by Ellie Dean
On the fourth night, mortar fire set the tinder-dry jungle scrub alight on a ridge to the west, and almost immediately smoke was seen rising to the east of the block under a barrage of Allied mortar fire and shells. Jim and his men scuttled back as the flames took hold of the dry lantana scrub to the front of their position. Fire was as much an enemy as any bullet, and everyone feared it, for if you were surrounded by it, you could kiss goodbye to going home.
The order came to begin firing incendiary smoke bombs into the area to set the lantana blazing to the rear of the Japanese front line. Jim and the other men in his brigade held ready to counter-attack as the field guns, already half-hidden in drifting smoke, swung round to fire muzzle-bursts to try and turn the encroaching fire back on itself.
Jim’s eyes were stinging with sweat and smoke, for the dryness in the air and in the jungle grasses had reached its peak, the heat stifling and now unbearable. He watched the flames take hold and ravenously devour the undergrowth, and wondered what would happen if they couldn’t put it out and the entire surrounding jungle went up.
Just when it seemed impossible that they could hold out against the Japanese firepower, eight Allied fighter-bombers came racing out of the sky. One behind the other, they made successive runs across the outer limit of the block’s wire. Their huge bombs whistled down as the orders came for rapid fire from all the mortars and machine guns.
Jim could feel the ground quake and heave beneath him as the noise came in deafening waves to beat in his head and thrum right through him. Trees were uprooted and the jungle vanished in a boiling cauldron of smoke, earth and dust as shrapnel flew in lethal shards, and the fighter-bombers came in lower to rake the enemy position with their powerful machine guns. Jim’s body vibrated with the monstrous, seemingly endless roar that filled the world around him, and all he could do was hug the ground, cover his head and pray.
When the fighter-bombers flew away no one moved in the sudden, deafening silence that fell on the block, and Jim found that his trembling legs could barely support him when he finally dared to get to his feet. And yet, as he took stock of his surroundings, it seemed the Japanese had at last been pushed back and the combined brigades had miraculously come through the bombardment with no casualties. It was a measure of the brilliance and accuracy of those American pilots, and Jim vowed that once this war was over he’d buy the first American pilot he met a very large drink.
And then he felt something cold and wet on his face. He looked up through the clearing smoke and dust, noticing that the sky had darkened further, and with it had come the gloriously cool downpour that fell in great, heavy drops on his burning face and arms like a gift from God. The monsoon had finally broken in earnest.
The celebration was short-lived, for the Japanese might have retreated, but they were now using their mortars, which were six times heavier than anything the British Army had. When one of them hit an ammunition pit, there was no need for a burial party, but the padre said a few words anyway as he sprinkled a handful of yellow earth in the general vicinity of the men’s pulverised remains.
The Japanese were still targeting Blighty, and as the rain fell hard and steadily over the next few days, the block began to resemble the battlefields of the Somme.
Jim’s experiences of that previous war still lived with him, even though he’d only fought in it for less than a year. As he sat in a dugout up to his waist in muddy water, trying to keep his carbine dry in the incessant downpour, the scene before him brought the memories of 1918 flooding back in all their stark horror.
Trenches and bomb craters were filled with stinking water; blasted trees lay lifeless; feet and clawed hands stuck up out of the cloying yellow mud where bloody shirts, ammunition clips, boots and entrails lay scattered. Jap corpses were caught in the perimeter wires or stuck in surviving trees, their bodies rotting and fly-infested – and over it all hung the heavy, sickly sweet stench of death.
Jim gloomily regarded the flooded runway as the rain beat a steady tattoo on his hat, dripped in icy trickles down his neck and raised the level of the water he sat in. The monsoon had done the work the Japanese hadn’t got around to, for nothing could land there now, which meant the injured could no longer be airlifted out. And that wasn’t good for anyone’s morale.
