by Anne Bennett
‘Huh,’ Kate said. ‘I’d say she will have plenty to choose from.’
‘Wouldn’t mind having a look at her though,’ Susie said. ‘’Cos people say she is really nice.’
‘Have to be, I’d say, married to Churchill,’ Kate said. ‘I wouldn’t have said he was an easy man to live with.’
‘Are any of them?’
‘Well, neither of us would really know that at the moment,’ Kate said wistfully.
‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Susie agreed. ‘And I don’t think we’ll get to see our men anytime soon either. Not until things are a lot quieter.’
‘Oh, I suppose you are right,’ Kate said morosely. ‘But, talking of quiet, I hope Jerry is quiet tonight. It would never do to have the prime minister’s wife bombed in Birmingham.’
‘Oh, no,’ Susie said with a broad smile. ‘Indeed not.’
There were pictures of Clementine Churchill in all the Birmingham papers. Kate, looking at those in the Birmingham Mail, thought she did look a nice lady. She seemed genuinely moved to see the damage and devastation to just one of the many areas of Birmingham attacked by the Luftwaffe.
The paper reported that she had got out of her car and talked to the homeless and dispossessed people. And that the crowd had warmed to her for doing that. She’d been impressed by the fact that many had stuck Union Jacks in the mounds of rubble that had once been their homes, and one woman was reported to have said to her, ‘Our houses might be down but our spirits are still up.’ Clementine was stunned by what she called the stoicism of the people whom she said had shown unflinching courage.
That stoicism and unflinching courage was tested yet again when there was another fierce raid the following night, and every night from then on, as prolonged and heavy as they had been before. The girls were drafted wherever they were needed. In one raid, the Plaza was hit along with houses down Slade Road, and there were two houses bombed in Marsh Hill, the families in their shelter crushed when it caved in on them with the power of the blast. ‘Oh, they are really safe, those underground shelters,’ Sally said sarcastically, but Kate said nothing in reply for she was too distressed by the heart-rending scenes she had witnessed that night.
NINETEEN
November was only a few days old when Kate got a letter from David. He was coming home for a few days’ leave and, though she longed to see him, she was so weary and worn down she found it hard to work up any enthusiasm. Susie felt the same way as Kate, her excitement at seeing Nick somewhat muted because she was just as tired. The sirens rung out every night and had been doing so for a fortnight; the raids had been fierce and the resultant fires ferocious, and so, whether they were on duty or not, when the sirens sounded, the three girls reported to the warden post and went wherever they were needed.
Jane Goodman, the sector controller, liked all three girls; they had worked night after night and often above and beyond the call of duty. Looking at Kate and Susie as they told her the news of their men coming home, she saw beyond their beaming smiles to the white pallor of their skin and their eyes deadened by extreme fatigue, and knew they needed a break if they were going to continue to be of any use to anyone. And so she said they had both worked so hard they could have time off from their ARP work while their husbands were home.
They really would have liked to have had time off from the factory too, but there was no joy there. ‘If you could have given me more notice, something might have been worked out,’ Mrs Higgins said. ‘But as it is …’
‘We told you as soon as we knew.’
‘I’m sorry, but this order has to be completed in time,’ Mrs Higgins told them. ‘The military are waiting.’
‘And the annoying thing is, she’s right,’ Susie said as they headed for home that evening.
‘I know,’ Kate said with a sigh. ‘No point in getting in a snit about it. After all,’ she added with a smile, ‘don’t you know there’s a war on?’
Susie gave a wry laugh and said, ‘Is there really? Well, would you believe it?’
‘But regardless of how tired I am, I can’t wait to see David and Nick,’ Kate said. ‘After what they must have gone through, it will be great to see them home for a while, hale and hearty.’
They were coming into New Street Station on the train on Thursday, 7 November at half past five. Kate and Susie got off early and went to meet them and, as Kate watched David get out of the train, her words came back to her. They were home all right, but she thought they both looked as if it would require some time recuperating at home before they could be said to be hale and hearty.
