Emmie listened to the lament. Did the stupid woman imagine that they had all been able to spend the morning in bed? In her opinion, complaining never did any good. You just took what life threw at you and did the best you could.
When the siren went, Emmie was busy serving a surge of men who had just come in after the closing of the public houses.
“Blow it,” she exclaimed irritably, and some of the men made obscene gestures towards the ceiling. They were none of them drunk – publicans spread their meagre consignments of beer and spirits too thinly for anyone to achieve that happy state – but they were loquacious. Some of the language they used, as they consigned all Germans to Kingdom Come, made Emmie wonder innocently to Doris how Robert managed not to pick up such words.
Doris, trying to be brave, laughed shakily. “There never was a sea-going man what couldn’t swear – your Robbie knows his manners, that’s what it is.”
While she doled out fish and chips – a little fish and a lot of chips – Emmie meditated on Doris’s remark and realised that there was a side of her beloved which she did not know much about. For a minute or two, the sickening loneliness she had felt when her mother’s coffin had been lowered into her grave was revived; and her new world of Robert Owen and the canteen seemed suddenly distant and alien.
As she cleared a table hastily evacuated by the buildings’ firewatchers when they had fled back to their posts, there was a high-pitched swish-swish overhead.
Emmie froze. For a second all conversation stopped. The tiny silence was succeeded by a tremendous roar. The room shook and the electric lights dipped. Everyone looked towards the ceiling.
A tumbling rumble announced the descent of the debris flung up by the explosion. Another roar, another series of rumbles.
Emmie stood terrified, the crockery rattling on her tray, as the guns began to answer the challenge of the planes.
“Put your tray down, luv, or you’ll break everything.” Deckie Dick, the friend of Robert’s who had breakfasted with him on the morning he had first met Emmie, took the tray from her and put it back on the table. “Those two was away over …” he began.
His voice was drowned by a crash that numbed her ears. His arms went round her and she was clamped against an old navy sweater that reeked of perspiration, as he sought to protect her face and head. In the kitchen, Doris screamed.
“Phew! That was near.” Deckie Dick slowly let her go and she giggled nervously. As the guns continued their steady tattoo, a man at the next table chipped Dick, “You never misses a chance with the girls, do you?” Dick gave him a playful punch on the head, and Emmie slipped away to continue her clearing of tables.
Another crash, somewhere at the back of the building, brought Mrs Robinson running from the kitchen. “Gentlemen, there is a shelter downstairs. Take the staircase to the left of the front door. I think it would be a good idea …” She was cut off by a series of appalling crashes, when again all faces automatically looked up at the ceiling. A crack zipped across it, but it held.
“Come on, lads. Everybody downstairs. Come on.” Deckie Dick began to move amongst the tables, touching men on their shoulders and pointing to the staircase. He turned to Mrs Robinson. “Get your ladies down, missus. It’s going to be a bad night.”
Without a word, she hastened back to the kitchen, where Doris was trying not to have hysterics in front of a pile of fish which she had been flouring. The fish was now covered with heavy dust.
Outside, fire engines raced pell-mell through the darkness, amid the shrill blare of burglar alarms set going in the shaken buildings opposite. Boots pounded past the front door, as rescue crews and air raid wardens ran by.
The customers no longer felt the need to look brave; the pandemonium outside was bad enough to justify a retreat, and they followed the volunteers down to the basement as fleetly as they would have abandoned a sinking vessel. Mrs Robinson, white-faced captain of her little ship, refused to descend until everyone was safely down. Then she quietly followed her crew.
At the foot of the stairs, she closed a very ancient, heavy door, bound with iron, hung there, presumably, to keep out eighteenth-century thieves and rioters. As she lowered the iron latch, she heard the upstairs front windows and shutters blow in, and the tinkle of slivers of glass sweeping across the canteen, to bury themselves in walls and tables. The blast reversed itself and blew outwards, causing a resounding crash of crockery from the tables. There was a muffled bang, when the shutters hit the empty window-frames again.
