A Ration Book Daughter

by Jean Fullerton

  A chasm opened at his feet as he stared down at Peter Wheeler’s teddy.

  Forcing his mind into action, Archie looked around and spotted a member of the rescue team who seemed to be directing the operation. Gripping the toy in his right hand, he strode over.

  ‘Do you know where the owner of this might be, pal?’ he asked, holding up the bear.

  The warden shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate. The heavy rescue just dumped the stuff there as they cleared it out.’

  Raking his fingers through his hair again, Archie looked back at the row of corpses he’d just passed.

  ‘Are they all the fatalities?’ Archie asked, as a weeping ARP warden carrying the lifeless body of a child walked past.

  ‘I wish they were,’ the warden replied, ‘but they’ve already taken away dozens to the London and we’ve got at least another fifty still down there.’ He pointed his torch into the stairwell where rescue workers were retrieving the bodies of those who had been crushed to death. ‘You got loved ones down there?’

  Unable to speak, Archie nodded.

  The warden placed his hand on Archie’s arm. ‘I’m sorry, son.’

  ‘I need to find them,’ said Archie. ‘They’ve been taken to the London, you say?’

  ‘Yeah, but before you go racing off there, you’d better check to see if they’re in the church over there,’ said the warden. ‘We’re using that to store them, because the hospital morgue’s full.’

  With the low hum of voices echoing around the vaulted ceiling and galleries of St John’s, Archie dropped the coat back over the face of a young woman with dark brown hair, her red lipstick still bright on her grey lifeless lips. He walked slowly past a couple of men and an older woman with a built-up sole on her left surgical shoe whose heads and shoulders were covered with their coats, before stopping in front of another young woman with a mac over her upper body.

  Archie studied the mud-spattered coat for a moment then reached down and lifted the corner.

  It was a young woman of about Cathy’s age but with bobbed strawberry-blonde hair and a plump face.

  Letting out a long breath, Archie dropped the fabric back over her. Turning his head, he looked up at the cross on the side altar for a moment then looked back down at the row of corpses lined up along the south aisle of the church.

  Every age of man was represented: from the baby whose feet peeked out from under its mother’s coat as it lay tucked into her arms, through to the old man who’d survived poverty and disease to reach his three score years and ten, only to have the life squeezed out of him in the East End equivalent of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

  Archie wasn’t alone in his search. Several men and women, relatives he guessed, were also making their way slowly along the line of bodies, lifting up the coats to see the faces of the dead, praying each time, as he did, that it would be a stranger beneath.

  As far as he could tell, the victims laid out in the cold calmness of the church had all suffocated, as the mauve tinge of their skin testified. They were also soaked as the rescuers, desperate to revive them, had doused them with cold water in a vain attempt to shock them into breathing again.

  ‘Have you found them?’

  Archie turned to see a young woman in a white coat wearing a matching tin hat with ‘M’ stamped on the front.

  Archie shook his head. ‘They’re nae here. I’d better away to the hospital and look there.’

  The doctor glanced at the bear in Archie’s hand. ‘I hope you have a fruitful search.’

  Giving him a compassionate smile, she moved on to where an elderly couple clung together sobbing.

  Gripping Peter’s teddy firmly, Archie made his way back past the thirty or so bodies lying side by side and out of the church’s main entrance.

  Archie’s face tingled as the chill of the night whirled around him. Taking a deep breath, he gazed up at the handful of stars punctuating the clear black sky above.

  If, as his mother asserted, there was an all-powerful being overseeing the universe, what part of any great eternal plan required Cathy, the woman he would love until the last breath left his body, the woman he dreamed would have his children, to be snatched away from him so cruelly, yet again?

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘MIND HOW YOU go now, there might still be stuff on the stairs,’ said Bob Mitchel, his face drawn and grey in the dim light.

  ‘Ready, Mum?’ Cathy called over her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, let’s just get out of here,’ Ida replied.

  ‘Just go slow,’ Bob said, shining his torch up the staircase to the landing where, just two hours ago, Cathy had saved her mother from certain death.

