enjoyed meeting everyone but was slightly wary of several of the young men who approached their table. The food was good, especially when they took into account how very difficult it was to source ingredients these days. The music was also very good; Father Danco was an extremely talented pianist, and there was the church’s elderly lady organist, who was also an excellent if rather playful clarinettist. No accordion player turned up until after the interval. He had spent the first part of the evening playing for the Boys’ Brigade in a Unitarian Church hall a few streets away. Again, the whole atmosphere was so redolent of Dartford that Rose felt happily nostalgic.

  A friend of the unnamed ‘cavalryman’ had promised to drive the girls back to their unit at seven the next morning, and so they promised Nonno and Chiara that they would slip in quietly before midnight.

  ‘At least an hour before midnight would be very nice,’ said Chiara when she kissed them as she, Nonno and young Nicco were leaving, their boxes now completely empty – a sure sign of a good party.

  The girls laughed and went back into the hall, only to be immediately snatched by ardent young men and whirled back onto the dance floor.

  When the music stopped, before the band could play an encore, Rose thanked her last dance partner, assured him, yes, I’d love to see you again, and hurried across the floor to where Francesca stood like a brilliant light surrounded by adoring moths of all shapes and sizes. Three times more they danced and then Rose refused. ‘Sorry, boys, it’s been lovely, but we’re on duty first thing. ’Bye.’

  Francesca laughed. ‘They’re so sweet. Some of them know David. I’ll write to him tomorrow and pass on all their good wishes.’

  ‘You won’t have time, Cinderella,’ said Rose. ‘Another friend of David’s will be outside your front door at seven o’clock tomorrow morning, so let’s hurry.’

  ‘These streetlights are a pain,’ complained Francesca. ‘They’re so faint they’re almost…’ She stopped, stood completely motionless on the pavement and pointed with a shaking hand. ‘Was that lightning, Rose, or did I see a flame?’

  ‘I was looking at the streetlight…’ began Rose, turning and peering through the darkness.

  ‘Mamma! Nonno!’

  Francesca emitted a blood-curdling scream and began to run. A mere two hundred yards away, on the street where the Rossis’ house stood, flames were intermittently hurtling into the dark sky.

  ‘It could be anything on the street,’ Rose tried to console her as she easily outdistanced the younger girl. In no time at all, she had turned the corner onto the street. Her heart seemed to stop beating as she saw dense smoke belching from the café’s windows.

  ‘No, no, no.’ Rose could feel her blood rushing through her veins as she stopped directly in front of the building. There was much more smoke than flame, but she knew the fire was gaining. She hurried to the door and stepped on something that crunched beneath her feet. Glass. But surely…

  ‘Mamma, Nonno.’ A sweating, panting Francesca was beside her, hammering on the door.

  ‘Your keys. Quickly. Nicco is in there too.’

  ‘I dropped my bag.’ Francesca screamed again, ‘Mamma, Nonno, wake up!�
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  ‘Quiet, quiet, calm. We’ll get in.’ Rose took off her shoes and broke the glass that remained in the café door. She put her arm through and tried to open the door from that side, but it was useless. The door was locked. She turned back to the sobbing, desperate Francesca. ‘I’m going to squeeze through the window. Go and find someone, anyone; there will be an ARP warden and he’ll have been alerted to the flames. Go.’

  ‘I can’t, Rose,’ she almost screamed. ‘My mother, Nonno, little Nicco, we have to get them.’

  Rose looked her straight in the eye, her voice calm and low. ‘Go, Francesca,’ she urged her again. ‘I’m more supple than you. Run.’

