Some of what follows in both this and succeeding chapters may distress you. Sadly, life is not all fluffy bunnies and rainbows.
The Irish Chauffeur
Chapter Fourteen
A Time To Be Born, And A Time To Die
Funchal, Madeira, August 1940.
While Mary made no secret of the fact that it was a continuing source of disappointment that of her and Matthew's four children only young Emily, now aged nearly eight, showed an affinity with horses or any appetite for riding, she would doubtless have been both gratified, as well as somewhat surprised, to learn that one of her nephews, was now almost as competent a rider as was she herself. And while it was true enough that young Kurt indeed loved to ride, it was not he who was the fine horseman, but Danny.
When Danny and Carmen, along with little Daniel, had arrived off Funchal aboard the Pedro in the late summer of 1940, they had not intended to stay. But then, a series of circumstances had led to just exactly that occurrence, foremost being the part that Danny had played in an act of supreme selflessness in saving the life of Flora, the six year old daughter of Colonel John Blantyre. Had it not been for that, along with their own lack of papers, let alone their involvement with the lost Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War, it was doubtful if the Portuguese authorities would have let them stay at all. However, Colonel Blantyre was a man to be reckoned with and not only that; he also owned one of the largest vineyards on the island.
But that is to anticipate.
First came the failure, yet again, of the Pedro's starboard engine and the inability, here in remote Madeira, to obtain spare parts so as to effect a lasting repair for the long voyage home, back across the often storm wracked waters of the North Atlantic, to Bilbao.
And then, one day from the deck of the rusting Pedro, while watching a load of heavy wooden wine casks being unloaded from a dray down on the quay in the hot sunshine, seeing the load suddenly shift, and a small girl, singularly unaware of what had happened, standing directly in the path of the casks, without a thought for his own safety, Danny had sprinted down the gangway, and pulled the child to safety in the nick of time.
Thereafter, learning what had happened, Colonel Blantyre came on board the Pedro to thank Danny personally for saving his child's life. Learning from the handsome young Irishman how they were stranded here in Madeira, finding him to be extremely personable, the colonel had offered Danny a job.
"Do you know how to ride?"
"No," replied Danny, truthfully.
"Then best you learn," said the colonel, standing with his back to Danny, while looking down on the sparkling blue waters of the bay. "After all, there's no real way of reaching some of the estate, let alone inspecting the levadas, other than on horseback".
London, England, 17th September 1940.
After a decidedly gruelling railway journey of some six hours duration, southwards from Yorkshire, on a late running, hopelessly overcrowded, blacked out train, at long last, Edith finally reached the capital. Despite the exigencies of the war, the train, which she had boarded in York, was still ludicrously called an express, albeit stripped of its pre-war comfort and elegance, in that the compartments and corridors were all but taken over by service personnel, soldiers, sailors, and airmen, there was no longer a restaurant car, and a trip to the toilet of the carriage in which she was seated was all but impossible. Fortunately, Mrs. White had seen fit to provide Edith with both a parcel of sandwiches done up in grease proof paper and a thermos flask of tea for her journey south. However, as for reaching the toilet, bone weary, unwilling to fight her way through the melee of passengers and thereby also run the risk in the process of finding on her return that she had lost her seat, Edith stayed precisely where she was, crammed into one corner of the dirty, overcrowded compartment, along with a bevy of soldiers from the West Yorkshire Regiment, and did her very best not to worry and instead to try and sleep.
As daylight waned and it grew darker still, with station name boards removed altogether and the blackout regulations being strictly enforced, whenever the long train drew to a stop alongside yet another darkened platform, with the gas lamps dimmed, shaded, or else extinguished altogether, it was very difficult for those on board the express to tell precisely where they were; the more so when they stopped in the middle of the open countryside, and which they did on more than one occasion.
Then, as, it grew darker still, and night at last fell, with the train finally nearing London, once in the suburbs of the capital the express was subject to several lengthy delays. The last of these proved to be the longest; the waiting train seemingly completely forgotten about by the railway authorities, marooned in a deep, dark cutting, with nothing for anyone to see except high retaining walls built of drab brick. Ahead of them, those on the train could see the beams of searchlights crisscrossing the night sky, followed in turn by the incessant thud of anti-aircraft guns, while from overhead there could be heard the relentless drone of enemy aircraft, followed in their wake by the crump of high explosives, the resultant explosions lighting up the darkness in lurid sheets of vivid orange and red flame, shaking the carriages of the standing train, as for the tenth night in a row, or so Edith overheard someone out in the corridor say, the Luftwaffe rained down death and destruction upon London.
