A Chelsea Concerto

by Frances Faviell

  Horror piled upon horror as each fresh batch of homeless or walking casualties came in with news of calamities. The fires were terrifying – and more than the one fire station had been put out of action. I did not see Richard again except for brief glimpses of him when he came in bearing one end of a heavy stretcher or going out with a light empty one.

  We worked at the lines of grey-faced, patient, huddled people. We made tea for them under great difficulties, we boiled our precious store of water for some kind of sterilization, although the casualties, like me, were filthy. At about two o’clock there was a brief lull and we thought for one glorious moment that the raid was over and that the All Clear would be going very shortly. But almost immediately there was a fresh wave of planes and a new rain of bombs and the guns opened up again in a deafening barrage. I found myself about to deal with the old woman in the straw hat who had been next to me on the bench. ‘Where are you hurt?’ I asked her. She put both hands up to the straw hat and clutched it firmly. ‘It’s me ’ead,’ she said. ‘It’s got a bit of something on it – it’s cut and I found me ’at so I jammed it on quick.’ And then I saw that there were bloodstains all down her neck. ‘Take off your hat,’ I said very gently. But she would not. She seemed afraid to uncover her head. Very gently I lifted it when at last she allowed me to do so. Part of the top of her scalp was gone – and for one second the whole room spun round again. She was talking quite rationally. I took a large dressing and laid it gently over the top of her head and took her over to Dr Lendal Tweed. She examined her briefly and Sister put on a dressing, then they nodded in the direction of the stretcher-cases for hospital. The old woman put the hat firmly on top of the dressing. She was very cold, she told me. I fetched a blanket and wrapped it round her. Dr Lendal Tweed called me back. ‘I heard you’ve been bombed?’ she said, looking at my curious attire. ‘Come here. Are you all right?’ ‘The baby’s jumping,’ I said. ‘It’s frightening – a most queer feeling.’ She felt my pulse and said, ‘You’re fine. What d’you expect it to do? It’s time it jumped – it’s quite normal.’

  The gruelling night went on – Peggy was terribly kind, whenever she had a free moment she came to me, as did Sister. But I was all right – it had been just those split seconds of terror – and the agonizing fear for the baby. I went occasionally to see Vicki, who was being nursed in turn by the casualties. She seemed to give them some comfort. The stretcher-bearers told me at intervals that her suitor was still outside the FAP and that no amount of bombs or guns had any effect on his ardour!

  That it was our worst night yet was on everybody’s lips – and when news came in that the Old Church had gone it seemed the climax to the mounting horrors. The Old Church – I thought of it on that Sunday of March 23rd with all those Sea and ATC Cadets in it – with the daffodils coming out around More’s and Hans Sloane’s tombs. ‘It’s a pile of dust,’ one of the stretcher-bearers said. ‘The whole of that bit – all Petyt Place seems to have disappeared – and the fire-watchers with it!’

  Soon after we digested this it was quiet – and at long last the welcome distant sirens sounded far away – then nearer – and then loudly our own from the Albert Bridge proclaimed that the raid was over.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE ALL CLEAR had sounded at five minutes to five; it had been one of the longest raids we had known – all but eight hours. In the cold pale morning light we surveyed the appalling havoc of what had been our small colony in the Royal Hospital Road. How we had ever emerged from the mess that had been our home seemed incredible – it was one huge pile of rubble, and more had fallen since we had left it. Farther up the road, at the ruined AFS Station, the heavy rescue appeared to be digging. The Ferebees’ shop was shattered but we had been told that they were all right – safe in their basement. The basement of Kathleen’s little shop was still intact – we went over in the hopes that perhaps she, at least, had changed her mind and slept there. The door was broken and open – but the basement was empty. We shouted again and again to ask the Ferebees if they knew anything of her fate – but there was only silence – it seemed a dead, desolated street now, with great masses and mounds which had been our house – and the three adjoining it but close at hand a blackbird was singing gloriously.

