These Dark Wings

by John Owen Theobald

  With a final cry, he stomps away, towards the dark teeth of the battlements.

  I am alone on the Green.

  Thursday, 31 October 1940

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Timothy Squire’s voice floats back to me on the cold air. ‘Not far.’

  We’ve already gone far. So far, in fact, that I can no longer see the Tower on the horizon. Blitz streets all look the same. Sandbags and barbed wire with gardens dug up for allotments. I was never quite sure, when Flo and I ventured out along the canals, where exactly to turn and when. Without her it was often a sight – a tree here, a yellow boat there – that helped guide me back home.

  Why I am here at all is the real question. Timothy Squire lied to me. He doesn’t really care about bombs or comics – only robbing people. He never talks to me at school, or in front of anyone else. And all these friends he’s always telling stories about? I’ve never seen a single one.

  So why am I here?

  Bridges slide past and we keep walking, tracing the loop of the river. Timothy Squire does not search the landscape for clues. He stalks the streets without doubt, without wrong turns or confusion. I am silent, tracking the route in my mind. Few people wander the streets. The pubs too seem empty.

  Is that Pimlico Station? We are close to Victoria Station then. I can imagine it, crowded with people carrying suitcases, trying to get the hell out. People are going to Hampstead, Leslie says, just to live in the fields. It is fearsomely cold, as the wind musters itself for another winter. If it gets as bad as last year, I don’t know how you could survive in a field.

  ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘This way.’

  One thing is certain; these houses are not bombed out. This does nothing to calm me, though, as Timothy Squire’s intention is clear. I never told him how much I hate this. ‘This is different,’ he will claim. The tall, stately house fronts, the window sills full of pots, the flowers long dead, seem to prove it. This neighbourhood is untouched.

  He is scared, that is all. He thinks the invasion is coming. That we need food, supplies – as much as we can get our hands on.

  He might be right.

  If I’d come with him more often, maybe I could have saved Cora.

  No. I could not have fed Cora some old lady’s necklace.

  Timothy Squire looks to have found something to his liking. He strides up to a semi-detached house, presses his face up to the white shutters. Is it abandoned, though? With so much moving, so much coming and going, who knows if the people have really left? Why would you leave such a safe area?

  ‘Dust covers,’ he says triumphantly.

  We sneak round the back. I do not want to watch to see what he does, but he calls me closer.

  ‘Look. Getting through a locked door is nothing.’

  He holds up a long rusty nail, slides it into the keyhole.

  ‘Just sweep it around until you feel the catch, then twist – and push.’

  The door creaks open. I stagger ahead, as if a spell is broken.

  We will not be able to trick the wardens here.

  We stand in a drawing room with a red and yellow rug, glass-fronted bookcases, and some type of Indian statue staring back at us. The room is cold. Like the Tower, in a way. Long abandoned, perhaps. Is this what a house feels like left empty and unused?

  Timothy Squire knocks the money out of the gas meters. Long moments pass as he fusses with the coins.

  ‘What if they come back?’

  ‘“Come back”?’ He laughs, high and humourless. ‘Once the invasion starts, all this will belong to the Jerries. Better off with us than with Hitler.’

  ‘If you’re so sure we’re all going to die, why do you need other people’s trinkets?’

  He looks up at me, serious. ‘I am not going to let us die.’

  I frown, say nothing.

  A radio, he claims, is what this is all about. For our safety. I wander round as he finds one, shoves it into his pack. Why can’t he just use the wireless at the Tower? I see something in the wardrobe. A coat, maybe for a girl or a short woman. Warm, full-length and a nice lilac colour. Why wouldn’t they take it with them? Do they really have no need for a beautiful warm coat in this freezing weather?

  I look but I can’t see Timothy Squire anywhere. The coat is too long, but it is not unwearable. Mum would love it. The softness of the sleeve.

  On the walk back to the Tower, Timothy Squire keeps glancing at me.

  ‘This stuff is better off with us, Magpie.’

  I shake my head. He says ‘us’ even though I did not take the coat. I watch him through narrowed eyes. He strolls along, arms swinging, new treasures in his pockets.

