The Blitz

by Vince Cross

  “I hope it was one of theirs,” said Tom, almost enjoying the moment.

  “The pilot might be dead,” I replied, not sure what to think.

  “Good!” said Tom. “The only good German is a dead. . .”

  “Shut up,” I said. “You mustn’t say that.”

  “Why not?” he asked crossly. “It’s true.”

  Tom and I don’t fall out very often, but after that we walked in silence for a bit. As we crossed the road towards Auntie Mavis and Uncle Fred’s house there was shiny metal lying on the concrete.

  “Bullets,” said Tom, eyes wide with excitement. He went to pick one of them up.

  “Don’t you dare,” I shouted. “You might blow your hand off. Stop, Tom. Now!”

  He gave me a dirty look, but he did as he was told.

  So that’s it. Now the war’s real. It’s happening to us, not just to other people.

  Thursday, 15th August

  The first thing you notice about living in Tonbridge is how quiet it is. So when the telephone rang in the middle of last night, I almost jumped out of my skin. There’s no telephone at Summerfield Road. It’s a call box for us if we ever want to talk to Auntie Mavis or Uncle Fred. Telephones in houses are posh, I reckon.

  Uncle Fred works near Sevenoaks at somewhere called Fort Halstead. I know he works for the Government, but that’s all I know, and Mum says it’s probably best not to ask. Uncle Fred’s definitely clever. You only have to play him at chess to know that. Dad says he’s a boffin, whatever that is.

  The telephone hadn’t wakened Tom. He was breathing deeply, still fast asleep. I pulled a jumper over my nightie and gently opened the bedroom door. I could hear Uncle Fred talking into the phone down in the hall. I tiptoed across the landing as he said goodbye to whoever was on the other end of the line. As he put the phone down, he turned and saw me at the top of the stairs and it was his turn to jump. There was a strange look on his face, half amused, half worried.

  “What’s the matter, Uncle Fred?” I whispered, coming down the stairs and sitting on the bottom step.

  He looked at me as if he couldn’t decide what to say. “It’s probably nothing,” he stalled.

  “It can’t be nothing,” I insisted. “Not in the middle of the night!”

  He gave in. “All right. I’m a member of the Home Guard, Edie love,” he whispered back. “And people are always seeing things. Somebody reckons the Germans have landed out Paddock Wood way. It’s a load of baloney, of course. It’s probably just a poacher, but I’ll have to go and make sure. Look, it’s more likely to be Martians than Germans, so go back to bed and don’t worry.”

  I hadn’t seen the rifle hidden behind the hat-stand in the hall until then.

  Back upstairs, I heard his car drive off, and for the next two hours I lay and shivered, half-expecting a brigade of stormtroopers to smash their way in though the front door. But when he came back, he shut the door behind him so gently and carefully I knew we hadn’t been invaded by either Martians or Germans, and I rolled over and went to sleep.

  This morning we caught a bus into Tonbridge, and went shopping for Auntie Mavis. When she makes tea it normally comes out a thick dark brown colour. “Strong enough to stand a spoon up in,” Mum says. She must use about five teaspoonfuls. But now they’re rationing tea just like they do butter and meat. To get your ration you have to hand in coupons from your ration book. So if we come down again, maybe Auntie Mavis’s tea will be drinkable!

  If we come down again! According to Mum what poor Auntie’s got is cancer, and the doctors don’t give her much chance. What does that mean? Months? Weeks?

  Poor Mavis. Poor Mum. Whatever does it feel like to know your sister is dying of cancer? It could be me and Shirl!

  Friday, 16th August

  At breakfast, while Mum was helping Auntie Mavis make the porridge, I asked my uncle, “What’s it like in the Home Guard, Uncle Fred?”

  He twinkled at me. “It’s all right. Makes me feel young again.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Everybody else is older than me, that’s why,” he laughed. “And don’t look so amazed!” He pulled a face. “All right, maybe I’m exaggerating but there are a fair few old codgers in our company. George Chapman must be 65 if he’s a day. But we’ve all got to do our bit, haven’t we?”

