The men passed the small whiskey bottle around. Antica took a swig. “How could something this perfect not be Italian?”
“Because the Scots invented hard liquor. Give them their due. It might help us. Right now, you can do no worse than to be an Italian or a descendant of one,” Mattiuzzi concluded. “The Nazis over our heads are treated better. They get the light and the air.”
“No charges have been made against us. They arrested us without cause.” Piccolo was determined to seek justice. “This is a mistake and they will realize it.”
“They may not. Churchill takes lunch at the Savoy occasionally. Pleasant gentleman. One of his cabinet members, a mediocre gambler, never missed Blackjack Wednesdays or the free refills on the table. He told me that the threat of the fifth column was real. From the start, there was a plan to lock up the Italians in England for the duration of the war. Well, they couldn’t bloody well do that, so they rounded us up to ship us off the island entirely. It does not matter to them if we are innocent; if you are from Italy, you are not to be trusted. I gently suggested that if Churchill banished us, there would be no ice cream or pizza for the duration of the war. I was joking of course, but he wasn’t. Churchill made the order. He said, ‘Collar the lot of them.’ We are those men. We’re the lot. Right or wrong, we’ve been collared.”
“If we keep a good attitude, we’ll be all right,” Mattiuzzi assured them. “We’ll follow their orders and we’ll be home soon enough.”
“If we stay close to your friend McVicars, we’ll be even better,” Savattini promised.
* * *
A man could sleep when he had hope.
Mattiuzzi, Piccolo, and Savattini slept soundly on their cots in their undershorts and undershirts, certain the worst was behind them. As the Arandora followed Moulton’s route, she sailed north past the Isle of Man, through the North Channel between the Mull of Kintyre and Northern Ireland, and past Malin Head due west. By morning, the ship would be on the Atlantic Ocean heading for Canada, where they would be interned until the conflict was resolved.
Antica turned over on his cot. The room beneath the waterline suffocated the peddler. He slipped off the cot, and without making a sound, he dressed. He grabbed his telescope and tiptoed out the open door of the cabin. He gulped fresh sea air as he climbed the steps to the deck. As soon as he felt the cold ocean breeze, all apprehension left him. Fellow prisoners propped against the wall snored blissfully as they slept. Antica stood at the railing behind the barbed wire and breathed deeply.
There was a space between the barbed wire thorns and the deck overhead. It might have been just a foot or so, but it was enough space for Antica to angle the telescope lens through the mesh to observe the dark sky unobstructed. He counted the prongs of Orion and moved the lens across to find Venus and Jupiter, a pair of twinkling agates in a peacock-blue sky. His despair left him in the presence of such majesty.
Antica took the configuration of the stars as a sign that all would be well. There was a certain amount of relief, especially after McVicars promised them he would take care of them. He knew the Scot was trustworthy. Antica yawned and lay down on the deck, cradling the telescope in his arms. The barbed wire fencing was a few inches from his nose, but it didn’t bother him. He had made his peace with being imprisoned. In time, it would be proved that the hundreds of men with roots in Italy were decent, hardworking men with good families to support. The truth was as bright as the moon, and soon everyone would know it. Antica yawned again. The air off the coast of Ireland was clean and sweet. Antica went to sleep.
* * *
The Arandora Star was heavy with men, from the hull to the bridge. She sailed peacefully. The surface of the sea barely rippled as she passed the northwest coast of Ireland at dawn. The rocky cliffs of the Emerald Isle turned golden as morning broke. John McVicars stood at the top of the ship, on the bridge, and lit a cigarette.
DONEGAL
July 2, 1940
At the bottom of the sea, U-47, a German U-boat, kicked up fins of sand as it rose off the ocean floor along the coast of northern England. The U-boat was the pride of the German fleet, with its modern equipment and expertly trained naval crew. The U-boat had the ability to creep low and dive deep in seconds, its movement undetected in the depths.
Kapit?nleutnant Günther Prien pursed his thin lips as he studied the route back to the Black Sea. He checked the numbers on the navigation panel when he spied an ocean liner crossing his path. He took a sip of bitter black coffee and spit it back into the cup before setting it aside. He checked his navigation wheel and discerned that the Arandora Star was unaccompanied, sailing in the open sea like the Queen Mary on Christmas holiday. He couldn’t quite believe his luck, but the English were idiots, by his calculation, so he wasn’t surprised that the ship sailed alone. Over 1,700 men, most of them prisoners of war, were defenseless against any enemy. He knew that there were fellow German nationals, loyal Nazis, on board and he didn’t care. The Jewish intellectuals on board meant nothing to him. There were 719 Scots of Italian descent, British citizens, and Prien was eager to take them down because he could.
Prien had one torpedo left in his arsenal on his return trip to the Black Sea from a practice round of deadly attacks in the North Atlantic. It would be personally gratifying to blow up a pretty ocean liner. He also wanted to make a point to the enemies of Germany: You will not know the day, you will not know the hour. But I will, Prien thought with a sneer.
Prien took his time targeting the Arandora. The Nazi did his calculations several times.
When he ordered the move to fire, he was only half certain he could hit the ship at all.