Bel Ria

by Sheila Burnford

  They were anchored out in the Sound. Soon after darkness fell, the alarms sounded and the systematic destruction of the ancient gentle town of Plymouth began. Tertian was a Devonport ship and many of the men had families on shore, while almost all had friends. Their own guns joining in the shore barrage, all night long they watched helplessly, sickeningly jarred by every explosion, seared by every freshly leaping fire.

  Next morning those who had homes or relatives there, were given a few hours’ compassionate shore leave. For some it was a thankful reunion, for others a nightmare search through the rubble-strewn streets and smoldering ruins, hopefully to neighbors’ houses and the emergency centers set up for the bombed out, fearfully to hospitals or to the hastily set-up morgues.

  Reid went ashore, and found his sister standing aimlessly in front of what had been her house, one of a terrace leading off the Hoe. One side was completely exposed, a gap where the adjoining house had been. All the windows were out, the roof was gone, and the kitchen extension at the back lay in an impenetrable heap of lathes and rubble. That was where Ria had been, she informed him tearfully; fortunately, she herself had been out for supper with the neighbor with whom she was now sheltering.

  They could not even attempt to salvage anything from the rest of the house for there was an unexploded land-mine at the back of the row. There was nothing further Reid could do. He spent his remaining time boarding up the neighbor’s shattered windows and helping where he could, then he returned to break the news to MacLean, and the only consolation he had to offer was that Ria’s death must have been instantaneous.

  MacLean had been standing by the rail. Without turning his head, he thanked Reid in a flat expressionless voice and continued to look across at the smoldering city under its pall of black smoke. He never spoke of Ria again.

  In all too brief a time that day, those ashore were recalled urgently and all leave canceled. Word had come through that the cruiser Admiral Hipper was making a sortie out of Brest, and Tertian was to be part of the force sent to intercept. The drawn, gray-faced searchers returned, many of them still not knowing what had befallen their families, some knowing only too well, and they slipped away in company with two other destroyers.

  For days they played cat and mouse, but in the end the prey eluded them, and Tertian proceeded on to Gibraltar to refuel.

  She passed through the gates of the Mediterranean to become a part of the Fleet there, part of the immortal annals of the Tobruk run, Mersah Matruh, Crete, and the Malta convoys — and she was never to return.

  Part Three

  Chapter 9

  THE SIRENS SOUNDED the red alert in Plymouth that night about nine o’clock. For months, this had meant nothing more sinister than the approach of an enemy reconnaissance plane, or a lone afternoon raider; always, soon afterwards, the All Clear would follow. But this night, almost before the first warning notes had ebbed away, the skies were filled with the steady purposeful throbbing even as the anti-aircraft barrage and searchlights came into action, and a minute later the total bombardment of Plymouth and Devonport began. It was the first night of a terrible son et lumière display, lit by the leaping flames, the searchlights and slowly dropping flares, while the shuddering bass of the guns thundered their earthbound accompaniment to the screaming crescendos from the skies.

  Ria had become used to the noises of war at sea, for even under the insulation of a mattress in a bunk sanctuary, nothing could muffle the carrying vibration of steel plates, but never had he faced the assault of violence and explosion alone, or within confining walls in the now unfamiliar surroundings of solid unmovable land.

  He had been comforted by Reid’s continuing familiar presence when he had been brought to this house, waiting stoically enough by the window as though expecting MacLean to appear and take him back to the Ark. Then Reid had gone, and now there was only his sister, who was kind and well-meaning, but a stranger. Then she had gone out for the evening, leaving him in the kitchen, an extension opening onto a small courtyard at the back of the house, one of a terrace leading off the Hoe. When the anti-aircraft batteries started up, there was no familiar sanctuary to which he could make his routine way; there was only himself in this small rock-still room.

  When the first stick of bombs screamed down, each earth-shaking crump landing inexorably nearer, almost as though they searched him out, Ria started to his feet, and cowered against the back door; then as the last bomb began its shrieking pursuit, he bolted under the table. The bomb landed squarely between the next two adjoining houses of the terrace, slicing a path between them as cleanly as a knife through bread. The kitchen rocked and shuddered to the blast, then settled, sagging.

