The Blitz Business

by D. A. Spruzen

  “You fellows keep at it. You’re not to leave your post for anything. I’m going round to the next street, they’re down a couple of men.”

  Vince didn’t rightly know who he was, but contempt in the man’s tone was clear, and he simmered with loathing as they watched him stride off. “Bloody tin pot general,” Jed muttered.

  “Now’s our chance, Jed. The fires’re all around us now, do for us if we don’t get out. See that gap over there?” Vince jerked his chin at the corner where Jed could dimly make out the entrance to an alley. “When I give the word, run for it!”

  The brothers grabbed their bags and scuttled round the corner, the other men’s angry shouts drowned out by hot howling winds. They found themselves in another square now, three sides of it on fire. They ran towards an alleyway that looked clear, but skidded to a stop as a streak of fire caught a church ahead of them and hop-scotched from building to building on the fourth side with cartoonish abandon. The ravenous firestorm hemmed in the brothers with horrifying speed.

  Arms outstretched, they circled each other in terrified disbelief, heads swiveling this way and that, searching for any way out. They held hands like they used to as children, running this way and that to find a gap. Too deadly to broach, the flames drove them back and scorched their faces. Jed clutched his brother, whimpering and peeing like a whipped puppy. Vince, frozen and silent, gazed at him as if from a great distance; he looked so strange without brows or lashes, bloodshot eyes sunken in his sooty face. Vince supposed he must look about the same.

  Bricks and girders screeched and groaned as a massive Victorian book warehouse buckled and collapsed, burying everything in its path, including the Reddy brothers.

  Furious winds swirled its fallout of shredded paper like dirty snow.

  * * *

  Derek Lester smirked as he flopped down into a seat vacated at last by an elderly woman who wore thick wool everything and even smelled like a sour old sheep. When he told her the next stop was hers, she’d squinted at him with a pained smile of gratitude for giving her time to get herself gathered up and away. The senile old bag would have to wait for hours for another train to get her where she wanted to go, only three stations farther down the line. You had to be smart to get anywhere in this world.

  He was, at first glance, a good-looking youth, not tall, but muscled and upright, smartly turned out. If someone looked closely, although no one ever did, he might notice that the fair wave of hair falling over his right eye—an eye that was slightly too close to its mate—draped more by order than accident, and that the half-open grin owed more to slyness than pleasure.

  December 29, only two days to New Year’s Eve and another year, 1941: maybe the year the war would end. His family had never been one to celebrate the New Year, but they’d be happy enough to see him that they wouldn’t mind him bringing out the whisky bottle. He’d stashed it under a floorboard in the parlor one night after he’d pointed out to old Shipman how he wouldn’t want Derek chatting about some of the more creative ways he stocked his corner shop.

  Mum didn’t approve of drinking, still a lot of Presbyterian Puritan in the old girl. But she’d let him have his way as she always did in the end. Her son, a hero in the making, home from the war. No need for her to know he’d spent most of it so far slaving in the barrack kitchens in Plymouth because he’d broken his right hand in a bar fight. Couldn’t shoot, so couldn’t fight. Perfect. Once he’d got used to working lefty, it turned out to be a useful situation, very pretty indeed since he’d got in with a bunch of Yankee sailors. They didn’t get out much, not supposed to be anywhere near England, one of them told him. They told people in town they were Canadians; no one could tell, they all sounded the same to the English. Interesting what you could get out of people with a few beers. Anyway, they got everything they wanted, those Yanks—nylons, chocs, tins of food, and easy-going girls, thanks to good old Derek acting as a go-between. Good sorts, they didn’t begrudge him some of the goods when he wanted to butter up a girl of his own, or have a nice little present to please the family. He’d missed Christmas, but he’d brought a little something for every last one of them.

  A French doll for little Jane. Nearly new, a bloke said he’d exchanged it for food with some tatty family over there. German badges, two each for the twins, Bobby and Andy. He’d tell them he’d ripped them off the uniforms of dead soldiers. They’d love that, show all their mates. A bar of scented soap for Mum and some pipe tobacco for Dad.

