by Anne Bennett
‘But why didn’t she write to Tom?’ Gloria demanded. ‘You said yourself that he has been crazy with worry about her.’
‘I don’t know,’ Joe said. ‘That letter from the neighbour can hardly be any sort of comfort to him. All he knows is that the grandfather is dead and that Kevin is probably in an orphanage, but he doesn’t know where.’
‘Oh God! That really is so sad,’ Gloria said. ‘I wish we could do something for Kevin at least.’
‘So do I,’ Joe said. ‘I would hate a similar thing to happen to our own son, but there is nothing we can do.’
Gloria knew that Joe was right. After that Kevin was often in her thoughts, though she felt anger against Molly for causing her uncle such anxiety.
Warmth began to steal into the dusty London streets as the spring took hold and as day followed day, with no sign of a raid, many hoped and eventually began to believe that their ordeal was over. By the first sunny Saturday that Gloria could remember there had been no raid for almost three weeks. She knew Joe would be working, but she announced at breakfast that she didn’t intend to waste the day and that she fancied going to the Recreation Ground at the top of Grovelands Road. This pleased Ben no end because he was never allowed to go on his own.
They had a wonderful day. It was, Gloria thought, just what they needed. The park was packed with people doing the same, and she spoke to many other mothers as they watched their children playing together.
It was such a normal thing to do, when life for everyone hadn’t been normal for a long time. Surely now the air raids were over, though, and the tautness and tension in her began to ease, melted away in the heat of the sun that seemed to hint of better days to come.
Gloria had packed a picnic, and when the sandwiches had been eaten Ben got involved in game of football with some other boys. Gloria watched Ben pounding over the grass and thought that that was what he should be doing: playing in the park with others his age, not terrified out of his life, cowering in a shelter.
Going home later, she thought Ben looked happier and grubbier than he had for a long time. And then he glanced up at his mother and said, ‘That was terrific today. Are the bombs really and truly gone now, Mom?’
‘I can’t promise,’ Gloria said. ‘Not totally, but it would be nice if they were, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not half,’ Ben agreed with a sigh. ‘I suppose we have to wait and see. That’s what you always say.’
‘Well, that’s because I don’t know,’ Gloria said. ‘No one does, and I suppose that’s all part of the plan to keep us on our toes. Come on, Dad might be in when we get back and you can tell him all about our magical day.’
Joe was home and already changed to go on firefighting duty, though he wasn’t due at his post for a couple of hours. Ben was chattering fifteen to the dozen, telling him about the park and the football match, and Gloria was putting a meal together.
‘You just have time for a quick bath,’ she said to Ben. ‘And you can take that look off your face, mister,’ she added at the disgruntled expression Ben turned to her. ‘You’re like a child a tinker would be ashamed to own, and you can tell your dad all the rest while we eat.’
Later, leaving him to dry himself and get his pyjamas on, Gloria returned to the kitchen to put the final preparations to the meal as Joe, sitting at the table, scanned the newspaper.
‘That seems to have been a resounding success today,’ he remarked.
‘Yes,’ Gloria said. ‘And yet it was only a day in the park. I mean I could have done it before but you have a sort of shelter mentality – you know, rushing back home each night to prepare the shelter bag for another night of terror. Course, what made today more special was the football match. Ben would just love a ball of his own.’
‘I know that,’ Joe said. ‘But I guessed we wouldn’t track one down for his birthday. I never had a ball either – none of us did – but we would beg a pig’s bladder from someone we heard was slaughtering a pig and use that in the rare free moments we had.’
Gloria wrinkled her nose. ‘Wouldn’t fancy that, and I don’t think asking for a pig’s bladder is quite the thing to do in London.’
‘No,’ Joe agreed. ‘And the bloody thing is likely rationed anyway.’
‘Sure to be,’ Gloria agreed sagely, and they burst out laughing. In the middle of this, the wail of the sirens rent the air. For a split second they both froze and it was the blast of a bomb falling close to them with a resounding crash that galvanised them all into action.
