A Letter From Italy

by Pamela Hart

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Romance; Historical Romance; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

1917, Italy: Australian journalist Rebecca Quinn is an unconventional woman. At the height of World War I, she has given up the safety of her Sydney home for the bloody battlefields of Europe, following her journalist husband to the frontline as a war correspondent in Italy. Reporting the horrors of the Italian campaign, Rebecca finds herself thrown together with American-born Italian photographer, Alessandro Panucci, and soon discovers another battleground every bit as dangerous and unpredictable: the human heart.

Release date: March 14, 2017

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 357

Sample

‘Albanian smugglers?’ Rebecca couldn’t believe she’d heard right.

‘Mostly Albanian. A few Bulgarians as well. They’re part of the resistance movement against the Austrians.’ Jack grinned at her as though that were the best news in the world, and continued to fossick through their steamer trunk, removing clothes and stuffing them into his duffel bag. Rebecca sat on their bed and resisted the impulse to help him. There was a small flutter of panic underneath her heart. This was happening too fast.

‘How did you find them?’

‘Nonna Rosa put me in touch,’ he said.

Nonna Rosa owned the trattoria where they ate dinner most nights. It didn’t surprise Rebecca that she was associated with smugglers; the food in the restaurant was suspiciously good given wartime restrictions.

‘Do I have any clean socks?’

Wordlessly, she went to the chest of drawers and found him two pairs. He stowed them away, and rolled up his macintosh to go on top. His shirt was pulling out of his trousers, as it always did, and his hair was ruffled. He never could be bothered to use pomade to smooth it down. There was always something more interesting to do. Like this: heading off with Albanian smugglers, for God’s sake!

‘But you don’t speak Albanian.’ She tried to sound reasonable, like a professional partner, not a wife being abandoned.

‘The captain speaks a bit of English. He wants the Albanian side of the story told.’ He stood up and looked around, searching for anything else he might need. ‘It’s a great story. But I have to go now. They’re sailing with the tide.’

He grabbed his shaving gear from the wash stand and stashed it in the top of the bag, then pulled the drawstring tight and slung the bag over his shoulder. His eyes were alight with excitement; he almost vibrated with it. The excitement of a journalist on the track of a great story. She could feel the pull of it herself; but they’d never let a woman go along.

She wanted to throw herself at him and beg him not to abandon her in this foreign town, not to risk his life. But she couldn’t. They were reporters, and this was a story. Excitement rose in her too. Of course he had to follow it. And of course she would be all right alone. They had been in Italy for six weeks, in Brindisi for a month now. She had a place to stay, and she had her work to continue. No room for panic or dependency; she was a New Woman and she could take care of herself, surely.

‘How long will you be away?’

He grinned at her again, clearly relieved that she wasn’t objecting. He was like a schoolboy let off a scolding, but that vulnerability was endearing. ‘You’re the best wife any man could have! I don’t know. They come back every week or so. I expect I’ll be back soon enough, and if not I’ll send you a message.’

He pulled on a sailor’s knitted cap. It covered his blond hair – suddenly he could have been from anywhere, from Slovakia or Albania or Bulgaria. What if something happened to him out there? What if this was the last time she ever saw him? She tried to memorise him, to pull every detail of his appearance into her mind and hold it. The blue eyes, the straight pale hair, the high cheekbones, the long rangy body almost too bony. None of that captured his charm, though, or his energy, or the way he made a room come alive when he entered it. She reached up to touch his cheek, tears pricking her eyes.

The duffel bag dropped to the floor with a clunk, and he pulled her into his arms. For just a moment, she felt safe and warm and comforted. He kissed her, and she clung to him. The kiss was passionate but brief, and then he set her back on her feet as though he had just given her a sop to her emotions.

‘If you wanted to risk your life,’ she said, a little annoyed, ‘you could just have joined the Army.’

‘Can you imagine me stuck in a fox hole, taking orders from some idiot officer?’ he said breezily, picking up the duffel again. ‘No fear! I like to pick my own risks.’

‘Be careful.’ She could hear a hint of tears in her voice. ‘Smugglers—’

‘Oh, I’ll be fine!’ He hugged her once and was out the door. ‘Don’t worry!’ came drifting back up the stairs.

