The Penny Bangle

by Margaret James

  Robert waited for a couple of minutes, and then he made a move. Silent as a snake, he crept up on the guard outside, and then he clapped his hand over his mouth. He jerked the German soldier’s head right back, and snapped his neck.

  He drew his knife and slid into the hut, hoping it would be light enough to see what he was doing – of course he didn’t want to stab Sofia by mistake, and if she was entangled with the boy …

  He found her standing by the body of the boy, whose chest was dark with blood and whose blue eyes were open wide.

  ‘You killed him!’ he exclaimed, amazed.

  ‘Yes.’ Sofia was shaking. ‘I didn’t want to do it! But I felt I had to kill him, otherwise Marcello – Robert, I feel sick.’

  Robert pulled her into his embrace. ‘There’s going to be more killing,’ he whispered, as he held her close and stroked her hair, as he felt her shuddering against him with both cold and dread. ‘Perhaps Marcello is right – you should go home.’

  ‘I’m not going home!’ Sofia dashed some tears from her eyes. ‘But there are bound to be reprisals,’ she told Robert, as she looked at the dead boy. ‘Two Germans dead – that’s probably going to be two dozen or more Italian lives, and if they find our house – ’

  ‘If they do, we’ll need some weapons, won’t we, so we can defend ourselves?’

  They took as much as they could carry – guns and bullets, three kinds of grenade and leather belts of ammunition – and slogged back up the mountain, weighted down like donkeys with sacks upon their backs.

  ‘Machine guns!’ cried Marcello, when he saw their loot. ‘That’s excellent, well done!’ He glanced up from examining them and grinned. ‘Get any ammunition?’

  ‘Of course we got some ammunition,’ said Sofia, glowering at him. ‘What use would a machine gun be, without some rounds of ammunition?’

  ‘We’ll mount one on that sharp bend in the road a hundred metres from the hut, and then we should be able to attack the German convoys as they come up to man their big defences.’ Now, Marcello was almost dancing in delight. ‘Robert, you can get on with that tomorrow. Get the range right, and we can start to give the bastards hell.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want us starting any firefights,’ muttered Robert, but only to himself.

  ‘By the way,’ went on Marcello, ‘did you get a radio? Did you see any boots? We’re running short of boots.’

  ‘No,’ said Robert, who had carried almost his own weight of weaponry back up mountain tracks. ‘You didn’t say you wanted any radios or boots. I’ll do my best next time.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’ Marcello grinned again. ‘Well done, the pair of you, the black witch and the mountain lion.’

  Sofia beamed, kissed Robert on the cheek. ‘Yes, well done us,’ she said.

  ‘As for reprisals,’ said Marcello grimly, while they were having supper, ‘there’ll always be reprisals when a German soldier dies. If a German has a heart attack while he’s having his morning crap, or as he screws some Fascist whore, there’ll be reprisals.’

  Later, they heard a village in the valley had been burned, and three people shot. Robert felt guilty, and Sofia cried.

  Robert wished he could get a message home, but he knew it was too dangerous even to attempt it, and unlike some other groups of partisans, they had no radio.

  Marcello used young lads as couriers, and they took his messages down the mountain. But anyone caught carrying a letter written in English would have been interrogated, tortured, and probably put to death. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  He told himself that Cassie would have faith, that even if she’d been told he had gone missing, or even that he’d died, she would believe he was alive.

  What was she doing now, he wondered, as he cleaned a rifle and then reloaded it. He hoped she wasn’t as cold as he was on this freezing winter night.

  Cassie was sitting in Daisy Denham’s warm, luxurious kitchen, busy making plans for Charton Minster.

  The more she had considered it, the better it had seemed suited to what Daisy had in mind, and in the end she’d written to Daisy, asking what she thought.

  A place where undernourished, wan-faced children could spend a week or two enjoying lots of sunshine and fresh air, running along a beach or even learning how to swim – the Minster would be perfect, wouldn’t it? As for staff – there must be local women who’d like part time jobs?

  ‘What a clever little sparrow,’ Daisy said, as Cassie finished talking, or rather as she paused for breath, because she had a whole lot more to say.

  She could help to run the place.

