Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  He turned anguished eyes to Pat. ‘There were so many dead, or nearly dead, in that débâcle, friends and comrades. There was so much blood the stink of it lodges in my brain still, and the acrid smells of cordite and fear that clothed every one of us. The whole Dunkirk thing was a mess, and a gigantic defeat, whichever way you look at it.’

  Pat didn’t speak for he guessed Bill hadn’t finished. Suddenly the words were tumbling from his lips as he tried to convey the bloodbath the road to Dunkirk became and the total carnage enacted on the beaches. Pat, watching his eyes as he spoke, realised Bill wasn’t just telling him the way it was, he was reliving it all again. Christ, he thought as he signed for more drinks, no wonder the poor sod has nightmares.

  Bill was now telling Pat of the armada of little boats that appeared from nowhere to ferry the men to the naval ships anchored in deeper water, and the helpless wretchedness he had felt when he saw a fair few of those ships, filled with rescued soldiers, bombed out of the water.

  ‘The Government called Operation Dynamo a triumph,’ Bill said. ‘It was anything but. Many of us were in despair, for we all knew, with the best will in the world, not everyone could be rescued in time. The rumour was that the Germans were taking few prisoners. Many would never leave those beaches and a great number of those soldiers there were not long out of boyhood.

  ‘I had befriended one of them; I suppose he reminded me of our Richard. John Barlow was his name and he was such a joker, always with a smile on his face. He’d lied about his age to enlist and was just eighteen before we set off on that ill-fated jaunt across the Channel. I could see he was scared when he realised what we were up against when we were given orders to retreat, though he didn’t speak of his fear. None of us did that. But he did ask me if I thought we would make it. I had no idea, of course, but he was little more than a lad and so I said that of course we would and that the Allies would have some plan to rescue us.’

  He gave a sudden bitter smile. ‘I even said when we were back in Blighty I would stand him a pint now that he was legally old enough to have one.’ Bill stopped and his eyes filled with tears.

  Pat waited while he fought for composure and then said gently, ‘And what happened to him?’

  ‘I passed him in a hollow in the sands as I was making my way to the pier head we’d erected.’ Bill said. ‘He had both his legs blown off and he lay in a puddle of blood that was draining from him and seeping into the sand. He wasn’t dead either, and he turned to look at me as I passed. Ah, dear Christ, when I saw who it was I was completely devastated. I had to turn away from the look in his pain-glazed eyes. Ah, Pat you have no idea …’

  ‘No,’ Pat agreed. ‘I haven’t, and I can’t share any of the things you experienced, but I am more than prepared to listen. In fact I consider it a privilege that you have confided in me.’

  Bill sighed. ‘No, I must thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ve had to keep so much in so as not to upset those at home. I told Richard and Sarah a little at the hospital when Richard was seeing only the glory of war. I didn’t want him to approach it like that – I’ve seen too many recruits thinking that way – but even then I didn’t go into the gory details. Marion knows nothing. I haven’t even told her I would have been one of the wounded left behind in Dunkirk if Churchill had got his way.’

  ‘How come?’

  Bill gave a shrug. ‘He gave orders to leave the wounded behind and take only the able-bodied. I heard two officers talking about it and they sounded quite scandalised. Anyway, they chose to ignore those orders.’

  ‘Glad they did,’ Pat said heatedly. ‘Why did he say that?’

  ‘Something about the injured taking up too much space in the smaller boats,’ Bill said. ‘Some undoubtedly did, but how can a civilised country have a policy of leaving injured soldiers to the mercy of the enemy?’

  It was beyond Pat’s understanding, and he went to get more drinks in with his head reeling.

  He was surprised at how tipsy Bill was when he tried to stand at closing time, for he hadn’t drunk that much, but then he was probably not used to it any more. Anyway, he couldn’t really feel sorry about it either, because the drink had likely loosened his tongue and he’d said things that had to be said.

  And so Pat helped Bill home, expecting a tirade from Marion, but he didn’t get one.

