Rosie's War (25 page)

The train had pulled in at an end platform. Looking around in despair we saw a wall of railway buildings along the side of the platform. They had the usual drab, dusty look which makes them merge into one long, unidentifiable building. Amazingly, we caught sight of a sign marked ‘Hôtel’ above a door. Unnoticed in the large, noisy queue we pushed open the door and found ourselves in the station restaurant. Another sign pointed to a long passage. We followed it and found ourselves in a different world. We were in a foyer with all the activity and comfort of a forgotten era: the Hôtel Terminus.

Our luck had held after all. We had arrived unscathed in Marseille.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Settling Down in Marseille

F
or a few moments we simply stood there, dazed but relieved to have got away from the police check. We were bewildered by the luxury that confronted us. It was obvious that we were vulnerable: with our battered bags and shabby clothes we stood out a mile. Would our false papers be good enough here? Could we even afford to pay for a room?

‘Let’s try him,’ Frida said suddenly, pointing towards a man reading
The New York Times
. Before I could say anything she had approached him.

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she said in her most polite Cambridge accent. ‘But we need to get in contact with the US Consul urgently. Could you possibly help us?’

‘I take it you’re English?’ he asked quietly, looking around him. ‘Why don’t you sit down and tell me a bit about yourselves.’

I quickly took him through as much of our story as I wanted him to know. I admitted we had crossed into Vichy France without proper papers but carefully said nothing about escaping from Vittel. He listened thoughtfully.

‘Well, your luck is still holding,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘You could have asked anyone in this lobby but you chose me and I know the Vice-Consul. I’ll see if I can get him at home on the telephone. You wait here.’

We couldn’t quite believe this. Since getting off the train a few minutes before it seemed that we couldn’t do anything wrong. He went up to the desk and made a very quick call, returning to where we were sitting with a broad smile on his face.

‘Mr Randall is speaking to the people here at the hotel to see if you can be put up for the night. You’re to be at his office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Here’s the address,’ he said, writing something in his pocketbook and tearing out a sheet.

He escorted us to the front desk where a pompous man visibly shivered with disapproval as we handed him our passports. He gave us our key but offered no help in getting to our room.

‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ I said to our American helper. ‘We don’t even know your name.’

‘John Powers. And no need to thank me. Look, I was stationed in Hampshire during the last war. And we’re soon going to be in this one together. I only wish I could do more to help you but I’m not staying in town. Mr Randall will look after you. He’s a good man.’

As we went in search of our room, Mr Powers returned to his chair and the perusal of his newspaper. It had been an extraordinary chance meeting. We didn’t even know what he was doing in the hotel.

Our overnight stay was scarcely a hardship for the room was truly luxurious. The bathroom had soap, wonderful large towels, hot water and a bathmat. I found some bath salts and spent most of the evening wallowing in bliss while Frida lay fretting on her bed.

We were at the US Consulate just before ten the next morning. There was quite a crowd of people waiting there. Much to our surprise we were ushered into a small anteroom which had a table and chairs. A large man entered and sat down in front of us. He was smoking a pipe and was in his shirtsleeves. For some irrelevant reason, I noted to myself that a British consular official would never have taken off his jacket while at work.

‘Lee J. Randall, Vice-Consul,’ he said, shaking our hands. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance. And your names are?’

‘Rosemary Say and Frida Stewart,’ I replied. ‘We’ve escaped from the British Womens’ Camp at Vittel and want to return to England.’

I quickly told our story and he made some notes on a pad, asking a few questions. His manner was friendly, even fatherly, but also businesslike.

‘The first thing to understand,’ he said when I had finished, ‘is that I can’t wave a magic wand and return you home. This city is the gateway out of Europe. It’s flooded with refugees from all over. Walk downtown and you’ll meet Poles, Belgians, Czechs and others from every walk of life. Some have money while others are destitute. But they all have one thing on their mind: escape. To the USA, Canada, England, wherever.’

‘But you can help with the paperwork for us to get back home?’ I interrupted in a worried voice.

‘Yes, Miss Say, we can certainly do that. You’ll need permission to leave France and also visas for transit through both Spain and Portugal. Once you’re in Lisbon we’ll get you home by boat or plane. The British Interests Section here will help with money, ration cards and food coupons. You’ll need to register yourselves with the police. But don’t forget that you’re going to be sitting a very long time on the quayside.’

We both must have looked extremely puzzled at this last sentence. Mr Randall raised his palms to us and smiled.

‘I didn’t mean to be flippant,’ he continued, ‘but you need to come to terms with the fact that it may take months to get the paperwork done. Everyone is after the same thing.’

‘But we’re not,’ I said in slight desperation. ‘We simply want to get home. We’re not refugees trying to get into a foreign country.’

‘Yes, there is that distinction but it doesn’t make much of a difference, Miss Say. Transit visas for anyone are still difficult to come by. The Spaniards aren’t that keen on refugees from France flooding into their country. They can hardly feed their own people as it is. The border is constantly being closed. The same goes for the Portuguese. Plus, the Vichy bureaucracy here can’t cope with the numbers needing papers. Marseille is full. There’s hardly a room to be had in the hotels.’

Mr Randall certainly knew how to let us down. We had naïvely assumed that with American help our visas would come through in a matter of days. He considered us for a few moments.

‘Look, I can get you a room at Madame Morbelli’s,’ he said somewhat reluctantly. ‘But no complaints. She’s on the rue Saint-Victoire. Appropriate maybe?’ he said smiling. He quickly scribbled down the address and got up to go.