What a stupid thing to say. As if she could help worrying. Albanian smugglers. Resistance movement against the Austrians. The old Austro–Hungarian Empire was breaking up from within, the subject states – Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia – all mounting resistance movements, working with the Allied countries against Austria and Germany. They were, by all accounts, ruthless and single-minded in their work, and were involved in all kinds of bombings and killings.

And Jack was going to write a news story about how Albanian smugglers were part of the war effort.

God help him.

Her hands were suddenly cold; she rubbed them together and closed the door against the draught. Then, automatically, she began picking up the clothes he had strewn around the room. As she put his good shoes away in the steamer trunk, she realised that the small shoe-polish box was gone, and remembered that clunk as the duffel had fallen to the floor. He had taken their store of gold sovereigns with him. No doubt he thought gold was likely to loosen more tongues than Italian lire.

He should have left her a few, just in case.

Rebecca went to the window and looked out onto the blustery grey sky. Below her, the houses of Brindisi huddled under the autumn wind. Beyond them, the harbour, and the ships that had brought her and Jack all the way from Australia: the naval flotillas of Britain, France, Italy and Australia, here to stop Austrian submarines passing from the Adriatic Sea out into the Mediterranean. The Otranto Barrage, it was called.

It had been her ticket off the Women’s Pages of The Sydney Morning Herald and into reporting real news. When Jack had been offered the assignment, he had made her part of it, part of a team reporting naval news. A great boost to her career, being a war reporter, since there were so few journalists accredited by the War Office.

She could still do that, no matter how lonely she would be without him. She would do that. She had been a journalist before she was a wife, after all.

She saw Jack come out into a small piazza further down the hill, heading quickly for the harbour. Gripping the window ledge, she watched him as far as she could, until he vanished into a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

Outside, a newspaper boy shouted headlines: Germania avanza! Germany advances. Half a continent away, the Brindisans could read about those battles in safety, and understand what was happening in the world. And just like the Italian journalists who had written those stories for their fellow countrymen, it was her job to bring the news of the war back to the readers of Australia and England. She could do that with or without Jack.

Of course she could.

Under her gloved palm, the altar rail was smooth, polished by generations of hands.

Rebecca stood uncertainly. Jack had been gone for a week, without a word … a prayer or two was surely in order? She had no way of knowing whether he was dead or injured or perfectly all right: no messages came from behind the Austrian lines in Albania.

She was like millions of other women in this war, who had to wait and pray for the safety of their men. The beautiful stone statue of the Virgin regarded her with compassionate, knowing eyes.

How old this church was. It awed her, the casual age of Italy, where a house might be held up by part of a Roman wall, or a fountain crowned with a Renaissance statue. Coming from Australia, where a very old house was one that had been standing a mere hundred years, for Rebecca the centuries under her feet were like a raft, buoying her up, giving her hope.

The church was small, whitewashed, dazzling with sunshine so that the dust motes glowed golden in the air like small blessings. She genuflected, head bowed to the tabernacle and its red lamp; the swish of her skirts sent a susurration around the high ceiling, as though the rafters were whispering back to her, bringing her into a partnership with the walls, the ceiling, the golden dust. Into a kind of peace, where she could leave worry behind for just a moment.

She turned her face up to the Cross above the tabernacle and prayed for Jack’s safety; but the act of praying for him brought all the worry back. For a moment she felt so alone, so abandoned, that tears fell onto her cheeks and trailed down.

‘Our Father, who art in Heaven …’

•

Sandro turned from inspecting the memorial plaque on the wall when he heard the faint whisper of skirts, his fingers still touching the words, Alessandro Panucci Requiesat in Pace.

A woman, praying before the altar, standing straight and tall. Sunlight from a rose window above the tabernacle caught her face, so that she was standing in a nimbus of light, her profile pure and clear. She looked like an angel, but angels didn’t cry, and the shaft of light caught the tears on her cheek. Sandro was struck by that curling in his gut that happened whenever he was presented with real beauty – not of the woman, but of the whole scene. Some perfect balance of elements that called out to him like the note from a bugle, which grabbed him by the throat and demanded to be immortalised.

What a shot. Could he catch it? He only had the little pocket camera, and it wasn’t good in low light, but maybe … If he asked her first, the moment would be gone. Ruined. He would have to shoot first, and ask later.

