War Stories

by Michael Morpurgo

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Go on, Walter,’ urged his wife.

  ‘All right, but you’re not to tell anyone in the cast. They’ll get so excited they might forget their lines.’

  ‘Go on with you, Walter!’ said his wife.

  They walked up the stone steps and pushed open a swing door. Behind the stage was a corridor. Guy glanced at the doors which led to the dressing rooms and the green room. They slipped quickly past and headed for the door which led to the stage’s left wings.

  Walter gave the door a gentle push and they were backstage. A wave of laughter came from the auditorium.

  They crept past a table with its props neatly arranged in the order of the three acts and headed towards a young female assistant stage manager, who was sitting perched on a stool, dressed as a maid. Guy knew she would be totally absorbed in the play. It was her job to give the sound and lighting cues and prompt the actors if they forgot their lines, which they never seemed to do.

  Walter pressed a finger to his lips. Guy smiled excitedly.

  The ASM pressed a bell on a wooden square, which gave the sound of a telephone ringing. She was watching the downstage area intently, waiting for the phone to be picked up as her sight cue to stop it ringing.

  And then Guy heard his mother speaking.

  ‘Hello! Yes, cousin Isabel – it’s me speaking. Eh? Uncle is – er – resting.’

  There was a laugh from the audience.

  ‘Yes, the telegram has come. Eh? We couldn’t phone before because it’s only just arrived … Certainly! Hold the line a minute.’

  Guy could hear her walking. And then there was silence. It was frustrating not knowing what was happening on stage but, whatever his mother was doing, it was causing more laughter.

  ‘Are you there?’ he heard her ask the person on the other end of the line. ‘Myra Hoffman will call in an hour’s time at Sir John’s flat to get the tickets for America!’

  There was the sound of the telephone being replaced and the Billy Dixon Trio played the first interval music as the curtain fell to applause.

  His mother appeared in the wings looking unfamiliarly plump in a shapeless gymslip and spectacles. ‘Guy!’ she exclaimed. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘About five minutes.’

  ‘Where’s Roger?’

  ‘In bed. Mrs Hicks is keeping an eye on him and then when she goes to bed Valerie’s staying up.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘It’s a holiday for everyone tomorrow. And on Wednesday.’

  ‘Not quite everyone, poppet,’ she said, smiling. ‘We’ll be blocking Act One of They Knew What They Wanted in the morning.’

  ‘Will you be playing someone ten years younger or ten years older?’

  ‘Younger. An American girl who goes to the Italian part of the Napa Valley to marry a man she’s never met. She thinks he’s young and handsome but he’s sixty, stout and Italian. But it all works out well in the end. Now, I must dash. I have to shed my padding and glasses and slip into a beautiful dress,’ and she kissed him on the forehead and made for the door which led to the corridor.

  The ASM now joined them. ‘Is it true,’ she asked, ‘about VE day?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Guy.

  ‘I wonder if I can get to London after tomorrow night’s performance,’ she murmured to herself and picked up a tray of props and walked briskly on to the set.

  ‘Guy, you nip up to the gods,’ said Walter and he opened the side door, which led into the auditorium. ‘And keep mum!’

  Guy weaved his way through the crowd of theatregoers in the stalls and out into the foyer. He headed for the stairway and began the long climb back to the gods – the highest seats in the house. One of the usherettes recognized him and smiled, indicating an empty seat.

  The lights dimmed. The audience stopped talking and the Billy Dixon Trio played the music which introduced Act Two.

  The curtain rose to reveal a lounge in a very expensive-looking flat. It was dark and a telephone was ringing. A thin man wearing a hat and raincoat entered and switched on the lights, wearing an expression of such exaggerated melancholy that he looked comic. Guy guessed he was a butler.

  Act Two had begun.

  It was the end of Act Three. The curtain fell. As it lifted, nine performers stood in line holding hands and bowed.