And, amid all of this appalling carnage, darling Max lay helpless, in all probability dying, in a bed in St. Thomas's Hospital. At the image this thought conjured up, in the blackness and her own despair, doing her best to choke back a sob, Edith sniffed heavily.
" 'ere, you all right, lady?" asked the burly soldier seated beside her in the darkness.
"Yes, perfectly, thank you" said Edith, now doing her best to quickly regain her composure.
"It don't sound like it," persisted the soldier, albeit solicitously.
"My son … is seriously ill … in hospital," she volunteered hesitantly, wondering at the same time why on earth she had said anything further at all.
"Injured at Dunkirk were 'e then?"
"No; because of what's wrong with him, he's unable to fight".
The soldier nodded sympathetically.
"Like my kid brother; 'e 'ad polio when 'e were a boy. 'is one leg's all bent and twisted". The soldier paused before asking the inevitable question. "So what's wrong with 'im then, your lad?"
"A blood disorder".
"Yer don't say. Well I never".
This information evidently gave Edith's companion some pause for thought, was seemingly lost on him, beyond his powers of comprehension, for he fell silent. Then, when at last he spoke again, it was to say simply that he hoped her boy would be all right and to offer Edith a humbug which she politely declined.
Eventually, with the All Clear having sounded, the heavy train moved off, to begin with crawling along at an absolute snail's pace, before finally gathering speed, and at last steaming into King's Cross beneath the imposing overall arched iron and glass roof of the huge station. Thereafter, bowled along in the uniformed flood of passengers who had all descended from the late running express, struggling along the bustling platform, carrying her own suitcase - porters too seemed to be a thing of the past - in the smoky darkness, along with everyone else, Edith headed towards the ticket barrier.
"Need a hand, little lady?" asked a Cockney voice close at hand. Edith turned to see a sailor, the gilt lettering on the black band of his cap proclaiming him to be from off HMS Hood, his bulging canvas kitbag swinging lazily over one shoulder, holding out his free hand for her suitcase. Not only on account of his accent but also in his build and colouring, the sailor reminded Edith painfully of Tom Benson who, in sacrificing his own life, had saved those of Kurt and herself in the aftermath of the sinking of the Lancastria off the west coast of France.
"Thank you, that would be most kind".
The sailor smiled, displaying a surprising set of perfect white teeth, and promptly took a firm grasp of her heavy leather suitcase as if it had been empty and made of cardboard, as indeed, what with all the shortages, these days some indeed were, and escorted her down the length of the platform with its thronging sea of humanity.
All of which served to put Edith in mind of the gaggle of children, evacuees from the East End of London who, exhausted, frightened, nervous, wide eyed and white faced, each tagged with a luggage label as though they were parcels and carrying a gas mask in a box, clutching a cardboard suitcase, had arrived in Downton on two trains at the beginning of August; as it happened in the nick of time just before the bombing of the capital had began. Along with women from the local WVS, both Mary and Edith had formed part of the welcome committee on the platform at Downton and had spent the next couple of days seeing the children safely billeted in cottages both on the estate and in the village. On the evening after the children's arrival, when during dinner, Mary began to itch uncontrollably, she was convinced she had caught scabies from one of the children, although the local doctor, summoned that evening to the abbey, after he had examined her, assured Mary that what she was suffering from was nothing more than a touch of hives or, to give the complaint its common name: nettle rash.
However, Mary herself remained unconvinced.
So much so, that for several weeks thereafter, if by chance she happened to see any of the evacuee children walking towards her on the pavement down in the village, or encountered them elsewhere on the estate, she took to crossing to the other side of the street, or else giving them a very wide berth indeed.
Which, to be truthful, was exceedingly unfair; given the fact that Mary knew very well how she had caught nettle rash.
For, on the very morning of the day the refugees were to arrive, she had accompanied Matthew out in the MG. It had been exceedingly hot and when, some time later, Matthew had stopped the motor in a shaded, secluded spot close to the ruins of an old barn and suggested they take a look inside, one thing had led to another, an improvised bed having been hastily made from out of their clothes and the rug from the MG. Not that either of them noticed it at the time, intent as they were on each other, but the spot chosen by Matthew for the tryst, while private, was also very close to a bank of nettles.
Having said goodbye to the sailor, Edith took a taxi to the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury, where she had booked a room and where also, in happier times, several years earlier, both Friedrich and Max had stayed. Thereafter, she took the Underground to Waterloo and from there walked briskly to St. Thomas's Hospital.
