Shrapnel

by Robert Swindells

  When Dad got in we had our tea. Mum had made a cheese, tomato and potato loaf. ‘Delicious, dear,’ said Dad when he’d finished. He’s proud of Mum’s skill at conjuring tasty dishes out of practically nothing. He looked at her. ‘I was thinking we might go to the pictures, Eth. They’re showing The Foreman Went to France at the Essoldo. Do you good to get away from the kitchen for an hour or two. What d’you say?’

  I volunteered to do the washing up, and they went. I like having the place to myself now and then. I found half an hour of dance-band music on the Light Programme. It was Joe Loss and his orchestra – Raymond’s favourite. I’ve missed my brother since he moved out. He’s the only person who doesn’t treat me like a little kid. When the concert was over I went upstairs to look in his room.

  Mum hasn’t changed anything. I suppose she hopes he’ll move back in one of these days. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Dorothy Lamour pouted from the glamour photos he’d cut out of magazines and pinned to the wall. His ukulele stood propped in a corner, and I could see his cricket bat and pads on top of the wardrobe. Even his smell – a mixture of Woodbines and hair-cream – lingered faintly, as though his ghost had just passed through. There are rooms like this all over England, I thought. Young men’s bedrooms, empty and waiting. Stuff sitting where it was left – Meccano sets, cigarette cards, tennis racquets, football boots. And each room has its own special smell: that special smell which says Johnnie or Bill or Jack or Albert. And they’ll fade and fade, till one day they won’t be there any more.

  I don’t usually have thoughts like that. Going cuckoo, probably. Anyway, I’d just sniffed Raymond’s Bakelite ashtray and put it back on the shelf over the small fireplace, when a rattling noise made me jump. It was coming from the hearth. As I stepped back, something fell out of the chimney in a shower of soot and thudded on the tiles.

  My first thought was, a bomb. Daft I know, but bombs were on everybody’s mind at that time. Good job it wasn’t, because I just stood gawping at it. When it didn’t do anything, I approached and touched it with my toe. Some soot was dislodged and I saw it was a package, wrapped in oilskin and tied with string. I knelt on the rug and picked it up. It was heavy. Gold sovereigns, I thought. Some miser’s hoard. My fingers plucked at the knot. The string loosened. The oilskin fell away.

  It was a revolver.

  SIX

  Tom Mix and Hopalong Cassidy

  YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER had hold of a gun. A real one, I mean. They’re far heavier than you expect. I blame Tom Mix and Hopalong Cassidy. You see them at the pictures, doing flashy tricks with their Colt 45s, spinning them on one finger and stuff like that. You imagine they weigh about the same as a toy gun, but they don’t.

  I knelt on the rug, gazing at the weapon in my right hand. It was blue-black except for the grip, which was brown Bakelite. The five-chamber magazine was loaded with dully gleaming, snub-nose bullets. A five-shooter. Never heard of a cowboy with one of those.

  I was excited. Breathing fast while my heart hammered at its bony cage. I’ve got a gun – a real one. When the invasion comes I can fight. I grinned. Keep the storm troopers out of Whitfield’s classroom, be the hero of Foundry Street School.

  I knew it wasn’t that simple, of course. There’s laws about guns, even in wartime. You can’t own a revolver unless you’ve got a licence, and most people don’t get licences. That’ll be why it was hidden up the chimney.

  But whose is it? Can’t be Dad’s. And nobody else has lived here since before the Great War.

  Raymond. This is Raymond’s room, so it must be his. But where did he get it from? Why would he want it, and surely he’d have taken it with him when he left?

  It was a mystery: the sort boys always hope to stumble across and never do. Well, I’d stumbled across this one, and I wouldn’t solve it kneeling on the rug. Mum and Dad’d be home soon. All I could do for now was rewrap the parcel and stick it back up the chimney.

  So that’s what I did.

  SEVEN

  Dance

  ‘GOOD PICTURE, MUM?’ It was a quarter past ten, they’d just got in.

  ‘Very good thanks, Gordon.’ She smiled. ‘That Tommy Trinder, I felt like bringing him home.’

