‘No,’ continued Queenie, ‘the aim is to get them on the ground so you can finish them off.’ Clenching her fists, she put one on top of the other and twisted them in the opposite directions to illustrate her point. ‘That’s how we used to deal with the Black and Tans in my day.’
‘Cor, Gran, will you show me how to make a booby trap?’ said Billy, his eyes round with admiration for the sixty-fiveyear-old saboteur.
‘No, she will not,’ said Ida, pulling her son away from Queenie.
The back yard opened and Jo’s father Jerimiah walked in.
Although just short of his fiftieth, Jerimiah Boniface Brogan stood over six foot tall and, with a fifty-inch chest, could best a man half his age. Although he would shed a tear at a sentimental song, if roused to anger, he was a terrifying sight to behold. On the rare occasions the police were called to arbitrate between him and another fella, they knew to send at least six of their number as he’d once carried Pat Horan’s donkey on his shoulders the length of Cable Street for a bet. To Jo, however, he was the man who worked from dawn to dusk and in all weathers to put shoes on his children’s feet and food in their mouths. To her he was always the warm embrace she could snuggle into.
Mind you, she wouldn’t be hugging him at the moment as her father was covered from head to foot in brick dust and soot. His soft sea-green eyes looked unnaturally bright as they regarded his family through a layer of dirt caked on his face, and even his flamboyant red neckerchief that he insisted on wearing with his Home Guard uniform was indistinguishable from the khaki of his dust-laden battle jacket.
His gaze flickered over his family for a second and then he spoke. ‘Jo, Billy, what are you doing back?’
‘It was so horrible that we had to come home, Dad,’ said Jo. ‘And beside, we missed you all so much. Didn’t we, Billy?’
‘Yeah,’ her brother agreed. ‘They all spoke funny and called us guttersnipes.’ His lower lip started to tremble. ‘Please don’t send us back, Dad. Please!’
‘Course we won’t, will we?’ their mother cut in, giving her husband a firm look.
Jo’s dad studied them for a moment then ruffled Billy’s hair and then held out his arms.
Jo hurried into them and was enfolded into her father’s all-encompassing embrace.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she murmured, hugging him back.
He kissed her forehead. ‘Mind you, you’ve picked the wrong moment,’ he said, releasing her. ‘It looks like Hitler’s decided to make his move.’
‘Never mind Hitler,’ snapped Ida. ‘It’s your mother we’ve got to worry about.’ Ida jabbed a finger at Queenie. ‘She tried to kill us—’
‘For the Love of God, Ida,’ said Queenie, pulling off her headgear and leaving her hair standing on end like a feather duster, ‘don’t take on—’
‘Take on! Take on!’ screamed Jo’s mother. ‘What’s that then when it’s at home? Irish mist?’
She pointed at the knife sticking out of the wood.
Queenie gave the blade a quick glance and then looked at Jerimiah.
‘Sure, she’s over-seeing things as always, I was only—’
‘To take someone’s eye out—’
‘Bejesus, will you not interrupt—’
‘I shall speak when I like, Queenie, in me own hom—’
‘Son, tell the women to—’
‘Quiet!’ roared Jerimiah.
Both women jumped.
‘That’s better,’ he said in his normal tone. ‘Now, I don’t know how you idled away the time while the bloody Jerries were trying to send us all to Kingdom Come, but I’ve been digging people out from under their homes and fighting with fire hoses trying to quell the inferno along the river.’ He raked his fingers through his black curly hair, dislodging a shower of grit. ‘So I’d be obliged if you’d both wait a while before telling me all the whys and wherefores.’ He glanced around and scowled. ‘And while you’re all shouting and screaming at each other, have any of you a thought to where Mattie may be?’
The colour drained from Ida’s face. ‘She said she’d book off when the all-clear sounded.’
‘That was an hour ago,’ said Jerimiah. ‘And there’s a fire in the paper mills a few streets down from Post 7 fit to warm Hell itself—’
The back gate opened again and Mattie staggered through it.
