Broken Rainbows

by Catrin Collier

  Pontypridd erupted. Strangers hugged one another in the street as though the war was already won. But when the initial euphoria faded, the question on everyone’s lips was, who had been in the front line of Eisenhower’s D-Day landings? They soon found out. When the casualty lists were published, even the most vociferous anti-American critics had to concede that the Yanks were bystanders and good-time Joes no longer, but soldiers and victims of war, just like the Welsh boys who had gone into Europe and died alongside them.

  ‘Everyone’s right, these new troops really aren’t a patch on the ones who left,’ Dr John complained one dark November morning when Bethan walked into the surgery.

  ‘I take it there’s been more trouble?’

  ‘Last night. Fourth fight this week in the Horse and Groom. The landlord’s threatening to ban the coloured troops from the premises.’

  ‘He can’t blame them.’

  ‘As no one else was involved I don’t see how he can blame anyone else, and when the police followed the troublemakers back to their chapel billet they found four workhouse girls who’d escaped over the wall, hiding there. I had to go to the station to examine them. They had one vest between them. You should have seen your Uncle Huw’s blushes.’

  ‘I wish I had,’ Bethan smiled.

  ‘Nothing but fist fights and prostitutes. I don’t know what the world is coming to.’

  ‘Peace, I hope. Since the Allies took Paris most of the news has been good.’

  ‘Apart from Hitler’s silent bombs falling on the southeast, the Nazis reducing Warsaw to rubble …’ he gazed at her as he picked up the paper on his desk. ‘You haven’t seen today’s Times?’

  ‘No.’ Usually her father-in-law understated disasters but she had a presentiment that this was something too serious to dismiss. He handed her the paper. ‘Bottom left-hand corner. You’d better read it for yourself, then visit your friend Alma.’

  ‘I was going to fill my case.’

  ‘Restocking can wait.’

  As she started to read she sank down into the chair in front of his desk. ‘Where is Maidenek?’

  ‘Poland.’

  ‘This has to be Soviet propaganda.’ She stared at him, wanting him to confirm that the account she had just read of a camp where men, women and children were methodically stripped, gassed and cremated on arrival, could not possibly be true. ‘No one, not even the Nazis, would kill one-and-a-half-million people this way.’

  ‘I agree, it’s hard to believe. But if Alma reads this it may make her realise just how futile it is to hope that Charlie is still alive. I saw her last week. The waiting has exacted a toll on her health. For three years she’s clung to the belief that Charlie has been locked up by the Germans in a Russian prisoner of war camp somewhere in Eastern Europe. This place was found by the Soviets and they said that all nationalities had been murdered there. Presumably that includes Russians. Take the morning off and go and see her.’

  ‘I will.’ She handed him back the paper. ‘Do you think it will be over by Christmas?’

  ‘More like next Christmas,’ he answered gloomily. ‘And sometimes I wonder if it will ever be over.’

  ‘Happy Christmas.’ Skilfully using his one hand, Evan opened the bottles of beer he’d coaxed out of the landlord of the Graig Hotel and divided the contents between the glasses on the table.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s our last at war,’ Mrs John said solemnly as she touched her glass to his.

  ‘We’ll all drink to that.’ Dr John rose to his feet and glanced down the table to where Bethan was sitting.

  ‘To peace,’ Diana and Megan echoed the toast.

  ‘Look at us,’ Tina complained as they began to eat the Christmas dinner that Bethan, Jane and Maisie had cooked. ‘Eleven women,’ she winked at Liza who was grinning with pleasure at being counted a woman, ‘a horde of children, and only two men between us. Not that you aren’t both fine men,’ she conceded with a smile at Evan and Dr John, ‘but you can hardly cope with all of us.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t want to try and “cope” with you, as you put it, Mrs Powell,’ Dr John responded, as his wife gave Tina a hard look. ‘I’ve heard too much about your husband.’

  ‘I wonder where William is right now?’ Megan said thoughtfully, deliberately steering the conversation away from innuendo.

  ‘The last battle in Italy was in a monastery.’

  ‘I can’t quite see William in a monastery, Alma.’