  And Sarah, his favorite sister. Always backed him up, got him out of scrapes, said he’d been where he should’ve, hadn’t been where he shouldn’t. Nylons for Sarah. She’d grown up pretty. He’d kill any fellow who laid his hands on her. He didn’t want to think about boys doing the sorts of things to her he liked to do with some of the bints he knocked about with. A nice solid hubby for her, one who could provide the goods. Nothing but the best for Sarah.

  A pair of gloves for Betty to cover up her work hands. He’d leave them with Sarah, because who knew when he’d see her next, down in Hampshire with her peasant of a husband, miles away from anywhere and working herself to death at some manor. Lucky to be married, though. Betty wasn’t like Sarah, not at all. Great, big healthy girl was Betty.

  All in all, he was a good son, a good brother. They’d all look up to him when they heard his tales. He looked out of the window and caught his reflection smiling back. Good looking chap, too.

  It was almost dark now, only another hour or so to South Docks. The train came to a swaying halt at some little station in the middle of nowhere.

  “Everyone out please, everyone out!” Shit.

  Lots of chatter but no real information. A raid, a big one, they said. Have to wait it out, could be an all-nighter. Derek sat himself on his kit bag in a corner of the ticket office next to the men’s room. He hated this sort of thing—sardine-like, all that bloody chin-up, make-the-best-of-things natter. At least all these bodies should work up some warmth. Smelly, though. Too bad some were stuck out on the platform still. Not him, though. A few people had looked at him funny because of the way he’d shouldered his way through the crowd. They could go piss themselves. What a bloody stupid waste of a day’s leave.

  * * *

  “Hello, love, how’re you feeling?” said Derek in his top-of-the-world voice. “Took me a couple of days to find you. Glad to see you’re wide awake now.”

  Glad to see her better, but not so glad she’d be asking questions he didn’t want to answer.

  “Where are they all?” Sarah asked, her voice breathless and shaky, afraid of his answer.

  His face grew congested with repressed tears as he shook his head. After a moment he said softly, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” He would, too. Maybe send her to Betty when she was strong enough, although God knows what she’d do with herself down there.

  “Brought you a lovely cake of French soap, darling. Make you feel like a million bucks, as the Yanks say.”

  Well, a bar of soap wasn’t much of a consolation prize for a missing leg or a family too torn up to bury decently. Only one coffin, and he didn’t know for sure if all the bits and pieces inside it even belonged to them. Direct hit on the Underground station where just about the whole neighborhood had been sheltering from the raid. Rotten luck. He watched her suffer, steeling himself to stay quiet and still.

  “It hurts so much.” She sounded short of breath. “It’s like the doctor’s still cutting at it. It was terrible. I’d just gone to the toilet when we were hit. They found me, maybe they missed some.”

  “No, love, they got them all out. They’ve gone.” He dried his cheeks with a rough, embarrassed swipe.

  Poor kid. He’d given the nylons to a pretty charge nurse who’d been enthusiastic and properly grateful, and promised to take extra good care of Sarah. It would have been tactless to give her the nylons. She could’ve worn them one at a time, but that seemed such a waste.

  She breathed harder now, sometimes with a series of sharp in
takes of air through her teeth as the pain stabbed, and sometimes with a long sigh as it exhausted her into surrender. Perhaps he was tiring her. A bell rang.

  “Visiting hours over, love, see you tomorrow. Got to find Roy now, see about a place to kip down. House has gone too, see.” She nodded slowly as if it didn’t matter. “Roy’s always got something up his sleeve.”

  “I just remembered. He was in the tunnel with us. Maybe he didn’t make it, either. You’d better ask about him here.”

  “I will. Hope he’s all right.”

  “Just don’t let him talk you into anything again.” Her vehemence surprised him, given the state she was in.

  “Don’t worry, I’m over all of that.”

  Derek found Roy in the men’s surgical ward with a cast on his left leg.

  “There you are!”

  “Derek! How’d you find me?”

