by Anne Bennett
‘No,’ Susie admitted. ‘I’m the same. Mom says this is the fretting she was hoping to avoid for me and that was why she didn’t want me to marry, but what difference would that have made?’
‘None at all,’ Sally told her. ‘I wasn’t married to Phil, for all I loved him enough to marry him, and when I heard that he had died I wanted to follow him. It still catches me now at times.’
‘I’m not surprised at that at all,’ Kate said. ‘If you love someone then you love them – married or not, makes no odds.’
‘I agree totally,’ Susie said. And then before anyone could say any more the ‘All Clear’ sounded and Kate gave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God for that,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m away home. I might just surprise myself and drop off.’
Even people in the government acknowledged the fine job the RAF was doing, and Winston Churchill made a speech about it in Parliament on 21 August that was broadcast on the wireless. It was a long speech, but a few phrases seemed to sum it up for Kate.
The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unweakened by their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and their devotion.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
It was stirring stuff, and just what the exhausted airmen wanted to hear. But the fighting went on, and just a few days after this, on Saturday evening, there was another raid. The main thrust of it seemed to be in Aston. All three girls were on duty, and when they were told that the wardens there were shorthanded and asked for volunteers, it was the words of that speech that encouraged Kate to put up her hand. Sally and then Susie followed her lead.
As no sirens had sounded again, many had slept through the policeman’s shrill whistle, and the first they had known about the raid was the sound of the bombs falling. Mothers had struggled to dress themselves and their children and they had more or less tumbled out on to the streets. Frightened toddlers clung to their mothers’ skirts, swaddled babies cried and older children rubbed their sleepy eyes and staggered as they looked wide-eyed at the scene before them. There were the crackling fires from incendiary bombs, the weaving arc lights, piles of masonry and debris from the houses already destroyed, and the crump and crash of bombs dropping from the droning planes above them. The air was thick with the smell of brick dust, cordite, heat and smoke.
The girls could see straight away that the most important thing was to get people under cover, but the back-to-back houses did not have gardens to put any kind of shelter in, and the nearest public one was under the tennis courts in Aston Park. Kate and another warden who introduced herself as Trudy led the way there, while Sally and Susie searched the area for people still in their houses.
‘It’s ever so good of you to come over like this,’ said Trudy as they shepherded the people along as quickly as they were able. ‘Should be six of us, but Beattie has gone down with a chest infection. I saw her myself and she is in a bad way. And as for Babs, she got a crack on the head from a falling roof beam in an earlier do. Split her head clean open and she is in the hospital herself, and so is Chris because her boy has the whooping cough and he took a turn for the worse this afternoon and she has gone to be with him, poor little bugger. My own mother lost two with the whooping cough, but I don’t know what the three of us would have done with so many people.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Kate said. ‘We all have to pull together.’
‘You’re right,’ Trudy said. ‘And the sooner we get this lot inside, the better I will like it, and then we can have a go at fighting them bloody fires. No point in observing the blackout with the fires lighting the whole area for them murdering buggers above.’
‘No point at all,’ Kate said. And she worked with Trudy all night. Though the raid was not fast and furious, it was relentless, and the ‘All Clear’ did not go until seven and a half hours later. And so it was the early hours when the weary girls got home, very glad the next day was Sunday.
However, the next night the bombers were back, this time in force, and the scream of the sirens used for the first time sent fear coursing through many a person. Neither Sally nor Kate was on duty that night, but neither could rest, and they went out into the streets. The city centre was attacked in the main, although parts of Aston also caught it, and the bottom of Slade Road was heavily bombed, and so Kate and Sally were kept busy there and, as the raid continued in its intensity, they were joined by Susie.
It was strange, Kate thought, as she helped to douse the fires: she was never afraid, despite the cacophony of noise, the throb of the planes, the boom of bombs, the sliding crashes of the disintegrating buildings, the ack-ack’s response, the cries and screams from the people and the bells of the emergency services ringing frantically as they tore through the streets. And the searchlights were constantly combing the sky, illuminating the bombers releasing their instruments of death.
There were some people who didn’t want to use any sort of shelter and would hide out in pantries under the stairs, and if the house was hit these people had to be dug out of the rubble. The same thing sometimes happened with those who had used Anderson shelters and thought themselves safe. If the shelter was caught in the blast, it would often collapse, burying people inside. Some people would be dug out virtually unscathed, but other times people were injured and often burnt.
Never was Kate more grateful for her first-aid training, but this was no practice, this was for real. It was the first time Kate realized that blood had a smell all of its own or that the stench of burned human flesh was enough to turn the strongest stomach.
When the ‘All Clear’ sounded, she hurried home, hoping like the others that she would be able to snatch a few hours’ sleep before the alarm would peal out. And surprisingly she did sleep, only her dreams were often lurid and upsetting.
The next day they found out the extent of the damage elsewhere in the city. Much of it was in the Bull Ring. The Market Hall was hit, the roof shattered, and it was completely burned out inside. Fortunately, it being a Sunday, few people were about and no one was in the Market Hall; the night watchman, seeing the bombers heading his way, had managed to release all the animals from their cages before taking cover himself.
