Christmas on the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  The reply from Rita was dated almost a month ago! However, airmail was not a priority right now, even if it did boost morale. Jack’s eyes flew over Rita’s carefully penned words, knowing it would have taken a lot of courage to reply.

  Rita was a good letter writer and Jack was looking forward to what she had to say. Smiling, he noted that she did not miss anything out, giving him all the local gossip, even telling him things that would not usually interest him – however, even the most trivial news was now of the utmost importance. He needed something to focus on, something to keep his mind occupied when he was off duty. Winco the cat was quite big now and had proved himself adept at keeping the ship’s rat population in check as well as boosting morale. Jack knew that the officers were turning a blind eye, but he thought that he would probably have to find a new home for the cat when he finally reached land – if he ever reached land. The cat was a good distraction, and instead of the never-ending seascape of grey, Jack would dream of Rita, beautiful, unreachable, untouchable Rita. However, if every day were like today, it would all be worth the long agonising wait to go home.

  Having been stuck right in the thick of a lightning raid over Italy, he hadn’t had time to sit and read Rita’s letter in its entirety – he knew all of the others off by heart now. Thankfully, every plane had made it back, including his own and there was now time to catch up with Rita’s news.

  The post had arrived on board this afternoon and everybody was eager to lose themselves in somebody else’s life. The place was silent save for the sound of the sea and a few eager matelots who had come on deck wanting to know where their post was. The best days were those when the mail drop came. The whole of the ship’s company got excited as the crew scrambled around the ‘postie’.

  ‘No post for you today, Atkins.’

  Jack looked up to see Able Seaman Atkins’ face cloud over. It was the worst bit of news they could get after being starved of familiar news, not knowing when the next mail drop would arrive. Atkins’ nonchalant shrug belied the disappointment he must have felt.

  ‘Got no mates, son?’ the straight-faced postie asked. ‘Never mind, yours might be in with the next drop,’ he quipped, ‘although someone more popular is bound to let you read one of theirs.’ He continued giving out the mail and pretended he did not see the matelot offer a surreptitious two-fingered salute. However, Jack knew nobody liked to see one of the men missing their letters from home.

  ‘Here, have a read of this.’ He leaned over and passed Atkins one of his younger brother Danny’s letters. It did not have news about personal stuff or family stuff – Danny’s never did – but it did keep him up to date about any football matches played back home or other trivialities that were just the thing to keep you sane in this vast wilderness of water.

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ said Atkins with a grin. It did not matter that the letter was not for him as long as he had something from home, no matter how small. Jack knew it would get him through today, and smiled as his mate settled down to read the letter.

  ‘You would do the same for me,’ Jack said as the evening sun, still warm on his already tanned, taut body, began to dip a little. He shifted, relaxed now albeit alert, in second-degree readiness and available for call to action stations if there were signals of enemy ships, or aircraft sighted …

  Jack started Rita’s letter again from the beginning and smiled as she recounted stories about people and places who were so familiar to him but who now seemed like a world away. Rita tried hard not to mention Charlie, he knew, but in her letter she told him that Charlie had taken the children away to the seaside to keep them safe. Reading between the lines, Jack sensed an unspoken anxiety in Rita’s tone. What could Charlie be up to now? Charlie Kennedy was a coward in Jack’s eyes, a jumped-up prig who had used his mother’s money to get all he ever wanted. Jack thrilled to the fact that Kennedy no longer lived with Rita. That was, at least, something to be thankful for in this damned war, he thought.

  He reached the last page of Rita’s letter and read her words.

  This will be the last letter from me for a while, Jack. I think we both know this is for the best. We’re not our own people and don’t have the freedom to do as we wish. Once you asked me to tell you what was really in that letter that I wrote to you in Belfast. I hope one day we’ll be able to sit down as friends and tell each other all the things that are in our hearts, but that time isn’t now. Take good care, Jack. I think of you always and may God go with you.