  ‘Or Ronnie,’ Diana added.

  ‘Do you think he’ll have managed Christmas dinner?’ Tina asked, staring down at the roast potatoes, parsnips, chicken and stuffing on her plate.

  ‘Knowing William, most definitely.’ Bethan passed the gravy boat down the table to her in-laws. ‘And if he’s anywhere near Ronnie …’

  ‘They’ll have wheedled their way into the nearest wine cellar,’ Diana suggested, her eyes moistening as she glanced across the room to the cot where her daughter was sleeping.

  ‘How are you two adjusting to life without yellow skin?’ Megan asked Jenny and Jane.

  ‘As we were only given our cards two weeks ago, it’s not easy to answer that, but I must admit I find running the shop easier than working long hours in the factory.’

  ‘You haven’t taken in any more lodgers, Mrs Powell?’ Mrs John asked Jenny snidely.

  ‘No. Now that the pressure’s eased on accommodation in the town, I’ve discovered just how much I missed my privacy.’

  ‘I haven’t had time to discover anything, except fulltime motherhood and housework, and believe it or not, after three and a half years working in a factory, I’m loving every minute,’ Jane enthused.

  ‘I’ll talk to you again in six months.’

  ‘If she can spare the time, Megan.’ Bethan looked at Maisie, who blushed. ‘Maisie is leaving us. She’s marrying Mr James.’

  As congratulations poured in from all sides, Bethan sat back and eyed her father who was watching Alma and Megan. Despite outward jocularity the strain of five years of war was beginning to tell on all of them, but most of all on the women like Diana, Tina, Liza and Megan whose men were involved in the fighting, and Alma – who grew more restless with every day that brought the end, and a truth she might not want to face, closer.

  Bethan was loath to admit it, but she was actually glad when the Christmas holiday was over and she could return to what passed for normality. Only it wasn’t normality. Everything was changing. In January all her evacuees except the Clark girls returned to London, and a week later Maisie married Albert James.

  Although she only moved a few hundred yards away to the village, Bethan hardly saw her. Jane took over the housekeeping, and they began to chart the Allied advance into Germany, studying the atlas every night, ticking off the names of the towns the Russians liberated as they closed in from the east and the British and American forces from the west.

  All POW mail was stopped, and Bethan spent minutes at a time staring blankly at the map wishing she knew exactly where Andrew was, wondering if the Russians would reach him first or the Americans and, what was more important, if he would be allowed to come straight home.

  On 29 April the Germans in Italy surrendered to the Allied Forces, and as Tina and Diana sat poring over Ronnie and William’s last letters looking for clues as to whether they were anywhere near the last battles, Tina’s brother Angelo and Mrs Richards’s son Glan walked off the train and into the café – both of them freed after five years in POW camps. That night Tina and Gina threw a party for all of Pontypridd’s returning POWs in the restaurant, and Bethan could only wonder why Andrew wasn’t among them.

  ‘Mrs Richards?’ Bethan crossed to the table where her old neighbour was clinging to Glan’s arm as though she wasn’t prepared to let her son go anywhere without her, ever again. ‘Do you mind if I talk to Glan and Angelo a moment?’

  ‘You have one moment,’ Angelo informed her solemnly. ‘But only one. There’s a girl standing over there a man who’s been locked away from
women for five years would give his right arm to talk to.’

  ‘Liza’s my adopted daughter.’ Bethan gave him a warning look. The antics of the older Ronconi boys had been notorious before the war, and there was very little of the naive seventeen-year-old Angelo she remembered, in the confident young man facing her.

  ‘You’ll introduce me?’

  ‘Only if you promise to behave yourself.’

  ‘He doesn’t know how,’ Glan laughed, bringing the first smile to his mother’s face since her husband had been killed.

  ‘Look at them,’ Mrs Richards said fondly, catching Angelo’s hand as well as her son’s. ‘Both of them too skinny by half. I don’t think they’ve had a decent scrap of food in five years. But here I am keeping you, when you want to talk to them about Dr John. I’ll go and have a word with your Aunt Megan.’

  ‘Mrs John,’ Glan lifted his teacup in a toast.

