Chapter 32
After seeing her mother in the dark with her shotgun pointing at the camp, Cora’s New Year’s resolution was to give up Frank for both their sakes.
It had been reckless of them to start a friendship, but still, she felt sick at the thought of cutting him out, rather than relieved.
Frank put the colour back into her life.
But worse than being jailed for fraternisation, she was afraid of them being caught by her mother.
A couple of dismal weeks later, Temperance sent out a note in block capitals to rally the anti-escape committee with the promise that there had been important developments, and Cora was keen to know what they were.
If another escape tunnel had been found she would be able to relax, knowing Frank was safe where he was for a little while longer.
At the meeting, Temperance addressed them in his front room in his new, hushed speaker’s voice, the one he’d learned from Superintendent May.
‘I have some shocking news to tell you which has been given to me in good faith.’ He added a warning.
‘You’d better brace yourselves, because you’ll never guess it otherwise. ’
Dio looked at him sceptically. ‘Shocking news? You don’t look that shocked to me, mun. On the contrary, you’ve got a smug look about you and while I’m not keen on gossip, we can’t all be like me. Spit it out.’
Temperance pulled a face. ‘It’s not gossip, come on! Women gossip. They gossip incessantly.’
‘Which women?’ Jane asked.
Dio glanced at her. ‘He doesn’t mean you.’
‘No, what I’m doing is imparting information,’ Temperance said. ‘There’s a difference.’
‘I speak for us all when I say we’re braced,’ Idwal said, humouring him. ‘Go on. Shock us.’
Temperance looked at each of them with intense concentration, to build up the suspense. Then he sat forward, his hands on his knees. ‘The POWs are sending birthday cards to Hitler!’
Cora waited for him to say more, but that seemed to be all there was, and it was a bit of an anti-climax to say the least.
‘That’s it?’ Idwal raised his eyebrows. ‘Be fair. If anyone needs a message of good wishes, it’s Hitler,’ he said after a moment, running his hand through his hair. ‘Birthday cards might do him good, spiritually speaking.’
Temperance stared at him in disbelief. ‘Trust you to take the moral high ground with Hitler. I don’t understand your thinking at all. They call him “The Mad Butcher”, you know.’
It was true that after Owen was torpedoed on the children’s liner, the headlines in the North Wales Echo read:
US calls Hitler ‘Mad Butcher’
Temperance was so gripped by this apt description that he’d used the euphemism several times in Cora’s hearing in the hope the phrase the Mad Butcher would catch on, but it never did. After all, everyone agreed the name Hitler seemed to sum the man up best.
Cora glanced at her father Dio. He was staring into thin air, probably thinking the same thing. ‘On the other hand, look on the bright side! He’s not going to read two thousand birthday cards, is he,’ Idwal pointed out, ‘even if they are full of many happy returns of the day.’
‘They’ll gum up the postal system while they’re at it, you know,’ Temperance said. ‘Have you thought of that? It’s part of their plan to make life difficult for everyone. It shouldn’t be allowed.’
It was so cold in Enid’s front room that Cora could see frost starting to form on the inside of the window from their breath.
They all agreed with Temperance that it shouldn’t be allowed and stood up at once with an urge to go home and get warm.
‘Lucky man, Hitler, to inspire such devotion,’ Dio said.