by Anne Bennett
None of this, though, could he share with Bridie. No way was he going to frighten her to death with the things he’d seen. Things that no human being should ever see.
Nor could he speak of the days they’d spent getting to Dunkirk with no food, drinking water from streams along the way, surviving on little sleep. When they stumbled onto the sands of Dunkirk beach, they were light-headed and extremely weak. The carnage around them and the noise was unbelievable.
The Stukas were circling the beaches, their machine guns relentless, and the Heinkels and Messerschmitts were bombing the small boats in the water, as well as the larger ships out at sea and the men diving into the water to escape or burrowing into the sand dunes. They lit up the sky in flashes as bright as day and answering them were the anti-aircraft guns set up along the beach and the RAF in their Spitfires, wheeling and diving around below and over the planes, the guns barking into the night.
Eventually, Tom and Eddie were pushed along a makeshift pier head made from debris on the beach and loaded onto a small pleasure cruiser. They’d gone no distance when the skipper was hit by machine-gun fire and, as he fell to the cabin floor, a bomb blasted the boat out of the water. Tom found himself floundering in the dark, in the grey scummy water littered with bodies, with no idea where his comrades, including Eddie were. He was eventually picked up by another cruising boat and had been ferried to the Winchelsea.
Eddie, he found out later, had also been picked up by a private motor boat and the skipper, finding the Navy ships full to capacity, took his load straight across the channel to the south coast. Both men had gunshot and shrapnel wounds when they arrived in England and Eddie had also damaged his arm and leg too, but fortunately not badly.
Tom wanted to protect Bridie from the debacle of Dunkirk, the humiliating and harrowing retreat and the horrors he’d witnessed, not least the bodies littering the beaches. But Bridie, like her sister Mary, had read all the papers and listened to every news report and surmised much from what Tom didn’t tell her and by the haunted look that often came over his face.
The dangers Tom faced daily invaded Bridie’s sleep, especially after he returned to his unit, until Ellen and Mary took her severely to task about it. She had to buck up and be strong and brave, for the children’s sake if not her own, they told her. Did she think she was the only woman in the world to be going through it?
Bridie took to heart what they said. She went to work with a will, and talked to the children often about Tom, lest they forget their father, and prayed for him diligently every night. She could do no more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The school holidays began and though Liam’s nursery didn’t close, it still left Katie on Ellen’s hands all day, helped by the rather dubious attentions of Mary’s sons. Mary had cautioned them, particularly Jay, about looking after Katie if they took her out.
She needn’t have worried, for Jay had been enchanted by the frail-looking child since the day she’d been born. He thought she was like a perfect little doll and he’d no more risk any harm come to her than stick his own hand in the fire.
A change had come over him too since his father’s return from Dunkirk; he’d realised that war was no game and that the time for childish tricks was over. He was twelve now and man of the house, for no one knew when his father would be home again. He would like to do something for the war effort himself, but he was too young to be considered in any professional capacity, but if looking after Katie meant his auntie Bridie could make more shell cases, then that was what he would do and, what’s more, he’d do it well. ‘Do you know where we went today, Mammy?’ Katie said at the tea table that evening and, without giving anyone a chance to say anything, went on, ‘Jay and Mickey took me to Cannon Hill Park and Jay let me plodge in the stream, but he kept hold of my hand so I couldn’t fall in. I had to tuck my dress in the legs of my knickers so it wouldn’t get wet. Jay said it was all right.’
Bridie felt little fissions of alarm run down her spine. Cannon Hill Park was a distance away and there were busy roads to cross. ‘I hope you were a good girl for them,’ she said.
‘’Course I was, Mammy.’ Katie said, indignant that her mother could have considered the possibility of anything else.
‘Did you hold their hands?’
‘Going I did, not coming back though.’
‘And why not?’ Bridie snapped.
‘Because Jay carried me on his back because my legs were tired,’ Katie replied. Bridie gave a sigh of relief.
