Churchill’s Angels

by Ruby Jackson

  ‘He sent her a special message, Rose, didn’t he?’ teased Daisy. ‘Couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “Tell her to come with me to the Kasbah,” but you could see where he’d scraped something out.’

  Sally turned to her. ‘Daisy, you are wicked. Poor Sam; he wouldn’t say anything of the kind. Don’t you think that’s funny, Grace, me and Sam? Sam Petrie. I’ve known him my whole life.’

  Grace had half turned so that she was not looking directly at her friends but had not really turned her back on them. Her eyes were suspiciously bright but possibly the others did not notice. ‘I don’t think that feelings should be laughed at. Whatever Sam said, it was a private message to Sally and not a joke.’

  ‘How about a nice cuppa before we all trot off?’ Daisy, aware that the frivolous atmosphere was now heavy – and she would worry about the reason later – broke in. ‘Rose, Mum and Dad’ll want something hot before bed, and Dad did say he wanted to walk Grace home. He’ll pass your door too, Sally, and help you carry your loot.’

  ‘And didn’t I do well considering it isn’t a birthday or anything?’ Several of their friends had brought ‘good luck’ gifts.

  ‘Try it on, Sally,’ begged Daisy. ‘We’ve had it hanging on the back of the bedroom door for two weeks now and we just have to see if it fits.’

  Sally looked towards the kitchen door beyond which the Petrie parents were listening to the wireless. She held out her arms. ‘Come here, all three of you. You are the best friends I will ever have and I want nothing to come between us.’

  ‘If you squeeze us much more, Sally Brewer,’ laughed Daisy, as the girls hugged one another, ‘a flea couldn’t come between us.’

  The moment of tension passed but was not forgotten.

  A few days later Daisy was reading the local paper, the Dartford Chronicle, when the shop door opened. She looked up to see her favourite customer, Mr Fischer. He was carrying a newspaper.

  Daisy grimaced, guessing what the problem was, but managed to greet him politely.

  ‘There was a sticky bit on the sports page of this one, Daisy, and so I’ll have one you’re not reading today, if you don’t mind,’ the old man said with an understanding smile.

  Daisy hurried to get a pristine copy from the pile behind the counter and handed it over. ‘Sorry, Mr Fischer, no charge today.’

  ‘But of course I will pay, my dear. It is a privilege to walk calmly into a shop, be greeted by a pretty girl, and be allowed to buy what I can afford.’ He put the coins down on the counter. ‘Anything of interest I shouldn’t miss today?’

  Over the years, while she had worked in the family shop part time and then full time, Daisy and the elderly man had developed a friendship. Daisy knew that he was German and that he had left Germany almost ten years before for reasons he did not divulge. The family had decided that he was Jewish and gradually they had learned that he was also very well educated, for he had talked to Daisy about things that her parents could not begin to understand. She was in the habit of reading the newspapers while she waited for customers, and when there was a picture or a headline that she did not understand she would talk to gentle Mr Fischer about it. In this way she had learned about stars and galaxies, early civilisations, the development of language and of mathematics, and of countless other fascinating things. He discussed with her the life cycle of a frog, the birth of a butterfly, and he tried to explain how a bird or a plane could fly and even why a huge ship did not sink under its own weight. These days, however, all their discussions were of the prospect of war.

  Daisy looked at the old man, wondering for the first time if he was as old as he appeared to be. What horrors had he encountered that had forced him to leave his own country to live in another where he could worship in his own way? Every day that he came in for his paper or a few groceries, he was always perfectly dressed: collar, tie, hat and, in cold weather, gloves. He had his standards and dignity. She smiled at him with affection. ‘I don’t suppose you’re interested in wedding pictures and lists of the guests, but …’ she looked at him shrewdly and decided cricket rather than football might interest him, ‘… there’s some cricket coverage and a very good recipe for cabbage soup.’

  ‘Today no war and rumours of war, Daisy?’

  ‘Not really, but my brother Sam – the one in the army – well, you do know that he has been saying since last year that there will be a war with Germany. He says I should think hard about what I want to do for the war effort.’