“Pooh!” she exclaimed. “Just in time.” She sank down thankfully on one of the timeworn school benches which had been provided as seating.
The shelter was a windowless cellar, used for years for the storage of coal to heat the building. Its only entrance, other than the stairs, was a pavement light of heavy glass set in an iron frame. This could be swung upwards to facilitate the delivery of sacks of coal; in the construction of the shelter, it had been left as it was. A simple bolt on the inside held it down and it would form a convenient escape hatch from the basement to the street in the event of fire. Though the walls had been freshly whitewashed and the floor well swept, there was still a smell of coal. As a first line of defence against fire, a stirrup-pump with several buckets of water stood in a corner. In another corner was a small table; on it lay an electric ring and a clutter of much used tea-making apparatus. A single bulb hanging, unshaded, from the centre of the ceiling provided the only light.
Some of the men stood around smoking, while others slouched on the benches. Four of them sat cross-legged on the floor and prepared for a long wait by dealing out a pack of cards. The two volunteers sat primly together, backs straight; two middle-class women determined to be stoical.
A shivering Emmie sat by Doris with her arm round her. The bombed-out woman was sobbing quietly to herself, tears glistening on her rouged cheeks.
“Have a cigarette, me duck. It’ll calm you.”
A tall, thin seaman, a cigarette wobbling at the corner of his mouth, squatted down in front of Doris and generously proffered a precious packet of Player’s. “You like one, luv?” he asked Emmie.
Doris smiled wanly, but made no move to take a cigarette. “Neither of us smoke,” Emmie responded for both of them. “Ta, all the same.”
The man turned back to Doris. “Well, you start. You’re the woman that was bombed out, wasn’t yez?”
Doris’s eyes clenched shut. She nodded agreement.
“You should smoke. It helps. See, I’ll show you how.”
Her mind diverted, Doris opened her eyes. He was not a young man and bore all the marks of years of seagoing, of rotten food and working in cramped spaces. He grinned and lit a cigarette for her, drew the first breath on it and handed it to her. “There y’are, luv,” he said, his sallow, hollow-cheeked face compassionate.
Emmie watched him wonderingly, captivated by his easy goodwill. Really, she thought, men can be kind; and she remembered, for a second, her father’s unremitted bad temper. Who else, of the male sex, had she really known, other than him – and stolid, dull David? They had been no particular recommendation for their sex. She had taken Robert purely on trust; and how lucky she had been. The squatting seaman wondered why she suddenly smiled so sweetly.
While Doris cautiously puffed at her first cigarette, the barrage of noise persisted, as in steady waves the Luftwaffe swept over the doomed port. They were guided, at first, by the fires started the previous night and then by huge conflagrations which now began to flare in every direction. Far down the river, the flames’ reflection danced on the water, lit up the rooms of suburban homes and warned ships at sea not to cross the bar. Forty miles away, in the Isle of Man, residents peeped between their bedroom curtains, to watch the blaze on the horizon mount higher and higher. “Liverpool’s getting it again,” they told each other in shocked whispers, so as not to wake the children.
In the shelter, two young deckhands who had drunk a lot of beer decided that they must go to the lavatory.
In a brief lull in the noise outside, they ran up the stairs, across the littered canteen, out through the kitchen door to the cobbled light well, where stood the ancient loos. As they relieved themselves, they look fearfully back over their shoulders through the open doors. What had once been, long ago before the offices had been built round it, the courtyard of a rich merchant’s house now seemed to be a deadly funnel, down which bits of debris, shrapnel and occasional sparks travelled with unnerving rapidity. After a quick peek through the empty window facing the street, they were thankful to get back to the shelter.
“Proper shambles out front,” one of them reported. “Beams and wires and stones scattered all over. Them last ones must’ve hit real close.”
One of the card players looked up from his seat on the floor, pushed his plug of tobaco into one cheek and said, with a faint sneer, “Don’t need a crystal ball to know they’re close. Listen to ’em now.”
“Ah, shut yer gob,” retorted the returned youngster, hitching his braces up under his jacket.