  “What do you actually do, then?” piped up Tom.

  “Well, they’re training us to guard anything strategically important – gun batteries, railways, main roads, all that kind of thing. If Hitler was daft enough to invade, we’d do our best to make life difficult for him.”

  “Is it true you’ve only got broomsticks and pitchforks to fight with?” Tom asked. He hadn’t spotted the gun either. I don’t think Tom meant to be rude, but that’s the way it sounded, and I kicked him hard. I needn’t have worried though. Uncle Fred was laughing.

  “Not quite. When we first enrolled about four months ago, it’s true there weren’t many weapons available. But they’re working us hard now. We’ll even have a machine gun soon!”

  “How do you find the time?” I said.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad. There’s plenty of evenings and weekends.” He looked me straight in the eye, and dropped his voice. “Takes my mind off things, to be honest.”

  “Have you ever thrown a grenade?” asked Tom enthusiastically.

  “Only pretend ones,” said Uncle Fred. “Hope I never have to throw one for real. Still, I was a good cricketer at school! I expect it’d be all right.”

  “Do you think it’s true the Germans would use poison gas?” I asked. I have bad dreams about the gas. In them I’m always trying to escape from Summerfield Road. However hard I struggle, my legs won’t carry me out of the house. I can’t see anything and I can’t breathe.

  “Depends how you look at it,” said Uncle Fred, leaning back in his chair. “On the one hand it’s against the rules of war. And on the other hand I wouldn’t put anything past that dreadful little man if he found himself in a tight spot.”

  Then Mum and Auntie Mavis came into the dining room. Uncle Fred stopped talking, like turning off a tap, and turned and smiled at Auntie as if there wasn’t anything to worry about in the whole world.

  Saturday, 17th August

  Until we got home, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Summerfield Road. Lewisham isn’t so smelly after all! (Well it is, but no worse than Tonbridge. Pigs in the one, cows in the other!)

  And it seems ages since we went away, although it’s really only five days. It’s funny the things you notice for the first time. A pile of sandbags on a street corner here, a roll of barbed wire there. You can’t be sure, but you don’t think they were there a few days ago. It’s as if, week by week, water’s building up pressure behind a dam and sooner or later it’s going to burst. Does that make sense?

  Dad seemed to have survived Shirl looking after him. But the big wide grin on his face when we walked through the front door showed how pleased he was to have us back. He almost swung my mum off her feet and gave her a great big kiss.

  “Put me down, Bert,” she said. “Go on with you. Everybody knows it’s only the apple pie you miss.”

  It’s funny to see them like that, and it made me extra sad to think about Auntie Mavis and Uncle Fred.

  Chamberlain was glad to have us back too. I hope they’ve been feeding him properly.

  Tuesday, 20th August

  I was reading Dad’s Kentish Mercury, catching up on last week’s news, and there’s something I don’t understand.

  If Hitler and the Nazis are so bad, like most people say, why are there some people who don’t agree?

  Apparently there was a Communist demonstration against the war down in Catford on Wednesday. I asked Dad about it and he said the police actually stopped some men who wanted to give the Communists a bloody nose.

  “I don
’t see why,” I said. “They’re traitors.”

  Dad looked serious for a minute. I thought I’d made him cross, though I didn’t know the reason.

  “It’s what we’re fighting for, girl,” he said. “There’s no free speech in Germany. If your face doesn’t fit, you’re for the high jump. That’s why our Frank’s spending the best years of his life in a dirty God-forsaken hut down at Westerham. And our Maureen, wherever she is up north. Don’t ever forget, it doesn’t matter what someone’s opinions are, they’ve a right to speak their mind.”

  I still don’t get it.

