by Terry Deary
The spectacled girl smiled and said, ‘Those Spitfires are going to stop the Blitz, my dad says.’ She peered more closely at Brigit. ‘I haven’t seen you in school before, have I?’
‘No, I’m Brigit… Hurst.’
‘I’m Jean Mason. Are you new this term?’
‘That’s right. Today was supposed to be my first day. I haven’t even told Miss South I’m here. I was in such a rush to join the evacuees’ line.’
‘Oh, Miss South will be fine about it. She’s lovely is Miss South.’ Jean lowered her voice and said, ‘We’re just lucky to go to Hodgehill. You won’t believe the teachers they have in Castle Bromwich School. They’re terrors, I heard.’
‘Bad teachers?’ Brigit asked, hiding a smile.
‘No, cruel bullies. I heard about one boy called Charlie – the head teacher hit his hand with a cane. Snapped it clean in two.’
‘What? His hand?’
‘No-o-o. The cane, silly.’ Jean laughed. ‘I’m glad our school’s not like that.’
Brigit nodded. ‘I suppose I should go and see Miss South and get registered or something.’
‘Let me go with you. I can be your first friend in the school,’ Jean offered.
‘Thanks, Jean.’
The girls elbowed their way through other Hodgehill pupils to find the teacher who was trying to answer a dozen questions at once. ‘No, James, sheep don’t bite… yes, Janet, the Welsh people will feed you, and you won’t have to wait for food parcels from home… you may live on a farm, Peter, but you won’t be sleeping in a chicken shed… Now, who have we here?’ she asked, looking at Brigit.
‘Excuse me, Miss South, I was told to report to you this morning, but my dad had trouble finding Hodgehill School. By the time we got there you were on your way to the station.’
‘The early worm catches the train,’ the teacher said and gave a light laugh at her own joke. ‘But why would you want to see me at the school?’
‘You should have received a letter last week? From the Royal Air Force?’ Brigit said.
Miss South’s face was blank. ‘They want me to be a pilot?’
‘No. My dad is a Spitfire pilot in… a secret airbase in East Anglia.’
‘So he doesn’t need me to be a pilot? He can do it?’ the teacher teased.
‘He’s been transferred to Castle Bromwich airfield, to be a test pilot,’ Brigit went on, nodding towards the field across the river. ‘I had to leave the… secret airbase in East Anglia. I was supposed to start at Hodgehill School today. But with the war…’
‘Ah yes, the war.’
‘So can I be evacuated with your school… please?’
Miss South frowned. ‘I suppose so. I’m sure all the paperwork will catch up later.’
There was a stirring among the school groups as Castle Bromwich School led the way down the long ramp to the station platform. In the distance, a plume of white smoke showed a train huffing towards them. Brigit hung back as Miss South herded her children like ducks towards the platform. She made sure the teacher was walking between her and Miss Dennison’s Castle Bromwich pupils and kept her head low.
As she slipped past she heard Jessie Burdess explain, ‘Brigit Furst’s mother said she’d changed her mind. She doesn’t want Brigit to be evacuated.’
‘Tsch,’ Miss Dennison snorted. ‘We’re better off without the sour kraut. Stand back from the platform edge, Castle Bromwich pupils. We take this first train. If you fall on the railway line, we’ll all be held up while they clear the mess off the tracks. Stand back, Billy Anderson… do not answer me back. There’ll be a cane waiting for you in Wales, you mark my words.’
As her old schoolmates boarded the train, Brigit smiled the smile of an escaped prisoner.
Chapter Ten
‘It’s a dangerous job’
A train pulled into the station. A small black locomotive pulling some ancient coaches that had once been coloured brown or dark red, green or cream, but now showed grimy wood where the paint was peeling away. The steam from the engine rained down soot on to the platform. Tear-choked children from Castle Bromwich turned and waved to their parents who stood on the bridge over the track.
White and dirty-white handkerchiefs were waved and were used to smother sobs and sniffles of misery. Miss Dennison split her classes into groups of eight – one group for each compartment. There were arguments as friends were separated. ‘You’ll see them at the other end – it’s only a couple of hours,’ the teacher snapped.