He leaned against the pillar to steady himself and set the frame with infinite care. The click of the shutter was loud and sharp, echoing off the rafters.

She started, turned and saw him.

For a moment, confusion covered her face. A beautiful face, soft and lovely. Then she caught sight of the camera he was sliding into his pocket, and she transformed.

‘How dare you?’ she said in English, right out loud, clearly not caring this was a church.

She strode over to him and put her hand out.

‘Give me that film,’ she demanded in Italian.

He was a little surprised that she knew about film; most people didn’t. He didn’t really blame her for being angry, but he wasn’t going to give up what might be the best shot he had ever taken.

‘Now, miss,’ he replied in English, soothingly. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘You should be sorry! Do you make a habit of taking pictures of women without their consent?’

She was blazingly angry, and the set of her mouth (madonna mia, what a mouth!) was disgusted.

‘I suppose you take them home to, to – gloat over them!’ The implication was clear – he was a pervert, making his own pornography. That got him angry.

‘Miss, if you think men gloat over a picture of a woman crying in a church, you don’t know much about men!’ Maybe it wasn’t the most sensible thing to say, but geez, he was a professional.

‘I know enough,’ she said, her tone damning. ‘And it’s Mrs, not Miss. Give me the film.’

‘Or what?’ he asked. ‘It’s a public place. You’ve got no rights here, signora.’

Her face crumpled a little, as though she were holding back tears. It made him feel guilty – but, hand over his film? Not a chance. Apart from anything else, he had some good shots on there of the Australian flotilla coming into Brindisi harbour.

‘A church is a place of prayer,’ she said, rallying. ‘I think one has an expectation of privacy here.’

She had a point. Sure. He hadn’t intended to take any shots when he’d come here. He’d just wanted to see the memorial plaque for his grandfather and great-grandparents.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, trying to be nice, trying to pull this conversation back to normality. ‘I’m a photographer, not some … crazy guy. Here’s my card.’

She took it automatically, and read it. ‘Al Baker from New York?’ Her shoulders relaxed a little, and then tensed again. ‘You intend to sell that shot?’

‘No, no!’ Maybe? If he had another exhibition, he would put it in, and perhaps someone would buy it. Which wouldn’t be fair to her. It would be a low thing to do. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I promise I won’t sell it. It was just – such a good shot, I couldn’t resist it.’

She took a deep breath, and let it out again; he tried not to look at her chest. ‘I would recommend that you not bring your camera to church, Mr Baker, if your resistance to temptation is so low. It’s very unprofessional. Disgustingly so. And if I find any evidence that you are attempting to sell that image, I will sue you. If you’ve run to Italy to avoid the draft, you’re clearly a coward, so I’ll hope you’ll run from a lawsuit too.’

Then she dropped his card on the floor and walked off.

What a – he didn’t know any word that fitted her particular combination of upper-class authority and vitriol. He fell back on Shakespeare. What a shrew.

A coward. Everyone thought he was a coward because he wasn’t in uniform. It ate away at him. As if he hadn’t tried to get into the Army. Two armies. She’d hit him where it hurt, all right.

And now, if the shot turned out as good as he hoped, all he’d be able to do with it was – gloat over it in private.

Goddammit.

When is a journalist not a journalist? When she’s part of a journalistic duo, and one half is missing.

JACK QUINN IN ALBANIA FOLLOWING STORY STOP HAS BEEN AWAY TEN DAYS DONT KNOW WHEN HE WILL RETURN STOP WILL CONTINUE TO FILE STORIES FROM HERE STOP REBECCA QUINN

Rebecca wrote out the telegram to their editor in London, William Evans, head of the Evening News. Although they also wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald, their stories were sent via London – and moreover Evans was the one who paid them on the Herald’s behalf, so he was the one who mattered.

She handed it over the counter at the Brindisi post office.

‘Si, signora,’ the clerk said.

‘Grazie,’ she replied.

