The Evacuee Summer

by Katie King

  The children had just got to the end of their round when they were about to pass the churchyard of the neighbouring parish to Roger. The trap had piles of paper in it, as well as some old scrap metal and items like worn-out rubber boots that all combined to make quite a Krakatoa of waste items, and in addition, several people had donated holey pillowcases full of old clothes for Roger’s next rummage sale that the children were to drop off at the church hall. Angela was sitting in just about the only space that was still left, but the sun was beating down and it was hot up there on the driving seat, so she was looking forward to when they would get back to Tall Trees and could have a drink of water and spend some time cooling down in the shade.

  The other five children walked next to the trap, saying only the occasional word once they had congratulated each other on how successful this particular round had been in what they had been able to pick up, their earlier energy having dissipated in the heat.

  Then, just like the other two times, somehow the Hull evacuees did their stealthy and now-familiar blood-chilling trick of silently snaking over the stone wall and lining up in front of those from Tall Trees, although a fair way down the road still. Again, as one, they moved their feet apart at the same time as they inclined their heads towards their right sides and jutted out their jaws, before taking two large steps forward very quickly, and then suddenly standing completely stationary. Then the Hull boys rolled their shoulders backwards slowly and switched the angle of their jaws from their right side to their left. Not for a moment had they seemed to blink or taken their eyes off the group making their way cautiously towards them.

  It was just as threatening as the previous time the Tall Trees boys had seen it, Jessie thought, and he was sure that everyone felt the same surge of adrenalin as he had. It seemed more of a danger this time around, thought Jessie and his friends.

  But watching the routine rather than hearing about it second-hand was a new experience for Connie and Angela. Connie had already stipulated that no matter how threatening or dire or spectacular it was when she and Angela saw it in the flesh for the first time, the important thing was that that they looked as bored as possible and treated it as not very much at all, as the fact it didn’t impress girls was likely to be very irksome to the Hull boys.

  With this in mind, and while the Hull lot gave it all they had, the girls merely looked at each other and then both gave an exaggerated and very dismissive shrug, with Angela daring to say, ‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’ the implication being that she was distinctly unimpressed.

  Then, as rehearsed, Angela pushed Milburn forward along-side the others, and sat up as straight as she could, sporting a deliberately grumpy frown on her face and slowly (as practised already to check that Milburn didn’t spook by having the whip waved around above her back) bringing the long driving whip upright and then gently moving it from side to side.

  Meanwhile Connie snorted contemptuously at the Hull evacuees, and marched forward to stand out on her own, which was quite a way in front of Jessie and the others. The Hull boys stared on with what seemed like a smirking amusement. To them, she appeared isolated and alone, skinny and small, and very vulnerable.

  ‘What yer got fer us, bonny lass?’ one said, and the others laughed. ‘Come ter show us yer dollies?’

  They obviously didn’t know Connie.

  There was an instant as the Tall Trees boys looked at each other and then they each gave three small nods to get their timing right, and then as one, they lined up behind a now stony-faced Connie. Taking the lead from Connie they began their carefully choreographed routine, which involved everyone, even Angela (though she had to prop the whip beside her) holding their hands together in front of them with their fingers interlinked so that each TT Musket had a clasped pair of hands held high in front of their chests as if in a prayer of supplication designed to appease the Hull lads, then they all looked down demurely right down to the ground for three long seconds.

  Jessie risked a look at their opponents from beneath his eyebrows while this was going on and he could see them staring on in puzzlement now. Connie had moved a step or two nearer to them and this muscling in on their personal space was obviously unsettling them. The Hull boys were also rattled by this first stage of their routine as it clearly wasn’t at all what they had been expecting, seeing as it looked at first sight to be the Tall Trees gang giving in.

  This was a deliberate strategy though, Jessie knew, and he glanced across at Connie, whose right heel was tapping out the beat for those behind her, and all of a sudden any sense of fear or trepidation left him – things were about to get interesting, and he felt brave and indeed as if he had never been more alive. It was a wonderful feeling, and he fancied he was standing taller, with much more of a dangerous cast about him.

  As part of what they’d practised, the next bit was that the TT Muskets looked up properly at the Hull lot, and then obviously down at their still-almost-praying hands. Making faces and giving a single shake their heads as if to say a firm ‘No’, they then broke their hands apart, and stood sideways on punching their tightly-fisted left hands across their bellies, their heads tilted and their right hands stroking their chins, with their eyes almost closed above as they gazed over at their foes.

  Then, very slowly they advanced sideways towards the Hull evacuees, doing four smallish steps with one side leading and then in unison turning and doing four steps with the other side in front.

  ‘Dollies, my arse!’ said Connie, which was equally shocking to those from Tall Trees as it was to the Hull boys, as she’d never given a hint before that she even knew such language. ‘My ARSE!’ she shouted at full voice again as Angela pushed Milburn forward.

