Hope on the Waterways

by Milly Adams

  A woman cackled, ‘Well, ’e’s alive, that’s a pretty good present, if yer ask me.’

  Sylvia, who still stood with Steve, looked at Dog, and back to the firemen, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, Steve, I agree with the girls; if we could share her … But we can’t, so she stays with us.’ The other two girls were fussing over Dog as Sylvia felt the sweat run down her face, just as it was running down Steve’s face too. She watched as it ran over freckles and into his mouth, until he swung round, asking, ‘You all right?’

  Sylvia swallowed, and nodded, wanting to stay for just a minute longer. It was because she was tired, that was all. Of course it was.

  She heard herself say, ‘How strange, when we’ve been shivering in the cold, here we are, hot and bothered.’

  When Steve laughed she was embarrassed. She stooped to help Polly brush the filthy dust from Dog’s coat, picking out bits of brick. She said, ‘Polly, you and Verity must be so proud, because Dog is yours, really. After all, you saved Jimmy Porter from drowning, which is why the Porters passed “our expert” to us.’ Why was she chattering on?

  Polly tugged Sylvia’s hair. ‘Dog’s adopted you now, Sylvia, and she’s as much yours as ours. But we need to get back to the boats, and what’s more, find our hats. Not sure how far the blast threw them.’

  Sylvia shook her head, only now realising that they no longer had them. ‘We’ve got to phone Bob first.’

  The fireman, Steve, was turning, and tucking his nozzle under one arm again as he held out a flask. ‘Here, pour this in his mouth.’ His hand was streaked with black from the fire, and water still leaked from the hosepipe’s nozzle.

  Sylvia took the flask. ‘She’s a her, and thanks.’

  He laughed. ‘Apologies to all four girls. What do you think, will you think again and leave her with us?’

  Sylvia shrugged, pouring water into Dog’s open mouth, then stroked her before handing back the flask. Polly and Verity shrugged too, Verity saying, ‘We need to think about it. We’ve got to find a phone box, so might come back this way and let you know. If you don’t see us, you’ll know the answer. Thing is, you see, we need Dog when we go along the canal. She’s part of us.’

  Polly said against the ongoing bedlam, ‘I suppose, if we were good people, we would leave her, but I don’t think we could bear it. We all love her, you see, and she loves us.’

  The fireman tipped back his metal helmet, revealing red hair damp with water or sweat. ‘Ask for me if you come back, Steve’s the name, and I hope you do, not just because you’d be giving us an answer.’ He was directing his words at Sylvia, and for a moment he looked familiar. It was his hair, of course. It was like looking at a mirror image. He said, ‘Yes, I really hope you do.’

  Sylvia blushed, glad she was covered in the same sooty sheen as everyone else around them.

  Polly, grinning at her, squeezed her arm. ‘Come on, we have Bob to tackle. By the way, Steve, her name’s Sylvia.’ She kept a hold of Dog’s collar as they headed for the tape, ducked down beneath it, and wove between the people. A woman stopped her. ‘Thank yer dog for finding me Uncle Smeeth. If his chop weren’t burned to a cinder, I’d make sure he let the dog share it.’

  As the girls continued, they heard the clatter of boots, and turning saw Steve chasing them. ‘Wait up, there’s a phone box still working if you go left, not right.’

  A man in the crowd called, ‘Best to go right, young ’uns. You ’ear that, go right, the Coppernob is getting his hands muddled.’

  Steve laughed. ‘We passed it on our way here, and it is left, down past the bakery. Did you hear that, Sylvia? You just have to come back the same way to pass us.’

  The bloke insisted, ‘There are two, one to the left, and one to the right, but the right hand one is nearest.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Verity. ‘If the right hand one is nearer, that’s no contest.’ As they threaded through those who were gathering to watch the proceedings, they heard applause starting. Someone called, ‘Not for you gals, but for yer dog.’

  Chapter 3

  Decision time: left or right?

  The girls hurried along the blasted streets, having turned left as Steve suggested, and not right as the man in the crowd had advised, but only because they had followed Dog who was straining on the end of a piece of rope they’d found.

  Polly grinned. ‘She’s really pleased with herself, and who wouldn’t be, helping to save lives.’

