by Peggy Savage
Charlie didn’t answer. He went to bed early. If Arthur didn’t come back he would write to his parents. He thought of Arthur’s mother, her kindliness and motherliness, making her pastry. He thought of Arthur’s father, so proud of his son, expecting him to change the world. Perhaps he had.
The news was appalling: the East End devastated, and bombing in the West, a hit on Buckingham Palace; Oxford Street devastated, with bombs on DH Evans and Bourne and Hollingsworth, and John Lewis burnt out completely. And then the City of London. Nowhere was safe. Amy went into town to do some shopping. The local shops were running out of elastic, of all things. How to keep one’s knickers up? She passed a police station that had been heavily damaged. There was a sign outside. WE ARE STILL HERE, it read. BE GOOD. Despite everything, she had to smile.
Dan turned off the radio. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Amy looked up from her book. ‘What?’
‘Herr Hitler has apparently kindly consented to stop the bombing over Christmas. A couple of nights off. We’ll all celebrate the birth of Christ, peace on earth and good will to men and then he’ll start trying to kill us all again.’
Amy frowned. ‘Do you think it’s real?’
‘I wouldn’t trust him for a single moment,’ Dan said. ‘Why would he stop now? After Coventry and Plymouth and all the other cities bombed to blazes?’ He sighed. ‘It’s nearly 1941, Amy. We’ve been at it for over a year and look at us.’
‘Wouldn’t it be lovely?’ she said, wistfully. ‘Charlie could come home. We’d all be together. I asked Nora if she and Sara would like to come but she said she’d rather stay at home. Something to do with thinking about Jim.’
It seemed to be real. The country was to have two nights off. No raids. Charlie managed to get home and brought Tim with him. ‘Where shall we go?’ he said. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. I want to go dancing.’
‘I still don’t trust them,’ Dan said.
‘We won’t go far, then,’ Charlie said. ‘Let’s go to the Hammersmith Palais.’
‘Oh yes.’ Tessa did a little twirl. ‘I’ve always wanted to go there.’
‘It’ll be packed,’ Amy said.
‘Just what I want,’ Charlie said. ‘A madhouse that hasn’t got anything to do with flying. And girls.’
‘Can I borrow your silk stockings, Mum?’ Tessa asked. ‘I’ve got none left. Otherwise I’ll have to paint my legs with gravy browning or something.’
Amy laughed. ‘Yes. I’ve no doubt they’ll come back in shreds.’
‘Well, we won’t be doing old-time dancing, I hope. Maybe we’ll get some Glen Miller.’
The dance hall was seething, the band playing ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ when they went in. The crowd seemed to be swirling around the floor in a clockwise direction, ‘like a school of fish,’ Tim said. He ducked a flying arm. ‘I think I’d rather face a bunch of 109s.’
‘Come on.’ Tessa pulled him into the mêlée. In the middle of the floor two couples were madly jiving, watched by an admiring crowd. The boys were in RAF uniform. ‘I wish I could do that,’ she said. ‘Do they teach you that in the RAF?’
Tim looked at them closely. ‘They’re Yanks,’ he said, ‘from Eagle Squadron.’
‘They seem very energetic.’
‘I believe they are.’ Tim said. ‘In every way.’
She laughed. ‘I think it’s jolly good of them to come and help us. It’s not their war, after all.’
‘Not yet,’ Tim said ‘We’ve got pilots from all over the place. You should see the Poles in action. Mad devils. Shoot down more than we do.’
Across the room they could see Charlie dancing with a heavily lipsticked blonde, his arms and legs flying.
Tessa laughed. ‘Charlie’s off,’ she said. ‘He said he wanted a madhouse.’
Tim excused himself for a few minutes. ‘Nature call,’ he said. ‘Don’t go away.’
The dance ended and the band began to play ‘Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar’. Tessa looked around her, smiling. One night, she thought. One night without fear, without crouching in the Anderson shelter or crawling around on some roof, watching for incendiaries. No wonder they were all jumping about like mad things.