Every night it seemed there was something else to tell about Jay. Jay had taken her to feed the swans and ducks that swam in the lake with stale bread and another day to fish for tiddlers with some little nets that Mary had. Katie was very disappointed her mother wasn’t as excited as she was about the little squirmy things swimming aimlessly around in a jam jar.
‘You should see how fast Jay can push the roundabout in Calthorpe Park, Mammy,’ Katie told her one evening. ‘It was the fastest ever and the swings went so high I thought I was going to come over the bar.’
Bridie was thoroughly alarmed by this and mentioned it to Ellen. ‘Jay would not do anything to harm the child,’ she said firmly. ‘I must say I’m surprised at the turnout those boys are making, particularly Jay. He has mates around the door calling for him at every turn and yet he tells them he can’t play about, that he has a job to do looking after his little cousin. I tell you, those boys have lifted nearly the whole load of looking after Katie from me.’
She didn’t go on to say that she could have given the child scant attention without the help of the boys and outings would be out of the question with Sam to see to, because she didn’t want Bridie to start feeling guilty. She knew the work her and Mary were doing, the work all the women were doing, was necessary if they were to win this damned war and defeat couldn’t be considered.
Bridie, though comforted, asked Jay about the trip to Calthorpe Park when Katie claimed she nearly went over the bar. Jay laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Auntie Bridie,’ he said soothingly, ‘I’d never risk hurting Katie – I did push the roundabout fast, all the kids wanted me to, but I got on with Katie to make sure she wouldn’t fall off or anything.’
The boy was so sincere that Bridie believed him and felt much better about leaving Katie in his care after that and was immensely glad that the boys took her out so often away from the dirty streets and dingy, disease-ridden courtyards. Even when the days were dull and cold, or the rain washed the dust from the streets, the boys would amuse Katie. They played games: Snakes and Ladders or Ludo and they taught her how to play dominoes and draughts. Sometimes, they’d listen to the Ovaltiney’s show on the wireless and help her crack the code they gave out at the end, or sing along with the war songs from ‘Whistle While You Work’.
Mickey came into his own one cold windswept day when he introduced Katie to the public library. ‘Did you know you can borrow books for nothing?’ Katie asked her mother that night.
‘I heard something about it.’
‘It’s great, Mammy. There are loads of books, shelves and shelves of them, and you have to be real quiet and talk in whispers. Mickey said if you sign the form I can get books out of my own. He said I can have a picture book for myself and another one that he will read to me. You’ll sign it won’t you, Mammy?’
Bridie signed the form with pleasure, glad to see her small daughter so entertained, but the culmination of it all was the trip to the Lickey Hills, where they’d gone all the way to the terminus on the tram and played hide and seek in the woods and ate the picnic Ellen had made for them in the green fields. Jay had once again carried tired Katie on his back to the tram on their return.
But while Katie was enjoying her holiday from school and the attention of her cousins, the first bomb fell in Erdington.
‘Thought we were supposed to have sirens when enemy planes are coming our way,’ Ellen said.
‘This was only one,’ Sam told her. ‘Must have slipped through. They said they thought he wa
s on his way to the Dunlop, but couldn’t find it and dropped his load in Erdington.’
‘Nice of him,’ Mary remarked. ‘I suppose now the canals are boarded over every night, it is harder to find.’
‘Aye,’ Sam said. ‘Good idea that was, with all those factories on the Lichfield and Tyburn Road backing onto the canal, not to mention the one running alongside the Dunlop place and on up to the Vicker’s factory on the Chester Road. God, any bomber seeing the glint in his lights could have had a field day and wiped out a lot of factories making things to win this war with no trouble at all.’
‘I suppose we should be grateful there was only the one man killed and five injured,’ Ellen said. ‘But you can’t help feeling that that man is someone’s son, and he was but a teenager with his life before him yet.’
‘And all those shattered houses,’ Bridie put in, looking at the pictures in the Evening Mail. The houses stood glassless and sometimes roofless, the windows and doors blown out and the stuff inside the sagging walls a heap of rubble. ‘Where will they live now?’ Bridie asked. ‘How will they manage?’