  The three girls watched Dog leaping about the pavements, almost smiling. Verity crunched over the debris, which reminded her of heading towards Poplar with the other two girls a few months ago at the height of the V1s.

  She felt Sylvia gripping her arm, as they slowed to get their breath. ‘I just had a flash of our walk to meet your biological grandfather, Verity, it’s the same sort of debris. Any regrets that you haven’t tried to see him again?’

  Verity shook her head, coughing, hating the moist, cordite-impregnated smoke. She pictured the seedy man, and his greed. She said, ‘I was damnably glad to leave the memory of that family behind. If I’m honest, I’m relieved that my mum, or mother, or whatever I should call her, died young of pneumonia. I suppose that’s unforgivable in your Catholic eyes, but it has simplified things. I just wouldn’t have wanted to go on seeing him, but that might have made me feel guilty.’

  She squeezed Sylvia’s arm, felt the answering pressure and continued. ‘I love my family at Howard Hall. Perhaps Father’s affair had to come out, so Mother and I could understand one another better, because she is my mother, or had become my mother, really. Good heavens, she’s had to put up with me for all these years … and with such grace.’

  They were passing an untouched pub with an ancient yellowing menu showing through the windows and caught up with Polly. ‘We must hurry, no more slacking,’ Polly urged and they started to run again to Dog’s barks of pleasure.

  Verity was peering ahead, looking for the telephone box. Sylvia, who was doing the same, panted, ‘Where is the wretched thing? I want to get away from here. Why didn’t Bet tell Bob on arrival?’

  Polly said, ‘Because we’re supposed to tell them what’s what at the depot if anything like that happens.’

  Verity grinned. ‘Never mind all that. Much more important is our young fireman Steve, with eyes only for our own particular redhead. It’s so apt, two little coppernobs together. I do think we should return that way, just to keep the flame flickering.’

  Polly muttered, ‘Very droll, Ver. He’s the one that puts out the flames, remember?’

  The girls stopped by the front door of a house where a woman was scrubbing the step, despite the smoke and devastation all around. Verity could have wept suddenly at the sheer valour of it but said instead, ‘Excuse me.’

  The woman, her hair tied up in a turbaned headscarf, looked up. ‘You all right, lovie?’

  Verity smiled, ‘Now I’ve seen you, yes. But we’re looking for a telephone box that’s around here, apparently.’

  The woman dug her scrubbing brush back into the water and sat back on her heels. ‘Yes, just carry on the way you’re going and you’ll come to it, outside Solly’s second-’and furniture shop. But don’t hang about, you never know what that ’itler is going to send next.’

  The girls smiled and hurried on, passing a young woman cleaning her windows. Dog walked more calmly now. Polly said, ‘Sylvia, our Sylvia, what do you think of Steve, then? We saw you blushing beneath your charming sooty sheen, but I doubt he could. Come on, let’s decide whether to go back his way and say goodbye, and tell him where you currently reside, fair maiden. There’s a war on, remember, you can’t hang about waiting for a printed invitation if you like someone.’

  Sylvia groaned. ‘Do shut up. Let’s just find the wretched phone box and get Bet sorted. We need to decide about Dog too.’

  Sylvia led the way, knowing she couldn’t bear to give Dog to anyone, even if it was the noble thing to do, and even if Dog enjoyed the work. No, she damn well couldn’t. She fel
t like stamping her foot but then they turned a corner, and there was the telephone box by a row of terraced shops. The terraced shops were all boarded up, except for a ‘Furniture Emporium’, and a newsagent on the left hand corner of the square and a pub across the road, which was shut. Polly was pointing. ‘Come on, it’s almost midday and at this rate Bet will be back at the depot before Bob has been told, then we’ll get it in the neck from both of them.’

  As they neared it, they saw that the blast had caught the phone box – or was it some hooligan? The glass was shattered, and the telephone receiver yanked from its moorings.

  ‘Blast,’ Polly sighed, looking from it to her watch.

  Sylvia covered Dog’s ears. ‘Don’t listen, Dog, you’ve done your blast activity for the day, and for ever, as far as I’m concerned.’

  Verity squatted by Dog, holding her face, and asking, ‘What should we do, Dog? We know you’re needed, but I for one couldn’t bear to lose you.’ She stood. ‘I’ve voted, so has Sylvia. What say you, Polly?’

