Free Keep Smiling Through by Ellie Dean Page B

determinedly carried on puffing. ‘He will know now that I lied to him, but it was the only time, Rita, I swear. And look what it has done.’
    Rita didn’t know what to do or say. Events had whirled out of her control to the point where she was as confused and upset as Louise. But one thing was certain. Louise could not cope alone. It was now up to her to make sure they both got through this – no matter how long it took, or how hard it became.

Chapter Four
    AS THE WEEKS passed and there was still no news of her husband and son, Louise slowly lost hope and became a shadow of her previous self. The allotment where Antonino had once worked so diligently was all but abandoned. The three rooms above the boarded-up café began to look shabby as she couldn’t dredge up the energy to cook and clean, and she’d lost any interest in her appearance, rarely leaving the sanctuary of her home for fear of the real and imagined slights of the neighbours who mostly still kept their distance.
    Louise had become a lost soul – a prisoner in her own home, and Rita despaired at ever seeing her smile again. Peggy was a frequent visitor, and she and Rita did their best to clean the house and try to bring some order to Louise’s life. Ron turned up to weed the allotment now and again, but there were too few hours in the day for any of them to do much. Peggy had a houseful, Ron had his own garden to keep as well as helping in the pub and attending to his Defence Volunteer duties. Production at the factory had been stepped up, and everyone was encouraged to work longer hours to complete the quota, which meant Louise was often left alone to mope.
    Rita had all but abandoned her own home, sitting night after night with Louise, encouraging her to eat the dismal little meals she’d cooked as she attempted to persuade her to take up some sort of work – or at least to spend time in the allotment. Peggy would often arrive with a tin of something to eat, but with no income from the café, and few savings, Louise had effectively come to rely on Rita’s slender pay packet. Although their needs were few, it was getting harder to cope each week.
    But all these worries faded into insignificance at the beginning of July when they heard that the
Arandora Star
had been sunk by a German U-boat. She’d been on her way to Canada with 1,562 internees on board. Over eight hundred lives were lost, the majority of them Italian, and although there was a public outcry, it didn’t stop the government from sending another, larger ship, the
Dunera
, to Australia with even more internees on board, including German Jews who had escaped the terrors of Europe only to find themselves imprisoned alongside Nazi POWs.
    It took Rita and Peggy many days to reach the right people and confirm that the Minelli men had not been on board, or sent to Australia on the
Dunera
along with the survivors from the
Arandora Star
. But their whereabouts was still being kept secret, and all communication banned. This lack of knowledge was almost the undoing of poor Louise and she retreated further into her shell of despair.
    As the summer waned, the war news became ever more alarming. The Channel Islands had fallen to German occupation. Italy had invaded Southern France and bombed Abyssinia and Eritrea, capturing the British outposts of Kassala and Gallabat on the Sudanese border, and the Italians had bombed the British protectorate of Palestine. Cardiff and Liverpool had come under attack by the Luftwaffe and August saw the first enemy bombing raid over London. Hitler’s blockade of the British Isles was swiftly followed by massive enemy raids on London, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester.
    The activity at the airfield increased tenfold as the RAF began night raids on Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Berlin. Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that ‘The Battle of Britain’ had begun, and now there were daily air-raid warnings as seaports, airfields, radar stations