by Milly Adams
Perhaps Geordie’d suddenly said it because they were waiting for their own armoured division to get to them and help clear the village of Nazis who were hunkered down? Or perhaps it would be the Nazis’ Tiger tanks that’d reach them first. Then they’d be gone in a puff of smoke – was that what had made Geordie blurt it out? To clear the decks, perhaps? Or just to hope they understood? Hope. Well, they all lived on that out here.
Saul sighed, but that made his breath billow even more. He stared at the snow frozen to the branches of the trees and in ruts on the ground. Thing was, he didn’t know what his thoughts were doing, chasing one another like ferrets on a hot day. All the time he’d been ruminating he’d kept an eye on the group around the lieutenant, and suddenly the snow started falling from the branches, and on to their shoulders. The ground trembled beneath his feet: German Tigers, or their own armoured division? He looked around, seeing all the other men appearing at the rim of their trenches, doing the same.
Tom’s lips had thinned. They’d already suffered in the German Tigers’ hands as they had headed east chasing after the Germans. Huge great brutes the tanks were, with exhausts belting out smoke, and guns which tore their company apart. The sounds and screams were such as he’d never want to hear again. Lieutenant Turner was killed, and Lieutenant Morris had been drafted in, and was a survivor of another cut-about company which had amalgamated with theirs.
Beneath the pines he saw the radio operater yanking off his headset, speaking urgently to the lieutenant. Morris stubbed out his cigarette, and Sergeant Williams came down the line at the double, giving orders to be at the ready because the ruddy armoured column was coming up at ruddy last, so they’d have to be up and out, ready to follow them into the village. ‘Bit like clearing a hornets’ nest,’ the sergeant said as he hurried on.
‘It’s nothing like a bloody hornets’ nest,’ ground out Geordie. ‘Hornets are from nature, this lot in the village are from ’ell, man, and they’ve lost so why don’t they just wave their bleeding handkerchiefs?’
‘Save your breath, Hughes,’ the sergeant threw back over his shoulder. ‘You’re going to need it.’ They hopped out of the trench, running at the double to form up under the pines. As their armoured column rumbled into view, they watched them use the high hedges for cover from the Nazis in the village as they crossed the fields, their tracks destroying overwintering wheat. Saul picked up the sound of an aircraft engine. He searched the grey tumbling clouds, and there it was, streaking out, and it wasn’t one of theirs, but was reconnoitring like a fox on the prowl, damn it to hell.
He heard the lieutenant say, ‘At ten hundred hours we move out in the wake of the column, Sergeant Williams, if you will.’
Saul heard the shake in the lad’s voice, for he was just a lad; and no wonder the bugger smoked. The radio was being packed away and hoisted in its haversack on the back of the radio wallah, who snatched up his rifle and stayed at the ready.
Tom checked his watch. ‘Five minutes, lads. Remember we promised ourselves that drink in Verity’s club in Jermyn Street when this whole bloody lot is over, Saul. You and Sylvia can sing for our supper like last time. You come too, Geordie, if you haven’t buggered off back to the pits.’
The three men slapped hands. They did this every time. So far it had worked. Saul wondered if he should ask Sylvia’s God for safe passage, but it wasn’t his God. His were the trees, the sky, the endlessness of nature, and the cut. Above all, the tranquillity of the cut, and the work. He pulled at his gloves, feeling his callouses beneath the wool. They were his scars, just like the scars his Polly had now, and Verity, and even Sylvia. Perhaps that churchy lass would have a bloke to love by now, but who knew? Who knew anything?
All the time the ferrets were racing in his head he was listening to the engines, to the aircraft, but then Sergeant Williams gave the signal, and they fell in some hundred yards behind the column which had almost reached the edge of the village, heading along the side of a turnip field. It was as well the 2nd Tank Division had arrived, because as the company approached the village they saw the bloody Tigers chuntering out of the side streets, their turrets swinging with their damn great guns. Tom groaned. ‘The bastards slunk in under cover of the noise of ours, so here we go again.’
The company drew in close behind the armoured column as they neared the outskirts of the village. The German guns swung too far to the east, then steadied, and readjusted, as the 2nds engaged the Tigers, blasting, taking out a Tiger. But then the Tigers returned fire, overshooting.
