Mariette was astounded that he could only think of his business. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, sir, we ought to be thinking of how we can get some blankets, milk for the babies and some food for everyone. Not thinking about making uniforms.’
Some of the children were already saying they were hungry. But just as she was about to suggest that it might be a good idea to get a few volunteers together to go to the nearest houses and get some food and milk, there was an explosion. It was loud and forceful enough to shower dust and mortar down on everyone. Many people screamed involuntarily, some covered their heads with their hands as if that would protect them, and a few ran towards the door.
‘Have we been hit?’ Mariette asked Greville. But she might as well have saved her breath because he was trembling with fear. ‘Get a grip,’ she hissed at him, shaking his arm. ‘I’m going out to see what damage has been done.’
She opened the cellar door tentatively, half expecting the way out would be blocked. But it wasn’t, so she ran up the concrete stairs to the loading bay. That was still intact, as were the open factory gates, but the houses on the right-hand side of the road outside the gates had received a direct hit. The whole row, about ten small houses, had come down like a pack of cards. The air was thick with swirling brick dust and mortar; as she stood there, too shocked to move, the wall right at the end of the terrace came crashing down too.
Hearing another plane, she turned to look towards the docks, in time to see a German bomber drop its load less than half a mile away. At the sound of the deafening explosion that followed she ducked back into the factory, and ran down the stairs to the cellar.
Iris came over to her. ‘What’s been hit?’ she asked.
Mariette hesitated. One of the destroyed houses was Iris’s home. She had four children, all of whom were in the cellar with her, and her husband was in the army.
‘Come on, put a girl out of ’er misery,’ Iris laughed.
Mariette liked Iris. She was always laughing. She claimed to have nothing to be miserable about. She was thirty-one and had given birth to her first child at seventeen; the other three had come one after the other in close succession. Because of her bleached-blonde hair, and a voluptuous figure which she poured into tight low-cut dresses, some of the more shrewish machinists called her a tart, but she didn’t care. One of her favourite put-downs for those who gossiped about her was, ‘Men like an angel in the kitchen and a tart in the bedroom. I’m no great shakes in the kitchen, but I can be a tart in any room they like.’
‘I’m sorry, Iris,’ Mariette said. ‘But your house, and the whole terrace, has been hit.’
Iris blanched and put her hands over her mouth in horror. But to Mariette’s astonishment, she forced a laugh. ‘Bloody good job I was behind with the rent then,’ she said. ‘I’d ’ave been ’opping mad if I’d just paid it.’
Most of the other residents of the terrace were in the cellar, but none took the news as bravely as Iris. One, a very fat middle-aged woman, began a terrible keening noise, rocking backwards and forwards in her chair, and couldn’t be comforted.
The all-clear sounded then, and almost everyone got up to leave. Mariette went out into the yard with them. When they saw the devastation before them and the black, greasy smoke almost blotting out the sun, they looked shaken, helpless and undecided about what to do.
‘If your home has been hit, or if the siren goes off again, you can come back,’ Mariette told them. ‘It might be a good idea to bring some food with you.’
She watched them clambering over the rubble in the road; even the young women looked suddenly old and careworn. The ones whose homes had been hit began picking through the rubble for things to salvage. Only the children seemed undeterred by the carnage. She saw one little girl picking up a rag doll from the wreckage of her home and shouting to her mother gleefully that it only needed a wash.
‘What will we do?’ Iris said at her elbow.
Mariette knew she meant about getting another home. ‘I think the Civil Defence people help with that,’ she said. ‘I told my uncle to ring them and tell them about all the people here, so they are bound to send someone round very soon. But tonight you and the children had better stay in the cellar. Shall we go and see if we can find some clothing and bedding?’
There was far too much to do for Mariette to even think about going home. Some of the women were too stunned by the destruction of their homes to think for themselves. And although Mariette assumed there would be no further bombing today, that couldn’t be relied upon.
She had made a list earlier of everyone who had been in the cellar, including their addresses. She’d also got each of them to tell her the names of other people who lived at the same address but weren’t with them, just in case their house should be bombed. As far as she could tell, all the people from the flattened terrace next to the factory had either come to the cellar, or weren’t at home, so it didn’t appear that there was anyone who might be trapped under the rubble. But someone had to inform the Civil Defence of this, so when she saw Greville locking up the upper floor in preparation for going home she was shocked.
‘But what about all these homeless people?’ Mariette said.
‘I’m leaving the cellar open. That’s enough, isn’t it?’ he said, looking surprised that she expected more of him.
‘Don’t you think you should stay till someone from the Civil Defence comes?’
‘To do what?’ he said impatiently. ‘None of the people here earlier were hurt. They’re not sick, they can speak for themselves, can’t they? You should go home too.’
‘I will, once I’m sure someone in authority knows about the cellar,’ she said.
‘Well, leave as soon as someone comes,’ he said. His tone was terse, as if he was irritated by her. ‘If I see a policeman as I walk up to the main road, I’ll direct him here.’