  He is afraid of the invasion. That is why is he acting like this.

  We are all afraid. We don’t all rob people.

  ‘Timothy Squire,’ I say, as we hurry through the cold, ‘you must promise me. Promise you will never do that again.’

  He makes a face. ‘No. Why would I?’

  ‘Because it’s horrid. And wrong.’

  ‘No, it’s—’

  ‘I mean it. Promise.’

  ‘Who else is going—’

  I look over at him, his large forehead red from the wind.

  ‘Promise me. You won’t.’

  He makes another face, but it changes, softens.

  ‘Fine. Right. I promise.’

  9

  Sunday, 3 November 1940

  Red as a fox, her hair catches the lamplight. In the doorway, I watch her. I struggle yet cannot move. Just then she sees me. In the night, silently, Mum rises to hug me.

  I lie exhausted in the black cold of my room.

  I brace for other images but none come. Just the wind, ceaseless, moaning, slipping through the stone. It does not sleep either. I roll stiffly on to my side and then to my feet. The long winter night has ended. Wrenching aside the blackout curtain, I stare at the day. Sunday dawns grey and wet.

  I look up at the heavy sky, frowning. How can there be that much dust – enough dust to block out the sun?

  The silence of the Tower surrounds me. Wind on stone, shuffling echoes.

  By nightfall the clouds have cleared. The black sky is empty. Searchlights stab and point in the darkness. No planes fly. No bombs fall.

  Fifty-seven straight days. Every night, they have come.

  Is it over? Have the Germans given up? Can people come up from the Underground, turn on their lights, go outside?

  Or is Timothy Squire right? Is this the invasion?

  When they stop coming from the sky, I’ll start looking to the sea.

  I push aside Brodie’s words. I am happy, for a moment, to watch the small stars shining out. Tonight, for the first time in almost a week, I will shake out my hair and have a bath. Maybe I will wear it long, like Mum’s, even though I don’t have her lovely curls.

  One thing I know for certain. Tonight, for the first time since I have lived at the Tower, I will go to sleep in my pyjamas.

  The cold sun shines. The Warders, now all smiles and chuckling laughter, have gathered on the Green for a game of bowls. Grip and I watch them suspiciously.

  Even Uncle is here, and though his throw is well short, he laughs as loud as the others. Oakes cheers him on with a grin I didn’t know he possessed. The sky is quiet, a gentle blue.

  It is nice to be away from Timothy Squire, to be free of the stiffness of spending time with him. Stealing and sneaking and hiding.

  Even some of the Wives are here, though few are smiling.

  The Wives should be happier – most husbands are away in the desert or God-knows-where. Their husbands are alive and nearby. Other wives have to wait for letters from abroad, living in fear that some horrid news will come. No, it is not so bad for the Wives. They just have to waste away in queues.

  I must stop thinking poorly of the Wives. I don’t want to spend all day in the queues, sorting out food coupons. Many of the Wives belong to the WVS, mobile squads of nurses, and committees that look after the r
efugees (French and Belgian, Leslie says). And many of the Yeoman Warders are in danger, leaving the Tower for second jobs as ARP wardens or firewatchers, members of rescue parties or volunteer firemen like Oakes.

  Eventually, I am invited to try my hand – Yeoman Cecil is quite insistent – and I wander over and do my best. I send the ball as far as I can (much further than Uncle’s), yet still shy of the mark. There are many smiles, though, and soon I feel myself smiling too.

  Though I have always burned easily in the sun, I don’t move into the shade until the game is over.

  Dinners have become even worse. It seems raw carrots and potatoes are about the only things left. I don’t even wait to get back to my room. I have half a twopenny chocolate bar hidden inside my coat. (From Uncle.) The Warders, arguing and clearing up, are paying no attention to me. Unwrapping the chocolate, I take a slow, deliberate bite; then chew as fast as I can.

  Uncle, pottering around the room, stops me as I leave. A little guiltily, I keep my head down as he talks.

  ‘I have something for you.’