  Picking our way across the piles of glass was perilous, and when I saw in the mass something which looked like a garment and found it was a very old camel-hair coat of mine I fell upon it as if it were the most valuable mink. It was indescribably filthy – but it was a coat, an old friend, and as far as I could see we had no material possessions left in the world. My dress had been blasted off below the hips and I had only an overall – the coat was warm and the early morning air struck chill. Richard would not let me stay to grabble for more treasures but hurried me along to the Royal Hospital. It was terribly difficult to get along because of the glass and debris, and the evidence of last night’s damage was apparent everywhere – windows were out, tiles lay in pieces with the bricks, but in the grey light we scarcely noticed it – the hose pipes trailed all across the front entrances and courtyards of the Royal Hospital and we could hear activity somewhere but could see no signs of it as we approached the Fitzgeralds’ apartments. The door was wide open and no one came when we rang the bell. As always, we just went in. There was no one in the large hall or in the drawing-room and library. ‘They’ll be down in the kitchen,’ I said, for I knew that Maurice, at least, would be up, he would have been in the thick of the previous night’s bombing with Captain Lockley.

  We went down into the great kitchen. They were all there – and at our entrance stood looking at us in amazement as if we were ghosts. Then Suzanne caught me in her arms and embraced me and they all began talking excitedly. ‘We heard that your house had had a direct hit,’ cried Suzanne, ‘and we sent Elizabeth as soon as the All Clear sounded to ask about you. She came back looking terrible – a little white-faced ghost. At first she couldn’t say a word, and when we impatiently questioned her about you she said, “There is no house-they are all dead.”’ And they had wept – for Richard and me – and for the baby about which they had all been so glad. When we appeared so quietly and unexpectedly in their kitchen it was as if we had been resurrected – for they had mourned us as dead – as many people were to do.

  How they welcomed us! I can never forget their warmth and kindness that morning and their joy that we were alive. They had had a terrible night – as had most of Chelsea. The parachute mines had been dropped in pairs all along the river – and one had landed on the Infirmary, as we had been told. Maurice and Captain Townsend were still out with the heavy rescue who were still digging for the bodies of those killed. So far thirteen had been brought out and had been laid in the chapel – amongst them the oldest of the Pensioners, Rattray, who was a hundred years old and had been in the sick bay for a slight indisposition.

  The one thing I wanted was a bath – and there was no water anywhere. My body was saturated with Anne’s blood. When I caught sight of myself in a mirror I understood why Peggy had stared at me without recognition the previous night. My hair was white. At first I thought that it had turned white as fiction tells us can happen from great shock or grief, but my face was white too – streaked like a clown’s – and closer examination showed me that my entire head and hair were white from the plaster and dust which had buried me. Suzanne lent me a stiff brush and it was a relief to find that when I was brushed my hair was still its normal colour!

  Just enough water remained in the tank for me to have an apology for a bath. I think it did more harm than good for the water was stained red almost at once when I started washing myself and I felt even more dirty. Peggy had lent me a nurse’s dress and this I put on now. What remained of my black dress was saturated in blood, and the pearls which I had been wearing had broken and fallen to my waist and had been held there by my belt. They were now red, not white, and I washed them in the bath and knew that I could never bear to wear them again.

  Suzanne made us
have some breakfast – and to my surprise I managed to eat a little – but Richard could not. He looked curiously mechanical, like a robot – as if he were living in a dream and performing everyday actions as a puppet does. I felt the same, detached from my body. When my face smiled, or my mouth opened to speak or eat, I felt that it wasn’t part of me, and I could hear myself saying, ‘Now I’m smiling, now I’m eating, now I’m drinking.’ I thought he must feel the same way. Afterwards I found that he was suffering from concussion and that this detached feeling must have been far more marked for him.

  He left me to try to rest while he went back to see if there was any news of Anne and Cecil and Kathleen. I tried to rest – but it was impossible. The Infirmary had suffered terrible damage from the parachute mine – and they did not as yet know how many casualties they had – but there were many injured as well as the dead.

  Maurice confirmed that the Old Church had been completely demolished by another parachute mine and that the fire-watching party had perished in it with the exception of one member of it. A German plane had been brought down in Kensington High Street and a German pilot had parachuted over the Old Church and had given himself up to David Thomas. The Elms Garage above which the Canadians had billets had been set on fire by a high explosive bomb and the fearful blaze which we had seen on emerging from our wrecked home was from here. I was immediately uneasy about Larry, who had recently been given a billet in a house just there – I had the strangest feeling that he was in danger. There had been a number of Canadian casualties in the FAP, some of them badly burned. There was a strange dead stillness everywhere after the night’s appalling havoc, as if the very earth had received a shock and was as numb as its inhabitants from the night’s savagery.