St. Thomas's Hospital, London.
Despite her annoyance, not to say anger, when Edith saw them together, Max lying prostrate in bed with Claire seated beside him, so obviously worried, there was no denying that they made a handsome pair.
"And you have ..."
"Mama, please! Claire's my wife. In every sense of the word. Of course we've ..." Max sounded horrified by his mother's question. His voice faded; the morphine he had been given had made him very drowsy. Even so, there was no mistaking the way he was looking at Claire. Edith had seen that look once before, years ago, at the Shelbourne Hotel, in Dublin, when for the very first time Tom had proclaimed openly his love for Sybil; one of utter and heartfelt devotion that transcended everything else.
Edith waved her son into silence.
"Oh, please! Spare me the details!"
"Is ... Papa ... is Papa very angry?" asked Max haltingly.
"No, surprisingly not. In fact, after the initial shock, he's been remarkably sanguine about the whole business".
Max sighed and with evident relief.
"And Kurt?"
This time it was Edith herself who sighed; spared a thought for what had been the excited reaction of her younger son when, having just been informed by both his parents of what had happened, Mary, along with Matthew, had both come into the Drawing Room, Matthew straight from having had an acrimonious talk on the telephone with Robert, in the aftermath of his own and Saiorse's admission about the money which they had given Max and Claire and which had enabled the two of them to marry.
"Uncle Matthew! Aunt Mary! I'm a brother-in-law!" explained young Kurt beaming from ear to ear, the pride he clearly felt evident in his voice.
"Yes, darling, I suppose you are," said Mary tonelessly.
"Very proud that he's a brother-in-law. Although I'm not at all sure that he quite understands what it all means. Any of it," said Edith.
At that moment the door opened and a doctor and nurse came into the room. Edith saw her son grimace; understood the reason why. The blood transfusion would be both long and painful.
"And as for you, young lady, you and I have things to discuss," said Edith peremptorily; she had the satisfaction of seeing Claire begin chewing her lower lip. But while Edith still meant to tell Miss Barton ... Claire ... her daughter-in-law ... a few home truths about what she thought of the whole affair, how deceitful the two of them had been, Edith found herself possessed of the unshakeable conviction that somehow, in the end, things would turn out all right.
For, despite having the odds stacked against them, Max and Claire were possessed of one supreme advantage.
They had married for love.
Near Boulogne, Occupied France, November 1940.
Several years earlier, back in July 1932, although looking back from where he was now, it seemed a lifetime ago, when, along with his cousins Danny and Max, Robert had found himself stranded in the Alps, both Danny and he had both envied young Max's ability to speak French for, as Robert's old French teacher at Ripon Grammar School, would have readily concurred, languages were decidedly not Robert Crawley's forte. As a result of which, save for a few simple words, such as oui and non, Robert's command of French was almost non existent.
So, it was by dint of a series of rapid hand gestures, and in broken English, rather than by spoken French, that his rescuers, who had appeared on the scene at the eleventh hour, now made Robert understand that they were from the Resistance; that they had to leave immediately. That they had also to put as much distance between themselves and the now fiercely burning Hurricane as possible before the Germans were alerted to what had happened, sent in more troops, and began a thorough search of the immediate area; not just for one downed British pilot but also in a ruthless search for the Resistance fighters who had saved Robert's life and in so doing killed several of their comrades, among them an officer in the SS.
Picking himself up from off the ground, running, keeping low, Robert and the members of the Resistance now made themselves scarce and as it happened, not a moment too soon, for, happening to glance back over his shoulder as they disappeared into cover in a small wood, Robert saw a German fighter, a Focke-Wulf, he thought, swooping low over the fields, the pilot no doubt radioing back to his base exactly what he had observed.
Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland, November 1940.
When it arrived, all the way from distant Madeira, the letter had taken over three months to reach them. Having fetched down an atlas from off one of the shelves in what Tom, with a nod to his late father-in-law, was wont to call his Library, with Sybil seated beside him, Bobby resting his folded arms on the back of his Da's chair and Dermot seated on his lap, their father proceeded to show the two boys precisely where Madeira was - far out in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.
In his letter, having first apologised for the abruptness of his departure from both Downton and then from Dublin, assured his parents that all was well, exceedingly so, Danny went on to explain that he would be staying on the island and making a life for himself there with both Carmen and their little boy, that he had found a job working for the owner of one of the largest vineyards in Madeira.
And with the letter, there came a photograph and which, against a backdrop of palm trees, showed Danny standing, proudly holding a young dark haired boy in his arms, while beside them stood a smiling, dark haired young woman.
