"It's a long story."
"What was it like?"
Tony felt a shiver run down the length of his spine and took another sip of his drink before speaking again. "It was awful. I never want to go through an experience like that again. That's the main reason I'm here. The sooner this war is over the better pleased I'll be."
Adam inclined his head towards the door. Jim was just entering. "I guess you two won't be seeing much of each other once you finish here. I'll leave you alone."
"You don't need to."
Adam smiled. "I know, but some of the others have just come in. I think I'll go over there and brag about our successful evening’s work!"
Tony laughed as Jim arrived to take Adam’s place. The Mess Officer placed his usual whisky on the bar and moved away.
"It sounds as though you're not the only ones to have been busy tonight."
"Has someone else done their final test?"
Jim shook his head. "No. Apparently the worst air raid of the war so far is going on at this very moment."
"Where?"
"Coventry. I suppose they're trying to hit the war industry. There's little news at the moment. It seems that there are hundreds of planes involved. It's already been going on for hours." He shook his head sadly. "It’s going to be a mess up there tomorrow."
Tony frowned. Sarah's family were in Coventry. He hoped they were all right.
Jim noticed his expression.
"What's wrong?"
"One of the nursing auxiliaries at Heronfield comes from Coventry."
"Is she at home on leave?"
Tony shrugged.
"I doubt it. I just hope her family get through it all right, that's all."
"Do you know where all the nurses come from?"
Tony turned towards Jim who smiled at his puzzled expression.
"What I mean is, if you know where she comes from, she must be pretty special."
Tony smiled. "Yes, she is. She's really beautiful, and has a lovely personality with it."
Jim smiled broadly. "This sounds serious!"
Tony shook his head. "No. I wish it was, but she's already got someone." Tony frowned. "He's in Coventry too. I guess she must be pretty worried about him."
"He's that special to her, is he?"
Tony nodded. "I wish I'd met her first. I don't stand a chance with her while he's around."
Jim shrugged. “Just hang on in there, Tony. There's a war on. Anything could happen. Just make sure you're there if she ever needs you."
"That won't be easy if I'm out in France."
"What about her fella? Has he joined up yet?"
Tony shook his head sadly. "He's unfit. I could be away for months at a time, while he'll always be at home and available.” He smiled grimly. "Sounds hopeless doesn't it?"
Jim shrugged. “It'll work out. Don't worry."
Tony forced a smile. "It's easy enough for you to say that."
He emptied his glass and, believing Sarah to be safe at Heronfield, put all thoughts of her aside.
37
The All Clear sounded at last. In one long night, four hundred enemy planes had dropped flares on parachutes to light the way for the first wave of planes which had dropped incendiary bombs with explosive charges; after that the flares were no longer needed for the fires raged incessantly. Guided by the destruction below them the enemy planes passed over again and again, dropping land mines and high explosives. In all thirty thousand incendiaries and five hundred tons of bombs and land mines had been dropped, nearly fifty thousand houses had been damaged and twenty thousand rendered totally uninhabitable. Three quarters of the city's industry had been put out of action; telephone, water, electricity and gas supplies were all totally disrupted. The tram system was unusable and one hundred and fifty six out of one hundred and eighty one buses were out of action. During the attempts to bring the chaos under control twenty six firemen were killed and over two hundred injured; almost one thousand civilians were seriously injured, five hundred and fifty four killed.
After what seemed an endless night. Sarah looked at the watch Joe had given to her the previous Christmas. 6.16. As she gazed at the watch her thoughts were centred on Joe. Where had he been through the long, dark night? Was he safe? For a moment her anxiety for him held her frozen. All night long she had prayed for the air raid to end, and now that it had she was afraid to leave the shelter to face the unknown. None of the others moved. Eventually it was Tommy who broke the tense silence.
"Can't we go now, Mummy? I'm hungry."
His mother smiled indulgently
"Of course. Come on, my dears."
She picked up little Lucy, still sleepy and clinging tightly to her mother. Tommy climbed down from the top bunk and took her free hand. Alice rose stiffly to her feet as Sarah opened the door of the Anderson shelter. The early morning air was cold, and she shivered. It should have been dark, it was still over an hour before dawn, but an eldritch orange glow streaked the night sky lighting it so brightly that Sarah could see her surroundings clearly. Her home still stood, though the force of an explosion had blown some of the windows in. On one side Mary Norman’s house was intact, but on the other, where the Cooks lived, some of the walls were cracked and all the windows were shattered. The house next to the Cooks’ had no roof left, and the walls leaned at dangerous angles. One of the bombs that had landed close by, probably the one that had shaken the very foundations of their shelter, had scored a direct hit further down the street. It had demolished three houses and badly damaged four more. In others curtains billowed out from shattered windows. For a moment the small group of people stood in silence; then Sarah spoke.
"If it's like this here, what will it be like in the city centre?"
Alice shivered. "Worse no doubt. Let's get our place cleaned up first, before we go to look."
Sarah shook her head. "No. You should stay here. The fewer people wandering about the better. But I must go. I have a feeling my training is going to be needed."