  ‘Shall I get him up the stairs for you?’ he said when she opened the door.

  ‘If you would,’ she said.

  When the two of them had dealt with Bill, Pat said, ‘Don’t go for him, will you? He hasn’t drunk that much really. It’s just that he’s not used to it.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t be, would he?’ Marion said. ‘I won’t go for him, never fear, but did it do any good? Did he open up for you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Pat, ‘and I think that it’s probably helped him.’

  ‘Then thank you, Pat,’ Marion said. ‘And what odds if he has taken a drop too much?’

  ‘None at all.’ Pat added with a grin, ‘Though I would not like to have his head in the morning.’

  Marion answered his smile as she agreed, ‘No, nor me.’

  The next morning a hundred hammers were banging in Bill’s head and his mouth was as dry as dust. However, despite that, he felt as if a load had been lifted from between his shoulders making him lighter somehow. He got to his feet gingerly and dressed, ready to face the music.

  Marion was in the kitchen and she glanced round as he came to stand beside her. ‘I didn’t think you would be up so early.’

  Bill didn’t comment on that. Instead he said, ‘I’m sorry, Marion.’

  But Marion wasn’t sorry because his eyes looked less haunted and she couldn’t be anything but pleased about that, and grateful to Pat. So she just kissed Bill lightly on the cheek and said, ‘Nothing to be sorry about, Bill.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Not another word about it,’ Marion said firmly. ‘Now sit up to the table and I’ll have some porridge ready directly.’

  Bill was surprised and pleased at Marion’s understanding. Glancing round, he said, ‘Where is everybody?’

  ‘Well, Sarah is at the shop as she is every Saturday morning, and Richard, Violet and Peggy are at work too. Remember I told you overtime is almost compulsory? The twins have gone round to Polly’s because I didn’t know what state you would be in this morning.’

  Bill had the grace to look sheepish. ‘What about Tony?’ he asked.

  ‘He and Jack have gone down the allotment,’ Marion said. ‘In fact, if you are up to it maybe you could take some sandwiches and drinks down for them later?’

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ Bill said. ‘It’s good for my leg to walk it, and anyway, I’d like to see what those two rips have been up to.’

  Bill was impressed by what they had achieved when he wandered down later that morning. Eddie too gave credit to his two grandsons and said that he could never have managed so much without them.

  Bill told Marion all this when he got home. ‘I can understood why your father likes it so much down there,’ he said, ‘because although there is obviously a lot of work goes on, it’s a strangely restful place. The shed is very comfortable and even has an armchair where your dad can sit and smoke his pipe in peace. It’s a lovely bolt hole, and well away from your mother. Eddie says she’s never set foot in the place and he doesn’t think she ever will.’

  ‘Well, I bet he didn’t look upset when he told you that.’

  ‘No,’ Bill said with a smile. ‘No, he didn’t at all and, God knows, if I was married to a woman like your mother I would have had to have a bolt hole long ago.’

  Two more weeks passed with Bill improving daily. Since the night he unburdened himself to Pat he’d had fewer nightmares, and those he did have he had been able to deal with without raising the house. He was soon able to take the twins to the park again, and Tony and Jack too, if they weren’t needed on the allotment. He had even managed a kick-about with the boys a time or two. He was always ready for
a game of cards or Ludo, or Snakes and Ladders, and he tucked Magda and Missie in each night and read them a story.

  Marion was delighted that Bill seemed so much better in every way, though she knew that meant he wouldn’t be with them much longer, and she did worry about that.

  Peggy and Violet had met two chaps, Ralph and Terry, from the RAF at the pictures one day, and they’d taken the girls for a drink afterwards. Marion had been a bit concerned that something might have happened to them when they were late home and she waited up for them. Bill thought she was being silly because they were grown young women, but he agreed to stay up with her. They were having a cup of cocoa before bed when Peggy and Violet arrived.

  ‘Had a nice time?’ Marion asked.

