The 9

by Madalyn Morgan

  She free-wheeled down the hill, past the big white house at the bottom of Stony Hallow and the Fox Inn on Rugby Road, to the River Swift. Flying over the stone bridge, cold perspiration trickled down Ena’s back and she shivered. The moon, full and bright in a cloudless sky, illuminated the grass verge, making a couple of potholes visible. As she negotiated her way round them, Ena’s heart pounded. Out of the town, without the protection of the buildings, she would easily be seen from the air.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Trying to ignore the burning sensation in her calves, Ena stood on the bicycle’s pedals and pushed on up the hill. Her lungs felt as if they were going to burst, but she daren’t stop. She turned off the main Rugby Road towards the village of Woodcote and flew under the railway bridge. Plunged into darkness, her legs tiring, she wobbled but she stayed on the bike.

  Without thinking, she turned on the hooded lamp in the middle of the bike’s handlebars, but turned it off when she was through the tunnel. The light, however faint, would pinpoint her location in open countryside. Besides, the moon was so bright she could see perfectly well without it.

  Slowing down when she arrived on the crest of Shaft Hill, she veered to the left and coasted down Mysterton Lane.

  Taking her feet off the pedals, Ena put the sole of one shoe, then the other, on the front tyre to slow the bicycle down. When she arrived at her parents’ cottage, she lifted the handlebars and bumped the bike up the verge. Thick and uncut, the long grass further slowed the bike down until she was able to jump off.

  The distant wail of Coventry’s air raid sirens and the continuous crump of explosions had followed Ena all the way from Lowarth. She looked up at the sky. To the west, searchlights beamed into the cloudless night, in a desperate bid to illuminate enemy aircraft. She could hear the muffled crack and clatter of explosions, followed by the duller distant rat-a-tat-tat of anti-aircraft guns. The sky above Coventry was an orangey-red and looked as if the city was on fire.

  Walking up the path, she saw the sitting room curtains twitch and a chink of light escape. By the time she had put her bicycle in the lean-to in the yard, her mother was at the back door.

  ‘Thank God you’re home and safe. Where’s your father?’ she asked, looking round Ena, straining to see in the darkness.

  Ena stepped into the dark kitchen. ‘Still in Lowarth.’

  Lily Dudley tutted and giving Ena a gentle push, manoeuvred her ample body past her. Closing the door, Lily flicked on the light. ‘Good God, girl,’ she said, grabbing the clothes brush from a hook on the back of the door and thrusting it into Ena’s hands. ‘Get yourself back outside and brush down your coat. You’ll never get the muck out of it if it dries.’

  ‘I thought dirt was easier to brush off when it was dry.’

  ‘Not when it’s that caked in it isn’t! And comb your hair while you’re out there.’ She pointed to a comb on the window ledge. ‘You look as if you’ve gone grey.’

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if I had. The goings on at the factory tonight was enough to turn anyone grey.’ Ena took the Kirby grips out of her hair, picked up the comb, and after switching off the light, opened the back door and went out into the yard.

  ‘Stew and dumplings for supper,’ her mother said, on Ena’s return. ‘Be a bit dried up by now.’

  ‘It’ll be fine, Mam.’ While Ena set the table, her mother spooned dumplings, carrots, and a small portion of meat with gravy onto three plates. ‘We’ll keep your Dad’s warm till he gets in.’ Taking the plate with the largest helping, Ena placed it in the oven at the side of the stove.

  ‘It’s not right you being stuck in that factory on your own till all hours,’ Ena’s mother grumbled when Ena sat down to eat her supper.

  ‘I wasn’t on my own tonight, Mam.’

  ‘Maybe not tonight, but there’s been plenty of nights you have been.’

  ‘Yes, but only when it’s really necessary.’ Aware that she mustn’t say too much about her work but wanting to put her mother’s mind at rest, Ena said, ‘Silcott’s do a lot of work for the military. There’s no such thing as a nine-till-five working day anymore.’

  ‘Why can’t some of the other women stay late for a change?’

  ‘They do. But the work Freda and I do is complicated. We’re the only two who have been trained up to do it. Besides,’ Ena said, ‘I like my job and I’m good at it. Mr Silcott is ever so pleased with me. I might not be in the forces, but I’m working hard for the war effort, which,’ she grinned at her mother, ‘is why I sometimes have to work late.’

