*
It was soon after four o’clock that Saturday afternoon. Dan had just got home when the air raid sirens began their lament. He grabbed Naomi and said, ‘Down into the cellar, girlie, there’s two of you to save now.’
‘Where’s Lisa?’ Naomi cried.
‘Don’t you fret about her,’ Dan said firmly. ‘She’s round Hilda’s and they’ve got an Anderson in their garden. Lisa will be OK.’
‘Come down with me,’ begged Naomi. ‘The baby needs a dad as well, you know.’
‘I know that, but I have to gotta out. I’m needed at the fire post. Can’t let the others down, can I?’ He led his wife down the steps into the cellar, made sure that she had a torch and lit the candles. By now they could hear the drone of the aircraft above and the anti-aircraft fire from the battery in the park.
‘It’s a big raid,’ quavered Naomi. ‘Don’t leave me, Dan.’
‘Must, girl. Big raid is all the more reason for me to get out there. It’ll be all hands to the pump for this one.’ He pulled Naomi into his arms and whispered, ‘Keep Junior safe for me, there’s a good girl, and don’t you come out again till you hear that all-clear, promise?’ She nodded and very gently he put her from him and with a blown kiss went back up the stairs, closing the cellar door behind him.
As soon as he got outside he realised just how immense the raid was. Looking up he could see planes in every direction, heavy bombers lumbering across the sky, and even as he watched, the bombs they carried began cascading downward. The siren continued to shriek, and everywhere people were dashing towards the nearest shelter. Dan hurried through the emptying streets to the fire post where he was a volunteer.
‘Christ almighty,’ the chief was shouting as he arrived, ‘they’ve sent the whole fucking Luftwaffe this time!’ Some of the planes passed on overhead, flying to targets further along the river. Others, their cargo discharged, were beating a hasty retreat, harried by the RAF fighter pilots. But the bombers had not come alone. Determined to make it to London and set the city ablaze, they had come with fighter escorts to protect them and the battle for the air was fierce and furious. Anti-aircraft batteries all over the city were pounding away at the enemy planes and the noise was ear-splitting and unceasing. Orders were shouted and the fire crews and valiant volunteers rushed from place to place as the news of fire and destruction came in from the wardens’ posts.
Dan worked in a team of three, with Arthur and another, younger man, George. Together they moved swiftly to deal with outbreaks of fire, caused by incendiary bombs which fizzed into action the moment they landed. Their task was to contain these with sand and a limited supply of water before they burst into red-hot flame, consuming everything they touched. The raid seemed to go on for ever. Dan was soon exhausted, but there was no respite. As soon as one fire was extinguished they were dealing with another, shovelling sand and working the stirrup pump. The sky across the city was glowing red, thick smoke billowed above them and still the bombers came. It wasn’t till nearly two hours after the sirens had warned of the raid that they sounded the all-clear. London was still ablaze and when Dan and his team were sent up on the warehouse roof to spot still-burning fires they had the first sight of the devastation which the Luftwaffe had wrought. All across the city fires were burning out of control. Many buildings had been blasted to the ground, others stood in partial defiance, roofs and walls blown away, interiors exposed. People emerging from shelters were faced with an unbelievable scene of destruction.
Even when the all-clear had been sounded there was no rest for the firefighters. Dan was desperate to know that Naomi was all right, but he couldn’t leave his team to go and find out. They all worked as before, trying to contain the fires, heaving sand buckets and pushing water carts to wherever they were needed. After a couple of hours the chief called a halt and sent them to get something to eat.
‘Just fifteen minutes,’ warned the chief. ‘We all need a break and we’ll go in turn. Your lot first, Arthur, and as soon as you’re back, Tony and his lot’ll go.’
‘No time to go home,’ Arthur said. ‘Let’s see if the Dog and Duck’s open.’
They hurried down the rubble-strewn street and found to their astonishment that the pub was, indeed, open. There was no hot food, but the barmaid was furiously making sandwiches. Arthur’s lot weren’t the only crews coming in to refuel.