  ‘Smashing, thanks,’ Peggy said.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘The Lady Vanishes, Violet said. ‘It was ever so good. We met these two RAF chaps and they took us for a drink afterwards.’

  ‘Yes,’ Peggy said. ‘And when we were in the pub they were saying that Hitler has only got till September to invade us because then the tides will be against him or something.’

  ‘I never heard that before,’ Bill said.

  ‘But you were right about one thing,’ Violet said. ‘Remember when you said that Hitler had to knock the air force out before he could invade?’

  ‘Yeah, but I was only quoting what I read in the paper.’

  ‘Well, it’s right, according to these fellows, anyway, and they’re doing their level best to stop them.’

  ‘Isn’t it scary that seemingly our whole survival lies solely on the slim shoulders of those young pilots in the RAF.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Peggy said. ‘They let you know it, mind. They’re real cocky, ain’t they, Vi?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Violet. ‘And think that they’re God’s gift. But for all that they were good fun and we’ve agreed to see them again next week.’

  ‘I think they’ve got to be really brave to go up in an aeroplane in the first place,’ Marion said. ‘You’d never get me up in one of those things.’

  ‘Yeah, and they told us that they have only a few weeks’ training.’

  ‘Small wonder so many of them are shot down, then,’ said Marion.

  ‘I know,’ Bill said. ‘It’s like some deadly football match score: we lose five to their twenty-five.’

  Marion nodded slowly. ‘When I go to Mass now I don’t know what to pray for,’ she said. ‘Peace, but what peace? Peace at any cost, peace where we can let Hitler do what he wants, let him take any land he wants, excuse his brutality against innocent people.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be peace; that would be anarchy or worse,’ Bill said. ‘Just pray for us all to get through this in one piece. That’s all most people want.’

  Richard, now a member of the Local Defence Volunteers, was very frustrated. ‘I seem to spend all my time marching up and down my old school playground with a broomstick on my shoulder,’ he complained to his father. ‘They say they’re short on rifles but they’re making us a laughing stock.’

  ‘They’re short on uniforms too,’ Marion said. ‘I mean, all you have got to identify what organisation you belong to is that khaki armband I stitched to the sleeve of your jumper.’

  ‘I suppose I can fight without uniforms or armbands,’ Richard said, ‘but they will have to get a move on finding us some rifles soon. I’ve never even learned to fire one yet, never mind tried to hit a target. If Hitler does invade I can hardly frighten him off with a broom handle.’

  Bill did see his son’s point. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence that if invasion actually happened, there was only this body of ill-equipped men to defend them. Much as he valued the time with his family, he was anxious to get well enough to rejoin his unit as quickly as possible.

  Bill didn’t sleep for some time that night, and when he did he was woken up by a blast. Marion had also been jerked awake, but she wasn’t aware what had woken her. She didn’t know what a bomb blast sounded like and she opened her eyes to see Bill sitting on the side of the bed, pulling on his trousers.

  ‘What was that?’ she said as another blast rent the air, and then another.

  Bill was at the window now, lifting the blackout curtain aside and peering in to the night. ‘Bombs,’ he said.

  ‘Bombs!’ Marion exclaimed. ‘Where’s the sirens?’

  ‘God knows,’ Bill said. ‘But there’s only one plane that I can see, so it might have slipped through.’

  Marion joined him at the window and saw that skies were clear and, though the moon was no longer completely full, in its golden light they could see the glow of a fire in the distance and the plane, flying away now it had delivered its lethal cargo.

  ‘D’you think there will be more?’ Marion whispered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bill said, ‘but I’ll keep watch. You lie down and rest while you can.’

  ‘You should be the one resting.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Bill said. ‘I am nearly fully fit again now, and trained as a soldier. I can keep awake for days if I have to. Now I’m awake there’s no point in my coming back to bed; I’ll not be able to rest again tonight.’

  In the end, Marion was prevailed upon to lie down, but she barely slept and in the end was glad when the alarm heralded the sound of another day.