  She could do the driving.

  She could fetch and carry from the station.

  She could organise the laundry. When she’d first left school, she’d worked for a few months for Mr Wong in Smethwick, so she knew how to do it.

  ‘It’s not too far from London, is it?’ she concluded anxiously

  ‘It’s quite a distance. But it’s nearer Birmingham and all those ghastly places in the Midlands. So we would be able to invite more children from lots of different districts.’ Daisy smiled at Cassie. ‘It might be ideal.’

  ‘Better than the house in Southwold?’

  ‘Bigger, anyway.’ Daisy poured herself some coffee. ‘I haven’t signed the papers for the house in Southwold yet. It’s obvious we would have to spend more money on the Minster. Quite a lot of money, actually. But we wouldn’t have to buy the Minster, so it shouldn’t be a problem – not at first, at any rate.’

  ‘So Rose won’t pull it down?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Cassie.’ Daisy looked at Cassie, blue eyes twinkling. ‘Of course there’d be a job for you, that’s if you’re interested? A job for Robert, too.’

  ‘But Robert’s – ’

  ‘Robert’s coming home, my sparrow.’ Daisy tilted Cassie’s chin up, looked into her eyes. ‘He’s coming back to you.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Cassie wondered if she dared to ask, and then decided yes, she would. ‘Daisy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re going to be doing such a lot for all these city children. So do you and Ewan – I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be inquisitive, and it isn’t any of my business, but – ’

  ‘Why don’t we have some children of our own?’ Daisy lit a cigarette, inhaled and looked up at the ceiling. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better, little sparrow, but it’s not to be.

  ‘When Ewan and I got married, we thought we’d start a family at once. We knew a lot of people in the business who had children, and we saw them coping very well. We said we’d have a nanny, and when we went off touring the kids could come along – ’

  ‘Daisy, I didn’t mean to pry – ’

  ‘One miscarriage, then another – rather late this time. So that was quite distressing. Ewan was very upset, poor lamb, for me and for the child. One ectopic pregnancy, I think the doctor called it, and I had to have something removed – I told Mum I’d had appendicitis – and then the doctor said I would be foolish to conceive again. It would probably kill me.’

  Daisy’s big blue eyes were glittering now, and bright with unshed tears. ‘We can’t have everything we want in life, my little sparrow, and I know I’m a very lucky woman. I have a gorgeous home. I’m married to a man I love, and I know he loves me. I have a fabulous career. So don’t you dare pity me, my sweet. I’m going to be all right.’

  As Daisy lit another cigarette, they heard someone come in. A moment later, Ewan walked into the kitchen, dust upon his shoulders and powdering his hair.

  ‘Bombed out,’ he began, as Daisy looked at him enquiringly. Then he sat down beside his wife and kissed her cheek and took her hand. ‘But it can’t have been my turn to die.’

  ‘Oh, my love, what happened?’

  ‘A big incendiary, one left over from a previous raid – something must have triggered it.’ Ewan shrugged. ‘It seems the show must not always go on. Darling, is there any coffee left?’

  ‘I’ll make some,�
�� offered Cassie.

  ‘Thank you, little sparrow.’ Daisy smiled, clearly relieved to have her husband home and safe again. ‘Why don’t we go on chatting about the Minster? Let’s tell Ewan all about our plans.’

  Robert and Sofia didn’t have much time or opportunity for any idle chatting. But sometimes, as they waited to ambush German soldiers coming up the mountain, or as they made their way down to a valley to mine a railway line, there was a chance to talk.

  Or for Sofia to start interrogating him.

  ‘You have a girl in England?’ she began one evening. She and Robert had been left to guard a pile of arms they’d taken from a patrol the group had ambushed. They’d killed the German soldiers, rolling their bodies down a slope into the dense undergrowth below. The others had gone to fetch some mules to take the stuff back up the mountain to their hideaway.

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert shortly. ‘I have a fiancée, actually.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘She’s small and blonde and very pretty.’

  ‘Then she’ll be a perfect English rose.’ Sofia grinned sarcastically. ‘Do you have a photograph of this very pretty lady?’

