by Annie Groves
Christmas! Kitty did not know what to say. This would be the second Christmas Tommy would be in hospital. It was getting to be a habit!
‘I’d hardly given Christmas a thought, what with the bombings. I’m not sure anybody else in our street has either.’ The best present of all was getting away with their lives.
Kitty could not stifle the long yawn no matter how she tried. Quickly she put her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. Like everybody else I’ve hardly slept for the last few days. We’re all exhausted.’
‘He’s a tough one, is Tommy,’ the doctor said. ‘He’ll be right as ninepence in no time. Now I think you should get some rest or you’ll be no good for that tea and sympathy that we all need.’
‘You look like you could do with a good night’s sleep yourself,’ she chided gently. Kitty thought Elliott Fitzgerald looked like he needed a good scrub as well. His hair was ruffled and his suit looked as though it had been screwed up in the bottom of a wardrobe for a few months.
Elliott was aware of her scrutiny and looked down at himself, smiling ruefully.
‘I don’t always look like this, you know. You’ve caught me on a bad day.’
Kitty returned his smile, thinking all men were little boys really. ‘You need someone to look after you, like our Tommy.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ Elliott remembered again that Kitty had been visiting a young naval officer who’d suffered an amputation after a nasty infection had taken hold. He’d noticed how attentive she had been at the time, but the patient had been transferred out to a specialist unit down on the South Coast and he hadn’t seen Kitty after that. He wondered if they had been sweethearts.
‘How is your friend? Frank Feeny, wasn’t it?’ Her devotion was admirable. He was one lucky man and Tommy was one lucky brother. Kitty was more attentive than some mothers. Even when she could only talk to her brother through the glass window of the isolation ward last Christmas she was there day and night. ‘I noticed that you were by his bedside as often as you could be.’
Kitty thought of Frank and how she had prayed fervently that he wouldn’t die. ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘He’s … he’s a friend of the family. He’s doing very well. He’s got a new leg now.’
‘Oh, I see, that’s good news. It can be very hard for a young man like Frank to cope but he is strong and he’ll adapt.’ Dr Fitzgerald wondered if it was true that they were just friends. He had seen the way Kitty looked at Frank when she thought no one was watching. The thought popped into his head that he’d give anything to have Kitty look at him like that too.
Kitty thought of the time and mentally calculated if she had long enough for a sleep before she had to be back on duty at the NAAFI, where she had promised to put up the manger in the mess hall …
They had now reached the turning for Empire Street. Kitty turned to Elliott and said, ‘This is where I live. If you don’t mind I’d better be getting on now. Thanks so much for everything you’re doing to help Tommy.’
The doctor realised that he’d managed to walk Kitty almost to her door. She must think he had lost his head, wandering around like this.
Embarrassed, he said, ‘Yes, of course, Kitty, I must be getting on myself. I’ve only a few hours off and then I need to be back at the hospital.’
‘You work so hard.’ Kitty smiled. ‘Goodbye then, Doctor … sorry, Elliott.’ It still sounded funny calling him that.’
‘Goodbye, Kitty. Tommy’s quite safe with us.’ Kitty gave him a smile and it seemed to light up her whole face; Elliott thought again how beautiful she was and decided that he would very much like to see her again – very much indeed.
The champagne had long worn off when the all clear sounded and Nancy’s head was thumping. Somehow, among the crashing explosions and the singing crowd whose strangled notes failed to rise above the splintering sound of crashing buildings, she had managed to fall asleep on Stan Hathaway’s shoulder.
The wail of the all clear siren woke her with a start and Nancy looked around, trying to gather her thoughts. Her mouth was dry and she longed for a drink of water, a cup of tea, anything to rid her mouth of the awful taste. As she lifted her head, she felt as if her eyeballs were spinning in their sockets and, standing now, she stumbled to stay up straight.