‘Excuse me, would you like to dance?’ The accent was unmistakable. One of the Eagle Squadron.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m here with someone. He’ll be back in a minute.’
He grinned. ‘We could give him the slip. He’d never find us in this mob.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m rather attached to him.’
‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘OK honey. Happy Christmas.’
She watched him swing away through the crowd. Isn’t that odd, she thought? That’s the first time I’ve ever talked to an American.
Tim came back and put his arm around her waist. ‘Dance,’ he said. ‘With me.’
The three of them came home in the early hours. ‘It’s Christmas,’ Charlie said. ‘Happy Christmas. He stumbled. ‘I think I’m a little bit drunk.’
‘What happened to the blonde?’ Tim said.
‘Not my type,’ Charlie said.
‘What is?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
They crept into the house. ‘It doesn’t matter if they hear us,’ Charlie said. ‘They’ll think it’s Father Christmas.’
‘They might think we’ve been invaded,’ Tessa said with a grin, ‘and give us what for.’
‘I hope not,’ Tim said. ‘I wouldn’t like to be a German facing your mother.’
On 27 December the bombers came back, their cynical little holiday over. The raids started again. The year 1941 arrived and wore on in a haze of destruction, with week after week of blistering nights and days of numbing fatigue. The days and the hideous nights went by, and London was given a breathing space from time to time as the other cities suffered. Amy began to spend two nights a week in the Notting Hill Gate underground station, ready to help if she was needed. The WVS was down there too with their endless cups of cheering tea, and a few nurses set up a first-aid station. It began to feel normal, as if life had always been like this. Couples got married, babies were born, people went to the cinemas and dance halls.
‘It’s strange, Dan,’ Amy said. ‘Everyone just seems to have settled down to living like this – like moles. Have you noticed? Everyone seems to sing more and laugh more. No one even mentions giving up or surrendering.’
‘They thought they’d bomb us into submission.’ Dan said. ‘So far they’ve killed more woman and children than fighting men. But they seem to have abandoned invasion plans. I think Mr Churchill has convinced them of what they’d be in for if they did.’
‘You look lovely, darling,’ Amy said.
‘Doesn’t she just.’ Tim looked down at Tessa, his eyes glowing.
They’re in love, Amy thought. Who wouldn’t be? It was March now, and spring was coming, and a young man’s thoughts … and a young woman’s too, by the smile on Tessa’s face. Tessa was wearing an evening dress of silver grey, cross-cut and clinging, and Tim was in uniform, of course, the wings bright on his breast. They are so young, Amy thought, so beautiful, so alive.
‘Have a good time,’ Dan said, ‘and if there’s a raid get to a shelter. No good dancing on and taking risks.’
‘I’ll look after her, sir,’ Tim said.
Tessa laughed. ‘We’re going to the Café de Paris, Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s twenty feet underground. We’ll be OK there.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Dan said when they’d gone. ‘I wish they’d just stay at home. I wish she’d stay in Cambridge. They seem to be very happy about letting the students come home now and again in term-time. It wouldn’t have happened in my day. It’s the war, I suppose.’
‘It doesn’t happen very often,’ Amy said. ‘They need to get out on their own and have some fun. Tim especially, doing what he does. They need to have some normal life or they’ll all go mad.’
Dan put his arms around her and kissed her cheek. ‘I expect you
’re right. It was only seeing you in Paris in the last war that kept me sane.’
The Café de Paris was crammed. Tessa and Tim were shown down the long staircase to their table. Tessa looked around her at the men in uniform or evening dress and at the women, carefully made up, glowing in their beautiful dresses and jewels. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All hell let loose and people still like to dress up and dine and dance. Stiff upper lip and all that.’
‘I just like to be with you,’ Tim said.
They dined and then danced together. Tim held her close, his face against her hair. ‘You know I’m in love with you, don’t you?’ he said.
Tessa pulled away and laughed up at him. ‘I sincerely hope so, silly. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here throwing myself at you.’
He flushed with pleasure. ‘Will you marry me when all this is over?’
She looked up at him for several seconds, pretending to consider his proposal. Then she smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’
He held her close. ‘Oh darling.’