With a face the colour of cold porridge and dark circles under her eyes, she looked dead on her feet. Seeing her family looking at her Mattie gave them a weary smile which was taken over by a massive yawn.
‘Morning,’ she said, blinking and stretching away her exhaustion. ‘Glad to see you’re still in one piece.’
Ida drew a deep breath. ‘We wouldn’t be if—’
‘That we are,’ cut in her father, giving his wife a meaningful look. ‘And praise the saint above it’s the same with you, me dear, but,’ he put one of his bear-like arms around her, ‘you look as if you need to sleep for a week.’
‘I feel like it, too.’ Mattie yawned again.
‘There’s porridge on the stove,’ said Queenie.
‘Thanks, Gran, but I had a bite at the WVS canteen while I was booking off so I think I’ll just tuck myself under the blankets and pray the Luftwaffe don’t come calling for a few hours.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Ida, crossing herself. ‘Off you go, luv.’
Mattie’s gaze flickered onto Jo’s face for a second then she went into the house.
‘She shouldn’t be running around the streets in her condition,’ said Ida, when her daughter was out of earshot.
‘We’ve all got to do our bit,’ said Jerimiah. He looked at Queenie. ‘Will you fetch me a bucket of water, Ma, so I can clean up a bit before I go out again?’
Queenie hurried off into the kitchen.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Ida.
‘To the yard,’ her husband replied, as he stripped off his jacket. ‘And you’d better say a prayer to St Philip that I don’t find old Samson dead in his stall after all the fireworks of last night.’
Ida yawned. ‘I suppose we’d better make ourselves respectable and get to church. Young Father McInnis was down to do it but I expect after last night Father Mahon will want to say the Mass.’
‘Father McInnis?’ said Jo. ‘What happened to Father McCree?’
Her parents exchanged uncomfortable looks.
‘Well, you see now . . .’ started her mother. ‘It’s like this. Father McCree—’
‘Joined the army,’ cut in her father.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Ida. ‘Father McCree joined the army.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Jo. ‘I really liked him. I hope he keeps his head and stays out of danger.’
Her parents exchanged another uneasy look then her father spoke again. ‘So do we, Jo, so do we.’
*
‘Right,’ said Jo, pressing the lid of their old biscuit tin down firmly, ‘that’s two rounds of jam sandwiches and a slice of cake each.’
‘Good,’ said her mother, her brawny forearms cording as she screwed the lid on the Thermos flask. ‘That should keep body and soul together until the all-clear.’
It was the Monday after her and Billy’s return and she was in the kitchen with her mother. Her father was out on his rounds, Billy was playing football in the street with half a dozen other lads and Mattie and her friend Fran were on duty at their respective ARP depots. Gran was out doing whatever she was up to and, as her father always said, it was better not to know so you didn’t have to lie if the police asked.
Although it was only two days since she had walked into the house with Billy at her side, for Jo, the past forty-eight hours had become a blur of sirens, disrupted sleep and the world shaking and crashing around her. This would have been nightmare enough in itself but the horror was amplified by being surrounded by the multitude of souls huddled around her in the shelter who sobbed and screamed with every explosion. Having survived the night, Jo had finally crawled home to collapse in her bed for six
hours of dreamless sleep before the sirens went off again at sunset. To be honest, after just two nights of the damp and foul-smelling Tilbury Shelter, she was beginning to come around to her gran’s way of thinking.
However, as her mother’s primary aim in life was to see her family fed and watered, tonight Ida had decided to get herself organised for the night ahead by making sure they had plenty of food and drink if they were stuck in the shelter again, as it was clear that the Luftwaffe would be paying them a visit every night for the foreseeable future. If they did find themselves greeting St Peter at the Pearly Gates, the Brogans wouldn’t arrive on an empty stomach.
‘Put it in the box alongside the extra blankets,’ said her mother, as Jo’s thoughts started to drift. ‘And I’ll load it on the pram ready. In fact, I thought we might stroll to the shelter in a bit to see if we can get a better spot than last night, away from the toilets.’
‘Well, if that’s the case do you mind if I pop around to Daisy Kemp’s to let her know I’m back?’ said Jo.