‘Oh my …’ she groaned as she put her hand to her hair, now matted with something sticky but she was far too head-sore to untangle it all. Nancy shivered and hugged the warm overcoat that somebody had kindly put around her shoulders, trying desperately to gather her thoughts as she was carried along by the crocodile line of people who were leaving the shelter. Outside the sleety rain struck Nancy’s face with little needles of ice, but she ignored it as she caught sight of her best friend.
‘Gloria!’ Nancy called. Somehow, she thought, she and Gloria had been in the same shelter, but in the gloom and with all of the crowds, they had managed to miss each other.
‘Wait!’ Stan caught Gloria’s arm. She looked dazed and Nancy felt a chill run through her that had nothing to do with the icy weather when she saw her best friend walking barefoot down the cinder-strewn street.
‘The shelter was full,’ Gloria whimpered. She had been wandering aimlessly, her shoes lost and the bottom of her torn dress in her hand. ‘I didn’t care if I was killed too.’
‘Oh, thank God you’re alive!’ Nancy stumbled over the rubble of a fallen building and threw her arm around Gloria’s shoulders, vaguely wondering where Giles had got to, but for now it was just so important that Gloria was safe.
‘I tried to find you,’ Nancy cried above the constant engine noise of the salvage wagons, and the roar of water shooting through the fire hoses, which seemed to be making little impact on the hungry flames devouring everything in their path.
‘Here,’ Stan said, removing the jacket of his RAF uniform and slipped it around Gloria’s shoulders. ‘You are perished.’
‘We looked everywhere, didn’t we, Stan?’ Nancy cried, hugging Gloria, who seemed strangely unmoved by all the commotion around them. ‘I thought … Oh bloody hell, I thought you’d copped it! Where’s Giles? Did you lose him? Is he in another shelter? Why aren’t you with him?’
‘Giles is dead!’
Gloria’s low voice held no tone; it was just a string of monotonous words as she recounted the story of his death.
‘… There wasn’t a mark on him. He looked like he was asleep when I left him.’ Suddenly, as if the words brought home the full horror of what she had just gone through, Gloria burst into tears and was shaking uncontrollably. ‘Oh my God!’ She buried her face in her hands as racking sobs shook her whole body.
‘No!’ Nancy immediately drew Gloria closer, hugging her as she would a child.
Nancy had a million questions but knew instinctively that Gloria did not have the ability to explain any more. And who could wonder?
‘We’ve got to get you home!’
‘The warden said the docks are in a terrible state and some of the buildings are still ablaze,’ Stan informed them.
‘We’ve still got to get back along the dock road,’ Nancy answered, knowing the bombers would have had a clear view of the whole area as all around them was devastation and destruction. Her thoughts were racing. Her baby boy! Why hadn’t she taken Mam’s advice and got him away to somewhere safe? And what about Mam, Pop, Sarah? They would be out in this … doing all they could to help people.
A collective groan went up from a group of people gathered in a huddle near the station when they were told by a passing policeman that the line had been mangled and there would be no trains today – or even tomorrow, come to that.
‘I wouldn’t advise going anywhere near the dock road, either,’ he said grimly.
‘We have to go that way, we live there!’ Nancy cried, and the policeman sadly shook his head. ‘Nothing can get in or out … The Royal Infirmary took a big one, too – they say there are people dead – and you’ll never get through London Road.’
‘Sarah is working at the
Royal!’ Nancy cried, looking helplessly towards Gloria as Stan put his arms around her.
‘Come on, we’ll try and get through.’
‘Oh, me mam will go mad if anything has happened to Sarah.’ Nancy’s voice was getting higher and, desperately trying to calm the rising hysteria, she took a deep breath. ‘Come on, Glor, we’ll get you home and find out what we should do next. Oh my God!’ Nancy used the words like her own personal mantra, begging for some respite from the horror of it all. It had been such a fabulous night earlier, the best she had ever known …
‘I’ll never see Giles again!’ Gloria let out a strangled cry of anguish that rent the air of the breaking dawn. Suddenly she wanted to be back at home. If she stayed a moment longer, she would cave in; give way to the hysteria now building up inside her.