  ‘Now then, Ethel,’ growled Dad, getting out of his coat. ‘Remember you’re a married woman.’ He looked at me. ‘True story, Gordon. This engineer goes across to France to snatch some hush-hush machinery just before Jerry gets his dirty paws on it. Brings it home with help from some Tommies. This was before Dunkirk.’ He glances at Mum. ‘Trinder’s one of the Tommies.’

  ‘He could have Raymond’s room,’ joked Mum, filling the kettle. I knew it was a joke – my brother’s room would stay exactly as it was till he wanted it again.

  ‘Hope there won’t be a raid tonight,’ I yawned. ‘I’m all in.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, young man,’ said Mum. ‘Look at the time. Drink that cocoa and get yourself off to bed, or you’ll never get up for school tomorrow.’

  I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep for thinking about the gun in the next room. The more I thought about it, the surer I was that it must belong to my brother. But why? What did he want a revolver for? And why would he leave it here?

  I knew I ought to tell Mum and Dad about it, but I wouldn’t. It’d be telling tales, and no decent chap does that to his brother.

  I’ll go and see him, I promised myself. He hasn’t gone away. People see him about. I bet he still goes in Farmer Giles. I’ll find him and ask. He can only tell me to mind my own business.

  That settled, I treated myself to a fantasy in which I had the gun in my satchel next time the Deadman gang ambushed me. I pulled it out, pointed it at their shoes. ‘Dance,’ I said, and fired between their feet. They capered about like lunatics, while everybody laughed.

  If only life was like that.

  EIGHT

  So What’s New?

  IT’S NOT A good idea to go home after school and tell your mum you’re popping out for a bit. She’ll say your tea’s nearly ready, or it’ll be dark soon, or what if there’s a raid. Any excuse to keep you in. Best to do whatever it is you want to do, then go home. You might be in trouble for being late, but at least it’s mission accomplished.

  So instead of turning left on Foundry Street at four fifteen that Tuesday I turned right, heading for the city centre and Farmer Giles. Farmer Giles is a milk bar. In peacetime they serve milk shakes, ice cream and sticky cakes. Now it’s weak tea, pretend coffee and a biscuit if you’re lucky. It’s a place where people meet – local businessmen, wives out shopping, young singles who gather to smoke and chat. My brother’s used the place for years.

  And there he was, alone at a corner table, smoking. He looked surprised when he saw me. ‘What you doing down here, kiddo?’ He took to calling me kiddo last year. Gets it from American films.

  ‘Looking for you,’ I told him.

  ‘Why?’ He seemed concerned. ‘Mum and Dad all right, I hope?’

  I nodded. ‘Oh yes, it’s nothing like that. Can I sit down?’

  He indicated the vacant chair. ‘Help yourself. Smoke?’

  I grinned, shook my head. He withdrew the packet, regarded me quizzically. ‘So, what’s new?’ That’s film talk as well.

  Now that the moment had arrived, it didn’t feel quite so straightforward. For one thing, he’d know I’d been snooping in his room. For another, I’d uncovered something he obviously wanted to keep secret. And lastly, the revolver might not even be his.

  ‘It’s . . .’ I gulped. Just say it. ‘There’s a gun in your room, Raymond.’

  ‘Ah.’ He drew on his cigarette, blew a perfect smoke ring, watched it drift over my head. ‘Yes, I know. Do the parents?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. What’s it for, Raymond?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s for killing people, kiddo.’ He sighed. ‘Y’know, I thought I’d found a darned good hiding place for it. Do you stick your head up a lot of chimneys, Gordon?’

  ‘I didn’t stick my head u
p. I was there when the gun fell out. It could just as easily have been Mum.’

  ‘What – falling out of the chimney?’

  ‘No, you fathead, I meant . . .’

  He laughed. ‘I know what you meant. Listen.’ His expression grew serious as he leaned across the table. ‘In wartime,’ he murmured, ‘things go on that most people don’t know about. You realize that, don’t you?’

  I looked at him. ‘You mean spying, stuff like that?’

