“Oh, please Laura! It’ll do you good to come to the flickers with us!” Maggie begged once more, pretending she hadn’t noticed her friend’s sunken-in eyes and sullen expression that signalled her pleas were in vain.
“Sorry Maggie, I just don’t have the inclination to watch a movie.”
“But what about Paul? He’s dying to see you!”
Laura gave a faint smile. “Yes, I’ve missed him too, of course. Why don’t you ask him and Meg to come over tomorrow? You and I could make a little cake for them this afternoon.”
Maggie huffed with exasperation. “But, my darling, the whole point is for you to go out. Kemp Town is lovely for a long stroll and conveniently away from downtown. You don’t have to see the Pier at all!”
Laura turned away from the window and slumped down heavily on a seat beside her friend. “I don’t know . . . Perhaps I can have a walk. But not a movie. All right?”
“But why not?”
Laura looked away and pinned her eyes on the opposite wall. “I don’t feel like having fun. I don’t feel like laughing even.”
Maggie chuckled. “That’s ridiculous. Who doesn’t want to laugh and have a bit of fun?”
“I guess, I don’t.”
Maggie put out a hand to caress Laura’s hair. “Laura, don’t give up on life like that. Remember you have your precious child . . . And you have me too, of course. Annoying little me who’ll pester you till the end of time until you give in!” She squeezed her arm. “Don’t you see it’s futile to resist, you daft girl?”
Laura turned to Maggie with a solemn gaze. The corners of her lips twitched, rather than curled upwards, in an attempt to smile, but being a twitch it faded fast. She let out a deep sigh and looked away, her shoulders slumped.
Maggie rubbed her friend’s back. “You’re not the only one whom life has left wounded. Don’t you see, my darling? The whole world seems to be recovering from something these days. Everyone is trying to heal; be it from physical or emotional wounds. And what about those still out there fighting for us? Don’t they deserve that we show some strength back here? Keep a stiff upper lip, girl, there you go!” She patted Laura on the back, encouraged to see her lips arranging themselves into a half-smile. “That’s better!”
Laura stood and threw Maggie a pensive look. “All right. I don’t fancy the movie this afternoon, but how about a walk around Kemp Town now, this morning? We could see Paul and Meg tomorrow.”
Maggie’s face lit up. “Splendid!” She gave a smirk and cocked her eye at her. “Old Steine Gardens or Queen’s Park? Your choice.”
Laura beamed at her. “Let’s stretch our legs and do both. It’s lovely outside, you’re so right.”
“That’s my girl!”
Tossing her mane of fiery red hair behind her shoulders, Laura walked up to Freddie, who was playing with his toys in a corner of the room. “Come, my precious starry eyes,” she said, using her favourite term of endearment for him. She called him that because of his twinkling eyes that she loved so much to lose herself in. They looked exactly like his father’s. “Let’s get you nicely dressed. We’re going for a little walk.”
Freddie let out a string of excited squeals as his mother took him by the hand. Maggie gave a huge smile and followed them to the boy’s bedroom, an evident spring in her step for the positive result of her little pep talk.
CASTLES ON THE SAND
So vast you lie ahead, a fearsome sight of awe
I cherish all you are; my love, my friend, my foe
I’m stranded on this beach
You fail me, treat me wrong
The opposite shore is out of reach
You ebb and flow strong.
I wish I had your strength, and yet I am afraid
Still dreaming of a man who dwells in a distant land
Look at the life I lead, the dreams that I have made!
They fear a deep blue ocean, like castles on the sand.
Swept away in the storm
Crying helplessly at night
Born steadfast I stay the course
Still a poor I put up fight.
What if I sank inside your depths
To hear the murmur of the sea?
Willing to die a thousand deaths
I’d close my eyes and let it be . . .
I wish I had your strength, and yet I am afraid
Still dreaming of a man who dwells in a distant land
Look at the life I lead, the dreams that I have made!
They fear a deep blue ocean, like castles on the sand.