  ‘And what have you decided, young Daisy?’

  Daisy shook her head ruefully. ‘It’ll be factory work, I suppose, same as Rose. Clever girls with an education will get the exciting jobs.’

  ‘Someone will still have to sell the newspapers, with or without jam on them.’

  ‘Actually, it was stewed apple. Mum baked turnovers for the party. Sorry, Mr Fischer, I like you, and most of the customers, but measuring out bits of cheese and weighing tea leaves isn’t very exciting, is it?’

  The old man folded the newspaper. ‘One day, Daisy, you may thank God for the comforting ordinariness of it. As always I like our little chats. I may try the cabbage soup; I have a liking for cabbage. Good morning.’ He left the shop, lifting his hat to Daisy as he went and she stood looking after him. Such an odd Dartford resident …

  Someday I might be glad to be doing something ordinary – I don’t think so, Mr Fischer. What happened to you? Daisy wondered. She recalled some of their serious discussions and many of the wonderful things he had explained so that she could understand. He should have been a teacher, she decided, and went back to reading the paper until several housewives arrived, almost every one accompanied by children of various ages.

  It was a very tired Daisy who closed the shop at the end of the day and climbed the stairs to the flat. Customers accompanied by children were always the most difficult to serve. Sometimes children whined or opened the doors of cupboards they had been specifically told not to touch, and tried to pull out the contents. Some mothers were good at keeping their children in line, others paid no attention to them; it all made extra work.

  In the kitchen a pot of carrot, not cabbage, soup was keeping warm on the back hotplate.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ Daisy said aloud to the empty room as she helped herself to a large serving and cut herself a slice of bread.

  Daisy had been on duty in the shop all day because Flora and Fred had gone to an afternoon meeting in the Market Street Clinic. Mr Chamberlain might still be telling the nation that there was not going to be any conflict but Dartford had taken the threat of war very seriously and had been preparing for some time. The town had been designated a vulnerable area. To find out the exact meaning of that word, the family had consulted the heavy dictionary in the front room.

  Early in May Fred and Flora had gone to the State Cinema in Spital Street to see a film called The Warning, which dealt with the possible effects of an air raid, and Fred had been so affected that he had immediately volunteered to become an air-raid warden.

  ‘Dartford’s not the safest place to be if war comes,’ Fred had told his children. ‘The enemy’ll have to fly over us before they reach London.’ He tried to smile. ‘Could get quite noisy here.’

  Already there were thousands of sandbags, stacked like secondary walls, protecting important buildings, and since it was believed that, if war came, there would be gas attacks, gas masks had been issued. Air-raid shelters and first-aid stations had been set up in the St Alban’s Hall and at the County Hospital. Trenches that reminded Fred and others of the ‘war to end all wars’ had been dug in Central Park and on Dartford Heath. As one of the first wardens to volunteer to help in assuring that Air Raid Precautions were carried out, Fred was learning how to deal with incendiary bombs at the clinic. Flora went along to all the meetings. After all, Fred would often be away from the flat and the shop, and she was determined to find out how to deal with anything that might fall on her home and her children.

  ‘Nothing learned is ever
wasted,’ she was fond of telling her children, ‘but what on earth we’re going to do with all the sand when them that’s in charge decides we’ve been wasting our time, I do not know.’

  Daisy decided to make toasted cheese to go with the soup and was busily slicing cheese when she heard the flat door open and her parents and sister come in. They had met on the way home.

  ‘The boys show up yet, love?’ Flora asked as she hung up her lightweight summer coat and looked for her apron.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ Rose interrupted. ‘I’m that tired I forgot to tell you. They’re doing overtime and said not to worry about their tea, they’ll get some chips on the way home.’ She took herself off to the small family bathroom to change and to wash off the grime from a long day’s work in the oily munitions factory.

  ‘They’ll have a proper tea when they get home; chips isn’t nourishment for such big lads.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them, Flo. I bet they take some liquid nourishment with their chips.’ Fred was already sitting in his chair by the empty fireplace, a glass of his favourite Reffells’ ale in his hand while they waited for Rose’s return.