Jim huddled beneath his hat, cradling his carbine as the shelling continued hour upon hour on Blighty, and the patrol of Lightning P-38s began to search for the enemy guns that were doing so much damage. He looked across at Ernie, who was huddled beside him, the picture of misery, his eyes huge with the horror of it all. Nudging him gently with his elbow, Jim leaned towards him. ‘We’ll be all right, Ernie, you’ll see. The CO will get reinforcements any minute now.’
Ernie just stared at him with eyes lacking any hope and then dropped his chin to his chest as if afraid Jim would see how defeated he was.
Jim realised his friend was at the very end of his endurance, and if he didn’t do something quickly, Ernie could get careless and catch a bullet. As the bombardment finally petered out, and all went still, he grabbed Ernie’s arm and pulled him forcibly out of the muddy trench. ‘Time for a wash and brush-up,’ he said with forced cheerfulness. ‘To be sure, Ernie wee man, you stink.’
‘Not as bad as you do,’ he retorted sourly.
Jim was soaked to the skin and shivering with the cold of the mud that clung to every part of his body, but he forced himself to urge Ernie on as they scrambled down the hill past the batteries of guns guarding the ridge and towards the fast-flowing river.
He trusted the gunners on the ridge to keep a lookout, but it all seemed quiet, so he took Ernie’s carbine and set it down with his own on a nearby flat rock and dragged Ernie into the shallows where, for once, there didn’t appear to be any leeches.
Jim slid, fully dressed, down into the water as far as he dared to wash off the mud and muck that had accumulated over the past few days. The rain beat down on his head, hammered against the stony outcrops and dripped from the few trees along the bank. The water was clear and cold, making them both gasp, but as the filth was washed away they both felt a lightening of spirits.
Scrambling back out, they picked up their carbines and Jim glanced across the river to the far ridge, saw movement there and just managed to fling them both to the ground as the enemy mortars opened up. It was a continuous drumbeat which grew more urgent by the second and pinned them down against the unyielding rocks, caught between the mortars and their own answering Brens.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he yelled.
A shell exploded within yards of them, blasting a great hole in the ridge and taking a Bren gun position with it. Bits of bodies and machinery flew everywhere and Jim started to crawl as bullets zinged and whizzed around him and more shells exploded. He looked back to make sure Ernie was keeping up. ‘Come on!’ he urged.
Ernie didn’t move. With growing horror, Jim wondered if he’d simply frozen in fear or if he’d been injured. He scrambled back down to him, cursing his stupidity for bringing him here in the first place. When he saw the blood blossoming on Ernie’s shirt he felt sick at heart. This was all his fault, and now it was up to him to get Ernie to the dressing station without delay.
‘It’s all right, wee man, I’ve got you,’ he murmured, gathering Ernie into his arms and flinching as a mortar exploded within yards of them.
He felt something punch him in his side, but he was concentrating too hard on getting them both out of there to take much notice. He hooked an arm around Ernie, thanking God he was small and light, and held him to his chest as inch by inch he crawled from defile to defile, and as the mortars burst and the machine guns rattled alongside the Brens, he finally managed to get on the other side of the ridge.
It wasn’t any better there, for the Japs’ mortars were targeting Blighty again. Ernie groaned in protest as Jim hoisted him onto his back. ‘Hold on, wee man,’ Jim muttered. ‘Not far to go now.’
The dressing station was a tent which had been erected
in a fork of rock to the east of Blighty. Tucked away from the main block, and deep inside that broad crevasse of rock, it was about the safest place to be – but to a rapidly tiring Jim it seemed hopelessly beyond reach.
He could feel Ernie’s blood seeping into his own shirt as he carried him on his back and carefully picked his way down the slippery rocks and deep fissures of the ridge. Whatever it was in his side was beginning to make itself felt, and he blinked away the sweat from his eyes and tried to clear his head of the swirling darkness that threatened to send him tumbling.
‘Are you still with me, Ernie?’ he yelled as the mortars continued to boom and crash all around him and the Brens roared back.
‘Aye,’ Ernie managed weakly before his arms slipped from Jim’s shoulders.
