Rosie's War (28 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

To London

I
t was a shock more than a joy when at last our transit visas for Spain and Portugal came through one morning in February 1942. I don’t know if they were granted as a result of Hoytie’s efforts but surely our French exit visas wouldn’t be long in coming now? Frida and I returned from the prefecture and went to a bar, which was practically deserted at that time of day. This should have been a moment of celebration after all our months of planning, travelling and waiting but instead both of us felt curiously flat.

‘Pat, I don’t know what I feel about going home. I don’t know if I want to. It’ll be such a different world. I feel like a prisoner afraid to leave prison.’

‘I agree. Remember that night in the outhouse at Vittel waiting to escape?’ Frida nodded. ‘Well, I had the same feeling of panic then as I have now. I don’t want to leave our friends. I’ll probably never see any of them again and we’ll certainly never know such a strange collection of individuals.’ I grimaced as I drank my coffee.

‘What about Marek?’ Frida looked at me with a sly grin.

I shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t even tell my closest friend how confused I was in my feelings for him. On the one hand I certainly loved him. Our few months together had been wonderful. On the other, I knew that this was the end of our relationship. I was secretly relieved that I wouldn’t be the one left behind.

The last few days in Marseille were frantic as we said our goodbyes and made the final arrangements. We were going home via Spain, Portugal and Ireland. On a cold and wet Tuesday morning we gathered at the railway station. All our friends had come to see us off: amongst others I remember Marek, Nancy, Henri, Alfred, Fritz, Jean, an Iraqi doctor who had treated me for bronchitis just a week or so before, an elderly German anarchist, an Austrian Communist couple and a former deputy from the German Reichstag. They were such a disparate group, some of whom were barely on speaking terms and summed up Marseille at that time, full of tormented prejudices, lost ideals, jealousies and the desperate hope that one day they could leave. For a brief moment they were all united by the departure of the English girls.

Nancy grabbed my arm. ‘Now remember, Pat, we’ll have tea at Fortnum’s and after that send Henri off while we do some shopping.’

Henri smiled. ‘Tell them when you get back that we are waiting for them,’ he said. ‘And that our morale is strengthened by their pluck and daring.’

I hugged them both. Henri’s parting words were very formal but so eloquent that I was to use them in a talk I gave on the Welsh border just a month later. I still have the battered carbon copy of that speech.

‘Come back with the British Army!’ shouted Alfred as we got on to the train with our luggage and bits and pieces. He was grinning madly and giving a punched fist salute.

Marek and I had said our farewells earlier that morning. He was standing by a station pillar watching the hugging, the kissing, the tears and the good wishes. He now approached the train, kissed me and without a word gave me a leather-bound copy of Diderot’s
Jacques le fataliste et son maître
.

My thoughts were with him during the train journey. I took little interest in what was going on around me and just curled up in my corner of the carriage. Frida left me alone. As usual, she spent almost the entire journey talking to the other occupants of the train. There were a couple of French soldiers travelling to see their families. She was very buoyed up by her conversation with them. She told me later that they were fed up with the new breed of young French fascists who were taking over the armed forces.

We had a long wait at Perpignan, where we had to change trains. The proprietor of the station cafe must have overheard us speaking in English. He leant over us and spoke softly.

‘There’s a rumour going around that the British and American armies have landed in Brittany. Maybe the BBC news will tell us more. Wait here.’

He saw the glint of excitement in our eyes and gave us a wink. He returned to the bar and continued dealing with the few customers that were there. After a while he disappeared into the back, returning after what seemed an age. He approached our table casually to change the ashtray, whispered a dejected ‘Rien’ and walked away, shaking his head.

When we finally got up to leave there were only two old men sitting at the bar counter. The proprietor handed us a small bag of food.

‘To England?’ he said. I nodded. ‘You are lucky,
Mesdemoiselles
, to go back to a country that is still fighting.
Bonne chance
.’

Just as we got to the door Frida suddenly seemed to come to a decision. ‘Wait here, Pat. I need to see someone.’

With that she disappeared. She was presumably off to see a contact. I sat down again and prepared to wait. I didn’t want to be involved in her politics and preferred not to know what she was doing. Eventually she returned, obviously excited but not saying anything. We boarded the train. Only after our return home did I discover that her contact had given her two cigarettes containing messages for General de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French government-in-exile in London.

As we approached the tunnel at Cerbère leading into Spain, I hung out of the window and whispered a quiet and sentimental goodbye to this much loved country where I had lived for three years. Over the border at Port Bou we found there were long customs formalities. By now I was beginning to regret my impetuous gesture of sending for my suitcases, which were heavy enough when empty, let alone when full of my things. Our bags were examined carefully. I couldn’t understand much of what the officials were saying and looked curiously at their gaudy uniforms and the posters of General Franco on the walls.

For some reason they were not satisfied with us. We were taken to a cold shed and strip-searched by two fearsome women. One of the customs officers came over to the shed. He leant against the wall, languidly smoking as he watched. When the women were finally satisfied that we were not carrying any secret coded messages or military plans (or whatever it was they were looking for), they ushered us back onto the train bound for Barcelona. Just what would have happened to both of us if they had discovered the cigarette messages for the Free French in London, I don’t know.