Jack had been gone from Brindisi for ten days, and there was still no news of him. Every day, Rebecca had done her rounds: reading the local and English newspapers, checking in with her local contacts, writing brief updates on naval positions and submarine sightings. She sent them off by telegram to the Evening News in London and The Sydney Morning Herald, sorry that they would never make the front page. There was so much other war news, in this last part of 1917: the battle of Passchendaele, the Italian front line on the Isonzo River and the Austrian push there, the trial of Mata Hari for espionage … The Otranto blockade of the Adriatic Sea wasn’t exciting enough to make a headline, no matter how important it was to the Allies’ ability to send shipping through the Mediterranean.

She couldn’t continue to collect second-hand information any longer, hoping that Jack would return tomorrow and resume his role as their main contact with the navies. He had been the naval correspondent for the Herald for six years – he liaised with the Australian naval flotilla and had every contact they needed to get the stories. But they had come to Italy to cover these stories together, and her accreditation was as good as his, even if her contacts weren’t. If he wasn’t here, she would simply have to do it herself. But Evans, of course, had had to be told.

No more waiting. She put on her hat and gloves and a jacket against the sharp November wind. It was time to talk to Commander Warren.

The Royal Australian Navy flotilla was working out of the ‘British base’, alongside those of the Italians and the French, and she knew just where she needed to go. She made her way carefully down the steep street to the harbour, her breath misting in the cold air. Men watched her go by, she knew, but she kept her eyes firmly on the ground, fists clenched, ignoring the whispers and the ‘Bianca bella!’ from every second man she passed.

Jack loved her thick blonde hair, but right now she wished she was solidly brunette, and preferably with a smaller bosom.

Of course, men had shouted at her on the street before. Even in Australia it happened, particularly if she passed building sites in the city – but not with the constant, ever-present enthusiasm the Italian men gave to it. And now, she was alone. No one to turn to, no one to protect her if push came to shove. Walking through the streets was like running the gauntlet.

She came out into the piazza before the British base with relief but with an increase in nerves. The base was in the same precinct as one of Brindisi’s huge old forts, which squatted, solid and forbidding, behind a low stone wall topped with iron railings, spikes and barbed wire.

Other buildings surrounded it; some quite large and impressive, if one took the trouble to look at them. It was hard to do so, though, because the fort drew the eye, speaking of ancient times when marauding ships had sailed down this very harbour in search of plunder and glory. It made her mouth go dry.

It was the first time she had come here. Jack had always done the liaison with their naval contacts, but now she had to hope they would be equally prepared to talk to her.

There were guards on duty at the gate, inspecting a mule-drawn cart that seemed to contain straw. The wind made her pull her coat around her more securely, and brought a scent of animal and salt, which seemed to contain some essence of Italy.

The guards were Italian, so naturally they gave Rebecca the up-and-down look without which no man in Italy (and, to be fair, quite a few in Australia) could speak to a woman. They sported moustaches, of course. Every Italian man had a moustache. One of these, on the younger of the two, was a bare wisp, but the other was luxuriant and shiny, as though it had a life of its own.

‘Signora?’ that one asked politely.

She handed over her card.

‘Mrs Quinn, to see Commander Warren. Appunamento.’ She had looked up the word for appointment last night. Her Italian had been getting quite good, but since Jack left she had found herself reaching for words she’d known perfectly before, as though her mind had gone on strike to leave space for her heart.

It had taken her days to secure a firm time to see Commander William Warren, the head of the Australian flotilla. He had been out on patrol until yesterday.

The two guards muttered to each other quickly. She was developing her ear for Italian, so much harder than speaking it, but this was beyond her. Then the older one shrugged, gave her card to the younger, and indicated that she should follow him.

It was something of a relief to see a squad of Australian sailors, with their distinctive white caps, manhandling some supplies from a cart into a low, blocky building. They were laughing and joking as they worked. A couple of them had blond hair, like Jack; silly that she should suddenly feel a sharp pain under her breast. In Sydney, she had known so many women whose husbands were away at the war; they seemed to be able to put on a good front. So could she.

The young guard didn’t lead her to the fort, but to a relatively modern building, no more than fifty years old, with arched Romanesque windows.

It was cool inside, with high ceilings, and the walls were, surprisingly, painted a rich pink. She couldn’t imagine an Australian naval station being painted pink, not even this dark fuchsia.

She was led to a part-open door and waved inside, as the guard announced, ‘La signora Quinn,’ with a dazzling smile.