Alice looked long and hard at her daughter. She feared for her safety, yet knew she was right. Finally she nodded.
"Just be careful." Without waiting for a reply she turned to the old couple, who were staring speechlessly at their damaged home. "Come on, Mr. and Mrs. Cook, there's plenty of room for you in my house."
Sarah watched the small group split up, Mary Norman taking her two children home while the elderly couple gratefully followed her mother up the garden path and through the kitchen door. Sarah turned and made her way towards the centre of the city.
There was death and destruction everywhere. Houses lay in ruins. Shops and factories burned furiously and there were not enough people to put out the raging fires. People wandered injured and shocked through the streets, and Sarah felt she had awoken in hell. She was stunned and walked aimlessly through the destruction, not knowing where to go or what to do. Then she saw two ambulance men carrying a stretcher towards a bombed house and ran towards them.
"Wait!" she called. The two men stopped and turned towards her.
"If you're looking for someone, I'm afraid we can't help you. We're very busy."
The young men looked exhausted. Sarah guessed they had been working all night.
"No, you don't understand. I'm an auxiliary nurse at home on leave. What can I do to help?"
The young man smiled gratefully. “Thanks, love. We could do with all the help we can get. Injured people are being taken to the local schools. Do you know where the nearest one is?"
Sarah nodded.
"Good. Go there. I'm sure they could use your help."
Sarah watched the two ambulance men making their way towards the bombed house, and wondered if Joe was as tired and dispirited as them. That was if he was still alive of course. As Sarah made her way towards the school buildings her fears for Joe increased, and she was tempted to try to find him. But where should she look? Where could she start? His job of spotting would have been over as the first wave of planes came in. What had
he done for the rest of the night? Sarah looked around her at the destruction, which stretched away in all directions. She realised that to search for him would be a waste of time and energy. If he had survived Joe would go to her house. She hoped and prayed that would be the case.
As Sarah rounded the next corner, she saw the local school. Part of the classroom block was destroyed, but the hall was still standing. She was in a state of mild shock as she made her way across the piles of rubble and through the open door where she stopped, stunned by the sight which greeted her eyes. Those not too seriously injured were seated on children's chairs, waiting patiently. A doctor and four nurses laboured incessantly amongst the more seriously injured, who were stretched out on tables that had recently held nothing more gruesome than school dinners. After a moment’s hesitation, Sarah made her way over to the doctor. He was completing the amputation of the leg of a teenage girl. It was a mercy she was unconscious for Sarah could see no anaesthetics and precious few other medical supplies. The doctor spoke without looking up.
"Wait with the others please."
Sarah did not want to spoil his concentration but knew that she must speak. "I'm a nursing auxiliary. What can I do to help?"
This time the doctor did look up. His face was haggard but determined, and there was a look of intense gratification in his eyes.
"Thank God. Do you think you could deal with some of the less seriously wounded, while we do the operating?"
"Of course."
Sarah picked up a nearby first aid kit and made her way towards the injured. Most had superficial cuts which she could deal with, and she set to work. The number needing her attention seemed endless, and she worked long and hard, the needs of those around her driving all fears for Joe from her mind.
Sarah worked unceasingly throughout the day and on into the night. Long before the injured ceased to make their way to the makeshift hospital, they had run out of everything - dressings, sutures, disinfectant, bandages, painkillers, antiseptics. The list was as endless as their needs. Able-bodied people who had brought their relatives for treatment were sent home to search for any first aid supplies they could find. Clean sheets were brought in and torn up for bandages, then sterilised in an old tin bath of boiling water placed over a fire made from roof timbers. Water was collected from broken pipes, which dripped incessantly. There was no electricity, so light was provided by a few candles scavenged from nearby houses, but their light was barely sufficient. The windows were broken allowing the chill November wind to sweep in, and the hands of the doctor and nurses were numb from the cold. Some of those who were uninjured came to offer their aid. The blankets they brought were gratefully received, some being used to cover the windows, while the rest were distributed to the patients. There seemed little chance of evacuating any of the wounded to a proper hospital. So far there had been no communication with anyone in authority, and the destruction was so great that it seemed unlikely that there would be any improvement in communications for some time. An able-bodied young man in his twenties was sent to the Town Hall, in the hope that someone there could tell them what was happening and send them some aid. But as the day wore on they were still awaiting his return.
With facilities so limited, all those not seriously injured had been sent home, including those with broken limbs, but that still left almost fifty seriously wounded people laid on the school tables: a baby with a fractured skull and severe internal injuries, the teenage amputee, a mother who had given birth in the debris of her home and almost died from loss of blood, a man with a broken back, an old woman suffering severe shock and pneumonia. The list was endless. By late evening, more than twenty-four hours after the bombing had begun, there had been six deaths, two of them during emergency operations. The bodies were removed to a small classroom to await identification and burial.