Chapter 9
In the late afternoon, the two women lounged on the sofa by the hearth in the drawing room with Freddie playing at their feet. They were enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of cake, exhausted from their morning stroll. Queen’s Park and The Old Steine Gardens had been wonderful in the glorious sunshine, the Royal Pavilion minarets glinting in the sunlight as they strolled along the surrounding paths.
The walk along the beautiful streets of Kemp Town had also been a pleasure. By the time James came to take them home, even Freddie had run out of energy and welcomed the ride, sitting calmly in the back seat between his mother and Maggie. He’d been running around ceaselessly for the past two hours chasing ducks and pigeons, causing the two women to laugh at his antics.
The double doors opened abruptly, causing both women to jump. James stood there, his look dishevelled, his eyes wild.
“Good heavens! What is it, James?” burst out Laura.
“My lady, I come from town!” James pointed to the wireless that stood silent on a low, marble-top table. “Haven’t you heard the news?”
Panic coloured Laura’s face in an instant. “No, why? What’s happened?”
“It’s hellish down in Kemp Town, my lady!” A German bomber unloaded its bombs all over it! I ran the errand you asked me to and on the way back, I heard the blasts!”
“Oh dear God!” exclaimed Maggie. Laura simply stared blankly, her face ashen.
“Thankfully I was beyond Edward Street at the time, near the Palace Pier,” James continued, “but on the other side of Edward Street, all the way to Upper Rock Gardens, it’s absolute mayhem! The Odeon has been hit, too! Didn’t you say your friends were watching a movie there today?”
Maggie jolted upright and let out a shriek of panic, her legs wavering. She brought a hand to her mouth and slumped back down on the sofa.
Laura, who sat beside her, took her hand to squeeze it in hers, then she turned to James. “Are you sure? The cinema was hit?”
James shook his head forlornly. “Yes, I’m sorry to be the bearer of such awful news. But I thought you’d know, my lady! Did you not hear the sirens?”
“We did! About an hour ago,” said Laura. “We went to the basement for a while but didn’t hear any bombs.” Laura looked at Maggie who nodded in agreement.
“Perhaps we’re too far away here,” reasoned James.
Maggie’s eyes, huge and feverish, were pinned on James. “Were there fatalities? Do you know?”
“Dozens are dead! I drove around once it was all over and had a good look around the streets and the picture house itself. Lots of people are injured, including many children! I heard they were all taken to Sussex County Hospital. Some carried others on foot, others were taken on the buses.”
“The buses?” Laura asked.
“Yes! Any passing buses—or private vehicles for that matter—stopped and picked up the wounded to take them to hospital.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It was madness, I tell you! Many among the injured—children included—had shrapnel stuck to their bodies here and there.”
Laura’s eyes widened. “Oh my God!” Her gaze fleeted to her child playing on the carpet. Freddie seemed blissfully unaware of the horrors of the world.
“Do you think that Paul and Meg are all right? Have you seen them at all?” asked Maggie.
James shook his head.
Are you saying that the bombs fell when the movie was still pla
ying?”
“I’m afraid so! It was around half past three when the bomb fell there, about half hour into the movie.”
“So if Paul and Meg were in there, then . . .” Maggie’s voice trailed off, her face igniting with horror.
Laura walked up to James and got hold of his arm firmly. “Please, can you drive us to the hospital?”
“Of course, my lady!”
“Call Jen to mind Freddie!” she urged him, then returned to her friend and took her by the hand. “Maggie, let’s get our coats and go check on our friends!”
Maggie took one look at Laura and felt amazed. How does she do it? How can she seem void of enthusiasm and zest for life every day, and yet, when a tragedy occurs, she proves to be the strongest? Her own voice had died down, so all she did was press her lips together and nod. Laura had to be the most cool-headed, the strongest woman she’d ever known.
***
The situation at the Royal Sussex County Hospital could only be described with one word: chaos. The corridors were heaving with patients and their escorts; some wailing with pain, others waiting patiently for their turn to be treated. Nurses and doctors with urgent faces kept bolting in and out of doors to tend to the wounded while trying to keep an order of priority as new patients kept coming in.