After Bobby and Dermot had gone upstairs, Tom and Sybil read Danny's closely written letter again.
"At least he's safe," said Tom, now laying aside both his spectacles and the letter.
"Is that all you can say?"
"Well, with Robert missing and Simon having received his call up papers, yes. As well as that from what Danny says here, it's as plain as a pikestaff that he loves this girl very much. And she him. Edith was right. Their boy looks just Danny did when he was that age".
Sybil nodded.
"I know Mary and Saiorse are still refusing to accept the inevitable: that Robert must be dead. Then again, maybe they're right, not to give up hope. As for Simon and the girls, I don't think it's quite sunk in yet, that in all probability, this time, their brother won't be coming back. And now that Simon's been called up ..."
"To be sure. Although, as far as Simon is concerned, we both knew it was only a matter of time. Whether or not my letter to the tribunal will help in anyway in his attempt to be registered as a conscientious objector remains to be seen. Somehow I doubt it. Besides which, from what Matthew told me on the telephone, Simon's perfectly content to serve but only if he can do so as a non combatant, in the Royal Army Medical Corps. So maybe that's the way it will be for sure".
"And what about Matthew? Has he told you how's he coping with all of this?"
"Well, you know Matthew. He doesn't like any kind of unpleasantness. He shuts himself away. As to precisely how he's coping with it all, from what little he's said, by doing what he's been doing ever since the war began. By burying himself in the running of the estate for sure. With all he's got on his plate at the moment, thank goodness the police have dropped pursuing that nonsense about Barrow and accepted that he did commit suicide after all".
Sybil nodded. What Tom had just said came as no great surprise; it was so like Matthew.
"As for. ... her ... Well, I still think she seduced him. In my book, she's a scheming Spanish hussy!"
"A Spanish hussy?" Tom laughed. "Why not a beguiling dark-eyed senorita who took a lonely, handsome, young Irishman to her bed high in the snow capped Pyrenees? That sounds far more romantic!"
"Oh, be serious, Tom".
"I am, for sure! But as for seduction, I expect Danny was as much a willing partner in it all as she was herself, for sure. And, after all, what's done is done!"
"But to saddle himself with a ... Well, what is she precisely? He doesn't say they're married now, does he?"
"No, for sure. but does it matter if they're not?"
"Of course it does! Can you imagine what Granny and Papa would have said? And God knows how we're going to break the news to Mama and the rest of the family, that Danny's living with this girl, unmarried".
"Well, if God knows, then why don't you ask Him? Darlin', in the scheme of things, given what's happening, does any of it really matter? Look at Max and Claire running off like that to get married. In any case, I expect Edith's seen to it that your mother and everyone else at Downton knows how things stand with Danny. As for your grandmother and your father, for all their love of tradition, both of them were realists. If they were here now, while they might not approve, I think they would accept that the world has changed from how it was in their day; that what with the war, people choose to get on with things, to live their lives differently".
Somewhere in the Limousin, Vichy France, April 1941.
When the contingent of police of the French State, supported by a detachment of soldiers, arrived in the sunlit square of the village in a couple of open lorries, in order to begin a thorough house to house search, they were not looking for Robert Crawley at all; rather they were here in search of members of the maquis, those Frenchman who, here in the south, with the defeat of France, had escaped into the mountains, and who were opposed to the policies of Marshal Petain's rump French government which had established itself in the spa town of Vichy, and which collaborated with the German military administration in the Zone Occupée, the area of the country under direct military control of the Germans.
Here at the house on the Rue du Moulin, all anyone looking in through the kitchen window would have seen was a young Frenchman eating his soup and reading a newspaper. For, dressed, as he now was, as indeed he had been for several months, in the rough clothes of a French working man, at a glance, Robert Crawley looked to be exactly what in fact he was not. Even to the point, right at the beginning, of having surrendered his English underwear in exchange for French. Quite why, at first, he couldn't for the life of him fathom, for if he had been caught by the Germans in the Zone Occupée, then interrogated, having heard something of the brutality of the Gestapo, long before he was stripped to his underpants, there was no way on God's earth that Robert could have maintained the pretence of being a Frenchman.
Now though, some six months later, having been on the run throughout France, all the while moving steadily southwards, first through the Zone Occupée, before crossing secretly over into the so-called Zone Libre, the rump of France nominally controlled by the collaborationist Vichy government, Robert's command of French had improved considerably, was quite passable. And he could understand equally why he needed to look the part of what he purported to be.
