The Blitz

by Vince Cross

  Was it a bomb? I don’t know, but I hope it taught my idiot little brother a lesson!

  Yes, I know! Rice pudding! I’ll make it, but I won’t eat it.

  Friday, 4th October

  I don’t know what’s got into Tom. He was brought home by a policeman yesterday, of all things, and got a good hiding from Mum into the bargain. He and Jim and some other kids had been messing about on the running boards of what they thought was a disused van. Afterwards Tom said it was so covered with dust and dirt you couldn’t see a thing through the windscreen. As if that made everything all right!

  Well, the owner caught them, didn’t he, and Tom was the one who couldn’t run fast enough.

  After she’d walloped him, Mum sent him upstairs and told him he couldn’t go out for a week. She said she’d just about had enough of him running wild on the streets and she was getting to the end of her tether. She didn’t want the neighbours thinking the Bensons were criminals. How dare he ruin the good name of the family!

  I tried talking to him later up in his bedroom but he went all sulky on me, and in the end I gave up.

  Last night Mum was still so upset she told the wardens she couldn’t go in to work. She stayed in the Anderson with us, cuddling Tom through the raid and letting him know she loves him even though he is a complete donkey. We’ve made sleeping bags now, and with four of us in there it gets quite cosy. The one thing I like about it is the smell. It’s a mixture of the paraffin lamp, and the grassy, damp earth.

  Sometimes, in the odd moment when it’s quiet – no guns, no bombs, no fire-bells, no planes – I can almost think we’re having fun camping in the garden like we did before the war when I was a little girl. But the feeling never lasts long.

  Saturday, 5th October

  An awful thing happened near Lewisham station yesterday afternoon. A train was just rattling in from New Cross, and a German aircraft coming back from a raid over the river deliberately opened up its machine guns.

  The pilot must have known exactly what he was doing. It’s a miracle nobody in the train was killed. I hope his plane crashed on the way back to Germany. Or that Frank’s boys shot him down. He doesn’t deserve to live, if you ask me.

  Shirl looked dreadful this morning. Huge circles under her eyes, and I couldn’t get a peep out of her, no matter how much I tried to make her laugh. When she’d gone out I asked Mum if she knew what was wrong.

  “It’s that Alec fellow,” she sighed. “Don’t let on to Shirl I told you, but it turns out he’s married. Never told Shirl of course, did he? Just been stringing her along these past couple of months. One of the other girls shopped him! I’ve a good mind to go into Chiesman’s and tell him what I think of him, right there in the store!”

  I didn’t know whether she was serious or not, and she must have caught the look in my eye.

  “No, well of course I won’t!” she exploded. “But it’d make me feel better if I could. Why does Shirley always have to learn the hard way?”

  Thursday, 10th October

  They got the Hengist Road school last night, the one where Mum works. The wardens were all out looking after other people, thank goodness, so no one was hurt – but according to Mum it’s a right mess. The building’s three storeys high, with the hall on the ground floor and the classrooms on the two floors above, but now all the ceilings have gone and some of the walls are a bit dodgy, so Mum thinks it’ll have to come down.

  There’ve been raids every night now since September 7th. It’s become a routine, like going to school or having breakfast. Sometimes it feels as if we’re small furry animals, staying in our burrows during the night and popping out for a few hours during the day to eat and scavenge among the mess.

  And the mess can be unbelievable. Imagine. A bomb lands on the pavement in front of a house. Even if it doesn’t kill or injure anyone, it makes a huge hole in the road and scatters rubble and rubbish all over it, so the road’s useless until it’s cleared. All the windows of the house are blown out and maybe the front wall is unsafe, so the house may end up being pulled down. Of course the electric gets cut off and the water and gas mains may be broken, so everyone in the street ends up having to carry buckets up to stand-pipes at the end of the road just so they can clean their teeth. If you want to make tea, you’ll have to do it on a primus stove!

