Vinnie's War

by David McRobbie

  ***

  The next morning, George Preston sat surly at the wheel of the school bus as usual. Dobbs and Vinnie waited until Freddie Preston and the other locals had climbed aboard; then they got on. They’d met earlier to work out a plan of campaign and wanted an audience.

  Dobbs greeted the driver. ‘Morning, George.’

  ‘Eh?’ George Preston sat bolt upright. ‘To you vaccies, it’s Mister Preston.’

  ‘Lots of other things we could call you,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘Prisoner-at-the-bar,’ Dobbs suggested, ‘or Convict Ninety-nine.’

  George Preston’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He lowered his voice. ‘What are you on about?’

  Vinnie showed half of the label he’d peeled from the tin of American ham. ‘This came off the tin Joan dropped last night.’ He paused. ‘You were seen, George.’

  Dobbs nodded agreement. ‘Witnesses, George. Four of us.’

  Freddie Preston began to take a keen interest in what was going on at the front of the bus. He couldn’t hear what the vaccies were saying – but why wasn’t his brother telling them to sit down and shut up?

  The driver’s eyes swivelled in desperation. ‘That label doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘That’s not what Joan says,’ Vinnie countered.

  Dobbs couldn’t resist, and added, ‘Joanie.’

  George Preston was suddenly alarmed. ‘You talked to her?’

  ‘Constable Breedon already did,’ Dobbs said.

  It wasn’t true. Neither Dobbs nor Vinnie had caught up with Joan. They moved on and found seats. Then Kathleen and Joey came aboard the bus. ‘Morning, George,’ Joey greeted the driver cheerfully.

  George Preston ignored this familiarity and started the engine, then drove off with a jolt. Kathleen and Joey lurched into their seats, facing Vinnie and Dobbs. All four made the ‘V for victory’ sign with their fingers, the way Mr Churchill did when he wanted to cheer up the nation.

  As soon as the students were off the bus at school, the driver roared away in a cloud of dust. Freddie looked at Vinnie and Dobbs, who shrugged as if to say, Don’t ask us.

  ***

  At the midday break, Kathleen found Vinnie and Dobbs. ‘Last night,’ she began, ‘those two people who came out of the church—’

  ‘Yes,’ Dobbs said, becoming serious the way he’d done the night before.

  ‘You know them?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘I’m friends with Mrs Hall’s son, Henry,’ Dobbs began. ‘He’s the telegram boy, only he’s beginning to hate it.’

  The others nodded in understanding. Everyone in Britain knew about telegrams. They were delivered in a small yellow envelope, and in wartime people came to dread their arrival. For those who waited at home for information, telegrams often brought news that a loved one had been wounded or taken prisoner by the enemy.

  The worst telegram to receive said, in block capitals: ‘the war office regrets to inform you…’

  ‘Henry hates delivering them. He goes to the front door, rings the bell, or knocks, whatever. Someone comes and sees him in his uniform. One look’s enough; they sort of crumple, hold on to the doorpost for support—’

  ‘They know it could be bad news?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘Or worse news,’ Kathleen said.

  ‘Henry has to wait while people read the telegram; then they break down and cry,’ Dobbs went on. ‘Sometimes they’re afraid of that yellow envelope. They say they haven’t got their glasses, so they ask Henry to read it for them. Imagine him having to do that? Then, after giving the bad news, Henry knows they’ll be left on their own. He doesn’t like to leave them with all that grief, so he runs to find a neighbour. Or someone else to stay with them. After that he goes back to the post office, where there might be another telegram to deliver.’

  ‘And those two last night?’ Kathleen prompted.

  ‘The vicar and his wife,’ Dobbs said. ‘The Reverend Aintree and Mrs Aintree. They got a telegram about their son. One of the worst-news kind.’

  ***

  Next day, Vinnie bumped into Joey in the village. Joey had just bought Dandy and was walking along reading about Desperate Dan. He was giggling so much he almost literally bumped into Vinnie.

  ‘I could have been a lamppost, young Joey. Then you’d be sorry.’

  ‘I’ve got news,’ Joey said. ‘About Dennis.’

  ‘Well, come on. Out with it.’

