by Joan Moules
At the hospital they set Annie’s broken arm, checked the cuts and grazes on them both, then told them to wait. A WVS lady came along within minutes and gave them a drink of cocoa each.
Johnny turned to Annie. ‘How d’you feel, Annie?’
‘I’m – I’m not sure, Johnny. All right, I think. It doesn’t hurt now.’ She glanced down at her arm, encased from the wrist to just above the elbow in plaster.
‘D’you feel like coming with me to look for Mum? I’m bloody worried about her.’
‘D’you suppose …’ her eyes were dark with fright.
‘I don’t know, do I? And now they’ve fixed you up they aren’t going to bother – there’s people in worse states than us. But I’ve got to find her.’
Annie was hesitant. ‘We ought to stay and let them find her, Johnny. It will disrupt things otherwise.’
‘You stay, then, I’m going to look for her.’
‘Johnny, wait for me, I’m coming with you.’
In the waiting-room of the hospital where the staff had left the walking casualties of the bomb, several people watched the children go. Most of them looked dazed, and if they thought they ought to stop them none was yet thinking well enough to do so. The WVS ladies had moved on and Johnny and Annie walked quietly out.
Johnny’s main thought was to get away from the hospital and back to the restaurant, where he was sure his mother was still somewhere in the building. Perhaps the wardens had dug her out by now, if so she would be going frantic looking for them, and if they hadn’t, then he must return to find her. Beyond that his mind refused to think.
‘I wonder where we are?’ he said to Annie. ‘I don’t suppose they brought us far, do you?’
‘The – the restaurant was – was just off Oxford Street, Johnny. Maybe we should ask someone.’
It was dark now and Johnny stopped the first person he heard and dimly saw coming along.
‘Oxford Street. Turn right at the next corner and keep straight on. It’s a long road though. Which part do you want?’
‘Near the Palladium.’
‘I should catch a bus, son. Any one along here will take you. Does your mother know you’re out?’
‘Oh yes,’ Johnny answered quickly. ‘We’re going to meet her now.’
They had been walking for about five minutes when Annie said, ‘Johnny, I feel bad. I think I’m going to faint.’
‘Oh Gawd. Annie, you mustn’t. Look we’re nearly there. Hang on to me.’
‘Let me stand still for a minute. I’m so cold.’
Johnny was frightened. Suppose Annie died on him. Whatever was he going to do. Well, for one thing he was going to find his mother. Perhaps he should have left Annie at the hospital. Maybe she was injured worse than he knew.
‘Annie. D’you feel better, gal?’
‘Yes. I’m all right now, but don’t walk so quickly, Johnny. I expect it’s the shock. I’ve never fainted, but I came over so queer then, I thought perhaps that was what was happening to me.’
‘Hullo then, and where are you two off to?’
The large policeman who loomed out of the darkness and shone his muffled torch in their startled faces reached out a friendly arm. Johnny, who now felt that every adult was out to stop him reaching his mother, took Annie’s good hand and, pulling her with him, ran down the first turning he came to.
He turned off from this and, still half dragging, half supporting Annie off from the next one too. A few minutes and a few turnings later Johnny pulled Annie into a shop doorway. ‘I think we’ve lost him’, he said. ‘Are you OK, Annie?’
‘Yes, Johnny. But why did you run from the policeman. He could probably have taken us to your mum. Now we might never find her.’ To his great consternation Annie, calm matter-of-fact, cope-with-anything Annie, burst into tears.
‘Annie, please don’t cry. Please. Please.’ He had his arm round her and she was still shivering. ‘Look, we’ll find somewhere you can sit and rest – a café or something, and I’ll go and look for Mum.’
‘Oh Johnny, do you suppose I b-brought that air-raid on by what I said this morning?’
‘W-what d’you mean? What did you say?’
Annie swallowed her sob. ‘You know, when I said, I’d like to experience one.’
‘Of course not,’ he said softly into her ear. ‘You don’t ’alf talk some bloody nonsense sometimes, Annie.’
