Jim was familiar with the art of public pulse-taking. For years now he had been assessing public opinion, on one or other of the great political issues of the day. His guess now was that it would take at least a year’s pounding to beat London to its knees and batter its population into a frame of mind where they ran into the street, howling for peace at any price. The rest of the winter, and possibly one more summer, like last summer. After that anything might happen.
That, then, had been Hitler’s mistake, his worst mistake so far, if one discounted his failure to follow up Dunkirk with invasion. The price he demanded was too high, higher than death itself. It was like a pair of purses, held out to two heavyweight boxers in the ring. Victory for one meant more conquest, and loot. Defeat for the other meant slavery under impossible conditions, the exile and sterilisation of adult males, the splitting up of families, the wholesale slaughter of women and children, racial persecution on a scale unprecedented in barbaric wars of the past. What was death by bombs compared with such an accumulation of horrors? No wonder London was ‘taking it’.
He turned into the sandbagged entrance of the post, and hung his haversack on a nail, lifting his hand in greeting to a group of men hunched round the coke fire, and glancing at the map of the suburb, with its box of flags ready to mark incidents.
Back in the Avenue, the residential rump had already completed its air-raid drill, performed, in most cases with a phlegm that implied years, rather than weeks of practice.
Edith Clegg had coaxed Becky into the Morrison, and had then climbed out again, in order to turn off the gas at the main, and collect the metal box containing their insurance policies, keepsakes, and deeds.
Esther Frith had finished praying, and had climbed into her glacial bed, where she lay rubbing one foot on the other, and listening, during the few moments it took her to get to sleep, for the intermittent buzz overhead that meant the passage of German bombers over the suburb.
Harold Godbeer, whom the siren had caught slumped over his little fire, reading an inspired account of Wavell’s attack in Libya, got up and went out into the scullery, where he mixed himself his nightly dose of bicarbonate. Having swallowed it he wriggled under the kitchen table, and wedged himself against the projecting buttress of the unlit stove. Harold had not yet got an indoor shelter and had discussed, with Jim, the safest and most blast-proof corner of Number Twenty-Two. Jim had toured the downstairs rooms, made certain adjustments to the position of furniture, and pointed to the heavy table.
“Under there is as good as anywhere, old chap,” he told Harold, kindly, “but you know what we used to say in the trenches—if your name’s on one it’ll find you.”
Harold envied him his quiet courage, the kind of courage that enabled him to walk upright in the open, during a raid. As he settled himself among cushions, and adjusted the plaid rug that they had so often used for picnics in Manor Wood, his hand groped along the skirting until it touched the framed photograph of Eunice, that he kept in his dug-out. He drew it out, and studied it, in the dim light of the 15-watt bulb, noting the tendril of flaxen hair that had escaped from the right ‘earphone’ (Eunice had never had her hair bobbed or shingled, she was far too proud of her tresses) and he brought the picture up to his pale lips, pressing them gently on the glass.
Down the road Archie Carver, who shared his father’s contempt for shelters, got up from his supper as soon as he heard the siren and carried a spare fire-extinguisher out of the back door, standing it against the door of the store, in the yard. He was not afraid of being killed by blast, or buried alive in wreckage, but he was not going to stand by helplessly while an incendiary sent his stock and Floating Reserve up in smoke.
Almost opposite, little Miss Baker switched on her bedside light, and picked up her Rupert Brooke, a book she already knew by heart, but one that she liked to hold when the house began to vibrate with the passage of enemy aircraft overhead. At the first double throb she began to read:
‘Blow out you bugles,
Over the rich dead…’
She mouthed the words lovingly, and half audibly, savouring each of them like a sweetmeat, and as she read her memory conjured up a portrait she had once seen of the poet as a schoolboy. She remembered how eager, sensitive and noble he had looked—‘washed by English rivers, warmed by English suns!’
The bomb fell about a hundred and fifty yards from the golf-links end of the Avenue, obliterating the first three odd numbers of Delhi Road, that bordered the northern side of the Old Nursery and scattering rubble far over the potato rows of Jack Strawbridge’s dig-for-victory patch behind the first houses on the Avenue’s even side.
