Always in my Heart (Beach View Boarding House 5)

by Ellie Dean

  Jane eventually fell asleep, her head resting on Sarah’s shoulder as the train chugged and chuffed and rattled along the rails with a gentle sway. But for Sarah, plagued by the worry of what lay ahead, it was a very long, sleepless night.

  Eventually there was a change in the rhythm of the wheels and the swaying lessened. They were slowing down. With the aid of the pale glimmer of light above her head, Sarah glanced at her watch and realised they must be nearing London, for it was almost five in the morning.

  The women around her began to stir as if they too sensed that their journey was almost over, and as they woke their children and prepared for their arrival in London, there was a tangible sense of excitement. Many of them had relatives living in London or the suburbs; some had people in Kent and Surrey; others would have to take another train and head further west. But the knowledge that they were nearing journey’s end seemed to give them added energy, and as they queued to use the lavatory and checked that everything was packed away, their voices rose in excitement.

  Sarah nudged her sister awake and stood to stretch her tired, stiff limbs. The hours of sitting about had made her feel cold again, and she pulled on the coat, beret and gloves and wrapped the lovely soft scarf around her neck. The slightly unpleasant fug of too many people packed into a tight space was giving her a woozy head, and she was looking forward to fresh air and a bit of exercise to chase away the feeling of being stifled.

  The train was going even more slowly now, the wheels clanking over the rails as the steam and smoke puffed more laboriously. Everyone was standing, reaching for cases and parcels, pulling on coats and hats, rounding up children and comforting babies.

  Sarah pulled their cases from the overhead rack and handed Jane her gas-mask box. ‘We’re almost there,’ she said, ‘so when the train stops, let the others off first. I don’t want to lose you in the crush.’

  ‘Honestly, Sarah,’ sighed Jane. ‘I’m not a child, you know.’

  Sarah smiled at her. ‘Of course you’re not,’ she said, ‘but humour me, Jane. We must stick together, otherwise I might get lost, and then where would we be?’

  Jane grinned. ‘I know we have to catch a train down to Cliffehaven, and I’m sure a porter could point me in the right direction. If we do get separated, then I’ll meet you by that train.’

  Sarah digested this piece of wisdom and wondered if Jane’s experiences over the past few months had somehow helped her to reason better now she didn’t have her parents and Amah to fuss over her and make all her decisions. There had been fewer tantrums, certainly, and she’d knuckled down well into the routine of the ship, showing a much more adult and quieter side than ever before. Perhaps the doctors had been wrong – for Jane seemed to be slowly picking up the scattered pieces of her lost years and putting them together again in a coherent and mature order.

  Sarah didn’t have time to mull over this thought, for the train had come to a halt, and there was a flurry of activity as everyone tried to cram into the aisle and get to the door. She checked they both had their cases and gas-mask boxes and that they’d left nothing behind before she took her sister’s hand and slowly joined the end of the shuffling crush. There were tearful goodbyes and promises to stay in touch, but the one thought that consumed them all was the feeling of having arrived at last.

  They stepped down onto the platform and were instantly surrounded by the confusion of rushing people and deafening noise. Train whistles blew, steam billowed, and men and women scurried around piles of kitbags and suitcases, while children wailed and voices were raised to be heard above the unintelligible announcements that blared into the great, echoing building from several loudspeakers.

  Soldiers, airmen and sailors in the uniforms of many Allied countries stood in huddles or marched purposefully past porters who pushed laden trolleys and shouted to one another. Women and children gathered in groups, greeting or saying goodbye to their loved ones as steam hissed and shrill whistles blew. Girls in uniform hurried importantly across the vast concourse, while others stood about gossiping by the refreshment room, sipping tea and smoking cigarettes as they pretended not to notice the admiring glances and wolf whistles from a group of passing Australian soldiers.

  Sarah and Jane took all this in as they approached a young woman in the black uniform and peaked hat of the railway company who pointed out where they should go next.

  ‘Thank goodness for the ladies of the WVS,’ murmured Jane as they headed for the wonderfully familiar sight of green uniforms and a makeshift canteen. ‘I never realised how big and confusing the station would be.’