  ‘You used to call me Bethan when you worked as a porter in the Graig Hospital.’

  ‘That was before you married into crache. Please, as you’re obviously not too proud to join us, sit down.’

  As she took the chair he pulled out for her, Bethan couldn’t help noticing, like his mother, how thin they both were.

  ‘You need feeding up.’

  ‘Don’t you start. Angelo was just saying his sisters are stuffing him like a Christmas chicken.’

  ‘Tell me. What was it like?’

  ‘We survived,’ Angelo beamed, making her wonder what exactly was in his teacup.

  ‘Please, Angelo. Andrew is still over there. Were you badly treated, beaten -’

  ‘Why does everyone ask that?’ Glan interrupted. ‘Do you think we deserved a thrashing for past crimes?’

  ‘I need to know what Andrew’s been through.’

  ‘Officers had it soft from what we heard, unlike Glan and me.’ Angelo dug him in the ribs with his elbow.

  ‘We were worked half to death in the early months, before we got ourselves a relatively …’ Glan waited for a confirming nod from Angelo ‘… cushy number on a farm where we ate almost as well as the natives.’

  ‘Unlimited acorn coffee, black bread and cabbage soup,’ Angelo elaborated, kissing his fingertips as though it had been gourmet fare.

  ‘We were half-starved for the last six months when our Red Cross parcels went astray.’

  ‘But once the Allies began closing in, we were taken on a walking tour. Such pretty countryside, and I loved the bombed-out cities. They were a credit to our RAF boys.’

  ‘You forgot the nine months we spent in chains.’

  ‘They didn’t go well with our uniform,’ Angelo quipped.

  ‘And through it all, this one here -’ Glan looked at Angelo – ‘kept us all going. He’s quite a character. He’s got Ronnie’s weird sense of humour.’

  ‘I’ve noticed. Did either of you see or hear anything of Andrew?’

  ‘They separated the officers from the men early on, Mrs John.’

  ‘If you call me that once more, Glan, I’ll brain you.’

  ‘Vicious,’ Angelo mocked, ‘just like the Huns. Perhaps I don’t want that introduction to your adopted daughter after all.’

  ‘As Angelo said, if rumours are anything to go by, the officers had it a lot easier than us.’ Glan reached for another sandwich.

  ‘Most of the camps have been liberated. I can’t understand why he isn’t home.’

  ‘They’re still fighting in some areas, and …’ Glan fell silent in response to a warning look from Angelo.

  ‘And what?’ Bethan pressed urgently.

  ‘And nothing.’ Glan reached for another sandwich.

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me, and I’m not moving from here until you do.’

  ‘Bethan …’

  ‘The truth, Glan.’

  He looked around; only when he was sure no one was listening did he lower his voice and continue. ‘We met a lieutenant who’d been in the same camp as Captain John. He said they’d been liberated two weeks before us.’

  ‘Then why isn’t he here?’

  ‘They were desperate for doctors and Dr John volunteered.’

  ‘Volunteered!’ Bethan couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you telling me he could have been home two weeks ago?’

  ‘They really do need doctors, Bethan.’

  ‘The invading force has its own medical personnel.’

  ‘Not enough for all the camps.’

  ‘The other camps,’ Glan explained.

  ‘Like that one that was in the paper. The camp in Poland?’

  ‘I spoke to some of the boys who’d seen them, they said the conditions there were indescribable.’

  ‘What’s indescribable?’ Mrs Richards asked as she rejoined them.

  ‘All this food after five years of black bread and porridge,’ Glan smiled at his mother. ‘Dr John will be back soon, Bethan. The Germans wouldn’t dare try to hang on to a Welshman. Even an officer,’ he added deprecatingly.

  ‘Did Angelo and Glan tell you anything about Andrew?’ Jane asked as they drove up the hill after the party.

  ‘Only that his camp was freed two weeks before theirs.’

  ‘Then he’ll be home any time,’ Jane said brightly.

  ‘He would be home right now if he hadn’t volunteered for further duty,’ Bethan responded acidly. ‘I don’t understand him. First he stays behind at Dunkirk … now this.’