‘I’ve got to go!’ she cried. ‘I’ve got to get back to Empire Street!’
Looking around at the devastation, Nancy could hardly believe that this could happen to her home city. Fires were ripping through nearly every building in Lime Street and Ranelagh Street. There would be nothing left of Liverpool at this rate. Nancy knew that getting home would be no easy task.
‘Get some water down here now!’ Danny shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. The all clear had gone a while ago but there was still work to be done. Moments later, he felt the violent jerk as the water burst through the hose in a jet so powerful it nearly knocked him off the steel ladder. He was relieved to see more men making their way down the hatch and they worked together steadily to get the cargo out before it was consumed by the greedily licking flames.
The searing heat was making Danny feel unsteady. His head felt as if it was full of air and the hold began to shimmer in the intense heat. But he could not give up. Too many people were depending on him and he could not let them down.
‘You all right there, Dan?’ The fireman, who had known Danny for years, looked concerned. Danny raised his thumb in acknowledgement. He would offer all the help he could give even though the work was hot and dangerous. If he was on board ship as part of a convoy, he would have no choice but to put out a ship’s fire – this is what it would be like, he reasoned as adrenalin pumped through his body.
Moments later, he was released from his precarious foothold by one of the fire-fighting team, who gave him a big thumbs up and an encouraging nod of his head. Words were useless with the noise around them as he and Danny positioned the hose onto the flames. The men, ringed by a wall of fire, fought and eventually managed to extinguish it. They were half-blinded by the fumes and smoke before they were able to clamber from the hatch.
‘You took your bloody time!’ Alfie Delaney said as Danny’s thick-soled, steel-toecapped boots touched firm ground. ‘I had to give your wagon to somebody else.’
‘I had to help out,’ Danny said. ‘That ship going up would have been a disaster.’
Moments later, as he made his way across the dock, he felt light-headed. His chest felt as if all the air was being squeezed out of it and his left arm grew so heavy he had to hold it up.
‘You all right, Danny?’ one of the dockers asked. ‘You don’t look so good.’
As Danny tried to speak his legs gave way beneath him. He opened his mouth to gasp the smoke-filled air, but collapsed onto the quay as the strain of his heroic effort got the better of him.
‘Someone get first aid over here!’ the docker shouted, and moments later Sarah was kneeling over Danny’s stricken figure.
Nobody noticed Alfie Delaney slipping back to a nearby warehouse.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A docker went hurtling to the police box to bring emergency help. All the time Sarah prayed like she had never prayed before.
‘Oh my days!’ she gasped. She was the only person, apart from his doctors, who knew Danny had a heart condition. When she saw him lying on the quay surrounded by a small crowd of men, her own heart pounded with a fear she had never known before.
Sarah pushed herself through the throng and kneeled beside him, shutting out the cacophony of voices that surrounded her. She tried to focus on what she had been taught in her training. She felt his pulse. It was faint but she could see clearly that Danny was not breathing. Dear God, please don’t let me mess this up, she prayed. Tilting his head back and opening his collar, Sarah started rhythmically to pump his chest, interspersing it with puffs of air through his mouth and into his lungs.
She carried on doing this until the ambulance arrived.
‘Went out like a light, he did,’ said a man in baggy corduroys as he pushed his oil-stained flat cap to the back of his head. ‘One minute he was talking away and the next he went down like a pack of cards.’
As the ambulance man parted the throng Sarah said determinedly, ‘I’ll go with him. I’m … I’m …’ She could not bring herself to say ‘Danny’s best friend’. ‘I’m a friend of the family.’
‘In that case you will be able to give his details for the hospital,’ McTaggart said, grimly, arriving at the scene from seeing to a fireman with burns. ‘But make sure you come straight back and let us know how he is.’
Sarah nodded.
Fear pumped in her throat and tears rolled down her cheeks as the ambulance men worked on Danny’s unconscious body. He had to be all right! He just had to be!
