Octavia's War

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘How’s the choir?’ she asked Jenny Jones. And got the expected answer.

  ‘Coming along lovely, Miss Smith. We’ve got a barbershop quartet.’

  ‘That’ll be a novelty,’ Phillida laughed.

  ‘Wait till you see them,’ Jenny told her. ‘They’re all going to wear moustaches.’ She looked round at the others and grinned. ‘It’s for the sixth-form play.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Elizabeth Fennimore said, adjusting her pincenez. ‘Octavia Whittington and a cat and four sixth-formers with moustaches. The mind boggles.’

  It was a hilarious play and the barbershop quartet performed to shrieks of delight and prolonged applause. And that Christmas Eve, like a timely Christmas present for all of them, there was an official announcement broadcast on the wireless. General Eisenhower was to be the supreme commander of the invasion of Europe with General Montgomery as his field commander. The Second Front was on its way at last.

  The news lifted spirits all over the country. Even Lizzie took heart from it, especially as Ben wrote to say that there was a rumour that part of the Eighth Army was going to be sent back to England to join the new Army of Liberation.

  I do so hope you’re right, she wrote back. Let me know the minute they tell you. I can’t wait to see you again. Do you think this really is the beginning of the end?

  It was certainly the gathering of a huge army. By the middle of January, when Margaret was sitting her scholarship examination and David was re-sitting his, to Dora’s considerable relief, the south of England seemed to be full of troops on the move, travelling in trucks and lorries all marked in a new way with a white, five-pointed star.

  ‘It gives you such hope to see them all like this,’ Phillida Bertram said, as she and Octavia watched a convoy pass. They’d been in Chertsey Road buying paper from Mr Elton’s stationery shop, as the supplies from London had been delayed and the art classes had run out of nearly everything they needed, and the convoy had come through just as they were setting off to Downview again.

  Octavia agreed that they did. ‘And just when we needed it most,’ she said.

  ‘I wonder how long it will be before they’re ready to invade,’ Phillida said. ‘It’s about time we took this war to France.’

  ‘I’ll ask Tommy Meriton,’ Octavia told her. ‘He’s usually a good source of information. Although he’ll probably say it’s hush-hush.’

  But before she got a chance to speak to him the war came to Horsell Common in a way that none of them had expected.

  It was a bright, cold Sunday and the Downview girls were happily occupied in their usual ways, reading, writing home, knitting or out in the garden digging over the vegetable patch. One or two had gone out for a walk on the common, among them Iris and Sarah, bundled and be-scarved and both wearing two pairs of gloves to keep their hands warm. They’d reached the Six Cross Roads and were discussing the relative merits of their various screen heroes, when they heard a plane coming their way. Iris looked up idly to see what it was. They were used to light planes flying over Horsell Common because there was an aerodrome not far away at Fairoaks, and sure enough this was one of their planes. The two girls watched as it circled and lost height.

  ‘I think there’s something the matter with it,’ Iris said. ‘It’s dropping ever so quick.’

  ‘It’s on fire!’ Sarah said. ‘Oh my God, Iris, it’s on fire.’

  She was right. There was black smoke billowing out of its tail.

  ‘We must do something,’ Iris said, her eyes round with horror. But it was too late to do anything. Even as they watched, the little plane burst into flames and plummeted to the ground, its engines screaming.

  The two girls clung together, too shocked to move. Then they saw that there were two men in Army uniform running through the bushes towards the flames.

  ‘Come on,’ Iris said. ‘We’ve got to do something.’ And ran after them.

  What they found was so terrible that for a few seconds they couldn’t accept what they were seeing.

  The plane was burning like a bonfire, roaring flames and throwing up thick black clouds of smoke in a stink of burning fuel and rubber and hot steel. The superstructure was all that was left of it and that was burnt black and twisted in the heat and all around it the trees and bushes were burning too, crackling and spitting sparks. The two men were standing to one side of it, shielding their eyes from the intense heat, and lying on the charred grass at their feet there was a man writhing and moaning and so badly burnt he was black all over. His clothes were just black rags and his hair was shrivelled to his head like shreds of black cotton. As they watched one of the men took off his tunic and lowered it across him.