After all, with the French driving on the opposite side of the road, something as seemingly innocuous as looking the wrong way before crossing the street, being in possession of a packet of English cigarettes, or even being caught wearing a pair of underpants bearing the name of a gentlemen's outfitters in Jermyn Street, London, could spell disaster. Although, even now, if he were to be captured and interrogated, Robert wondered just how long he would be able to keep up the pretence of being French. Not that he had the slightest intention of putting that to the test.
Alerted by Marie to the arrival of the police and soldiers, Robert didn't need to be told twice.
He went out through the open kitchen door at the double, startling a gaggle of brown hens scratching in the dirt in the yard, pecking for grubs and worms. Scrambling over garden walls, running through gates, hot footing it down a succession of cobbled alleys in a desperate race against time, having only stopped to take off his sabots, which he then stuffed inside his jacket not only so that he made less noise but also on account of the fact that he found running in them well nigh impossible, Robert at last reached the edge of the village. Before him he saw a narrow wooden footbridge, spanning what he assumed must be a stream while behind him, he heard screams, then the sound of shots followed by a burst of machine gun fire; saw too the first flickers of flame. As he turned away, crouching low, it was as he ran out from the cover of the adjacent building and onto the wooden boards of the bridge, that he heard Marie shouting at him to stop.
Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland, early morning, 31st May 1941.
Even with the window open and a cooling, salt tanged breeze blowing in from off the waters of the Irish Sea, the night was still hot and stuffy. The covers flung back, the sheets a tangled, rumpled mess, having just made love, sated and utterly content, their naked bodies rapidly cooling, Tom and Sybil lay beside each other on their bed.
"Well, Mr. Branson, you may be a grandfather but there's clearly life in the old dog yet!" laughed Sybil. She snuggled against him.
"Aye, and, as a grandmother, yous don't do so bad yourself for sure!" chuckled Tom slipping his arm about her.
"Grandmother!" exclaimed Sybil, now sitting up, crossing her arms over her breasts, and clasping her shoulders with her hands. She sounded absolutely horrified. Now spared a fleeting thought for her own late grandmother Violet, as Sybil remembered her, back in the 1920s. Then, and for years before, long since Dowager Countess of Downton, ebony walking cane clutched firmly between the arthritic fingers of one bony hand, tottering imperiously across the stone flagged hall of the abbey, towards the front door held open for her by the now equally late Carson, and beyond which granny's chauffeur driven motor was drawn up on the gravel outside, waiting to take her back to the Dower House.
"So, penny for them?" asked Tom reaching up and lazily twining a tendril of her damp hair between his fingers. Sybil loosed her arms, giving Tom an unrivalled view of her ample, magnificent breasts - still in his view her finest physical feature - before she lay back down, this time on her front, propped herself up on her elbows, turning her head so that she could look at him.
"Well, I was just thinking, with what might have been, what with the war and all, I know I shouldn't risk tempting Providence, but save for poor Robert, just how incredibly lucky we've all been".
Tom sighed.
"You think he's dead then?"
"Well, don't you? After that garbled report Matthew and Mary received three months ago, about an RAF pilot shot down over Boulogne last year, being rescued by the French Resistance, there hasn't been any further word. And even if it were true, there's no proof that the pilot was Robert. None at all. Even if Mary hasn't come to terms with what's happened, the rest of the family has, and that includes Saiorse. Thank God for the twins. At least with Alexander and Sorcha, she has her hands full and hasn't the time to sit and brood. By the way, eventually, she wants to go back to nursing, did you know?"
"To be sure," Tom nodded, staring up at a moth as it fluttered around the light in the centre of the ceiling. "Twins! Who would have thought it?"
Sybil smiled.
"I wonder how Bobby's debut went?"
"He'll have been fine for sure".
"No doubt, but singing in public for the first time ..."
Of all the Branson children, it was young Bobby - Dermot being still only nine - who so far had proved to be the most musical. While both Danny and Saiorse could sing, in this regard it was young Bobby who was undoubtedly the most gifted. A good pianist and lately a chorister at St. John's Church, of Tom and Sybil's three boys, in looks, Bobby most resembled his Da. Even though his voice had now broken, it was clear that, like his father, he would be a fine tenor and it was this which had taken him over to the Northside of Dublin where, earlier this evening, in the company of his friend Seamus Murphy, the two boys had been singing at a ceilidh, with Bobby staying overnight with Seamus at his parents' home before the two of them went to see a football match at Croke Park the following afternoon.
"What was that?" asked Sybil suddenly.
"What was what?"
