The Italian Chapel

by Philip Paris

  This book is dedicated to Domenico Chiocchetti, Giuseppe Palumbi, Domenico Buttapasta, Giovanni Pennisi and the other men who defied great hardship, hostile weather and the limitations of a WW2 prisoner of war camp, to create a monument of hope and peace that can reach out to us more than sixty-five years later and move us to tears.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  During this quest to tell the story of the Italian Chapel, strangers have become friends, while others have remained strangers. But they have all offered help, information and advice without hesitation and for that, I am eternally grateful.

  John Andrew (Balfour Beatty), Chris Asher, Graeme Bowie, Father Antony Collins, Claudio and Paola, Balfour Hospital, Guido DeBonis (ex POW, Orkney), Gina Ellis (daughter of Sergeant Major Fornasier), Letizia Fonti (daughter of Domenico Chiocchetti), Gary Gibson (Kirkwall artist), Bryan Hall, Dave Hover, Lesley Jeffreys, Rosemay Johnstone (daughter of Bill Johnstone), Primiano Malvolti’s family, Lesley McLetchie, Sam Moore, Society of Jesus, Willie Mowatt (Orkney blacksmith), John Muir (Italian Chapel Preservation Committee), Tom Muir (Orkney Museum), National Gallery for Scotland, Orkney Library, Renato and Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Palumbi (son and grandson of Giuseppe Palumbi), Norman Sinclair (son of Orkney photographer James Sinclair), Tom Sinclair (owner of Lamb Holm), Manuela Re, Francis Roberts, Anne Simpson, Alison Sutherland Graeme (daughter of Patrick Sutherland Graeme), Rachel Stuart, Sheena Wenham (granddaughter of Patrick Sutherland Graeme), Gale Winskill, J Wippell & Company, Wendy Young, Fiona Zeyfert (granddaughter of Major Buckland).

  There are two special thanks I must give. One is to Coriolano ‘Gino’ Caprara, whose enthusiasm for the story and phenomenal ability to remember minute details of the period he spent as a POW in Orkney provide an invaluable insight into the lives of the Italians. The other is to my wife Catherine. Her love, encouragement and common sense are the rock to which I steer the course of my life. In return, I have taught her more about the construction of a Second World War Nissen hut than she thought it was possible to know.

  Prologue

  Spring 1946

  That morning, the silence that had enveloped Camp 60 since the Italians left was shattered; destroyed violently, like the gates, as they were flung apart by a huge bulldozer. Hut after hut on the tiny Orkney island was torn down in a frantic race to erase all traces of war. As the work progressed, the demolition team moved ever nearer to the little chapel.

  The contract was clear. Nothing was to be left.

  Inside, the Madonna watched the entrance over the gates of Giuseppe Palumbi’s rood screen … and waited.

  In the recreation hall, the three billiard tables that the Italian prisoners of war had made out of leftover concrete each had a neat triangle of balls set up for the next game. It had been eighteen months since the hut resounded with the ruckus of men laughing and cheering.

  The screech of tearing metal was followed by brilliant daylight flooding across the tables, as a bulldozer ripped off part of the corrugated iron wall. The operator edged the machine forward, raised the bucket and brought it down sharply in the middle of the nearest table. It cracked cleanly in half and balls scattered across the floor to be crushed, returned to dust. Speed was everything; the destruction relentless.

  The demolition crew started a fire just outside the camp, where the Italians had once burned the wood that could not be used in the huts’ pot-bellied stoves. Scenes of Italy, skilfully painted backdrops for plays and performances, were reduced to ashes. Domenico Chiocchetti’s hard work was discarded, its value unrecognised.

  While the flames raged and buildings crashed to the ground, the Madonna stared serenely. Eventually the door of the chapel opened, creaking in protest after being closed for so long.

  Two men entered, wearing hats and overalls. Heavily built and tough, they were used to being obeyed without question. The immediate tranquility took them totally by surprise. They walked along the nave, astonished at how realistic the imitation stone and brick walls appeared, until they stood before the rood screen.

  The gaffer, an Irishman, placed his hands on the wroughtiron work, appreciating the skill required to turn scrap metal into an object of such delicate beauty. He wondered about the man who had dedicated so much effort to such a task.

  Removing their hats, the two men entered the chancel to stare at the paintings of saints on the windows, angels and evangelists, the Madonna and Child above the altar. The gaffer picked up one of the brass candlesticks. He had spent more than thirty years putting up and taking down buildings, but had never been moved by one … not like this. Something deep within him stirred and he wasn’t sure why.

  ‘What are you thinking, Pat?’ asked the other man eventually.

  His friend did not answer, the peace he had felt moments earlier eroded by waves of emotion; anger at the bureaucrat who had written the orders without checking what was on the site, fear that a different gang might have followed those orders, the chapel pulled down like a worthless hut.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ he said, barely controlling his feelings, ‘that I’ll not be the man who has to stand before God on Judgement Day and explain why I allowed such a dedication to His glory to be destroyed.’

