Free Keep Smiling Through by Ellie Dean

get any sense out of anyone.’
    They climbed the concrete steps and pushed through the heavy door into a vast hall with a desk at one end. Sergeant Williams stood behind it, and when he caught sight of them he ducked his head and continued to write something in a large ledger.
    Rita hurried forward, Louise alongside her. ‘We want to know what’s happened to Roberto and Antonino,’ she said. ‘You told us you would keep us informed, but they still haven’t come home, and you said . . .’
    ‘They won’t be coming home, miss,’ he interrupted. ‘Not for a long while yet.’
    ‘Why not?’ Rita snapped. ‘They aren’t criminals.’
    ‘Where are my husband and son?’ pleaded Louise as she twisted the strap of her gas mask box in her fingers. ‘I must talk to them; make sure they are all right.’
    Sergeant Williams stood tall, his expression implacable. ‘They’ve been taken to Wormwood Scrubs for questioning.’ He glared down at Louise. ‘It’s no good you looking like that, missus. You want to thank your lucky stars you’re English and didn’t go with them. All the other Italian families have been rounded up and sent to camps where they’ll stay for the duration.’
    ‘All of them?’ breathed Louise. ‘Even Gino’s
nonna
Frizzelli?’ At his nod she burst into tears. ‘But she’s eighty years old. What possible risk could she be?’
    ‘It’s not my place to question the law, madam, just to see it obeyed.’
    ‘But Wormwood Scrubs is miles away. How am I supposed to get to them?’ wailed Louise.
    Rita could feel her temper rising and had to struggle to remain calm in the face of his inflexibility. ‘Can we visit them at the Scrubs? Or perhaps write to them?’
    ‘There’s no visiting or correspondence allowed. Not for internees. Besides, you won’t be allowed travel warrants.’
    ‘Murderers are allowed visitors,’ Rita retorted. ‘I don’t see why . . .’
    ‘It’s out of my hands, miss. But the way things are going, I doubt they’ll be there for much longer. The German and Italian nationals are being processed pretty swiftly to get them away from strategic areas before the invasion comes. You’ll just have to wait until they can write to you.’
    Rita stared at him as Louise sobbed. ‘But this is England,’ she said, her own voice trembling with emotion. ‘We don’t treat people like this.’
    The sergeant slammed the large logbook shut. ‘There’s a war on,’ he said grimly. ‘Things happen whether we like it or not.’ With that, he pushed through the nearby door and was gone.
    Rita put her arm round Louise’s shoulder. ‘Come, Mamma,’ she murmured. ‘Let’s get you home.’
    She gently steered the weeping woman out of the police station, past the sandbags and into the almost deserted High Street. There was no sign of a bus and neither of them could afford a taxi even if, by some miracle, one happened along. Rita retrieved the bicycle from where it leaned against a nearby lamp post. It was going to be a long, slow walk home.
    The air-raid siren went off before they could reach Barrow Lane, and they hurried down the concrete steps of the public shelter that had been dug beneath the recreation ground. It was dimly lit and reeked of damp and too many bodies crammed into a tight space. Babies were crying, women were chattering and complaining at the inconvenience of it all as they puffed cigarettes and shared flasks of tea, and Rita had to push her way through to find somewhere to sit.
    She recognised many faces but, as she held Louise’s hand and tried to comfort her, she noticed how their gazes shifted away, how they shrank from making contact with them, and whispered to each other behind their hands.
    ‘It’s all right,’ she consoled Louise. ‘Let them turn their noses up. Roberto and Papa are worth ten of them.’
    Despite her brave words, they suffered an uncomfortable half-hour down there until the all-clear rang out. It was yet another false alarm, and