‘I’m sure you’ll want to contact your parents. Come next door to my secretary’s room. She’ll arrange money and coupons. She’ll also do you a letter giving you permission to be out after curfew.’

We were both allowed to send telegrams home of strictly fifteen words (plus name). Mine read:

ARRIVED HERE SAFELY AWAITING REPATRIATION VIA LISBON THROUGH AMERICAN CONSUL MARSEILLES HOPE ARRIVE HOME JANUARY. ROSEMARY SAY.

When I eventually reached London I discovered that this brief telegram had totally bewildered my poor parents. They thought (quite naturally) that I was still at the camp in Vittel! What were we doing in Marseille? Neither Frida nor I had thought about this when we sent messages to our loved ones. My father contacted the Prisoner of War Department at the Foreign Office the same day he received my telegram. Although this was ‘unexpected but excellent news,’ he wrote, ‘we cannot imagine why these two girls are suddenly being repatriated. We have not heard that either has been ill. We can hardly think that they have escaped. We hope their present position is secure and safe.’ To my parents it all sounded like the typical muddle of their younger daughter.

This was, in fact, the beginning of a constant exchange of letters and telegrams between my father and various British Government departments over the following months as we attempted to make our way back to England.

Looking through this sheaf of documents many years later I was struck by the constant demands for money made by the British government to my father. He replied to our telegram with one of his own and for this privilege he was charged the enormous sum of £1.7s.4d. (well over £50 in today’s money). I have no idea what would have happened if he couldn’t have paid; as it was, the total cost of getting us home was to be a serious concern for him. The demand for the telegram payment was typical of the bureaucracy of the time. My father received a bill that had been typed and copied. He then had to pay and was given two signed and stamped receipts.

Through Mr Randall’s office I was able to send a letter to my parents a few days later. It was remarkably clichéd. Perhaps I was just too anxious to reassure my family that I would get home and that I was well cared for and safe. I wrote: ‘So I shall soon be home – a prodigal daughter who has gone through the most extraordinary experiences. I am having a real holiday here and the weather is gorgeous.’ I realized just how much I wanted and needed to hear from my family when Frida received a reply to her telegram a week before I did. I was very jealous and told my parents so in no uncertain terms in my next letter.

Mr Randall’s offer of Madame Morbelli’s hotel sounded fine to us. It was in a quiet side street in the centre of town, next to a beautiful church. And this ample lady was indeed fine, with her red-tinted hair and make-up of purple, blue, green and cerise. She reminded me of the madam from Boulogne in the Besançon camp. She put us in a large, bright and sparsely furnished room overlooking the street. There was only one drawback.

‘One of my gentlemen is a commercial traveller,’ she explained as she adjusted her corsage. ‘He sometimes comes back for one thing or another and always uses this room. So I am afraid, my dears, that when he does you will have to stay with my friend Marie-Ange. But don’t worry,’ she continued as she saw the looks of dismay on our faces, ‘It’s better than sleeping on the Vieux Port. And she is always most careful to change the sheets.’

Madame Morbelli obviously had a beady eye for business but she was as good as her word. She ran a truly bourgeois establishment. Our impeccably starched sheets were kept neatly folded in a box at the foot of the bed when we had to vacate the room. During the few months that we stayed there we hardly ever saw anybody in the building and certainly never heard any movement. It was very unlike my idea of a brothel. I found, to my great delight, a leather-bound collection of French classics in a glass cabinet downstairs and would contentedly spend hours reading. Our few visits to Marie-Ange were slightly less comfortable, as we were expected to stay away from our room for long periods of the day and evening.

Madame Morbelli was anxious that we go to the prefecture of police as soon as possible to establish our legal identity. She warned us that although this might be the Unoccupied Zone there were still constant police round-ups and random checks at hotels and cafes. Accordingly, we joined a huge queue of anxious refugees on our second day with her. It was shocking to see just how many people had been displaced by the war. We were all waiting our turn to be accepted as temporary residents in this already overflowing city. Desperate and frightened people clamoured and pushed to get through and obtain their precious papers. Scuffles broke out as the day wore on. Occasionally people would emerge from the building shouting and protesting at their treatment inside. A man behind us in the queue kept up a constant, depressing conversation.

‘Nobody can influence the decisions of Monsieur le Préfet, of course, but then he wants no trouble with his masters,’ was his constant theme. ‘He can send us all back where we came from.’

He told us his life story a number of times, always ending with the question, ‘And where do you come from?’

We let him continue with his depressing talk but told him nothing about ourselves. I was getting worried that we might be sent straight back to Vittel. Just as dusk came we were taken in to see a young official. We had decided the previous night that we would tell the authorities everything and hope for the best. He silently took a few notes then asked for our passports. To our great surprise he quickly signed and stamped some pieces of paper with a great flourish.

‘I have no wish to make things difficult for our English
mesdemoiselles
,’ he said as he handed them to us with our passports. He gave a broad smile. ‘May I wish you a pleasant stay in our beautiful city,’ he continued, seemingly without a hint of irony.

The evening was wet and raw as we made our way back to Madame Morbelli’s. We were feeling on top of the world. Our luck had held. We had somewhere to stay, food cards and even the blessing of a Vichy official who liked England! Our worried parents had been informed of our whereabouts. We had officially joined the recognized army of people hoping to start their lives elsewhere. We were not leaving home, however, but going back to it. All we had to do now was wait.