  The deep quivering silence that followed was intruded upon, unobtrusively, almost apologetically, by a thick acrid smell, then came an awakening crash as the bricks and masonry of the next door chimney cascaded onto the roof. The timbers groaned under their burden, and with soft, shifting sighs the lathes released imprisoned plaster, pulverized now to a thick white dust that settled shroud-like on the little kitchen. Slowly, smoothly, the roof blended with the crumbling wall, widening the red gap of sky like a blind pulled back; the wall curved and trembled, then disintegrated in a shower of bricks. The floor heaved up in sympathy so that a pot slid off the stove, the rivulets of its contents almost instantly dammed by the white dust, and in slow motion the blue and white plates one by one slid off the dresser.

  Now human sounds were heard, heavy running boots crunching through glass in the street beyond the courtyard, shouts, sharp orders, whistles, and a voice that said, “Oh, Christ, oh, Christ, oh, Christ . . .” with as much humanity as a clock ticking. Beyond these noises rose the growing orchestration of the night; the multiple endless drone of aircraft, the thunder of the dockyard guns, the lighter barking of the anti-aircraft batteries on the Hoe, the high whistling crescendo, then the great bass drum thumping of bombs. Every now and then, as though some conductor had stilled every instrument with his baton, suddenly, abruptly, there fell a silence that seemed to engulf the town, then insidiously the little wounded noises would start up again, the soft sighings of flame tendrils rising to fierce hungry crackling, whispered moans that became sharp cries then shrieks, slithering slates and bricks that first plopped one by one then became a roaring avalanche of roofs and walls, the far-away bells and sirens of ambulances and fire engines drawing nearer and nearer, louder and louder.

  Now the kitchen was light as day, the roof open wide to the flares swaying down from the skies, and the red glow from the burning city. The dresser toppled exhaustedly across the reeling table. For a few seconds, a complete hush fell again over the small ruined world that had been the kitchen; the mounting crackle of flames rose from somewhere just beyond the jagged edges of the roof. And as though summoned from some inferno by them, the white ghostlike figure of a dog appeared from under the pile of wreckage by the table and drifted across the rubble on the floor; drifted across the door sagging on one hinge, and out into the courtyard, the eerie white of its dust-laden coat now changing from pink to red to orange from the spectroscope of orange flares against the red sky, and yellow flames. The little ghost cowered, trembling, until the last hinge on the door gave way and it crashed down, bringing with it a bucket that clanged across the courtyard. With that, he bolted into the street, his paws scarcely touching the ground, clearing the fence with a foot to spare.

  Now he smelled fear, death, and terrible human excitement, an evil blend that sent him, eyes glazed and wild, skittering and slithering across the rubble and glass-strewn streets, shying away from the running boots of wardens and firemen, leaping over obstructions, until he reached the open spaces of the Hoe. And here he ran madly again, up the concrete paths, across the grass, from crater to crater, then down to the sea, his claws scrabbling wildly on the slimy steps as he turned away from it again. Each flare, each bomb, each salvo from the guns galvanized the desperate aimless running in the red glare of this world gone mad.

  He
turned from the Hoe at last and ran up the center of the stricken burning town. A man, reeling drunk, sang in a wavering, hiccoughing tenor within the angled entrance to a draper’s shop. He whistled then called but the dog turned and fled on up the street, only to reappear an instant later, running straight at the man. He swerved at the last moment and jumped into the glassless display-window of the shop, twisting through the grotesquely fallen shapes of the fashion dummies, knocking one over so that it fell with its head stuck out over the jagged glass, smiling vacuously down at the pavement. The man lurched out of his doorway, picked it up and waltzed unsteadily off down the street until a warden darted out of the shelter of a church porch and grabbed him.