  Francesca hesitated for a second and then turned and, as quickly as she could, retraced her steps along the sleeping street, her desperate calls for help growing fainter and fainter as she moved away. Rose desperately tried to work out the best plan of action. Obviously the Rossis had been overcome by smoke and she knew that smoke inhalation was very dangerous, but the building was now very much alight, and if help didn’t come soon…She could not bear to think of the consequences. Rose took off her shoes and used the heels to hammer down the glass shards that were stuck to the door frame, knowing that she would be cut to ribbons if they impeded her entry. Having used as much time as she thought she could possibly spare, she rolled her dress up to protect her chest, put her arms and upper body through the opening and, praying that one of the sleepers might hear, she called their names as loudly as she could. Smoke filled her mouth, her throat and then her lungs, but she bent down until her hands found the glass-covered floor and, her mind full of the thought of the possible death of yet another innocent child, she walked her hands forward. Her body painfully followed as her legs were scraped across the broken lower frame of the door until she thought she could bear it no more. Her eyes stung from the smoke, her lungs were full of it, but the thought of how much more the three helpless people in the house – one of them an innocent child – had inhaled, made her brave. With a last surge of energy, Rose forced her protesting body into a roll and felt some slight relief as her battered legs lifted into the air and she found herself in the room. Surely she heard the clanging of the fire brigade getting louder, closer? Her roll had banged her against the bottom of the staircase – as yet undamaged by the fire, which she could see racing towards her from the café. The welcome noise of the fire engine reinvigorated her and somehow, coughing and choking, the torn skirt of her summer frock now held over her nose and mouth, she was able to struggle up the staircase. Something that felt like a lump of lead at the pit of her stomach reminded her that she had no idea where the boy, Nicco, was sleeping. So small, so small, it would take such a little amount of inhaled smoke to kill him.

  That knowledge served to strengthen her, and Rose pulled herself on up the staircase, hearing the crack and hiss of flames advancing behind her. She sobbed a little but did not need to look to know that the fire was now well established. The corridor was lit only by the glow of the flames and she realised that she was confused. Which door led to which room?

  ‘Nicco,’ she gasped. ‘Chiara, Nonno,’ but there was no answer. She tried the first: it was a store cupboard. She staggered to the next and could see the outline of a bed near the window. She threw herself towards it and – oh, with what relief she felt it lift under the pressure of her exhausted arms. Clean air flew into the room and, with it, voices. Rose turned from the window and staggered to the bed. Chiara lay there. Was she dead? Rose pulled back the covers and, thankful to feel a slight rise and fall of Chiara’s ribcage, managed to lift the slim body up into her arms.

  Please let me get her to the window.

  Almost immediately another bulky, dark figure seemed to materialise beside her. ‘I’ll take her, love,’ a masculine voice said gently. ‘Come on, you too. Let’s get you both out of here.’

  ‘No, there’s a child and an old man.’ She stumbled from the loose grip of the fireman who had Chiara in a professional lift and was trying to lift the struggling Rose. ‘Save her,’ Rose beseeched him and, turning, went back out into the corridor. Flames jumped from the top of the stairs to the wooden doors and Rose tried not to think of the horror that had to be inside the room at the end of the corridor, which was ablaze.

  She wanted to scream with fear and misery, but there was a child to find. ‘Nicco…’ She could scarcely hear her own rasping voice as she tried another door. The handle burned her hand but the door opened and there, in front of a slightly open window, was a small folding bed. Flame shot up beside her through the wooden floor but somehow she kept going and reached the bed where the child lay very still. Rose bent to lift the small body but her strength was gone. She felt herself slipping, slipping, heard another deep voice say, ‘She’s got the boy,’ and then – nothing.

  EIGHT

  October 1942

  How brave her friend was being. Rose knew how much Francesca mourned her beloved grandfather, for Signor Rossi had died in his burning bedroom. She had almost given up hope that those responsible for setting the fire that had injured her mother, Rose and young Nicco – and killed Nonno – would ever be found. The local police were doing their best to investigate, but it appeared that no one had seen or heard anything on that dreadful night, and there was no clear evidence pointing to anyone in particular. Local police were following all leads to possible suspects, as Nonno’s café had not been the only target of thieves and arsonists. For the moment the arsonists appeared to have been very clever, or very lucky – perhaps both.

  Rose, Francesca, her mother and Nicco were taken to hospital. Francesca had not been injured, or exposed to the smoke, but she was suffering from exhaustion and shock. After a night in hospital, being carefully monitored by trained staff, she was allowed to return to her unit. Rose, suffering from smoke inhalation, shock, and severe cuts on her body and legs, remained hospitalised for a week, longer than her Dartford stay for the injury sustained when the munitions factory had experienced bomb damage. Little Nicco’s terrified parents gave thanks for the fact that Chiara had allowed their little boy to sleep beside an open window. He would be hospitalised for a little longer, but cold, night air and brave firemen had definitely saved his life.