“Now, gentlemen, this is no time to get upset,” Mrs Robinson interjected hastily, having no illusions regarding the shortness of tempers amongst her usually overwrought, seagoing customers.
The young man made a wry face at Mrs Robinson and drifted over to the other side of the room, while the man on the floor muttered irritably, “Think they’re bloody heroes every time they go to pee.”
The second young man had kept his mouth shut, but now he said, with a tinge of wonderment in his voice, “There’s a WVS canteen parked at the corner. T’ women’s doling out tea and sandwiches as if they was in their parlours at home. Feedin’ the firemen, I think they are. Ordinary women just like me mam. And the flak flying round ’em like confetti.”
A fast salvo of bombs nearly deafened them. Everybody crouched, hands over heads, fully expecting to be buried. When they found they had survived, they ruefully rubbed piercingly painful ears. From the ceiling, whitewash snowed gently.
Suddenly, all heads were raised; all noses sniffed. Smoke. The smell of burning wood was unmistakable. Fear jumped from one face to another. Some people rose quickly to their feet. Doris whimpered, and Emmie felt a rising panic.
“Hold it. No point in getting scared.” Deckie Dick got up and put his pipe into his trouser pocket. “I’ll nip upstairs and take a dekko for you. If I call, you come up orderly, mind.”
The men quickly made a passage for him. Elderly, well-known and with forty years of seagoing experience spanning the First World War, he commanded respect. He ran swiftly up the stairs, the deck of cards which gave him his nickname bulging in his back trouser pocket.
The crowd relaxed slightly as, above the now more distant rumbles from outside, they could hear him working his way through the tumbled furniture of the canteen overhead. The back door slammed, indicating that it was still on its hinges.
Nothing was burning in the light well, though it was smoky. In the flickering light of fire reflected in the remaining windows of the offices across the street, he made his way to the front door with its protective sandbags. He flattened himself against the battered wall of sandbags, as a whistle sounded overheard. A huge explosion from South Castle Street sent shock waves running, and his ears rang. He listened, as intently as his hurt ears allowed. The throb of engines seemed to come from a greater distance, but in the street the smoke was thickening rapidly. Taking a big breath, he ran across the street and looked back up at the roof of the building housing the canteen. There was no sign of its being on fire, though it was outlined against a scarlet sky. The buildings on either side also showed no hint of fire.
He raced back across the road and down the steps again to the shelter. He reported, panting, “T’ smoke’s nothing, as far as we’re concerned,” and then paused to get his breath while another series of detonations drowned him out. Emmie felt her courage draining from her and she and Doris clung to each other. He continued, “There’s some big fires not far away – and I could hear machine guns for a minute. Bloody Boche going for the firemen.” He looked at the anxious faces surrounding him. “If we try to move, like as not we’ll walk into more trouble. I’d say stay here.” He sat down suddenly on a bench, aware that he was no longer as young as he had been. He looked down at his shabby boots, while men slowly resumed their seats.
When his heart had stopped racing, he said diffidently, “Think I’ll walk up Lord Street and see what’s to do. T’ rescue squads must be hard-pressed at the back there. Anybody want to come?”
The men stopped their subdued gossiping and looked uneasily at Dick, and Dick said, “Them as has wives and kids, maybe you shouldn’t. A couple of you is perhaps like me – you can please yourselves.”
“My family is killed in Antwerp,” said a melancholy Dutch voice from the far end of the room. “Who to rescue? This is shops and offices round here. Nobody here.” He got up, a big, handsome blond man towering over most of those present.
“There’s firewatchers and caretakers in every building,” replied Dick simply. “Young girls, some of them watchers is.”
Two men in naval uniform stood up and the four of them, without a further word, eased their way through to the staircase. Not to be outdone by the Royal Navy, two merchant seamen followed them.
Mrs Robinson said brightly, “As soon as the raid is over, we’ll see if we can clean the canteen up, ready for business tomorrow.”
The women nodded tired agreement. Emmie was stiff with fatigue and the enforced idleness; the worst thing about air raids was, she thought, that you couldn’t hit back.