Ida glanced at her watch. ‘It’s a bit late.’
‘It’s only just gone six,’ said Jo. ‘And it’s still light outside.’
‘I know, but for the past few nights the sirens have gone off before seven and I don’t want you out roaming the streets when they do tonight,’ said her mother.
‘She only lives in Mercer Street,’ Jo replied. ‘And if the Moaning Minnies go off I’ll head straight for the shelter and meet you there.’
Her mother looked unconvinced.
‘After all,’ Jo continued, ‘aren’t we supposed to keep calm and carry on; carry on with everyday things like seeing friends? Please, Mum.’
Ida bit the inside of her mouth.
‘All right,’ she said, after a long moment. ‘But the minute that siren goes off I want you to get your skates on and get to the shelter.’
Jo let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
‘Promise,’ she said, making a quick cross with her finger across her chest.
‘Off you go then,’ said Ida, heaving the box into the pram.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Jo, planting a kiss on her mother’s soft cheek.
Snatching her handbag from the table, she hurried towards the kitchen door.
‘But woe betide you, Jo, if you’re not in that shelter when the first bomb hits the ground,’ her mother called after her.
Throwing the door shut behind her, Jo sped out of the yard and down the side alley. Turning left she headed for the Highway but instead of crossing over to Mercer Street she carried on towards the market until the telephone box opposite the Town Hall came in to view.
Mercifully there was no one in it so Jo pulled open the door and stepped inside, carefully avoiding the suspicious pool of liquid in the corner.
Apart from the possibility of instant death beneath a German bomb, the other problem created by the Luftwaffe’s determination to obliterate East London and all its dwellings was that although she’d been back a full two days she hadn’t yet been out of her family’s sight long enough to let Tommy know she was home.
Rummaging around in her handbag, Jo found her purse and picked up the handset.
‘What number please, caller?’ asked the distant voice at the other end.
‘Wapping 712, please,’ said Jo.
‘Is this an essential call?’
‘Why?’ Jo replied.
‘Because during an air raid all telephone lines are reserved for Civil Defence purposes only,’ said the operator.
‘Well, if the siren goes off I’ll hang up, now would you kindly put me through?’ Jo replied.
Sensing rather than hearing the operator bristle, Jo waited, then the line clicked as the girl at the other end dialled the number.
There was a pause and then the receiver was picked up at the other end and the pips went.
Jo pressed threepence into the slot and pressed the A button.
The line connected.
‘’allo!’ said the rasping tones of Sam, the Admiral’s ancient potman.
‘Is that the Admiral?’ asked Jo.
‘Yeah,’ Sam replied. ‘Wot you want?’
‘Is Tommy Sweete there?’
‘Who?’
‘Tommy Sweete,’ repeated Jo.
‘Never ’eard of him.’
‘Reggie Sweete’s brother,’ said Jo. ‘You must know them?’
‘Look, luv, I don’t know nuffunk about nobody,’ said Sam. ‘And Reggie would have my guts for garters if he heard I was blabbing about him and his bruver so—’
‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Rita’s sharp voice at the other end of the phone.
‘Some chit asking for Tommy Sweete,’ the potman replied.
‘Give it here.’
Jo’s heart sank.
‘Right, who are you,’ snapped Rita, ‘and why are you after Tommy?’
‘Because I’d like to speak to—’
‘It’s you again, ain’t it? The bloody rag and bone man’s kid, Lil or Jill or—’
‘Jo!’
‘Jo, I should have known,’ said Rita. ‘All you bog-trotters are named after some dead saint or another.’
‘For your information,’ said Jo, struggling to keep her voice even, ‘my dad said saints are ten a penny so he named me and my sisters after empresses.’
‘Is that a fact?’ said Rita.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Jo. ‘Now if Tommy’s there I’d like to speak to him, please.’
‘Shall I tell you what else is ten a penny?’ said Rita.
‘If you must,’ said Jo.
‘Women trying to get Tommy’s attention,’ said Rita. ‘And in my opinion you’d—’
‘Actually,’ snapped Jo, ‘I don’t want your opinion; what I want is to speak to Tommy.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s personal,’ Jo replied.