  ‘There’s certainly some skill here, but you know what our contract says. The land restored to how it was before the war.’

  ‘No, this is more than craftsmanship, Jack. Men put their souls into this and left a part of themselves behind.’

  ‘There’ll be a price to pay if we leave it.’

  The Irishman replaced the candlestick so that the surrounding dust remained undisturbed.

  ‘You know, this Nissen hut, this was the Italians’ escape. They didn’t dig a tunnel … they built a chapel. It’s a symbol.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Hope. Tell the men, Jack, to leave the chapel and the statue. Make sure nobody misunderstands what I’m saying.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  Alone in the building, the Irishman studied the paintings closely, poked his head into the vestry and then walked slowly back to the door, marvelling once more at the curved walls as he went. When he reached the entrance he looked back at the chancel.

  ‘Made out of scraps,’ he said, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Back in the open, the pace of work was frantic. Wooden purlins were hurled on to the fire, while machines and men competed to eradicate what had been home for more than 500 Italians. There was no pretence to finesse; speed was the aim. A few men stopped briefly to look at the statue of St George slaying the dragon, just outside the impressive façade of the chapel, but neither wa
s touched.

  By the end of the day it was over. The huts were demolished. All that was left were the concrete foundations. A couple of men stacked the fence posts and made neat rolls of barbed wire for the landowner or local farmer to use. Anything else that could not be burned had been loaded on to the back of trucks.

  The noise and activity stopped just as suddenly as it had burst upon the camp that morning and the chapel was alone again, still and silent.

  This time there was no fence to keep people out.

  1

  January 1942

  The Madonna’s face swayed. Domenico Chiocchetti held the image in his hands as he sat in the bowels of a packet steamer, which had left Aberdeen that afternoon. The constant left-right motion was interspersed with a twisting action as the ship not only rode the waves but yawed from side to side. The rancid smell of vomit, unwashed bodies and cigarette smoke hung in the air alongside anger and despair, loneliness and dread. Domenico looked down at the picture and thought of his family and home … and Maria.

  He was thirty-one. A quiet, kindly, humble man. An artist, caught up in a war just like the other 1,200 Italian prisoners of war, captured during the North African campaigns, now being transported to some unknown destination. There was a rumour they were going to an island north of Scotland, but few believed such a place existed. Even if they had been told its name, it is doubtful any of the Italians would have heard of the tiny Orkney island of Lamb Holm. He had no idea his life would be bound to that island and to the image in his hands.

  As he looked at the picture of the Madonna and Child, men around him murmured, coughed and retched. One or two wept in silence and several prayed because the journey was as terrifying as the battlefield. They felt helpless, at the mercy of the British army and the violent waters of the Pentland Firth. If the latter didn’t sink them, which seemed increasingly likely, there was a good chance that a German U-boat might.

  ‘Hey, Domenico. What’s that card you’re looking at? Domenico!’

  Domenico looked up. He wasn’t smiling, his mind still in his home village of Moena, where life had been simple, safe and wholesome. He stared blankly at Aldo; the easy-going, happy-go-lucky wheeler-dealer, whose cheeky grin made him look about sixteen. But Domenico sensed the vulnerability in the younger man. He thought the real Aldo Tolino was yet to be revealed to the world.

  ‘You’ve been gazing at that card all the way from Liverpool.’

  Domenico’s face cracked into a smile.

  ‘Since Durban before that, Egypt before that and Libya before that,’ he replied, handing over the card.

  Sergeant Giovanni Pennisi had been sitting with his eyes closed in an attempt, not to sleep, but to ignore what was going on around him. He looked down with eyes that were only half open and spoke for the first time since the ship left Aberdeen.

  ‘It’s one of a series of paintings of the Madonna and Child by Nicolò Barabino.’

  ‘You know paintings, Sergeant Pennisi?’ said Aldo, surprised both at being spoken to and the content of the comment.

  ‘That’s because,’ said Domenico, ‘Sergeant Pennisi is a man of culture, a man of significant artistic talent. Something of which I suspect you, young Aldo, know little.’

  Domenico and Pennisi shared a common bond in their burning desire to paint, but few of the other men knew of this or their friendship.

  ‘Hey, I admit my talents lie elsewhere, but why do you treasure this card so much?’ Aldo persisted.

  Pennisi opened his eyes fully out of respect for his friend, who was about to speak of something close to his heart.

  ‘My mother gave it to me just before I left. Sometimes I feel if I look at the picture, I don’t have to look at the horror around me. It gives me strength at moments when the future looks bleak. And it reminds me of my mother.’

  Aldo was not untouched by the honest explanation.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘You can show it to her again when you return to Italy.’

  Domenico laid the prayer card carefully in an empty tobacco tin and pressed the lid tightly closed, before tucking the tin safely into an inside pocket of his jacket. It was almost a ritual.

  ‘At least for us the war is over,’ said Aldo.

  ‘There will be other things to fight Aldo,’ answered Domenico. ‘Boredom, loneliness, loss of hope …’

  The ship listed heavily and men grabbed frantically at what they could, including those next to them. The tension in the air vied with the smoke for space. With an agonising effort the ship gradually straightened and 1,200 Italians let out their breath.