  Lily shook her head and sighed, as if to say she had heard it all before, which she had. ‘How much damage did the bombs do then?’

  ‘What?’ Her mother’s question had taken Ena by surprise. She had hoped to distract her, stop her from worrying, by chattering on about work.

  ‘I saw two explosions from your bedroom window. So you must have heard something while you were at work, or seen something on your way home.’

  ‘Of course I heard the bombs. None fell on the town. At least I didn’t see any bombed-out shops when I was biking home. Dad said, because Lowarth was directly under the Luftwaffe’s flight path, the bombs were dropped by accident.’

  Her mother leaned forward and tilted her head. She wants to know more, Ena thought, and carried on. ‘Dad and I think it’s Coventry that they’re bombing. We could hear the bombs exploding and see the fires from Silcott’s. Well, we couldn’t actually see the fires, but the sky above Coventry was bright red. We wouldn’t have seen or heard anything if it were Birmingham, it’s too far away.’

  Ena thought for a moment. ‘You know, the air strike happened almost without warning. Air raid sirens are supposed to sound fifteen minutes before bombs are dropped, to give people time to get to a shelter, not when the planes are on top of them. Lowarth’s air raid sirens were cranked into life before the Luftwaffe were anywhere near. We didn’t hear Coventry’s sirens until they were over the city.’

  Ena wondered whether she should tell her mother that bombs had fallen near the factory. The grapevine between Lowarth and Woodcote, the nearest village to Foxden, was long and very active. Better any information about bombs came from her than from the village women in the post office the next morning.

  ‘No one was hurt, most people were already in the shelter, but a couple of bombs did go off near the factory.’

  Her mother put down her knife and fork and set her jaw.

  ‘The planes were destined for Coventry not Lowarth. They didn’t even bother with Bruntingthorpe or Bitteswell aerodromes. As I said, Dad thought the bombs dropped on Lowarth were accidents,’ Ena said, trying to ignore the fact that she could have been killed by any one of them.

  Her mother nodded, picked up her knife and fork, and began to eat. ‘And your father? Did he say what time he’d be home?’

  ‘No. The ARP wardens were still there when I left. I expect they’ll help the Home Guard look for unexploded bombs. There aren’t any of course,’ Ena said quickly, not wanting to worry her mother, who shot her a concerned look and frowned. ‘I’d have heard them fall, wouldn’t I?’ Ena concluded, with a reassuring smile.

  Ena’s explanation and her phoney relaxed attitude seemed to placate her mother, and she nodded.

  When they had finished eating, they cleared the table, and washed and dried the pots together. ‘Are you going to listen to the wireless, Mam?’

  ‘I won’t get a wink of sleep until your dad gets home, so I might as well.’

  ‘I know. How about a glass of stout?’ Her mother shrugged but Ena knew she would like one. ‘You go through to the living room, tune the wireless, and I’ll bring a glass in to you,’ she said, putting the clean plates in the cupboard.

  Her mother pulled herself out of her chair, took off her pinafore, and hung it on the back of the door. ‘A drop of stout might help me to sleep,’ she said, shuffling out of the kitchen in her old slippers. Ena smiled to herself. Her mother found a reason to have a drop of stout every time
her dad was on ARP duty. And tonight, like all the other nights, it was to help her sleep.

  After taking her mother a glass of beer, Ena returned to the kitchen, took a clean blouse from the washing basket and ironed it for work the following day. It was pale blue and looked smart with her new navy two-piece. If she was going to see the boss’s wife she wanted to look her best.

  ‘I’m going up, Mam,’ Ena said. ‘You coming?’

  ‘No. I’m going to wait for your father. I expect he’ll be hungry,’ she replied, absentmindedly. ‘I’ll make him something to eat.’

  ‘Don’t forget the stew in the side oven.’ Ena hung her blouse on the back of a dining chair. ‘This feels a bit damp. I’ll leave it down here to air.’ Ena crossed to the fire and added a couple of logs to what was mostly ash and embers. ‘Night night,’ she said, bending down and kissing her mother on the cheek. ‘Don’t stay up too long.’