  ‘He came home from work last night, only he didn’t come into the kitchen.’

  ‘And that’s it? That’s the news?’

  ‘No, wait. Mrs Watney calls him for his tea, and when he comes in, Dennis has got a huge black eye.’

  ‘Who hit him?’

  Joey went on, ‘I said to him, Ooh, Dennis, that looks sore. Have you been in a boxing match? He didn’t like that.’

  ‘But who hit him?’ Vinnie asked again.

  ‘Don’t know, but just as Mrs Watney poured his tea, there came a knock at the front door.’ Joey was enjoying this tale of retribution. ‘It was Constable Breedon, saying he had a barrow down at the police station with dennis watney – coal thief on the side.’

  Vinnie laughed. ‘He was a bit daft, putting that on the barrow.’

  ‘No, I did it before we headed out that night,’ Joey explained. ‘Part of my revenge plan.’

  But the answer to who had given Dennis his black eye had to wait until Dobbs got the delicious information from Mrs Hall: the driver and fireman on the locomotive hadn’t believed that Dennis couldn’t find the lumps of coal they’d tossed off, so they declared war on him.

  ‘Ouch!’ Vinnie said when Dobbs told him, and laughed.

  ***

  When Friday came, there was no sign of Joan. Mrs Greenwood explained to Vinnie that she’d sent in her notice and gone off to join the Women’s Land Army. Vinnie guessed George Preston had warned her, so she’d decided to leave the village.

  When Vinnie got on the bus the following Monday, instead of surly George Preston, there was a woman behind the wheel. She wore a cap and a driver’s badge. ‘Good morning,’ she greeted Vinnie cheerfully. ‘Bit of a change, seeing me here, eh?’

  ‘Yes, good morning.’ He went to sit with Dobbs. ‘So where’s Georgie?’

  ‘Don’t know. But we might ask Freddie.’

  The opportunity came at the morning break. Freddie seemed to have something on his mind. He moved towards Vinnie and Dobbs, then changed direction and went somewhere else. Finally, he came over to them and said, ‘I want a word.’

  ‘What word’s that?’ Dobbs asked.

  ‘Um…to say thanks.’ Freddie looked down, scuffed one shoe on the ground. ‘For my brother.’

  ‘Go on, Freddie.’ Vinnie leaned against the school wall.

  ‘You could have made it bad for him. But you didn’t. I never knew he was doing all that…you know…’

  ‘Thieving?’ Dobbs suggested.

  ‘Yeah, him and Joan. He told Mum before he took off. Anyway, thanks, um, Vinnie and Dobbs. Thanks.’

  ‘So where is he? Where’s he gone?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘The Merchant Navy. Signed on as a sailor. In Liverpool.’ Then more words poured out of Freddie: ‘I hated it, honestly, him driving the bus when he should have been doing real war work. The army or something. I tried to tell him, best way I could, but he didn’t listen.’

  The bell rang for the end of the morning break.

  Vinnie said, ‘It’s okay, Freddie. Better late than never, eh?’

  ***

  Friday afternoons were the best time of the school week, because Mr Murdoch gave the class an hour to do private reading. Without his punishing belt he’d calmed down a little; he remained aloof, but as the days passed the thaw in him was becoming more obvious.

 
Kathleen had borrowed We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea from Netterfold Library. At home in London she had three other Arthur Ransome books and she’d been thrilled to find this one here that she hadn’t read. It was good to lose herself in a pre-war story about children who accidentally went to sea in the Goblin.

  Vinnie read a book on the life of Mozart. At the end of his music lesson the day before, Miss Armstrong had let him borrow it, then changed her mind and said he could keep it. She had written her name in the front long ago, which made it feel even more special to him. The book was fascinating, but heavy going, with whole sentences in German. Vinnie wished Isaac was there to help translate.

  Dobbs had a small chess set on his desk, and a book of chess problems. He was stuck on the last one: the black king opposed to the white king and the queen. This one was really difficult. His exasperation showed. At one point he muttered, ‘Ach. Stupid!’