‘Johnny, don’t leave me here. I don’t suppose there’s a café open anyway. I’d rather come with you. I’m all right now, honest.’
He could feel her still trembling beneath his hold. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but we’ve got to get out of this area soon or that copper will find us and we’ll be back with them all trying to hush us up. See – if me mum’s …’ he swallowed hard, took a huge breath and said quickly, ‘if she’s dead then I want to know. Come on.’
Silently and cautiously the children left the doorway and started walking again. This time, although they passed a few people, they did not ask the way. After they had been going for some twenty minutes Annie said, ‘Have you any idea where we are, Johnny?’
‘No. But we can’t …’ The wail of the siren interrupted him and they both stopped immediately.
‘Must be another raid,’ Annie said, ‘I never heard the All Clear for the last one. And Johnny, I’m all right. Look I’m not shaking any more. Stupid to be so silly.’
He couldn’t actually see her face but he looked in that direction. ‘’Course you are,’ he said, ‘I knew you would be. You’re a great girl Annie. You’re my girl, aren’t you?’
She didn’t answer for a moment and he said, ‘Come on, we’d better keep going.’
She looked skywards. ‘There’s no sign of any activity Johnny.’ As she spoke searchlights swept across the heavens and they felt for each other’s hands.
‘They have street shelters up here,’ Johnny said, his voice a little catchy, ‘me mum told me. We’ll dive into one of those if we see a Jerry. ’Til the all clear goes, like.’ His voice grew stronger, ‘Don’t suppose anyone’d take any notice of us there because all sorts who were caught out would go.’
They were now in a street with many small shops, and when, suddenly they heard the planes overhead they held on to each other’s hands and sheltered in one of the doorways. As Johnny held Annie tightly to him she whispered, ‘What you said Johnny, about me being your girl. Well, just in case they get us this time I want you to know that I am. I want to be your girl.’
Overhead the sound of aircraft continued, and the children huddled together in the shop doorway, waiting for the bombs to fall. When nothing happened and the sound of the engines had died away they were amazed.
‘I thought that was our lot, Annie.’
‘Me too. But they’ve gone over.’
‘W-what do we do now? How’s your arm?’
‘Not too bad. It doesn’t really hurt now. I suppose the plaster is supporting it.’
‘Annie.’
‘Yes.’
‘D’you suppose Mum’s dead?’
‘I hope not. Oh, I hope not.’
‘She wasn’t in that lot they brought to the hospital. We were there quite a long time and I watched everyone who came in while you were having your injuries seen to.’
‘They might have taken her to another hospital, Johnny.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘she’d have come in to where we were – and she didn’t.’
‘Look, Johnny, we’d best find someone to help us, or else go back to your house. I’ve got some money – oh, my bag, Johnny, it’s gone! I’ve lost my handbag and it’s got my money and our return tickets in it.’
He put his hand in his trouser-pocket and jingled some coins. ‘I’ve got some, Annie. Don’t worry. But I don’t know what time it is or – or anything.’
He was very close to tears too now, fighting hard to keep them back. ‘Let’s wait here ‘til the All Clear goes,’ he said, ‘then we’ll try and find a bus-stop. If we get back on that main ro
ad where we were before it’ll be easy as pie.’
They sat down on the tiles in the shop doorway, and Johnny put his arm round Annie. ‘All right?’ he asked her.
‘Yes. Are you?’
‘I am now. You try to sleep for a while and I’ll keep watch.’
Five minutes afterwards they were both asleep.
The policeman found them there an hour later. It wasn’t the one who had chased them, but he was nevertheless looking for two children who had walked out of the hospital when they were left unattended. Gently he tapped Johnny on the shoulder. ‘Come along, laddie, I’ll take you home. What’s your name?’
He was a large policeman, tall, fat, authoritarian, and he was straddled across the doorway, blocking the children’s way out. Johnny was tired in spite of his snooze and this time he gave in easily.
‘Johnny Bookman, and this is Annie Evesham.’
‘I thought it might be. Well, come along and we’ll find you something to eat and drink at the station while we’re waiting for your mother.’
