1949

by Morgan Llywelyn

  Ursula put her lone suitcase into the overhead above her seat. She did not want it out of her reach.

  The night was unseasonably cold and the windows were tightly shut. The air grew stuffy while the train was still in the station. Ursula busied herself getting Barry settled. The adventure had excited him, he was laughing and waving to the other passengers.

  Seán and Elsie Lester met one another’s eyes through the window of the first-class carriage.

  One last time.

  The rapid German advance caught up with the train as it raced across France.

  Chapter Forty-five

  The lights had been turned down in the first-class carriage and pillows and blankets provided. Ursula and Elsie dozed fitfully. Barry slept with his head in his mother’s lap. As usual, his hands were closed into tiny fists and pressed under his chin. He had never sucked his thumb.

  An explosion shocked them awake.

  The train shuddered but kept going.

  Another explosion. Closer. Frightfully loud. A spray of dirt and gravel hit the window and a startled male passenger shouted a curse. The train hurled itself forward, roaring around a curve at dangerous speed. Suitcases piled in the aisles toppled over.

  Barry sat up. “Mam?”

  Ursula hugged him to her breast. “I think we’re being bombed,” she said in a surprisingly calm voice. To her own amazement she was calm, as if she had rehearsed for this all her life.

  The engineer made a valiant effort but his train could not outrace the German bombers flying overhead. The track a mile or so ahead blew up with a terrible roar. Brakes squealed. Sparks raced past the windows in the night, staring in at the passengers with a terrible red malignance. The train stopped just in time to avoid being derailed.

  Fighter planes promptly closed in to rake the stalled train with machine-gun fire.

  Some of the passengers dived under their seats. Most swarmed into the aisle. Elsie Lester sat white-faced in shock.

  Ursula set Barry on the floor below window level, slipped her feet into her shoes and put on her coat. How fast her brain was working! She seized the window sash with both hands and threw all her weight behind the downward push. The window did not budge.

  “Where’s your passport?” she shouted over her shoulder to Elsie.

  The woman roused herself. “In my handbag.”

  “Handbags can go missing. Put your passport and your money down the front of your dress. Hurry!” Ursula tried the window again. Muscles and ligaments strained to tearing point, but the window remained firmly closed.

  By now the aisle was blocked with hysterical passengers.

  Ursula dragged her suitcase down from the overhead. Throwing it open, she retrieved the Mauser. With the butt of the gun she broke the window glass and knocked shards from the frame.

  “Come on, Elsie, we’re getting out of here.” She thrust the Mauser into her coat pocket and helped her friend through the window, then handed Barry out to her. As Ursula scrambled after them a spear of glass lanced her thigh. She did not allow herself time to feel the pain.

  “Under the carriage, quick!” she ordered.

  As soon as her feet touched the ground she threw herself forward and began crawling under the train. Bullets spanged against metal close to her head. With knees and elbows she propelled her body further under the carriage.

  Hot. Dark. Gravel cutting into knees and elbows. A strong smell of machine oil. The constant chatter of gunfire. Someone screaming.

  “We’re over here,” called Elsie.

  Ursula wormed her way toward them.

  “Mam!” Barry cried out.

  “It’s all right, little man, just be still.” Trying not to bump her head against the underside of the train, she took Barry from Elsie and did her best to cover his body with hers. Thank God I’m thin, there’s not much clearance here.

  Other people were crawling under the train now. Breathless, choking, crying. “Stop it!” a woman screamed at the guns. “Stopitstopitstopit!”

  Invisible in the night, German fighter planes circled above the train. Seconds or centuries later there was a loud “whoommmph!” from somewhere up ahead. The planes roared off in search of other prey.

  Within moments they could smell fire.

  Ursula drew Barry from beneath her. “Elsie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hold Barry for me and stay right where you are. You should be safe enough for the time being. I’ll find out what’s happening.” Ursula crawled out from under the train.

  As she stood up, deferred pain stabbed her thigh. She took an involuntary half step and staggered sideways. The ground at this point fell steeply away from the tracks; Ursula found herself half-running, half-falling down the slope. When she regained her balance she saw that the engine was blazing fiercely. It was far enough ahead of the first-class carriage to represent no immediate threat, but the fire might spread.

  Their attackers had gone, leaving an immobilized train somewhere in France in the middle of a cold night, with hundreds of terrified passengers and an unknown number of casualties.

  But we’re alive.

  Against that fact, nothing else mattered.

  Other people began to scramble out from under the train. They ran first in one direction and then in another, seeking they knew not what, their confusion as great as their terror.

  Only Ursula stood still. Consciously organizing her thoughts. One step at a time. No panic. Good warriors don’t panic. She stooped down and called to Elsie, “You’re safest where you are for now. Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find someone in authority.”

  When Ursula reached the burning engine, what she saw—and smelled—convinced her its crew were past being able to help anyone. Sickened, she turned away.

  By the light of the fire she noticed a railway porter sitting on the ground nearby, tightening his shoelaces. His face was blistered from the futile effort he had made to rescue the men in the engine. His uniform was badly scorched and he had lost his cap.

  “Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur,” Ursula began.