‘The authorities will have it organised,’ Sam said. ‘And although it’s sad for those people, we should think ourselves lucky – the south coast has been pounded for weeks: Ramsgate, where Eddie and Tom were until just a short while ago, and Southsea, Portsmouth and Dover, of course. Trying to smash the coastal defences, you see, and destroy shipping – Hitler’s intent on invasion.’
A shiver of apprehension ran through the three women and then Bridie said, ‘If the raids are to happen, you can all come in to me. It’ll be better being together and the cellar should be quite safe.’ Mary was agreeable but Ellen said nothing. She knew Sam would probably not survive another winter: the doctor had confided in her that his heart and lungs were both in poor shape and she knew that for he could barely walk a few paces now without becoming breathless. She doubted it would do him any good to get out of a warm bed and traipse downstairs to their own cellar, let alone roam the streets to someone else’s. But she didn’t want to load this on Mary and Bridie’s shoulders, nor give Sam any inkling of how sick he was so she kept these thoughts to herself.
On 13th August the bombers returned, the Vickers factory making the Lancasters and Spitfires in Castle Bromwich their target. Five workers were killed there and two in houses nearby. Two days later, bombs fell in Hay Mills, Small Heath and Bordesly Green.
‘Where are the bloody sirens for those places?’ Sam declared furiously. ‘I thought they had watchers out who’d warn people to take cover. A policeman pedalling a bike and blowing a whistle doesn’t have the same effect.’
Most thought the same and the raids continued every night, lasting an average of five hours. As all industry was now mostly war-related and small factories were often cheek by jowl amongst and between the back-to-back housing, civilian casualties were rising. Everyone now had a tale to tell about dreadful tragedies, or miraculous escapes.
Not used to sirens sounding, when they did wail out on 25th August, they nearly lifted Bridie out of her chair in which she was dozing. She was tired; for although no raids had happened in that area, the crashes and explosions had been near enough to drive sleep from her, near enough some nights for her to rouse the children and creep down into the cellar.
The children thought it was a great game altogether and when eventually it grew quiet and Bridie deemed it safe to return to bed, they were loath to do so and were difficult to settle. Talking with the women at work, Bridie found most mothers with young children were having the same problem.
‘It’s as if Hitler’s playing cat and mouse with us anyway,’ another put in. ‘Targeting a small area at a time, like.’
‘Aye, but you don’t know when it’s going to be your area,’ Bridie said, ‘so you take shelter anyway.’
‘Too right, you do,’ another said. ‘I don’t want any of those buggers landing on me or mine.’
When the siren went off, it was just after they’d eaten tea so the children were ready for, but not in, bed and so Bridie ran upstairs and pulled blankets off her bed before hustling them down to the cellar, remembering first to pick up her shelter bag, which she always left ready by the door. All women had a shelter bag and in Bridie’s there were ration books and identity cards, the post office book, insurance policies and treasured photographs. As she went down the stairs, Mary and her two boys came in the entry door. Bridie thanked God she’d have company, but asked anxiously, ‘Are Ellen and Sam coming in too?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Mary told her sister. ‘Sam’s wheezing a fair bit these last few days and although the days are still nice and warm, the nights can be chilly.’
Mary was right, but Bridie wasn’t sure if it was the cold that was making her shiver so. At first the crashes and explosions were in the distance and then Katie and Liam, lulled to sleep on Bridie’s and Mary’s laps, were laid on the cushions Jay had run up and taken from the armchairs.
But they hadn’t been long asleep when the pattern of explosions changed and they heard the drone of the approaching bombers coming their way and the barking ack-ack guns trying to bring them down. The first explosions made them jump and Mary and Bridie clutched at each other, the boys between them.
The children stirred on their makeshift beds and eventually Katie opened her eyes. Liam’s were still tight shut, but he’d begun to whimper and so Bridie knew he was awake. So did Katie. ‘Liam’s crying, Mammy. He’s scared,’ she said, her own voice wobbly with fear.
She didn’t have to say she was scared; her wide staring eyes spoke for her. Then a bomb fell extremely close and Katie gave a yelp of terror and leapt towards her mother. Liam began to sob in earnest.