  “Sarah’s here. She said she saw you in the tunnel. She’s lost a leg. Whole family bought it, Roy. Except her.”

  “Sorry, mate. Yeah, I saw them down there. Your mum wouldn’t let me sit with them. Saved my life, I reckon.” Roy blushed. Even he seemed to recognize how tactless that sounded. He looked down and fiddled with the buttons on his pajamas.

  Derek swallowed hard. “Anything I can get you?”

  “I’ve got to get out of London, Derek. The Reddy boys might be after me. I went to meet a bloke about a job, got a message you see, but then, I thought to myself, it could be a setup. They’re tricky, those sods.”

  “Tell you what, Roy. Soon as they let my Sarah out, I’ll want her taken to our sister in Hampshire. I’ve got to get back to my unit. You remember Betty? She works in a big house there. Manor house, actually. You could maybe find a job down there. Keep you out of trouble for a bit. What do you say?”

  “Sounds possible. Can you spring for the tickets? I haven’t got a bean. House went up, and Jamie and Gran along with it.”

  “Sorry ’bout that Roy. Really sorry. Both in the same boat now. Yeah, I’ll spring for the tickets. I’ll leave the money with Sarah.”

  One more visit with Sarah tomorrow, leave her the money, and he’d get back to Aldershot. Got a girl with great big tits waiting for him down there. Didn’t pay to leave them alone too long, although he’d made it clear he could get his hands on Yankee goods. She’d hang on for any of that she thought might come her way. He chewed his lower lip, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as he sauntered out into the pale sunny day.

  * * *

  Myrtle Freeman sailed around the table in St. Paul’s, pouring tea and platitudes for the volunteers. Those not numbed by fear or exhaustion often snickered and nudged each other in quite a rude way when she went by; she was only trying to offer a little home comfort and didn’t find the situation at all amusing. Raw nerves, no doubt. The length of this raid bothered her, too, but her legacy as a bastion of competence and reliability in the eyes of the dean’s wife concerned her more.

  The dean of St. Paul’s was dear and sweet and never spared himself. A slender man with fine aristocratic features, he ought to take better care of himself. But, there you are, a man of the cloth has his calling. There had been one or two incendiary hits on the dome, but they hadn’t pierced it and the dean and his helpers managed to douse them all from the buckets they’d had ready. She overheard the dean tell one of the staff that the Nazis were going for the Cathedral tonight. He’d been warned by Whitehall that very afternoon.

  She wondered how Millie was getting on. She’d caught sight of her sister near a market where she’d heard they had good sausages. A long way off her beaten track, but a proper English sausage was worth the effort. They hadn’t seen each other in over thirty years, and Millie had looked so old and tired and lined she hardly recognized her. She’d married beneath her and spent the rest of her life poor. On an impulse Myrtle had followed her until she turned into a house that had obviously been turned into flats. Not a very nice area, but not too bad, just low class.

  A young man passed Millie on his way out and said, “’Night, Gran, going out for a bit.”

  Millie said, “Oh, Roy, where to this time?” The boy lifted his eyes heavenward, not bothering to answer. His greasy hair was slicked back and his clothes were terrible, flashy, a real spiv, as they called his type.

  Myrtle carried on her trek, but turned to retrace her steps when she heard a door slam. It was Millie again, this time with a teenage boy in tow. Looked a little too old to be holding hands like that. A couple of children playing hopscotch in the street abandoned their game to follow them. “Idiot! Mental! Stupid! ’Tarded!” they yelled, twirling their fingers at the sides of their heads. Millie turned around and shouted at them like a common fishwife. The boy shoved his hands in his pockets and, head down and shoulders hunched, kept on walking as though he hadn’t heard a thing. Maybe he was deaf as well.

  So, Millie had at least two grandsons, one a spiv, the other a mental defective. Myrtle had been considering making contact, but thought better of it now. What would all her friends make of Millie and her family, especially her circle of lady volunteers at St. Paul’s? No, it wouldn’t do. And her own son, she had to think of him, not to mention his wife—she was very particular. No, a great pity, but there it was. Millie had brought it all on herself, after all.