  The actor who played a funny red-faced gentleman called Uncle Toby stepped forward in his bow tie and spectacles.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began in his deep, booming voice, ‘we thank you for the rapturous applause you have so generously bestowed on us this evening. Next week we are performing a play by Sidney Howard entitled They Knew What They Wanted. This magnificent play received a Pulitzer Prize in New York in 1925 and was an outstanding success when it ran in London. If you have enjoyed tonight’s performance, which it appears you have from your thunderous applause, please tell your friends and do come again next week.’

  He paused.

  ‘Before we stand for the King,’ he continued, a tremor in his voice, ‘I have a further announcement. It is the one we’ve all been waiting for. While you have been sitting here being a splendid audience, the news has come to us, via the BBC, that tomorrow is indeed VE day and that there are to be two days of national holiday.’

  Through the opening chords of ‘God Save the King’ and the slamming of four hundred upturned seats, Guy heard a woman cry, ‘It’s over!’

  Usually everyone filed out of the theatre after the national anthem but, before anyone could move, the cast began singing ‘There’ll always be an England’. The audience remained standing and joined in. The Billy Dixon Trio followed this with ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and the ‘Marseillaise’.

  To Guy’s surprise, the musicians next started to play a jaunty tune. The cast turned to one side, their hands on the waist of the person in front, and danced off into the wings, kicking their legs to each side in unison. The people in the front row of the gods were looking down into the stalls and laughing. Guy quickly ran down the aisle to join them.

  ‘It’s the conga,’ shrieked two women next to him.

  Down in the aisles, the audience was leaving the auditorium in the same manner as the cast, hanging on to one another and shooting their hips and legs out in strange, jerky movements.

  Guy leaped up the steps back to the exit doors and ran down several flights of stairs, into a crowded and noisy foyer. To his amazement, lights were spilling out of the open doors into the streets.

  ‘Bit early for them to be flouting the blackout regulations, isn’t it?’ said a well-spoken elderly gentleman. ‘There’ll be trouble.’

  ‘Who cares!’ said his elegant companion.

  There was bubbling chaos as everyone rushed to be outside, determined not to miss out on anything else, as though world events had taken a sudden shot forward while they had been cocooned in the world of the theatre.

  Guy was both sorry and relieved that Roger wasn’t with him: sorry because he was missing all the excitement, relieved because it was highly likely that he would be swept up in the crowd and happily wander off hand in hand with a stranger.

  By the time Guy reached the stage door his mother was waiting for him. They headed briskly for the high street. Already there was a party atmosphere. They could hear singing from a nearby pub on the corner and hanging from the buildings were not only Union Jacks visible but Russian flags with the hammer and sickle, stripy blue, white and red French flags and the American Stars and Stripes. By an open window someone was playing a jazz record on a gramophone.

  His mother suddenly put her arm round him as they walked. ‘I was going to keep quiet till you boys were together but I might as well tell you now. I phoned the hospital this morning. They think Daddy will be well enough to be discharged in a fortnight. And when I told the producer, he said that as soon as he’s demobbed there’s a job waiting for him here. Isn’t that good?’

  Guy nodded. �
�We’ll all be together again,’ he said and he leaned against her.

  Their street was eerily quiet compared to the high street. It was so silent they could hear their footsteps echoing along the walls. Above them, flags and ribbons fluttered in the slight evening breeze.

  They went through the usual motions of not switching on the hall light until the blacked-out front door was closed. Standing in the hallway, all they could hear was the sound of the landlady’s clock ticking. Valerie was in the dining room with her schoolbooks. While Guy went off to the scullery to clean his teeth, he heard his mother thanking Valerie for staying up and keeping an ear out for Roger.

  ‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ she said as he walked back through the dining room and up the stairs.

  He got undressed, put on his pyjamas and waited. She was taking ages, he thought.

  He listened out for the familiar creak on the stairs but he could hear nothing except Roger breathing deeply in the double bed he shared with their mother.