"That?"
"The roar of the sea, silly!" exclaimed Tom.
"No, not that. The other sound. Listen".
There now came faintly to their ears what sounded like the rumble of distant thunder.
"What? That? Passing freight train," said Tom and yawned.
Sybil shook her head. Unconvinced, she sat up again, swung her still shapely legs over the side of the bed. Standing up, she reached for her dressing gown, shrugged into it, and loosely tied the sash.
"I'm going to check on Dermot".
"Whatever for? Darlin', he'll be fine. Here ..." Tom stretched out his arms. "Come back to bed".
Sybil shook her head.
"No, I must ..."
Downstairs in the hall, the telephone began to ring.
Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland, 6th June 1941.
In the aftermath of the air raid on Dublin's Northside, in which Bobby and so many others lost their lives, the Irish government immediately voiced its vehement protest to the German authorities in Berlin who promptly apologised, claiming that high winds were to blame; that there had been British interference with their navigation signals. Not that either reason altered the fact that over thirty people lost their lives, along with considerable damage having been caused to private property.
The day they buried him in St. John's churchyard, the day was dull and overcast. As the small coffin was lowered slowly into the void, there beside Bobby's grave, along with all of Tom's adoptive family, stood Tom and Sybil themselves, both red eyed from weeping, she holding young Dermot tightly by the hand, the little boy trying, and failing, to hold back his tears. While, understandably, none of the Crawleys, who now included Saiorse, or the Schonborns, were able to attendr, there were wreaths from Saiorse, as well as from Matthew and Mary, and as from Friedrich and Edith, on behalf of themselves and their children. As for Danny, Sybil had still to write and tell him the sad news of what had happened, and which she did but a few days later.
It was just as the first clods of earth hit the coffin, borne faintly on the breeze from off the sea, that there came, or so it seemed to Tom, a plaintive echo of Bobby's much loved "The Water Is Wide".
The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
Neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall cross my true love and I
I lean'd my back against an oak
Thinking it was a mighty tree
But first it bent and then it broke
So did my love prove false to me
I put my hand in some soft bush
Thinking the sweetest flow'are to find
I prick'd my finger to the bone
And left the sweetest flow'are behind
O love is handsome and love is kind
Gay as a jewel when it is new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like the morning dew
The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
Neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall cross my true love and I
Funchal, Madeira, June 1941.
The silence in the heavily beamed kitchen lengthened. Somewhere a church bell clanged discordantly while from down in the harbour there came the sound of a ship's hooter and the noise of a heavy anchor chain being run out.
"¿Qué es?" asked Carmen at last, sensing from Danny's demeanour that something must be terribly wrong.
Ma's letter, enclosing with it a cutting from Da's own newspaper, the Indy, recounted in stark detail what had happened that night on the north side of Dublin, where Bobby had gone to stay with his friend, Seamus Murphy, who lived with his parents in Seville Place.
En route to Belfast across the border in Northern Ireland, in the darkness, having lost their way, and off course, over Dublin, the flight of German aircraft found themselves under attack, whereupon they had retaliated by loosing their deadly cargo of bombs. One had fallen in Ballybough, demolishing two houses, and injuring many, but with no loss of life. A second fell at the Dog Pond pumping works near the zoo in Phoenix Park damaging the official residence of the Irish President, while a third made a huge crater in the North Circular Road near Summerhill. The fourth fell in North Strand, this time with fatal consequences, the worst damage occurring between Seville Place and Newcomen Bridge.
"Siempre fue tan vivo," said Danny brokenly, as he sobbed openly against Carmen's shoulder. "He was always so alive. First Rob, and now this".
Dower House, Downton, Yorkshire, England, 19th July 1941.
Built at the end of the eighteenth century, for Lady Caroline Crawley who did not get on with her husband owing to what these days would be termed irreconcilable differences, in this instance the constant gambling and womanising of her husband, the dissolute Lord Edward Crawley, one of the several black sheep of the family, the Dower House, as it was now called, stood by itself just beyond the far end of the village. These days, the Dower House was occupied by Cora, Dowager Countess of Grantham, who had moved here following Robert's death in the summer of 1931. Tonight, as was her wont, Cora had retired early, and so too her small domestic staff of a butler and two maids.
Crippled by anti aircraft fire, sustained in the attack on the Victoria Dock in Hull, in which it had taken part, with his co-pilot badly injured, many of the instruments on board, including the altimeter, either damaged or else not working at all, knowing that he would not make it home to Germany, with the pilot now desperately seeking somewhere to land, the noise of the low flying aircraft woke many here in Downton, among them possibly even Cora herself; but then again, hopefully not.
