The Bells of Bow

by Gilda O'Neill

  Babs gasped and pointed to the end of the yard. A huge dark shape was whistling down from the sky.

  ‘What the hell?’ shouted Frankie. ‘Blimey, it’s a plane coming down. I’ll have to—’

  Frankie was silenced again, but this time it wasn’t by Babs, it was by a terrible explosion followed moments later by an unbelievably powerful blast.

  Frankie held his hands over his eyes to protect them from the grit. ‘Christ Almighty, that couldn’t have been no plane,’ he hollered, squinting through the dust. ‘But whatever it was, it looks like it’s come down by the railway bridge in Grove Road. We’ve gotta go and help.’ As he finished speaking he disappeared inside, leaving the bedroom curtains flapping out of the open window.

  By the time Babs managed to drag the now almost hysterical Flash indoors, Georgie was in the kitchen pulling on his trousers over his pyjamas and Evie was helping Betty put her coat on over her nightie.

  ‘I told Eve, you girls get yerselves and that baby over the Drum,’ he instructed Babs over his shoulder and strode into the passage. ‘And barmy as its howling’s driving me,’ he called from the street door, ‘yer might as well take that flaming dog and all. I’m gonna go and see what’s happening.’

  When the twins followed Georgie outside, they coughed and spluttered in the dirt and dust from the explosion that had turned the dawn light into a hazy dusk. The street was full of activity. Maudie, with a first-aid kit tucked under her arm, was almost at the top of the turning where it joined Grove Road, and Georgie had broken into a run to catch up with her; Frankie was on his step trying to make himself ready for action by adjusting the strap of his warden’s helmet, but was being hampered by Ethel’s insistent supervision; Alice and Nobby Clarke were standing at the street door of number five with cups of tea in their hands looking for all the world as if they were spectators at a sporting event, while upstairs Minnie and Clara were leaning out of their window trying to find out what was happening by Minnie shouting questions down to Terry Simpkins, his sister Mary and Jim Walker from the pub, who were standing in the middle of the road.

  ‘Honest, Min, we dunno what it was,’ Terry shouted back with a shrug. ‘But Jim’s called the fire brigade and they’re on their way with the rescue people, so we should know something soon.’

  Bert and Rita from the baker’s came up to the little group and stood next to Mary who looked as if she was about to cry. They both looked dazed and there was a thin trickle of blood coming from Bert’s nose. ‘What’s happening?’ Bert sounded odd, half asleep. ‘I was doing the loaves down in the bakehouse and it started shaking about, like we was on a ride at the fair or something. When we come upstairs, all the windows was blown out.’

  Nellie came striding over. ‘Come on, Reet, and you, Bert. Girls,’ Nellie jerked her thumb at the twins, ‘get yerselves down my cellar. Yer never know, there might be another one of them things on the way.’ She beckoned to Mary who had started softly weeping. ‘And you fetch yer little sister and try and get that Blanche over here and all, Mary.’

  ‘I can fetch Janey over,’ Mary sniffled and shuddered through her tears. ‘But I can’t make Mum get out of bed, Nell. She won’t move.’

  Nellie put her arm round Mary’s shoulders. ‘You go in the pub with the twins. Go on. And I’ll go in yours and fetch Janey. And I’ll see what I can do with yer mum.’

  Mary nodded and let Babs lead her away.

  Nellie twisted round and pointed to the upstairs of number five. ‘Minnie, why don’t you and Clara go in the pub and all? Go on, yer dunno if that thing’s gonna go off again. And you two, come on,’ she said briskly, nodding at Alice and Nobby. ‘And tell Ethel while yer at it. I’m sure I saw her go back indoors.’

  ‘Any more orders?’ muttered Nobby.

  ‘No, that’s all,’ said Nell and made her way smartly over to number four.

  While all that was going on in Darnfield Street, at the top of the turning and just round the corner – where the thing, whatever it was, had fallen – Grove Road was in total confusion.

  Maudie and George just gave each other one look and got stuck straight in, doing what they could. Maudie rolled up her sleeves and set to work with the ambulance crews, putting to good use the first-aid training she was now grateful to have done at work, while Georgie, who recognised some of the men from the sub-station, helped them shift the timbers and rubble away from the trapped and injured victims, in the race to release them before the ruptured gas mains blew.