  Wednesday, 21st August

  And here’s something else from the paper. Every week there’s a sort of court called a tribunal where conscientious objectors have to go to explain why they don’t want to fight. This time it was someone who said he was a Christian pacifist, and he was about to go to Bible College.

  From what I can see they let him get away with it. They’ve put him on “non-combatant duties only”, and I reckon he was just spinning a yarn. Mum agrees and says in the Great War the girls used to hand out white feathers to men who wouldn’t fight to show them they thought they were cowards. But Mum said she thought “non-combatant” only meant he wouldn’t have to fire a gun. He might still end up in the front line carrying stretchers.

  Then later I started thinking about what it would feel like to be “called up”, and how frightened I’d be if it was me.

  But they’ve still got to do their duty, haven’t they? Frank and Maureen are! I just wish they didn’t have to.

  Meanwhile Shirl is having a high old time. She was out with Alec again last night. Up at the Palais, dancing till gone 10.30. I saw the looks Mum and Dad exchanged when she went out done up to the nines – lipstick, stockings and all.

  “Is that our daughter, Beat?” said my father. “Pretty as a picture, isn’t she?”

  “If you say so,” Mum answered, lips pursed and hand on hip. “I hope she knows what she’s doing!”

  Interesting!

  Tuesday, 27th August

  There I was queuing for bananas at the greengrocer’s, when suddenly there was a tremendous kerfuffle on the other side of the road, and everyone in the queue turned to look. Two men were holding another one in an armlock. They seemed to be trying to frog-march him down towards the clock tower, till a copper came up and stopped them. Then there was a lot of shouting and fingerpointing, and the one man kept trying to throw punches at the other two. The policeman’s helmet went on the skew over his eyes, and people started sniggering.

  Rosa Jacobsen, who used to go to my school, was trailing down the pavement watching what was going on.

  “Watch’er Rosa,” I said. “What’s that all about?”

  “They think he’s a fifth columnist or something,” Rosa answered.

  That was a new one on me. “And what’s that when it’s at home?”

  “Like a German spy who’s been living here and doing sabotage. Blowing things up and that!”

  “So how come they’re so sure?” I asked Rosa.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno,” she said, disappointed now no one was hitting anyone else. “Spoke with an accent, I expect.”

  That rang bells. The third thing I’d read in the Kentish Mercury was about a priest called Schwabacher (or something like that). Till last week he’d been working up at a church in Blackheath for years, but now he’s been sent off to an internment camp, like a prison, just because his dad was German.

  Surely a priest wouldn’t be a spy, would he? The world’s getting more confusing every day.

  I expect you’re wondering about the bananas. It’s funny, but no one in our house would touch a banana before the war. Now a rumour goes around that Harrold’s had a few boxes of them come in, and we all queue like mad to get our share. Strike while the iron’s hot, Mum says, but war or no war, they still taste yucky to me!

  I asked Shirl about her night out with Alec, but she won’t tell.

  Friday, 30th August

  Last night was very still and clear. As Dad went out for the evening shift, he looked up and said grimly, “If they’re ever going to come, it’ll be on a night like this.”

  And sure enough, the first air-raid warning came at a few minutes past nine. Mum was out at the ARP post, and Shirl, Tom and I were huddled together in the shelter with Chamberlain. Because it was clear, it was chilly too, and we needed the blankets and coats we’d taken down the garden with us.

  Shirl’s teeth were chattering already. “Cor blimey!” she said. “What’s it going to be like in the middle of winter? I’ve got no feeling in my toes at all.”

  I could see Tom about to open his mouth to say something clever when we heard the first explosion, and then two more following close on the first one. The sound was heavy and sharp at the same time. Chamberlain’s ears were pricked. He gave a long growl, and started towards the door of the Anderson. I held him back.

  “Gawd, what was that?” gasped Shirl.

  Tom’s face was white in the candlelight, his eyes big and scared.

  “It’s started,” I found myself saying.