  Sarah was of the same opinion, and she was grateful for the clasp of her sister’s hand as they crossed the concourse and joined their fellow travellers. They were fewer in number now, and even as they accepted a very welcome cup of tea and dry biscuit, they could see some of their friends being greeted by relieved relatives and bustled away. Those who were familiar with London had already left, and Sarah was beginning to fret that they might miss their connecting train.

  Their names were called and they pushed their way to the front of the gathering. A middle-aged woman greeted them with a rather distracted smile as she ticked them off on her clipboard and handed them their rail passes. ‘There is a bus waiting outside that door over there, which will take you to Victoria Station,’ she explained. ‘Your train is scheduled to leave at noon – although if there’s an air raid, or the lines are up, it might be a bit delayed.’ She shot them a smile. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get used to delays – there is a war on, you know.’

  This seemed to be the stock explanation for most things, and Sarah smiled back at her. ‘How long will it take to get to Cliffehaven?’

  ‘About an hour and a half – unless there’s a holdup somewhere down the line. Do you have people waiting for you at the other end?’

  ‘We’re not sure,’ Sarah admitted. ‘But we do have two addresses to go to.’

  The woman frowned. ‘That area has suffered a fair bit of air-raid damage being so close to the Channel, and some people have had to move out of their homes and find billets elsewhere. If you have any problems, then go straight to the nearest WVS homing centre. They will help find you accommodation and so on.’

  Sarah hadn’t thought about the great-aunts having to move out, but she smiled her thanks, shifted the gas-mask box and handbag straps more firmly over her shoulder and picked up her case. ‘Come on, Jane,’ she said with studied cheerfulness, ‘we can’t afford to miss that bus.’

  They walked through the milling crowd and eventually found their way out to where a double-decker bus stood by the kerb with its destination written on a large piece of card that had been propped inside the windscreen. Another WVS woman was waiting to check their travel passes, and she bossily ordered them on board as if they were schoolchildren.

  Staring through the grimy window, Sarah got the impression that London had been bleached of any colour, for wherever she looked there was nothing to gladden the heart – nothing vibrant or exotic to catch the eye. Even the people looked dowdy in their black, brown and navy blue as they picked their way over the scattered remnants of shattered buildings beneath a leaden sky, their faces wan, their eyes downcast as if they couldn’t bear to look at their surroundings.

  The few surviving trees had a pale fuzz of new growth, but even that was coated in dust. Vast silver barrage balloons swayed above the colourless rooftops and piles of rubble that had once been buildings. Stacks of grubby sandbags guarded dark, gloomy doorways where men in black bowler hats with tightly furled umbrellas and briefcases dashed in and out. Skeletons of houses lay open to the elements revealing ash-coated furniture, ragged curtains and dun-coloured walls. There were grey pigeons pecking at the cracks in the broken pavements and dusty brown sparrows darted between hurrying feet in search of food.

  Sarah blinked away her tears as a wave of homesickness overwhelmed her. How she longed for the verdant jungles of Malaya where the birds were painted every colour of the rain
bow and the flowers blossomed in gaudy, riotous brilliance, where the azure sky was matched only by the sea – and the beautiful saris of Amah and the other native women took on the vibrant hues of their tropical surroundings.

  ‘It’s all right,’ murmured Jane. ‘We’ll soon be at the seaside, and it’s bound to be nicer than this.’

  Sarah squeezed her fingers, grateful for her comfort, but the woman in the station had said Cliffehaven had been hit by air raids – were they simply leaving one grey place for another? The thought was deeply depressing, and the longing for home, for family and for Philip weighed heavy on her heart.

  The journey across a battered and fractured London was something of an eye-opener, for although Sarah and Jane had witnessed the effects of the heavy bombing raids in Singapore, they’d seen nothing like this. A shocked silence fell amongst the passengers as it slowly dawned on them that this once beautiful city had been ravaged by the years of war, and that although they had managed to escape the Japanese they now had to encounter another formidable enemy.