  There was the first sign of a breaking in the Hull ranks, with eyes starting to be flicked from side to side as they tried to work out what the other members of the gang were thinking about what was going on before them. They hadn’t expected the pony to be so close to them or a girl to take the lead, and in fact Connie had had to do a lot of work to get the Muskets to agree to either of these strategies, as the boys had made it clear they felt it made them look feeble quite aside from the fact it was possible Connie, Angela or Milburn might get hurt. But Connie was relentless in trying to get her way, saying that in view of the Hull lot being bigger there could be an advantage in wrong-footing them with surprise moves, and eventually her insistence won the day.

  The Hull boys weren’t sure where to look, as they hadn’t expected anything like this. Jessie knew that they must be weighing up the situation.

  There were five boys from Hull, which would ordinarily give them a huge advantage, especially given their size and physical maturity as they were all at secondary school. Compared to these six primary schoolchildren in front of them, two of whom were girls (and one of those unable to walk, although their challengers were unlikely to know that), they had weight and brute force on their side.

  However, aside from Connie seeming a demon, Milburn’s head was raised and she was lifting her hooves high with each step, making herself seem as big as possible in an approved TT Musket manner, and she looked much more mildly curious than concerned about what was going on in front of her.

  Then, quick as a hungry otter sliding into a river after a fish, Connie darted forward and grabbed caps from the heads of three of the Hull boys, which then she threw expertly one by one to Angela, who managed to catch them all single-handedly (Connie knew that Angela had been a two-ball champion at school back in Bermondsey, and they’d practised this, unbeknownst to the boys, just in case it was to come in handy, which it obviously had), and quickly Angela leant down to secrete the caps under the bench on which she was sitting.

  The Tall Trees boys stood frozen for a second, and they looked at each other quickly to see what they should do, and in order that they didn’t spend too long frozen lemon-like in inaction, Aiden hastily led them in mirroring their pose, swapping their arm across their stomachs and their hands on their chins.

  C
onnie meanwhile jeered with a toss of her head, ‘Arses!’

  Her vocabulary was limited, but now the Hull boys were in no doubt who she meant. And although they muttered under their breath and flicked the vees, Connie’s smiling face somehow dampened their attempts at intimidation.

  And then Milburn stuck her nose forward, opened her mouth and snapped her teeth together a mere inch or so in front of the face of one of the lads – Connie hadn’t bargained for this, but it couldn’t have worked more effectively if she had, as suddenly, like a will o’ the wisp disappearing, the posturing of the older boys from Hull dissolved completely. It was all too strange and unpredictable for them, and the result was that they started to edge away backwards, and after retreating a safe distance they turned to jog – well, it was more of a run really – a little further down the road before heading towards the stone wall surrounding the churchyard and vaulting over.

  Once they had a wall between themselves and those from Tall Trees, the leader of the Hull gang looked relieved as he turned around and stared back at the Muskets, and in order that they didn’t lose total face for being bested by girls and a mare, he leant across the top of the wall to shake a fist at them all as he shouted sharply, ‘Bugger off! Do you ’ear? Piss off before we larrup ye! An’ yer lads, yer sissies, hidin’ behind those skirts.’

  Connie kept her silence, as did the others, and then she gave a sweeping bow in the direction of the Hull boy staring at her, her right hand sweeping in an extravagant circular motion almost right down to the ground.

  In response the lad hanging over the wall tried a louder bellow of ‘Bugger off!’

  But when the only response back to him from out in the road was Connie cupping a hand behind her ear and inclining her head with her eyebrows raised dramatically as if she hadn’t heard him, he almost did a jig on the spot in frustration as he shook again one fist and then the other as he stared deep into her eyes.

  Unperturbed, Connie tipped her head to the other side and merely raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Sling yer ’ook,’ called Larry, ‘if yer knows wot’s gud fer yers.’

  ‘Yeah, piss off,’ added Tommy.

  Defeated, the Hull leader gave a shaky Heil Hitler salute at them, and then quickly flicked all of the Muskets a final flurry of vees at which Connie turned her face into a smouldering frown and took a threatening step forward, which caused him to jump back with alacrity, before he yelled a quivery ‘Fuck off, fuck you!’ And then he turned and sidled off in the wake of his fast-disappearing friends.

  The TT Muskets slowly let out their breaths and allowed their tense shoulders to relax. And then there was a wonderful moment as Connie and her friends turned towards each other in victory, as they smiled broadly at each other while relief surged through their bodies that a potentially horrible situation had been seen off with such brio, and even Milburn gave a happy-sounding snort at the non-violent outcome of that particular encounter.

  The silence now broken between the TT Muskets, they headed back to Tall Trees agog with their nerve, and chattering furiously about what had happened, reliving what they had done and how it had happened time and time again, telling each other excitedly how it had gone more in their favour than they ever could possibly have imagined.

  As Milburn was put back in her stable and given a drink and a couple of carrots sneaked from the vegetable plot by Larry as a reward, Tommy hung each of the three purloined caps from rusty nails that were poking out from the wooden rafters high up at the back of her stall.

  As trophies go, the caps, two tatty grey tweed and one holey navy twill, didn’t look particularly special lined up like that, but none of the children were in any doubt of the huge victory they signified.

  The children stood outside the stable, looking at the caps. But it was Larry who brought all of his friends back to reality with a bump. ‘That was just fer starters. They’ll really be after us now.’