The night drew on. Sarah had been working in the school for sixteen hours when she looked up to find that no one else was waiting for treatment. She straightened up slowly, her back aching from so many hours bending, her fingers numb with the cold, her head aching with a pounding, throbbing pain that had been going on for hours. As she rubbed her tired eyes, she looked around her at the people whose lives had been so dramatically changed in the space of just one day, but she could find no tears for them. She did not know why. Perhaps she was too exhausted, maybe she was in shock. She did know, however, that her family had been remarkably lucky, and for this she was extremely grateful. Mixed with this gratitude was a gnawing fear about what had happened to Joe. There had been so much death and destruction. Everyone who came into the school had their stories of bombed houses and shelters, raging fires, rescuers injured by booby trapped bombs and land mines. Her fears for Joe's safety increased.
As she rubbed her freezing hands together, Sarah was approached by the doctor she had spoken to when she first arrived. He looked exhausted, his face haggard and grey, his clothes covered with his patients’ blood.
"I'm sorry, but I don't even know your name." His voice was weak and shook with exhaustion. Sarah guessed he was little more than thirty, but the day’s experiences had aged him immeasurably. She wondered if she looked as bad as he did; perhaps that was why she could find no tears for the suffering around her.
"My name’s Sarah Porter. I'm based at Heronfield House near Marlborough. I was home on leave last night."
The doctor took a deep breath. "I'm Charles Bailey. I'm just an ordinary G.P., but somebody had to do this." He looked around him. "God knows how long it's going to take to make some sort of order out of this mess. If we don't get some of these people to a proper hospital soon, they’re going to die."
"Have you heard anything from the messenger you sent to the Town Hall?"
Bailey shook his head. "I doubt if he'll be back before morning. I told him not to come back until he had some firm news."
"I'll stay on as long as you need me."
Bailey smiled weakly for the first time. “Thanks, I don't know what I would have done without your help, or that of the other nurses who came here. They all live locally. I suppose you do too?"
Sarah nodded.
"Is your house damaged?"
She shook her head. "No. We were lucky."
"Then I suggest you go home and get some sleep. I've sent two of the nurses home too, the other two will stay and help me tonight. Perhaps you can come back in the morning to relieve them?"
Sarah smiled weakly. "Thanks. I don't mind admitting I'm exhausted." She looked around at the patients. Some were unconscious, many more sleeping, others lay groaning in unrelieved pain. "I'll see if I can get hold of some food when I come back."
Bailey’s eyes lit up. "That would be fantastic. These people must eat if they're going to survive." He smiled warmly at her. "Now get off home. I'll see you again in the morning. Goodnight."
“Goodnight, Doctor Bailey."
Sarah wrapped her coat tightly around her against the cold night air, and made her way over the mounds of rubble in the school playground. When she reached the road, she walked down the middle where there was less rubble to impede her progress, though still enough to prevent motor vehicles from knocking her down in the blackout, though the blackout was in no way complete. Fires still burned where houses, shops and factories had once stood. Rescue teams still worked amongst the rubble, although with diminishing hope. Work parties were beginning to clear some of the rubble from the roads. Sarah could not believe that these were the streets where she had played as a child, where she had shopped with her mother and walked with Joe. Coventry was unrecognisable. She had an empty feeling deep inside when she thought of how long it would take to get things back to normal. As she turned into her own road she saw for the first time just how bad the damage from the bomb had been. Six houses were totally demolished, while the Cooks’ next door to her mother's was in very poor condition. The damage to her own home was superficial, and she was glad that her mother still had somewhere to live.
As she walked tiredly through the fr
ont door Alice came out of the kitchen.
"Sarah! Where've you been? I've been so worried about you!"
Sarah hung up her coat and made her weary way to the kitchen. She slumped down at the table.
"I've been at the local school, they're using it as a makeshift hospital." She looked across at her mother, who was filling the kettle. "It was awful, Mum. There are so many people injured and nothing much we can do to help."
Alice took her hand and helped her up from the table. "I'll have to boil the kettle over the parlour fire, there's no gas. Come on, love."
The two women made their way to the front room, where they sat in front of the fire as the kettle began to heat.
"Have you heard anything from Joe?"
Alice shook her head.
"Sorry love, I've heard nothing. But don't worry, I'm sure he's out there helping to sort things out. We've been busy here today, first clearing out the glass and boarding up the windows, then helping to clear the road. Mr. and Mrs. Cook are upstairs asleep at the moment." She smiled encouragingly. "Your Joe is a good man. He'll know you’re worried, but he’ll put his duty to help others first. He'll be back, when things begin to get sorted out. Wait and see."
Sarah nodded. "I'm sure you're right, Mum. I suppose I'm just tired." She tried to bury her fears deep inside as she began to tell Alice of all she had experienced during the day. The death and destruction, the pain and suffering, the feeling of helplessness. The tears began to flow at last, partly for Joe but mostly for Coventry, her home; for its people, for what they had been and what they had become.
38
When Joe regained consciousness he was lying on a stretcher, gazing up at the cloudless sky. He tried to sit up, and groaned. His head hurt badly. He was covered with cuts and bruises, but apart from that he was in one piece. As he turned his head, his gaze fell on the house where he and Bob had been working. There was nothing left of it but a pile of rubble. Joe staggered to his feet and felt a hand on his arm.
Heronfield Page 22