  A sudden dangerous crackling sent Myrtle edging out of her alcove to join the others, all gazing up at a hideous greenish glow in the dome. An incendiary had penetrated the lining and stuck there, smoldering. The dome was lined with only a thin layer of lead resting on old wooden beams; a firetrap, it would go up like tinder if the flames were allowed to gain hold.

  Hardly breathing, they followed the few dark figures crawling along the beams like marauding rats. The onlookers should have gone down to the crypt, but stayed, paralyzed by the fear their beloved church was finished—St. Paul’s had already burned down twice in its thousand-year history. As the glow flickered out and the dome melted back into its shadows, the onlookers exhaled and sagged, some sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, exhausted by fear and relief.

  The dean lumbered down the worn spiral stairs, coughing from smoke, effort, and emotion. “It’s safe,” he said, tears in his eyes. He told them how some of the men had made the perilous crawl along the beams to do what they could. To everyone’s relief, the incendiary fell outwards onto a balcony below of its own accord, where the waiting crew soon extinguished it. These volunteers had spent most of the day filling buckets with water and lining them up around the different balcony levels. “Heroes, every one,” he said. “God bless them.”

  The raid went on and on. When the all clear finally sounded, Myrtle and the others stepped outside to utter devastation. The fires had burned to within twenty-five feet of St. Paul’s and most of the surrounding ancient city had been reduced to a pile of rubble, hundreds of years of history decimated in a matter of hours. Myrtle took in the stone and dust, unwilling to think of what might lie underneath. No one spoke; too much to take in, too much. “God help us all,” an old man muttered. At the sound of his voice, Myrtle straightened her shoulders, thankful to be alive. Must get on with things. She knew she should find out if Millie was all right. Her Christian duty. But then what?

  * * *

  Myrtle’s journey home had been a nightmarish patchwork of lifts from strangers lucky enough to still have petrol and long walks. Thank goodness the gas was still on, she’d die if she didn’t have a cup of tea right away, then off to bed and a lovely long sleep.

  She took it easy for the next few days, dusting and polishing and tidying, trying to concentrate on her library book, wondering whether there would be anything worth buying down at the shops, but lacking the energy to go and see—Myrtle couldn’t bring herself to try to make it back up to St. Paul’s. She telephoned to the high street shop and had a boy deliver the basics. Not everybody on their street had a telephone and Myrtle was surprised hers still worked. It always gave her a little surge of pride when she picked it up and ask
ed the operator for a number, even if it did cost good money. Heaven knows how that little shop afforded one. On the fiddle? Somehow they always managed to keep their shelves stocked.

  After a week Myrtle pulled herself together, shrugged on her second-best winter coat, set her maroon felt hat at jaunty angle, and strolled down the avenue. She pursed her lips as she noticed an unsavory looking character hobbling towards her on crutches. He came to a halt in front of her with a clownish look of surprise on his face.

  “Aunty Myrtle!”

  Millie’s grandson. What did he want, how did he know who she was?

  “I … I’m afraid I don’t …”

  “I’m your sister Millie’s grandson Roy. I’ve been watching you. Until I broke my leg in a raid, that is. Now they’ve let me out of hospital, I thought I’d come and pay you a visit.”

  Oh no, watching her? Just walk away from this dreadful person. Myrtle started to move around him, but he blocked her way, nimble as a goat on those crutches.

  “Please let me pass. I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

  “Well, you’re seeing me now. I’ve got bad news. My Gran, your sister Millie, and my cousin Jamie, they’re dead. Our house blown to smithereens and them along with it.”

  “Oh dear!” Myrtle was shocked at first, and then saddened when she realized she felt no sense of loss, no regret, no sense of missing her sister. She’d be hard put to it to dredge up happy memories of their youth, even though there must have been some before she ran off with that Ted. She suppressed a shameful feeling of relief. So this horrid person really was her nephew.

  “See, I’ve nowhere to kip down, so I thought I’d move in with you for a bit.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly. I’ve got my son and his wife to consider, I’m …”