  Her mother smiled, but Ena could tell she was worried by the deep lines on her forehead. ‘Good night, love.’

  Ena lay on her bed listening to the ferocious and unrelenting bombing of Coventry. So many bombs exploding at the same time made it impossible to distinguish one from another. Eventually, unable to sleep, she got up, threw her dressing gown round her shoulders, pulled back the blackout curtains, and looked out of the window.

  The sky above Coventry was an even brighter red than when she had got home. Touching several objects on her dressing table, Ena came to her wristwatch. She picked it up, held it close to the window, and peered into its face. It was almost two o’clock. Conscious that she had to be at work at nine, she let go of the curtains. As they swung back into place, she felt her way across the room. Climbing back into bed, Ena pulled the blankets up to her chin, and closed her eyes.

  Ena hadn’t been asleep for long when she was woken by the roar of aeroplane engines. She sat up. ‘What the...?’ Diving out of bed, she opened the blackout curtains and looked up at the sky. Hundreds of German bomber planes were flying overhead.

  She looked to her left. A steady stream of aircraft was coming from the west and heading east. Ena sighed with relief. The blitzing of Coventry was over. The Luftwaffe would soon be over the east coast and from there, Germany. She wondered how long it would be before the skies would be clear of enemy aircraft. She wondered too whether she should go down to her mother and insist they spend the rest of the night in the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden. The fact the planes would have to offload any bombs they hadn’t dropped was the clincher.

  Heading towards the door, Ena heard a change in the plane’s engines. She ran back to the window. The entire German Air Force, or so it seemed, was banking to the right and turning south.

  She heard the high-pitch wail of distant air raid sirens followed by the rumble of heavy aircraft. The nightmare of six hours before was being repeated elsewhere. She ran out of her bedroom, crossed the hall, and went into her brother Tom’s bedroom. Watching from his window, Ena felt fingers of ice grip her spine as the Luftwaffe rose up from the south-west and began to bomb Coventry again.

  With tears streaming down her face – and all thoughts of taking shelter gone from her mind, Ena stumbled back to her own room and fell into bed. Pulling the eiderdown up, she buried her head and tried desperately to ignore the terrifying, unrelenting, blitzing of Coventry for the second time that night.

  In the morning, feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all, Ena dragged herself out of bed. Yawning, she went downstairs and had a top-and-tail wash in the cold scullery. Before going back to her room to get dressed, she went to the living room and grabbed her blouse. She fully expected to see her mother asleep on the settee; instead, the room was empty, which meant her father had returned home safely at some point during the night.

  After she had dressed, drunk a cup of tea and eaten a slice of toast with a scraping of margarine, Ena crept out of the house. Closing the door quietly behind her so she didn’t wake her father who had to be even more tired than she was, she put her gasmask over her head, placing the strap securely across her chest, and dropped her handbag in the bike’s basket.

  Wiping the winter dew from her bicycle’s seat, Ena wheeled it down the path to the lane, mounted, and set off. She was about to turn onto the Lowarth Road when she saw her father cycling towards her. He looked exhausted. His face was pale and dirty, and his eyes heavy with dark circles under them. As they drew level, father and daughter dismounted.

  ‘Mam said she was waiting up for you last night. When she wasn’t downstairs this morning, I thought you’d come home and were in bed. Good Lord!’ Ena said, leaning forward and examining her father’s eyes. ‘You need to get some sleep.’

  ‘I will when I’ve been up to Foxden Hall and seen Bess.’

  ‘Go home first, Dad. Mam’s worried sick. She’s in bed now, but I think she sat up most of the night waiting for you.’

  ‘Alright. I need to change my clothes before I go up to the Hall anyway.’

  Ena lifted her foot from the kerb to the nearside pedal of her bike and prepared to push off.

  ‘You look smart,’ her father said. ‘Are you going out after you’ve been to the factory?’

  ‘Kind of. I thought I had better look my best if I’m calling on the boss’s wife at home.’ Thomas Dudley’s brow creased quizzically. ‘I’m hoping to collect the wages from her, so I don’t have to wait at the factory all day for her to bring them. Everyone else is having a day off with pay, except Freda and me. It’s not fair. If all goes to plan, I shall go round to Madge Foot’s at lunchtime, see if she fancies going to the pictures this afternoon. And there’s a dance at Gilmorton Village Hall tonight that Madge and some of the other girls are going to.’