Frida was unusually silent and morose throughout the whole journey into Spain. For her this was a terrible return. She had last been here in 1937 when she had fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, driving an ambulance presented by the Scottish miners to the Frente Popular and working in a radio station. She now had to confront the new Spain of Franco. I know that she was worried in case the authorities somehow checked up on her past activities. She might be detained here indefinitely as an undesirable.

I had not been to Spain before and did not know what to expect but I was still shocked at what I found as we came into Barcelona. The city was in ruins, with bombed buildings everywhere. As soon as we got off the train we were accosted by ragged, hungry people with fear in their eyes as they quietly begged for money.

Mr Randall had told us in Marseille to make our way immediately to the British Consulate. He had assured us that they would arrange everything for our return to England. It was on our arrival at the Consulate, however, that the trouble started. Admittedly, we didn’t quite have the look of guests at a garden party. I, in particular, must have been a real sight: dressed in a headscarf and shabby clothes, I was struggling with my two large suitcases and matching hatbox. But we certainly did not expect to be blocked by the porter at the entrance and ushered brusquely like tradesmen around to the side, despite a large notice quite visible behind him directing people through the hall to the British Repatriation Office.

After a short wait we were shown into a small office and met by a pompous consular official who neither smiled at nor greeted us. Dressed in a gentlemanly pin-stripe suit, he listened to our story in undisguised distaste and examined our passports carefully. He was out of the room for quite a while, presumably conferring with a colleague, and he returned with an official-looking form and a wad of pesetas.

‘Well, young ladies, I have the names of a couple of good hotels here. You shouldn’t have a problem in getting a room for the night.’ He wrote the details of two hotels on a scrap of paper and handed it to us.

‘We’d like to get you to Madrid as soon as possible,’ he continued, without looking up. ‘On tomorrow night’s train, preferably. You’re both bona fide British citizens, so our people there can arrange your onward travel to England. Now, if you would just sign here to say that you have received money from us.’

We signed his form without bothering to read it. He ushered us to the door as if hurrying to be rid of us.

‘The sleeper to Madrid has very good first-class couchettes, I think you’ll find. Oh, as for refunding the money, that will be arranged by HMG as soon as you reach London. Goodbye.’

Perhaps these parting remarks about London were his supercilious way of comforting us. If this was their intention, then they had the opposite effect upon Frida. I could see her trembling with anger, her pent-up distress at being back in Spain barely under the surface. She turned to the official with an icy stare.

‘We’ve managed to get this far travelling third class. That’s how we mean to continue. Goodbye.’

We both burst out laughing when we got outside. At the station we found that we would, in fact, have to wait a couple of days before we could get tickets for the Madrid train. Ignoring the recommendations of the dreadful official, we booked in at the Hotel Internacional, an old and noisy place in the middle of the city.

We deposited our luggage there and went out to see Barcelona. La Rambla, the wide street running down the centre to the port, was crowded and colourful, with the first spring flowers on sale. The shops were full of food. If a visitor could ignore the bomb damage that was all around, they might easily think that life here was not nearly as depressing as in France. We soon realized, however, that the prices were exorbitant. It was difficult to imagine how the ordinary citizen could afford to buy anything.

We had a meal in a large restaurant down by the port. It was delicious and cost the earth. Still, we were saving money by staying in a cheap hotel and not travelling first class. But by the end of the meal we were both uncomfortable and wanted to leave: people were constantly coming to the window of the restaurant and simply staring at what we were eating.

We had to wait around in the city for two days. We were both quite subdued in our moods. I think that Frida was finding it very disturbing being back in Spain. While for my part, I simply wanted to be on the move again homewards. We stayed quietly at the hotel for most of the time, sitting on our beds reading. On the second day we made an excursion to a park on a hill from where you could look down on the whole city.

That night we had a long and very uncomfortable journey to Madrid. Our reception on arrival at the British Embassy the following morning was as frosty as the one in Barcelona. Again the porter looked somewhat aghast at our bedraggled clothes and luggage as we tried to enter the main door. He seemed reluctant to allow us inside the building at all.

At least this time, however, the official dealing with us was friendlier than the pompous ass in Barcelona. She was a young woman who could not have been much older than I. We were again given a daily allowance by the embassy on the promise that we would repay every penny on our return to England. They arranged for us to stay at a rather fine place called the Hotel Mora. We decided not to raise any objections to their choice.

I hoped against hope that we could leave this sad country as quickly as possible. We knew from the embassy that we would have to wait a few days before we could get a train to Portugal. But how many? Train tickets were precious because of the shortage of coal and the damage to rolling stock as a result of the Civil War.

One important thing that the British officials here and in Barcelona failed to do was to inform their superiors in London that we had arrived in Spain. We didn’t know this at the time. The result of this failure in communication had alarming results for our parents. During our stay in Marseille we had tried to stagger our weekly letters or telegrams home so that one set of parents would receive news every few days. They were regularly on the telephone to one another to swap the latest details. All communications from us ceased in late February, of course, when we left Marseille.