  In the very back of the shop, in what must have been the manager’s office, crouched a cat with a mewling kitten in its mouth. It backed up against the desk as the dog ran in, and a lightning paw flashed out to rend an ear so that he turned and fled with high hysterical yipping. He ran throughout the night until, hours later, he veered crazily between the tombstones of a churchyard, and there finally collapsed under the solid sheltering wing of a marble angel toppled off a tombstone.

  And while he lay there, the All Clear sounded in the dawn of a new day, and for a few minutes, silence lay like a pall across the shattered city. Nearby in a crater, the ants from a colony sliced in half scurried frenziedly, some of them carrying eggs, their dead already neatly piled some distance from the new entrances. Then all around, one by one, the dazed human inhabitants of Plymouth emerged from their burrows to survey the world that had been left to them.

  The sun came up that lovely still spring morning, generous with its warmth and promise in the desolation. Its rays sought low in its rising under the marble wing and rested on the small spent creature there, so that he crawled out and licked his bleeding paws. Although his eyes still darted nervously from side to side, he was normal now with the normality of animal and newborn day; the horror of the night was over. There was no homing urge for the strange house near the Hoe; there was no one to search for, no links with anyone in this unfamiliar town; he was derelict, nameless, lost.

  He stayed around the churchyard for a while, watching the weary gray people who emerged blinking from the crypt, but the terrifying wail of fire engines drove him on. He limped down a narrow street, picking his way between fragments of glass and twisted metal. The street was silent and deserted, the rows of small houses gaping at their opposite numbers, the very heart of many of them exposed.

  There was no human reminder of the night, living or dead. The only body that had not been tidied away was that of an old gray-muzzled spaniel who lay as though asleep in the gutter. High up in a budding lime tree, a monstrous pair of white bloomers caught on a branch filled and danced to the light wind. Below, a robin poured out over the crater in the little front garden its proprietary song, last year’s nest, blown from the deep sanctuary of the hedge, now bowling gaily along the rim. The dog sat on the sunny step before the roofless shell of a house and scratched himself, watching with mild interest a large white rabbit hopping around the next door garden. The rabbit investigated the shattered glass of a cloche, then settled down to feed, munching lettuce stolidly, its ruby eyes fixed with as little interest on the dog. A chirping cheerful family of sparrows enjoyed a dust bath nearby.

  Across the street a black Labrador scrambled over a mountain of rubble, sniffing and searching. Suddenly its ears pricked, and the rudderlike tail began to swing. Possessed now by urgency, it dug with frantic forepaws, whining excitedly as the dust and rubble flew out behind.

  An A.R.P. Warden appeared at the far end of the street, carrying a clipboard with the names and numbers of the inhabitants. Where possible he entered the evacuated houses, circling the gutted ones, and calling out routinely, “Helloooo, helloooo . . . is anyone there?” The little dog watched his progress with pricked ears. The echoing “Hellooo, hellooo . . .” rang out at last next door to where the Labrador dug, and it answered him with a continuous high barking. The man climbed over the wreckage, watched in silence for a moment, bade the dog stop — a useless command — then holding it back by the collar, he knelt down and shouted, bending his ear close to the pile.

  The little dog picked his way over the rubble too, and at once his seeking nose caught the same message as the Labrador; he started digging beside the large dog, who snarled briefly at him before setting to again. The man seized a loose timber and pried aside some obstruction. He bent down again, and shouted, listened, then as feverishly as the dogs, he started digging too. “Hold on,” he shouted, “help’s coming — just hold on. . . .” And faintly now came back the assurance of life that the dogs had recognized, a whisper of sound below the imprisoning pile. Sitting back on his heels, sweat running down his blackened face, the warden pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew, until there was an answer of steel-shod boots running, and presently the wailing siren of a heavy rescue unit. This was too much for the little dog; sirens spelled disaster and confusion. Tucking his tail between his legs, he fled up the street before the banshee noise.