  It was only when her parents arrived a few days after the fire that Rose learned that Mr Rossi had died in the blaze that had destroyed his life’s work. She understood too why Francesca had not come to see her.

  ‘Lovely girl, Rose. She’s back in your billet, on light duty. When she visits the hospital, she spends all her time with her mother,’ Fred told her.

  ‘Chiara will recover, won’t she?’ asked Rose in trepidation.

  ‘So says the very handsome soldier who spends as much time with Mrs Rossi as Fran does.’

  Rose tried to smile. At least Mrs Rossi and her daughter had Warrant Officer Starling to help them.

  Francesca did write a short note, which was delivered by WO Starling on the day that Rose’s parents returned to Dartford, where they had left their dear friend Miss Partridge in charge of both the shop and their foster son, George.

  Dearest Rose,

  It is impossible to thank you. You saved my mother’s life.

  Casa mia è casa tua.

  Francesca

  Rose felt the tears welling up in her eyes and fought to control them. ‘I didn’t do enough; twice in my life I didn’t manage to do enough.’

  Warrant Officer Starling patted her hand in a somewhat embarrassed fashion. ‘The firemen say Chiara would have died if it hadn’t been for you. That’s two of us in your debt, Rose. Signor Rossi didn’t stand a chance, but the doctors swear he would have known nothing of what happened.’ He smiled. ‘Now get better and get back to work, and don’t think this makes any difference.’ He moved towards the door, where he turned. ‘Except when we’re off duty.’

  Lucky Chiara, thought Rose. He is a good man and, as far as I can tell, he really, really loves her. She relaxed back against the pillows and was almost asleep when sh
e heard a beloved voice say, ‘Sorry, Nurse, we won’t wake her; we’ll sit for a minute just looking at her.’

  ‘Daisy.’

  The twin sisters hugged each other as if they would never let go. It was the slighter Daisy who, looking unbelievably smart in her ATA uniform, let go first. ‘Rose, this is Tomas.’

  Rose had been aware of another figure, tall and slim, but had been so overcome by seeing her sister that his presence had not really registered. ‘Tomas, it’s so lovely to see you again, but why, how…I’m sorry, this all feels like a dream.’

  He bent down and kissed her forehead. ‘You will permit, Rose?’ he said as he moved aside to make room for Daisy.

  ‘If it’s a dream, it’s the shortest one. We must go, Rose. Too many strings have been pulled and I mustn’t take advantage. I’m flying Tomas up to the north of Scotland, a place called Wick, if we can find it, and then I’ll deliver the plane to somewhere near Edinburgh.’

  ‘How will you get to your base?’

  ‘Usual way, hitch. Don’t worry about us. We’re old hands, but although I was absolutely stunned when I heard about the fire, the timing did work out beautifully…and stop looking at my hands. There are no rings there.’

  Tomas laughed. ‘She plays hard to get, Rose. Now, before we go, is there anything you need, anything we can get for you, or do? Just mention.’

  Rose was still holding Francesca’s note. ‘You don’t happen to speak Italian?’

  Daisy took the paper and handed it to Tomas. ‘Easier to ask what he doesn’t speak. He is so clever,’ she said with proprietary pride.

  Tomas ignored her and took the note. He read it and smiled. ‘Very simple, Rose. Your friend says her house is yours. It doesn’t mean literally, but it means that you are as close as a valued family member.’

  ‘You are wonderful, Rose Petrie,’ said Daisy. ‘Take care of yourself. No more jumping into burning buildings. Promise.’

  ‘I actually rolled in, but I promise.’

  She watched the ward door close quietly behind them. My sister was here and her Tomas. First WO Starling and then Tomas. She remembered Daisy’s note: ‘Stop looking for Mr Right and one day you’ll fall over him.’ All right, Daisy, but I want one just like yours.