‘Good man.’ Jim stumbled and almost fell the last few feet, but suddenly hands were lifting Ernie from his back and carrying him away into the shelter of the large tent.
Jim swayed on his feet, his vision blurring as he took in the row upon row of injured men, the bloody bandages and buckets; the grey-faced, exhausted medics and orderlies splattered with gore. He saw the padre approaching with a concerned expression. ‘To be sure, Father, I’m fine,’ he managed before darkness eclipsed him and he knew no more.
11
The past two weeks had brought sadness and joy for Peggy. Sadness because Danuta had suffered a relapse and couldn’t come home to Beach View just yet, and joy because Doris was blossoming now she had a real interest in her life and felt useful. The change had been quite astonishing since that first day she’d started work in the administrator’s office. Suddenly she was animated and friendly, her head full of plans for her future once she’d earned enough to put down a deposit on a place of her own. It also seemed that she and the Colonel were getting on splendidly, which was an added bonus.
Sarah appeared to be doing very well at her new secretarial job, even though her mother’s letters were stretching her patience to breaking point, and Rita had assured Peggy that work was going well at the fire station on her stairlift contraption, and would increase in leaps and bounds once she was free of the hampering plaster on her leg. She was due to go in today to get it taken off, and as Peter Ryan thought he might be able to get over from Cliffe aerodrome for a couple of hours, he’d be going with her and then treating her to lunch at the British Restaurant.
Ivy was her usual scatty, mouthy self, unable to resist tweaking Doris’s tail at every opportunity, which was met with a cool response that, strangely, held a hint of what Peggy suspected was a growing tolerance – if not affection – although neither of them would ever admit this development in their relationship. Their interaction rather reminded Peggy of Cordelia and Ron, who relished their sniping banter, and almost treated it as a game.
Cordelia was back to full health, enjoying being whisked off for lunch or drinks with Bertie in between his numerous rounds of golf. And Ron had a definite spring in his step since he and Rosie had started acting like a proper courting couple. As for poor Fran, she was still waiting on tenterhooks to hear what her parents had to say about her wedding plans to Robert.
The weather had finally improved, much to everyone’s relief, and July was proving to be warm and sunny. Poor old London was still being bombarded by V-1s, which had become known as doodlebugs because of the noise the engines made, but there had been few air-raid warnings in Cliffehaven and only the distant buzz of the V-1s as they made their way inland. The news on the wireless and the daily papers held even more promise, for it seemed that the Allies were advancing ever deeper into Europe, and Paris was expected to be liberated very soon.
The Russians had begun their summer offensive and captured Minsk, which had been in German hands since the start of the war. The Americans had liberated Cherbourg; the British and Canadians had liberated Caen, and the American troops were advancing fast on Saint-Lo as the Allied troops advanced from the south. In Burma and the Far East, the British and Americans were beating back the Japanese, and it seemed as if there was now real hope that the war was drawing closer to a total Allied victory.
Peggy snapped out of her thoughts and finished laying the table for breakfast. As it was Saturday, and she didn’t have to go to work, she planned to pop in to see Rosie, and then spend an hour at the playground with Daisy before she met up with Kitty and Charlotte at the Red Cross distribution centre for their two hours of voluntary work. After that, she would take the bus up to the Memorial to visit Danuta. Her busy days had meant she hadn’t had the chance to catch up with anyone just lately, and Peggy was looking forward to having a good gossip.
She glanced out of the window to the lines of washing she’d hung out earlier which were now drifting in the light, warm breeze of another beautiful summer day. She was hoping there would be a letter from Jim in the post, which was unusually rather late this morning. She hadn’t heard from him for two weeks now, but going by his last letter, it sounded as if he was having a high old time out there, what with seeing Vera Lynn and enjoying concert parties.
Her attention was drawn back to Daisy as she charged about after Queenie, who was clearly in no mood to be caught. To Daisy’s frustration, the cat scooted up onto the draining board and sought refuge on one of the shelves beside the kitchener range, where she was out of reach.