They went back to their table. ‘I’ve still got a long way to go,’ she said. ‘I’ll be coming to London later this year to start my clinical training. I’ve got three years of that.’
‘I’ll wait,’ he said, ‘my darling girl. Or we can get married whenever you like.’
She hadn’t time to reply. Faintly they heard the sound of the sirens above, and then came an announcement that a raid had started. Very few people left. ‘We’re already underground, aren’t we?’ Tessa said. ‘We’ll be all right here.’
The band went on playing, of course. They took a pride in not being intimidated. If the dancers were prepared to go on dancing, then they would go on playing. The dancers danced, the waiters moved about with bottles of champagne, while outside and above the sirens wailed and the crump of bombs and the crashing of the guns shook the air. The band swung into a quickstep: ‘Oh Johnny’, and the girls laughed and swirled in the khaki and blue and navy arms of their young men.
The first bomb crashed through the roof but didn’t explode. The crowd scattered, the girls screaming. There was time only for Tim to pull Tessa to the floor and throw himself on top of her before the second bomb fell and exploded in front of the stage.
For a few moments Tessa was disoriented, conscious only of the devastating noise and the rolling, choking dust, and the weight of Tim’s body over hers. Then, as the noise of the explosion died away, and after a few moments of utter silence, she began to hear the sounds of panic and suffering – screams, groans, voices calling – ‘Joan, Bill, where are you?’ And one voice, quite close, ‘My God, I can’t see!’
Tim raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’
They struggled to their knees. There was a dim light flickering, one of the table lamps intermittently functioning, and a small, vicious fire, up by the stage. After a few seconds there were occasional small lights from torches, and the limited lights from cigarette lighters. They looked around them. The room was destroyed, covered in rubble and dust; tables were overturned, and bodies lay everywhere, some still and unmoving in death, some staggering to their feet, some moaning in pain.
Tim put his arms around her and looked about him. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘we can’t just leave them. We have to help them.’
‘That’s crazy,’ he said. ‘We can’t do anything. I’ve got to get you out of here.’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘I have to help.’ She began to tear at her underskirt and the bottom of her dress, taking off strips to use as bandages.
‘Please darling,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake let’s go. You’re the only thing I care about.’
‘No I’m not,’ she said, ‘or you wouldn’t do what you do. I have to help them.’ She looked at him, her mouth twisted. ‘It’s what I’m for, Tim. Don’t you understand?’
He helped her then, until the rescuers came, binding bleeding wounds, putting on tourniquets where limbs had been torn away. The men arrived, the Fire Service and the ARP and then, at last, the ambulances with their stretchers and harassed men, desperately trying to deal with overwhelming casualties.
Tim took off his jacket, put it around Tessa’s shoulders and helped her out of the chaos, joining the shambling stream being shepherded out of the wreckage. As he stumbled out he came across a seedy little rat of a man, rummaging through handbags and pocketing the contents. For the first time he actually saw red. His rage exploded, at the whole damn war, at the totally unnecessary destruction and death, at the filth of some men – even his own countrymen.
‘You rotten little bastard,’ he said. ‘I’ll kill you.’ He threw a punch at the man’s head, a glancing blow, and the man ran off, scattering money and jewellery. ‘Bastard,’ Tim called after him. He felt suddenly sick, empty and lost, and retched over the rubble. God, he thought. God. What’s it all for?
They emerged into the shattered street. He stopped an ARP warden. ‘Is there a telephone box round here,’ he said. ‘One that’s still working?’
‘Try the one down the road, first right,’ the man said. ‘It’s fairly clear down there.’
Tim took Tessa’s arm. ‘We’ll never get anywhere tonight,’ he said. ‘You ring your family and I’ll ring the airfield. We’ll have to get back in the morning when the tubes are running. Perhaps we can find a hotel.’
They made their way to the phone box. There was already a queue. Tessa phoned home. ‘I’m all right,’ she said, ‘don’t cry, Mummy. I’ll get back as soon as I can. Probably tomorrow.’