  Rita

  A short time later as the sun dipped behind the clouds and the crew of Distinguished retired to the bar on the mess deck, Jack continued in his solitude. With only his thoughts for company, he gazed up to the stone-coloured streaks that whipped across the vast cerulean sky, recalling the familiar landscapes Rita’s letter had evoked.

  To the right alehouses on every corner of the back-to-back, soot-covered terraced streets that ribbed the backbone of the dock road. To the left the docks, Canada, Brocklebank, Langton, Alexandra, Gladstone … Then on to Seaforth Sands, which contrasted with the bleak, titanic warehouses and timber yards; forbidden playgrounds for him and his brothers … His brothers … What was to become of his brothers? Jack shivered now, recalling the smoke-filled consumptive air from many chimneys, heavy with the tang of lumber from lands across the sea.

  But his thoughts, as usual, turned back to Rita. The girl he adored with every beat of his heart. Jack bitterly regretted going to Belfast to finish his training when he was young and even more headstrong than he was today. If it had not been for the argument with his father, he would have … Or would he – have stayed put? Nevertheless, he wished he could have written to Rita to explain. But he couldn’t, for the simple fact he had never learned how to write and the shame he had felt then was still powerful now.

  Every time he laid eyes on her, Jack knew he had made the biggest mistake of his life; to see her and not be able to share the things they once shared was torture. He had nobody to blame but himself, he realised. Although Jack knew that after his hasty departure, Kennedy made it his business to jump in and steal Rita from him …

  Jack, lying on the flight deck, shifted onto his back, unable to get comfortable. There was no point in going over it all again for the umpteenth time. Nothing was going to change the facts.

  The desperate need to go out and earn money to keep body and soul together when his father could not or would not work meant Jack had to start earning from an early age. He was not much of a scholar back then and if schooling was a luxury his family could not afford, it had suited him then to be earning rather than learning.

  His enquiring mind enabled him to better himself at an age when he was ready to learn. His determin­ation to complete an apprenticeship, with the help of Bob, a patient foreman, who had taught Jack to read and write properly, allowed him to be what he was today. A quick learner through necessity, he had cruised through his examinations.

  If only bearing his soul to Rita had been as easy, he thought, things could have been so different. What a fool he had been to think she would always be there waiting for him.

  If only he had persuaded her that he was doing it all for her. Jack did not want her to work her fingers to the bone and die of exhaustion in childbirth like his poor beloved mam.

  Fifteen when his mam died, Jack was a lad forced to work to keep a family from the poor house. His father wallowed in self-pity until the day he died last year. And although Jack did not begrudge one minute of taking evening jobs to keep his siblings fed and clothed, he hated the idea his old man spent much of his hard-earned money down the alehouse.

  That last night in Empire Street, he had told Rita he had to go away. He did not tell her he was squirrelling away a few coppers here and there so he could buy her a ring. Maybe he should. It was meant to be a surprise … He never could abide surprises now.

  Always an important part of his life, he was thrilled when Rita became a probationary nurse at the local hospital. Although earning a pittance w
hile they were training, they could not resist the lure of their emotions; both wanting more than just a kiss and cuddle. Jack’s dream was making Rita his wife – alongside him for the rest of his life.

  We are too young, she said, and he agreed. Get some training, Jack, she said, and he agreed. We have our whole lives ahead of us, she said.

  But he would never let Rita down, he would always be there for her and he’d never give up. If there was a God, and Jack truly believed there was, then Charlie Kennedy would get what he deserved one day. In the meantime, Jack resolved to continue writing to Rita. He would not lose what little he had of her.

  His eyelids grew heavy now in the shade of the dipping sun, casting rays of gold and blushing pink and palest lavender over the water. Jack could feel the cares of the day seep from him … The afternoon had been particularly busy.