At last they were loaded and the teacher nodded to the station-master. He waved a green flag at the driver and Miss Dennison lit a cigarette before climbing into the guard’s van at the back. The sobs of the parents became wails. Then children crowded to the windows for a final glimpse of their home town and their parents.
The train creaked and the carriages clattered on their couplings as slowly it pulled away from the platform. Jessie Burdess’s pale face looked across at Brigit and she gave a faint smile. Brigit gave a thumbs-up and mouthed the words, ‘Good luck, Jessie. See you soon.’
But Brigit would never see Jessie again.
*
A whistle sounded a mile away as the next evacuee train gave the signal it was ready to pull into the station. Brigit’s new teacher, Miss South, guided her class into groups of eight. ‘I’ll try to keep friends together as far as I can,’ she promised.
‘There are no parents to say goodbye,’ Brigit said.
The teacher shook her head. ‘They said goodbye at the school gates. I thought it would be less upsetting for everyone.’ They watched the Castle Bromwich parents drift back from the bridge to the town, still sniffling and wiping teary eyes. ‘Now, Brigit, I don’t suppose you’ve made any friends yet?’
Jean Mason stepped forward. ‘I’ll look after her,’ she offered.
‘Thank you, Jean,’ the teacher said warmly. She peered through her glasses at Brigit’s label. ‘Now, Jean, this is Brigit Furst.’
‘No,’ Brigit said quickly. ‘I think the lady in the school office got my label wrong. It should be Brigit Hurst.’
‘Ah, that makes sense,’ Miss South said. ‘I can’t imagine a Spitfire pilot with a German name. It would be like having our prime minister called Fritz Chamberlain.’ She chuckled at her own joke and turned to watch the train draw near to the station with hisses of steam and grating creaks on the rails.
Some of the children near Brigit left their group. One of the boys with Brian Bellamy on his label said, ‘Is that right? Your dad’s a Spitfire pilot? Has he shot down any Germans?’
Brigit knew she was going to have to keep up the lie she’d started. ‘He’s a test pilot – across the road at the factory. You probably saw him fly over just now.’
‘That was your dad?’ Brian asked and his jaw fell to his chest.
‘Who did you think he was waving at?’
‘He was waving at all of us,’ a boy labelled Michael Purdy said.
‘Is that what you think?’ Brigit said coyly as the train rattled to a halt beside them.
‘You mean…’ Brian asked.
Brigit smiled and shrugged, then picked up her suitcase so she didn’t have to go on with her tale.
‘Have you flown with him?’ Michael asked. ‘I’ve always wanted to fly in a Spitfire.’
Brigit was wise enough to avoid that trap. ‘A Spitfire only has one seat. If I sat on Dad’s knee he wouldn’t be able to see where he was going. Anyway, he is testing new ideas – that’s why he’s called a test pilot. Some of them may go wrong so it’s a dangerous job.’
Brian and Michael nodded wisely as they allowed themselves to be herded towards their carriages by the station-master. ‘Excuse me, young sirs, but were you thinking of travelling today? Because the driver is running out of coal waiting for you,’ he said.
Michael Purdy stuck out his tongue at the station-master just as Miss South turned to the group. ‘Michael Purdy, that is very rude. Apologise at once to the gentleman.’
‘
Sorry, sir,’ Michael mumbled. ‘Brian Bellamy told me to do it.’
‘You liar,’ Brian exploded. ‘Please, miss, don’t believe the little rat. I never…’
‘You and Michael had better travel in separate compartments,’ the teacher said.
‘Awwww,’ the boys moaned together.
‘But he’s my best friend,’ Michael argued.
‘He can come in our compartment, miss,’ Jean Mason said, and Brian glared at her.
‘Thank you, Jean,’ said Miss South. ‘You are like my mother hen today, looking after Brigit and now Brian. In you get. Put your gas masks on the rack above your heads and don’t forget them when you get out at the other end.’