  Polly kicked at half a brick, which immediately splintered into fragments. Sylvia shook her head. ‘It’s not your phenomenal strength, Polly, it was cracked all over.’

  Polly looked from one to the other, and said,‘It’s a no from me too, of course.’

  Then she added, ‘But perhaps we should go back that way to avoid disappointing—’

  Sylvia interrupted, howling, ‘You really are the end, Polly Holmes I’ve—’

  She was interrupted by an elderly man coming to the door of the shop and nodding towards the telephone box. ‘What you girls up to? Yer shouldn’t be ’anging about with these damned Vengeance rockets being a nuisance. Get on with yer, get on home, or wherever you’re headed.’

  Verity stood up. ‘Well, we were headed to the telephone box but we’ll have to find another. Sylvia’s boyfriend said left and we should have tried right. Naughty Steve.’

  Sylvia flicked a foot Verity’s way, missing deliberately. The man said, ‘Come in and use mine, then get yourselves on out of ’ere.’

  Sylvia dug into her pocket and found a few pence. ‘We can pay you, sir.’

  ‘Never mind that, just don’t yer bring that dog in ’ere, cos she’ll be peeing on me furniture and then ’ow can I shift it?’ The old man led the way into the shop, while Polly tied Dog to the lamp post. A knotted rope already hung there, but there were no children left to use it as a swing. Most had been evacuated. ‘Sit and be good, like you always are, lovely Dog,’ Polly crooned.

  Inside the shop they looked around at the chairs and tables piled on top of one another. Had this old boy sold anything at all over the years? Sylvia wondered. He was standing by an old oak counter, tapping it, his fingerless gloves frayed. “Ere you are, give whoever you need to telephone a bell, and put yer money away. ’Tis a long time since anyone’s called me sir. Me name’s Solly Fisher, just yer remember that, cos yer might need to find yer way back to buy up me stock when one of you ’as a ring on yer finger and a bloke in yer heart.’

  While he shuffled behind the counter, chuckling, and lowered himself into an ancient carver chair, Sylvia nodded at the phone. ‘You know the number, Polly.’

  ‘Coward,’ Polly muttered, snatching up the receiver. She asked the telephonist to put her through, then, her hand over the mouthpiece, said, ‘Bob doesn’t bite.’

  ‘That’s all you know,’ Sylvia and Verity muttered in unison.

  Solly Fisher said, ‘You look as though you’ve been down where the rocket hit.’

  ‘Do we, Mr Fisher?’ Verity asked. ‘Please don’t say I look like our Sylvia, all smoked like a kipper, and greasy.’

  Solly laughed, pointing to the mirror hanging on the back wall of the shop. Polly put down the receiver. ‘It’s engaged.’

  ‘Ah well,’ the old boy said. ‘Try again in a moment. I ain’t rushed orf me feet, am I? But when you’ve done, I needs to phone me boy to tell him the rocket didn’t get me, in case ‘e’s heard about it.’

  Sylvia dragged Verity over to the mirror. Two greasy blackish faces looked back at them. ‘My word, I thought I looked bad, darling,’ Verity drawled, ‘but not quite as bad as you.’

  Sylvia giggled. Verity nudged her. ‘Well, if Steve’s seen the beauty behind the mask, he’s a good man to cultivate.’

  Polly muttered, ‘He’s not a plant, idiot.’ She picked up the receiver again and asked for the number. As the telephonist tried to connect her, she looked at Sylvia. ‘Or perhaps he is. He’s a coppernob, so what could he be, a dahlia?’

  Sylvia swallowed her giggles long enough to say, ‘Shut up.’

  Verity shook her head. ‘No, a vegetable. Now, let me—’

  Sylvia said, ‘That’s enough, for heaven’s—’ She stopped as the breath was sucked from her, the earth tilted and her ears popped. Polly dropped the receiver as Verity reached out to clutch Sylvia’s arm. Then there was nothing.

  As Steve Bates directed the jet of water at the diminishing fire inside the warehouse, his frozen hands were locked in position around the nozzle. Once, in the Blitz, he had held this position all night, and never once run out of water because they were pumping it from the Thames; neither had he been able to do a pee, there just wasn’t a chance. It was the same night after night, but so what? It had to be done. He smiled but his face felt almost too stiff to do so.