  ‘No, didn’t have anything when you found me.’ Robert glanced at her and shrugged. ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember now. So, my poor Roberto, you have your pretty lady’s picture only in your heart.’

  Robert wished Sofia would stop needling him like this, and also wished Marcello and the others would get a bloody move on. It was freezing cold, and he was afraid that any moment a German jeep or two would come careering round the corner, because the recent shooting must have echoed all around the mountainside.

  ‘So which do you like the best of women?’ asked Sofia. ‘The blondes or reds or darks?’

  ‘The blondes,’ said Robert.

  ‘Yet you’re so very dark.’

  ‘You’re dark yourself,’ said Robert. ‘We have a saying in English, opposites attract. So do you like blond men?’

  ‘I only like the darks.’ Sofia grimaced. ‘Blond men, ugh, they look like rats, insipid. Or like Germans. A pretty-pretty English lady can be blonde – that’s very nice. But a real man is always dark.’

  She walked her fingers up and down his arm.

  He moved his arm away.

  It was very hard to get explosives. These had to be stolen from the Germans, or collected from the occasional arms drops made by Allied planes. Robert wished and wished he had a radio, so he’d know which way the war was going – were the Allies winning it, or not?

  Blowing up river bridges to impede the flow of German troops around the country was Marcello’s passion. Robert knew more about explosives than Marcello did, knew how to prepare and fix the charges, and knew how to detonate a bomb.

  Whenever they blew up a river bridge, it was a cause for celebration. Even the inevitable reprisals against the poor civilian population couldn’t entirely dull the banda’s sense of jubilation.

  After one particularly successful expedition, as they crept home along the mountain paths, Sofia was singing softly to herself. As the explosives had gone off, and as the bridge they’d targeted had fallen in the water, she had flung her arms round Robert’s neck and kissed him on the mouth.

  Now, she was linking arms and snuggling close to him. ‘My hero,’ she said softly, as they trudged along and, as she leaned towards him, she kissed him once again.

  ‘You’re a heroine yourself,’ said Robert. ‘Go on, kiss Marcello and the others. We can’t have them getting jealous.’

  ‘I’d sooner kiss a herd of swine,’ Sofia said, in English.

  On the way home to their mountain hideout, they had bought three chickens from a local farmer, and after they’d all eaten Marcello said he wanted to go down to a village to get some wine.

  ‘Sofia’s too tired,’ said Robert.

  ‘Of course she’s tired, she’s just a poor, weak woman,’ said Marcello scornfully. ‘It’s only to be expected. You stay here and look after her, Roberto. We’ll bring you back some wine.’

  ‘Roberto won’t need wine,’ observed Gianni, and made a shunting gesture with his hips.

  ‘Enough of that, Gianni,’ snapped Marcello, cuffing him about the head. ‘Roberto, I apologise. Come on, lads,’ he added, ‘we’re wasting drinking time.’

  ‘Why did you tell them I was tired?’ Sofia demanded angrily, as the men went off.

  ‘I don’t want you to waste your strength.’ Robert looked at Sofia with concern. ‘You’re so pale and thin. I know you’re doing your best. I know you’re not a slacker, but I wish you would go home.’

  ‘You don’t like me!’ wailed Sofia.

  ‘Of course I like you.’ Robert put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close to him and felt her shuddering against him. ‘I like you very much, and I admire you, too.’

  ‘But you don’t like to kiss me.’ Sofia turned to him and wound her arms around his neck. She kissed him lightly, teasingly at first, as she had done several times before. But then she began to kiss more passionately.

  He found himself responding, and Sofia kissed him even harder, rubbed herself against him, murmured soft endearments in his ear, and slid her long, cold fingers through his hair.

  ‘No, Sofia,’ he said gently, and took her hands away.

  ‘Robert, why not?’ she whispered. ‘Listen, I don’t want to take you away from your fiancée. I don’t want to marry you. When the war is over, I shall marry an Italian. But tonight, we need some loving, both of us. This girl in England, maybe she is comforted by other men herself. She would understand.’

  Robert met Sofia’s gaze, and saw she looked so lovely in the soft, gold glow of the few oil lamps which were all they had for light. Damson-coloured hair framed her pale oval of a face, and her great dark eyes were bright and luminous with desire.