  I was anxious to get back to the site of No 33 to meet Mrs Freeth so that she would not get a shock. But having been up all night she had arrived early and, unfortunately, like Elizabeth, she had been told that we were dead. It was wonderful to see her face when she saw me picking my way over the heaps of glass with Vicki tucked under my arm. She was overjoyed – but the shock was too much for her and her small delicate face was absolutely colourless and I thought that she was going to faint. Telling her that had she been sleeping in her usual place in the kitchen she would have been killed instantly was no consolation to her for the loss of our home and friends.

  Mr Ferebee came out of what remained of the shop – the contents of which were strewn all over the road. He seemed terribly upset. He took my hands very quietly and said that they had just taken my husband’s body to the mortuary. ‘No, No,’ I told him, Richard was alive and well. But where was he now? Had he been poking about in the ruins and got caught in another fall of masonry? But as I stood there asking after all the neighbours with Mr Ferebee, whose wife and daughter Joan were both unhurt, Richard came down Tite Street. He had been to identify Cecil’s body. They had not yet found Kathleen or Anne.

  I took Mrs Freeth back to the Royal Hospital for a cup of tea – she was terribly pale and shocked, and on the way I called in at the FAP. They were still receiving a few late casualties, and still dealing with stretcher and ambulance cases as people were released from being trapped. A Canadian whom I knew was coming into the post as I was leaving. He told me that they had a lot of injured Canadians – and that Larry was just being brought out from the house in which he had been sleeping recently, ‘He’s pretty far gone,’ he said, ‘he was trapped under heavy stuff for hours.’ I ran down Tite Street with him, leaving Mrs Freeth and Vicki to wait. Larry was quite conscious as he lay there on the pavement awaiting a stretcher party. He smiled as I bent down and knelt on the pavement beside him. ‘You’ll have to find another godfather for junior,’ he said in a whisper, then he gave a sigh – just as if he were very tired after the long night, and was falling asleep.

  When I went back to the site of No 33 later, heavy rescue were already digging. Two of the diggers were friends of mine. When they saw me they downed spades and rushed up. ‘We’ve just told a lady you’re dead,’ they cried and, dirty as they were, hugged me and Vicki. ‘Miss Hitler’s safe! Good for her! We were digging for you, Miss Hitler.’ They handed her round, one to another. I asked about the lady who had come asking for me – I feared it was Jennie who had been coming to lunch and might have turned up early – as indeed she had. It was a lady with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates, they said. She appeared faint when she saw the appalling mass of ruins, and had asked them if they knew what had happened to me. The large dirty man holding Vicki said apologetically, ‘I said, “If she’s a young woman we’ve just dug up her arm" – you see we was digging in the front part of what was your home – so naturally I thought it was your arm. Well, when she heard that she went all faint again. We hadn’t much water to spare, as you know the main’s gone – but I gave her a few splashes. And then Mrs Freeth here come up and tells her you was all right and in the Royal Hospital, so off she goes to telephone you – in that call box there – ’ he pointed to the box in which we had seen the wounded warden last night. ‘And when she gets in there there’s blood all over the place and bits of flesh – so she passes right out.’

  I asked them what they were digging further for. ‘The baby,’ said one tough man, holding up a tiny woollen sock and what had once been the blue rabbit. ‘There must have been a baby staying here last night.’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. The baby’s still here! It’s not born yet.’ The man holding Vicki came over to me. ‘There’s lots of little things here in the dirt,’ he said sadly, ‘they’re all spoiled.’ They were covered with a strange blackish, sticky mess.

  I had caught sight of that piece of white stuff I had seen in the pile of bricks the previous night. I started climbing up the pile. ‘Hi! I’ll get it for you,’ said the man. ‘It’s part of the parachute – that’s what this little lot was – a bloody parachute mine! Here you are – it’ll make some new clothes in place of all these!’ and he handed me a huge piece of heavy white silk. It was a wonderful find and I took it gratefully. ‘There was a bloody German come down in one of them over Chelsea Old Church last night,’ he said. ‘One of my mates has just told us about it.’