The electric light went out. Emmie gave a frightened squeak and Doris drew in her breath quickly. The glowing ends of lighted cigarettes looked like red eyes staring in the darkness. A man laughed shakily. A voice from the gloom said bitterly, “If that isn’t the bottom!”
There was a jingle of keys and change, as Mrs Robinson rummaged in the depths of her shabby crocodile-skin handbag. “I’ve got a match somewhere. There should be some candles in the drawer of the table.”
Someone lit a match and a male voice from near the floor said, “I’ve got a torch, Missus.”
The beam seemed as brilliant as a searchlight.
“Oh, thank you,” she cried, stumbling over feet as, guided by the torch, she went to the table. She snapped the drawer open. “Really!” she exclaimed. “This is too bad. Somebody has stolen both the candles and the matches. There’s not even a stump here.”
There was an angry murmur through the room. Petty theft was a way of life in Liverpool. Now, with everything in short supply, it could cause real problems. The owner of the torch, however, said magnanimously, “Anybody as needs to move, tell me and I put me torch on.”
Batteries were harder to obtain than candles, so when a young voice said, “Thanks, friend,” it expressed the feelings of everybody.
Listening to the clamour outside, while sitting in total darkness was far worse, thought Emmie. The minutes seemed longer; the noise wrapped one closer. People tended not to talk; instead they huddled together for comfort.
Gwen had told her of a woman in the next street, who had clung to a perfect stranger in the street’s unlighted shelter, while they sat out the Christmas Eve raid, the year before. In their terrible fear, they had become sexually aroused, and now she was pregnant by a man she had never seen. Shocking, Gwen called it; but David, with unexpected understanding, had said that it was Mother Nature’s way of seeing that people who had died in a disaster were replaced.
Gwen had responded tartly, “More likely they didn’t know right from wrong.”
As she hugged Doris, Emmie wondered if she herself were pregnant, or whether the change of life was making its presence felt. Though frightened, in her secret heart she hoped that she was still young enough for a bun to be in the oven, Robert’s little one.
“I hope Robbie’s sailed and out of this rumpus,” she whispered to Doris.
“You might get a letter tomorrer,” Doris suggested. Her own heart ac
hed at the thought; even the letters her dead husband had written to her when they were courting had been lost, with him, in their burned-out home.
The racket outside seemed to be slackening, the explosions further away. “Sounds like they might be doin’ Bootle or Seaforth,” suggested a disembodied voice.
“God spare us,” exploded Doris. “Haven’t we had enough up there?”
iv
The women stood forlornly at the top of the shelter stairs. The All Clear had sounded; the noise abated. Through the gaping front windows, the whole town seemed to glow, the shattered room lighted up as if a good coal fire was burning in the old-fashioned grate. As they moved forward, glass and china crunched beneath their feet. The counter, which normally held the tea and coffee samovars, flanked by plates of buns and sandwiches, had been swept clear. Both samovars lay on their sides on the floor, silent humps in pools of black liquid, their copper exteriors reflecting the dancing light from outside.
The light from outside did not penetrate the kitchen, so Mrs Starr struck a match. “Ah, that’s better,” she cried.
Though very dusty, the kitchen was practically undisturbed. The telephone, which Emmie had put on the sill to hold down the blackout curtains of the small window, had fallen on to the table beneath the window. Emmie lifted the curtain to peer out and was surprised that, at least there, there was still glass to look through.
Mrs Starr, one of the volunteers, asked Mrs Robinson a little diffidently, “Would you mind if I phoned my son to say I am all right?”
Mrs Robinson looked up from her task of setting out candles and lighting them. “Of course not,” she replied.
The phone was dead. Mrs Starr sighed, and looked at her watch. It was nearly 3 a.m.
An air raid warden paused by the open front door. “Anybody here?” he shouted. Drawn by the sudden flare of the candles, he clumped towards the kitchen. His face was gaunt, eyes burning with fatigue. A striped pyjama collar stuck out untidily from the neck of his uniform.
Three Women of Liverpool Page 5