  He gives me a box. Inside, gleaming in the candlelight, is a knife. A bare bodkin. Delicately, he reaches for it, lifts it free. He turns it slowly over.

  ‘The handle is of yew, the same wood as the longbows of the famous yeoman archers.’ He presses the handle, gently, into my palm. ‘Happy birthday.’

  My expression says something that my mouth doesn’t, because he carries on in a low tone.

  ‘Just promise to keep it safe in its box.’

  ‘I will, Uncle.’

  I know why he is giving this to me. I remember the rest of Churchill’s words. A bare bodkin for every hand. If the Hun is to come, they will come. You can always take one with you.

  Is this a fake peace? Is the invasion about to begin? When Flo and I were in Brighton, everyone still called it the ‘phoney war’ and the ‘bore war’. We were rushed back to London when Hitler invaded Belgium.

  I remember thinking the war was going to be fine. I remember, early in June, the photographs in all the papers of the massive numbers of Canadians and Australians arriving in Britain. We were going to win.

  Looking down at the small knife in its box, my eyes dim with tears.

  Thursday, 14 November 1940

  After school, I sit with Timothy Squire up on the battlements. He rarely leaves the grounds lately, I’ve noticed. Certainly not with me. We haven’t spoken a word to each other since I made him promise to stop looting. When he once came up and stood right in front of me, he saw the expression on my face and said nothing. Probably looking for someone to play Monopoly with.

  Today, though, we are sitting together in full view of the Tower.

  ‘It’s not right,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something is wrong. Can’t you feel it?’

  Yes. ‘Uncle gave me a knife as a birthday gift.’

  His eyebrows climb.

  The winter has hardened and so has the mood. After the single night of peace the Germans have returned, but now the attacks seem minor, brief. When Leslie said last week was the quietest Guy Fawkes Night she’d ever heard, neither of us laughed. No one seems to laugh these days. Something is wrong.

  In the distance, a figure leans against the wall. It is Nell, not doing her firewatcher duty. It is clear, even at this distance, that she is ashing her cigarette.

  ‘You have to come and see.’

  ‘See what?’ I say, turning back to him. Some more shrapnel? A lady’s pearls?

  Together we slide from the wall and head towards the barracks.

  Again there is no one home. He is rummaging around in the pile of comics. It is not a comic that emerges. I recognize the radio instantly. The Warders have stopped listening to the BBC – grown tired of the jolly stories from the shelters, according to Oakes. One more resounding tale of ‘Blitz spirit’ will be enough to send people rioting in the streets. Oakes is spreading defeatism, I suppose, in his delusional attempts to stop the war.

  Uplifting tales of heroism are not what Timothy Squire wants me to hear.

  A voice crackles from the speakers.

  ‘Germany calling. Germany calling.’

  I recognize the voice, which sounds more like ‘Jairmany calling’, and I immediately jump to my feet.

  ‘We can’t listen—’

  ‘I told you, they don’t tell us anything.’ Timothy Squire’s voice has that sneer in it.

  ‘Well, I believe you. But I don’t want to listen to this.’

  Lord Haw-Haw (I’ve never heard his real name) does a daily broadcast from Radio Hamburg. We are told not to listen to Nazi propaganda, though some people seem to – I can sometimes hear his voice when I sneak past the barracks. Leslie laughs at him, how wrong and desperate he is. Others whisper about it, about how Lord Haw-Haw knows things that the BBC won’t tell us.

  ‘It’s unpatriotic,’ I say.

  ‘Something is going to happen,’ says Timothy Squire.

  He is just scared, I tell myself. Still, it doesn’t feel right to be listening to this. Why, Timothy Squire, must you be so awful?

  Lord Haw-Haw’s voice is nasal, like someone talking with a busted nose (definitely not the velvety voice of Bruce Belfrage on the BBC), but his threats are chilling.

  ‘The Jews will get it tomorrow. The bombers will be over the Morris works in Oxford, and then on to Southampton.’

