The Chalky Sea

by Clare Flynn

  'I had a letter from my folks today. Very enlightening it was about what's been going on back in my home town.' Howardson jerked his head at Greg. ‘Has Armstrong cried on your shoulder yet, Hooper? Told you how his little brother's been doing his fiancée?’

  Jim was off the bunk, hands grabbing at the corporal’s collar.

  ‘Take your filthy hands off me, Armstrong. You can do fifty laps of the parade ground for that. Right now.’

  Hooper said, ‘But it’s dark, Corporal. And raining. And we’re off duty.’

  ‘You want to join him?’

  Hooper’s lips stretched but he said nothing.

  ‘I said now, Armstrong. Waste any more time and you can make it a hundred.’

  The men were woken in the night by the sound of sirens. The sound was distant, coming from thirty-odd miles away in London. Jim and Greg leapt out of their bunks and rushed out onto the long balcony to see what was going on. In the distance, wands of bright light streaked up from the ground to sweep the sky, searchlights seeking enemy raiders. They watched in fascination mingled with fear for what they expected to happen, but after about twenty minutes the show was over. A false alarm.

  The following day, bleary eyed, they were out training. Twenty mile route marches, carrying full packs, were done once every week, walking on roads. The hard asphalt was agony after ten miles or so, especially in bad weather. Blisters were a constant trial. One of the few highlights of the dreary days of square-bashing and exercises at Aldershot was a ten minute break every hour when, as if by a miracle, tea wagons – tricycle carts – pedalled along the road to the training ground to sell them cups of tea and baked tarts. The traders made a small fortune out of the Canadians, as the men were always ravenous with hunger after training.

  Jim and Greg ate apple tarts, washed down with sweet tea, while they listened to one of the lads, Scotty McDermott, performing his party piece. Scotty was able to mimic noises. His speciality was sounds of war. He was famed for his imitation of a Lancaster bomber taking off, but this morning he had added the sound of last night’s air raid siren to his repertoire. It was convincing. Birdsong, crying babies, trains, farm animals – Scotty could do them all and was happy to take requests. Jim was beginning to find the novelty wearing off.

  Raining Bombs

  Eastbourne

  Since the German plane had crashed in Meads, Eastbourne had taken a pounding, with twenty-six bombs dropped over the district of Hampden Park that night and constant air raids since. It was apparent that Germany was trying to soften up the south coast towns prior to launching an invasion.

  Gwen was asked to attend fire-watch training with colleagues from the WVS and the ARP. It was taking place in one of the classrooms of the Technical College next door to the fire station. She’d expected there wouldn’t be much to it. How complicated could it be to put out small fires?

  There was plenty of equipment available to assist with the task. It felt strange to be sitting in a room full of women, behind desks as though they were back at school while the trainer stood at the blackboard and drew diagrams to explain the various types of bombs. To Gwen’s surprise the different bombs produced different types of fire and there was a lot more to it than she’d thought.

  The man explained that if you poured water on an incendiary bomb it would actually help the fire to spread – you had to use a bucket of sand or the foam in an extinguisher. For fires where you could use water, it was necessary to know how to work a stirrup pump. The women were instructed to come to the front of the class in pairs and demonstrate that they had mastered the technique, one operating the pump and the other directing the hose.

  The woman paired with Gwen seemed incapable of understanding. Gwen was reminded of a classmate at her Swiss finishing school who had proved unable to master the art of threading a needle. When their turn came, the woman kept forgetting to keep her foot on the pump to hold it in place and as a result the bucket kept falling over when she pressed down on the stirrup. After refilling the bucket three times, Gwen was becoming impatient.

  When it was her turn to prime the pump, the woman took over the hose and kept dropping it. The instructor rolled his eyes in sympathy at Gwen.

  When she was about to pass out with boredom at the endless repetition, things started to get interesting. They donned boiler suits, then trooped up the road to the playing fields at Larkin’s Field where they were told to crawl through a smoke-filled shed dragging a heavy firehose. The instructor, one of the permanent firemen, shouted at them, reminding them all to keep their heads near the ground where the air would be clearer, holding the nozzle of the hose close to their faces to take advantage of the air in the water. Gwen realised she was actually enjoying herself. It felt real, a proper physical task, the nearest thing she would ever get to fighting.