The Heinkel was much lower than the pilot thought. In the darkness, its belly clipped the top of the spire of St. Mary's Church, bringing down much of the fifteenth century spire, and sending the aircraft into a fatal spin.
Moments later, it hit the Dower House, the building erupting in a mass of fiery red flames.
Neither those on board the Heinkel nor any of those asleep inside the house ever stood a chance.
Funchal, Madeira, September 1941.
"Then, will you?" asked Danny, going down before her on one knee.
With both the Emergency and the war now in their third year, the destruction and killing continuing unabated, indeed had worsened, spreading still further afield with the Germans having occupied the Balkans in the spring and then invaded Soviet Russia in the summer with the military forces of Imperial Japan having swept through vast swathes of the Far East, now in early December had launched a deadly, unprovoked, and premeditated devastating attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
After the deaths of both darling Bobby and Cora, with Robert still missing and Simon, having being called up for military service, now serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, for the Bransons and the Crawleys, both in County Dublin in Ireland and across the sea in Yorkshire in England, it seemed that this year, Christmas would be a muted, sad affair.
Still without its own merchant navy, and perilously reliant on British supplies, here in Ireland there was a constant shortage of all manner of essential goods and foodstuffs. To be truthful, life for the majority was becoming very hard indeed. The British press attaché in Dublin summed up succinctly the direness of the state of affairs by reporting "No coal. No petrol. No gas. No electric. No paraffin. Guinness good".
One December evening, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, having eaten a particularly frugal supper, which put both of them in mind of the time they had spent at Skerries House in the summer of 1920, Tom and Sybil were sitting by the fireside, Tom chanced to remark that in Dublin, the prostitutes were now asking for payment not in cash but in commodities like soap or tea, both of which were in short supply. When, with a grin, Sybil had asked him just how he knew that, he had laughed at her and said that he made it his business to be well informed.
And, to add to the shortage of food, on the farms there was an outbreak of Foot and Mouth, reducing the availability of fresh meat. As Sybil knew only too well, a poor diet weakened the resistance of the population to disease; so she and her colleagues at the hospital were unsurprised to see not only a sudden increase in the incidence of childhood rickets, but also the re-emergence of something equally as bad: the deadly typhus, something which had not been seen here on such a scale since the Great Famine of nearly a century ago.
Downton Abbey, Yorkshire, England, Christmas Eve 1941.
The situation over in England was just as bad, made worse by the constant bombing of London and other large cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow, as well as many others too, including Belfast over in Northern Ireland; along with ports such as Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Hull. While the Blitz, as it had become known, had ended in May, air raids by the Luftwaffe still continued. Rationing, which initially had covered petrol, bacon, butter, sugar, now included meat, tea, jam, biscuits, cheese, eggs, lard, milk, canned and dried fruit, paper and even clothes. Despite the entry of the United States into the war, better late than never, had been Matthew's characteristically terse observation in the most recent letter he had written to Tom, there was little good cheer to be had from any of the various military fronts,
Understandably, here at the abbey, the mood was sombre there being still no news of Robert, while Simon was out in Singapore, now under bombardment by the Japanese. Max and Claire were up in London, she studying at Medical School and he, while enjoying a run of good health, working long hours, engaged on whatever it was he was he did for the government, about which he said very little, but with neither of them expected here at Downton until the New Year, if they could get on a train. Friedrich, Edith and Kurt were living at Crawley House, but had come to spend Christmas here at the abbey with Matthew, Mary, Rebecca, Emily, Saiorse and the twins. Even so, with most of the rooms in that part of the house still used by the family shut up, their furnishings swathed in dust sheets, the domestic staff reduced to a bare minimum, with the boys from St. Dominic's School having gone down for the holidays, the great house seemed but a shadow of its former self.
Having tucked young Kurt into bed in the old night nursery and said goodnight to the happy little boy, on her way down the main staircase, Edith paused. Despite all that had happened, it still came as a something of a shock to see that for the very first time she could recall the hall was bereft of its massive decorated Christmas tree, replaced by a far more modest offering in the Drawing Room.
As she reached the foot of the stairs, the telephone began to ring. Crossing the hall to the table, Edith picked up the receiver.
"Downton Abbey. Lady Edith Schonborn speaking".
"Mama?"
"Max! How lovely to hear from you! Happy Christmas, darling!"
"Happy Christmas, Mama". Max sounded somewhat distrait the fact of which was not lost on his mother.