‘Take cover, Severns,’ roared Lieutenant Morris. The men hurled themselves down into icy ground, well churned up by their tanks’ tracks. Face down, Saul clung to the thought of Polly, safe. Be safe, be pat-pattering along the pounds heading to Tyseley. Watch the kingfisher, even though it be cold, cos it be there if you watch close, my Polly. Tell Sylvia to draw it again for Joe, do that, eh? Keep the lad hidden from Leon, if he still be alive.
Next to him he heard Tom, as the ground shuddered, the guns blasted, the tanks blazed, and men screamed as they bailed out of the turrets. ‘Verity, you damn well stay safe, you hear. You get in and out of Limehouse, and no messing. Do you hear?’ He was shouting against the noise. Geordie whistled silently, and then just swore, in a sort of chant when it got noisy. It’s what he did every time, it was what he’d done when the pit props gave way and the seam ceiling crashed down, missing him by a bloody inch, he’d said.
Lieutenant Morris roared an order. With Sergeant Williams he waved their platoons to either side. Saul, Geordie, Tony and Tom followed their sergeant as they set out to flank the village to the east. In their platoon were Clive and Harry, carrying anti-tank weapons. Saul, Tom, Tony and Geordie were panting as they crouched over, running as though there was a roaring bull behind them. Others were running too. Tom yelled, ‘Clive’d better aim bloody straight with his bloody toy, or our tanks are going to get slaughtered.’
Clive, lugging one of the anti-tank weapons, yelled to his mate Harry as they headed for the corner of a house, ‘The buggers say to aim straight.’
‘Tell ’em to mind their own bloody business and get their own rifles in order, or have they been allowed to play with a sub-machine gun?’
‘Shut the noise,’ yelled the sergeant in spite of the bedlam as the big boys hurled shells at one another. Suddenly from windows, rifles and sub-machine guns were firing, taking down the Germans. ‘Resistance,’ yelled Geordie.
But then they saw the gun of a Tiger take aim at one of the houses. It fired. The building exploded. The firing stopped. ‘Bastards,’ shouted Geordie as they followed the sergeant, weaving, and crouching into the shadows of a high village building. Saul thought it looked like a convent, or how he imagined they looked with slits for windows and a cross on the top. Where were the nuns? There was an explosion, and the building was torn apart too. Saul felt the air being sucked from his body, his ears were about to explode and then he was thrown through the air, the rifle being shaken from his hands. It skidded along the cobbles.
The sarge was scrabbling to his feet, yanking at Tom, then Saul, then the next bloke, and the next. Geordie’s nose was bleeding. No one was dead, everyone was dazed. The sarge yelled, ‘No bloody time for fannying about like a load of daffy prima donnas, let’s move.’
Shredded building stone was still whirling. ‘Clive, get that bloody anti-tank bastard on your bleedin’ shoulder just in case a damned Tiger sticks its ’ead round the corner before we get to the next junction. Come on, come on, you dozy lot.’
‘I’ll bloody swing for the sarge and his shoutin’,’ swore Geordie, as he wiped his nose, but the blood kept coming. ‘I’ve broken the bastard thing, and it were my pride and bloody joy.’
Saul was laughing as he scooped up his rifle and ran, because Geordie’s nose was like Bet’s hunting horn, so damn big it could knock into things long before Geordie arrived. The dust was falling, choking them. Another blast, another wall, more rubble, but they scrambled over it, in a
strange sort of world of their own, coughing on the dust and ignoring the grit in their eyes. God, he hoped he’d never be trapped under that lot. He couldn’t bear the thought.
They ran on. The sarge sent Harry with his bazooka to circle round to the far side to join Corporal Jones and ordered Clive to head on with Saul’s lot to the track ahead. Saul could hear Clive’s breathing as he struggled with the anti-tank weapon but as they neared the bottom of the backstreet they were all waved down by the sarge. They knelt. Clive crept forward to the far end of the last house. They heard a whistle and looked up in surprise, for they’d never heard any of the Continentals whistle. It was a boy, at an open window, stabbing down at the street below and to the left, before stepping back. Sarge and Clive crept forward, while the platoon took up positions guarding the rear and side, with Saul and Tom searching the windows.