  ‘Someone’s here,’ Liza called out as Bethan pulled into the drive and her lights illuminated an American Jeep. ‘I bet it’s Maurice!’ She jumped out of the car before it even stopped and ran to the door. It was opened by Dino, his arm in a sling.

  ‘Is Maurice here?’ Liza asked eagerly, charging up to him.

  ‘No, Liza. I’m sorry …’

  ‘What happened to your arm, Sergeant Morelli?’

  ‘Slight accident. Nothing serious, just enough to get me a couple of days’ leave.’ He looked to Jane and Bethan as they walked in. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mrs John. I sent Maisie home when I arrived. The children were all quiet and asleep and they’ve stayed that way.’

  ‘You should have come down to the café, Dino,’ Bethan said as he helped her off with her coat. ‘Megan was there.’

  ‘I didn’t feel up to a party, and I’ll see Megan in the morning. I was hoping I could stay here for tonight.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Your room is just as you left it. There’s a young flyer convalescing in Captain D’Este’s old room, but otherwise the top floor is all yours.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Maurice really isn’t with you?’ Liza complained dejectedly as she trailed behind them into the drawing room. ‘Did he give you a letter for me?’

  ‘The convoy we were in was shelled. I’m sorry, Liza. Maurice didn’t make it.’

  Stunned, she stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘There was nothing any of us could do,’ Dino continued quietly. ‘He never knew what hit him. I’ve brought you his last letter and some other things we found in his kitbag.’

  Liza turned from the sergeant to Bethan to Jane. Then she began to scream.

  ‘I’ve given her something to make her sleep. Jane will sit with her until it takes effect. Is there anything I can get you, Dino? You must be hungry.’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs John. I ate on the way here.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She grasped his hand. ‘It must have been terrible.’

  ‘It was,’ he replied, returning the pressure.

  ‘I didn’t want to ask about Colonel Ford and Lieutenant Rivers in front of Liza.’

  ‘George died with Maurice. The colonel was injured, worse than me, but he’s going to make it. He’s in a hospital in London. I came down here with Lieutenant Schaffer and a major who’s been detailed to find the missing twenty million tons of army property that we apparently left in Wales.’

  ‘They didn’t want to stay here?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have wante
d the major. He’s left over from the first war and an absolute stickler for discipline. Lieutenant Schaffer offered to stay with him tonight in the officers’ club in Cardiff so he can tell him everything he knows about our supply depots. He’ll be free tomorrow. He has a week’s leave coming and I think he intends to spend it with Mrs Powell.’

  ‘Kurt’s all right?’

  ‘Not entirely. Like me, he caught a bullet. His was in the leg. But we solved Megan and Jenny’s problems on the way here. I’m going to buy Jenny’s shop from her as soon as I can get the money wired from the States, so Megan and I will have a business to run, and Jenny’s going to the States as soon as Lieutenant Schaffer’s demobbed, whenever that will be.’

  ‘Do Jenny and Megan know any of this?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘It will be interesting to see how they react to you two planning out their lives for them. You sure I can’t get you anything?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Get a good night’s sleep, Dino.’ She rose to her feet.

  ‘You’re going to sit with Liza?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That girl’s had more knocks in her short life than a bowling alley. Did I tell you I’m waiting to be demobbed too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I had money, and not much else when I came here. The reason I joined up was that I didn’t want to live, not after my wife died of cancer back early in ‘39. Now I have Megan. Apart from my nieces and nephews I’ve never known what it is to have a family. I don’t suppose you’d consider sharing one of the Clark girls with me and Megan? It’s not that I’m muscling in, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Had nothing much else to do, I suppose. I know Megan’s not that strong so I thought perhaps Polly would be company for her, maybe help her a bit around the house in return for a proper education. She’s really bright, and I wouldn’t expect her to do much because I intend to get Megan some paid help to do the heavy work.’

  ‘You’ll never get my aunt to agree to that.’

  ‘We’ll see. I intend to run the shop myself, but I don’t want to live over it. I’d like something like this place. A house in the country with plenty of room for dogs, Polly, and Megan’s grandchildren to run around in.’