Mariette began to help the bombed-out women salvage blankets, quilts and clothing from the ruins of their houses. Whilst there, some of the people who had left earlier came back. Most of them were in tears, or looking dazed.
‘It’s like the end of the world,’ one woman sobbed out to Mariette. ‘Whole streets gone, just piles of bricks and broken furniture. My grandfather clock was smashed to pieces, lying in the road. There’re people who’ve been killed, we saw the rescue teams laying the bodies on the road.’
Mariette put her arms around the woman to comfort her. ‘Did they tell you where to go?’
‘We told them we’d been in the factory while the bombing was going on, so they said to come back here.’
A red-headed boy of about twelve gave Mariette more information. ‘I talked to one of the rescue men, he told me the fires down on the docks are real bad and just about every fire engine in London is there. There’s people trapped under rubble too, just a couple of streets away from here. They’re trying to get buses in to take people away to somewhere safer, but it will take a while as most roads are blocked with rubble. The rescue man told us to come back here for the night. He said he would send someone with blankets and sandwiches for us.’
A man with a handcart arrived around half past five with a pile of blankets, a box of cheese sandwiches and a few bottles of milk. The people living in the houses on the left-hand side of the street, which hadn’t been knocked down, brought over whatever they could spare. One of them made up bottles for the babies and shared out some old nappies.
Mariette was about to make her way home, when the wail of the siren began again. Everything had looked organized and even a little homely in the cellar up until that moment. People had claimed their space with their family and friends, put their blankets down, many had lit a candle in a jam jar, and the atmosphere was calm and quite jovial, especially considering what they had all experienced such a short while ago.
But it all changed when other people hammered on the door to be let in. It wasn’t only those from the undamaged side of the road, who had been here earlier, but also new people from neighbouring stre
ets. Suddenly there was mayhem as they walked across carefully laid-out blankets, and the owners protested. Babies cried, small children rushed about, and arguments broke out.
Mariette was forced to take charge. She blew the whistle she’d found earlier in the day to make everyone pay attention.
‘They may start bombing us again at any minute. So before they do, please listen to me. This cellar is big enough for all of you, but please remember your manners and don’t walk across blankets or frighten small children by arguing. We’re all in this together. It’s not very comfortable, there is only one lavatory up in the loading bay, so I’m relying on everyone to be kind to one another and share what little we have. Can you do that?’
‘Sure, love, you can share my blanket any time,’ a wild-haired man of about thirty called out.
She didn’t get the chance to respond as they heard the drone of approaching aircraft, growing louder and louder until it became a roar. Then there was the bark of anti-aircraft guns, followed by the scream of falling bombs and the earth-shaking thump as they exploded.
It seemed to be far worse than the bombing of the morning. People held hands or clutched children to their chests; in the dim light their faces showed their terror. No one knew how far down a bomb could penetrate, and there was real fear of being buried alive.
Mariette made her way round to everyone, making sure she had all their full names, addresses and dates of birth on her list. It crossed her mind that, if the factory did receive a direct hit and they were buried in here, the list would never be found. But busying herself, getting to know these people, and perhaps giving them some comfort by taking charge, helped take her mind off the danger.
The bombing went on all night. There were lulls, now and then, during which people rushed to use the lavatory and empty the bucket the small children had been using. Some of the children fell asleep, but for the adults there was no respite.
Iris took it upon herself to be the tea maker. Alfie, the red-headed boy who had spoken to rescue workers earlier, played snap with some of the children. One elderly woman propped herself up against bales of cloth and knitted. Mariette asked her how she could do it when the light was so bad.
‘I’ve been knitting all me life,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to look any more. Me old man used to say he’d put needles and a ball of wool in me coffin with me. But he died two years ago, so I knits fer all me neighbours’ kids now.’
At 6 o’clock in the morning, the all-clear finally sounded. But no one rushed to leave the cellar.
Iris offered to make another round of teas before they braved the outside world. ‘If you come back tonight,’ she yelled out, ‘all bring a cup. And if anyone’s got a big tray or teapot, bring that too.’
Mariette went out into the yard. She wanted fresh air, but there wasn’t any with the dust swirling about and the fumes from all the fires. Her dress was filthy, she suspected she might have got a few nits in her hair from the children, and she was sure she must stink. But, above and beyond that, she’d had enough of being kindly, brave and helpful. It wasn’t in her nature to be like that for long.
She wanted to get home, to wallow in a hot bath and then sleep for eight hours. But she didn’t know how she could leave here without it looking like she was running out on everyone.
As she stood there in the swirling dust, to her surprise Johnny came walking through the gate.
He looked bone-weary and was still in his uniform, which even at a distance stank of wet wool and fire. ‘So my spies got it right,’ he said, his soot-blackened face breaking into a wide smile. ‘I was told that people were sheltering in my uncle’s factory. They said a girl was in charge who spoke funny! Thought it might be you.’
Mariette laughed. ‘I speak funny, do I? Am I glad to see you! It must have been terrible out there.’
‘The worst,’ he said. ‘I’ve been on duty for thirty-six hours, and it never let up once. But I had to check you were all in one piece.’