There was a blast, a whoosh, and a Tiger was disabled, the men bailing out as the back of the tank caved in. It had been waiting to catch the main armament column as they rumbled through the village. The platoon kept their defensive positions heading along to the main thoroughfare where they regrouped. They heard Harry’s bazooka then, taking out another tank, but not completely because there was return fire. Another boy was at a window. He pointed to the houses down a backstreet, imitating rifle fire, and made a steeple shape.
The sarge saluted him, and stabbed his finger at the room, waving the boy back, then gesturing for the patrol to take five. They knelt, all senses alert. Five was not five minutes, it was five whatevers. The boy had gone, and Saul was relieved because the lad was about Joe’s age, and at least his nephew was safe with Polly’s mum and da at Howard House with Verity’s parents. And he’d stay safe if his da, Leon, never found him. Joe’s ma would be safe being hidden by Granfer at Buckby because that Leon was a vicious bastard, and though the police were keeping an eye out, they hadn’t caught him yet.
The bastard should be out here, doing his best to win the war, but his type only gained from the suffering of others. He was probably flogging stuff on the black market again, now he’d escaped from custody after being charged with just that. Saul kicked at a broken tile, wiped his mouth, and drank from his flask, hearing the crunching of more broken tiles, and then Tom was beside him, kneeling in the smattering of snow. ‘You doing all right, mate?’
‘I is always all right, Tom. It’s Geordie with ’is nose that’s the problem. But at least now it’s broke ’e won’t give us away by sticking it out across the road long before we get there.’
Geordie, on the other side of him, muttered, ‘Smug bugger, that’s what you are, man.’
‘But alive,’ said Clive, wiping the sweat off his forehead. How could he sweat, Saul wondered, on a cold day like this? Clive saw him looking. ‘It ’appens after I fire the bugger. Don’t know why. Scared I’ll miss, or scared I’ll hit? Who the hell knows but I want to get ’ome to me missus, and that’s that. No one asked them here, and now they won’t go. Got t’do summat, or so I think.’
The sergeant said, seeing a signal from Lieutenant Morris who was further down the street, ‘Time’s up. Got to get these hornets out.’ They could hear the rifle fire still going on, and the stutter of a sub-machine gun. The sarge said, ‘Ready, are yer? Got to smoke ’em out, can’t have ’em going on and on like they’re doing. Got to get ’em over the Rhine, then maybe they’ll stop sending them rockets over to us. I’ve ’ad just about enough, I ’ave.’
They all scrambled to their feet, Tom and Saul looking at one another, but there was no need for words. Their girls had to be safe, otherwise what was it all about?
The sergeant was edging to the corner of the building. He peered round, his fisted hand up. ‘All clear,’ he yelled against the growing gunfire. He scythed the air with his hand, ‘On three,’ he said. They listened, on three they tore across the cobbles, watching, watching every nook and cranny either side, then together Tom, Saul, Geordie, Tony and Clive forged ahead, to join up with Lieutenant Morris and his team, and Saul thought of the girls’ words. ‘All for one, and one for all.’
Chapter 9
Three days later, the girls prepare to head to Howard House, Dorset
Verity said, over the usual hospital clatter, and gossip, and groans, ‘It’s so strange to be dressed, darlings.’ The bruises on her face had come out and were livid, her scratches more defined, and her arm was still in a sling. ‘I know it’s just cracked, not broken, or so they say, but it feels as though a ghastly clodhopper of a giant has given it a great big whack, and then another one for good measure. Quite frankly, a girl could do with a gin. Sister Askwell was quite right, we weren’t ready when we told the mothers we would be. Still, a day or so late is better than no more days at all.’
Sylvia and Polly laughed as Verity gripped the bedside table, and Sylvia felt her own legs wavering. Polly muttered, ‘I don’t know about needing a gin, my legs already feel as though they’ve had one too many.’ She and Sylvia gripped one another’s hands as the ward swayed.
Nurse Meadowes, who was on her first day shift after a series of nights, bustled up. ‘Hold on to the bedstead, girls. You should have taken your time, but what with your trainer insisting you chop-chop before I sent her packing, and Mr Fisher’s son Jacob sorting out a taxi which is hooting outside the hospital, it’s best you soldier on, and bugger off.’
All three girls gasped. Verity said to her, as she made her way to the other girls, ‘Oh my word, and you seemed such a sweet little thing. Is it we who have driven you to this?’