  Having been at sea for so long, Jack was counting the days until he was home. Some of the others were off duty and, relaxing as they called it, were doing laps of the 850-foot flight deck. However, Jack knew he did not need strenuous drill, not after completing so many missions. All he needed was a bit of shut-eye and oblivion. Being a light sleeper, he knew that was impossible as the ship’s Tannoy system would keep him informed especially if anything exciting should happen …

  The gentle call of a woman’s voice stirred him from his slumber: ‘Jack! Come on, son, you will be late.’ His mother’s gentle Irish lilt, so clear, was surely not a trick of his imagination. He was not dreaming, he could not be, he felt fully conscious now.

  ‘I’m awake, Ma,’ he murmured, opening bleary eyes.

  He was not surprised, or even startled, when he saw his mother standing there in front of him on the flight deck. Her beautiful dark hair, tied in the usual knot at the nape of her neck. Her hands on her hips. However, the beautiful almost iridescent blue of her eyes softened when she gazed at him. Giving a half-laugh, he raised a submissive hand.

  ‘All right, Ma, you caught me.’ Yawning now, he stretched and shivered, surprised to see the sun had gone down. He had no idea what time it was. A stiff breeze sailed over the flight deck rail.

  ‘I’ll just go and get a gansy, Ma.’ Jack turned towards his quarters. ‘A chap needs a woolly pullover when the sun goes down.’ Turning back now to return her loving smile … he was sorely disappointed when his mother was no longer there. The silver moon dipped behind a thick cloud, and Jack suddenly felt so very much alone.

  A shudder rippled through him now and every hair on his body stood on end when he realised the Swordfish biplanes were going through their final check before the night flights. He had heard many tales of servicemen seeing a departed loved one before something huge and exciting was about to take place, but he had never believed it until now.

  Jack was not afraid. In fact, after ‘seeing’ his mother he was filled with renewed courage. The feeling he had now was different from anything he had known for many a long year. It was something akin to satisfaction; contentment he had not known since he was a young child at his mother’s knee. His wish had finally come true. His mam had come to see him. He had known, absolutely and without a doubt, that she would one day. Rubbing his eyes now, Jack berated himself for falling asleep. Had he stayed awake he would have seen her sooner.

  The moon had disappeared completely now and the ship was plunged into inky blackness so dense he could reach out and touch it. Jack did not know how long his mother had been calling him. However, one thing he did know … There was the unmistakable drone of a squadron of Stuka dive-bombers heading this way.

  ‘What do they expect?’ The twenty-two-year-old German officer struggled to sit up in the hospital bed and, meticulously straightening his striped pyjama top, managed, with much difficulty, to raise himself against his pillows to await his evening meal. ‘Liverpool and Birkenhead is a prize,’ he shrugged. ‘Being the biggest west coast port it is not an easy target to miss.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Rita could feel her temper rising. ‘How dare you say that when we have given you every courtesy – and saved your life?’ She was one of only two nurses allowed to minister care to Luftwaffe bomber pilot Kurt Eichmann.

  ‘But not my leg,’ he said drily, gazing at the space where his leg, amputated from the thigh, should have been. His leg had been badly injured in the crash of his Heinkel.

  ‘I do not wish to be rude.’ He spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that Rita could not help but stop what she was doing to listen. ‘Actually, the defences around Liverpool are very strong – but Merseyside is a big objective – it is very easy to locate.’

  He was young and far from home, and in a rare moment of weakness, Rita remembered, Jack had trained to do exactly the same thing.

  He leaned forward and began speaking in a low, barely audible voice, as if he was talking to somebody else, and she wondered if he was hallucinating – he had gone through a very big operation and the doctors had struggled to keep him alive.

  ‘I put my plane into a dive at 12,000 feet and was hurtling towards the docks at 550 miles per hour … I knew the G-force would cause me to black out just as I released the bombs … When I regained consciousness I turned the bomber inland away from the illuminating fires of the city, to the sanctuary of darkness and home …’ The young flight lieutenant had tears in his eyes now and he slumped back against the pillows as if the effort was too much. ‘I felt so ashamed … It was not what I wanted when I trained to be a pilot … What good will these wars do?’