"Are you all right, my darling?"
"Yes, perfectly".
"And ... Claire?"
"Very well, thank you. Studying hard. Mama, is Uncle Matthew there?"
"Of course, darling. He's in the Drawing Room, with Aunt Mary, Saiorse, and Papa. Shall I fetch him to the 'phone?"
"That might be for the best".
"Oh, Lord! It's not more bad news, is it?"
"No, Mama. Quite the reverse. The fact is ..."
Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland, Christmas Eve 1941.
Here in Blackrock, with Danny in distant Madeira and there being little prospect of seeing him again for a very long time to come, and Saiorse and the twins over in England, up in Yorkshire at Downton, for the sake of young Dermot, now aged nine, and missing his brother Bobby dreadfully, Tom and Sybil had done their very best to rise to the occasion and embrace the spirit of this festive time of year. Even so, remarked Sybil tartly, given the deaths of both darling Bobby and dearest Mama, and with all that was now happening, how could anyone believe in peace on earth and goodwill towards men? Even so, the previous Saturday, with young Dermot in tow - after what had happened to Bobby, at least for the time being, Sybil would not let their youngest out of her sight - the Bransons had all caught the train into Dublin to do some Christmas shopping on O'Connell Street.
Tonight, as the last train of the evening puffed noisily away from the little station below Idrone Terrace, Tom and Sybil were wrapping up presents, most of which were for young Dermot, now upstairs in bed, although Sybil doubted that he was asleep.
A few minutes later there came a heavy knock at the front door.
"Who on earth ..." began Tom.
"Carol singers, I expect".
"I told you not to light that candle!" Tom nodded emphatically towards the front window, to where a solitary candle stood burning as a sign of welcome for both Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve but these days also for anyone else who might just happen to call on this holiest of nights.
"It's an Irish tradition!" laughed Sybil.
"Ah, to be sure!" chuckled Tom. "Here, I'll go". He yawned, rose to his feet, stretched his arms above his head, and wandered out into the hallway in his slippers. Sybil heard him unbolt the door but thereafter, save for a slight shuffling of several pairs of feet and muffled voices, nothing more.
"Tom? There's some change in my purse," she called.
"No need of that for sure," sang out Tom gaily, in that instant sounding, thought Sybil, far more like himself than he had done at any time in the past seven months since Bobby had been killed. At that, Sybil permitted herself the briefest of smiles. Despite how awful everything was, maybe, just maybe, the spirit of the season was working its magic after all. Then again perhaps it had been the two glasses of malt whiskey which Tom had downed after supper and which, had made him more than unusually useless at wrapping Christmas presents.
The sitting room door swung back on its hinges. Then the floor creaked, just as it always did when someone entered the room. Whatever Tom did by way of a repair, and he was usually so good with such things, in the long run, it never seemed to make the slightest difference; sooner or later, the warped floorboard would begin to creak anew. Still down on her hands and knees, concentrating on wrapping up the very last of the presents, Sybil raised her head again, expecting to see Tom.
Instead, standing before her, she saw a handsome, sunburned, dark haired young man holding a small boy gently by the hand and, behind him in the open doorway, a dark haired young woman with a mewling, swaddled infant held tightly to her breast, her belly already softly rounded with yet another child, their third, and whom, in that very instant, Sybil knew without a shadow of a doubt would be another boy, as from off the waters of Dublin Bay, carried lightly on the winter wind, she heard the haunting strains of "Oh, Holy Night", and which, had been darling Bobby's favourite carol.
"Hello, Ma," said Danny, and opened wide his arms.
Author's Note:
Unique to Madeira, the levadas are centuries old man-made water courses which bring water from the north and west of the island to the drier southeast.
Between 7th September and 2nd November 1940, the Luftwaffe bombed London without respite.
It was not until the 1950s that a vaccine to immunise against polio become available.
WVS - Women's Voluntary Service founded in 1938 - shortly before the war began.
Despite being neutral, by the summer of 1941, Ireland had already suffered several bombing raids by the Luftwaffe, all of which had caused damage to property but no loss of life. The bombing of the Northside of Dublin on 31st May 1941 happened as described. As to precisely why this incident occurred, there are several theories, some fanciful, others more plausible. Whatever the truth of the matter, the fact that it was all a ghastly mistake - after the war the West German government paid out compensation to the Irish authorities - seems the most likely explanation.
"The Water Is Wide" is a haunting Scottish folk song, of which there are several versions, all based on lyrics that date back to the 1600s, and which remains very popular, even today, in the twenty first century.