Nurse Meadowes’s laugh was long and loud. ‘You, and especially Solly, who I insisted must wait in the corridor. You know, of course, that he is banned from the ward after causing such chaos yesterday. A sing-song indeed, and a rather rude one at that, just as doctors’ rounds were starting. Sister Askwell was not amused.’
Sylvia looked back at her bed. She had left it unmade, and not even turned it back tidily. As though reading her mind, Polly murmured, ‘They’ll strip it, don’t fret. Come on, girls.’
They followed Nurse Meadowes through the ward, shoulders back though they hurt, wearing the clothes from Marigold and Horizon that Bet had brought for them first thing that morning. They were in one of three carpet bags. She had muttered, ‘You can wash and wear at Howard House. I’ll be waiting at the main doors to escort you to the station and will look after the bags until then. The trainees have taken the boats on to Limehouse for loading, with one of the older trainees. They’ll pick me up at the depot to head on up to Tyseley.’
As they headed towards the ward’s swing doors, they waved to their friends, for that’s what the patients had become. They stopped at the nurses’ table in the middle of the ward, to thank Nurse Martin, the elderly woman who had come out of retirement for the war, and gave her the thank-you letter from all three of them, and the promissory note, courtesy of Sir Henry Clement and Jacob Fisher, who had come up with the idea of theatre tickets for the staff to show their gratitude.
Nurse Martin grinned. ‘That’s so kind, we’ll use them I’m sure, though I’m not quite so certain we’ll ever be the same after a few days with the waterway girls.’
Polly asked, ‘Where are Nurse Newsome and Sister Askwell? We need to thank them, now that we can actually run from Sister’s snapping teeth.’
The whole ward laughed. Nurse Martin looked down, smiling, then up again. ‘Oh, never fear, Sister’ll be at the main doors, making sure you leave the premises; Nurse Newsome is on another ward.’
‘That bad, are we?’ asked Sylvia, her head still swimming.
‘Oh, you have no idea quite how bad,’ muttered Nurse Martin. ‘I think the repartee and naughtiness will go down in the annals of her behaviour diary, and not on the good side.’
She grimaced but her hazel eyes were alight with fun. ‘You take care – in and out of Limehouse quickly from now on. We don’t want you back again, do we, everyone?’
She conducted the ‘Noooo’. ‘Off you go now. Nurse Meadowes will esco
rt you to make sure you don’t visit any other wards and cause a riot.’
She stood up and kissed all three, whispering as she stepped back, ‘Don’t forget us. Keep in touch, let us know you’re all right, eh?’
They carried on, with Nurse Meadowes beside them. The patients waved, and began to sing, ‘Good-bye-ee, good-bye-ee, Wipe the tears, trainee dears, from your eye-ees.’
They left through the swing doors. Waiting for them was Solly in his dressing gown and striped pyjamas, hobbling on his crutches, his lower leg in a plaster festooned with signatures, including Nurse Newsome’s, the girls’ signatures and rude messages from many others. He hobbled along with them to the lift, chuckling. ‘Taught ’em that trainee ditty, I did.’
Verity tucked her arm in his, careful not to become tangled in his crutch. ‘Goodness, really, we would never have guessed. We will gloss over the fact that we are trained, not trainees.’ But they were indeed on the point of wiping tears from their eye-ees.
At the lift, Solly pressed the button with one of his crutches. ‘Thing is, the word “trained” don’t scan, do it. So dig out some soul, gal, for Gawd’s sake. Begging yer pardon, for the Gawd, Sylv.’
Sylvia raised her eyebrows. ‘Sylv? Since when? Anyway,’ she rushed on, not wanting to know. ‘Please be aware, everyone, that this use of Sylv is solely a one-off, so Polly and Verity, don’t even think of it.’ As the lift doors started to close, Nurse Meadowes waved. They descended.
Once in reception they could feel the cold draught as the main doors opened and closed before and after the comings and goings of patients, visitors and staff. Waiting just inside the doors, as though on guard, was Sister Askwell, with a page of typewritten instructions for all three of them. She emphasised that they were to return in ten days to have their numerous stitches removed. ‘They will become itchy, red, possibly sore. If you are worried and they appear septic, straight to a hospital in Sherborne or to your parents’ doctor, who could, of course, remove the stitches if that was preferred. Is that clear, Lady Verity?’
