by Jim Kelly
Dobson, Grandcourt’s stand-in as warden, let them into Shelter 4, which held about a hundred civilians in one of seven concrete chambers half buried in the edge of the grass common. It was clear, after a few minutes, that ‘shelter life’ was well established. Most people sat in family huddles on blankets and rolled-up overcoats, with a central nest of thermos flasks, blankets and pillows. The whistle of kettles on Primus stoves – swiftly stifled – filled the air, along with whispers and the gentle crying of a single child. A few elderly people had brought deckchairs.
The chemical toilets were – according to a large sign – behind a wall at the far end, but the smell was ubiquitous, mingled with the steamy stench of people, who’d been quietly sweating in their own beds until the siren had transported them from one bad dream to another. A low stratum of cigarette smoke hung in the air, lit by the single lantern hung from a hook in the ceiling.
Brooke smoked, and then Grandcourt appeared, padding softly in his socks along the central aisle, holding a tin mug in a claw-like hand to his chest. He had a battered tin hat marked SW – shelter warden.
He sat beside Brooke on the concrete ‘bench’ which ran round the perimeter of the room, and assembled a pipe-full of tobacco but, checking a fob watch, turned away the offer of a light. ‘It makes the children cough, so I’ll wait. Best let them get off at least.’
He nodded towards a family in one corner. They’d brought a picture and set it up against the wall, a photographer’s studio shot of grandparents and parents and a host of children, set in a heavy frame, but minus the glass. A man, snoring gently, suddenly snorted, prompting a general turning-over, and muffled complaints.
‘We’ve made some more progress tonight, Grandcourt. I’ll ring the constable at Barrington tomorrow and see what we can set up: we need to comb that village from top to bottom, without raising alarms.’
‘What do you think’s there, sir?’
‘Your man Bannister said adulterating petrol is a messy business.’ He outlined the scientist’s description of a typical blackout gang operation: the petty thieves issued with cans, the mixing with kerosene, then on-selling into the black market.
Grandcourt sucked his pipe. ‘Flimsies, you say?’ he said, judging the moment was right to light his pipe at last. ‘Remember them in the desert, sir? On a long haul we’d lose a quarter of the water – more – from those cans because it just all leaked away. Same for fuel. They reckon Jerry’s got much better kit and we’re trying to copy it. Another job for a clever engineer …’
Brooke smiled. He should have thought of that himself. If they were storing the fuel in the cans, then that could easily explain the leak. The petrol was just bleeding away. The flimsies were so poorly made that they fractured under pressure.
The strains of the all-clear slipped into the shelter through the air vents. The crowd half groaned, half cheered and slowly began to stir.
Outside, the sky had cleared to reveal the stars, and a column of smoke rising from the Kite. Brooke could smell the fire, or rather its damp depressing coda: wet ash, sodden wood, drenched bedding and upholstery. Gossip amongst the crowd on the grass was that a single bomber had made a run, dropping a bomb on Stourbridge Common near the allotments, then one in the Kite, and the rest on the railyards.
Brooke set out, keen to keep an eye out for looters or thieves.
Palmer Road, where the Wylde family lived, was untouched, but Salisbury Street, just five minutes away, was crowded with emergency services. Smoke was pouring from a house, billowing from the downstairs and upstairs window. An ARP warden told him that according to his lists everyone was accounted for, safe and sound. The fire brigade had a hose playing on the frontage, so that steam was mixing with the black smoke. Brooke stood watching, and lit a cigarette, realising that the smells on the air had transported him back to Bonfire Night, standing with his father in the garden, watching the Guy burn, the thrilling whiff of sulphur left behind by every screaming rocket.
‘Brooke,’ said a voice, and he turned to see Edmund Kohler marching up the street. His old friend always walked as if he had a swagger stick under one arm.
‘Thought I’d get out and see how it all works on the ground,’ he said. ‘It struck me when I gave you my little lecture that I was good on the theory, but low on practice.’