It hadn’t just been the spectators at the Odeon who had been affected by the bombing; fifty-two souls had been lost all over Kemp Town. As for the dozens of wounded, some of them would need to be scheduled for an operation at the earliest possible to remove the shrapnel stuck in their bodies.
All this devastation, along with the flattened streets, the lost homes, the sudden emptying of lives, was down to one man; one German pilot of a Dornier bomber who was chased over Brighton by a Spitfire, having strayed from his squadron. Eager to lessen the airplane’s weight as to increase its manoeuvrability, the German pilot had chosen to offload all his bombs on the town. As a result, twenty bombs devastated Kemp Town. As the news started to go around, many felt comforted to hear that the German pilot was shot down in the end.
However, when Laura and Maggie entered through the hospital doors accompanied by James, even knowing that little detail made no difference, as they laid their eyes on the little children. So many children! And every single one of them was screaming or wailing with pain and anguish.
“Please! We’re looking for our friends!” pleaded Maggie, catching a passing nurse by the arm.
The young nurse seemed to have the world on her shoulders. “Please! I can't stop. Go to the information desk and give their names. Our staff are doing the best they can to register the names of the wounded.”
“What about the fatalities?” asked Laura, her voice tight.
The nurse was already walking down the corridor, but hearing Laura stopped and turned back. “I’m sorry. The names of the dead will take time. It’s mayhem right now. Good luck!” She pressed her lips and, with one last look over her shoulder that brimmed over with sympathy, she hurried through one of the doors.
“Where’s the information desk?” asked Maggie.
“I’ve been here with my mother before. Come with me!” Laura rushed to a side corridor to their left, the two others following behind her. They didn’t make it all the way there, though. When they reached a big hall, they found it strewn with blankets that were laid out on the floor, serving as make-shift beds for the wounded. On one of them, they found Meg sitting slouched over, her head bent. One of her neighbours, Mrs Peters, was sitting beside her, holding her hand.
Meg’s face was a mess, full of cuts and grazes. Over one eye, she wore a patch. From her other eye, tears were streaming down her cheeks. The lime green dress she wore was stained heavily with blood in big, dark red patches, mostly on her lap and arms. The sight made her two friends tremble with dread from head to toe.
“Meg!” Maggie spoke first and rushed to her, Laura and James following suit.
When she saw her friends, instead of speaking, Meg let out a heart-wrenching wail that resounded loudly in the surrounding walls. Terrified, Maggie and Laura knelt before her and put their arms around her to find that she was shaking violently. Standing behind them, James looked around him, hoping to spot Paul but to no avail.
Mrs Peters gave the two women a curt nod. “The doctor’s said she’s in shock, but she’ll be all right.” She put out a hand and patted Meg’s hair.
“Your eye . . . What happened?” asked Maggie.
Meg was in no position to answer. She was mumbling now, mumbling away, goodness knows what, reliving over and over again the terror of the past couple of hours. Mrs Peters cut in again to answer the question. “She’ll be all right. Just a course of antibiotics for a few days and she’ll be as right as rain, the doctor said.”
“Thank you,” replied Maggie, then turned to Meg and caressed her face. She took out her handkerchief to wipe away her tears, but Meg didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze was distant, her mind engaged in an unbearable thought that her friends felt terrified to guess.
Laura was the first to dare the question that burned her and Maggie the most. “Mrs Peters? Is Paul all right, do you know?” Her voice sounded cautious; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
Somehow, through the haze of her mental whereabouts, Meg heard her husband’s name and started to cry inconsolably.
Mrs Peters pulled the women aside. “I’m sorry, girls. Paul is gone. Poor soul . . .” Her voice came out in a whisper as not to upset Meg further. Laura and Maggie stared at Meg, unbelieving. Now, they were both in shock themselves.