  There was a pause as they all pondered this.

  And then Connie said, her eyes sparkling at the mere thought, ‘I know. Isn’t it exciting?!’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  There was a run of hot days, and then the weather broke with thunderstorms and bursts of rain that was so heavy that nobody fancied going out much.

  It was now well into July and suddenly the war stalemate on home shores ended with a bang between Britain and Germany, and with the Luftwaffe beginning a series of daylight raids. The newspaper headlines screamed that fifteen people had been killed at an aerodrome in Wick, Caithness, and a week or so later heavy loss of life was incurred in Norwich, this time as factories and iron works were targeted. Not long after that, towns on the South Coast were attacked, especially the Channel ports and their defences. Coventry was bombed, as was Southampton, Liverpool, Bradford and Birmingham. It was hard for anybody, adults or children, to think of a single positive thing to say about this latest turn the war with Germany had taken.

  More so than ever before, the BBC news was the focal point of everyone’s days, and the general mood at Tall Trees among the adults grew increasingly sombre, and nowhere in the country seemed completely safe.

  Barbara telephoned Roger and asked that the twins be kept close to home, and he was able to reassure her that this was already happening. Barbara then spoke to Jessie and Connie, who were both a bit upset and told their mother in great, sometimes teary detail how very much they were missing home, and her and Ted. Barbara’s voice had a distinct crack in it as she told them that she and Ted were missing them too and she wished she were with them right at that moment as she’d love to envelop them in the biggest and beariest of bear hugs, but it was much better that they were up in Harrogate rather than down in Bermondsey as it was going to get dicey in London before too much longer, she was sure, although of course she and Ted would make sure to take good care of themselves.

  Angela and Larry both had letters from their mothers saying much the same, and so the victorious mood of the children from the afternoon of the cap trophy-snatch dissolved quickly into one that was much more thorny and low-spirited.

  As Connie said ruefully to Jessie one morning as they went to collect the eggs from the hen coop at the bottom of the garden, ‘All that work to get the Hull caps, and now nobody gives a hoot. I just wish we were back in Jubilee Street, and that the war had never happened.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ answered her twin. ‘Ma and Pa seem a long way away, and the other day I couldn’t remember everything that was in my bedroom at number five and I never thought I’d not be able to do that. It’s nearly our birthday too, and I don’t think we’ll be able to see them or get any presents.’

  He and Connie stood and looked at each other. Jessie’s words had hit a real chord with both children, and for the first time in months they gave into bitter sobs.

  Mabel saw what was going on, and she called Peggy to see too. The twins looked lost and desolate, but they also seemed to be comforting each other.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on this,’ said Peggy, and then Mabel nodded in agreement and touched her comfortingly on the arm as Peggy added, ‘Lovely as it is here with you and Roger and everybody else, and I’m sure Connie and Jessie would agree with that, it feels very strange that we have no idea when we will be able to go back home, or indeed even if we will have homes to go to when this is all over.’

  As far the children were concerned, the concept of them being TT Muskets increasingly seemed childish and out of kilter with the real life-and-death attacks on British people, and so they tried not to think too much about the Hull boys after Jessie reminded everyone that they were probably feeling just as apprehensive about the outcome of the war as they were at Tall Trees.

  However, there were only a limited number of days where playing snap or gin rummy, or reading or listening to the wireless, held everyone’s attention before normal bickering turned heated and from there into full-blown arguments. A day or two’s grace was won when it turned out that Gracie and Mabel both knew how to play whist, a
nd so they taught this card game to the children in an effort to give them something different to think about, but this new-found enthusiasm soon began to pale along with all the other games that Mabel and Peggy tried to come up with, especially as Roger vetoed the children gambling with used matches or IOUs from their pocket money, which had livened things up between them for a while and made the games very energetically fought.

  There was one excitement that did lift spirits though, which was the arrival of a tiny piglet that was going to be fattened up before butchering ready for Christmas. It was another extra mouth from Mr Ross, Milburn’s official owner, as a young gilt (this was, Jessie informed everyone, a sow who’d not given birth previously, but the other children couldn’t be bothered to rib Jessie or make cat-calls, which had become their usual response when Jessie shared unasked-for information on something he knew about but they, with the possible exception of Aiden, didn’t) had had a litter of thirteen piglets but she had proved to be a poor mother, being too restless to feed them all properly and actually killing three of the piglets by either standing or lying on them. This latest member of the Tall Trees coterie was a sugar-mouse-pink sweetie who had been the smallest surviving piglet. He had an endearing frill of ginger hair edging each ear and the sweetest little piggy trotters. He was the runt of the remaining litter, given to Tall Trees for hand-rearing as he had already been trodden on once, although not too severely, but Mr Ross didn’t think he would survive if it stayed with the gilt.

  The quite large pigpen Roger and Ted had finished constructing on Barbara and Ted’s last visit to Tall Trees had, so far, remained empty as Roger secretly had got cold feet about letting everyone getting fond of an animal that was not technically a pet but a prospective source of food, as this would ensure that there would be a high level of upset when the time for butchering came.