‘Grazie,’ Rebecca said.

She took in the room quickly. An antechamber with a small desk, a sailor sitting behind it, a solid dark-haired man – boy, really – with a cupid’s bow mouth that made him look even younger. He had a plain anchor on his epaulettes; a leading seaman. She sent a small thank-you to Jack, who had explained all the ranks to her – at length – the summer they’d met. She’d even found it interesting, because he did.

The leading seaman stood to greet her, looking curious but not surprised.

‘Commander Warren will be right with you, ma’am,’ he said. He looked around as though to find her a seat, but the office was filled with wooden boxes and a couple of tea chests. A filing cabinet stood against one wall, its top drawer open, and a box below it was half full of papers. She had interrupted his filing, but he didn’t seem to mind. The Australians had only been in Italy for three weeks, and had spent most of that out on patrol. Not much time for filing.

‘Thank you,’ Rebecca said. ‘I’m sorry for interrupting you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that!’ he said. ‘Gosh, it’s good to see someone from home.’

The simple enthusiasm was reassuring.

‘I know what you mean. It’s rather nice to hear an Aussie accent.’

The door behind the desk opened and cut them short. ‘Mrs Quinn?’

Commander Warren smiled at her and ushered her into his office.

She had met him once before, three years ago, just after war had been declared. A well set-up man, handsome even, with a strong straight nose and a mouth that gave nothing away. He looked tired, and more than three years older.

‘Commander Warren. Thank you for seeing me.’

This office was also clearly in the process of being unpacked, but here there was a plain wooden chair, which he held for her as she sat, then went around to his own – not much better.

‘Mrs Quinn, what can I do for you?’ He had a pleasant Scottish accent, modified by years in Australia, but still there, burring his consonants.

She took out her notebook and pencil. ‘I intend to continue with my husband’s work while he’s away, and I’m hoping you will keep me informed, as you kept him.’

Surprise flickered over his face.

‘You’ve seen my credentials,’ she pressed.

‘Credentials?’ He looked confused. But Jack had submitted both his and Rebecca’s foreign-correspondent credentials when they first arrived in Brindisi – first to the British, the French and the Italians, and then to Warren when the Australians had arrived. At least, she had assumed Jack had submitted hers along with his.

‘My husband didn’t tell you that I’m an accredited journalist? With The Sydney Morning Herald and the Evening News? And Le Monde, for that matter!’

Warren now looked embarrassed, as a man might who had walked in on an argument between husband and wife. How could Jack have forgotten to show her credentials? A cold lump formed in her stomach. The simple answer was that he wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. It had been deliberate. But she couldn’t think about that now.

‘You’re not a war correspondent,’ Warren said definitely. Well, of course not. There were very few accredited war correspondents. For most of the war, there had only been one Australian accredited – Charles Bean – and he had won his accreditation in a lottery run by the Australian Journalists’ Association. The various defence departments liked to keep a strong hold on what was reported and by whom. But they couldn’t stop journalists from just turning up and writing stories, and they had learned to work with them, mostly.

She was a journalist, not just a journalist’s wife. She’d come to Italy to get away from the deadly routine of the Women’s Pages, and by God she was going to do it. Although Jack’s absence made difficulties for her, it also opened up opportunities to establish herself as an independent journalist, quite capable of working alone in foreign climes.

Her papers went everywhere with her, for safety. It was the work of seconds to take them out and hand them to Warren, who looked them over quickly before handing them back to her.

Neither of them said anything, but Warren nodded to her. She took a deep breath, damping down the nerves that had erupted so fiercely.

‘So, I’m hoping, firstly, to interview you about the situation here in Brindisi – in the Adriatic generally – and then to get press access for any future press conferences or announcements.’

A frown went across his face, and he sat back.

‘The interview … well, I can give you a few words, I daresay. But press access – no, I’m sorry, Mrs Quinn, that won’t be possible.’

Her heart pounded. Any setback, no matter how small, seemed to overset her these days. She had thought of herself as independent, but with Jack gone, everything seemed too hard. Oh, she hated feeling like this! So weak. So incompetent. Anger helped. She drew on it for strength, moistening her lips and swallowing against a dry throat.