  Delicate church spires tentatively poked their heads above the blackened ruins of houses, tenements and shops. Whole streets had been flattened, roads had been pitted and holed from bomb-blasts, and nearly every window had been boarded up. Tarpaulins were stretched across roofs; chimneys had toppled leaving remnants behind like broken teeth. Parks had been turned into vegetable plots; deep trenches offered dubious shelter during air-raids; and where there had once been ornate gates and railings there were only scarred pillars.

  But Sarah realised that although there was no colour in London, there was a vibrant spirit which manifested itself in the defiant messages that had been plastered on walls and taped into shop windows. ‘Open despite Hitler’, said one. ‘We’re with you, Churchill’, proclaimed another – and written on the wall below a boarded-up butcher’s was ‘Called up OHMS. Back as soon as we beat Hitler.’

  Sarah returned Jane’s rather wan smile, but there was nothing either of them could say that would relieve the awful sickness for home, so they sat hand in hand, lost in their own separate thoughts until they reached Victoria Station.

  Yet another woman from the WVS was waiting for their group, and she led them into the large concourse where they were once more assailed by noise and an endless stream and eddy of hurrying people. Their travel passes were checked again and they were directed to the appropriate platforms for their destinations.

  Jane said goodbye to the small children she’d helped to teach, while Sarah exchanged addresses and promises to write with the women. And then they were alone, waiting on the platform, their cases at their feet where the chill wind blew down the platform and stirred dust and bits of rubbish into tiny whirlwinds.

  Sarah was just congratulating herself on how easy the journey had been so far when she heard the all-too-familiar shriek of the air-raid siren.

  ‘Where do we go?’ said Jane fearfully. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We follow everybody else,’ said Sarah. ‘Grab your things and don’t forget your gas-mask box.’ She saw how everyone was making a beeline for one particular place and took Jane’s hand. ‘Stay close and don’t let go of me,’ she shouted above the terrible noise of the sirens.

  They found themselves at the top of a flight of steep steps which disappeared into a dark tunnel. There was no turning back, for they were trapped in the crush of hundreds of people. Holding tightly to one another and their few possessions, they were almost carried down the steps and then deeper and deeper under the ground.

  Sarah could hear the rumble and hiss of a train and felt the vibrations under her feet as it raced through the darkness nearby. She was terrified and knew Jane must be too, but they had no choice but to be swept along with the crowd.

  As they reached the bottom of yet another long flight of stairs, the crowd thinned and the crush lessened as people began to disperse through the numerous tunnels that seemed to stretch in every direction. Disorientated and frightened, the sisters clung together. What were they meant to do? Where were they supposed to go now?

  A portly man wearing a dark uniform and a determined expression came up to them. ‘C’mon, girls, you can’t stand about ’ere gettin’ in the bleedin’ way,’ he shouted above the noise, his Cockney accent making it almost impossible for them to understand him. ‘Shift yerselves and find a place on the bleedin’ platform.’

  ‘Where is the platform?’ asked Jane nervously.

  ‘Strike a light, you ain’t gotta bleedin’ clue, ’ave yer, darlin’?’ he said as he scratched his balding head and adjusted his warden’s cap. He took Jane’s arm rather roughly and dragged her towards one of the tunnels. ‘Over ’ere. Find a space and stay put until the bleedin’ all-clear sounds.’

  Jane glared at him as she wrenched her arm from his grip. ‘I do not appreciate being manhandled,’ she said imperiously.

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, love, you’ll get more’n man’andling if Gerry drops ’is bombs on yer head.’ He wandered off, still chuckling.

  ‘What a horrid man,’ muttered Jane as she brushed his dirty handprint from her coat sleeve. ‘No porter in Malaya would dare touch me like that.’

  ‘This isn’t Malaya, and he’s not a porter.’ The cultured tones came from an elegantly dressed woman who was sitting on her suitcase by the tunnel entrance. She smiled up at them, her ageing face still bearing a faded reminder of her youthful beauty. ‘Welcome to the London Underground,’ she continued. ‘If I squeeze up a bit, there’s plenty of room to sit here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sarah. She and Jane introduced themselves and perched on their cases, aware of the filthy floor which would damage their lovely new coats.