  Tired of waiting, he slipped out of bed, slowly opened the door and crept down the stairs. Someone was crying. At first he thought it was his mother and it alarmed him, but then he heard his mother say something. He couldn’t make out what it was but it sounded soothing. He realized that the cries came from Valerie. She was sobbing so hard it sounded as if her heart was breaking. He couldn’t understand it. Why was she so unhappy? The war was over and there was no school for two days. Perhaps she was crying because she was upset at not having to go to school. He heard a chair being pushed back and the sound of a nose being blown. Hastily he crept back to his room.

  Hardly had he climbed into bed when he was startled by a loud bang from outside. He threw aside the covers and ran over to the window. A huge flash of lightning lit up the sky. This was followed by another loud bang of thunder. Torrents of rain fell noisily into the empty street.

  ‘It’s almost biblical,’ he heard a soft voice say from behind him. It was his mother. She wrapped her arms round him and leaned her chin gently on his head. ‘It’s washing it all away,’ she murmured.

  There was another flash of lightning.

  ‘Sorry I took so long. I was with Valerie. Tomorrow is going to be very difficult for her.’

  ‘Everything’s difficult for her,’ muttered Guy. ‘She’s always miserable.’

  ‘Have you ever thought that seeing us so happy might be the cause of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In fact, I was wondering if you could ask her to join you and Roger tomorrow morning before coming to the cafe at lunch time.’

  Guy swung round, horrified. ‘She hates me!’ he said. ‘She’ll just yell at me. She’ll spoil everything. Why can’t she stay with here with her aunt?’

  ‘Mrs Hicks is going to spend the day with her sister. And she isn’t Valerie’s aunt. Valerie doesn’t have any relations at all. Mrs Hicks kindly lets her stay here in exchange for helping around the house.’ She took hold of Guy’s hands and looked at him squarely. ‘Tomorrow, the war is going to be over for thousands of people.’

  ‘I know. I told you,’ said Guy impatiently.

  ‘But for some people the war isn’t over. There’s still a war in the Far East. Valerie’s father is in the navy. His ship was attacked several years ago by the Japanese and all survivors were taken prisoner. Valerie has no idea if her father is a prisoner of war or not.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Guy.

  ‘And last year her mother and two sisters were killed by a flying bomb. Because she goes to the grammar school she arrived home later, which is why she wasn’t with them. So you see, tomorrow many people will be feeling sad as well as happy, because the people they loved the most won’t be there to join in the celebrations. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Valerie is under a lot of strain. This year she’s taking some very important examinations called School Certificate so she’s working very hard, because if her father doesn’t come home she’s going to have to fend for herself. Maybe she works too hard at times, but it keeps her going. So will you stay with her tomorrow? For me?’

  ‘All right,’ he said dismally,

  They leaned out of the window. By now all the flags and ribbons were limp and dripping.

  ‘Let’s hope we have some sun tomorrow,’ said his mother.

  The next day her wish came true. Guy woke to sunlight flooding into the bedroom. Roger was sitting cross-legged on the double bed, drawing more trains in his sketchbook, a Boy’s Book of Trains lying open beside him. Draped neatly over a chair were two sets of clean clothes. A note was lying on top. Guy flung back the covers and ran to pick it up.

  He picked up Roger’s clothes and flung them at him.

  Once they were both dressed they left the bedroom. As they opened the door they came face to face with Valerie. She was wearing a powder-blue dress with pink flowers on it, her Sunday-best clothes. What was different about her was that her hair was no longer in plaits. It hung round her face in waves, the hair beside her face and above her forehead in a victory roll.

  Roger gasped. ‘You look like the tooth fairy!’ he exclaimed.

  To Guy’s surprise, Valerie laughed. Guy couldn’t remember ever having heard her laugh. ‘You don’t know what the tooth fairy looks like,’ Guy remarked.

  ‘Yes, I do. I’ve seen her in pictures,’ he said and he took her hand.

  Guy followed them as they squeezed together down the narrow staircase.