  ‘Or perhaps you can’t?’ she added, taunting him. ‘Perhaps you’re not a man? Roberto mio, don’t tell me you’re afraid?’

  ‘Sofia, I said no.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘This year’s bound to finish it,’ said Stephen, as he and Cassie travelled back up to London after a weekend in Melbury. The train was almost empty, and they had a compartment to themselves. ‘Germany has lost the war, and I can’t understand why they don’t pack it in. The British and the Americans are bombing them to blazes. The Soviets are giving them such a hammering in the east that soon there won’t be any German towns or cities left.’

  ‘There won’t be much of London left if the Jerries keep on sending over those V2s,’ said Cassie with a shudder. ‘Bloody awful things. Last week, one of the houses in our street got hit by a V2, and everyone was killed. I reckon Hitler isn’t finished yet.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve got a point,’ admitted Stephen, and then he looked at Cassie urgently. ‘Cass, why don’t you ask to be transferred to somewhere outside London? You’d be much safer then.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, Steve, I’ll be all right,’ Cassie told him wryly. ‘Since I joined the army, my granny’s sent me dozens of holy medals, all blessed by Father Riley, and they keep me safe. I jangle when I walk.’

  ‘Your granny sounds a game old bird,’ said Stephen, and he laughed affectionately. ‘I’d like to meet your granny.’

  ‘You will, after the war.’

  ‘Oh, yes – after the war.’ Stephen turned to gaze out of the window, watching the darkening landscape rushing by. ‘What shall I do, Cass, after the war?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The chaps I went to school with – I see them now and then, when they come to London and we meet up for a drink or two. They’ve all had a high old time. They’ve been flying Spitfires, sinking U-boats, they’ve been on Atlantic convoys, they’ve been serving in the Middle East. But I’ve been stuck in London, being a colonel’s nursemaid, typing lists and ordering supplies.’

  ‘But, Stephen, you were at Dunkirk!’ cried Cassie. ‘You did your share of fighting. You
were wounded – ’

  ‘Dunkirk was a shambles.’ Stephen turned to Cassie, and she could see the sadness in his eyes. ‘It was a defeat. The German army swept us out of Europe like a farmer sweeping straw out of a barn. We all sat on that bloody beach like – well, like sitting ducks. Or like a row of invalids in wheelchairs.’

  ‘But lots of you got home.’

  ‘Yes, we were collected, like children being met at the school gates. Cass, we had no weapons, we had hardly any food, and there was no water fit to drink. We, the well-trained soldiers of mighty British army, we couldn’t help ourselves, and people in pleasure cruisers had to come and fetch us home. Oh, Cassie – the humiliation!’

  Stephen sighed, then lit a cigarette. ‘Cass, when you met my father, he was middle-aged and dying. But in the ’14–’18 war, he served in the front line. He was in all the most important battles, and he won the DSO. He ended up a major. All my life I wanted to make my father proud of me. But of course, he knew I was no hero.’

  ‘Steve,’ said Cassie gently, ‘we don’t all get the chance to be heroic. We – ’

  ‘I’m nearly twenty-five, and so far I’ve done nothing with my life. When the war is over, and people talk about it, what they did and where they did it, and I have to tell them I had a cushy job behind a desk, everyone will think I was a shirker and a coward. Somebody who fixed it so he didn’t have to fight.’

  ‘No, they won’t!’ cried Cassie.

  ‘Of course they will.’ Stephen stubbed his cigarette out. ‘God, I need a drink,’ he muttered. ‘When we get to Paddington, will you come and have a beer with me?’

  ‘Yes, okay,’ said Cassie, thinking, just one beer won’t hurt him, and I’d like one, too.

  She stared out of the window, wondering how close they were to London. In the all-enveloping blackout, it was very difficult to tell. The long, slow minutes ticked on by.

  ‘Have you seen Frances recently?’ asked Stephen, breaking his moody silence.

  ‘Not since she came to London, to tell me about Rob.’ Cassie shrugged, then yawned behind her hand. I really ought to go to bed, she thought. I must be up by five tomorrow morning. I have to drive to York. ‘But we write, of course.’