‘Must have been a brave man to do that,’ Sally said to Kate as she read it out in the paper.
‘Must have been,’ Kate agreed. ‘I think there is a lot of bravery in war situations. I mean, you are still so young, and yet you work as hard as any of us, and never show any fear, even when we are in the thick of it.’
‘You haven’t time to be scared,’ Sally said.
Sally was right, but Kate was still filled with respect for her and the way she was coping. The previous evening she had taken great risks in crawling into buildings in danger of collapse, searching for survivors. She was often the only one small enough to wriggle into tiny spaces that people had managed to uncover; many had told Kate they were astounded by her courage.
‘Mind you,’ Sally said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a night in my own bed tonight. Do you think Jerry might give us a rest?’
‘Don’t know,’ Kate said, with a shrug, ‘but I wish he would.’
Alas, it was not to be, and she had barely closed her eyes when the sirens wailed a short time after midnight. Groaning, they clambered from their beds and dressed hurriedly, but because they weren’t on duty and the raid didn’t seem that near, they carried blankets and pillows down to the shelter and settled themselves side by side on one of the hard benches Frank had fitted to either side. They tried to get comfortable, but the corrugated iron structure sunk into the earth was cold, and so damp that condensation ran in rivulets down the walls. It was very dark, too, despite the candles Kate had brought down in her pockets, and the only positive thing to say about the shelter was that the raid was a little bit more muffled in there. ‘We must make this
a little bit more comfy,’ Kate said with a sudden shudder. ‘If Jerry is going to hit us like this every night, we might be forced to spend more time in here after all.’
‘Don’t see why,’ Sally said, a little disgruntled. ‘It isn’t half as comfortable as the warden post, and if I’m not on duty, I have a mind to stay in bed and chance it.’
‘You saw the state of some of the poor beggars who stayed in their houses the other day?’
‘Yeah, I did, but the ones where the shelter had collapsed on them were nearly as bad.’
‘I know that, and I don’t say they are foolproof,’ Kate said. ‘But sunken into the ground the way they are, they have to be a little safer than the house. David certainly thought so anyway.’
‘And you have a sort of responsibility to David to keep yourself as safe as you can,’ Sally said. ‘But I haven’t got to do that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I only have you,’ Sally said simply, but Kate detected the pain behind the words. ‘I have parents who don’t care for me, a little brother who will never know me and the two people who loved me, apart from you, were Phil and his mother – and they are both dead and gone.’
‘Ah, Sally,’ Kate said, putting an arm around her sister.
‘Don’t, Kate, or I will blub,’ Sally said brokenly. In the lights from the candles, Kate could see her eyes were sparkling with unshed tears.
‘Blub away,’ Kate said. ‘To my mind you haven’t done near enough of it.’
Sally gave a sudden cry and the tears spilled down her face. She cried out her heartache and anguish on losing her beloved fiancé and the pain of rejection from her parents. Sometime, while she wept, Kate also felt tears welling in her eyes, and their tears mingled together. When the ‘All Clear’ roused them, they found that they had fallen asleep cuddled against one another with their arms linked. Sally yawned and said with a watery smile to her sister, ‘I didn’t sleep very well and I have an almighty crick in my neck and yet I feel somewhat lighter in myself.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Kate said, and she glanced at her watch as she hauled Sally to her feet and put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Come on,’ she urged. ‘It’s just after six. Let’s go and have a cuppa.’
The indiscriminate bombings continued every night, and people got used to doing without much sleep, but in a lull in mid-September the three girls went down to the Bull Ring to assess the damage, knowing the city centre had taken the brunt of many of the attacks. Many of the shops leading down from the High Street were just shells, filled with debris and masonry that had also spilled on to the road. Listing walls leant drunkenly against their neighbours.
‘We’ll find the Market Hall in the same state, according to them at work anyway,’ Sally said, and it was. There was slight damage to St Martin’s, but the Market Hall was open to the sky. Only the walls stood, and there was a massive hole blasted in one of those. The girls peered in. It was a sea of rubble. Blackened beams lay amongst broken bricks, the buckled iron frames of the stalls, sparkling shards of glass, scorched utensils and the burnt remains of other items for sale. ‘What a mess,’ Susie said, wrinkling her nose at the smell. ‘And that beautiful clock is burnt to a crisp.’
‘I know, what a shame that is,’ Kate said.
‘Someone has stuck Union Jacks in the rubble,’ Sally said. ‘I still think it’s sad though. Look, that trader Albert Pope still has his name plaque here.’
‘So has someone called Yates,’ Kate said. ‘But he has gone one step further. Look, he has his new address already written down and a note in defiance to Hitler, “Burnt But Not Broke”. Maybe that is the right attitude. We can do nothing about the bombing, but do our level best not to let it get us down.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Sally said. ‘The Bull Ring is the people, not buildings, and life is still going on, isn’t it? Traders are still selling things and their banter is the same as ever and the buzz is only slightly muted. Hitler can do his worst, but the Brummie spirit is alive and well.’