  ‘Now, what would you like me to tell you about first,’ asked Roger, as if continuing the conversation from the night before, ‘the valve rods, the driving rods or the coupling rods?’

  Guy gazed upwards in despair.

  After breakfast the three of them spent the morning at the railway station watching women putting up red, white and blue decorations.

  ‘Now the war is over,’ said Roger ‘do you think they’ll bring back the Flying Scotsman?’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Did you know that some of the steel on the carriages is painted to look like wood?’

  Guy did, thoroughly. He ignored them both and watched the crowds of uniformed men and women squeezing into the coaches, heading for London to join in the celebrations in Trafalgar Square. His father was already in back in London. He wondered how he would celebrate VE day in a hospital ward.

  ‘Daddy said there used to be a cinema car on it,’ Roger said thoughtfully.

  Guy was startled to hear Roger mention his father just as he was thinking of him, but then they often had similar thoughts at the same time.

  At one o’clock they left the station for the cafe. When they walked in – ducking under the multicoloured triangular flags which were hanging across the ceiling – the buxom actress who played the snobbish Lady Blundell indicated a chair for Valerie. The company seemed eager for her to feel at ease.

  The owner had lined up four tables so that they could all eat together. Valerie was flanked by two of the cast. On one side was the middle-aged actor who played a London detective and a laughing foreign prince in the new play and on the other a young actor who didn’t look much older than Valerie and who couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said eagerly, over a plate of mashed potato, cabbage and a scattering of sausage, ‘if you could test me on my Act One lines this afternoon? I have to be DLP for a run tomorrow morning before we block the moves for Act Two.’

  ‘DLP?’ she repeated.

  ‘Dead letter perfect,’ explained Guy’s mother.

  ‘Oh,’ said Valerie shyly, ‘if you think it would help.’

  ‘It would help enormously,’ said the young actor.

  Guy was sitting between his mother and brother, watching. ‘That means we can be on our own,’ he whispered to Roger, thinking they could go to the cinema.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Roger, ‘we can go back to the station. Did you know,’ he said, turning to a distinguished and very elderly actor on his right, ‘that the Flying Scotsm
an has a TPO? That’s a travelling post office.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said the actor, ‘my life has been made all the more richer for that gem of information.’

  Exasperated, Guy looked hurriedly away. He observed that the actor, who had made the announcement on stage the previous night, was pouring some brown liquid into his tea from a small silver flask. He put the flask back into his pocket and raised his cup. ‘To absent friends,’ he said, emotion in his voice.

  Everyone picked up their cups and chinked them together. ‘To absent friends!’ they chorused.

  Guy glanced across at Valerie and it shocked him. The sadness in her eyes was so terrible that it made his throat ache. Suddenly, he imagined being left alone, like Valerie, with no mother, no father and no Roger, and the thought of it made him feel sick.

  His mother must have noticed too because he felt her fingers gently touching his arm. ‘Thank you for bringing her, Guy,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t want her to be alone today.’

  He looked up at her. ‘We’re lucky, aren’t we?’

  She nodded. ‘Very lucky. Now eat up. There’s a special treat waiting for you after this course.’

  ‘Jelly?’ he cried.

  ‘My lips are sealed.’ But her voice was trembling.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, alarmed. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No. Everything’s fine.’And she threw her arms round him and held him close.

  ‘Don’t forget me,’ Guy heard his brother say.

  His mother reached out behind him for Roger and hugged them both clumsily.

  ‘Everything’s wonderful!’ And she laughed. ‘Come on boys, it’s time for us to celebrate!’

  Celia Rees

  Soldiers have always sought to protect non-combatants from the brutal realities of war, claiming, in the words of a song from the First World War, that ‘They would never believe it.’ Even at a time when we think that the camera shows us everything, there are things that we are prevented from seeing. We get only a faint echo of the screaming, a fading after-image of the horror of the immediate experience. No camera can communicate that, or the endurance and courage that soldiers have to display if they are to live with the boredom, terror, disgust and fear that they experience every day as part of the job.