The Clippie Girls

by Margaret Dickinson

  Bob was staring about him with a glazed look in his eyes. He hardly seemed aware of her.

  ‘Bob?’ she said again, more tentatively now. Something was wrong. He didn’t have any visible signs of injury and yet he was dazed, not knowing where he was and seeming not to recognize her. Rose scrambled to her feet again and ran towards another ambulance that had just arrived. She pulled open the door of the passenger’s side and almost dragged the man from his seat. ‘Quick, you must come quick.’

  ‘Steady on, miss. Let’s get a hold on the situation first.’

  ‘You’re needed. Over here. The driver of one of the trams that was bombed is sitting against that wall and he doesn’t seem to know what day it is or where he is.’

  ‘Concussion, probably, and shock. Just let me get my bag out the back.’

  ‘Hurry. Please hurry.’

  She waited impatiently until the man retrieved his first-aid kit and then she led him, stumbling over the debris, to where Bob was still sitting, staring about him yet not seeing the devastation in front of him. All around them fires still burned and more explosions could be heard, though they were further away now. And then suddenly another incendiary fell quite close to them, shaking the ground and sending flames shooting into the air.

  ‘Now, mate, let’s have a look at you,’ the ambulance man said calmly.

  Rose knelt beside them and watched as the ambulance man deftly examined Bob.

  ‘Better get him to hospital as soon as we can. Can you help me get him into the ambulance, miss?’ He glanced back towards where his colleague was already helping another casualty into the rear of the vehicle.

  ‘Of course. Tell me what to do.’

  Together, they lifted Bob bodily from the ground. ‘We’ll have to carry him. He’s not making any effort to help himself. Put his arm round your shoulders and your arm round his waist. We might manage him that way, otherwise I’ll have to fetch the stretcher.’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ Rose said stoutly and followed the man’s instructions.

  How they managed it, Rose didn’t know. Maybe her feelings for Bob gave her extra strength for he was a dead weight between them, but somehow they got him into the ambulance.

  ‘Can I come with him?’

  ‘Sorry, love, but unless you’re hurt—’

  ‘No, no, I’m not. I wasn’t involved, but my sister was his clippie.’ She nodded towards Bob, now lying on the stretcher. There were two other people already in the vehicle, one with an injured arm, the other with a rough bandage round a head wound that was bleeding profusely.

  The ambulance man closed the back doors. ‘We’d best get these folks to hospital.’

  As the vehicle drew carefully away, Rose stood watching it and suddenly she was shaking from head to foot.

  ‘Rose?’ The soldier was pushing his way towards her. ‘Hey, Rose.’ He reached her side and put his arm around her. ‘Did you find him? The bloke you were looking for.’

  She nodded as tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘Yes,’ she whispered huskily. ‘They’ve just taken him away. He – he was dazed. He didn’t know me.’

  ‘And now you’re the one in shock. Come on, let’s get you another cup of tea and then we’ll both go to the hospital.’

  Fourteen

  Terry couldn’t believe his luck. When he’d got on the tram and the clippie had taken his fare, he’d noticed her soft brown eyes, her genuinely warm smile and the way her shoulder-length brown hair curled around her cap. What soldier worth his salt wouldn’t notice such a pretty girl? And what was the saying his mother was always fond of quoting? It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Well, he’d not have wished the tram on which they were travelling to be caught in a bomb blast, far from it, but now that it had happened he could see that it had given him the chance to get to know the pretty clippie. And now, with an even bigger stroke of luck, he’d found her sister, who was obviously in need of a bit of company and support.

  ‘We’ll go to that cafe where I got the tea before,’ he said purposefully.

  Rose made no protest; she was feeling decidedly wobbly, so she allowed him to lead her across the street away from the tram.

  ‘Mind the glass,’ he said, still holding her arm. ‘Here we are.’ He pushed open the door and stepped into the cafe, which was, sadly, not the warm and comforting haven it normally was. The window had been blown out despite the criss-cross tape that had been plastered across it and glass lay all around. A jovial, balding man in a long white apron was sweeping the floor.