A shout went up from the fire brigade, and then everyone was running towards them up the street. A police constable stopped, breathless, and pointed back at the burning house. Bricks began to tumble from the roofline, then the chimney fell in on itself, and with a sickening intuition Brooke knew what was going to happen next: very slowly the entire facade of the house began to peel away, in one piece, from the floors and ceilings. Tipping forward, it fractured, but was still substantially a single wall of bricks as it hit the cobbles.
When the dust and smoke cleared the interior rooms stood revealed, like a doll’s house, the front swung open. The staircase was charred, but the wallpaper in the front room, gold stripes on velvet red, was untouched, while upstairs they could see a wardrobe, the door open to reveal shirts and jackets, and a mirror engraved with a flying swan. Brooke thought this was the final insult for the family who’d lost their home, that their private lives should be left on public view.
Kohler was directing operations. ‘You men … This isn’t a tea party.’ He marched off towards the Civil Defence squad which had settled down on the kerb with thermos flasks to watch the disaster unfold. There were grumbles, and Brooke thought he heard a whispered ‘darky’, before they hauled themselves to their feet and set about forming a shoring-up squad, presumably to make safe the buildings next door to the ruined house. A lorry was on standby with wooden props and iron stays.
Brooke felt a light touch on his arm and turned to see a face he knew, but somehow distrusted the moment of recognition. It was Alice Wylde, Peggy’s mother. He was shocked to see white clean lines on her cheeks where tears had cleared a path through smoke and ash.
‘Everything that’s happened,’ she said. ‘And then this …’
She nodded at the exposed house.
‘That’s the Foxes’ house. You’ve met Ollie – Connie’s boyfriend. Sid and Marjorie were in the shelters. So they’re lucky, really. Just doesn’t feel like it, does it? They’ve come round to ours for tonight.’
‘And Ollie, is he safe?’
‘He was with Connie at our house. When the siren goes off we all pile into the Anderson in the backyard and there’s room for another. He’s family now and it’s a comfort for us all really, to have a boy there.
‘Sid and Marjorie take ’em in for the money, the orphans, but Marjorie’s alright – she tries. There’s worse mothers in the street, I’ll tell you that. But it’s not a real family, if you know what I mean. Not loving.’
Brooke nodded. It explained a lot: the lost look, the cigarettes to feel grown up, the desperate hold on young Connie’s hand.
‘They’re all round at ours safe and sound. I said I’d pop out and have a look for them – now I’ve got to go back and tell ’em the whole lot’s come down.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll pray for them.’
Brooke thought it was touching that she’d find time for prayers for others given her own tragedy. She had a mother and a daughter to mourn. He took her arm and walked her back to Palmer Road.
The Wyldes’ front door was open. Inside, the ceremonies of tea and toast were in full swing despite the hour. The girls – Elsie and Connie – were in the front room squeezed into the same armchair. Ollie sat on the floor again, his feet to the grate, with Connie’s hand resting in his thick hair. His face was smoky grey with smuts.
Brooke was introduced to Sid and Marjorie, who’d been given the other two chairs. Sid was trying to eat what looked like toast and dripping while smoking a cigarette, while Marjorie was weeping silently into a large handkerchief.
Brooke felt Alice, still on his arm, waver slightly as if she might collapse, so he tightened his grip.
‘Bad news,’ he
said, taking over. ‘I think they’ve got the fire under control but the front’s come down, I’m afraid. Is there anywhere you can go tonight – it’ll be for a while?’
Marjorie looked stricken but Sid had clearly been thinking the situation through. ‘We can go to Jean’s in Newmarket,’ he said, leaning over and patting his wife’s hand. ‘Her boys are away now.’
Connie leant forward and hung round Ollie’s neck from behind. ‘You can stay with us, can’t he, Mum – if he doesn’t mind the sofa.’
‘He’ll need to stay local because of Marshall’s,’ offered Sid. ‘It’s a good job and he needs to fend for himself. We can’t afford to feed any more mouths.’