  And this happens a few times every day in Lewisham! And in most other parts of London too, from what Mum and Dad say.

  Day by day, it’s getting harder to have fun. The cinemas are closing down one by one. What’s the point in staying open, if there’s going to be an air-raid warning five minutes into the programme? We used to have sing-songs and games for the kids down at the school, but now that’s history. There’s still the wireless, of course, and we all listen in for programmes like It’s That Man Again. Tuesdays at 9.30, bombs permitting. I think Tommy Handley is so funny. Mum tries to look disapproving and says I’m not old enough, but there’s not much to laugh at in the world, is there? It’s really strange how we all keep so cheerful.

  Tuesday, 15th October

  Tom’s really gone and done it now. I thought he looked a bit sheepish when he came home for his tea last evening. Normally he bursts in, hair all over the place, making a noise, wanting something to eat, telling everyone what he’s been doing, asking questions and telling daft jokes. Yesterday he sort of slunk in, and curled up in a corner looking at an old cartoon book he’s had for years.

  Later on we found out why. There was an unfriendly knock on the door and it was Mr Lineham from the corner shop, demanding to see Mr or Mrs Benson please. He didn’t look very comfortable. His eye twitches a bit when there’s something not right, and now it was going nineteen to the dozen. Mum was late to go out and already looking a bit harassed, but she dried her hands on the dishcloth she was holding and took Mr Lineham, still twitching, into the front parlour.

  I was a bit scared. I thought I must have done something wrong. Maybe he’d come to complain about me being too slow delivering the papers, or putting them through the wrong doors. But it wasn’t me he was after. It was Tom.

  After a bit Mum came out of the front parlour very quietly and asked me, “Where’s Tom? I want him.”

  She was so calm, I knew something was up.

  But Tom wasn’t there. He must have slipped out of the back door when he’d seen Mr Lineham arrive.

  “Go and find him,” Mum said firmly. “We’ve given that boy enough chances. We’ve got to put a stop to this once and for all!”

  So off I went again, trailing the streets after Tom in the drizzle, this time knowing it was about to get dark, and there might be a siren any minute.

  You remember that back garden I told you about, the one that’s all overgrown? Well, I reckoned that’s where he’d be. We’d made a sort of camp there last spring, and he’d know it would at least keep him dry for an hour or so. When I found him huddled under the dripping trees, he looked small, frightened and pathetic. He cowered away from me, shaking so much the words wouldn’t come out properly.

  “What’s . . . going . . . to . . . happen?” he sobbed. “I don’t . . . want . . . to go . . . to prison.”

  I wasn’t going to let him off the hook yet. I didn’t know what he’d done at that point, but it obviously wasn’t very clever. “Well, you should have thought of that sooner,” I said, hauling him to his feet. “What on earth have you been up to?”

  “It . . . was . . . Jim’s idea,” he wailed.

  “Oh yes,” I said, “and whatever it was, you had no part in it I suppose?”

  I expected Mum to go up the wall when we got back to number 47, but she stayed very calm. She took Tom into the parlour to apologize to Mr Lineham. I expect for a few minutes she also had visions of Tom languishing in a prison cell.

  Eventually the parlour door opened and Mr Lineham stepped on to the street, raising his little black hat to Mum one last time an
d saying twitchily, “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mrs Benson, but, ehmm, it’s for the best in the long run. . .”

  It turned out Tom and Jim had been in the shop yesterday afternoon. While Jim was buying some ha’penny chews, Tom had pocketed a couple of toy soldiers from the other end of the counter.

  I could have told him old Lineham doesn’t miss a trick. He’s had that shop for years, and he knows enough to keep eyes in the back of his head when two small boys come in together.

  Mum was her usual self the rest of the evening, apart from the fact she had to send Shirl down to give her apologies to the ARP again, but it’s left me with an uncomfortable feeling in the stomach. I just know we haven’t heard the last of this.