  When she reappeared, he teased her, ‘I think it’s our Rose needs nourishing.’

  Rose, her long fair hair released from its firm elastic bands, and washed and combed, sat down at the kitchen table. ‘It’d be easier if the people in power would make up their blinking minds. Down the factory we’re past caring, we’re that tired, but we do want to know. There’s been more than enough muttering. I can deal with the truth but all the shillyshallying is getting on my nerves.’

  An outburst like that was so unlike Rose that even her father took notice. ‘Pour your sister a cuppa, our Daisy,’ he said as he reached across and patted Rose’s knee. ‘Don’t fret, love; they don’t know neither.’ He turned back to Daisy, who was filling the big breakfast cups. ‘Anything I need to know about the shop, Daisy?’

  ‘No, except, thank heaven, it’s Sunday tomorrow and I don’t have to go near the place.’

  Two Sundays later, after church, the family put their gas masks in the hall cupboard with their Sunday coats and settled down in the front room to listen to the wireless while their dinner was being prepared. Fred was reaching for the switch when, with a groan of exasperation, Flora turned to Daisy.

  ‘Be an angel and run down the shop for peas. Go nice with that lovely bit of beef, and I forgot them yesterday.’ She gestured to the table by the door. ‘My purse is in my shopping bag.’

  Daisy took the purse and hurried downstairs. The Petrie family were meticulous about never taking anything from the shop without paying for it. According to Daisy, reading the newspapers from cover to cover was ‘not exactly stealing’. She stood for a moment enjoying the unusual quiet of the empty shop. The blackout blinds were still on the windows and she pulled one aside for a moment to light her way. Sunlight streamed into the little shop, burnishing the polished oak counter and the brass scales and making a tiny rainbow as it shone on a glass jar of multi-coloured boiled sweets. No customer ever saw it like this. Daisy smiled in satisfaction as she found a tin of peas. She toyed with the idea of opening the old till to pay for her purchase – she loved the musical ping that the machine sang out each time the lever was depressed – but decided against it. After all, it was hardly worth opening the till only to close it immediately. She left a shilling on top of the till, closed the blinds again and hurried back upstairs. Mum wouldn’t mind waiting for her change and, first thing Monday morning, she would finish the transaction.

  She found her family standing in a stunned group in the kitchen. Flora was sobbing loudly as tears ran down her cheeks and Fred and Rose were patting her back in an attempt to comfort her. Her older brothers, Phil and Ron, standing close together, watched helplessly.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Everyone except Flora turned to look at her. ‘We’re at war with Germany, Daze,’ her father said as he continued to hold his almost hysterical wife. ‘Prime Minister’s just announced it on the wireless.’

  Everyone began to talk at once but eventually Fred’s voice rose over those of his children. ‘Do the dinner for your mum, girls, and that’ll give her a chance to take it all in.’ He turned back to Flora. ‘That’ll make you feel better, love.’

  Poor Flora had no time to feel anything for, just at that moment, the air was full of the piercing wailing of an air-raid siren.

  Flora screamed and the twins clutched each other in terror.

  ‘In the kitchen, under the table,’ ordered Ron. ‘Come on, Mum, kitchen’s safest. You know we decided that earlier. Good girls, keep calm; it’s a drill, let’s show we know what to do if …’ He could not finish his sentence.

  The family struggled to get under the large table, wincing both at their crushed uncomfortable positions and the fiendish sound that went round and round the room. They held their hands over their ears, willing the shrieking to stop. Ron held his mother, who had closed her eyes as if, somehow, that action might make the noise go away.

  ‘Ron’s right, Mum, it’s a drill.’ Phil was always ready to look for the brighter side. ‘I’ll put the wireless on. There’ll be news or music or something.’

  ‘Spilled a half of best golden ale,’ complained Fred as he peered under the table at his wife and daughters. ‘I got to go, love. Our Ron’s right, it’s only a practice, but I have to be out there. The boys’ll take care of you. We forgot the gas masks. I’ll toss ’em under before I leave.’