  His ears pricking warily, conscious of much unseen, unheard, he slowed down soon to a trot, for his pads were raw with cuts. He passed a narrow house, its grubby curtains still in place on either side of the blown-in windows, the shabby door open. In and out of the door, through and out of the windows, went a quantity of cats, all of indeterminate markings, flowing backwards and forwards so continuously that they could have been four or forty. The dog was about to give the place a wide berth, for the pungent smell drifting out was offensive, when two belligerent toms erupted out of a window, snarling and spitting, locked in combat almost on top of him, and he took to his heels again. Halfway up the street, he was joined by a gamboling Alsatian puppy who leaped in clumsy playfulness at his ears.

  The pup stayed with him most of the morning, occasionally plumping down to a sprawling stop, the loose skin on its forehead wrinkled in some apparent perplexity, then trotting after again. Once they came upon a very small girl sitting on the pavement, one unbuttoned shoe on one foot, and a sock on the other, one arm through a sleeve, the other through the neck of her dress, a tearstained grubby child who had plainly attempted to dress herself. She was eating a thick piece of bread and dusty jam, and held out a hand to the puppy. It leaned against her, licking the sticky face as she hugged it, then filched the crust the moment she turned her head. She looked at her empty fingers, then she and the pup licked them carefully.

  From somewhere nearby, traced by the flickering ears of the dog to the house immediately behind, a woman wept continuously, hopelessly; and accompanying the lament, the sweet rolling arpeggios of a canary soared from the room beyond the open window. “Mam, Mam —” called the child, but the weeping continued unbroken, and now the child’s face crumpled in hungry forsaken grief. The puppy licked the salt tears from her cheek, wagging its tail cheerfully while she tried to brush it away. At last she pummeled on its head with all her strength, hammering at its round astonished eyes until it drew back abashed.

  A van drove up to the entrance of the street, which was barricaded at both ends with signs LIVE BOMBS. An army officer and two men got out, and a policeman appeared. He pointed down the street, on the opposite side to where the dogs and child sat, and the soldiers set off carrying boxes of equipment. One of them saw the trio and beckoned back to the policeman who walked quickly down the street to the child and picked her up, but even as he did so his head turned to the sound of the steady weeping beyond. He called to the halted group of soldiers, then, still carrying the child, ran inside the house. Presently the woman’s stifled voice answered the urgent deep tones of the man, and a few minutes later she herself emerged, carrying a fur coat and a shopping bag stuffed with clothes with one hand, her handbag and a silver trophy and teapot with the other. The policeman carried the child, a large photograph in a silver frame, a shining golden teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck, and a wireless tucked under one arm, its cord trailing. Urging the s
tumbling woman on he hurried back up the street, the puppy ambling after. The little dog sat on, his round bright eyes following them until they disappeared around the corner.

  The canary sang on, forgotten; but soon afterwards the song petered out, and the street was very quiet and still, the only movement coming from the group of men half-hidden from sight in the garden on the other side of the street.

  The dog picked up a few crumbs from the pavement, then trotted over to investigate. Lying exposed, deep in the soft earth which had been dug away now, was the long, finned shape of an unexploded bomb. The officer lay prone over the rim of the crater, probing delicately as he dictated through a field telephone to the two soldiers who now crouched behind a sandbagged shelter some hundred yards up the street. The dog, soundless, approached the officer from behind and examined the canine possibilities of the crater.

  “. . . over,” said the officer quietly into the mouthpiece strapped to his chest. He drew his brows together as the voice through the head phones quacked some message. “Repeat, please,” he said, and the voice came through clearly now. “There is a dog, repeat dog, at your right shoulder.”

  He turned his head and saw the gray woolly head on a level with his own, the eyes fixed intently on some point within the crater, hindquarters already flexed to investigate. Very softly the man whistled under his breath, and the dog’s eyes turned to meet his at a six-inch radius. The dog licked the man’s cheek, and in the same instant an arm came around his shoulder and clutched him in a steel grip. Taken by surprise, he reacted instinctively, twisted, and sank his teeth in the hand. But there was no relaxation in the grip, and the man backed away from the crater for some yards before rising to his feet. Carrying the squirming dog, he walked leisurely towards the soldier. The soldier’s face was white.