  ‘And the Old Lombard Restaurant’s gone – still digging for the trapped there,’ said another. From Chris and Denise in the Control Room I heard that the list of incidents was formidably long and that it had been Chelsea’s very worst night. So overwhelmed with catastrophes were the ARP and Fire Services that for a short time there had been chaos resulting from the six parachute mines, many heavy high-explosive bombs, and showers of incendiaries hurled on the small borough. The Mutual Aid plan by which neighbouring boroughs helped one another could not be operated because Kensington was equally hard-pressed with heavy incidents.

  Standing there by the great heap which had been our home without possessing even a pocket handkerchief gave me an extraordinary feeling of freedom mingled with awe. Yesterday it had been a lovely home filled with choice and beautiful objects. Like all the others round it, it had vanished in a few seconds, truly ‘gone with the wind’. I understood a little then of how some of the bombed-out and refugees must have felt, but strangely enough I didn’t mind at all. I had already learned that home is to be with the person you love, and hadn’t I been wonderfully blessed in having Richard, the expected baby, and even Vicki all saved? As I turned over some of the rubble looking for even a chip of the Green Cat I thought of the Second Commandment, for, like the huge carpets, the heavy furniture, and easels, he had simply disintegrated into dust.

  Some hundred feet away I found my portable gramophone almost buried in debris. It was full of small bits of concrete and smelled of gunpowder. There was a record on the disc and when I started the machine the gay, clear tune of ‘Oh Johnnie, Oh Johnnie, Oh’ floated out amongst all that devastation. I took the record and smashed it. That fateful song which had heralded the violent death of so many dancers at the Café de Paris had been one of Anne’s favourites.

  A terrible aching emptiness, a feelin
g of acute helplessness and futility, came over me as I surveyed the appalling devastation of our little ‘colony’. It all seemed so senseless. I had overheard a small boy say to his mother when passing Shawfield Street – still an area of desolation – ‘But who done it, Mum?’ And when she replied that the German airmen were responsible the child had said, ‘When I’m grown up I’ll be able to smash up houses – you don’t let me break anything, you punish me if I do.’

  I could still hear the teasing, laughing voice of Cecil on the telephone the previous night as he had said, ‘Sure we’ll come down. We’ll come down with the rubble!’ And just then the telephone in the ruins of our home began ringing loudly and insistently. It seemed extraordinary that it could still be in working order and yet completely inaccessible buried in that heap. I knew that it must be my sister telephoning as usual to know if we were all right.

  When I turned away from the diggers and the site there stood Catherine and a crowd of refugees. They were gazing at the huge mounds which represented the place where they had always been able to come with their troubles – silent and red-eyed they gathered round me, overcome with the magnitude of the devastation around them. The Giant, gruff and furious, embraced me openly with tears streaming down his face. I thought, how strange that he can cry – I would so love to find some relief in tears – but not one would come. I could not weep – but my throat ached and ached; and I thought why is it that we British all go about in a calamity or tragedy with stiff upper lips and poker faces while these people can weep and cry and laugh and release their feelings as they ought to do?

  Catherine, white-faced and silent, did not cry either, but the misery in her eyes was eloquent. ‘Where will you go, Marraine? What shall you do now?’ They gathered excitedly round Mrs Freeth and we told them about Kathleen, Anne, Larry, and Cecil, whom they had all known. I said that there was the house in Tite Street – negotiations were completed for that. I saw them look at one another and then Catherine said, ‘It’s been terribly damaged – you won’t be able to live there.’ She came and said urgently, ‘You could come to my room – and there’s another empty one in the house – won’t you come and stay there?’ I said I was going to some relatives for a few nights because it seemed that I might be going to lose the baby – after that I would come back and see them all, and that if they needed anything they could go to Suzanne. Catherine’s mute misery was heart-rending. I went over to her and told her that I would try to find a house where she could come to us and have Francesca with her, and she looked despairingly at me when I said good-bye. It was melancholy leaving them all standing there in the ruins, and I felt as though I were the Old Woman who lived in a Shoe having to leave her large family.