  Mr Murdoch looked up from his newspaper. ‘Using that word in this room is my privilege, boy.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  But Mr Murdoch didn’t leave it there. He’d seen the chess set and the book. He rose and paced towards Dobbs. ‘Problems, eh?’ Already his tone had changed.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Murdoch picked up the book and seemed impressed. ‘You’ve done these? All of them?’

  ‘Except the last one, sir.’

  The teacher turned the chess board around and studied it. ‘Well, what say we do it as if it’s a game? I’ll take the black king.’ The class stopped reading and looked on with interest. Mr Murdoch said to the boy who sat in the desk next to Dobbs, ‘Here, you shift over there.’ He sat down himself; then teacher and student pondered the chess board.

  A few minutes before the bell rang, Dobbs leaned back and said, ‘Checkmate.’

  ‘Fair and square, Dobbs. Fair and square!’

  ‘Thanks for the game, sir.’

  Mr Murdoch went back to his desk and folded his newspaper. ‘I must say,’ he went on, ‘your English has improved, lad. Not a hint of an accent.’ But he was smiling.

  ***

  It was Dobbs who brought about another change. When Christmas mail arrived in the post office, he’d help Mrs Hall to sort it. One day, he noticed a parcel from London addressed to Kathleen and Joseph Pearson, care of Mrs Watney. Not knowing about Kathleen’s arrangement for letter collection, he put the parcel in the mailbag for the postwoman to deliver.

  Two days later, at school, Dobbs asked, ‘How’d you and Joey like your parcel, Kathleen?’

  Kathleen looked blank. ‘Parcel?’

  ‘You didn’t get it, then?’ He used his hands to show how wide and tall the parcel had been. ‘You’ll have to ask Witch Watney about it.’

  ‘Soon, Dobbs.’ Kathleen couldn’t hide her dismay, or her reluctance. ‘I’ll do it soon. Thanks for telling me.’

  That night at tea, Dobbs casually passed on the story to Mrs Hall, who became very interested in this piece of news. ‘Interfering with the Royal Mail is a very serious matter. Leave it with me, Dobbs.’

  That was all it took. From then on, things moved swiftly. Mrs Ormsby-Chapman, the billeting officer, hammered on Mrs Watney’s door, then stated her case: ‘Three days ago a Christmas parcel was delivered here, Mrs Watney, addressed to the evacuee children in your care.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Mrs Watney agreed. ‘I’m keeping it for them, for Christmas morning.’

  ‘Then may I see the parcel?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I take it you can’t produce it? In an unopened condition?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Mrs Watney, I am not satisfied that you are fit to have children in your care. I believe you also had the younger one of them in court, before my husband, the magistrate. Without the approval of the boy’s parents.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You have interfered with their mail, and I am not satisfied that they are receiving their proper rations. The postal authorities will investigate further and the children will be removed from this place. Good day to you.’

  When Kathleen and Joey got off the bus from school, Mrs Ormsby-Chapman was there to meet them with her car. They collected their possessions from Mrs Watney’s unhappy house and were swept away to stay with the vicar and his wife, the Reverend and Mrs Aintree.

  ‘Do you like trains?’ the Reverend Aintree asked Joey. ‘Well, you shall sleep in my son’s bedroom. Now there was a boy who was absolutely mad about them.’

  ‘Hornby trains?’ Joey asked hopefully.

  ‘Oh yes, Hornby,’ the Reverend Aintree replied. ‘And not clockwork, either.’

  Mrs Aintree hugged Kathleen and smiled. ‘It’ll be lovely having you here.’

  It was summer, and Vinnie and Miss Armstrong were in the middle of a piano lesson. The windows were open and the afternoon scent of flowers filled the music room. Vinnie played a Mozart piece, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. Isaac had enjoyed it, adding endless variations to the original simple nursery tune, making the pub customers smile and ask for more. Now it was Vinnie’s turn, but the second variation was as far as he’d progressed. He finished playing and looked at Miss Armstrong.

  She shook her head slowly and made a doubtful face. ‘M-mm, it was fairly good, I suppose. But it’s a lullaby, Vinnie, to make babies sleep, not a marching tune for the Grenadier Guards. So, again please, and softer. Lull me.’

  He began to play from the beginning and risked a glance to see what she thought of it so far. She did not look soothed, so he played on, putting as much legato into the music as he could. Then came a sound, a heavy drone overhead that grew louder with every moment.

