There are grumbles at that. Some telegrams and letters from the brothers and sons who are fighting have found their way home, but some have not.
We’re shedding blood in this war. Orcadians are laying down their lives. Isn’t that enough?
As if he can hear their thoughts, O’Farrell raises his hands. ‘You’ll all have got wind of the rumours about the horrors happening in France and Belgium, of Russia being invaded, of England being bombed.’
Nods and grumbling from around the room.
‘Folk say there’s nothing left of some parts of London,’ someone mutters.
‘Exactly,’ O’Farrell says. ‘And there’s no purpose in panicking, but what we must remember is that we’ve a chance to do our bit here –’
‘By feeding Fascist soldiers?’ one of MacRae’s cronies calls.
‘By fortifying these islands. Stopping ships and submarines striking us from the north and going down through Scapa Flow to the rest of Britain. Or have you forgotten the submarine attack? Eh? That sinking ship slipped your memory already, has it? Or maybe it’s your geography that’s off, Matthew MacIntyre? Perhaps you should have stayed longer in school, rather than running about on the streets and giving yourself flat feet so you can’t go off and fight.’
Laughter then, and MacIntyre hunches lower in his seat.
‘As I was saying,’ O’Farrell goes on, ‘we’ve all to do our bit. But there’s the problem of feeding these men, while making sure there’s enough to go around for the rest of us. So, to that end, I’ve spoken to Major Bates, and he’s willing to let some of the men come across to Kirkwall and help with the farm work and so on –’
‘Are you mad?’ a voice calls. ‘I’ll not have foreign men working my land –’
‘And no one will force you to, George,’ O’Farrell cuts in. ‘But you’ve a fence that needs mending and a field that’ll go unplanted this year without your lads here.’
George scowls but has no reply.
And by the time the meeting ends, half an hour later, John O’Farrell has a list of tasks for the Italian men, which he will take across to Major Bates the next morning. The feeling of unease in the room has shifted: no one will reject the offers of help – they’re not fools, after all. But, still, it’s important that people prepare themselves. It’s crucial that no one falls into the trap of trusting these soldiers, these foreigners who will be working their land.
Back in their homes that night, the women will press kisses into the cheeks of their sleeping children and promise to protect them. The men – old, thin, weak-chested – will fetch out the knives they use to gut fish and trim hoofs. The darkness will be full of the scrape of metal being sharpened on stone.
Late January 1942Cesare
The quarry has been hollowed out from the rock face using explosives. Time and again, the guards shout at the men to stand clear, to run, to get down, for Christ’s sake, you fucking Eyeties.
It’s not a word Cesare has heard before, Eyetie, but he has come to realize that it is the word the guards use for italiano, only it means more than that. It means foreigner. It means idiot. It means animal.
Cesare crouches alongside Gino, hands over his ears, and counts. He has grown used to the tremble of the ground, the blast of the air, the sound that moves through his body, shaking everything inside him for ages afterwards, so that, even hours later, as he digs, as he eats, as he sleeps, he feels as though his heart and lungs have been thrown out of rhythm.
Everything has fallen out of time: each morning is grey and cold when they jump out of their bunks to be counted. Dark. It is always dark, it seems. As they line up in the yard, in what feels like the middle of the night, swaying with sleep and waiting for the guards to tap their heads with the baton, Cesare is gripped by a fear that this darkness will last for ever. The sun will never rise again and all of them will be trapped in this cold place until they die, or the world forgets them.
Marooned as they are on the island, he worries that they might simply drop off the end of the earth.
When the sun finally casts pale fingers of light over the horizon, the prisoners cheer sometimes, or they hum the threshing songs that the girls used to sing back home. They pause in their digging, and turn their faces to the light, until a guard shouts at them to Dig, damn it!
At night, they kneel together in their huts and they pray. Cesare moves his lips along with the others. He has never doubted before, but it is hard, in this place, to know where God might be found.
In the day, he digs stones and heaves them into a wheelbarrow, which Gino then loads into a lorry. When Cesare grows tired, they swap roles. The guards shout orders and the men slowly obey – those who speak no English copy the others. If they move too slowly, the guards brandish their batons.
One morning in late January, when they have been on the island two weeks, Cesare is trying to dig out a stubborn piece of rock. It is too heavy for him, really, and sharp besides – it teeters on his shovel. As his arms shake, it occurs to him that if he lets it fall on his foot he won’t have to dig any more. In the mornings, at reveille, he’s caught a glimpse of the rows of beds in the camp infirmary, felt the warmth from the two stoves as he walked past.
He looks at the rock, watches it wobble, imagines it falling, imagines the