  Everyone was talking about the bombs over breakfast. The lodgers and Richard had heard them; so had Sarah, it but she’d been only semi awake and thought it had been thunder. Tony was annoyed that he had slept right through it.

  Later that day Marion found out the bombs had fallen in Erdington and a young soldier had been killed. ‘The paper says the bomber was probably looking for Fort Dunlop,’ Bill said that evening after scrutinising the Evening Mail. ‘Course, he would find that hard to do now that the canals are boarded every night.’

  Marion nodded, yet when it had first been proposed she hadn’t seen the sense of it. Bill had pointed out that many smallish factories now making things for the war effort, like those on the Lichfield Road, backed on to canals. ‘They were built like that years ago because the canal was a handy place to tip the factory waste,’ he said. ‘Then that canal meets with others at Salford Bridge and from there one runs up the Tyburn Road, which is full of smallish factories and workshops, also backing on to the canal. It goes on to run alongside Fort Dunlop and then the Vickers factory where they’re making the Spitfires. Think of the killing the Luftwaffe could make if their bombers caught sight of the gleam of water. They would just have to follow it and could annihilate everything in no time at all. Anyroad, last night is evidence that boarding the canal works, though I’m sorry about the young soldier killed.’

  People of Birmingham braced themselves that night for a further, more widespread, attack, feeling sure that the German planes would be back to have another go. However, nothing happened that night or the next, though an uneasy feel hung in the air all that weekend. The attack galvanised the Whittakers into getting the cellar prepared in case they had to stay in it for any length of time. That Sunday, after Mass, Marion and Sarah scrubbed and cleaned with great enthusiasm and then Bill and Richard whitewashed the walls.

  Bill also fitted a blackout shutter across the grating. ‘If I didn’t, you couldn’t turn the light on down here, could you?’ he told Marion.

  She looked round the dim room. For all their efforts it was a cold and uninviting place, with some wooden chairs that Bill had done his best to repair and the sagging old sofa. No one would linger there by choice, but Marion was well aware that they might have to stay down there for some time, and to do that in the pitch black would be unthinkable.

  Bill caught sight of her face. ‘I know it ain’t a palace, old girl, but it will be a sight safer for you down here. It’s got to be, really.’

  ‘I know,’ Marion said. ‘It’s just that … well, I don’t want to have to use it much.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Bill said. ‘I hope you don’t, either. But in the meanti
me, when I go back I can rest in the knowledge that whatever Hitler throws at Brum you and the kids will be safe. Even your old ma has come up trumps with the mattress because of this flaming war, though personally I think it’s your father’s influence, because the boys are doing such good work on that allotment. But whatever the reason, a mattress is a mattress and somewhere for the kids to lie, and you too if the raids go on for hours. Now Richard and me are going round to fetch it.’

  ‘Why don’t you take Pat with you?’

  ‘Because I don’t need to take Pat with me,’ Bill said, ‘I’m almost as fit now as ever I was, and that’s what the Medical Board will say next week. You know that as well as I do.’

  Marion felt her heart sink at the thought that soon her Bill would be in danger again, and yet she could almost feel his itchiness to be gone. She followed him up into the living room where she set about preparing her shelter bag. She had been shocked into doing it when war had been declared and the sirens blared out, but now she realised she was totally unprepared. The bank books and insurance policies were still there, but some of the photos were missing and the children had taken out the cards, books and dominoes. So she collected everything together again and added a packet of biscuits she was lucky enough to have got. Whatever happened now she would take that shelter bag with her at all times, she decided.

  FOURTEEN

  Bill was proclaimed a hundred per cent fit, but he tried to swallow his pleasure as he entered the house because he knew that Marion wouldn’t consider that good news at all. She tried to be pleased for him and said all the right words and yet she was fooling no one. Peggy knew a little of what she was going through because she confessed to Sarah that she had felt the same when Sam was declared fit to go back.

  The younger children were openly upset for they had got used to having their father around.

  ‘I haven’t got to go back till the seventeenth and that’s a few days away yet,’ Bill told them.