‘Almighty Christ!’ Joe exclaimed as the drone of the planes was heard above their heads. ‘The watchers must have been half asleep. They’re on top of us.’
Gloria didn’t bother to answer. She was too busy trying to turn off the meal she had been cooking and then filling the shelter bag, calling to Ben as she did so, ‘Hurry up, Ben. Pull a jumper over your pyjamas and get your siren suit on.’
There was no time to make sandwiches so she threw the makings into the bag along with a packet of biscuits. There was no time to boil the kettle to fill the Thermos and so she filled two bottles with water.
‘I don’t need my siren suit,’ Ben said. ‘It’s too hot and anyway, the legs are too short.’
‘For God’s sake, Ben,’ Gloria cried, tucking a blanket into the top of the bag, ‘we could be in the shelter hours – you know that – and it could be cold when we come out. And who cares about the legs, being a bit short? No one is going to be looking at you.’ She tried to keep the panic out of her voice as she said, ‘Get it on, and fetch your gas mask and mine, and be quick, for Christ’s sake. Can’t you hear the planes all around us?’
Ben could hear them all right and they almost paralysed him with fear. He struggled into his suit with hands that shook so much, Joe had to help him. But at last they were out in the street where the search lights showed up the German planes above them like menacing black beetles. Joe delivered his wife and son to the shelter door, before taking off to join his unit, knowing somehow that this raid, after such a lull, was going to be a big one.
And it was. Soon, all around Gloria, people were crying, screaming, praying and the keening of the babies was a constant thin sound, cutting through everything.
Gloria had the urge to sit on the floor, wrap her arms around herself and howl like a wounded animal might. But she couldn’t do that. However scared she was, Ben was worse. His teeth chattered together and his eyes stood out in his white, exhausted face as if they were on stalks.
Gently Gloria drew him onto her lap, knowing that in ordinary circumstances Ben, now that he was a big boy of seven years old, would never submit to being nursed. This time he snuggled right into her and she held him tight and wondered whether she was giving comfort or taking it.
They had sat out many raids in that same shelter, but few had been as fast and as furious as this. The German planes, with their distinctive intermittent sound, roared and thundered overhead and the sickening thuds, booms and crumps of explosions were constant.
Some fell so close that the shelter walls shook, dust trickled out from between the bricks and swirled in the air. Any moment, Gloria thought, the ceiling would descend on them all and this place where she had sought shelter might end up as a tomb for her and her son, and she held Ben even tighter.
She heard muffled screams and cries from outside and then the bells of the emergency services ringing frantically, and she sent a prayer up to keep Joe safe, though she doubted that anyone could possibly be safe.
When the all clear went, Gloria felt almost light-headed with relief and almost surprise. She roused her son, who had eventually fallen into an uneasy slumber against her, and he slid from her knee and stood in front of her, swaying and disorientated.
Outside the sky was blood red. ‘That’s London burning,’ said a man passing her at that moment. Gloria nodded dumbly; she knew it too.
She took Ben’s hand and he seemed grateful, for the horror of that night was still with him and evidence of the destruction was
all around them, with fires blazing everywhere. Pockets of flames crackled and sparked as they greedily consumed the contents of people’s houses now reduced to piles of smouldering rubble.
When they turned from High Road it was to find many of the streets around them had been reduced to rubble too, but Newton Road and the two blocks of flats were unscathed. Gloria was so relieved to be inside her own front door, and she thought of her neighbours that had lost everything that night. She felt so saddened and depressed that, but for her son, she would have put her head in her hands and wept.
The following day the full magnitude of that night’s raid unfolded. On the wireless Gloria heard that five hundred and fifty bombers had attacked all parts of London the previous night, killing one thousand five hundred people and injuring one thousand eight hundred. They had also hit the Chamber of the House of Lords, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, St James’s Palace and Lambeth Palace, fourteen hospitals, the British Museum, the Old Bailey and almost all major mainline stations.