Ollie pushed Connie gently away and stood up. ‘I should get our stuff before anyone nicks it.’
‘There’s a handcart out in the yard,’ said Elsie. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘There’ll be a guard on the house now,’ said Brooke, waving for the boy to sit down. ‘I’ll make sure they stay overnight,’ he added, thinking that was the saddest thought of all – that now the enemy had gone, they had to live in fear of looters.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Brooke walked briskly home and opened the door with as little noise as many years of practice allowed. Climbing up to the attic, into his mother’s room, which held the clawed-foot bath, he poured himself a malt whisky – the bottle and glass were always to hand in a fine mirrored box on the dressing table. Then he ran the water as hot as the boiler could muster, and slid beneath the surface, the scum of ash and smoke leaving a black line on the worn enamel. Lying there, he saw in the shadows the doll’s house they’d bought Joy and kept in the hope that it could be inherited by grandchildren. The door stood open, revealing the rooms within.
Immersed in the water, washing ash from his face, he recalled the first bath he’d had in Jerusalem after he’d been rescued from the desert. It had been in the Grand Hotel, which was a ruin, but still had a water system. The medics had requisitioned the lower floors as wards, and had sent him upstairs to bathe his wounds, especially the gunshots to the knee, inflicted by his captors in the hope he’d die of thirst where they’d abandoned him. The water had turned slightly red as the dried blood had washed off. He’d been sent up a tumbler of whisky, requisitioned by Edmund Kohler from the bombed-out bar, and he’d drifted off in a daze of deferred pain.
It was one of those moments in a life, superficially meaningless, which never fade away. He slept now, as the water cooled. When he woke, possibly catching the echo of his own voice crying out, he managed to hold on to the fading threads of a brief dream, in which a doll’s house facade swung open to reveal miniature versions of Dr Comfort’s mortuary tables, upon which were unseen bodies, covered in sheets. The detail which made him cry out was that there were three bodies.
Unsettled, he dried himself, and slipped into bed beside Claire, gathering her arm up to lie across his chest. He noted that the alarm clock was not set, indicating that his wife was on a two-day down shift, and had allowed herself a lie-in. Two or three more short bouts of sleep filled the hour until dawn, when he dressed quickly in some starchy clothes in the half-light. Claire, stirring, asked about the bombing raid and what had happened. Brooke gave her the short version: no casualties, but plenty of misery. She said she’d had a fitful dream too: she couldn’t recall the narrative but it had been about Luke and Ben – son and son-in-law – and they were together, standing in a cemetery, both in their respective uniforms. Luke had been holding a green beret, and Ben was in his No. 1 dress, looking smart.
Brooke gave his wife a kiss and told her they were both haunted by dreams because of overactive imaginations, while real life was often dull and tiresome. ‘But it must be endured,’ he added.
The morning was starkly beautiful, with a clear sky, the sun yet to rise. He wanted to clear his head with a cup of strong tea, but a visit to Rose might prompt more attempts to see into the future with the aid of the mystical leaves, and after a night of such visions he felt he needed a dose of lucid, lofty common sense. He slipped down the alleyway opposite Trinity College’s gates and climbed the metal ladders to Jo Ashmore’s Observation Post.
‘I thought I might have missed you,’ he said, hauling himself up the final six feet, to find Ashmore making careful notes in a large book attached to the conical metal hut by a chain.
‘Just making out the log. Kettle’s on.’
From such a high vantage point he could see into the various courts – the grass squares set within the college grounds – where flocks of birds pecked for seed untroubled by scholars or porters. It was still an hour short of the earliest breakfast. On St John’s Great Court, just visible, he could see a lone gardener, with a hose, who had created a mist of falling water droplets, which the first rays of the sun were converting into a rainbow. On Trinity’s Great Court a lone student, in a chorister’s gown, plodded dutifully around the grass on the cobbled path, which made Brooke think of Burghley’s famous run.
The war seemed a distant echo. But to the west an RAF Oxford tipped its wings and began its shallow descent into Marshall, while over the Kite and the railyards a thin layer of smoke hung in the air, the only visible evidence of the raid.