  Now they, along with everyone else trapped on the platform, were making their way to the surface.

  Mercifully, as she and Michael had half carried, half dragged their mother away from the stairwell, Ida had begun to regain consciousness and when they’d reached the family sleeping area, the cold air whistling out of the tunnels had fully revived her. Her first thought had been for Victoria who, oblivious to all around her, was niggling for her evening feed.

  Having been reassured that the boys and Peter were all right, Ida had settled down to feed the baby, which had seemed to bring her back to the here and now.

  It was just as well, because they’d had to sit huddled together as something close to hysteria swept through the shelter. It was hardly surprising given that so many people had friends or loved ones who were still unaccounted for. Many, too, forced to walk between the platforms to go to the toilet or get a cup of tea, had seen the piles of bodies wedged at the top of the staircase.

  Cathy had averted her eyes but that hadn’t cut out the sound of the rescuers’ cries of distress as they’d removed dead babies and children from the stack of bodies.

  ‘It won’t be long, Mum,’ said Cathy, adjusting a sleepy Peter in her arms. Her mother and the two boys followed her up the steps to the shelter’s entrance.

  As they reached the top of the first flight of stairs, Cathy gagged as the smell of ammonia and faeces clogged her nose.

  ‘Those poor souls,’ muttered her mother, crossing herself.

  Cathy did the same, then, holding her breath, she walked across the wet landing and started up the final flight of stairs leading to the street.

  A waft of icy night air whooshed down the staircase, stirring Cathy’s hair and chilling her cheeks.

  The image of Archie smiling at her floated through her mind again and she drew in a long breath, enjoying the sensation of it filling her lungs.

  She was alive and so was he. Nothing else on earth mattered now, because she loved him.

  With thoughts of Archie filling her head, Cathy put her foot on the final step but Peter struggled in her arms.

  ‘Mr Bruno,’ he said, stretching behind her.

  ‘We’ll find him later,’ said Cathy.

  ‘Noooo!’ He tried to twist out of her arms, but Cathy held him tight and continued towards the entrance.

  Ted Tweedy, red-eyed and grey-faced, was standing outside the shelter as she emerged.

  ‘Are you all here?’ he asked, looking behind her.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cathy, as her mother and then Michael and Billy, carrying the baskets and blankets, emerged from the entrance. ‘Me, Peter, Mum, Victoria and the two boys.’

  ‘Thank God,’ he said, crossing their names off the list on his clipboard.

  Cathy spotted ambulance crews ferrying bodies to their vans.

  ‘How many, Ted?’

  ‘No one’s too sure, just yet,’ he replied. ‘But I’d guess it’s over a hundred. We’ve already had word from on high not to talk about it, so you won’t be reading about it in the newspapers tomorrow, that’s for sure.’ His weary features lifted in a smile. ‘But at least you and yours aren’t amongst them.’

  ‘No, thank God,’ said Cathy.

  They moved aside as others came out of the shelter. All around them the ARP emergency services were packing up, as the last few victim
s were stretchered across the road to rest in the church.

  ‘The pram’s where I left it, so I suppose we’d better get home,’ said Ida. ‘Come on, boys, let’s make tracks.’

  Weaving their way past the queue of people lining up to quiz the shelter’s chief ARP warden, Cathy and her mother walked to the line of prams. She couldn’t help but wonder how many would have to be taken away by the council in the morning.

  Peter wriggled in her arms, trying to look behind her. Feeling her aching shoulder muscles protest, Cathy lowered him to the ground.

  ‘I think you’re getting a bit big for me to carry—’

  ‘Bruno!’ he shouted, then shot off.

  Cathy spun around. ‘Pe—’

  Her words evaporated and joy and love burst through her as she watched her son run to Archie, the only man she would ever love, who was standing in the road holding her son’s teddy in his right hand.

  As Peter dashed along the pavement towards him, Archie’s world fell back into place. Bending down as the little lad reached him, Archie scooped him into his arms and handed him his toy.