  ‘It’s time you had some fun, but be careful.’

  ‘I intend to, don’t worry.’ Ena said goodbye. ‘Oh, and have something to eat before you go up to Foxden.’

  ‘When did you become so grown up?’ Thomas Dudley asked, laughing. Ena watched her father cycle down the lane. ‘See you later, love!’ he shouted over his shoulder. As he neared the cottage, Ena set off for Lowarth.

  Lifting her feet from the bicycle’s pedals, Ena put one foot and then the other on the front wheel to slow the bike down. She had needed new brakes for a while and made a mental note to take the bike to Bradshaw’s Bicycles later in the day.

  Jumping off the bike, Ena wheeled it round to the bike-shed at the back of the building. She glanced at her watch. She was early, but she had planned to be. She wanted to check her work, make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the bombing of the previous night, before Mr Silcott took it to… wherever he was taking it.

  Every time he delivered Ena’s work to this secret location, Ena hoped he would take her with him, but he always took Freda. It wasn’t fair. Freda was responsible for work that she delivered to a facility near Loughborough, so why did she have to go with him to this other place as well? Unless the rumours about Mr Silcott and Freda having an affair were true. If they were, he would want her with him. Ena tutted. She hated gossip and told everyone who talked about Freda behind her back that she would never sneak about with a married man. ‘Besides which,’ Ena would add, ‘I work closely with Mr Silcott and Freda, I would know if there was any hanky-panky going on.’

  Ena felt it her duty to defend anyone who wasn’t there to defend themselves. She was sometimes wrong and this, she thought, after seeing the way Freda had touched Mr Silcott’s arm the previous night, could be one of those times. She grimaced. Mr Silcott walking out with Freda occasionally was bad enough, but the thought of her being his mistress and doing it with him, that was too much for even Ena’s imagination to contemplate. She shook her head to clear the image from her mind and giggled.

  Peering into the factory through the gaping hole that until last night had been a steel frame and solid wooden door, Ena wrinkled her nose. The pungent smell of burnt oil and charred timber coming from inside the building was overpowering.

  Taking her handkerchief from
her handbag and holding it over her mouth and nose, Ena entered the main factory. She looked around and began to tremble. The events of the night before – bombs falling, losing her hearing, not being able to see when the electricity was knocked out – overwhelmed her. The fact that she could easily have been killed, a reality that until now she had largely ignored, sent her running out of the building.

  Outside, in the early morning mist, Ena sat on a pile of bricks and calmed herself while she waited for Mr Silcott. She didn’t have to wait long. He arrived in his car on the dot of nine, Freda on her bicycle a minute later.

  ‘Ena, I would like you to accompany Miss King... Freda... to Bletchley today.

  ‘Bletchley?’ Ena had never heard of Bletchley. Then the penny dropped and so did she, almost. ‘Of course, Mr Silcott, but without you, I--’

  ‘You’ll be fine, Ena. I have to take my wife to Coventry. She is naturally worried about her parents. Williams Engineering, my father-in-law’s factory, took a direct hit in the bombing last night. It has been reduced to rubble.’ Ena gasped and put her hand to her mouth. ‘Don’t worry, my dear. Apart from the night watchman, who thankfully saw the planes approaching and was able to get to the shelter, everyone had left for the day. Hopefully they all made it home and were able to take cover in their Andersons before…’ He shook his head. ‘The night watchman telephoned my father-in-law after the first raid, and then my father-in-law telephoned us. He said it was too soon to know how many casualties there were, but the city centre was ablaze. He suspects the number will be in the thousands.’

  ‘Do Mrs Silcott’s parents live near the factory?’

  ‘No, they live some miles away, thank goodness. When we spoke to them the house only had a couple of broken windows and a few slates missing from the roof.’ He sighed heavily. ‘That, as I said, was after the first raid. Mrs Silcott telephoned her parents after the second assault, and again this morning, but couldn’t get through. The BBC said the telephone lines are down.’