  He thought of the cat, followed by that dog appearing from nowhere. Just as well they had, too, because the dog had sniffed around when the cat disappeared and started scrabbling at a demolished building as though it had found its life’s work. Steve smiled again. ‘That redhead would insist on “her”,’ he said aloud. ‘Her’, he repeated. Well, his voice was working anyway, sore though his throat was from the smoke. First the cat, then the dog, then the girls, just like that. Then her in particular. Yes, her, Sylvia, and he’d almost been crass, but then something stopped him, mid sentence because she was different, she was … He shook his head. Don’t be bloody daft, man. He rolled her name round his tongue. ‘Syl–

  Suddenly the world shuddered, sucked, then blew, the blast almost knocking him off balance. The flames in the warehouse died and burst into life again, then the roar reached them.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ he yelled, as the hose leapt from his hands and spun, writhing like a demented snake. Gushing water soaked the ground, not to mention Pete, who was clinging to the pump ladder. Pete yelled, ‘I don’t ruddy well believe it, we’ve got another one. So much for lightning not striking twice.’

  Steve captured the hose, lifting it by the nozzle, but Sammy, the Sub Officer was bawling at him. ‘You, Steve, on the first pump engine with Dodge and get over there.’ He was pointing to rising smoke and debris about a hundred yards away, or maybe two hundred. Who knew until you got there? ‘Take two auxiliaries with you, but you’re in charge. Get going. God, how much worse can it damn well get? I’ll get the Rescue Squad on to it pretty damn quick, and more of our blokes.’

  An Auxiliary Fire Service bloke took Steve’s place on the hose, enabling Steve to run as fast as his galoshes allowed. Dodge was on his heels. They leapt into the cab, Steve driving, with the two AFS already clinging to the outside on the foot shelf, poor buggers. The war meant that the service had to bring all the engines possible out of mothballs.

  Dodge yelled, ‘Sub reckons it’s Watney Street. Know it?’ Steve nodded, his foot hard down as they roared towards yet another billowing cloud. Thank God those girls hadn’t listened to him, and instead had taken the right hand route to the phone box. He rammed through the gears. They had, hadn’t they? Well, that’s what they said, but he hadn’t watched them go. Surely they had.

  He didn’t realise he had spoken aloud. Dodge yelled above the racing engine, ‘Had what?’

  Steve swung the wheel and they careered around the corner. Dodge shouted, his voice high, ‘Take a right, a right, damn it, then another left.’

  ‘I know, keep your bleedin’ hair on.’ Steve swung right, clipping the corner. The two AFS managed t
o hang on. An Air Raid Patrol bloke was running towards the blast, blowing his whistle. He probably didn’t know he couldn’t be heard, but at least it kept him busy.

  One Rescue Squad vehicle was shadowing the pump engine, and Steve kept an eye on them in the mirror. They were bloody close, so he hooted and from his open window waved them back. They understood and slowed, creating a stopping distance between them. Steve half skidded on debris that shifted beneath his wheels as he swung round another bend. The buildings were now showing the blast and some were still tumbling, but where was the point of impact? They found it several streets further on.

  ‘Ruddy, ruddy lightning doesn’t know the bleedin’ rules,’ Dodge ground out. ‘The boss’s sent out the messenger lasses on their motorbikes, so we’ll be getting other engines.’

  ‘Right,’ was all Steve said, as he drove slowly now, getting as close as he could to the area of flattened buildings, and then the crater, feeling a seething rage as they approached the damage. Bastard Hitler. Bastard.

  They were forced to a stop by rubble blocking the road. The AFS leapt down, taking shovels, and working like Trojans, while Steve and Dodge hurled themselves from the cab, swearing and grunting as they hauled first one lintel away and then another. Then they were off again, careering towards the smoke and cries. There was the crash of a building to their left, but it had imploded and left the road clear. ‘The Rescue Squad will deal,’ Steve yelled.

  ‘Another bloody building gone,’ cursed Dodge, dragging out a cigarette and lighting it, making Steve laugh. How could he light up when there was so much smoke already? And there, ahead, was the epicentre with its smoking crater.

  They screeched to a halt, the AFS hauled out the hoses, while Steve and Dodge ran forward assessing the situation. Dodge pinched out his cigarette and threw it to one side. ‘Just in case,’ he yelled, which was what he always said, daft bugger.