  He turned his fevered head and looked towards the narrow window and out above the river, to the blue cloudless sky. Rita suspected he was not even aware she was in the room now. Taking the thermometer, she shook it before popping it into his mouth. As she anticipated, he had a temperature of one hundred and three. His forehead felt clammy to her touch.

  ‘I’ll get the doctor to come and have a look at you,’ Rita said, suspecting the infection from his amputated leg was beginning to take hold. Doctors had fought a long battle to try to get the infection under control but it appeared to be returning. She looked at him differently now. He was right. The detention of this young German brought home to her the hostility and the futility of war in the last few weeks. She put her hand under his head and raised him up, and then lifting a glass to his lips, she offered him sips of water.

  ‘Is that better?’ Rita asked, knowing the water would wet his parched lips, at least, but she doubted it would come anywhere near lowering his extremely high fever.

  ‘Danke sehr,’ he gratefully thanked Rita before flopping back on his pillow, exhausted now. His hand folded around a piece of card and Rita was obliged to ask what it was.

  ‘Would you like to see it?’ he said in a weak, almost whispery voice before holding out a small, sepia photograph of a smiling, pretty girl who looked not much older than Rita’s sister Sarah.

  ‘Is she your girl?’ Rita asked. For the first six weeks after his arrival the junior hospital staff had been warned by Matron not to speak to him, but Rita had exchanged the odd word or two at first. She would hate to think her own brothers would be mistreated if they were captured. She was here to make people feel better.

  ‘She is my wife,’ said Hauptmann Eichmann as the ghost of a smile played about his lips. He looked so proud, though he had never mentioned his wife before. ‘She is expecting our child – in time for Christmas!’

  ‘That’s something to look forward to.’ Rita kept the conversation as normal as possible, knowing he was gravely ill now. She handed back the small photograph. ‘What are you hoping for?’

  ‘I am supposed to say a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy, am I not?’ Eichmann gave a weak, cynical half-laugh. ‘To perpetuate the Führer’s vision of an Aryan race.’ He slowly moved his head from side to side, too weak to shake it. ‘In truth, I want a dark-haired daughter … as sweet and beautiful as her mother.’

  ‘I hope you get your wish,’ Rita said, knowing it would be a long time before he saw either his wife or his child. From here, he would
be taken to the prisoner of war camp up at Ormskirk, or maybe out Cheshire way.

  The doctor came to give him something stronger for the pain, and Rita could see that all he wanted to do now was sleep.

  ‘I’m off duty in five minutes so I’ll leave you with Nurse Kerrigan.’

  Turning to Maeve, her fiery-haired friend who, as it turned out, was a cousin of Sid, Nancy’s prisoner-of-war husband, Rita said in a low voice, ‘Be gentle with him. He’s just a kid.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Maeve in her down-to-earth Irish lilt, so like Dolly’s, ‘a kid who could knock the stuffing out of all of us! Let’s hope Sid is being as well looked after,’ she added and Rita nodded.

  When Rita returned to work the following morning, she was surprised to see the young German’s bed was empty.

  ‘Have they moved him to the POW camp already?’ she asked Maeve.

  ‘There was nothing anybody could do,’ said Maeve in a low voice. ‘He was doing all right when I first checked on him – he even said good night – but when I went to check on him an hour or so later, he had died in his sleep.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Rita’s hands flew to her lips. ‘He was only a lad!’ She gazed at the bare mattress where an inexperienced young man had spent his last weeks, alone. Silently, she railed against the war that meant another generation of young men would lose their lives. Had they learned nothing from the last war, when a whole generation of slaughtered young men were now just a cherished memory?

  As she turned to leave the small, austere room, Rita spotted something under the slim iron bed. She bent to pick it up. It was the photograph of Hauptmann Eichmann’s young wife, who soon was to be given the most devastating news of her life.

  For just a moment, Jack heard nothing, and then the call came over the Tannoy. The fleet was under attack! All the guns of the convoy had now opened fire and were giving the Stuka bombers everything they could. Immediately the ship was locked down. They were at action stations.