  ‘Come in, come in. They’ve tried to get me to leave, but I’m not going nowhere. Tek more ’n Hitler to get me to leave me cafe. What can I get you? T’ kitchen’s not damaged, thank goodness. Mind where you sit though, love. Here, let me clean these two chairs for you in this corner.’

  They sat down and ordered strong, sweet tea. ‘Anything to eat?’ Terry asked, but Rose shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. I just want to get to the hospital to see how Bob is. And Peggy,’ she added, almost as an afterthought. She looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say your name is?’

  ‘Terry Price. And yours is Rose and your sister’s Peggy and your boyfriend’s Bob. Am I right?’

  Rose smiled weakly. ‘Nearly. Only Bob isn’t my boyfriend.’ She pulled in a deep breath. ‘He’s – he’s Peggy’s.’

  Terry felt as if his heart had dropped into his size ten army boots. ‘Oh. I got it wrong then.’ He looked across the table at her. She was a pretty girl too, but there was something about Peggy that had already captured his heart. This wasn’t the sister he wanted, nice though she was. And if he wasn’t mistaken, there’d been reluctance in her tone when she’d said that the young man she’d been searching for with such desperation in her eyes when she couldn’t find him was, in fact, her sister’s boyfriend. Of course, she’d’ve been concerned. Wouldn’t any sister? But there’d been more to it than just that, he was sure. She’d been desperate to find him on her own account.

  Casually, he asked, ‘Serious, is it? Between them?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Don’t you know? I mean, are they engaged or anything?’

  ‘No – no. But they’ve worked together for some time now and they’ve been walking out together since just before the war started.’

  Terry took a gamble. He laughed as he said, ‘He’s a bit slow on the uptake then. If she was my girl, I’d have a ring on her finger pretty smartish.’

  Rose’s head snapped up and two bright spots of colour burned in her cheeks. ‘He’s not slow. He’s a lovely man. It’s not him – it’s our Peggy. She doesn’t know when she’s got someone – someone . . .’ As if realizing she was giving herself away to this stranger, she dropped her gaze and concentrated on stirring her tea.

  But it was too late. Terry had seen and heard all he needed to know. This Bob might think he’d got a girlfriend in Peggy, but it sounded very much to him as if the girl herself wasn’t all that sure.

  Terry smiled and said gently, ‘Drink your tea and then I’ll take you to the hospital and we’ll see how they both are.’

  If Rose hadn’t been in such a dazed state, suffering from shock and lost in a haze of dreadful anxiety over both her sister and Bob, she might have heard the distant sound of warning bells and refused the soldier’s well-meaning offer there and then.

  And over the years Rose was to wonder if what followed hadn’t all been her fault.

  The hospital seemed to be functioning in organized chaos. Bombs had fallen very close to it and Terry and Rose had to take a circuitous route to reach the building. The staff, calm, unruffled and completely professional, were nevertheless going about their duties with an added sense of urgency. Wartime tragedies like this were sadly nothing new for them, though this was the worst they had experienced to date. They had all been trained to deal with such sudden and devastating emergencies and they also knew how to deal kindly, but firmly, with hysterical family members.

  The staff nurse eyed Rose and Te
rry and decided that they could be trusted not to cause disruption. A soldier still in uniform and a girl who said she was a clippie even though she wasn’t in uniform. Their training would have prepared them for just this sort of situation. ‘Your sister is ready to go home. She’s a bit shaky and she shouldn’t go back to work for a few days. She’ll also need to come in tomorrow to have her wound redressed. It took a couple of stitches, but we’re keeping the young man in. We suspect he’s concussed or he’s in deep shock. One or the other – maybe both. The doctor’s with him now. I’ll know more tomorrow – oh, no, it’s today now, isn’t it? Come back later.’

  Rose nodded. ‘Thank you, I will.’ She was calmer now that she realized Bob was in the best place and being taken care of.

  ‘Like I say, your sister can go, but you’d better all wait here until the All Clear sounds,’ the nurse added and then showed them where Peggy was sitting on a row of seats waiting to be taken home by ‘someone responsible’, as she had been instructed.