Knowing where the targeted areas were, Joe went off the following afternoon to see that the McCulloughs were all right, as he had promised Red he would keep his eye on them. Gloria opened the door to him a little later and knew by his face that the news was bad.
‘They’re gone, Gloria,’ he said, and his eyes were like great pools of sorrow. ‘The whole area is flattened. They didn’t stand a chance.’
Gloria could hardly bear to hear the words. She thought of the motherly Dolly and her gruff though kindly husband, Jim, whom she would never see again. Her eyes filled with tears and she asked brokenly, ‘Have any of them survived?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Not one. Living on top of one another as they did, they have all gone: Red’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, even his cousin Pete, who was home on leave, all blown to bits.’
Gloria was distraught. ‘God, Joe, this is terrible,’ she said. ‘I can hardly bear the thought that I will never see any of those lovely people again. And what of Red? What has he got to come home to?’
‘Bugger all! That’s what,’ Joe burst out angrily. ‘He’s away fighting for his country and his good, kind and totally innocent family is wiped from the face of the earth. And I will have to write and tell him. How the hell do you break news like that to anyone, least of all a man you are so fond of?’
‘I don’t know, Joe,’ Gloria said, crying in earnest. ‘I really don’t know …’
Gloria and Joe’s distress was so profound that Ben couldn’t be protected from it, and when he heard of the death of Dolly and her husband he was upset too. They had shown him nothing but kindness and had been like grandparents to him. Despite the death and destruction all around him, this was the first time that he had encountered death on a personal level, for he couldn’t remember the death of his grandmother, and he was as saddened and tearful as his parents.
But still the horrors hadn’t finished. Elsie was not waiting for Gloria at either the school or the tram stop the following morning. Gloria carried on into work, not knowing what else to do, and found that Elsie, Maureen and their children were among the dead. She thought of the tragedy of Maureen bringing her small son back, only to have him blown to smithereens along with his teenage sister.
Elsie had been her special friend, and they would meet up and their children would all play together. She remembered Elsie’s pretty little daughter, Sally, whom Ben had been sweet on, and her son, David, three years older, whom Ben was always trying to emulate. Gloria felt desolate that she would never see any of them again.
It was too much. There was only so much tragedy and sadness that the human brain could take at one time. She was no good at work, for the tears constantly welling in her eyes were blinding her. Ben too would be coping with this loss. He would have heard about Elsie’s children at school, and really she needed to be with him so they could mourn together.
The supervisor was upset herself and knew that Gloria was in no state to be at work.
‘Take a couple of days off,’ she advised. ‘The news has knocked me sideways, to tell you the truth, and I think you need time to come to terms with it.’
Gloria thanked the supervisor and left to collect her son from school. His teachers too were sympathetic and agreed with her that Ben would be better at home. Ben’s face was chalk white and lined with tear trails and his eyes reflected his sadness.
Later Gloria learned that Elsie’s children hadn’t been the only friends he had lost that day: there were many empty desks in the school. Her heart went out to him, and to Joe as well, who settled down straight after the evening meal to write the hardest letter he would ever write to his mate Red McCullough.
Less than a month after those very sad successions of funerals, Joe received a letter from a friend of Red’s in the forces, saying that he had been killed in action. Though Joe knew he would miss him, he was glad in a way, because the McCulloughs had been a close-knit family and he knew Red would have been lost without them. But he grieved for him none the less. Red had been a good mate to him and a great friend to them all.
There was a lull in the air raids through the summer, and when they did resume in the autumn of that year they were sporadic and far more localised.
Then on 7 December, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and America was pulled into the war.
Gloria was unaccountably upset about it. ‘It might shorten the war, though, Gloria,’ Joe said.
‘No one knows whether it will or won’t in the end,’ Gloria said. ‘All I see it as now is an escalation of hostilities.’
No one could argue with that, and Christmas was again a very muted affair. Gloria looked forward to the New Year of 1942 with little enthusiasm.