They climbed aboard and settled into their seats. Some girls pulled out comics like The Dandy and started to read about Desperate Dan and his huge appetite for cow pie. Jean began to read the adventures of Korky the Cat, but Brigit had a book called War of the Worlds.
‘What’s that about?’ Brian asked. ‘I never read a book before. We don’t have books in our house. Just beer bottles.’
‘The Earth is invaded by creatures from Mars. They have three-legged fighting machines with heat rays and poisonous black smoke.’
‘Wow. I hope the people on Earth had their gas masks with them,’ Jean gasped.
‘They wouldn’t work against the heat-ray guns,’ Brigit explained. ‘The Martian monsters just fried the humans to a crisp.’
‘That’s like the German flame-throwers in the last war.’ Brian nodded. ‘That’s what’ll happen if the Germans land here.’
Brigit closed the book. ‘We’ll have to make sure that never happens then.’
‘We can’t do anything to stop them.’ Jean sighed. ‘Not us kids.’
‘Maybe you can’t,’ Brigit murmured. ‘But maybe I can.’
Chapter Eleven
‘How will we know where we are when we get there?’
The train seemed to shuffle along the track for a few miles, then it would stop at a signal. It stood there, steaming, for what seemed like no reason at all. Then it shuffled off again.
After a couple of hours it pulled into a small station – no more than a platform – and Miss South called for them all to get out of their carriages. ‘Sorry this is taking so long. There are lots of our soldiers and sailors and airmen moving around the country to defend us. They are more important than us, so we must keep stopping to let their trains go through. While we are here, use the station toilets, and if you have any spare sandwiches and bottles of pop, share them with those who haven’t any, please.’
The children settled on the grassy bank beside the platform and unpacked sandwich packets and bottles from their suitcases. A station-worker was painting out the name boards with whitewash. ‘Why is he doing that?’ Brian Bellamy asked.
‘The Germans may send soldiers across on parachutes,’ Miss South explained. ‘They’ll have maps but they won’t know exactly where they have landed. We don’t want to make it easy for them so we’re taking down road signs and painting out place names like these.’
‘Then how will we know where we are when we get there?’ Jean asked.
‘We’ll know,’ the teacher said, but she didn’t look too sure.
Steam hissed, the children ate quietly, and birds hurried across the sky going about their lives as usual. Blackbirds sang in a distant wood and small clouds drifted across the warm September sky. Brian looked up at the emptiness. ‘It doesn’t feel like there’s a war on, does it?’
Then a faint white line was scratched on the cornflower-blue sky as an aeroplane flew high to the east. ‘We’ll know about it soon enough when the bombers come,’ Brigit said.
The peace was broken when the train driver gave a blast of his whistle to signal that the line was clear and they were ready to move again. A station porter who looked a hundred years old collected their wrappers and empty bottles in sacks. ‘Now we’re at war we mustn’t waste a thing – not a scrap of paper or a single glass bottle,’ Brigit said.
‘Or food,’ Jean added. ‘There’s going to be a law against wasting food, my mum says. The women in her factory even have a poster with a little poem about it.’ She went on to recite it while the children stopped to listen.
‘Auntie threw her ham away,
To the lock-up she was taken.
There she is and there she’ll stay,
Till she learns to save her bacon.’
The children of Hodgehill School smiled and clapped. If any of them were still upset at leaving home, they didn’t show it now. ‘I’m glad I came with you,’ Brigit said.
Jean grinned and tucked Brigit’s hand under her arm as they walked back to their carriage. ‘It’s lovely to have you. It feels like we’ve been friends for years.’
Brigit just nodded and climbed inside. As the train pulled away Brian pulled out a mouth organ and began to play in time with the clicking of the wheels on the rails.
‘I know that song,’ a girl said and began to sing. By the end, the whole carriage was joining in and the blackbirds seemed to stop and listen.
‘I’ll say a prayer while I am gone;
I’ll pray each night, and pray each morn;
Though we’re apart, we’re not alone,
We’ll live to share a peaceful dawn.’
If the words made the children a little mournful then Brian slapped a hand on his Beano comic. ‘Look at this joke… I say! I say! Where does Hitler keep his armies?’