  ‘I ain’t never seen no bomb damage like this before,’ puffed Georgie as he helped heave a massive lump of plaster-covered brickwork to one side.

  ‘Nor me, mate,’ said the gasping grey-haired man who was working with him.

  ‘And why’s there so many law about?’ he asked as the two of them somehow flipped what had once been a section of internal wall onto its side, exposing a tangle of wooden roofing rafters lying at weird angles in the remains of the front parlour of what, only fifteen minutes ago, had been a three-storey home housing two peacefully sleeping families.

  ‘There’s talk it was a Jerry plane what crashed,’ groaned the grey-haired man as he braced himself against a pile of rubble and tried to wrench out one of the beams. ‘They’re here searching, in case there’s a pilot what bailed out.’

  Georgie took a deep breath and helped the man dislodge the timber; his palms were stabbed with splinters as his hands rasped along the shattered edges. ‘What, yer reckon a plane could make a crater this big? Cause this much damage?’ He sounded more than a little sceptical when he eventually managed to get the words out.

  ‘No, mate,’ the man replied in gasps. ‘I don’t reckon I do. To tell yer the truth, I dunno what could have done this kind of damage. Look, the WVS are here, let’s get a cuppa. I’ve gotta have a break.’

  ‘What’s the reckoning so far?’ Georgie asked a rather elderly-looking police officer who joined them at the mobile canteen.

  The constable lowered his head and let out a long, slow breath. ‘They’ve counted six dead so far.’ His voice was flat, expressionless from shock. ‘At least thirty badly injured. And just for good measure the feller over there reckons there’s gonna be a good couple of hundred people left homeless and all.’

  The grey-haired man wiped the back of his grimy hand across his grit-covered mouth. ‘I don’t understand why there weren’t no warning.’

  The policeman took off his helmet and hooked it over the wing mirror of the WVS truck. ‘That’s why they’re saying it must have been a Jerry plane what copped it.’

  Georgie shook his head. ‘No. That weren’t no plane. Me and this bloke here’ve been digging in that lot and we’ve both been on sites where planes have crashed. We ain’t seen no sign of no airman, no bits of plane. Nothing like that at all.’

  The police officer put his empty cup on the fold-down counter and nodded his thanks to the volunteers. ‘So what was it then?’ he asked, unhooking his helmet from the mirror. ‘What was it caused all that damage?’

  During the next three days, people all over the capital were asking the same question – just what was causing these terrible blasts? Whatever it was, they were happening at a reported rate of up to seventy-three a day. There weren’t the huge fires afterwards as there had been during the Blitz, but the immense explosive power was causing devastating numbers of deaths and appalling destruction. Worst of all, some said, was that there was no accurate warning; the sirens would stop and start and stop again, bringing consternation and confusion. But what really caused panic was when the terrifying noise, a distant humming that became louder and louder and more and more threatening as it got closer, suddenly cut out. That was the moment of real terror, the appalling interval of silence when you waited for it to strike, not knowing where it would hit until the impact finally came, followed by the tremendous explosion.

  After three days of this nightmare of not knowing, it was at last admitted in an official statement that London was under attack from a new weapon: the
V-1 rocket. That was what had hit the houses by the railway bridge in Grove Road.

  And so, with the coming of what was soon to be known as the doodlebug or flying bomb, a new chapter of war began; a new threat to the lives of the East Enders who had put up with so much already, and a new wave of exhaustingly hard work for the fire service which, with the rescue and search services, the ambulance crews and civil defence workers, had to cope with the horrifying consequences of the new weapon.

  After five years of war, it was as if London had been smacked in the face; it wasn’t nearly over after all, and by the time the long summer days were stretching into July, the doodlebugs were targeting London both night and day.

  On one of those bright summer mornings, Babs and Evie were taking Betty to the nursery before they went on to work. As they stood on the kerb waiting to cross Grove Road, they saw Minnie and Clara walking towards them on their way back from their early morning cleaning jobs.

  ‘Morning, Min, Clara,’ Babs called with a little wave. ‘You’re back early today, ain’t yer? It ain’t half past seven yet.’

  As the two grey-haired women got closer, the twins could see from the stunned look on their ashen faces that something was wrong.

  Babs scooped Betty protectively into her arms.

  ‘Clara, what’s up?’ Evie asked steadily. ‘Min? Talk to me.’