The sirens blared out one mid-February day when Joe had only just left the house to go on duty. Ben had been about to get undressed, but Gloria told him not to bother.
‘It’s too cold,’ she said. ‘Just pull your siren suit over your clothes. I got it roomy.’
‘You got it so I could grow into it,’ Ben said. ‘You said so at the time, and the legs are so long that if I don’t turn them back on themselves they drag on the floor.’
‘Some people are never satisfied,’ Gloria replied. ‘You said the legs on your old one were too short.’
‘They were,’ Ben maintained. ‘And they cut me up the middle too.’
‘Ben,’ Gloria said in measured tones, ‘will you stop talking, get into your siren suit and fetch your gas mask? In case it has escaped your notice, we are not going to a Sunday school outing.’
Ben did as he was told and a few minutes later said, ‘I’m ready. Look, I’m waiting for you now.’
‘Watch it,’ Gloria said, lifting her coat off the hook. ‘Come on.’
The shelters weren’t as full as they had been the previous year, as many chose to stay at home and only sought shelter if the raids came closer, but Gloria didn’t think her nerves would have stood that.
‘Someone’s getting a good old pasting tonight,’ remarked the shelter warden when the raid had been going on an hour or two.
And they were, and not that far away either. The droning of the planes, the whine of the bombs and the resultant explosions were perfectly audible. The planes came no nearer, however, and eventually, about two hours later, the all clear blared out reassuringly, and Gloria and Ben stumbled out into the night. They could see the raging fires spitting orange and crimson sparks into the sky, and scurried past, breathing in the familiar tang of acrid smoke mixed with the stink of cordite.
Gloria gave a sudden yawn. ‘Gosh, I’m tired,’ she said to Ben. ‘Bombing raids permitting, I will probably go to bed not long after you tonight.’
She was about to start getting undressed for bed when the knock came to the door. Alarmed at someone coming at that time of night, she called out, ‘Who is it?’
‘The police.’
‘Oh God!’ Gloria felt as if an icy hand had suddenly taken hold of her heart and she fumbled in her haste to open the do
or. A grim-faced policeman stood there, and with him the shelter warden she had been with just a few minutes before. ‘It’s Joe, isn’t it?’ Gloria cried. ‘It has to be Joe.’
‘Can I come in, Mrs Sullivan?’ the policeman said. Gloria let them though the door, her eyes never leaving the policeman’s face.
‘Would you like to sit down?’
‘No, I don’t want to do anything but hear what’s happened to my husband,’ Gloria said. ‘Tell me, please.’
‘Your husband has been injured, Mrs Sullivan.’
‘Injured, not killed? Oh, praise be to God,’ Gloria cried and then she caught sight of the policeman’s sombre face and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. ‘Is he likely to die from his injuries?’
The policeman shook his head. ‘These are questions I can’t answer. You must ask the doctors at the hospital.’
‘Which hospital?’
‘Well, they were trying Highgate Hill Infirmary as it was one of the closest,’ the policeman said. ‘It does depend on beds, though. We have a car at your disposal in case you have to travel some distance.’
‘But I can’t come with you,’ Gloria cried. ‘Not now. I have a son.’
‘That’s why I am here,’ the shelter warden said. ‘I will look after your son until your return. Go off with the policeman and find out how your husband is.’
Gloria nodded, took her coat from the hook and followed the policeman. She sat on her hands in the car to prevent them shaking, and held herself stiffly erect because she was afraid of losing control. She knew if she lost Joe, she wouldn’t want to go on. How would she cope without her beloved Joe, and how would Ben cope?
But he wasn’t dead, she reminded herself, and when she saw him she would will him to stay alive. But she didn’t see Joe when she arrived, because he had already been taken for emergency surgery. One of the doctors on duty said that he was extensively burned but also had internal injuries. ‘Brave man, by all accounts,’ he went on. ‘The fire officer who came in with him said he held up the entire weight of a house so that a family trapped beneath it could escape. And then with the last one through, it sort of caved in and crushed him.’