  ‘I don’t want to be gassed right here in my kitchen.’ Flora felt silly sitting under the kitchen table being held by her son as if she were a five-year-old, but she tried to smile. Feeling silly was better than feeling a bomb land on her head. She grabbed hold of the twins’ hands. ‘We’ll have such a tasty dinner, a nice bit of good beef, perfect for roasting with potatoes; glad I were a bit late with it. Awful to have it too well done, right, lads?’

  At last the alert was over and the family, each one with tingling limbs, crawled out from under the table.

  Ron stretched. ‘All I can say is thank heaven our Daisy isn’t as tall as the rest of us. Would’ve had to push you out from under, Daisy. No offence?’

  Daisy said nothing but playfully slapped her long, lanky brother. ‘Come on, Rose, we’ll get the dinner on before we die of hunger.’

  Even though the mouth-watering smell of roast beef permeated the small room, no one had much of an appetite. Once Fred had come home, however, and Flora had pulled herself together, they were able to sit down and talk.

  Phil was full of bravado. ‘Don’t fret, Mum, we’ll sort ’em out in no time. With Sam, Ron and me in the Forces, you’ll see. Just watch them run.’

  The younger Petrie boys had decided to enlist immediately. ‘We’ll get the top jobs, Mum. Our Sam was right,’ Phil said.

  That night, unable to sleep, Daisy and Rose sat up in bed and talked. Rose brushed her hair until it shone. Daisy envied her. ‘You really ought to leave it hanging down, Rose. You look like a princess in a fairy story.’

  ‘Princesses don’t work in munitions factories. Even with my horrible turban on, dust seeps in somehow.’

  Daisy yawned. ‘You should let it down at the dancing. Being tall, you can get away with such long hair.’

  Rose laughed and began, as usual, to braid her hair for the night. Then she stopped. ‘Blinkety blink, I completely forgot. Paul Robeson was on at the pictures, Daisy; we should have gone.’

  ‘Too upset. What was the film?’

  ‘King Solomon’s Mines.’

  Daisy, who loved going to the cinema, thought about that. ‘Can’t really see much great singing going on down a mine, Rose. C’mon, better get to sleep.’

  ‘You scared?’

  ‘Dunno. Haven’t had time to think. I mean, what could happen to me? The Germans are hardly likely to be interested in a grocery shop on Dartford High Street.’

  ‘Suppose not.’ Rose was quiet for a moment. ‘But there’s the docks, Daisy, the
Vickers factory, chemical works, Hall’s engineering …’

  ‘They’re not on our street.’ Then Daisy threw back her blanket and jumped out of bed in alarm. ‘God, did you hear me, Rose? I was working out that no one will drop a bomb on me, and you and the boys work in a munitions factory.’

  ‘Don’t fret. Get back into bed and go to sleep. You’re the one what’s going to have to handle all the worried old ladies in the morning. Lads’ll be off enlisting.’

  But no old lady rushed into the shop next morning. Daisy was measuring out tea leaves when Sally almost burst through the door. ‘It’s closed, Daisy.’ She looked round the little room to make sure that no customers were lurking among the shelves. ‘What am I going to do? There was a notice on the college door.’ She drew the shape of a large notice in the air. ‘Closed for the duration. What will I do? Look, I even put on my new costume.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ said Daisy automatically. ‘What did your mum say?’

  ‘They don’t know. They’re already at the picture house.’ She could say no more. Huge tears began to spill over and run down her beautiful face.

  Daisy was at a loss. She put her arms around her sobbing friend. ‘The duration, Sally. It’s not going to be long, really it’s not. Everybody says so. It’ll be over by Christmas and you can start college next year. New year, new career.’

  Sally pulled herself away. ‘Christmas. That’s a lifetime away,’ she said dramatically. ‘And what if it’s not over? What will I do – work in a factory? I can’t go to a university now because I turned them down.’ Her voice rose hysterically. ‘First one in the family ever to qualify for a university and I said no because I wanted to be in pictures.’

  ‘Stop it, Sally.’ Daisy’s voice was kind but firm. ‘So one college closed. That’s not your fault. Ring up another one somewhere else.’