Annie was struggling to her feet by this time, and Johnny said, ‘She was with us in the restaurant when the bomb fell.’
‘So I gather. And she’s been looking for you two ever since.’ He held on to Annie’s good arm on one side, and one of Johnny’s on the other.
‘You – you mean, she’s alive?’
‘Yes, son. And worried sick about the pair of you, I gather. She expected to find you in the hospital, see. Aright old turn-out this is.’
He took them to a police station a few minutes’ walk away and telephoned from there to the hospital to say they were safe.
It was late by the time Mrs Bookman collected them. They were drinking cocoa and exchanging riddles with the desk-sergeant when she came in. She threw her arms round Johnny and hugged him so tightly it actually hurt, then quickly she turned to Annie and engulfed her too. ‘You bloody fools,’ she said through her tears, ‘you should have waited at the hospital.’
CHAPTER 6
1941
Back at school on Monday Annie came in for a lot of attention.
‘What have you done to your arm? How did you do it?’ Both children became the centre of interest when they told of their adventure to an admiring audience in the playground.
‘Were you injured too, Johnny?’ someone asked.
‘Just a few bruises and scratches really,’ he said, in what he hoped sounded a ‘making light of it’ voice.
‘Gosh. A good job you’d eaten your meal before the bomb fell.’
‘Annie was just biting into her éclair and Mum and me hadn’t started ours. What a waste,’ he said. ‘You should have seen the size of them. Huge, weren’t they, Annie?’
‘And we didn’t get to see the show either,’ Annie joined in. ‘But I guess we were all lucky not to be killed.’
‘Was it a direct hit, Anita?’
‘No. Wouldn’t have stood much chance then. The bomb fell further along the road, Johnny’s mum said afterwards. She wasn’t injured, well a few bruises and cuts, because she was sort of thrown around away from where we were and we got separated. They took us two in one ambulance and Mrs Bookman in another.’
‘And she was in a different part of the hospital from us,’ Johnny added, ‘but we didn’t know this at the time. We thought she was still at the restaurant – buried underneath the debris,’ he finished dramatically, ‘so we went back to search for her.’
‘Gosh.’
‘Did you really? Weren’t you afraid?’
The bell broke up the playground session, and Annie and Johnny returned to their respective classrooms, glorying in their brief moments of celebrity prestige.
The Dovers were also impressed and made a great deal of fuss of both children. Mrs Dover especially, who later in the week suggested she should take them to Bushton on Saturday.
‘We might be able to lose her for a while,’ Annie said later. ‘We must make a plan. Tell you what, on Saturday you follow exactly what I say and do and just go along with it. OK, Johnny?’
‘OK. We don’t want her tagging along. We could just as easily go in on our own anyway.’
‘But she wants to give us a treat, Johnny. It’s a kind thought and, well, I expect we can manage to dodge spending all the time with her. Have to do what she wants for some of it, I expect. Leave it with me and I’ll work something out.’
Johnny was content to do this. He realized that Annie had the kind of brain that coped with this sort of thing. She sorted out the details whereas he took a chance, and often it backfired on him, like the morning of the post office fiasco.
They went in on the ten o’clock bus on Saturday morning, and Annie whispered to Johnny to be patient for the first half-hour and she was sure they could then get away on their own. After a sedate walk along by the river Annie suggested to Mrs Dover that she might enjoy a cup of tea in the small café there. ‘I should like to treat you to that,’ she said, smiling at her foster-mum, and secure in the knowledge that, in spite of losing her purse in the bombing, today her pocket-money had arrived and before she left Mrs Bookman had given both her and Johnny half a crown each. She had not taken all her money to London with her in any case, and she looked appealingly at Mrs Dover (she had never been able to bring herself to call her ‘auntie’ either) and added, ‘It won’t be much fun for you to have to be with us all the time. I expect you’d like half an hour’s break and we’ll be fine just having a look round.’
‘Well I suppose you can,’ Mrs Dover said when they were in the café, ‘but be careful of the roads now, and be sure and be back here by—’
‘By lunch-time,’ Annie interrupted swiftly. ‘That will give you a chance to do any shopping and have a rest, won’t it?’