  ‘Lucinda Sutton-Smythe,’ said their companion. ‘This might not be the most salubrious of surroundings, but it is considered one of the safest.’ She smiled and patted Jane’s hand. ‘The ARP warden was only doing his job, dear. He meant no harm.’

  She fitted a cigarette into an ivory holder, lit it and blew a stream of smoke towards the tunnel roof. ‘My husband and I were in India for many years,’ she continued, ‘so I do understand why you objected to his mauling, but in times like these one has to forgive a certain lack of finesse.’

  ‘He startled me, that’s all,’ said Jane as she gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the great crush of people sprawled from one end of the platform to the other.

  Sarah could see chairs and beds set up at the far end, as though people were permanently camping down here, and everyone looked quite happy and settled as the siren continued to shriek above ground. She didn’t like being buried so deeply – hated the sooty smell that was interlaced with the stink of sweat and much worse.

  ‘How long will we have to stay down here?’ she asked fearfully.

  ‘For as long as it takes the Luftwaffe to shed their bombs on poor old London,’ said Lucinda. She regarded them with interest. ‘You both seem far too tanned to have lived through an English winter,’ she said dryly. ‘I’m guessing you’ve just arrived on one of the convoys from the Far East. Why don’t you tell me what it was like? It might take your mind off the raid.’

  As Jane began to talk about their home in Malaya and their dash to Singapore, Sarah was astonished by how calm Lucinda and everyone else in the tunnel was, for she could now hear the rumbling of enemy planes overhead, and felt the vibrations of the exploding bombs tremble through the walls of the tunnel. Dust sifted down from the arched ceiling, and loosened tiles fell off the walls, but no one seemed to notice and simply carried on reading their newspapers or chatting as if this was just another ordinary day.

  Realising how tense she was, Sarah eased her neck and loosened her grip on her handbag and gas-mask box. There was a certain sense of fatalism about sitting down here while the enemy dropped bombs – and she could hear it in the defiant song that had been started further down the track, and the happy laughter of several children who were playing hopscotch on the platform. If they were going to die, then the
y’d go out singing. It seemed one had to be stoic in England, to deal with the inconveniences and fears that haunted each day, and put on a brave face. But it was going to be an awfully hard lesson to learn.

  The all-clear sounded over an hour later and they slowly climbed back up the endless stairs to the station. The smell of burning was strong and there was a heavy layer of smoke blotting out the weak sun as fire engines and ambulances roared down the road, their bells ringing frantically to clear the way.

  They said goodbye to Lucinda, who was on her way to Bournemouth to live with her sister, and headed back to their platform. Their train was delayed by at least another hour until repairs could be done to the lines.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Jane as they wandered back onto the concourse and she eyed the refreshment room longingly. ‘Do you think we could have some breakfast?’

  Sarah’s stomach reminded her that they’d had nothing but biscuits since their last lunch on board the Monarch. She thought about the sandwiches which were still in her pocket, decided she couldn’t face them no matter how hungry she was, and quickly dropped them into a nearby rubbish bin. Luckily, the grease hadn’t ruined her coat.

  ‘Pops managed to change some of our Malay dollars into British pounds, so as long as it isn’t too expensive, we can find something to eat.’ They smiled at each other, and feeling rather more cheerful, headed across the concourse in search of the traditional English breakfast of sausage, bacon and eggs that they’d heard so much about.

  The refreshment room was painted an unappetising brown and cream; the floor had been covered in some sort of shiny, rubbery material that had worn right through in places; and the wooden tables and chairs bore the scars of years of wear. The overall smell was of old pipe and cigarette smoke laced with cheap perfume, stewed tea and burnt toast.

  The woman who stood behind the high wooden counter had her hair covered with a knotted scarf, and her broad frame and large bosom were wrapped in some sort of flowery overall. She seemed to be deep in conversation with the lady at the end of the counter, and didn’t look at all pleased to have her gossip interrupted.