  Friday, 18th October

  So now I know the worst, and it’s just about as bad as it could be. Mum took me on one side after breakfast this morning. Her face was lined with worry. She didn’t look as if she’d slept a wink.

  “Edie,” she said, taking my hands in hers. “I’ve arranged for you and Tom to go away for a while. I know I said I never would, but this is no good, is it?”

  I was shocked rigid. “No, Mum,” I said. “You can’t do it. Where would we go? Who would we stay with?” Although I desperately didn’t want to, I started to cry, and then she joined in and for a few minutes I just held on to her, sobbing my guts out.

  “It’s not just that business with Tom and Mr Lineham, love,” she said eventually, when we’d both calmed down a bit. “’Though I’m at my wits’ end with him, really I am. It’s not even as though you can say it’s Tom’s fault. This isn’t proper living, is it? He needs a break, and so do you. I’ve been to see the authorities down at the Town Hall and they’ve found you a place in the country. South Wales, near Brecon. On a farm I think. It’ll be safe there. I had to pull a few strings to get you out of Lewisham quick.”

  I knew there wasn’t a hope of changing her mind, but I was appalled.

  “How long for?” I croaked hopelessly.

  Mum looked me straight in the eye. “You’re a big girl now, Edie, so I’m going to treat you like one. I honestly can’t say for how long. But there’s people moving out of Lewisham every day now. You must have cottoned on to that. Who knows how long Hitler can keep throwing the kitchen-sink at us? There doesn’t seem to be any sign of a let-up. And it worries me things might be much, much worse this winter.”

  “I don’t want to leave you and Dad,” I wept. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened.”

  “Your dad agrees with me,” she said firmly. “Turn it on its head! How do you think we could live with ourselves if we kept you here and either of you got hurt? In the end Mrs Chambers was right, though I hate to admit it. You’ve got to go.”

  And the way she argues it, in the end I suppose I agree with her.

  Monday, 21st October

  When they told Tom, it was terrible. He just howled and howled for what seemed like hours. They must have heard it up the other end of the street. At about tea-time, I went out with him down to the one set of swings in Lewisham they haven’t melted down for the war effort. I tried really hard to be as enthusiastic as I knew how. I told him what fun we were going to have.

  “Just think,” I said, “no more sleeping in a crummy old shelter. No more dodging the bombs.”

  “But what is there to do in Wales?” he said despondently.

  “Don’t know till we get there, do we?” I answered brightly.

  I can see his point. And I bet I know the other thing that’s worrying him. It worries me slightly too. School!

  Sunday, 27th October

  The air-raid warnings came late last night, so at least we got an hour or two in bed before we decamped to the shelter.

  As we were turning in, Shirl fished around in her handbag and pulled out two large, white, five pound notes. She pushed them into my hand.

  “For a rainy day,” she said, with a shy grin. I was astonished. Ten pounds is a lot of money. I’ve never held so much in my hand at one time.

  “What are you doing, Shirl?” I asked. “You can’t afford this. It must have taken you weeks and weeks to save!”

  “Look after it then,” she said. “I’m not going to complain if you bring it back with you, am I? But, like I say, you might need it.”

  I hugged and hugged her. When it’s mattered, Shirl’s always been there for me.

  Monday, 28th October

  Our train was supposed to leave Paddington station in West London at eight this morning. Dad’s boss – Mr Abbott – was a star and took us there in his Austin.

  “You didn’t need to do this, Reg,” my dad said as Mr Abbott stood on the doorstep, stifling a yawn. Like Reg Abbott’s, Dad’s face was raw and red from working the previous night. There was a cut on his cheek and his right sleeve was rolled back to stop it rubbing on a painful burn that ran a good four or five inches up towards the elbow.

  “’Course I did, Bert,” said Mr Abbott. “At least you’ll know the nippers have done one bit of the journey safely. Are you fit?”

  We hugged Mum and Shirl tearfully and I smoothed Chamberlain’s beautiful ears back one last time.