  Clara covered her face with her hands.

  ‘It’s the hospital,’ Minnie said, waving her hand feebly in the direction of Mile End. ‘It’s been hit by a doodlebug.’

  Evie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Aw gawd, Min. You all right?’

  Minnie shook her head. ‘No. No, I ain’t. I don’t feel that well, to tell yer the truth.’

  Evie flashed a look at Babs and then took the women’s bags and gently steered them towards Darnfield Street. ‘Come on, ladies, me and Babs’ll take yer in the baker’s and Rita’ll make yer a nice cup o’ tea.’

  Evie knocked on the shop’s recently replaced glass door with her knuckles. ‘Hurry up,’ she urged, peering into the unlit interior of the shop. She stepped back. ‘Here’s Rita.’

  Rita’s head appeared at the top of the narrow stairway that led down to the kitchens in the basement. She was red-faced from the heat of the ovens and didn’t look best pleased at being dragged upstairs, but she took one look at the four women and little Betty standing outside in the street and rushed over to open the door.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked, pulling the door back on its hinges. She gestured with her head for them to come inside.

  Babs put Betty on the floor and whispered to Rita, ‘There’s been one of them sodding doodlebugs at the hospital, while Minnie and Clara was working.’

  Rita stared at Minnie and Clara’s colourless cheeks. ‘I put the chairs out the back in the storeroom while I was cleaning,’ she said to the twins. ‘Yer know where they are. And mind yer don’t slip, I’ve only just mopped the floors up here.’

  Evie and Babs ducked behind the counter to fetch them.

  Rita patted first Minnie’s hand then Clara’s. ‘I’ll go downstairs to Bert and tell him to put the kettle on. I’ll only be a minute.’ She held out her hand to Betty. ‘You come down with me to see yer Uncle Bert, eh, darling? I’ll bet he’s got something nice for yer to eat.’

  Evie and Babs returned from the storeroom and the two grey-haired woman sat down gratefully on the seats.

  Rita reappeared from the stairwell and bent forward to take the tray of tea that Bert was handing up to her.

  ‘Did someone at the hospital have a look at you two?’ Rita asked them gently as she put the tray on the counter and poured the tea. ‘Shock can be nasty, yer know.’

  ‘No. See, they was ever so busy, Reet.’ As Minnie spoke she was looking out of the window, but her eyes were glazed, unfocused. ‘There was people there what got hurt, real bad some of ’em. And they was ill already and all. Poor sods.’

  ‘So we come home.’ Clara’s voice was so quiet they could barely hear her. ‘We didn’t know what else to do.’

  Rita tried to give her her cup, but Clara’s hands were trembling so badly she couldn’t hold it. ‘I’m gonna fetch Dr Land,’ Rita said.

  Clara looked up. ‘Please don’t bother him, Reet, we’re all right.’

  Rita bit her lip. ‘Well, at least let me go over to Nellie’s to get yer both a drop of brandy,’ she said. ‘Look at yer, yer shivering.’

  ‘You stay here,’ said Babs, walking over to the door. ‘I’ll go.’

  Clara was getting on for sixty but as she glanced up at Rita the look in her eyes made her seem like a frightened little girl. ‘I’ve been scared before, Reet,’ she said. ‘Lots of times. But this time … this time … Aw, I’m really scared. And Minnie looks real bad. Look at her.’

  ‘Please, Clara. Don’t upset yerself.’ Evie knelt down beside her chair and held her hand.

  Clara sniffed. ‘I’m beginning to believe them stories you hear.’

  ‘What stories are they then, Clara?’ Evie asked her quietly.

  ‘That these flying bomb things know how to find yer.’ Now Clara was weeping openly. ’Cos I’m sure they’re after us. First Grove Road, then the hospital.’

  The sight of the two fine, big women reduced to tears almost had Rita and Evie crying with them.

  ‘Look, here’s Babs,’ Rita said, trying to sound cheerful.

  Babs handed Rita a bottle of brandy. ‘Nellie said she wishes yer both well and she’ll pop down and see yer later on. And yer to have as much as yer want of that ’cos it’s only Jim’s, so she don’t care.’

  Rita smiled and tipped a good measure of the spirit into Minnie’s and Clara’s cups but their hands were still shaking so much that she and Babs had to help them hold the cups to their lips.