They had brought sandwiches with them which were going to be eaten by the river. ‘I promise we won’t be late. We’ll be here by half past one.’
‘By one o clock, Anita,’ Mrs Dover said firmly, ‘and don’t get up to any mischief, mind.’
They left her drinking her tea and, once outside, skipped joyfully across the grass and down to the riverbank.
‘What shall we do now?’ Annie said. ‘We’ve two whole hours.’
‘Let’s have a boat out. I’ll row and you can sit and do nothing but nurse your plastered arm.’
Annie giggled. ‘It would be fun. Tell you what, let’s have a look round the town first. There’s lots of nice shops and an amusement arcade, and if we have a boat now Mrs Dover might see us when she leaves the café.’
‘Good thinking, gal,’ Johnny was in one of his showing-off moods. ‘I can get me mum a card – a nice picture of the river. Poor old Mum, she was as worried about us as we were about her last week.’
‘Yes, we mucked that up properly between us, didn’t we, Johnny? It’s all right now, thinking about it, but it was very scary at the time.’
They went into the amusement arcade and Annie changed two shillings into pennies and halfpennies. She gave Johnny a shilling’s worth. ‘Here you are. When we’ve spent this we’ll do something else, shall we?’
‘I’ve got some of me own,’ he said.
‘Go on, I’ve changed it into coppers now.’
They had a go on almost everything and when they won and a shower of money tipped into the chute they gathered it gleefully, divided it and spent it again.
Eventually they emerged into the High Street and wandered along looking in the shop-windows. Annie pressed her nose closely against one which held a fascinating array of objects; jewellery, toys, ornaments, flimsy georgette scarves, paintings, crystal balls.…
They went inside and although it was quite small it was an Aladdin’s cave of treasure. Annie seemed drawn to the jewellery. She tried on a bracelet, a ring, fingered a snaky necklace, and when Johnny joined her he picked up the ring, a silver band with a deep ruby-coloured stone set in it. ‘That’s lovely,’ he said.
‘Yes, it is.’ She held out her hand for him to give it to her, but instead he awkwardly
took hold of her fingers and tried to put the ring on. She giggled nervously. ‘It’s the wrong finger, Johnny, it won’t fit that one. This one’s thinner.’ Together they put it on the third finger of her left hand.
Johnny swallowed loudly. ‘D’you like that ring, Annie?’
‘Mmm. It’s pretty, isn’t it? It looks right.’
He let her hand go abruptly and fished about in his pocket for his money. ‘I’ll buy it for you,’ he said. ‘How much is it?’
The shopkeeper, a wizened little old man had been watching them discreetly. Now he moved forward and Johnny said, ‘How much is this ring, please?’
‘Half a crown.’
‘Right. We’ll take it.’ Johnny handed over the money, and they walked out and into the bright sunshine of the High Street again.
‘Gosh, thanks Johnny.’ Annie looked down at the ring gleaming now on her finger. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It means you’re my girl, Annie. No messing about with other boys now.’
‘I won’t, Johnny. I like being your girl.’
They returned to the riverside and asked the man in the boat-hut how much it cost to hire a rowing boat for half an hour.
‘Can you row?’
‘Yes,’ Johnny replied.
‘Not safe for her to go out with an arm in plaster. No.’
‘But I’ll be rowing the boat—’
‘I said no. Now be off with you.’
Disconsolately they turned away and Johnny muttered, ‘Silly old bugger. He’s no right to stop us. We can swim and anyway I’m not going to turn the bloody boat over.’
‘Johnny, why do you always swear when you’re cross or excited or upset? I wish you didn’t – it sounds horrible.’
‘Poo bloody poo.’
In spite of herself Annie started to laugh, and within minutes they were both doubled up with laughter.
Johnny recovered first. ‘You’re so funny when you’re acting posh Annie. It’s natural to swear if you’re angry with something or someone, and it doesn’t bother you really. It’s only what other people think that worries you. I can tell.’