Once, Kate would have flung her arms around David as soon as she saw him get off the train, and she did move forward to do just that. But he had a sort of invisible barrier around him and she saw him stiffen, so instead, she kissed his cheek gently. ‘Welcome home, darling,’ she said.
The smile didn’t reach his eyes, and when she linked her arm through his, it seemed awkward and unnatural. Nick seemed in as bad a state, she noticed, and she was very glad of Susie, because between them they kept the conversation going as they walked to the tram stop. She saw the men’s eyes looking round them, but with their only light being their shielded torches, she knew they wouldn’t have any idea of the full horror of the bombing they had endured. They were mostly silent on the tram, too, and again it was the two girls that kept up a running commentary about everything and nothing, because it was better than uncomfortable bouts of silence. Kate was sorry to part with her friend at the top of Bleak Hill.
Sally had already fixed the blackout curtains in place, so as they stepped into the hall, Kate turned on the light. Because of the dimness of the station and the shaded lights on the tram, Kate hadn’t had a proper look at David. Sally had come through to welcome him, but she just stopped in the doorway and stared. Kate did the same.
David wasn’t just thin, he was gaunt – so gaunt that his cheeks had sunk inwards and his nose looked very prominent; but it was his eyes that brought a lump to Kate’s throat. Though they were bloodshot and puffy, with huge black bags beneath them, it was the expression in them that mattered most. Kate had never seen David’s eyes so full of heartache and wretchedness. Even his posture was wrong. He had always held himself erect, with his shoulders back, but now he stood with them slightly stooped, as if he carried the weight of the world between them.
David looked at the two girls staring at him in shock and said, ‘What?’
His words galvanized Kate into action, and she thought the best thing to do was say nothing about the way he looked. And so she said with a tight smile, ‘Take your coat off, David. You look as if you’re not stopping. And come in the room to the fire. You must be cold – it’s a damp and perishing day.’
She helped David off with his coat as she spoke, and Sally, following her lead, said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ and escaped to the kitchen. Kate led the way into the living room, where she stood looking at her husband warming his hands at the fire. The uniform that had once fitted him hung on his sparse frame, and eventually she could bear it no longer and she said, ‘David, have you been ill?’
David raised his pain-filled eyes and said, ‘Depends what you mean by ill. I’ve been raving a lot of the time.’
Kate’s eyes opened wider and David said, ‘Oh, yes, raving. It was the deaths that got to me in the end. I had boys in my squadron, not long out of school, and they had six weeks learning to fly a kite before they were thrown into the melee, facing the brutal German Air Force. They were shot down in their droves.’
He closed his eyes for a minute and Kate knew he was remembering, and when he opened them again he fastened them on Kate and went on: ‘By the time we had fought in that aerial battle in mid-September, heralded as a big success, not just in that battle but in the many sorties we had flown before that, we had lost half the pilots we started with.’ He stared at her and then, as if to emphasize the point, he said again, ‘Half our Air Force gone, just like that. You feel worse when you are a squadron leader,
because you feel responsible for the lads in your squadron. You watch helpless as the planes and the men in them are shot to pieces. Some explode in mid-air, some go down in a plume of smoke, or even well alight, until they land in the drink or crash to the ground and burst into flames. And if any pilots manage to get out and are floating down on their parachutes, the murdering German bastards go after them and shoot them as they hang there.’
Kate felt as if her heart was breaking at the bereft and hopeless look on David’s face. ‘Oh, God, David,’ she breathed as she put her hand on his arm. ‘I am so very sorry.’
‘I know you are,’ David said as he sank with a sigh into her embrace. ‘But you will understand that I thought our marvellous victory was a hollow one.’
And then David began to cry – great, gulping sobs – and even though he was in such distress, he kept apologizing for unloading himself on her, and for the tears he seemed unable to stop. Sally came in with the tea as Kate was helping David across the room to the settee; she left it on a table and withdrew as Kate pulled David down beside her and wrapped her arms tightly around him. She didn’t urge him not to upset himself because she thought he really needed to shed those tears.