‘My credentials—’

‘Fine, perfectly fine. But both the British and the Italians have a strict rule: no women allowed in the press corps. Technically, you’re not even supposed to be on base. I made an exception because you’d come so far – and because you’re Jack Quinn’s wife.’

Jack was somewhere between an accredited war correspondent and an ordinary journalist like herself. He didn’t have formal accreditation. He didn’t need it.

Every officer in the Royal Australian Navy knew Jack, since 1911 when the RAN was formed. Jack had been the specialist journalist, the one who always reported on the Navy with respect and admiration. Obsession, even. He had travelled on an RAN ship to New Guinea at the beginning of the war, setting up in Rabaul after it had surrendered. He and Rebecca had been separated for six months. That ship had been the Parramatta, Warren’s ship, and he and Warren had been friends ever since.

She knew she had skated into war reporting on Jack’s coat tails. Women were expected to write about ‘the women’s side of the war’ – the effect on children, on the home front, on women ‘forced’ to work in munitions factories and on the railways – but Jack had offered her the opportunity to do so much more when he’d suggested she come with him to Italy.

‘I appreciate you making an exception,’ she said to Warren. Warren relaxed a little. Perhaps he’d feared womanly tears, reproaches. But she would show him that she was a professional.

‘Do you know where he is, ma’am?’

‘Somewhere in Albania,’ she said. ‘He went off with some smugglers; I think he was trying to contact the Serbian nationalists.’

‘They’re causing the Austrians quite a lot of strife.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to carry on while he’s gone.’

He blinked. Stared for a moment. She held her breath, hoping for a change of heart. But he pushed back from the desk.

‘O’Neill!’ he called. The leading seaman popped his head around the door.

‘Sir?’

‘Tea.’

‘Aye aye.’

She shouldn’t have expected anything else. This man was a strategist, after all, or he wouldn’t hold his position.

She sat quietly and waited for the tea. Commander Warren read over a paper on his desk, frowning, but not as though he were ignoring her; rather, as though he were checking something that might be relevant to her situation.

As O’Neill came in and served the tea, in thick white mugs, the commander shook his head, and laid the papers down on the desk.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Quinn. There’s no room for interpretation. Women are forbidden in the press conferences here.’

She swallowed her disappointment. This would make her work ten times more difficult. Why hadn’t Jack ever mentioned it to her? Perhaps he hadn’t known – or perhaps he had, which was why he’d never bothered to submit her papers. Something eased inside her heart at that simple explanation. After all, he had done the direct work with the Navy, while she had used her growing Italian to pore over the local newspapers and talk to the contacts she had started to cultivate in her first few days in the town: the Harbour Master’s clerk, the Postmaster and the porter at the train station who sighed over her blue eyes, a carabiniere at the police station – the people who knew the local news first. And, of course, the local errand boys, who went everywhere and saw everything. She had several of them on her payroll. They made a good team, she and Jack.

But being barred from the press conferences … She wouldn’t be able to get the sort of stories that Evans at the Evening News would expect. But she mustn’t cry. She would never have any respect from anyone again if she cried.

The tea was good, hot and sweet. The best she’d had since coming to Italy.

‘There is one favour I’d like to ask …’ She tried not to look like she was charming him. Business-like, that was the thing.

‘Yes?’ He gave nothing away. A little tense, worried about having to say no to her.

‘Getting my letters back to England and Australia …’

Commander Warren allowed Jack to use the naval mail system, which got their post back to England in a week or so; a back-up to the unreliable Italian telegraph service.

He relaxed. ‘No problem there. Hand them in at the gate and they’ll be put in the post bag. We want stories to get back about what we’re doing here.’

‘You’re proud of the work you’re doing?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s vital to the war effort.’ He paused. ‘I can’t give you access here, on base. But at Nonna Rosa’s …’

He looked at her meaningfully. She smiled. Not on base. But off base? Nonna Rosa’s was the trattoria where the officers ate when off duty. So did the journalists, of course.

‘Thank you. No doubt I’ll see you there.’ She tapped her pencil on the paper. ‘Now, I just have a few questions …’

•

Rebecca stood outside the gates, where a long stone wall gave a section of quiet from the harbour. She was torn between satisfaction at how the interview had gone and annoyance at. . .