To Tim’s surprise the taxis were still running and he managed to flag one down. ‘Can you get us to a hotel?’ he said. ‘This lady’s been in a bombing.’
‘I can see that,’ the driver said. ‘It’ll be a bit tricky tonight.’
Tim took her hand in the taxi. ‘I’m very proud of you,’ he said. ‘You’re very brave.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘You can talk.’ She leant her head on his shoulder. ‘Tim,’ she whispered, ‘don’t leave me.’
‘Not ever.’
They tried two hotels that were full but the third had one room left. ‘We’ll take it,’ Tim said.
‘For two?’ the receptionist asked, carefully not looking at them.
‘Yes,’ Tessa said loudly. ‘For two. For my husband and myself.’
The receptionist looked at them then, a look of amused cynicism, but he caught Tim’s eye and hurriedly handed over the register.
They were shown to their room. ‘Are you sure?’ Tim put his arms around her. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get any kind of a reputation because of me. I could sleep in a tube station or something.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not to leave me.’
‘I’ll sleep on a chair then,’ he said, ‘or on the floor. Just give me a kick if I come anywhere near you.’
She leant away from him. ‘Look at us,’ she said. ‘We’ve both been blown up. We could easily have been killed. Oh Tim.’
He held her close again and kissed her, a kiss full of longing.
‘Sleep with me,’ she said. ‘Make love to me. It might be all we ever have. We could both be dead tomorrow.’
There was a washbasin in the room, and soap and towels. He helped her out of her ruined dress and helped her to wash off as much grime as they could.
‘Get into bed, my darling,’ he said. ‘I’ll clean myself up a bit.’
He slipped into bed beside her. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’
She flung her arms around him. ‘Absolutely, absolutely.’
This time his weight above her was only joy.
He took her home very early the next morning, leaving her at the door, eager to get back to the airfield before he could be regarded as AWOL.
Amy flung her arms around her. ‘Oh darling,’ she said.
‘Was it awful?’
Tessa nodded. ‘Pretty bad, but I could help them. I knew how to help. I could do something, at last.’
Amy went up to her room with her while she bathed and changed to go back to Cambridge. ‘One nice thing,’ Tessa said. ‘Tim asked me to marry him and I said yes.’ She hugged her mother. ‘I’m so happy. Tim’s coming to see you as soon as he can.’ She laughed. ‘To ask Dad’s permission. He’d better say yes.’
‘Amy,’ Dan said, ‘have you read this paper? It’s about penicillin.’
Amy looked over his shoulder. ‘What? What about it?’
‘It’s very exciting.’ he said. ‘Sad in this case, but very exciting.’
Amy took the paper. Penicillin had been at the back of the medical profession’s mind ever since Alexander Fleming discovered it in 1928, ever since it had killed the bacteria in his petri dish at St Mary’s Hospital. It had been arousing sporadic interest ever since. Now, apparently, a man called Florey in Oxford had been trying to purify it for use in humans. She glanced at Dan’s eager face.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘read it.’
She read on. A policeman in Oxford who was dying of septicaemia had been given penicillin by injection as a trial. To everyone’s amazement he began to get better. His temperature came down and he began to eat. ‘Oh!’ she said, reading on. To everyone’s great distress they then ran out of penicillin. They extracted it from his urine to use again, but they didn’t have enough and sadly, he died.
She put the paper down. For a moment they looked at each other, stunned by the implications. ‘That’s incredible,’ she said, ‘and how awful to be so close to saving him.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was, but it’s wonderful too, isn’t it? If only they can find a way to make enough.’ He took her hand. ‘All those boys in the last war who died of infection, Amy. Not of their wounds, but of infection. Do you remember how we agonized, how we’d have given our souls for something like this?’
Tears came into Amy’s eyes. She remembered only too well: the horror and the pain, the pus-soaked bandages, the constant fight to keep the wounds clean. She remembered too the constant failure, the deaths of fine young men, not from trauma or blood loss but from the invasion of the tiny, microscopic creatures that killed them in the end. ‘How can we possibly make enough,’ she said, ‘to help us now? The war is now, today.’