Much later, when the only sound in the room were the coals settling in the fire, Sally came in quietly. ‘Is he asleep?’ she mouthed. Kate nodded her head as she settled David’s head on a cushion, slid herself from underneath him and lifted his legs on to the sofa. He lay like one dead and Kate said, ‘I’ll go and fetch a blanket.’
‘I thought he would be hungry,’ Sally said.
‘He probably is, but the tiredness overtook him,’ Kate said. ‘I really hope Jerry gives us a break tonight and he can have his sleep out.’
‘You have a chance,’ Sally said. ‘I looked out of the kitchen window just a minute ago and there is thick fog.’
‘Well, thank God for that,’ Kate said fervently.
The Germans did give Birmingham a break that night. Sally was on duty, but if she hadn’t been she would have volunteered, because she thought David and Kate deserved time together. Kate was glad she would have something nourishing for David to eat when he woke for she’d had a scrag end of mutton to put in the stew with the vegetables and then the butcher slipped her in a couple of kidneys when she told him David was coming home on leave. People were kind and very grateful to the men in the RAF, and mindful of the ultimate sacrifice so many of them had already made. The woman in the newsagent’s had said that to her when she gave Kate a bag of bull’s-eyes. ‘Your man used to like these, I remember,’ she said. ‘Before this awful war. So you give him them with my love.’
She wondered what these people would make of poor, damaged David now, and could only hope she could help him recover before he had to return to it again. She had a meagre amount of the stew herself, and filled up with bread, so that she could leave a couple of bowlfuls for David. He needed more meat on those bones. She sat on after Sally left, reading one of her library books – she wouldn’t put the wireless on lest it would disturb David’s sleep – and when he did stir it was after ten. He struggled to sit up. ‘I can’t believe I’ve slept so long or so deeply,’ he said. ‘I feel more rested than I have felt in ages.’
‘I’m glad,’ Kate said. ‘It was what you needed, and I hope you are hungry now as I have a nice stew for you.’
‘Lead me to it, Kate,’ David said, ‘I’m ravenous.’
Kate watched with delight as David polished off two bowls of stew, which he declared delicious, and she had just finished the washing up when Sally came in, pleased and relieved to see David looking so much better. He was still tired, though, despite his earlier snooze. ‘When the fighting was at its height, none of us slept really,’ he told Kate. ‘This could go on for days at a time. Even when you weren’t actually flying, you were sitting about in all your flying gear, knowing that at any minute you might be told to scramble, and that meant running across the tarmac, often buttoning up your tunic as you went, and then into the air as quickly as possible to meet with the incoming Messerschmitts or Heinkels.’
‘And you have the nerve to say that you would worry about me being an ARP warden?’ Kate said incredulously.
David shrugged. ‘It’s how it is when you love a person as much as I love you,’ he said. ‘And I still wish that you weren’t putting yourself in danger; that you were safe, or at least safer, in the shelter.’
Kate thought about the people killed in their shelters just yards away from their houses. But David knew nothing about that and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him. Instead, she said, ‘And now, if you’re tired, let’s go to bed. I have to get up for work early anyway and I am dead beat.’
And Kate was dead beat and yet she lay for hours after David’s even breathing told her he was asleep, and then she was woken in the early hours by him in the throes of a nightmare when he told her he’d thought he was in the cockpit of his plane, shooting all before him.
Nick was in a similar state to David, Susie told Kate the following morning as they made their way to work. ‘He’s totally and completely exhausted,’ she said.
‘Oh, so is David,’ Kate said. ‘And very upset by the death of all those young pilots. But he wouldn’t be the man I thought he was if he was able to shrug his shoulders as if he really didn’t care. And yet they had to go on day after day and watch it happen again and again.’
‘I know,’ Susie said. ‘That’s why Nick and David have got leave now. They are suffering from what they call battle fatigue and are to be stood down for a few weeks when they go back, providing of course there are no emergencies.’