  Peter hugged him and, with love and happiness filling his chest, Archie looked over the boy’s shoulder at his mother.

  Cathy stared back at him with an expression on her face that set his heart, which had only just returned to a steady beat, racing again.

  He wanted to dash to her, take her in his arms and tell her he loved her and that she filled his mind and heart and would do for ever. Then he wanted to kiss every inch of that beautiful face and when he’d finished, do it again. Of course, he couldn’t, not yet.

  Peter wriggled out of his arms and trotted off towards his mother.

  Archie followed, crossing the space between them in half a dozen strides, reaching her as she settled her son on her hip.

  Smiling, she tilted her face up to him and it was all he could do to stop himself from taking her in his arms and pressing his lips on to hers.

  He placed a hand on her arm.

  ‘Cathy,’ he said, his gaze running over every inch of her lovely face.

  ‘Archie,’ she replied breathlessly.

  Of its own volition, his free hand moved forward to encircle her but just as the tips of his fingers brushed the fabric of her coat, he caught the older woman, who he guessed was Cathy’s mother, looking at him.

  Dragging his gaze from Cathy, he shifted his attention to the woman beside her.

  ‘Your pardon, Mrs Brogan, I should have introduced myself,’ Archie said. ‘I’m Sergeant McIntosh and I’m your daughter’s lodger.’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ the older woman replied. ‘But what are you doing here? I thought you were at your exhibition.’

  ‘I was walking home . . .’ He told her how he’d rushed to Bethnal Green after he’d found out. ‘I was afraid for Mrs Wheeler and Peter, so I came straight here.’

  ‘I’m very glad you did,’ said Cathy, gazing up at him.

  Archie lost himself in her eyes for a moment or two, then a lorry with ‘Brogan & Son’ painted on the side screeched to a halt alongside them. The cab door burst open and Cathy’s father, dressed in his auxiliary fireman’s uniform, jumped down.

  His eyes darted over Archie and Cathy and then fixed on his wife and children.

  ‘Ida!’

  Archie and Cathy stepped aside as Jeremiah caught his wife and sons in a bear hug.

  ‘Holy mother of God,’ he said, kissing them each in turn. ‘When I got back from Canning Town and heard what happened, I . . . I . . .’ He looked up, his eyes bright with unshed tears.

  Cathy’s mother started to cry and then Billy and Michael joined in. Jeremiah hugged them close. Archie understood the depth of the older man’s emotions as they perfectly matched his own.

  ‘Let’s get you all home,’ said Jeremiah, his arms still firmly around his wife’s shoulders. ‘It’ll be a bit of a squeeze, Cathy, but if—’

  ‘I’ll be happy to take Mrs Wheeler and her son home, Mr Brogan,’ Archie said, looking Jeremiah square in the eye.

  ‘Well, that’s mighty kind of—’

  ‘Sergeant McIntosh can see us home, Dad,’ Cathy cut in, shifting Peter on her hip and moving closer to Archie. ‘And then you can take Mum and the boys straight back.’

  ‘I’ll make sure your daughter and Peter get home safely, Mr Brogan,’ Archie continued.

  ‘He’s going there anyway, Dad,’ added Cathy.

  Jeremiah looked from Archie to Cathy and then back again.

  ‘All right, Cathy,’ said her father. ‘As long as you think you’re up to it, but I’ll be coming by first thing.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Cathy gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Jeremiah gave Archie another considered look, then he gathered Ida and the children together and helped them into the lorry.

  The engine shuddered into life and then, with a crunch on the gears, the vehicle sped away.

  As her father’s van disappeared around the corner, Cathy turned and put her hand on Archie’s arm. ‘Let’s go home.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  THE KETTLE’S WHISTLE started to rattle, so, rising from the kitchen chair, Archie went to the stove and turned it off. Splashing a little hot water into the brown earthenware teapot, he swilled it around then emptied it down the sink. Taking the tea caddy from the shelf above, he’d just spooned in a couple of measures when the floorboards overhead creaked.

  Archie looked up briefly and, thinking of the woman above, he smiled.