  ‘Someone said we’re being sent to an island off an island and that it’s so small if you turn around suddenly you will knock someone else into the sea,’ said Aldo. ‘The British must really fear that we are going to escape to send us to such a remote area … like that place in America. What’s it called?’

  ‘Alcatraz,’ said Pennisi, now committed to the conversation.

  ‘That’s it. They’re sending us to Alcatraz,’ said Aldo, his boyish enthusiasm making him sound almost excited at the prospect.

  ‘I think the British must have some purpose in mind to transport us to this remote island. I don’t believe it’s because they’re worried that a few hundred weary Italian prisoners of war will escape en masse and overthrow their country,’ said Pennisi.

  A figure rushed past them to stop several yards away where the man was sick into a fire bucket. Pennisi closed his eyes. Aldo looked on with fascinated disgust.

  ‘Wherever we’re going we’d better get there soon,’ he said. ‘If there’s a fire we’ll be throwing vomit instead of sand.’

  Pennisi replied without opening his eyes.

  ‘Ah, but good Italian vomit,’ he said.

  2

  Disembarking had been a nightmare of confused shouted orders, darkness, cold and resentment. The little stone pier that had been hurriedly constructed on Lamb Holm wasn’t suitable for the ship to dock, so the men had been forced to climb down with whatever kit they possessed into two tugs that had drawn up alongside.

  At first no one understood what was happening, but as part of the disembarking procedure men were split into two groups. It appeared they were being sent to two camps, on completely separate islands, because when full the tugs had set off into the darkness in different directions, returning sometime later to pick up the next batch. Those still on deck were tossed about roughly, while the men who had landed stood around on the exposed shore becoming ever more frozen. As fate would have it, Domenico was put in one tug and Pennisi another. The loss of his friend was a bitter disappointment.

  For as long as they could remember the prisoners’ lives had consisted of a series of increasingly miserable situations and as the Italians trudged doggedly through the icy rain, it was difficult to decide whether they had been better off on the ship. Armed British soldiers walked along the outside of the column; vague indistinct figures, probably no better off themselves. Domenico wondered why they were there; escape was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Some men staggered from the after effects of being on such a rough sea for so long and as the gut wrenching sickness receded it was replaced by hunger.

  The gale beat at them mercilessly like an angry Norse god who resented their presence; a malevolent viciousness, which whipped off hats into the night and slapped capes against thighs with the force to sting. There was no pretence of marching or of order. This was a line of men so wretched and wet that they had not one single dry item between them.

  ‘Hey, Domenico!’ Domenico squinted into the rain to see the short, stocky figure of Dino, whose beautiful tenor voice had enthralled people in countless camps during the previous months. ‘The priests had it wrong.’

  ‘Do they ever get it right?’ The reply was from Aldo, shouting from Domenico’s other side. He ignored the comment, which irritated him.

  ‘Why have they got it wrong?’ Domenico’s words were almost inaudible.

  ‘They said Hell was a p
lace of fire and burning. It’s not. It’s a place of fierce rain and biting cold … and we’ve just arrived.’

  They walked on. Near the back Giuseppe Palumbi stumbled along in a grim silence that had become a habit. Giuseppe had expressed communist views at a time when promoting such beliefs was a dangerous activity in Italy. One morning a friend had dragged him into a corner of a café, where he told him his outspoken opinions had put his life in great peril. Giuseppe was a hopeless romantic but not a foolish one. He went home, said goodbye to his wife, kissed his baby son and joined the Italian army; Mussolini’s fascist army. He had lost a great deal that day and since then had kept to himself.

  Eventually, almost unnoticed, they passed a large sign that read ‘Camp 60’ and moments later entered their new home. The men crowded into an ever larger group as those at the back of the line filtered into the camp. There seemed to be some confusion and shouting going on ahead but Domenico and those around him couldn’t work out what was being said. However, men started moving quickly towards the huts around the compound.

  ‘Come on,’ Aldo shouted at Domenico. ‘We’ve got to claim a hut.’

  Aldo fixed his eyes on a building further down the camp and shot off, head tucked into his thin chest, arms and legs pumping with desperate determination. Domenico and the men nearby followed as fast as their stiff legs would carry them.

  They were instantly slipping and sliding uncontrollably in every direction. Mud, so deep it would have stopped a tank. Halfway to the hut Domenico felt his legs slide ominously and he began to fall backwards until someone behind gave him an almighty push that almost sent him sprawling the other way. They lurched onwards. Aldo reached the hut first and burst through the door, stopping dead at the stark sight that greeted him.

  ‘Christ, it’s colder than my granny’s corpse.’

  The men were out of the rain but they looked in dismay at the bunk beds, squashed together down each side of the hut. There were a few chairs and cupboards and a table with two benches, standing just beyond a stove, whose black stack rose up to the roof in the very centre of the building. It was as cold as the Pentland Firth they had just crossed.