  “Be good,” said Mum pointedly to Tom, looking him deep in the eyes. “Do what Edie tells you. I’ll be thinking of you every other minute, I shouldn’t wonder.” And before she lost control, she bundled us into the back of the car with a final kiss. Only Shirl stayed on the pavement to wave us goodbye.

  “Don’t get too used to having the room to yourself,” I shouted at her through the window. “We’re not going to be that long.”

  She grinned. “I promise,” she said. “What am I going to do with no one to moan at?”

  The excitement of being in the car kept Tom’s mind occupied. Somewhere near Vauxhall we had to steer our way cautiously round a tram that was leaning over crazily, its front half down a crater in the road.

  Dad let out a low whistle as we drove past. “Nasty,” he said. “I hope that wasn’t as bad as it looked!”

  It was a misty, damp morning. In one street you’d think there wasn’t a war on at all. People were beginning to make their way smartly to work, carrying bags and newspapers. And in the next grey and mournful street, where a bomb had fallen or there’d been a recent fire, the inhabitants were either standing on their doorsteps looking dazed at the destruction around them or disconsolately setting to work with brooms and shovels to put a bit of order and normality back in their lives.

  Under the curved metal roof of Paddington station where the smoke from the locomotives hung greasily in the girders, we said our second lot of goodbyes.

  Tom and I found ourselves seats, and pulled down the window in the compartment, squeezing our heads round the blackout blind.

  “We’re not going to hang around,” Dad shouted. “Going home to get some shut-eye.” And suddenly we were on our own.

  When the little slow train from Cardiff at last pulled into Llantrisant station it was five o’clock, and even Tom had had enough of trains for one day. The platform was eerily quiet apart from the hissing of steam and the birds tweeting. Bushes hung over the fences looking badly in need of a haircut. We were the only passengers getting off, but as if there was any danger of missing us, a scowling man stood by the station building holding a piece of cardboard high in the air. On it was scrawled the one word: “BENSON”. The writing was worse than Tom’s. The man was overweight and bald. A pair of leather braces barely kept his stomach and his dirty trousers from falling apart.

  “That’s got to be Mr James,” I said, pulling our battered old suitcase out of the carriage on to the gravelled platform.

  “He doesn’t look very pleased to see us,” Tom muttered.

  We must have looked odd, standing there with our gas masks around our necks in their cardboard boxes, and our old school satchels (full of the few home comforts we could bring with us) falling off ou
r shoulders. Suddenly the gas masks seemed completely unnecessary. There was nothing to tell you there was a war on in Llantrisant. Even the station name stood out defiantly on the board beside us. The paint looked new.

  “You’ve got here, then,” was all Mr James could say in welcome, his voice a sing-song Welsh. “This way. You’d better hurry up or you’ll miss tea.” And leaving us to struggle with the luggage, he lumbered through the building to the drive outside the station where a tractor and a wagon were parked.

  He jerked a thumb at the wagon where high up there were a couple of rough seats facing back up the road. “That’s for you up there, see!” he said. “You can climb up,” he went on, though it sounded more like an order than a request.

  Tom was riveted to the spot. He just stood there gawping.

  “Didn’t you ’ear me?” said Mr James rudely. “In the wagon. Quick now.”

  Whether it was lack of food after a day’s travelling or just the bucking and swaying of the cart, I don’t know, but I felt sick after a few yards, so it was a good job the station and the small village of Llantrisant were only a couple of miles from the farmhouse. Throwing up all over Mr James’s wagon wouldn’t have got us off to a good start, would it?

  Tuesday, 29th October

  I’ve got to be positive, and I’ve got to be strong. I told myself before we left home that this was going to be hard. I just didn’t know quite how hard. I’m missing Mum and Dad and number 47 like mad. There’s a gnawing pain in my stomach, and I find I keep wanting to cry. Last night when we were all in bed, I couldn’t help myself, and I really did weep buckets. I hope Tom didn’t hear me. Most of all, I’ve got to be brave for his sake.