  ‘Rose, am I glad to see you!’ Her eyes widened as she realized who was with her sister. ‘Oh! It’s you.’

  Terry grinned. ‘Yes, it’s me. Turning up like a bad penny.’

  Peggy smiled tremulously. She was still feeling shaky and very close to tears. They sat together, but it wasn’t long before Terry was helping to move trolleys, lending a supporting arm and comforting a crying child who couldn’t find her parents in the confusion as more and more casualties arrived at the hospital.

  When the All Clear sounded at about four-thirty in the morning, Terry said, ‘Come on, I’ll take you both home.’

  He made a conscious effort to be circumspect, treating them both with the same kindly concern and trying not to show that his interest was in Peggy. Working in the city’s public transport system, the girls knew the bus routes almost as well as their own tram routes and soon they were seated on a bus that should have taken them to the end of their street. But the devastation of their city in the pale morning light shocked them and, after only a short distance, the driver said, ‘Can’t get you folks any further. Sorry.’

  ‘You can’t walk all the way home, Peg,’ Rose said worriedly.

  ‘It’s not far now,’ Peggy said, ‘only about half a mile.’ But her voice shook and she put her hand to her head as if she was still feeling decidedly woozy.

  Without another word, Terry picked her up in his arms.

  ‘Oh!’ Peggy was startled. ‘You can’t carry me all that way.’

  Terry chuckled. ‘Oh yes I can. We have to march miles with full kit. I’m stronger than I look.’

  They passed piles of smouldering rubble, stepped over bricks and firemen’s hoses, and carefully skirted craters. People were climbing over the debris, searching for their belongings. A child sat alone, staring into space, and an old man was weeping openly. They moved on, passing houses that had been reduced to a heap of wood and bricks in one night. Rose shuddered, imagining people still trapped beneath the collapsed buildings. She would have loved to stop and help the emergency services, who were already searching for survivors, but she couldn’t linger.

  A woman was sitting in an armchair perched precariously on top of a pile of wreckage, quiet and calm, just as if she were sitting at her own fireside.

  Pausing, Rose said, ‘Do you think she’s all right?’ Though she was anxious to get Peggy home – and to see if their own family was unscathed – nevertheless, she couldn’t just walk past someone who might be in trouble. No more, it seemed, could Terry, for he set Peggy gently on the ground and climbed nimbly up to the woman. As he bent to speak to her, Rose and Peggy saw her give a wry smile and nod. Terry patted her hand and slithered back down the pile of rubble.

  ‘She’s fine. Just having a moment or two with her ruined possessions before she has to leave.’

  As he picked Peggy up again, she said, ‘What are all these poor folks going to do?’

  ‘They’ll set up rest centres for the homeless,’ Terry said. ‘Now let’s get you home.’

  ‘I hope they’re all right,’ Rose muttered and quickened her step. As they came to a street very near to their own, they saw that two houses had been completely demolished. Seeing the destruction and the smouldering crater, Rose began to run.

  Fifteen

  They’d been in the cellar for hours, when Letty suddenly piped up, ‘Let’s ’ave a sing-song. Drown out them buggers overhead, eh? Come on . . .’ and in a raucous, tuneless voice she began to sing ‘My ol’ man said foller the van . . .’

  Half-heartedly, they joined in, all except Grace, who resolutely clamped her mouth shut. Sidney and Jimmy were sniggering in the corner of the cellar, trying to catch spiders to put into empty matchboxes, no doubt with the intention of making little girls at school squeal with fright. And then the Bradshaw boys would be in trouble yet again.

  Letty was still singing about dillying and dallying when there was a whistle and a resounding thump that shook the ground beneath them. Above them there was the sound of breaking glass and a loud crash.

  Letty leapt to her feet. ‘The house, it’s falling in on top of us. We’ll be trapped. We’ll be killed . . .’

  Tom grasped her arm and pulled her back down. ‘Calm down, Letty love. If it was t’ house falling down, there’d’ve been a darned sight more noise than that.’ He glanced at Grace. ‘Reckon you’ll have a bit of damage up there, though, love.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Grace said philosophically. ‘As long as no one’s hurt.’