The explosion rocked every house in the crescent and splintered almost every window that faced the open space. Everyone in the Avenue flinched and hissed at the terrifying nearness of the blast. Harold Godbeer’s low-powered bulb winked out and the glass in Eunice’s photograph frame cracked under his thumb, causing him to drop it like a hot brick.
Immediately the blast wave had passed, and the roar of tumbling bricks and plaster had died away in a long, echoing rumble, the broken throb of aero-engines was heard overhead with dreadful clarity. Everybody in the Avenue waited for the second, and inevitably louder explosion, that would probably mean the end for all of them.
When it came it was from further off, out somewhere beyond the Lower Road, and they breathed again, smiling to themselves, and cocking their ears like terriers for subsequent bangs.
Up at the post in Shirley Rise there was a brief moment of confusion, as the telephone shrilled, and the heavy rescue squad surged round the hooks and lockers that contained their equipment. Jim roared an order and somebody started up the crash tender, a light lorry fitted with a powerful engine. Outside a fire-engine rushed past and the Post telephonist catching Jim by the sleeve, shouted: “Delhi Road—this end!”
Jim made his dispositions, the plotter marked the map, and the tender shot through the double doors, wrenching itself into a right-angled turn as Jim scrambled down beside the driver and the other men clung to the heavy equipment, clamped in the back.
When they got there Chief Officer Hargreaves was already in position, and his men and girls were running out hose to turn on a blazing house, adjoining the smoking rubble that now filled the gap where, only fifteen minutes before, three terraced houses had stood.
Jim had a quick word with Hargreaves, who turned aside from his work as soon as he recognised him.
“Direct hit…there may be people under there…we’ve already got one out, a passer-by, poor devil!”
Jim saw the casualty being carried into the ambulance, and at once began to deploy his men over the half-acre of bricks, splintered beams, and laths.
In the glare of the fire he saw an arm protruding from beneath a pile of guttering. He began to pull at the debris, piece by piece, until he had exposed the head and shoulders of an elderly woman. There was blood on her grey hair and Jim saw at once that she was dead. He gave orders for her removal, and then moved forward into the blast area, to search for the living.
A faint hail came from the most solid patch of rubble, and Jim stumbled towards it, clawing his way over the loose bricks, and an abattis of shattered furniture.
“How many of you?” he shouted, and then, over his shoulder, “Turn on the light! Give me some light, damn you!”
The stairway of one of the houses was still standing but it led to nothing. The front door of the house had been ripped from its hinges, and flung slantwise against the little cave formed by the stairs. It had saved the occupants of the broom cupboard of Number Two, for the fragments of the upper storey had cascaded down over this improvised glacis, sealing it off, and making its occupants a casual gift of their lives.
Jim tore at the bricks and shouldered the door aside, shining his bullseye into the hole, and directing the beam on its three occupants, a thin woman, and two girls, aged about seven and ten. The woman seemed very calm and the children more excited than terrified.
> “Bring Junkie…don’t forget Junkie!” piped the younger child, as Jim gathered her up, and passed her to Hopner, who stood at his elbow.
“How many are you?” he repeated, reaching back for the second child.
“Only three of us,” said the woman irritably, “Junkie’s her blasted monkey…here you are Rita, take it from the gentleman, do!” She sounded like a harassed housewife, disturbed in the process of preparing a meal in a hot kitchen, and Jim, noting this, repressed a chuckle. She gave Jim a large, woolly monkey, covered in powdered plaster, and Jim passed it across to the child, who clutched it joyfully as Hopner lifted her and bore her away.
“By God, that’s one up for the ‘under-the-stairs’ theory,” said Jim, as he helped the woman over the shifting bricks.
“Gran didn’t get to us,” said the woman, “I told her to stop messing about with the blackout, and come on in, but she wouldn’t, she would potter! Is she all right?”
Jim thought of the old woman under the guttering, but decided to let someone else break the news. There were probably other survivors, and this one, who did not appear to be suffering from shock, might be able to help account for the families.