  ‘Oh my dear, good God,’ Iris said.

  The second man was running over to them and now they could see that he was in the Army Cadet Force and not much older than they were. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he said. ‘There’s another one in the plane and we can’t get him out.’

  ‘Where’s the nearest telephone?’ Iris asked. ‘One of us ought to phone.’

  The cadet wasn’t sure and while he was telling her so, they heard an ambulance ringing its bell and, turning towards the sound, they glimpsed the white sides of the vehicle as it bumped through the bushes. So somebody had phoned. Thank God for that.

  Then they were all calling and waving their arms. ‘Over here! Over here! Oh please be quick!’ And long seconds later the ambulance driver had taken command of the situation while his companion was down on his knees by the injured man. ‘You two girls go home,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more you can do here. Leave it to us.’

  As they walked away, Sarah began to shake. She was still shaking when they crossed the road and walked through Downview’s front door.

  ‘Go and get Matron,’ Iris shouted to the nearest girl she saw, ‘and be quick about it.’

  Octavia had been cleaning her bedroom when she heard the roar of the plane’s engines. Since Janet left them she’d got into the habit of cleaning it herself, because it wouldn’t have been fair to expect Emmeline to do it, not on top of everything else she had to do. It wasn’t done regularly, she had to admit, but she tackled it whenever she had the time and noticed how dishevelled it was getting. Now, she put down the carpet sweeper and opened the window to lean out and see what was wrong with the plane. She was just in time to watch it catch fire and to realise that it was falling towards the common. Then she heard the impact and the explosion and knew that she had to go to Downview straight away. Some of the girls would have been out on the common and they would need her. She left the sweeper where it was and ran down the stairs.

  She was halfway down when Emmeline began to scream and by the time she reached the hall Edith and the girls were running out of the dining room and heading for the kitchen. They found Emmeline rolling about on the floor.

  ‘We shall all be – killed,’ she howled. ‘All of us. Every single one. They won’t – be satisfied – ’til they’ve – killed us all. Oh, oh, oh! I can’t bear it. I can’t. I can’t. All killed.’ Her sobs were as searing as they’d been on the last two occasions but now there was an hysterical edge to them, as if she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. She rolled from side to side, screaming and babbling, her face so wild she was almost unrecognisable. ‘Oh! Oh! Blown – to bits. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Get up!’ Octavia said sternly. ‘Nobody’s been blown to bits. It was a plane crash. That’s all.’

  But that only made her worse. ‘All?’ she screamed. ‘All? All of us dead. Is that all? Don’t you see…?’

  Octavia decided to try reasoning with her. ‘You’re upset and you’re making yourself worse by rolling about,’ she said. ‘Get up and stop screaming.’

  But she was wasting her breath. Emmeline went on rolling about and weeping that she couldn’t bear it.

  Edith was watching her with disbelief. ‘What are we going to do?’ she said to Octavia. ‘We can’t let her go on like this. She’ll hurt herself.’ />
  Octavia moved into second gear. Reasoning had failed. Now it was time to organise. ‘Nip upstairs and get her a couple of pillows and her eiderdown,’ she said to Barbara and Margaret. ‘If she won’t get up we can at least make her comfortable where she is. Joan, you can help your mother to make some tea, can’t you. I’m going to phone the doctor. I know it’s Sunday, but we can’t let this go on. And then I must go to Downview. Some of my girls could have been out on the common and I want to be sure they’re all right.’

  The doctor was quiet and helpful. He was just on his way out to see another patient but he said he would come on to Ridgeway as soon as he could. ‘Keep her warm,’ he advised, ‘and try to calm her if you can. There will be a Sunday fee, of course.’

  So they eased the pillows under Emmeline’s rolling head and wrapped the eiderdown around her as well as they could and offered her tea, which she refused, and although she didn’t stop crying at least the screaming part of the fit seemed to be over.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Octavia promised. And cycled to Downview.