It was hard to keep that buoyant mood, though, when a little later, as they made for the tram, they walked up Colmore Row and saw the extensive damage to Snow Hill Station. A little further on, where there had been warehouses, small factories, and shops ringed in the square around St Paul’s, the start of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter was just one massive sea of rubble.
The very next day there was a wireless report of an immensely important battle between the RAF and the Luftwaffe. Everyone knew that for Hitler to invade Britain successfully he had to render the RAF ineffective, and to do it before winter gales in the channel made the crossing more hazardous. That day, however, the RAF emerged victorious. They had maintained their supremacy. According to the man on the wireless, that meant that the planned invasion was most unlikely to take place.
Kate’s delight that the invasion plans had been routed was tinged with fear for David. She didn’t know whether he had been involved or not, but the paper reported on squadrons from all over the country being drafted in to deliver a crushing defeat to the enemy. She was well aware that, whoever won, there would have been pilots lost on either side, and that her beloved husband could have been one of them.
The bombers returned the following night but, though the girls were all on duty, the planes came nowhere near them. On Tuesday morning, everyone was talking about an accident with a barrage balloon. ‘What’s that?’ Kate asked as she was getting into her overalls.
‘Didn’t you hear about it?’ one of the girls said. ‘Apparently, one of the bombers last night collided with the cable of a barrage balloon and crashed. Three of the crew were killed and two were captured.’
‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in ages,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘And wasn’t it you, Susie, who said that barrage balloons were no good as a deterrent against bombs?’
‘It was,’ Susie said with a laugh. ‘And I remember you agreeing with me too. I didn’t realize they were good for capturing Germans.’
There was a burst of laughter at that, and Susie declared, ‘Well, I for one will never moan about them again.’
‘Nor me,’ Kate said.
‘That’s all very well,’ one of the women said with a laugh. ‘But we’ll have to take its place with summat. I mean, life’s not worth living without a good moan now and then.’
‘Are you joking or what?’ one of the others said. ‘Spoilt for choice, we are.’
‘I’ll say,’ said another. ‘We could go on from now until doomsday talking about the bloody rations, for a start.’
There was a collective groan from the others. ‘I would say that that’s worth a good old moan, and one we would all join in with,’ said the first woman. ‘I mean with tea, marg, cooking fat and cheese added to the rations, it gets harder and harder to make up a decent meal.’
‘And not being able to spend more than one shilling and tuppence each on meat every week?’ said another. ‘What can you get for that?’
‘Not enough to fill my old man, that’s for sure,’ said the first woman. ‘It isn’t even as if you can get what you are entitled to every week, ’cos even the rationed goods are sometimes not available.’
There was a murmur of agreement and one put in, ‘Yeah, and what’s this about one egg a fortnight? You’re lucky if you see one egg a month.’
‘You’re right,’ Kate said. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had an egg.’
‘And it’s considered bad form to moan too much,’ Susie said. ‘Affects morale or something.’
‘Don’t do no good any road,’ one of the older women said. ‘If you say owt they just tell you that there’s a war on.’
There was more laughter then because they had all experienced that. ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘Like you might have dropped in from another planet or summat.’
Before anyone could make a comment on this, Mrs Higgins the supervisor came into the cloakroom clapping her hands. ‘This chatter will have to wait till lunchtime. Remember, if you
’re late clocking on you’ll lose five shillings. Mr Tanner doesn’t pay you to stand around blethering, so I suggest you get on to the shop floor and start work, sharpish.’
They went without another word, because five shillings was a lot of money to lose.
After the episode with the barrage balloon, the raids in Birmingham lessened considerably. They became sporadic and light and were more like skirmishes than the full raids the Birmingham people had become used to. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that it’s over for us?’ Susie said one day as she and Kate travelled home.
‘Are you kidding?’ Kate said. ‘I think Hitler has got something really nasty lined up for us.’
‘Ooh, don’t,’ Susie said. ‘Do you have to be so gleeful about it?’
Kate laughed. ‘I’m not being gleeful,’ she protested. ‘I call it being realistic, but we can take advantage of the quieter nights now, whatever is in store for us later.’
‘I know,’ Susie said. ‘It’s lovely to think that nights I am not on duty I can stretch in my own bed and be fairly certain that I will wake up in it the following morning. I used to fantasize about a nice long sleep.’
‘So did I,’ Kate admitted. ‘Just shows you what exciting lives we lead.’
After this there were a few daylight raids through September, taking advantage of the cloudy, autumnal Birmingham skies that the German planes could hide behind before suddenly swooping down. These were scary enough for any caught out, for the pilots weren’t averse to strafing them with machine-gun fire, but the evenings and nights remained quiet until early October, when they began again with as much intensity as before.
On 14 October, Clementine Churchill, the prime minister’s wife, paid a visit to Birmingham. Susie had bought a paper on the way to work because it gave details of the proposed visit. After scanning it that morning on the way to work, she said to Kate, ‘Says here she intends visiting two factories and one neighbourhood affected by bombing.’