  But it was a vain hope.

  When at last the All Clear sounded, they were all cramped and cold.

  ‘Hot tea all round and bed for what’s left of the night,’ Grace said, shining the torch she always brought down into the cellar as she pulled herself up the steps and opened the door into the living room. ‘Oh no!’

  ‘What is it, Mother?’ Mary asked, close behind her.

  ‘I can smell something funny.’

  ‘It’s not gas, is it?’

  ‘You all right, Mrs Booth?’ Tom shouted from below. ‘Want me to come up?’

  ‘Just wait here a moment, Mother. I’ll go and see what damage there is.’

  The cold December morning was still dark, but as soon as Mary stepped into the room she felt the draught. ‘I think the window’s broken. Just be careful until I can put the light on. Wait there.’ Her feet crunched on broken glass as she crossed the room carefully to the light switch. She flicked the switch a couple of times, but nothing happened.

  Grace shone the torch around the room.

  ‘Oh no!’ Mary gasped. The room was covered in soot. The furniture, the walls – everything was blackened. The window was broken and glass was scattered over the floor, the table and chairs. The clock that usually stood on the mantelpiece was face down on the hearthrug.

  Grace moved slowly into the room, glancing round her, her mouth a grim line. ‘If I could get me hands on that ruddy ’Itler . . .’ she muttered.

  Myrtle climbed the stairs and stepped into the room.

  ‘Be careful,’ Mary said. ‘We need to find another torch and light some candles. And I’ll light the lamp. It’s not gas you could smell, Mother, it’s soot.’ An oil lamp stood on the sideboard, always primed and ready should it be needed. Miraculously, it was still upright.

  When the lamp was lit, Mary said, ‘I’ll check the front room. Myrtle, you check upstairs, but be careful.’ The girl was standing by the table looking down mournfully at her books. They were all covered with a thin layer of soot.

  Mary returned to say, ‘Oh, Mother – I’m so sorry. Your china cabinet’s been knocked over. I – I think nearly everything’s broken.’

  Grace stood by the table still glancing round her and shaking her head in disbelief.

  ‘It’s not too bad upstairs,’ Myrtle reported. ‘There’s soot on the hearthrug in both your rooms, but it’s not all over like down here. Mine and Rose’s room is all right, because there’s no fireplace in there. The only thing that’s broken that I can see is
Gran’s mirror. There’s a huge crack right across it.’

  ‘Seven years’ bad luck, then,’ Grace murmured, still staring round, shocked and bewildered at the wreckage of her home.

  Mary put her arm around Grace’s shoulders. ‘Come on, Mother. You go up and get into bed. I’ll bring you some tea up.’

  ‘What? When there’s this lot to clear up?’

  ‘You’ve had a shock – you ought to—’

  ‘Mary, I know you mean well, but if you think I’m going to let that – that lunatic get the better of me, then you don’t know me very well. Come on, the sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll get it all cleared up.’

  Grace set to work with an energy that surprised even her family. The only time her face crumpled and her shoulders sagged for a brief moment was when she stood in the front room and viewed the smashed remains of her treasured tea service.

  ‘My parents gave us that on our wedding day,’ she murmured. ‘They didn’t have very much and it must have taken them months to save up to buy it. I only ever used it the once.’

  Mary put her arm around her mother and asked softly, ‘When was that?’

  ‘Your christening. After that, I was so afraid of a piece getting broken and spoiling the set that I left it safely in the cabinet and, when I could afford it, bought another to use on special occasions.’

  ‘The willow pattern one?’

  Grace nodded. ‘Over the years pieces have been cracked and broken. We’ve only a few bits left now.’ She sighed. ‘So you see, I was right. That’s what would have happened to my best set. But I needn’t have bothered – Hitler’s done it for me.’

  Mary hugged her and whispered, ‘They’re just things, Mother. We’re safe. That’s what counts.’ Her face clouded and her voice wobbled a little as she added, ‘Just so long as Peggy and Rose come home safely.’