The Good Left Undone(89)
“I wish we could offer you better accommodations here.” McVicars shook his hand.
“They are acceptable. And we thank you for checking on us.”
“Look how handsome you are in your merchant navy uniform, Captain,” Antica exclaimed.
“I’m first mate this go-round. Captain in memory only, I’m afraid.”
McVicars poked his head out into the hallway, checking right to left. The line to the latrine and up to the deck flowed steadily. He closed the door.
McVicars opened his jacket and from the interior pockets produced a sleeve of biscuits, a hunk of cheddar cheese, and two pasties—half-moon-shaped meat pies stuffed with potato and onion, baked in a crust, and wrapped in cloth. The men passed the food around. McVicars reached behind and produced a flask of whiskey from his back pocket. He put his finger to his lips.
“You’re a saint!” Antica whispered. “I don’t have the constitution for the sea any longer. A shot of whiskey will help settle my stomach.”
“When you take that shot later, toast your old friend. I’m a married man now,” McVicars told him. “Married the Cabrelli girl.”
“Auguri! I met her at the convent at Christmas. Bellissima.”
“She told me about it.” McVicars had the notion that feeding the Italians would please Domenica. He rummaged through his pockets and produced a stick of butter. “For your bread in the morning. Don’t let anyone know that you have it. I’ve seen mutinies for less. They serve coffee and plain rolls for breakfast. The coffee is strong but there’s plenty of cream to cut it. The butter helps on the rolls. I will get you moved above the waterline. Give me time.”
Savattini clapped his hands together and rubbed them as he schemed. “Will you tell them I can cook?”
“What’s your best dish?”
“All of them. Eggs. Potatoes. Roasts. Spaghetti! I just need a little water and flour.”
“I will alert the galley crew, sir.” McVicars looked out into the corridor. “I must go.”
“John, can you tell us where they’re taking us?” Antica gripped McVicars’s arm.
McVicars patted Antica’s hand to reassure him. “Canada. Seven to ten days in the crossing. Sometimes these tubs take longer, so don’t hold me to it.”
The Italian faces fell into despair.
“Now, now. Don’t fret. I’m on board.” McVicars smiled. “There will be more biscuits! And I will get you out of here.” John McVicars left the men better than he found them.
* * *
“I will sleep well tonight,” Mattiuzzi admitted as he savored his last bite of the meat pie. “The pasty is the pride of Scotland.”
“They are quite good,” Savattini admitted. “I wish I would have visited the Highlands. I worked seven days a week. I never left London.”
The men passed the small whiskey bottle around. Antica took a swig. “How could something this perfect not be Italian?”
“Because the Scots invented hard liquor. Give them their due. It might help us. Right now, you can do no worse than to be an Italian or a descendant of one,” Mattiuzzi concluded. “The Nazis over our heads are treated better. They get the light and the air.”
“No charges have been made against us. They arrested us without cause.” Piccolo was determined to seek justice. “This is a mistake and they will realize it.”
“They may not. Churchill takes lunch at the Savoy occasionally. Pleasant gentleman. One of his cabinet members, a mediocre gambler, never missed Blackjack Wednesdays or the free refills on the table. He told me that the threat of the fifth column was real. From the start, there was a plan to lock up the Italians in England for the duration of the war. Well, they couldn’t bloody well do that, so they rounded us up to ship us off the island entirely. It does not matter to them if we are innocent; if you are from Italy, you are not to be trusted. I gently suggested that if Churchill banished us, there would be no ice cream or pizza for the duration of the war. I was joking of course, but he wasn’t. Churchill made the order. He said, ‘Collar the lot of them.’ We are those men. We’re the lot. Right or wrong, we’ve been collared.”
“If we keep a good attitude, we’ll be all right,” Mattiuzzi assured them. “We’ll follow their orders and we’ll be home soon enough.”
“If we stay close to your friend McVicars, we’ll be even better,” Savattini promised.
* * *
A man could sleep when he had hope.
Mattiuzzi, Piccolo, and Savattini slept soundly on their cots in their undershorts and undershirts, certain the worst was behind them. As the Arandora followed Moulton’s route, she sailed north past the Isle of Man, through the North Channel between the Mull of Kintyre and Northern Ireland, and past Malin Head due west. By morning, the ship would be on the Atlantic Ocean heading for Canada, where they would be interned until the conflict was resolved.
Antica turned over on his cot. The room beneath the waterline suffocated the peddler. He slipped off the cot, and without making a sound, he dressed. He grabbed his telescope and tiptoed out the open door of the cabin. He gulped fresh sea air as he climbed the steps to the deck. As soon as he felt the cold ocean breeze, all apprehension left him. Fellow prisoners propped against the wall snored blissfully as they slept. Antica stood at the railing behind the barbed wire and breathed deeply.