“What happened?” mumbled Laura, her voice breaking. Next to her, Maggie clutched her hand, looking to her for comfort. Laura felt Maggie’s nails dig into her flesh. She didn’t mind; she could hardly even register the pain.
Mrs Peters brought a hand to her forehead and gave a deep sigh. “The poor lad was so unlucky. The shrapnel hit him in the neck. He lost a lot of blood and died in Meg’s arms at the cinema. She held him till he was gone . . .” Mrs Peters looked over her shoulder to check on Meg again. She was sobbing, her shoulders shaking, her hands clutching the stained skirt of her dress so tight her knuckles had turned white. “What is she going to do now on her own? It took three nurses and the good doctor to take her dead husband from her embrace, you know. Oh, how will she ever be right again?” she lamented, shaking her head profusely.
“Oh Meg . . .” said Maggie, rushing back to her with Laura to comfort her, leaving Mrs Peters behind.
Mrs Peters and her family had been luckier that day. Her little girl had shrapnel stuck to her back, but her life wasn’t in danger. The little girl sat patiently with her brother, albeit quite shaken, in the next row of laid out blankets, ready to go home to return another day for treatment. It was only Mrs Peters’ concern for young Meg that kept them there still. It was like a miracle to her; they could have easily sat on the front instead of the back end. Everyone sitting on the front rows had been killed or most severely injured, as this was where the blast had been most violent.
When the middle-aged woman turned around and looked at the three friends clinging to each other in mourning, she turned to James, her eyes alight with rage for all she’d seen that day and said: “So much pain and death . . . and all down to one, nasty German! May the good Lord damn them all to hell! I praise the Lord that my little girl is safe! Had I lost her, how would I have ever lived with the guilt?”
The guilt?” asked James.
“Yes, of course the guilt! I chose not to let my children become evacuees; not to lose them out of my sight, not to send them off to some God-forsaken little village to be taken care of by strangers, as if they were stray puppies! But I thought Brighton was safe, you see! All this time, we had very few air raids and bombs. We felt safe! Now what do we do? How is our Brighton ever going to survive a Blitz? Brighton’s only small. Are we going to wind up constantly scared out of our wits like the Londoners?” She turned to face James with fire in her eyes, looking at him hopefully, as if he had a
ll the answers in the world.
“Madam, we’re in the middle of a war! Soon, we’ll all have to fight to protect our town; our whole country! But we can win this nasty war! You’ll see! One day, Brighton will bear none of these ugly scars any more. One day, this horrible tragedy will be lost forever in the mists of history.”
“Ah! If only I had the optimism of the young! I lost my first husband in the Great War, you know. That was a massacre for the books!” She gave a dismissive wave. “You’re too young, you wouldn’t know. And if you have even a mustard seed of a brain between your ears, you’d better pray you never have to go to war; none of you boys! Let’s just hope this ends soon, somehow, if only by miracle!”
“Wars don’t get won with miracles, madam,” James said firmly. “Wars are fought with blood and won with blood. And for good old Blighty, may it be so.”
Chapter 10
Early 1941
Britons reacted to the tragedies of war in the only way possible: by coming together and taking action. As a result, the British home front grew stronger and stronger while the troops fought back Hitler’s Army across the Channel. Hurricanes and Spitfires took daily to the skies, leaving behind the iconic white cliffs of Dover to fight the Nazi menace.
But a great cause requires high morale, and singer Vera Lynn made that possible. Her songs played on the wireless in every home and every store, every waking hour. Spirits lifted with every note of “We’ll Meet Again” and, later in the year, “The White Cliffs of Dover”, too. Every Briton would sing these songs with a voice that quivered, and a heart that soared with the wish for endurance and victory.
By now, every civilian felt it a sacred duty to do their bit for the country. Even the youngsters were no longer carefree or self-indulgent. Many young girls joined the Wrens and boys signed up for any kind of handiwork possible. Volunteers of all ages worked in farms and munitions factories, and busy housewives, who raised children and couldn’t leave home, made time to knit socks for the soldiers.
The Storm Page 5