  “Eh?” Looking up, he cupped one hand behind his ear.

  She raised her voice. “Can you tell me where we are?”

  The man scrambled to his feet and replied in French, with frequent pauses to cough. He drew Ursula’s attention to a few tiny pinpricks of light in the far distance. When he was satisfied that she understood he touched his forehead where the cap should be. Still coughing, he set off along the tracks.

  Ursula hurried back to Elsie and Barry and called to them to come out. “The train’s radio is destroyed,” she told Elsie, “but one of the porters is going to follow the tracks to the next call box and summon help. He has no idea how long that will take, though.

  “There’s what appears to be a road some two miles north of here, and the porter thinks it may be the road from Dijon to Paris. So I’m going to try to flag down an automobile. Or a farm truck, anything.”

  “You propose to walk two miles in the dark? In those shoes?”

  “Barefoot, if necessary,” Ursula said. “Give Barry to me. I’ll carry him.”

  Elsie shook her head. “We should wait here until help comes.”

  “Or until the German planes come back? No, Elsie. I’m going and you’re going with me.”

  “I couldn’t possibly…”

  Ursula clamped a strong hand on the other woman’s shoulder and propelled her forward. “You certainly can, and you are. Right now. You helped me when I needed it, I’m not going to leave you here in danger.”

  In Geneva, Seán Lester waited tensely for word from his wife. She had promised to telephone him as soon as they reached Boulogne. He spent a sleepless night, at last turning on the radio for company.

  Radio Luxembourg was broadcasting a program of music entirely by German composers.

  Ursula had estimated the distance to the road at two miles, but distance was deceptive in the dark. For a
long time the moving lights seemed as far away as ever. Gradually the first few lights were joined by others, traveling fast and in only one direction. No one was going the other way.

  The women’s spring coats were insufficient protection against the wind that howled unimpeded across the fields. Deeply plowed furrows threatened to turn their ankles. They were unable to keep from crushing green and growing things beneath their feet.

  After crawling over, and under, a succession of wire fences they eventually came to a huddle of farm buildings. Barns, sheds, outbuildings. No house. When they approached they found everything locked up tight. A solitary dog barked, then ran out to warn them off. He ran away again when Ursula scolded him in French.

  Barry clung to his mother and sniffled but did not cry.

  “If you’re tired I’ll carry him a while,” Elsie offered.

  “Not yet. I’m all right.”

  “You seem to be limping.”

  Ursula made herself laugh. “A blister on my heel. You were right about the shoes, maybe I should take them off.”

  “You’d take pneumonia, don’t you dare!”

  They kept walking.

  Barry laid his head on his mother’s shoulder, facing back the way they had come. Suddenly he gave a little start. “Boom!” he said.

  Ursula spun around. A lurid glow lit the sky, a hot orange that pulsed and faded.

  Early Sunday morning the radio carried news of the invasion of France. Without waiting to shave, Seán Lester hurried to League headquarters. “The trains!” he demanded. “Are they still running? Does anyone know?”

  No one could tell him. Overcome by the swiftness of events, the communications network of the League of Nations had ground to a halt.

  Lester spent an anguished day and another sleepless night. He was crouching over the radio again when the sun came up on Monday morning.

  All the news was bad news. The German advance was unstoppable. Several civilian trains had been strafed; the number of casualties was not yet known. Lester went to the Palais des Nations, talked with overwrought colleagues whose conversations did not register on his mind, and eventually went home again to stare at the walls and wait.

  On Monday evening the telephone finally rang.

  “Oh Seán,” Elsie said with a shaky laugh. “A great tragedy. My beautiful blue hat is all ruined with machine oil.”1

  “Thank God! I mean…is that all? Where are you?”

  “We’re at Dieppe. Boulogne and Calais are both closed. There are no commercial aeroplanes, of course, and no passenger steamers available at the moment, so we’re taking the mail boat.”

  “I’ve been listening to the most horrible news. Was your train…”

  “It was. Bombed and machine-gunned both. Oh Seán, Ursula was splendid! You should have seen her. She was injured herself but she got us safely away from the train and found a road. Everyone was racing west to get away from the Germans; I didn’t think they would stop. But Ursula gave me the baby to hold and stepped right out in front of the cars.”

  “You said she was injured?”

  “I hadn’t realized until I saw her in the headlamps of the cars. Her whole skirt was covered with blood. She certainly did stop traffic, though! A man and his wife took us with them all the way to Paris and delivered us to your friend Seán Murphy, the Irish ambassador. He immediately took Ursula to hospital. The doctors removed a huge piece of glass from her thigh. Half an inch further over would have cut the artery. They wanted to keep her in hospital overnight but she wouldn’t have it.

  “The ambassador’s been wonderful to us. He’s arranged everything. Our suitcases were left in the train but we’d put our passports and exit visas inside our clothes, so we have our documentation. In another twenty-four hours we’ll be in London.”

  Lester felt weak with relief. “And little Barry, is he all right too?”

  “Nothing seems to upset him much. He’s like his mother in that respect, though when we were collecting our tickets for the boat Ursula began trembling. Reaction, I suppose.”

  “She’s entitled,” said Lester.