They flopped down at a table and wolfed down a stack of cheese sandwiches, washed down with pints of beer.
‘Come on,’ Dan said after ten minutes. ‘If I don’t get up again now, I shan’t get up again at all!’
They all dragged themselves to their feet and just as they walked out into the street, the air raid sirens went off again.
‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed George. ‘Don’t them bleedin’ things ever give over?’
‘May be a false alarm,’ Arthur suggested hopefully.
But it wasn’t and they soon knew it wasn’t as the sound of gunfire could be heard in the distance. Moments later the drone of the invaders was in the air. Having left themselves a beacon that couldn’t be quenched, the Germans were back. Squadrons of bombers thundered towards London and apart from the RAF fighters which defied them in the air, there was nothing that Londoners could do but wait for the bombardment to begin again. It wasn’t until four-thirty the next morning that the all-clear sounded. The long-awaited ‘blitzkrieg’ had begun.
*
Naomi had been in a state of near panic ever since Dan had left in the afternoon. Sitting in the cellar alone was terrifying. She could hear bombs falling, but where? Were they as near as they sounded, or was the sound just magnified as it echoed along the narrow streets, channelled between the rows of houses? Was the street above her still a street at all, or had it been flattened? Our house is still standing, she told herself fiercely, so probably the others are too. The bombs she’d heard must have been further away. It was far more frightening, she decided, not to know, to be unable to see what was going on up above; to be stuck in the cellar by herself where at any moment the house might collapse on top of her, burying her in its ruins where she would die alone. She was tempted to go back upstairs and watch the raid – at least she’d know what was happening outside – but she’d promised Dan that she’d stay in the cellar until the all-clear sounded and so she gritted her teeth and kept her promise. More than once there was a shriek, a whistle, a swish, followed by an explosion making the house rock on its foundations.
‘Where are you, Dan?’ she shrieked as another explosion shook the house. ‘Why aren’t you here with me? I can’t do this alone!’
She thought of him out there in the middle of this nightmare and a wave of panic flooded through her. How could anyone survive in the streets in a raid as fierce as this?
‘Oh, Dan,’ she cried, ‘where are you? I need you! And Lisa? Where are you, Lisa? I wish you were here! I wish I could see you! I wish we were all together!’
The continuous pounding of the anti-aircraft battery in the park was deafening and Naomi crammed her hands over her ears as if that might block out the sounds from above. It didn’t, and shaking with fear she curled up in a ball on the mattress, burying her head under a pillow.
When at last the all-clear sounded she was still shaking, her head singing with the noise long after it had actually stopped. She crept up the stairs to the kitchen, opened the front door cautiously and looked along the road, dreading what she might see. Smoke filled the air and there was a halo of orange across the sky. Fire flickered at the end of the street as shadowy figures moved about trying to subdue it. People were emerging from their houses and from the public shelter on the corner of Hope Street. She could see air raid warden, Leon Hardman, coming along the pavement assessing possible bomb damage as he passed each house. He smiled wearily as he reached her.
‘You all right?’ he asked. ‘Dan with you?’
‘No,’ replied Naomi. ‘He’s out fire-watching. What’s burning down there?’ She pointed to the blaze of red and
orange at the end of the road. She could hear the crackle of the flames as they leaped and danced amid the billowing smoke.
‘The Duke,’ said Leon. ‘The rest of it’s come down. Not a hit, probably blast from another bomb further over. It’s just a heap of rubble now. The road’s blocked and there’s two more fires the other end of Hope Street. You go back inside, Mrs F, fewer people on the streets the better. It’s not safe, what with the fire and the unstable buildings. We’ll be better able to see in the morning.’ He moved on to continue his inspection of the houses in his patch, pausing occasionally to speak to Naomi’s neighbours as he went.
The Duke had really gone! Naomi could hardly believe it. It had stood on that corner all her life. It had been the centre of a community, her own dad’s watering hole, and now there was nothing left, it had been reduced to a pile of blackened stones.
Thank God Tom’s already moved in with his sister in Bow, Naomi thought. At least the bombers haven’t got him, too.