Rita sniggered down the phone. ‘I bet it is.’
‘Look, Rita, I—’
‘No, you look here,’ cut in Rita. ‘I’m running a bleeding pub not a lonely hearts club for little girls so sod off and don’t ring again.’
The line went dead.
Jo stared at the unresponsive receiver for a second or two then a winding wail penetrated the muted interior of the telephone box as the air raid siren on top of the Town Hall went off.
With tears gathering in her eyes, Jo pressed button B and retrieved a couple of coppers. She pushed open the door and joined the stream of people hurrying for the shelter.
Chapter Six
AS FRED STACKED a wooden crate full of rum bottles on top of the one by Reggie’s feet, an explosion pulsed around the warehouse’s enclosed yard.
‘Bugger me, that was a bit close,’ he shouted, above the bedlam taking place all around them.
After their first success at setting the docks ablaze and destroying homes, the Germans were back for another go. The sirens had gone off at a quarter to seven, forcing people to leave their supper on the table and flee to the shelters.
But not Reggie and his men. They’d already shifted some gear they’d acquired two days ago to a safe location by Hackney Marshes and delivered yet another haul of pilfered goods to the designated rendezvous in Epping Forest for collection. Now, at just after eleven, they were on their last job of the night.
Once the powers-that-be actually declared war a year ago, it had taken Reggie just a couple of weeks to suss out that having most of the population tucked away in shelters all night was a gift for those in his profession. Also, the nightly air raid warning saved him both time and trouble. Time because, by and large, business owners often left their premises unlocked when they dashed to their places of safety, and trouble because instead of shinning up walls and picking locks to gain entry, he just had to slip in through a shattered front window and let the boys in the back. In addition, as the police were busy trying to control the nightly stampede to the shelters and keep the population from mass hysteria, they had very little time to worry about load
ed lorries driving about in the dark.
While searchlights criss-crossed the black London sky and waves of Dorniers, Heinkels and Junckers roared above, Reggie and his men were finishing the night behind the tall closed gates of the East London Trading Company warehouse.
He, Fred and Jimmy, along with a couple of others from his regular night-time crew, dressed in navy overalls as if they were ARP workers, had been hard at it for almost two hours and the lorry was already low on its axles.
As always, Jimmy did the heavy lifting, ferrying the boxes and crates they were acquiring out to Reggie who had been struggling to tally them up using a stubby pencil and screwed-up notepad in the dim light of his torch.
‘How we doing?’ asked Fred, just the whites of his eyes and teeth showing in the blackness.
‘By my reckoning we’ve had three boxes of printers’ ink, two of assorted woodworking tools, three dozen shovels, a dozen crates of rum and four of gin,’ said Reggie as Jimmy appeared out of the shadows and deposited another crate onto the lorry’s back board.
‘I thought it was a dozen of gin and four of rum,’ said Fred, peering into the black void of the vehicle’s interior. ‘And weren’t it two dozen spades and ten garden forks?’
‘Does it matter?’ hollered Reggie. ‘As long as we can flog it. What about the three cartons of American cigarettes?’
‘They’ve been loaded,’ shouted Fred over the roar of a blast a few streets north of them.
‘Have they?’ yelled Reggie. Hawking noisily, he spat the cinders and soot clogging his mouth onto the cobbles at his feet.
‘Yes,’ bawled Fred. ‘Jimmy brought them out on his third trip—’
The booming sound of masonry falling and a fire engine screaming past on the other side of the warehouse’s tall back gates cut off their conversation.
‘It’s a pity Tommy’s not here or he’d have the whole lot listed off pat in his bonce,’ said Fred.
‘Well, he’s not,’ roared Reggie, his throat hurting with the effort to be heard. ‘Anything else?’
‘Just a couple of sacks of coffee beans,’ Fred replied. ‘Although God only knows where you’ll get shot of those.’
‘I got a mate in Soho says those poncy clubs in Mayfair will pay a small fortune for the real stuff,’ Reggie replied. ‘Is that it?’
A Ration Book Christmas Page 8