  The docks of Dieppe were crowded with people desperate to leave the Continent. They crowded onto the mail boat like so many cattle. Ursula studied their faces. Some looked relieved. A few seemed angry. Most appeared to be dazed.

  Refugees, Ursula thought. Leaving everything behind in order to escape with the most precious possession of all, life. What do you do when the familiar world turns upside down and you have to begin again?

  You just get on with it, that’s all; and thank God there’s something to be getting on with.

  Ursula grimly endured the trip across the Channel. She carried Barry to the rail and let him feel the wind in his face and smell the sea. “Isn’t this wonderful?” she said through gritted teeth.

  He grinned his jolly toothless grin. “ ’Derful.”

  She refused to infect him with her fear.

  They arrived safely, disembarking in a driving rainstorm.

  England. At once enemy camp and sanctuary. How can it be both at the same time? Ursula wondered.

  The diplomatic network was waiting to enfold them. A motorcar with a crisply solicitous driver sped them to London, where they were already booked into a comfortable hotel near Marble Arch. A meal was brought to their room but the two women only picked at their food. Like Barry, they soon fell into an exhausted sleep.

  The next morning Elsie made several telephone calls. “We can’t get a flight to Ireland until tomorrow,” she told Ursula. “We can go by steamship, but—”

  “Let’s wait for the plane,” Ursula said quickly.

  Elsie smiled. “I agree, we can all use a bit more rest. I do have to go out and pay a few calls later. If it stops raining, would you like to take Barry for a walk in Hyde Park? Or have you friends in London whom you’d like to see?”

  Ursula shook her head. “We’ll just stay here, if you don’t mind.”

  After breakfast Barry fell asleep again. Ursula thought about doing the same thing herself, but could not. She was too tightly strung. Her brain was a kaleidoscope of recent images and future imaginings.

  Me in England and thankful to be here. Astonishing. I keep being presented with the unexpected, like some giant cosmic test.

  Ursula stood gazing down at the wonder of Barry; the human being she…and he…had created. The unexpected miracle.

  When they got to Ireland she would have to explain him.

  What did the Virgin Mary tell her family and friends—I was impregnated by God? Surely not. I’m amazed that Joseph believed that story. Or did he? Did he just love her so much he was willing to accept her even if she was a bit mad?

  She drifted over to the window. Like almost every window in London it was fitted with blackout curtains. A fire extinguisher was mounted in a prominent place on the wall. When they checked in, the concierge had informed them that gas masks were available at the desk.

  Looking down into the street, Ursula saw sandbags and metal barricades neatly stacked at the corner. Signposts pointed the way to the nearest bomb shelter. Men past the age for active military duty were patrolling the streets, dressed in the uniform of the home guard.

  Britain was prepared to support her people in a bared-teeth defense of their nation.

  Mary had Joseph to support her. I wonder how much carpenters made in Galilee two thousand years ago. Did they sell the gold and frankincense and myrrh to give them a nest egg? I would have done.

  When they reached Dublin they were warmly greeted by the Lesters’ three daughters, who made a great fuss over Barry. “Ursula saved my life in France,” Elsie told the girls. “Nothing we can ever do will be enough to repay her. I hope she and Barry will stay with us…well, forever, if they like.”

  Ursula was embarrassed. “You make it sound like more than it was, Elsie. I appreciate your offer more than you know, and we’ll stay with you tonight, if that’s all right. But first thing tomorrow I’m going to look for a furnished ro
om that will accept a toddler. After that I must find a job. Your husband gave me an excellent letter of reference, but unfortunately it was in my suitcase. If he’ll replace it…”

  “I’m sure he will. When I cable him that we’ve arrived safely, I’ll include your request,” Elsie promised.

  From the outbreak of war in 1939 a number of gardai had been temporarily transferred to Dublin and put on armed protection duty, though the basic principle of an unarmed police force was not changed.

  Dublin itself was unchanged and unchanging. Everything looked the same as when Ursula left. The city had been frozen in time while the rest of the world fragmented and reformed itself in some new, desperate patterns.

  Elsie Lester had contacts, and as always in Ireland, contacts were everything. Through them Ursula was directed to “private residential accommodation” in Molesworth Street; furnished flats that discreetly occupied the first and second floors above a row of professional offices.

  The location was south of the Liffey and Ursula had always thought of herself as a northsider, but when she was shown the flat she had no difficulty changing allegiance. The bedroom and miniscule sitting room were freshly painted and papered. A toilet and washbasin occupied a small cubicle of their own. Ornamental ironwork outside the lower panes of the windows insured that no small child would tumble out.

  There was no lino on the floors, no smell of damp.

  The landlord was a plump little man with fat pink hands and a bald pink head. Ursula had been sent to him by Mrs. Seán Lester, Someone Important in his world view, so he was as ingratiating as a dog wagging its entire back end. He bustled about opening windows and pointing out amenities.

  “Because we’re close to government buildings we get a good class of tenant here,” he told Ursula. “Staff from foreign embassies, even. The furniture and rugs are quality, you can see that yourself. And there’s a fine hotel on the corner if you fancy a meal out, Mrs…?”

  “Halloran,” Ursula said.