‘How’s George?’ he asked, taking a mug of tea and a Craven A. He thought Ashmore looked tired, exhausted even.
He looked away, giving her time, if she wanted, to duck the answer.
‘Well, it has to be said it is pretty gruesome. There’s been two ops already, and of course it just looks worse, if I can see him at all for the bandages, but they said it would be like that, that they’d have to move bones, and cartilage, and that the eye socket was damaged too. But the surgeon’s delighted. They always are. I’ve worked out why, but it’s obvious really. They aren’t treating Flight Lieutenant George Wentworth, are they? They’re treating his wounds. It’s as if they’ve drawn a magic line between him and the burns. So they don’t get involved – not emotionally.’
‘But you have,’ said Brooke.
‘Yes. I have. It’s pretty much an ordeal. I’ll go again tomorrow but it’ll have to be by train – I’ve run out of coupons for petrol. It’ll take all day and probably half the night. My uncle’s got a house in Kensington – so I’ll doss there.’
‘Slumming it, in Kensington?’
She just smiled and nodded. She was perfectly aware that she lived a gilded life, despite the war.
Somewhere nearby they could hear a choir singing.
‘Good God,’ said Brooke. ‘Is that all part of the routine – you get your own celestial voices as a going-home present?’
Ashmore smiled, sipping the tea. ‘Yes. That’s the choir at St John’s. Every day, it is. It’s heavenly.’
For a minute they listened to the voices, weaving and soaring.
‘Money’s on another raid tonight,’ she said, settling into a seat she’d fashioned out of sandbags.
‘Tonight? Why’s that?’
‘Because they missed again. We’ve been thinking it’s the yards they’re after, or cutting the mainline, but last night it was obvious – at least that’s the intel.’
She tapped an elegant finger against her nose.
‘The target was the bridge out by Fen Ditton that carries the railway. They missed it, then dropped the rest on the Kite and the railyards. Last time we thought they’d panicked and dropped a bomb early on the run-in. But the brass think it’s been the bridge they’re after all the time, and it’s a “top-level target”, no less. If they’ve got decent reconnaissance pictures, or a handy fifth columnist in the city, they’ll soon know they’ve failed again.
‘So third time lucky, that’s the analysis. The gossip is if they do come back it means the invasion’s on and it’ll be the East Coast, not the South. Makes sense when you think it through. It’s three hundred miles of undefended coastline, and a lot of it just sand and marsh, no cliffs to climb. If you knock out that bridge, cut the line, you can’t get anything up here quick enough to fight back
.
‘If Jerry gets tanks ashore they’d be here in twenty-four hours, Eden. All leave’s cancelled up at Marshall’s and Madingley, and the ack-ack boys are being resupplied as soon as. The plan is to put fighters up at dusk, and make sure we give ’em a bloody nose before they get here.’
Brooke looked out over the city, serene below.
‘It’s a sobering thought,’ he said. ‘Nazi tanks on King’s Parade.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Brooke, braced against the warm wind, strode out from the hanger for the ‘flight line’ – six black Spitfires on the far apron of the grassy runway. He held on to his hat, head down, until he reached the first, and then tried to spot Vale’s number: F 544. It was the last in the row, and he could see the pilot in the cockpit, but Vale didn’t look round because a bowser, pumping fuel aboard, was chugging, and the noise covered Brooke’s approach, as did the gusting breeze which seemed to make the fragile skin of the aircraft flex and shudder. The radio cable, taut between the mast and the tail, was humming, vibrating in the wind.
Vale had the cockpit canopy back, and was sitting still, his eyes shut. Brooke was going to speak when he realised the young pilot was talking to himself, his lips moving, while his hands seemed to be caressing the controls, lightly touching switches and dials, running from side to side, in what looked like an elaborate mime. There was something strangely sensual about the way he was touching the machine.
Brooke stepped onto the box placed aside for the pilot to clamber aboard.