  As he took the milk out of the refrigerator, the kitchen door opened and Cathy came in.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said.

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ he replied. ‘Did Peter go down all right?’

  ‘Yes. Let me do that.’ She took the bottle of milk from him. ‘It was lucky that taxi came along when it did,’ she said, putting milk into the two cups he’d placed ready, ‘or you’d have had to carry him all the way home.’

  ‘Aye, it was,’ said Archie. ‘But I wouldnae have minded.’

  Giving him a too-bright smile, Cathy stirred the pot. ‘I thought I’d try to get some beef out of Ray at the butcher . . .’

  Archie stepped back and listened as she chattered on about tomorrow’s dinner and getting the washing out early. He understood why, so he waited.

  ‘And I meant to thank you for saving the day by finding Mr Bruno.’ Giving a light laugh, Cathy picked up the teapot. ‘Where on earth was he?’

  ‘Among the pile of personal effects beside the shelter’s entrance,’ Archie replied softly.

  Cathy stopped moving for a moment then tea splashed out of the spout as she started to shake.

  In two strides he was with her.

  ‘It’s all right, Cathy,’ he said, taking the pot from her hand and placing it on the dresser.

  She stood motionless for a moment then turned and looked up at him.

  ‘So many people,’ she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.

  He placed his hand on her arm. ‘I know.’

  ‘So many people all . . . all . . . just pressing in.’ A large tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I couldn’t stop them. And there was Peter. He was going to die if I didn’t get him free, and Mum, too. But I was trapped and couldn’t breathe and . . . and . . .’ Her eyes, wide with horror, locked with his. ‘Oh, Archie . . .’

  Gathering her into his embrace, Archie held her tightly as she sobbed out the nightmare she’d just lived through.

  After a while she fell silent and reluctantly Archie released her.

  ‘Sorry for blubbering all over your uniform,’ she said, lightly brushing the damp patch on his chest and setting his senses on fire.

  He cleared his throat. ‘It’s all right.’

  She raised her head.

  ‘When I walked out of the shelter and you were there, Archie, I . . .’

  Cathy’s gaze was warm and inviting as she looked at him.

  Archie’s head told him she was in shock and
to take it slow, but as love and desire swelled his chest, his body wasn’t listening.

  Reaching out, his arm encircled her waist and he drew her to him again, savouring the feel of her soft body as it moulded itself into his.

  Her eyes opened wider and her lips parted slightly.

  Lowering his head, Archie covered her mouth with his own. She hesitated for a moment then her lips yielded to his and her hands slid around him and up his back. Widening his stance, Archie’s arms tightened around her as his kiss deepened.

  With raw need pulsing through him, Archie anchored her to him with one hand while the other smoothed over her hip and upwards. However, as his hand brushed over the pleasing fullness of her breast, the honourable part of his brain reasserted itself.

  Releasing her, Archie stepped back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, mastering his raging passion.

  ‘It’s all right, Archie,’ said Cathy breathlessly, looking at him with half-closed eyes.

  ‘It’s not,’ he said, pulling down the front of his battle jacket. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock. And I shouldn’t have taken advant—’

  ‘I said it was all right.’

  Her hands went to the front of her blouse and, looking him square in the eyes, she started unfastening her buttons.

  ‘What are you doing, Cathy?’ he asked, as she freed the last one and slipped the garment off her shoulders.

  A wide-mouthed smile spread across her face. ‘Just taking my sister’s advice.’

  Raising his head from her shoulder, Archie kissed her gently then rolled with a satisfied sigh on to his back.

  Blinking, Cathy stared wondrously up at the ceiling. So that’s . . .!

  She lay there contemplating for a moment more the unknown mysteries she’d just discovered, then, without bothering to pull the rumpled sheet over her, she lifted herself on to her left elbow.

  Archie, the hint of a smile playing across his lips, had his eyes closed and a tranquil expression on his face.

  He, like her, was naked. Truthfully, other than in the bath, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been completely bare. But she was now, and with Archie’s warm skin against her, she had no desire to change her nude state.