  He nodded. ‘Spying’s one thing, but there’s a lot more, mostly done by people who aren’t in uniform.’ He glanced round the room and dropped his voice even lower. ‘Why d’you think I packed in my job at Beresford’s, Gordon?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Raymond. Mum and Dad don’t either. They talk about it sometimes.’

  He covered my left hand with his right. ‘They must never know, kiddo. Never. It’d be dangerous for them. It’s dangerous for you, but you found the gun so I’ve no option but to tell you the truth.’ He gazed into my eyes. ‘Can you keep a secret, Gordon? A state secret?’

  ‘A state secret?’

  ‘Ssssh!’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Yes. The reason I left Beresfords is, I was recruited to undertake vital work for the Government.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Gordon, for Pete’s sake. What I’m doing – me and a few others – is setting up a secret army to resist the invader if he comes.’

  ‘You mean, besides the real army?’

  He nodded. ‘The secret army will go into action when our forces have surrendered or been wiped out.’

  ‘They won’t surrender, will they?’ I said this out loud, couldn’t help it. ‘Mr Churchill said—’

  ‘Ssssh!’ He crushed my knuckles. ‘They might have to, kiddo. It’s not a toy-town army you know, old Adolf’s. Look at Belgium, Holland, France. Look at Poland. This isn’t a game we’re playing.’ He looked at me. ‘Will you help me, Gordon?’

  I gulped. ‘Me?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, you. There are kids your age in the French Resistance you know – younger in fact. They carry messages. Packages. At night. Their mums and dads don’t know. Think you can do that?’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. None of it felt real. Me, doing secret work for the Government. I’d wake up in a minute.

  ‘Well – are you up to it or not?’ asked my brother.

  NINE

  Eyes Everywhere

  ‘I . . . I THINK so, Raymond, yes.’

  ‘Good lad.’ He patted the back of my hand. ‘Now listen. I want you to go home, act normally. Mum and Dad mustn’t suspect anything. Stay away from that revolver – someone’ll collect it soon anyway.’ He saw my puzzled frown. ‘Not while anyone’s in, I don’t mean that.’ He smiled. ‘Just do the stuff you always do, all right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And don’t go blabbing to your chums. It’s tempting, especially when they call you a dodger and stuff leaves down the inside of your shirt.’

  ‘How the heck . . .?’

  He grinned. ‘Eyes everywhere, kiddo, that’s us. There’re chaps like your friend Deadman on every street corner – chaps who think they know what’s what, when actually they know nothing. People like them’re going to need people like us if the worst happens. You won’t find ’em kicking leaves about then – hiding under ’em, more likely, like slugs from the sun.’

  When I got in, Mum said, ‘You’ve been a long time, Gordon.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’

  ‘Not been playing in the leaves again, I hope.’

  ‘No. I was reading a poem actually, coming along. Rupert Brooke. The Soldier. Got it for homework.’

  ‘Ah.’ She nodded, rinsing spuds. ‘Learned that when I was at school. Still remember bits of it: If I should die, think only this of me. . . That’s the one, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘And he did die, poor lad.’ She smiled sadly, drying her hands on a tea towel. ‘Thank goodness you’re only thirteen, love. All over before they call on you.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ I hung my blazer on the newel post and went upstairs, hugging my state secret.

  Spivs

  ‘LOOK, CHARLIE, IT isn’t the end of the world. In fact it gave me an idea.’

  Charlie brushed an imaginary fleck off his lapel. ‘What sort of idea, chum – going to wear the flamin’ thing in a fancy holster are you, save the rozzers the trouble of looking for it?’ The others laughed.

  A train rumbled overhead, shaking the lockup that doubled as HQ and warehouse. The young man waited till train and laughter faded. ‘I told him a story,’ he continued. ‘One he believes because he wants it to be true. He’ll do anything I say. I was thinking about Manley’s – the diamonds.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘I told you before, mate, we can forget Manley’s. Security’s tight as a tick’s bum – even an inside man’s got to leave through the gate and they search ’em. Everyone. You’re not going to tell us this kid’s the answer, I hope.’

  The lad nodded. ‘I think he might be, Charlie. Him and a model aeroplane.’