  ‘Bombers!’ Vinnie leapt from his seat. His face was white. ‘Miss Armstrong, it’s an air raid!’

  But she sat still, quite composed. ‘I think they’re on our side, Vinnie.’

  Now he could hear them properly, he realised the drone was a steady one, not voom-ah, voom-ah as he remembered.

  He nodded, relieved. ‘Yes, ours.’ Vinnie went to the window and looked up. There were trees outside in the garden, so he only caught glimpses of the aircraft through the leaves and upper branches.

  Miss Armstrong said, ‘As long as that’s going on we won’t be able to hear any twinkling. Why don’t you go outside and watch them?’

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  To have a clear view of the sky, Vinnie had to walk into the middle of the street. Overhead he saw a formation of lumbering Halifax bombers, almost darkening the afternoon summer sky as they flew towards Germany. The aircraft came in waves, one group receding eastwards as another approached from the west. The roar of the engines didn’t let up, even when the sky was empty.

  At last, with no aeroplanes to see and the sound gone, he went back to the music room. ‘Imagine that lot coming to bomb you.’

  ‘Yes, Vinnie, and many of the young crewmen will not return. Imagine that.’

  Following such an experience, it didn’t seem right to play something so lighthearted. Instead they went over the sheet music, marking the passages that should be played softly and more lyrically.

  ***

  In Netterfold, the late summer days of 1941 were glorious. It had been a good harvest in the fields around the village, with everyone lending a hand to gather the corn or dig up potatoes. In August, the school gave an extra week of holidays so that older students could help with the work. After it was over, Vinnie, Dobbs, Kathleen and Joey leaned on a gate looking at an empty field where they’d laboured under the hot sun.

  All four of them were red in the face, arms and legs, but they had a sense of satisfaction. They each sucked straws, in what they thought was proper country style.

  ‘Ar,’ Dobbs imitated a farmer. ‘Oi reckon, next season, oi shall put in mangel wurzels. You loikes mangel wurzels, don’t ee, Kath lass?’<
br />
  ‘Oh, I do. Oi likes them in soup, oi do.’

  ‘Come on, yokels, let’s walk.’ Vinnie opened the gate and went on into the field. Joey, now wise to country ways, carefully shut the gate after them.

  They knew there was a small brook on the far side of the field where they could take off their shoes and sandals, then paddle in the cool water. But before they even reached the middle of the field, there came the sound of an aircraft.

  It wasn’t a British one this time – they could tell by the engine sound and the markings on the wings and tailfin. The plane was in trouble, the motor coughing and missing badly. It trailed oily smoke from just behind the propeller.

  ‘It’s a Focke Wulf!’ Dobbs yelled. ‘A Jerry!’ Most boys knew the outline of German aircraft from government posters. ‘Dive for cover!’ He looked for somewhere to hide, but the field was wide and flat.

  ‘No, wait!’ Joey shouted. ‘There’s a Spitfire chasing it!’ The British plane roared after the German aircraft, but it wasn’t firing its guns. It had already hit the Focke Wulf, and the air-force pilot needed no more than to follow and mark where the Focke Wulf would crash-land.

  Quite suddenly, the canopy of the German aeroplane flew back and the pilot jumped out. His parachute hesitated for a second or two before billowing open; then the man began floating down towards them.

  Joey cried, ‘Come on, let’s capture the Jerry!’ He made a dash towards where he expected the German to land, all the while looking upwards to check that the pilot was on course.

  Kathleen screamed in fear, ‘Joey, no! Don’t!’ She followed after him, yelling, ‘He might have a gun! Don’t go near him!’

  Joey didn’t listen, but ran faster, jumping over the uneven ground.

  Both aircraft disappeared behind a line of trees. Seconds later came a loud crash as the Focke Wulf hit the ground. Vinnie and Dobbs sprinted across the field behind Kathleen and Joey. They got there just as the pilot hit the ground with a painful thump, then rolled awkwardly on the stubbly earth. His parachute floated after him and gently settled. The pilot called to them in English, ‘Don’t shoot.’ But he smiled in relief as he said the words, recognising these were children.