“Who lives on each side of you, ma’am? Both houses have copped it.”
“Mrs. Purvis and her lodger, Miss Gilbraith, live in Number Two, but they usually go to the shelter. I only hope they did this time! A Mrs. Brooking, and her family, are in Number Six. They’ve already been bombed out once, in Catford. There’s five of ’em, counting the old man. Are they all right?”
“We’ll soon see,” Jim told her, “you and your girls go on up to the Rest Centre, and get plenty of hot sweet tea inside you!”
The woman took a single, swift look at the ruins of her home.
“We been here since we was married,” she said, bitterly. “We’ve only just finished paying for it! It’s a bit much, isn’t it?” She shrugged, and a smile flashed through the mask of plaster and grime on her narrow face. “You wait ’till my old man hears about it, he won’t half be mad, I can tell you!”
“Where is he?” asked Jim, with an answering grin.
“God knows,” said the woman, “last time I heard he was in Africa, pasting the Eyeries!”
Jim picked his way over the rubble to the wreck of Number Six. Where the kitchen had been Hopner met him, and Jim noticed that the fellow seemed badly shaken. His voice quivered as he said:
“They’re dead, all five of them! Christ, it’s a bloody shambles in there! I hope to God we’ll be dishing it out, soon enough. No more bloody leaflets, eh?”
“No,” said Jim, “no more leaflets!” And then: “Can I get through to them?”
“In that gap by the sink,” said Hopner, and stood aside, awaiting Jim’s lead.
Jim crawled through the rubble beside the sink, holding his bullseye at arms length. Most of the kitchen ceiling was down, but near the door, where it led into the hall, he found all five bodies, an old man, a plump, middle-aged woman, and three boys, the eldest about thirteen. They were dead but not mutilated, having been killed instantaneously by blast as they scampered in a group from kitchen to hall, making for the stair cupboard, no doubt. The woman and two of the children had been stripped by blast, and their naked bodies, sprawled one upon the other, looked pitiful and obscene.
Jim climbed in, calling to Hopner over his shoulder.
“Stand by to take them out, Fred. They’ve all copped it!”
He heard Hopner retching, as he picked up the boy nearest to him, and he kicked savagely with his boots to enlarge the aperture.
The child’s body was no weight, and as he crossed the beam of the bullseye, wedged in the splintered window frame, he looked down at the face. Pity shook him, then rage.
“God help me, I must get out of this,” he thought, “I must get into something where I can hit back, and kill, kill with the bayonet, the Sten, and the grenade! Kill the bastards with anything, anything at all!”
He passed the body to Hopner, and turned back for the others.
The Delhi Road incident always remained fixed in the memory of Jean McInroy, because it was the occasion when Chief Officer Hargreaves had isolated her from the others and first addressed her as someone who was part of his team, not merely as a brewer of tea at the fire station.
There were many calls that night, and the local Service was ordered to send men and equipment over to Clockhouse, where a shower of incendiaries had started a big fire.
The Delhi Road fire was soon out, but Hargreaves always left someone on duty, in case it started up again. On this occasion he chose Jean, addressing her as she was rolling in hose.
“You live quite near here, don’t you Miss McInroy?”
Jean nodded, breathlessly, delighted to discover that he already knew her name and the district in which she lived.
“Okay, then you stand by, and keep an eye on this place. I’ll leave you a spare stirrup-pump, but if it looks serious don’t waste time tackling it yourself, get through to the post, and I’ll send someone at once.”
She nodded again, and he looked at her curiously. He knew nothing about her cleft palate, but just that this girl seemed keen and was not given to gossiping, or skylarking, like some of the other volunteers.
“You don’t mind being left here on your own?”
Jean smiled, murmured something, and shook her head, vigorously. He patted her shoulder. “You’re a good kid,” he said, and then, “I’m relying on you!”
He turned aside, and shouted to the driver to clamp up, and get ready to move off.
The men climbed aboard, and the engine and tender clanked off towards the Lower Road.