She stood for a moment or two longer, peering along the road, hoping to see Lisa emerging from the gloom.
Don’t be silly, she told herself. The Langs would never let her venture out into the streets so soon after such destruction. And as for Dan, she had no idea when he’d get home. The whole sky was red with fire, the clouds of smoke pink, underlit by the flames. Dan and all the firemen in London would have their work cut out to quench so many fires. She didn’t allow herself to think that he might not come home. He’d survived the Great War, surely he’d survive here at home in London. She knew the whereabouts of neither Lisa nor Dan and there was nothing she could do about either of them except wait, wait until they were able to come home again. And so, following the air raid warden’s advice, she turned back to the house. As she reached the front door she heard the forlorn cry of a baby, little Jonathan Doig, three doors up the road. Her hand flew to her own stomach as if to check that her own baby was still there. How terrifying, she thought, to have to keep a small baby safe in a raid like the one they’d just endured. Thank goodness her precious babe was still safe inside her. While she lived, he or she was safe.
Back in the house, Naomi needed something to do, so she prepared vegetables for the evening meal. Potatoes to peel, onions to slice, ready to make bangers and mash for their tea. She’d managed to get hold of some sausages, not yet rationed with the other meat, and looked forward to surprising Dan with one of his favourite meals. He would be starving when he finally came home, and Lisa, of course, if she came home tonight, would be hungry too. She switched the wireless on for company and tuned to the light programme, hoping it would be ITMA, or one of the other comedy programmes to raise her spirits; perhaps even some dance music. There was music, but it was soon interrupted by Alvar Lidell reading the news, the news she already knew first-hand, that London had been hit by hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers and the dreaded ‘Blitz’ had begun. Naomi turned him off.
Time concertinaed and it seemed only moments later that the sirens sounded their eerie warning once more.
‘Not again!’ wailed Naomi. Surely they couldn’t be back again so soon. But it appeared they could and she heard the sound of the anti-aircraft guns in the distance. She considered making a dash for the Hope Street shelter so that at least she wouldn’t have to sit the raid out on her own, imagining the worst, but even as she gathered up her coat there was a loud explosion not far away, and she gave up the idea. To go out into the street now would be suicidal. She filled the vacuum flask, picked up her torch and went back down into the cellar. It was almost dark outside now and she had to put on the torch to light the candles. As she struck a match she had a sudden vision of the leaping flames at the end of the street. Suppose the house was hit? Suppose the candles were knocked to the ground and the cellar caught fire? She’d be trapped. Naomi blew out the match and, using the torch, crept across to the mattress. For the second time that day, she pulled the blanket over her head, put her fingers in her ears and waited, alone and this time in the dark, for the din outside to cease and the all-clear to sound. She waited another eight hours. Despite her fear and the battle raging in the sky outside she drifted in and out of sleep, an unrestful sleep, full of fear and the nightmares it bred. When after an eternity the siren sounded the all-clear, she was stiff and cold and miserable. She climbed the stairs to discover the damage left in the bombers’ wake. She found that their repaired front door had been blown askew again, but otherwise the house was still standing. She still had a home. Others in the street had not been so lucky. Further up the road two houses had suffered severe damage where an incendiary bomb had caught hold. Even now firemen were struggling to contain the blaze and the owners, Mr and Mrs Goldman, an elderly couple emerging from the Hope Street shelter, had to be restrained from trying to go inside to save some of their possessions.
Naomi turned away in despair. How would any of them survive more attacks like these? She went back indoors to wait. She wanted to cry, but she was beyond tears. All she wanted was for Dan to come home, Dan and Lisa.
Dan got back to Kemble Street in a state of exhaustion. He had never felt so tired. He and his team had laboured through the night, using reserves of energy that they never knew they had. As he turned into Kemble Street he looked along the line of houses. Two on the opposite side of the road had sustained some damage, their blackened frontage and burned-out roofs evidence of an incendiary device. Another had lost its chimney, which had crashed through the roof leaving a gaping hole. Otherwise they were all there. No real gaps in the terrace and his heart gave a leap of happiness. Naomi must be all right and the miracle baby which was growing inside her would be too. Now that he’d got used to the idea that he was really and truly going to be a father, Dan was more excited by the idea than he would have thought possible.