‘David didn’t say.’
‘Well, I’m sure he’d have got round to telling you sometime,’ Susie said. ‘Nick only mentioned it this morning. He woke up as I was getting ready for work and was going to get up with me. But I stopped him and said he had to have a good lie-in.’
‘I left David in bed too,’ Kate said. ‘I carried my clothes out and dressed in the bathroom and left him sleeping peacefully. I was glad to see that because he had a nightmare in the night.’
‘Small wonder,’ Susie said.
‘Indeed,’ Kate agreed. ‘I hope he will have a good sleep because I doubt Jerry will leave us alone again tonight. Last night was just a bonus.’
‘Yes, but you are right, and it was just lovely to be able to cuddle up together,’ Susie said, with a smile of satisfaction playing around her lips. Then she added with a sigh, ‘But there is no fog today, so far at least.’
‘No, it’s a fine day, though a cold one,’ Kate said. ‘So at least the men will be able to get out if they want to, and isn’t it good that they have each other for company while we are at work?’
David and Nick were waiting for the girls, and as they walked to the tram stop they said they had been into town to survey the bomb damage that the girls had not been able to tell them anything about. ‘Well, you know why we could say nothing,’ Kate said. ‘Didn’t you hear reports of the raids on the wireless?’
‘Yeah,’ Nick said. ‘But they hardly ever mentioned Birmingham. They just said a Midlands town, and that could have been anywhere.’
‘I know they did,’ Kate said. ‘It was really annoying because other places were mentioned.’
‘Dad said he thought it was because Birmingham makes so much for the war effort that they didn’t want the Germans to know they had hit the target, but it was maddening not to have a mention. But couldn’t you see the damage from the air?’
‘Yes,’ David said. ‘But not in any detail. Our job was to repulse the Luftwaffe, so our main battles were maybe over the Channel or Kent, or somewhere on the south coast. After they bombed the capital, the main thrust was there too, because those bombers were protected by fighter planes like ours are. Going out on a mission, our attention was targeted on that, and coming back we were usually absolutely shattered, and in the dark with the blackout in place, of course we couldn’t see much. We did see fires sometimes after a raid but no
t much more than that.’
‘We experienced a couple of raids,’ Nick said. ‘The camp was bombed and they destroyed a fair number of planes and buggered up a couple of airstrips, and they bombed the factory across the road that makes many of the planes, but in a way that was understandable.’
‘Yeah,’ David said in agreement, ‘it was the extent of the bombing here that got me.’
‘Marshall and Snelgrove’s has gone, hasn’t it?’ Susie said. ‘That only happened about a week ago and we haven’t been in to see that yet.’
‘It’s not just the store, it’s the whole corner,’ David said. ‘There were lots of shops there, and all that’s left is a great charred mound with twisted iron girders sticking up through it.’
‘Some of our wardens were drafted in to help fight the fires that night,’ Kate said. ‘And Sally volunteered as well but the store was past saving, and she said so hot that much of the tar was alight and had slid into the gutters. There were dirty great craters in the middle of the road, and this of course had buckled the tram lines to kingdom come.’
‘Well, the holes have been filled in and tram lines straightened, or new ones laid or whatever,’ Nick said. ‘But the whole thing shook us up, and that was before we went to the Bull Ring and saw the roofless Market Hall and the damage to St Martin’s.’
‘Snow Street Station is unusable as well,’ David said.
‘And did you see the Jewellery Quarter where Mum works?’ Susie asked them.
‘Yeah,’ Nick said. ‘I was surprised that she had taken a job there in the first place, and more surprised that she has still got one when I saw the vast sea of rubble it had been reduced to.’
‘She had to move to a different workshop, but she is still there. The radars are needed, and of course lots of the delicate equipment they use was lost in the raids.’
Nick looked at David’s slightly shocked face, and though he too was unnerved by the scale of destruction, he said, ‘You can bet our Bomber Command probably do the same thing. War is bloody, whichever way you look at it.’