Jean remained on the brick-strewn pavement, her heart thumping painfully, but her soul buoyant with ecstasy. He had touched her, patted her, praised her! He had actually noticed her, and in the midst of all this responsibility, and horror! She was a ‘good kid’, and he ‘was relying on her’!
She stooped, and lifted the stirrup-pump as though it was a wedding bouquet. Just let it break out again, just let it! She would soon show the Ideal British Male the kind of wife she would make him in God’s and his own good time!
When Jim came off duty the moist sky was shredding to grey over Manor Woods, south-east of the Avenue. He clumped along to the gate of Number Twenty, and was fumbling for his key, when somebody called to him from the porch room window, of Number Twenty-Two. He looked up, and saw Harold’s tousled head, and a face bearded with lather.
“I say, Carver old man, you look as if you’d had a bad night of it! I’ve just made tea! Would you care for a cup?”
Tea, Jim thought, always tea! No matter what happened, what time of the day or night it was, how many people had been mauled, or blown to pieces, the entire suburb dived head foremost into a row of teapots! He himself must have swallowed quarts of it since going on duty a few hours ago.
“I’ll come in and yarn Godbeer! I daresay Louise can do with an extra half-hour in bed. Is everyone along here all right?”
“Fine,” said Harold, withdrawing his head, “I’ll come down and let you in, old man!”
They went into the kitchen, and sat at the table, sipping. Jim briefly described the Delhi Road incident, but it was soon clear that Harold was not listening. He looked strained and jittery. His long, white, clerical fingers kept tapping at the cracked frame of his wife’s photograph, that lay face uppermost on the table.
Presently he said: “Do you mind if I…I talk quite frankly, old man?”
“No,” said Jim. “But you needn’t apologise for being a bit edgy. Another split second on that Jerry’s bomb-release and it would have been curtains for this end of the Avenue!”
Harold began to talk, rushing his sentences, but holding his glance down on Eunice’s picture.
“I thought it was superstition at first Carver…you know…at times like this we’re all inclined to get little whims and fancies! I was frightened all right, but I felt I could cope with it, until this…this pictu
re cracked in my hand. Then it seemed to me that it was a…well, a kind of omen. I thought ‘I’ll never see my Eunice again…I’ll be dead before Christmas! Or she will, or we both will!’ No, no, let me finish old man…”—as Jim lifted his hand,—“then I decided that it wasn’t really an omen at all, but that I was telling myself it was, and using it as an excuse to run, to get to hell out of it, by the next train!”
“Well,” said Jim, “and why not? What’s to stop you joining her down there? I daresay you could get a job in Torquay easily enough, couldn’t you?”
“Oh yes,” said Harold, “I could even open a branch office down there. As a matter of fact our Mr. Vickars is all in favour of it, with things like they are in the City, but…well…the fact is I couldn’t live with myself if I did that, it would be too much like running away.”
“That’s absolutely cockeyed,” said Jim, shortly, “there’s damn all to keep you here is there?”
“There’s nothing to keep you, or Miss Clegg, or that girl lodger of Miss Clegg’s,” countered Harold, defensively.
“Dammit, I’m a full-time A.R.P. worker, and that girl you mention is in the A.F.S.,” argued Jim. He was genuinely puzzled by the man’s manner and line of reasoning.
“I can’t do anything like you’re doing,” said Harold, “I’d like to, but I know that if I did I’d only crack up, and get in the way! The Savings Group you put me on to…it’s not much but, well…it is better than nothing. Apart from that, I want to stick it as long as people like you stay. You see…I believe in this war, and I don’t want other people to fight it for me! If there’s nothing else I can do, at least I can hang on, and not let them chase me out of my home.”
Jim looked at him with affection. This was the kind of thing he had been thinking about on his way up to the post last night. Here was the staying power of the British, revealed in the person of a pigeon-chested little city clerk, hanging on to his terraced home in the suburb, while all hell broke loose round him, hanging on and staying put, simply because he was vaguely aware that, by so doing, he was identifying himself with the clear-cut issues of right and wrong, and with the one basic principle of democracy that everybody understood—the right to let people and nations muddle along in their own way, without any pressure from outside.
The Avenue Goes to War Page 4