Can’t let Naomi stay at risk if there’s more raids like this, he thought as he hurried towards his home. She and Lisa’ll have to go to the country. Can’t risk losing them and the baby. But, as he reached number sixty-five and pushed the front door open, he knew it would be a hard task to make her leave him and go to safety alone.
When Naomi heard the front door scrape open and saw Dan coming in, his hair black with soot, his face streaked black, she gave a shriek of delight and flung herself into his arms.
‘Thank God, thank God,’ she cried. ‘You’re safe, oh, Dan, you’re safe.’
Dan held her close, his face against her cheek, which was wet with tears of relief. ‘It’s all right, girlie,’ he soothed. ‘I’m back and you’re safe, that’s all that matters now. Where’s Lisa?’
Naomi’s courage finally failed and she burst into tears. ‘Oh, Dan, I don’t know. She didn’t come home after the first raid so I think she must have stayed with Hilda. Probably Mrs Lang didn’t think it was safe for her to come home by herself through all the chaos. There were some loud explosions and Leon Hardman said there’s fires and damage and danger everywhere. They probably made her wait until it was daylight. It’s a good thing she didn’t try and come home, she might have been caught in the second raid. Oh, Dan! How could they come twice in one night like that?’
‘To try and frighten us to death,’ said Dan. ‘But it ain’t going to work!’
‘I was frightened, Dan.’
‘I know, girl, I know. But we ain’t going to let the buggers win, so we got to be brave.’
Naomi hugged him again. ‘At least you’re home,’ she said. ‘You must be exhausted.’
‘Bit tired,’ he admitted.
‘And hungry?’
‘I’ll have something when I wake up!’
‘And Lisa?’
‘Don’t worry about her,’ he soothed. ‘I’ll just have an hour’s shut-eye and when it’s daylight I’ll go round and fetch her.’
Together they went upstairs and instantly Dan fell into a sleep of total exhaustion.
Naomi lay awake listening to her husband’s regular breathing beside her. Though she was tired and despite Dan’s reassurance, she was worried sick
about Lisa. Why hadn’t she come home? Dan was probably right about her staying with the Langs in their shelter during the first raid, but surely she could have come home before the second wave came in. What would she, Naomi, have done if Hilda had been with them instead of the other way around? Would she have kept her with them until all the planes had gone? Kept her until it was daylight? She heaved a loud sigh. Yes, she probably would. And with this thought she curled up against Dan’s back and finally drifted off to sleep.
9
As the first wave of raiders were driven off, Mark Davenham and Andy Drew, air raid wardens in the Clerkenwell area, were patrolling their sector searching out damaged buildings, checking for fires and more importantly casualties who might have been caught in the street when the raid began. They passed a half-demolished office building, the whole front of which had crumbled into the road.
‘What a mess,’ Andy said, edging towards the exposed offices.
‘Watch it!’ admonished Mark, ‘the rest of that could come down at any time.’
Standing back from the ruins, Andy cupped his hands together and called, ‘Anyone there? Anyone inside?’
There was no reply, but together the two wardens called again. ‘Anyone in this building?’
It was dark inside, no fire to be seen and, as far as they could tell, no people either. But they made a note to call it in so it could be thoroughly checked by the rescue service.
‘Unlikely anyone would have been in an office at five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon,’ Mark said.
‘True,’ Andy agreed, ‘but people have been working some funny hours lately, so you never know.’ But calling once more he was answered by silence.
They continued down the road. There was more damage to the nearby buildings, broken glass from shattered windows, an occasional door, a porch collapsed on to the pavement, but it was mainly a commercial area and as far as they could tell no one had been in the buildings when the bombers struck. As they reached the corner something in Mark’s peripheral vision caught his eye. Half hidden in the doorway of an undamaged building was... something. He grabbed Andy’s arm and pointed.
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