‘Don’t know,’ the others said together. ‘Where does Hitler keep his armies?’
‘Up his sleevies,’ the boy laughed.
And they shuffled along all afternoon as the cornflower-blue sky turned to purple velvet. At last the train pulled in to a platform that was lit by railway lamps and where a row of adults with serious faces stood silent and still, waiting.
‘I think this is it,’ Brigit said. ‘Miss South said we’d know when we get here.’
‘What do they want?’ Jean asked.
‘They want to take us off to their homes – our new homes,’ Brigit said.
‘But how do we know which homes we go to?’
‘I think they line us up and they get to pick the ones they want.’
‘Oh no,’ Brian Bellamy groaned. ‘It’s like when we pick football teams in the schoolyard. I’m always left till last.’
Brigit laughed. ‘That’s what Billy Anderson always says.’
The others in the carriage stopped and looked at her. ‘Who’s Billy Anderson?’
No one could see Brigit’s ears turn red and her mouth twist awkwardly. ‘Just someone I used to know.’
‘In your last school?’ Jean asked.
Brigit was saved by Miss South who was walking along the platform and opening the doors. ‘Do not forget to take your gas masks. You may not need them in Wales, but you mustn’t lose them.’
‘Is that where we are, Miss South? In Wales?’
‘That’s what the ticket collector told me, now out you all get.’
The children climbed down under the stern gazes of the waiting adults and huddled together like sheep surrounded by wolves.
Miss South spoke. ‘Now, I know you’re all very tired, but this is the last part of the journey. Could I ask you to line up against the station buildings here, please?’
The wary, wide-eyed children moved over to the cluster of waiting rooms, ticket office, porter’s room and luggage room.
A man stepped forward and startled everyone by raising his hands in the air, as if he were shooing chickens out of his garden. He was pale in the light of the lanterns and large ears stuck out from his long head. ‘Welcome to Aberpont, my young friends. Welcome. I am the Reverend Hywel Williams and the leader of the local chapel.’ His voice went up and down like his thick grey eyebrows. He stretched out his arms in a wide scarecrow welcome. ‘We have prayed for your safe arrival and here you are. God is good and he hath delivered you from the tormenting fire of war to our piece of heaven here on Earth.’
Brian Bellamy sighed quietly. ‘What a nutter.’
The Reverend Williams walked down the line of children as the other adults stood silent. It seemed the Reverend had first pick. He stopped when he reached Brigit. ‘I’ll take you,’ he said with a grin that showed crooked teeth.
‘I have to stay with my cousin here,’ Brigit said grabbing Jean Mason by the sleeve.
The man blew out his cheeks. ‘I suppose I can take you both if you don’t mind sharing a bed?’
Jean nodded happily and they set off into the darkening village after their new guardian.
Chapter Twelve
‘You have a lot of goodness in Wales’
Tuesday, 14 May 1940: Aberpont, Wales
The girls had been there over eight months and they were growing used to the Reverend Williams’s strange ways. The Reverend sat at the breakfast table and prayed. Jean and Brigit bowed their heads and tried not to giggle. ‘Oh Lord, we thank you for giving us our daily bread and we ask you, dear Father, to bless it with your holy spirit so it may live within us for the rest of the day, or at least until we next eat some blessed meal.’
‘Amen,’ the girls muttered and reached for the toast. But the man hadn’t finished.
‘And we ask that Brigit and Jean learn well at school and learn their maths and history and geography well, but that they learn their scriptures best of all.’
‘Amen.’
‘And that they try harder with their Welsh lessons and learn to speak God’s own language like a native.’ He looked up and nodded at Brigit.
‘Oh. Yes. Amen,’ she said.
‘Amen, indeed.’ He smiled. ‘Now, girls, today the village received the latest sack of letters from England.’ He went to the sideboard to collect two envelopes and handed one to each girl.
Jean began to tear hers open but the Reverend Williams said sharply, ‘Not at the breakfast table, Jean. Wait until you are walking to school.’
‘But it’s raining,’ the girl sighed.
‘God is sending the rain to water the earth, the flowers and the trees. Rain is good.’