  After the smoke drill, the instructor demonstrated how to use a big fire hose. Most of the women proved inadequate to the task and the exercise ended up with the uncontrolled hose sending jets of water everywhere but the direction required. Gwen watched carefully so that when it came to her turn she was forewarned, and managed to grip the front of the hose with both hands while anchoring the back end of the nozzle under her arm so the force of the water didn’t drag it away. She found herself grinning like a small child when the instructor told her she was the only one who had got it right.

  The combination of physical exercise and learning to do something useful, gave Gwen a rush of energy. She went home, humming a tune as she walked up the steep hill, and realised she was feeling cheerful for the first time in ages.

  Back h0me, she had only an hour to get ready for a rare social event. Outraged by the Hampden Park bombing, the local newspaper had organised a drive to collect money to purchase a Spitfire in Eastbourne’s name. Five thousand pounds was needed and Gwen’s friend, Daphne Pringle, had invited her to a fundraiser that night at one of the seafront hotels.

  The evening was a trial – a protracted event. It was all in a good cause but the auction of promises dragged on and Gwen was feeling tired.

  She stood in front of the mirror in the hotel powder room, took her compact out of her handbag and, flicking it open, began to powder her nose. The case was gold and monogrammed with the initials GB on the top with an inscription on the back. It was the first gift she had received from Roger.

  The powder was sweet and cloying. She made a mental note to change the brand when she next refilled it, then remembered that she’d have to make do with whatever was available. There was hardly likely to be a glut of cosmetics in the shops while the war was on.

  Daphne Pringle came in to the room and stood beside her. ‘So glad you could come tonight, Gwen. It must be hard for you without Roger but we need to keep up some semblance of normality.’

  Gwen gave her a weak smile, snapped her compact closed and dropped it into her handbag.

  Daphne, who had been rooting in the depths of her own handbag, placed a hand on her arm. ‘Do us a favour, darling, and let me borrow your face powder. I appear to have come out without mine.’

  Gwen handed the compact over and her friend applied powder to her nose and cheeks. Before returning it, Daphne twirled it in her hands, examining it. ‘Pretty. Who’s GB?’

  ‘I am. My maiden name was Brooke.’

  Daphne flipped the compact over. The back was also engraved. Gwen reached for it but Daphne held it away from her as she studied the wording.

  ‘B-r-u-c-h, I presume?’ said Daphne, as she continued to study the compact. Her voice was frosty. ‘I had no idea you were German.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then why do you have a powder compact with a German inscription on it? And what does “Glücklich allen, Ist die Seele, die libel” mean?’ Her pronunciation made Gwen squirm.

  ‘It means The soul is only happy when it loves. It’s from a poem by Goethe. Seeing Daphne’s eyes narrow, she added, ‘It was a gift from Roger.’

  ‘From Roger?’ Daphne’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Goo
d Lord, is he German?’

  ‘Neither of us is German. We happened to meet there. In ’23. I was at finishing school in Switzerland and Roger was working for The Reparations Commission. We met at a party at the British embassy in Berlin. I was a friend of the daughter of one of the attachés there.’

  ‘You speak German?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gwen felt herself bristling.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, Daphne, it’s not a crime. I speak French as well.’

  ‘But why did Roger have your compact inscribed with a German poem when you’re both English?’

  Gwen looked at her incredulously. ‘Why on earth not? It may surprise you to know it, but my husband is a hopeless romantic. He intended it as a reminder of where we met. The last war had just finished and neither of us expected there would be another one. As she snapped the words out in annoyance, she felt a rush of tenderness for Roger. She did miss him terribly. Having him here tonight beside her would have made the evening less tedious.

  ‘You never mentioned being in Germany before.’