  Bombs are falling all over Britain. London has had a few nights of anxious peace, but larger raids have targeted other cities. Birmingham, Manchester, Coventry, Bristol, Sheffield – attacking coal miners, shipbuilders, and steel workers. The radio voice is gleeful.

  ‘When Southampton is finished, Winchester will be next. But Hitler has something special for you tonight.’

  Timothy Squire’s eyes are on me. He looks, for the first time, openly frightened.

  ‘Something is going to happen,’ he says.

  I don’t know what to say. Something always happens. Why is this different? Unless... are they truly coming?

  ‘What do you think?’ I ask, trying to sound casual.

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. But something different.’

  ‘It’s Oakes,’ I say suddenly.

  Timothy Squire does not turn off the wireless.

  ‘Oakes?’

  ‘Yes. Meeting with that German—’

  ‘Traitors’ Gate?’ Again the smirk in the words.

  ‘Yes, at bloody Traitors’ Gate! Listen, every time we’re hit... there’s a connection. I don’t care about spy fever – Oakes is a spy, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ he says meanly, making that sickening gesture across his throat.

  MacDonald.

  I am suddenly filled with a terrifying thought. No. I am acting mad. Timothy Squire steals from empty houses; he would never kill MacDonald.

  The thought is not as convincing as I’d hoped.

  In the silence, the nasal voice returns, sneering.

  ‘Hitler has given you a day to bury your dead. Yesterday was only a sample.’

  Where was yesterday’s attack? Are bombers coming back to London? I leave Timothy Squire’s flat without saying goodbye.

  Back in my room, several hours later, I pull back the blackout curtain. The moon, huge and white, is rising. Too big, too fast. At any moment, the wail of the siren will be heard. Any second now, the Tower alarm will sound.

  The night deepens. I check again, carefully, and see the moon shining cold and cruel. My eyes ache with the strain. And then, a sound. High, metallic, distant. Bombers. They are here.

  But nothing comes. A far-off ship, perhaps. Or a distant plane, intent on some other mission? I stay at the window, unafraid of Violet or Uncle spotting me, my legs beginning to shake.

  Searchlights, over and over, stab the sky. It is empty.

  Friday, 15 November 1940

  Nothing has happened.

  A trick? Perhaps they will come tonight instead, wear us down with wai
ting and guessing. While at breakfast I learn the truth. They did come. Only not to London.

  ‘Coventry,’ Uncle says, his voice low, ‘is destroyed.’

  ‘Destroyed?’

  ‘Gone. They came in waves. Ten hours. There is nothing left.’

  The rest of breakfast is eaten in silence. This time Yeoman Cecil does not call it an ‘incident’. Even Oakes fails to point out some flaw of Churchill’s that is at the root of it all. At least until the plates are cleared away, when he seems to have come up with something.

  ‘That’ll be for Munich, which we bombed last week. Throw a punch, take a punch, throw a punch. Churchill and Hitler’s great boxing match.’

  No one bothers to respond. It must truly be awful. How many casualties? Hundreds? Thousands? I hear that horrible voice in my head. Jairmany calling.

  Timothy Squire seems quite pleased when I see him on the Green. He goes on and on about how he suspected something, how no one is being honest. I am too hungry to tell him to shut up. Is he right, though? Are we being lied to? Are we all just waiting to die? Coventry is gone, and London might be next.

  What is the point of just waiting – starving – for the Germans to come.

  He looks across the bench at me.

  ‘I am hungry,’ I say.

  ‘There is no food in the Tower.’

  I say nothing, yet Timothy Squire sees something in my look. Without a word, he nods.

  ‘Today after school,’ he says, standing.

  I watch him go before hurrying after him to class.

  Timothy Squire and I shiver through a ruined flat. Nothing is inside, no clothing, no food – not a crumb. Only the wind at the cracked window. There is enough light to see clearly Timothy Squire’s tired face. How long has he been doing this? How long has he been so horrible? You are no better now.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  My entire body trembles.

  ‘I see you. You’re both dead.’

  A woman appears, a broomstick in hand. The whole world shrinks.

  ‘They told me to leave, that my house would be safe. That no one would try to rob me.’