  It was a relief to find that Miss Fennimore and Miss Gordon were there before her and that they’d run a check and knew that all their pupils were present and accounted for.

  ‘Some of them were a bit upset,’ Elizabeth reported, ‘but they’re calmer now. Two of them saw it, I’m afraid, and they came back in rather a state. Maggie’s looking after them.’

  Iris and Sarah were still sitting in her room, wrapped in blankets and drinking tea, having told her all about the crash, detail by horrific detail.

  ‘We’re over it now,’ Maggie reported as Octavia came in. ‘They’ve both been very good.’

  ‘Of course they have,’ Octavia said. ‘They’re Roehampton girls.’

  But Roehampton girls or not, the crash had burnt itself into their brains and they needed to tell the story of it all over again. So she stayed with them and listened and told them she was sure the doctors would do everything they could to help the man they’d seen – ‘they do some wonderful things with burns these days’ – and let them talk for as long as they needed to. It was well over an hour before they were in a fit state to leave and she could cycle back to Ridgeway.

  The doctor was still there and turned out to be an avuncular man with a gold watch chain draped across his belly and a white beard trimmed about his chin. To her relief, Emmeline was sitting at the kitchen table. Her face was still blotchy and she was still swathed in her eiderdown but she was talking to him more or less sensibly.

  ‘Miss Smith?’ the doctor said, when Octavia walked into the kitchen. And when she acknowledged her name, he stood up and prepared to take his leave. ‘I have given your cousin a prescription for some nerve tablets,’ he said, ‘which I am sure will help her. We must hope so, mustn’t we, Mrs Thompson. Let me know should you need another call.’

  But once he and Octavia were out in the hall, his tone was decidedly more brisk and less avuncular. ‘Hysteria is a difficult condition to diagnose,’ he said, ‘and even more difficult to treat, I’m sorry to say. The pills I have prescribed may alleviate her condition but on the other hand they may have little effect. It is necessary to get to the root of the problem, which in this case seems to be an anxiety of some sort. As far as I can see, what seems to be troubling your cousin is being an evacuee. She tells me the work is very hard here and she feels left out of things. Powerless, was the word she used. Did you know about this?’

  ‘I had some idea,’ Octavia told him, remembering. ‘She said something similar in one of her other attacks.’

  ‘Quite,’ the doctor said. ‘Well, the upshot of it is that she wants to go home to Wimbledon.’

  It wasn’t a surprise but it wasn’t exactly timely. ‘Do you think she would be better there?’ Octavia asked. ‘Happier?’

  ‘I think it is possible,’ the doctor said. ‘I wouldn’t go further than that. Is the house habitable?’

  ‘It isn’t damaged, if that’s what you mean,’ Octavia said. ‘It’s very dirty because nobody’s lived in it since we were evacuated but, yes, it’s habitable.’

  ‘Then if you will take my advice,’ the doctor said, ‘you will arrange for her to return. I will send you my bill in due course. Good afternoon.’

  ‘Well?’ Edith asked, when he’d driven away.

  Octavia led her into the drawing room, where the girls had returned to their jigsaw puzzle, and told her what had been said.

  ‘Well, she can’t go back on her own, that’s for sure,’ Edith said, sitting in one of the easy chairs by the fire. ‘She’d never manage. We shall have to go with her.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Octavia said sitting in the other chair. ‘I can’t leave the school and we’ve been advised not to go back until after the Second Front.’

  ‘Could you stay here on your own?’ Edith asked, poking the fire.

  ‘I don’t think I’d want to,’ Octavia told her. ‘It’s a big house for one person. I might go to Downview. The school’s shrunk so much we’ve got empty rooms there now. Anyway that’s not the point at the moment. The first thing is to get your mother back to Wimbledon.’