  ‘Model . . .?’ Charlie gazed at the speaker, shook his head. ‘You’re off your flamin’ rocker, chum. Green van’ll come for you any minute, padded cell waiting.’ Some of the others nodded, chuckling.

  The lad shrugged. ‘Please yourselves. I could always go solo on this one, keep the dosh myself.’

  ‘Uh – look, Charlie,’ put in one man. ‘You said yourself the lad’s bright. It wouldn’t hurt to listen to his idea, surely?’

  Charlie sighed, looking down at his immaculate, two-tone shoes. ‘All right, chum, let’s hear it, and I hope it’s a lot better than sticking a shooter up your mum’s flamin’ chimney.’

  TEN

  Semolina with Prunes

  MUM HAD JUST served pudding when the sirens started. It was semolina with prunes, so I didn’t care all that much. ‘Here we go again,’ growled Dad. ‘Get the gas masks, Gordon.’ We each had a job to do before taking shelter. Mine was to fetch the masks from the coat rack.

  Our shelter was at the bottom of the garden. We shared it with the ancient couple next door – the Andersons. The type of shelter we had was called an Anderson Shelter, and the old man had this pathetic joke. ‘It’s mine, you know,’ he’d say, each time we had to take cover. ‘Named after me, but it’s all right – you can use it, sixpence a time, payable after the war.’

  His wife would slap him on the arm and say, ‘Ooh, Herbert, you are a one,’ and we’d all chuckle as if he’d never said it before. As if it was the funniest joke in the world.

  The raids themselves were always a disappointment to me. I was mad on aeroplanes, and when we had our first raid I expected to be able to look up and see all the different types: Heinkels, Dorniers, Messerschmitts. I was looking forward to it. In fact you don’t see planes at all, just crisscross searchlight beams and blackness. You hear ’em, but that just makes it worse. You hear the bombs too, but they don’t come screaming down like in films. Flat thuds is what you hear, between the banging of anti-aircraft guns. And you never see a plane get hit – some do get shot down, but it’s always somewhere else. It’s the same as when you watch somebody fishing. You know he’s going to hook a fish sooner or later, but no matter how long you hang about watching, he’ll never do it while you’re there.

  ‘I hope Raymond’s taken cover,’ murmured Mum as bombs thudded in the distance.

  ‘He’ll be right as rain, Mrs Price,’ said old Anderson. He’d served in the Boer War, before there were any such things as aeroplanes. ‘They can’t see him, you see.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t hit a man you can’t see.’

  ‘Silly old fool,’ muttered his wife. Herbert was a bit deaf and didn’t hear.

  I smiled to myself in the soily smelling gloom. He will be right as rain, I thought. He has to be, or who’ll make sure we have a secret army to challenge the invader? I didn’t half wish I could tell the Andersons, and Mum and Dad, what Raymond a
nd me were doing.

  I was thinking this when the world exploded.

  ELEVEN

  Blast

  BLAST, THEY CALL it. A wall of air moving terrifically fast, outward from the centre of an explosion. Its speed makes it act like something solid – like an express train. It’s just a mixture of gases but it blows out windows, shifts brick walls, ruptures eardrums. People have been picked up and hurled through the air by blast.

  The bomb landed in the middle of our garden, halfway between the house and the shelter. Its blast ripped the shelter door off its hinges and slammed it against the back wall, buckling the corrugated iron into the packed earth behind it. How that door missed the five of us I’ll never know – anybody in its path would have been reduced instantly to pulp.

  At the same time, something seemed to suck all the air out of my lungs. For a few seconds I was completely empty, and when I gasped there was nothing to breathe. I was sure I’d die. Then the air filled with dust which I sucked into my throat, starting to choke. I fell down. Somebody nearby was screaming.

  ‘Gordon!’ Mum slid her arm under my neck and raised my head. ‘Can you hear me – are you all right?’

  I nodded. My throat felt clogged. I gipped, puked on her cardigan and croaked, ‘Think so, yes. What was it?’ The screaming went on.

  ‘A bomb, your dad says. In the garden. He thinks the house is still there.’

  ‘Who’s screaming?’

  ‘It’s Florrie, love. Mrs Anderson. She’s all right – bit of shock, I expect.’