Free Whisper on the Wind by Elizabeth Elgin

coals.
    ‘Can you spare it?’ Food was rationed and she should have refused. ‘Just a drop, maybe.’
    ‘Of course I can spare it.’ Grace took a pint mug from the mantel-shelf. ‘Only vegetables and lentils and barley in it – bits of this and bits of that. Drink it up, lass, and welcome. Whilst you’re waiting for it to cool, can you take some outside?’
    ‘To the prisoner, Grace?’ Mat’s head jerked up from his plate. ‘He’s brought his rations with him, the guard said, and there’s to be no –’
    ‘I mind what the guard said. No fraternization. And how are we all to work with a man and not speak to him, will you tell me? This is
my
kitchen, Mat Ramsden. That lad sitting out there has done a fair morning’s work on our land and Kath is going to take him a mug of soup!’ She stopped, breathless and red-cheeked, ladle brandished, glaring at each in turn. ‘Have I made myself clear?’
    ‘You have, Grace love. You have,’ Mat said quietly, though the laughter in his eyes belied the gravity in his voice. ‘We’ll not tell the guard.’
    ‘Good!’ Grace filled the mug to the brim. ‘Glad we’ve got that little matter settled!’
    He loves her, Kath marvelled. He teases her, indulges her and his eyes follow her just as Jonty’s eyes follow Roz. After all the years, they’re still in love, she thought as she carried the steaming mug across the yard. Carefully she skirted a patch of ice, wondering if she and Barney would be as much in love after their silver wedding, confident that they would.
    The prisoner sat on an upturned box, his back against the straw stack. He looked up at her approach, then laid aside the bread he was eating and rose to his feet.
    Kath stood awkwardly, taking in the height of him, the smile he tried to suppress.
    ‘Hullo. Mrs Ramsden sends soup,’ she said slowly, offering the mug. ‘For you.’
    ‘The
signora
is kind. I thank her. It smell good.’
    ‘You speak English?’ Kath laughed her relief.
    ‘
Si.
I learn it in school for five years. I speak it a lot, since I am prisoner.’
    ‘That’s good.’ She looked into the young, frost-pinched face. He was tall and painfully thin, his eyes large and brown. ‘I’m Kathleen Allen.’ She wondered if she should offer her hand, and decided against it.
    ‘Kathleen. Katarina.’ He repeated her name slowly. ‘And I am Marco Roselli. If it is allowed, you will please to call me Marco?’
    ‘Marco. Yes. Well then, I’ll let you get on with it,’ Kath hesitated, stepping backward, ‘whilst it’s hot …’
    ‘
Si
, Katarina. And thank you.’
    ‘He’s –’ no, not nice. We were at war with Italy, so he couldn’t be nice. But he was ordinary, she supposed; like Jonty, really. And not stupid, either, as newspaper cartoons showed Italians to be. ‘He’s little different from us. He said thank you, that the soup smelled good,’ Kath supplied, sitting down again, picking up her own mug. ‘He seems all right.’
    ‘He is,’ Jonty said firmly. ‘We had quite a talk this morning. His people are farmers in the Italian Tyrol – there might be a bit of Austrian in him. He’d hoped to go to university, but the war stopped it. There’s nothing much wrong with him – and he can handle a horse.’
    ‘Aye. He can’t help being in the war any more than you can help not being in it, son,’ Grace said softly. ‘It’s the way things are and he’ll be treated decently till he gives us cause not to. What’s his name?’
    ‘Marco,’ Jonty supplied.
    ‘That’s all right, then. Well, we can’t keep calling him
the
prisoner
, or
the Italian
, can we?’ Grace looked appealingly at her husband. Their own son was safe at home; the young man outside had a mother, too.
    ‘Just as you say, love.’ Mat nodded. ‘And Jonty’s right; he knows about horses.’ A man who knew about horses would be fairly treated at Home Farm. ‘We’d best get back to it whilst the daylight lasts. You ready, son?’
    ‘I hope,’