  She moved a fortnight later, with Edith and the girls to keep her company and help her run the house and with their few belongings crammed into the boot of Octavia’s car. And the next morning, Octavia packed her own personal possessions into the empty car and moved into an empty room at Downview. It felt very strange and very sudden.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  That first morning back in Wimbledon was bitterly cold. The sky was colourless and threatening snow and there were frost ferns on the bedroom windows when they woke. Edith lay on her back with the covers pulled up to her chin and watched her breath steaming before her, loathe to leave the warmth of her bed, but Emmeline was up as soon as she was awake, dressed and active, down in the cellar filling the coal-scuttle as if she’d never been away.

  ‘I’ll soon have this stove lit,’ she said, when Edith joined her in the kitchen, shivering in her pyjamas. ‘Go and find a dressing gown for heaven’s sake, child, or you’ll catch pneumonia. There’s one in my wardrobe. And put some socks on. The geyser’s working so we’ve got warm water. You have to let it run through for a little while, that’s the only thing. It’s a bit rusty. I’ll get the breakfast presently. You go and see to the girls. Make sure they put on plenty of clothes. This house is going to strike chill for a day or two.’

  ‘It’s absolutely extraordinary,’ Edith said to Dora when she and David came over that afternoon to see how they were getting on. ‘It’s as if she’s stepped back in time. She’s been on the go all day, down to the shops to register the ration books, scrubbing the kitchen floor and the larder. She’s even made a pie for supper. I can’t keep up with her.’

  ‘Maybe the doctor was right,’ Dora said. ‘Maybe she just needed to get home. Where is she now?’

  ‘Checking the blackout,’ Edith said.

  ‘Very sensible,’ Dora said, ‘or she’ll have the warden after her.’

  ‘But you don’t have raids nowadays, do you?’ Edith said.

  ‘We get the odd hit and run,’ Dora told her. ‘Nothing dreadful. Shall I put the kettle on? You could do with a cuppa, couldn’t you, kids.’

  But she was wrong. That night they had a real raid and a very alarming one.

  When the sirens went they were all in bed and asleep, worn out by the exertions of the day. Edith woke at once, her heart pounding, feeling frightened and confused. Then she realised it was a raid and moved straight into her old Blitz-time routine. She got up and put on every item of clothing she could find, working as quickly as she could although her hands were too cold for speed. Then she went in to see to the girls. It pleased her to find that they were reacting in the same calm way as she was and were already dressing.

  ‘Good girls,’ she said. ‘Put on all the clothes you can find.’ And she picked up Joan’s jersey and pulled it over her head. ‘That’s the ticket.’

  ‘We’re going in the ce
llar,’ Margaret told her. ‘Gran said. She says it’ll be safe as houses there. Just like the underground. She’s taking down the chairs and we’re to bring our eiderdowns.’

  So they brought their eiderdowns and Edith carried a blanket too, just in case. She found her mother shovelling the coal aside to make room for them. The cold air was full of coal dust and her hands were black with it. But she wasn’t crying or even looking anxious. She was just her familiar practical self.

  ‘What a to-do,’ she said, ‘waking us like that. Damned Hitler. Just when we were having a good sleep, too. I brought the deck chairs down, Edie. I thought we could sleep in them better. There’s two more in the conservatory.’

  They were settled in twenty minutes. Edith timed it. Then they waited. The girls dozed. The time passed. They could hear gunfire in the distance and the drone of the German bombers. The wait lulled them. When the first bomb fell it made them all jump.

  ‘That was close,’ Emmeline said. ‘Wrap yourselves up warm, girls. We don’t want you getting cold. Put your little hands under the eiderdown, Joanie.’

  The next two explosions were so close they made the light bulb jump about on its dangling wire and they were followed by the alarming noises of falling glass and crashing walls.

  ‘High explosives,’ Edith said remembering. ‘Big ones.’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t need to talk about it,’ Emmeline told her. ‘I brought some cards down. Who’d like to play Snap?’

  The girls were too frightened for card games but, because their mother and grandmother were calm, they made the effort. No more bombs fell near them although they could hear the raid going on further away, and presently they heard an ambulance bell.