She would never be able to face Kitty if anything happened to Danny … Sarah knew now she should have told somebody about his heart complaint. Danny should not have been doing such heavy labour with a serious heart problem. The dock work was far too strenuous.
‘Might be the effect of smoke after saving that ship – he deserves a medal for what he did!’
‘What do you mean?’ Sarah could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘The fire guard took bad, collapsed; this lad took his place,’ the docker said. ‘Not a minute’s hesitation neither!’
‘Please, Holy Mother of God, let Danny be all right.’ Not only had Danny heaved essential cargo all over the dock, he also saved a ship from being blown sky-high.
Won’t you ever learn to say no, Danny?
The windows and the fronts of every shop in Church Street were blown in, Nancy noticed as they scurried, heads down, towards the Pier Head. Lewis’s was lost in flames. Blackler’s had also copped it. In the distance, they could see the orange glow of light in the sky above the Pier Head. It was going to be a long trek home – if they could get through.
Every road was blocked. Scotland Road was impassable. Stanley Road was too dangerous with falling buildings and raging fires.
‘We’ll just have to try the dock road. It’s the only way,’ Stanley said, and both Nancy and Gloria looked at him as if he was quite mad. The docks were on fire from the south end to the north.
People, visibly shocked and dazed, were hurrying to places they were once familiar with, knowing tomorrow the city centre would be barely recognisable. Nancy moved automatically. Putting one foot in front of the other she held Gloria and Stan’s hands as they staggered through the wreckage of the places she had known all her life. A short while later, they reached the part of town that led them to the river.
‘We’ll never get through here,’ Stan said as fire-fighters were desperately trying to quell the flames. All around them intense heat fought with freezing air. Sparks fanned into the black sky from a hundred different fires. Merseyside was alight!
‘Here, cut down this way!’ Stan had to shout above the fire’s roar, his handkerchief over his face as the thick, suffocating smoke burned his nose and throat. The whole place smelled like bonfire night.
‘Are you related?’ the nurse asked kindly, and Sarah shook her head, her uniform bearing the evidence of Danny’s sickness as the ambulance had headed to the hospital.
Sarah could not speak, aware that in the next room they were doing all they could to save Danny’s life.
‘Has anything like this ever happened before?’ the nurse asked.
Sarah wasn’t sure what to say.
‘All I kn
ow is that he has been excused military service, but I’m not sure of the details.’ Sarah knew this was a half-truth.
‘Between you and me, it will be a miracle if this boy survives the night.’
Sarah’s gasp of anguish told the nurse she had said more than she ought, and she realised too late that Sarah wasn’t here in a professional capacity but in a personal one.
Please Lord, let Danny live. I’ll die if he dies.
‘Oh, Kitty, thank God you’re here!’ Sarah cried, feeling relief that she no longer had to carry the burden of responsibility and worry alone.
‘How is he?’ Kitty asked, looking almost grey with the strain of both of her brothers now being ill in hospital while doing full-time work at the NAAFI. She had heard about Danny’s accident as she’d turned the corner into Empire Street, after saying goodbye to Dr Fitzgerald, and the wife of one of the dockers met her as she went to the door to tell her the grim news. It had taken Kitty an hour to make the journey back to the hospital as many of the roads were now closed and much of the city was alight. She had just left Tommy in the children’s ward – now here was Danny, his life hanging by a thread.
‘They wouldn’t tell me anything except he’d had an accident on the dock!’
Sarah explained about Danny saving the ship, making Kitty swell with pride, but what she heard next made her blood run cold in her veins.
‘Kitty, he has heart trouble.’ Sarah knew it was better not to sugar-coat it. She felt guilty enough at not telling Danny’s older sister before now. She should have told her – she might have been prepared.
‘Heart trouble?’ Kitty asked, a look of horror widening her eyes. ‘Since when? He never said anything.’
‘Something to do with rheumatic fever, apparently. He only found out when he was excused military service.’
‘Excused? How do you know all this, Sarah?’
‘He told me not to say anything. I’m sorry, Kitty. He didn’t want to worry you.’