Bridie lifted both of the children onto her knee and held them tight. ‘When will it stop?’ Katie asked.
Bridie shook her head hopelessly. ‘I don’t know, love.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Liam complained.
‘No one likes it, Liam,’ Bridie replied. ‘The thing to remember is that it’s just a big noise. We’re as safe as houses here in the cellar.’
It wasn’t true, but it satisfied Katie and Liam and, besides, she had to tell them something. They were too young to deal with this. Mickey and even Jay were only weans too and she read the fear on their faces as well.
The clamour went on around them and Bridie felt her children jump at any close explosion and Liam had put his fingers in his ears more than once.
By the time the all clear had sounded, the children had dropped off, despite the noise, cuddled up to her. She hadn’t been able to sleep herself during the raid, so she’d sat tense and awake, seeing the cellar walls shake and the mortar dribble out from the bricks, thinking each moment might be her last.
She smiled tentatively at her sister now. ‘Bit too close for comfort, that lot.’
‘Aye,’ Mary replied. ‘There will be some damage, I’m thinking.’ She glanced across at her boys, their faces white with weariness and fear. ‘I’d best get these home, but I’ll give you a hand with the weans first.’
Bridie was glad of the offer of help. Mary gently lifted Liam from her sister’s knee and carried him in her arms while Bridie readjusted her hold on Katie and followed her sister up the cellar steps.
It was as they entered the room that both women were attacked by a fit of coughing, caused by the dust swirling in the air that caught in their throats. They crossed to the window and saw the orange skyline. ‘Something’s on fire,’ Mary said and Bridie nodded, unable to speak. ‘And not too far away.’
It was the Market Hall in the Bull Ring, they found out the next day. The raid had removed the roof, reducing the building to a shell and destroying the magnificent clock, made of solid oak, to ashes. Bridie thought of the day Tom had told her the tale of the clock and the curse put upon it by the one who made it. Well, Hitler helped to make the curse come true, she thought. But however sorry she was for the clock’s demise, people were more important and she felt heartsore for th
ose injured or killed so far into the war.
That night there was another raid, but it had been too far away for Bridie and Mary to take to the cellar at first. It had begun just after midnight and Bridie had been in a deep sleep when the sirens woke her. The drone of approaching planes alarmed her and she realised they were much nearer, almost overhead. She jumped from her bed and, pulling a coat over her nightdress, roused the children in the attic, pulling blankets from the bed to wrap around them as the bombs landed nearby. Fear lent speed to the children who were very sleepy.
The time was half past three and Bridie wasn’t surprised that her sister didn’t join her. The raid was too loud and close for anyone to sleep and the children whimpered in fear while Bridie held them close, one on each side of her, in the rolled-up blanket. She crooned and sang to them, trying to take their minds away from what was happening above and praying earnestly that they might get out alive.
The next day, at work, she heard the main thrust of the raid had been around Snow Hill Station, taking in Summer Row, Edmund Street, Livery Street and St Paul’s Square, so small wonder it had appeared close. This information was printed on notices spread about the city. Birmingham wasn’t usually referred to by name in the national papers, but just known as a Midlands town, so as to not give the enemy any information on where they had struck and caused extensive damage, though the Birmingham papers – the Birmingham Post, the Evening Mail, the Gazette and Evening Despatch – mentioned it occasionally.
‘Why don’t they say what’s happening to us in those other papers?’ Ellen demanded irritably on the evening of 28th August. ‘Other towns and cities are mentioned.’
‘Don’t be daft, woman,’ Sam snapped. ‘What d’you think it is, some kind of competition? They don’t want Jerry to know that they’ve actually hit their target, that’s why.’
But mentioned or not, every night there was a raid. The effect of those terrifying raids was apparent in the morning light. People had to get used to walking to work because the tram lines were lifted, and to seeing rubble-filled holes where there’d once been shops, offices and houses. The dust and the cordite smell lingered and pavements were often running with water. Sodden sandbags leaked sand onto pavements strewn with bricks, charred beams and snaking hose pipes and shards of glass splintered beneath people’s feet.