‘As you can see, I am. But let me get you a cup of tea and something to sit on.’
‘If I sat down now, I’d never get up,’ he said. ‘Is my uncle about?’
She had to admit he’d gone home before the air raid.
Johnny whistled through his teeth. ‘What a bleedin’ hero he is,’ he said.
Iris came out then with a mug of tea for him. ‘I saw you, Johnny, from the kitchen. I ’spect you’ve seen my ’ouse is gone?’
‘Yeah, my sympathy,’ he said. ‘But after the sights I’ve seen just walking up here, you are one of the luckier ones.’
‘Me and the kids would be dead, if it wasn’t for Miss Carrera,’ Iris said. ‘If it ’ad been up to your uncle, the factory would’ve stayed locked up. None of us along the street knew where we was supposed to go to when the siren went off. That bully boy of an air-raid warden is always quick enough to report anyone showing a chink of light at the window, but ’e never came near yesterday when we needed ’im.’
‘You must report him then,’ Johnny said. ‘And you can go to the nearest air-raid shelter anyway. But maybe my uncle will let the cellar be used all the time now. Actually, he’ll probably have no choice, it’s a lot safer down there than in some of the shelters the government threw up. One down the road got a direct hit, and everyone in there was killed. But I don’t want to talk about sad stuff, I came to see Mari.’
Iris put her hand on her hip and made a comic face. ‘She’s Mari to you then? Something going on here I ought to know about?’
Mariette giggled. ‘No, we’re just friends.’
‘Well, the poor bloke looks done in, so I don’t think you’ll need a chaperone,’ Iris retorted, then turned on her heel and walked back towards the kitchen.
‘How she can be so cheerful when she’s homeless with four children, I don’t know,’ Mariette said. ‘I’d be in pieces.’
‘There’s a lot like her around here,’ Johnny said. ‘Born with steel in their spine. There’s women down the road digging in the rubble with their bare hands to find their loved ones. But give us a kiss, if you can bear to touch someone so dirty?’
‘Of course I can bear it,’ she laughed, and moved closer to put her arms around him. He did smell terrible, his uniform was soaked and his lips were blistered from working so close to the flames. But all she could think of was how glad she was to see him, and what a brave man he was.
‘That’s breathed new life into me,’ he said when she broke away. ‘Sorry I messed up your dress.’
She looked down at herself and saw that along with the dirt she’d noticed earlier, it was now black with soot from hugging him. ‘It will wash, and you must go and get some sleep. But thank you for coming, I was worried about you.’
‘This wasn’t how I intended it to be,’ he said sheepishly, hanging his head. ‘I wanted to take you out and show you a good time, both of us dressed up to the nines. I wanted a sweet romance with you.’
Mariette’s eyes prickled with emotional tears. She hadn’t given much thought to what she wanted with him, but a sweet romance sounded perfect.
‘Our time will come, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I’d rather have a dirty but brave man than a slick weasel just out for himself.’
15
Early March 1941
Mariette paused in the letter she was writing home, torn between telling them the exact truth and a watered-down version to save them any anxiety.
She couldn’t say she went dancing with Johnny every time he got a night off, not without explaining who he was, and admitting that Noah and Lisette hadn’t met him. If she made light of the bombing, they’d think she was hiding the true facts. But, by the same token, if she said how it really was, they would worry about her safety.
They already knew that since the beginning of the Blitz she had dropped to working two days a week for Mr Greville, and spent the rest of the week in the East End doling out clothes to bombed-out families and helping them fill in forms to be rehoused. She suspected it must have been quite a sho
ck to her parents as the Mariette who had left New Zealand wouldn’t have volunteered for anything unless there was something in it for her. But they didn’t express surprise, only pride in her putting others before herself. Mariette was the one to be surprised that her parents’ approval meant so much to her.
In previous letters she had told them little stories about some of the people she’d got to know, but writing about people being bombed out, with sons or husbands missing or prisoners of war, was getting a bit too depressing.
She certainly wouldn’t tell them she wasn’t frightened by air raids any more, because that implied she was still reckless, so it was easier to write bland, everyday things, about shortages of food, the irritation of the blackout, and funny stories about some of the girls she’d met through Rose who had become land girls. Most of them were frightened by all the farm animals, even the chickens. To find they were expected to muck out stables and pigsties, learn to plough, and live in a place where having a bath meant heating up kettles, was a rich seam of comedy – although she wasn’t sure it would sound as funny in Russell. And perhaps Mog and her mother had never met posh, privileged girls to understand how drippy they could be.
Rose hadn’t become a land girl, but she had taken her accounting skills to the Ministry of Defence to do her bit for the war effort. The department had moved out to somewhere in Hertfordshire and she lived there too. It was some kind of hush-hush work she was doing, but Mariette liked to tease her by claiming she believed her friend requisitioned lavatory paper and bars of soap for the troops. Rose laughed at this, which made Mariette suspect she was actually using her fine brain for something really worthwhile. On the few occasions she’d seen Rose lately, she seemed very happy – despite hardly ever seeing Peter – and it made Mariette wonder if there was another man in her life.
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