‘Come on, Daisy,’ Peggy said briskly to ward off a tantrum. ‘Let’s feed the hens and see if there are any eggs this morning.’ She gathered up the small basket and bowl of feed from the scullery shelf and slipped on their wellingtons, and they went out into the back garden, Queenie scooting between their legs in a bid to escape.
The early morning sun had yet to breach the rooftops and warm the garden, so the shadows lay long across Ron’s burgeoning vegetable patch, but the air was soft and the sky a perfect, cloudless blue as the chickens pecked and burbled contentedly in their run.
The hens had arrived courtesy of a bunch of Australian soldiers who’d come for Christmas dinner at the beginning of the war with them hidden in their overcoat pockets. She hadn’t asked where they’d come from, suspecting they weren’t exactly theirs to give – but they’d proved a godsend. Eggs were rationed to one a week per person, but at Beach View everyone could enjoy a real treat most mornings.
Peggy thought about those lovely boys with their sunny, open smiles, loud voices and cheerful manner as she opened the gate in the chicken coop and then closed it firmly behind Daisy. She’d had letters from them at first, but they’d fizzled out as the fighting had increased in intensity, and she could only hope that wherever they were, they’d come through, and would see the shores of home again.
As the hens came bustling round them, Peggy showed Daisy how to scoop up handfuls of feed and scatter it on the ground. She smiled as the little girl clapped her hands and laughed at the hens’ antics as they squabbled over every grain and tried to peck at the few that had landed on her wellington boots. The simplest things delighted Daisy.
Peggy would never have dared come in here, let alone with Daisy, when Adolf the vicious rooster had been alive, but since his demise, the hens seemed far happier, and to Peggy’s delight she found half a dozen lovely brown eggs hidden amongst the straw in the coop. Having gathered them up and placed them carefully in the basket, she cleaned out the coop, laid fresh straw and barrowed the mess to Ron’s compost heap, for according to him, chicken poo was an excellent fertiliser.
Daisy trotted back and forth with an old dustpan and brush, scolding the hens if they got in her way, and laughing as they scuttled and flapped around her feet.
‘I think that’s clean enough,’ said Peggy, retrieving brush and pan. ‘Come on. Let’s see if the postman has been and if there’s anything from Daddy.’
Daisy looked up at her, her face streaked with dirt. ‘Dada come home?’ she asked.
‘Not yet, darling. But soon – and when he does he’ll make such a fuss of you and spoil you rotten with lots and lots of cuddles. You’ll see.’
She gave her a hug a
nd together they went back into the house. Peggy placed the precious egg basket on the drainer out of harm’s way, and set about washing Daisy’s hands and face, her gaze frequently flitting to Jim’s photo on the mantelpiece.
It was a constant worry that Daisy knew nothing about her father other than the stories she and Ron had told her and the photographs she had of him placed around the house. Daisy had only just been born when Jim was called up, and had been too young to know who he was when he’d come home on that final leave before going off to India. Now Daisy would be three at the end of the year, and if Jim did by some miracle come home, they would be strangers.
Peggy brushed the thought aside and went to see if any post had arrived. As if he’d known she’d be anxious to hear from him, there was a letter from Jim, and she tucked it into her apron pocket to read when she had a minute to herself. There were others from Anne and the boys, and several for the girls, including one from Ireland for Fran. Peggy recognised Fran’s mother’s writing and fervently hoped the letter contained some sort of peace offering and a way out of the dilemma the young couple had found themselves in.
She turned at the sound of light footsteps on the stairs and smiled. Doris was looking refreshingly cool and attractive in a sprigged cotton dress and white sandals, her hair brushed to a gleam, and with only a hint of powder and lipstick on her radiant face. ‘My goodness, you’re up early,’ Peggy said. ‘Are you off somewhere nice?’
‘Colonel White asked me to go in this morning for a couple of hours,’ Doris replied. ‘I thought I might treat myself afterwards to a cup of tea at the Officers’ Club.’