  We’d heard the bombs drop before we picked up the rumbling sound of the aircraft, but they weren’t overhead and I selfishly said thank you to God because they weren’t coming any nearer. Then we heard our gun batteries open up, rattling bullets towards the bombers.

  “How close are they?” asked Tom shakily.

  “Miles away,” said Shirl, recovering herself and trying to sound confident. But as soon as she spoke, as if to put her in her place, there were two more explosions, this time much nearer. Chamberlain barked loudly. Now we could hear the bells of the fire engines too, and more frantic gunfire.

  Then the drone of the aircraft faded, and we held our breath wondering if the planes were going to come back and what would happen if they did. But though the gun batteries kept chattering away, in a quarter of an hour or so the single long wail of the all-clear sounded, and we went inside to make ourselves a cup of tea and get warm.

  “I hope Mum and Dad are all right,” I croaked.

  Shirl drummed her fingers on the kitchen table and looked at me. “Yeah. I hope so too,” she said.

  Saturday, 31st August

  Dad told us at tea-time that the bombs had landed by a housing estate over near Downham. That really is miles away! The Lewisham Station had been called down there, but there was nothing to do. No one hurt, he said, and just a few big holes in the playing fields. Hitler’ll have to do better than that, he laughed. But I could see he was putting a brave face on it for Mum, and she was wondering if she’d done the right thing taking on a job, and leaving us to cope.

  “It’s all right, Mum,” I said, and I put my hand on hers across the table.

  Wednesday, 4th September

  One of the good things about my paper rounds is that if I get a quiet moment in the shop I can sneak a quick look at all the papers and magazines we don’t get at home. I have to be careful not to put any creases or tears in them, mind, or I’d catch an earful from Mr Lineham.

  Anyway, I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently it’s awful in the public shelters because of all the snoring. Stands to reason, I suppose.

  In our family, Mum whistles a bit through her false teeth and Shirl makes a sort of piggy snorting sound. It’s her adenoids, Mum says. But Dad takes the biscuit. He sounds like the band of the Royal Marines all on his own. So there’s not much chance of sleep in our dugout, if we’re all at home.

  Can you imagine what it’d be like in an underground station full of people you didn’t know, and trying to get some sleep? And if you wanted to go to the toilet, having to nip behind some piece of canvas on the platform and go in a bucket? Well, there’s hundreds doing it every night. As Mum says, there’s always someone worse off than yourself.

  Sunday, 8th September

&nbs
p; I’m trying to write this in the Anderson. There isn’t much light and I’m all scrunched up in a corner so who knows whether I’ll be able to make sense of it later on. It’s half past six in the evening, but we’ve been here an hour or so already.

  I feel small and scared, and dog-tired. None of us got much sleep last night. In fact, I think yesterday was the worst day of my life.

  Everything was fine until the afternoon. The weather’s been brilliant the whole of last week – not too hot, but clear and fresh. Dad had been given a day’s leave so he went off, whistling a happy tune, to play cricket with his mates at Crofton Park. He doesn’t get much chance these days.

  In the morning, Mum had organized some games for the little kids over at the Hengist Road school, so I went along to give her a hand. Then Tom and me went down the market in the afternoon. Even if you don’t buy anything, it’s fun to listen to the traders. Each one’s got his own patter, just like the comedians you get at the Hippodrome. One of them tells jokes about his mother-in-law all day long. The more you listen, the funnier it gets. Sometimes there’s 50 standing around, laughing their heads off. Mind you, I wouldn’t trust any of the stall-holders further than I could throw ’em.

  It took everyone completely by surprise when the siren went. It must have been just after half past four.

  There’ve been so many false alarms, people were getting fed up with it, so all you could hear was a sort of annoyed muttering in the crowd and among the traders. Of course, there’s always some people who panic and rush for cover straight away, but this time because it was so close to the end of the afternoon and the weather was so nice, most people were reluctant to pack up and go home.