  ‘You’ll get used to these rotten doodlebug things,’ Evie said brightly. ‘You just see. Yer’ll be like me soon. If Babs here hadn’t woke me up, I’d have slept right through all that bloody row the night that first one fell in Grove Road.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Babs, smiling encouragingly. ‘She would have and all.’

  ‘It’s like that old Mrs Meacher,’ said Evie, with an equally determined smile. ‘D’yer know her? Funny-looking old girl from down Bolldover Road way. I saw her down the Roman when we was queuing for spuds the other day.’

  Babs looked at Evie questioningly. ‘Who?’ she said.

  Evie winked. ‘You know, Babs. Nose like a beetroot and ear’ole like a cauliflower.’

  Babs nodded. ‘Aw yeah,’ she said, realising that this was one of Evie’s tales. ‘Her.’

  ‘Well anyway, this Mrs Wheeler—’

  ‘Meacher,’ Babs reminded her.

  ‘Yeah,’ Evie said. ‘That’s what I mean. Well, she only woke up to find all her windows blown out, didn’t she. A doodlebug had crashed into the very next street and she didn’t know a thing about it. Slept right through the whole lot. Bad as me. And yer’ll never guess what, when someone from the newspaper come round to talk to her, to ask her about it, like, if the bombs scared her and that, do you know what she said? She said, I look at it this way: when the bloody thing’s got as far as England, then it’s gotta find London, ain’t it? Then after that it’s gotta find its way down to the East End. And then it’s gotta find its way here to Bow. And however it’d sort out Bolldover Road from all the rest, I don’t know. And after all that it’s still gotta find its way to number fourteen. And even if it did, if yer knew me and my Lukey, yer’d know the chances are that me and him’d be down the Earl of Aberdeen anyway!’

  ‘You’re a girl, Evie,’ Rita said, and she and Babs started laughing. Then, despite everything, Minnie and Clara joined in.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Evie, ‘that brandy must be a bit cooshty, making you pair laugh. Here, give us a drop.’

  ‘You stick to tea, girl,’ Babs warned her, picking up her cup. ‘We don’t wanna give Mr Silver no more reasons to threaten yer with the push.’

  Evie tutted loudly
and rolled her eyes, making Minnie and Clara start laughing again.

  Babs sipped at her tea and then said, ‘I’m not sure what yer think of this idea, but Maudie Peters was saying the other day how the vicar had told her about some rest place the church has got in Gloucestershire somewhere. She mentioned it ’cos of Blanche, but shall I say that you two might be interested in having a little break away from all this?’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Rita. ‘Here, and hopping starts in about six weeks, don’t it? Yer could do worse than go down there for a couple of weeks.’

  Clara clasped Minnie’s hand and looked at her imploringly. ‘Aw, Min, I don’t think I wanna leave here. Not even for a little while.’ She looked at the twins, then at Rita and then back at Minnie. Her lip was quivering. ‘I wanna stay here with me friends, where there’s people we know we can depend on.’

  ‘We ain’t gotta go nowhere,’ Minnie reassured her. ‘Babs and Rita only wondered if we wanted a little holiday.’

  ‘Course we did,’ Babs promised her.

  Rita took their cups and put them on the tray. ‘Let me make some more tea.’

  ‘Not for us, ta,’ said Babs holding up her hand.

  ‘It’s all right, yer welcome. I’ve got plenty. Bert got some off a feller he knows – swapsies, it was, for a tray of pie.’ She laughed. ‘Don’t ask what was in the pie, yer don’t wanna know.’

  ‘No, it ain’t that, Reet, honest, and we know we’re welcome, but we’ve gotta be off to get Betty to nursery.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And if we don’t hurry ourselves we’re gonna be late for work.’

  Evie winked at Clara. ‘Old Silver, that’s our governor, he’s a good bloke but he can be worse than any flipping doodlebug when he gets going. Gets right excited, he does.’

  Clara smiled weakly.

  ‘Look, why don’t yer let Betty stay with me today?’ Rita suggested. ‘It won’t hurt, will it? And I bet she’d enjoy herself. She’s no trouble, love her little heart.’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Evie, looking at Babs.

  ‘Smashing, Reet, but someone’d have to drop a note round the nursery to let ’em know, like. They worry if yer don’t come in, ’cos of,’ she pointed to the ceiling, ‘you know, in case something’s happened.’