  ‘As far as I know I never mentioned being in Nairobi either. I spent five years there when I was a small child before we went to India. And boarding school in Yorkshire. Oh, and Roger and I spent our honeymoon in Ireland. Rained all the time. Anything else I need to fill you in on?’

  Daphne laughed and handed the compact back. ‘Sorry, old girl. You are a hoot! But we can’t be too careful these days. Now, come on, let’s get back to the fray; I want to make sure Sandy puts a bid on the dinner for two at the Grand – exactly what I have in mind for our wedding anniversary.’

  Later, in bed, Gwen thought of the night she first met Roger. Tall, loose-limbed and smiling, with thick brown hair, he’d stood out in the crowd of colourless officials and middle-aged matrons. He’d behaved as though she were the only person in the room. The moment he looked at her across the crowded dance floor, she knew he would ask her for a dance. She had been captivated. He swept her up into the waltz, holding her closer to him than she felt comfortable with. But deep down she had liked it – the way he held her so confidently, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to hold her in his arms and she knew at once that she would fall in love with him, that she would marry him. Yet she had been absolutely fearful at the prospect.

  As she came to know him, the fear grew stronger rather than abating. Loving him terrified her. She was afraid of showing anyone love, scared of making herself vulnerable, of opening herself up to the possibility of loss. Not again. Not ever.

  If Roger was disturbed by her reticence, he didn’t show it. It seemed to be enough that she allowed him to court her, then that she eventually agreed to marry him, despite the distance she tried to keep between them. It was as if he knew she loved him, even though she was incapable of telling him, of showing him.

  Gwen lay open-eyed and unseeing in her bedroom in the dark of the blackout, remembering those first weeks of marriage, the honeymoon in rain-sodden Ireland. She loved Roger but she didn’t know how to make him happy. She wouldn’t or couldn’t let him please her, even though she knew that would be the way to pleasing him. She felt there was something undignified about all that. Sex was something animals did. Other people. Common people. She and Roger should be above it. Love should have a higher purpose, a dignity that sex undermined. When he came to her in the dark, in their bed, touched her in places no one had touched her before, she shrank away, suppressing the part of her that welcomed it, was excited by it and wanted to give in to it – instead holding back, fighting to keep herself apart, to stop herself falling over the edge. Whenever they made love – he at first with enthusiasm, optimism, tenderness, then with a growing self-consciousness, she with passive acceptance – Gwen had felt only emptiness and despair. It was as if she sensed they would never be able to make a baby. She told herself that conceiving a child took belief and hope – a blind faith that their two bodies could combine and make another. But when his seed was inside her she imagined her body melting it away, dissolving it, absorbing it into the emptiness within her.

  The ominous date of Friday 13th September 1940 marked the beginning of a terrible weekend of destruction in Eastbourne. The Friday afternoon bombings began soon before four o’clock in the heart of the town centre when three aircraft dropped a series of bombs in the main business area and to the east, where the damage included a junior school which was gutted by fire.

  Gwen spent an exhausting day rushing from site to site on her bicycle, offering assistance wherever it was needed. The hospital was struggling to cope with the injured. Three people lost their lives in the attack. By the time she got home it was almost midnight and she fell gratefully into her bed.

  The following morning she was due to report for fire watch duty at the Civil Defence headquarters. Before leaving for the town she stood on her bedroom balcony, looking out over the sea. The horizon was sharp-edged, separating the sea from a pale sky. The water was chalky grey, its monotony broken by a stripe of mint green, like a slash across the surface.

  Out of the distance a lone plane appeared, its wings carrying the ugly black swastika. Gwen was about to go back inside when she saw a pair of Spitfires swoop over the Downs in pursuit, racing to engage with the German aircraft over the sea. Gwen looked up at the sky, her nerves on edge as the two little planes harried the larger German one. She could hear the sound of the gunfire and suppressed a cheer as the British planes shot the German Dornier down into the sea. Though she was joyful that they had succeeded, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sadness for the dead German pilot. It could only be hoped that his death was quick as the burning plane plummeted to the waves. She shuddered, imagining the young man realising he was trapped and doomed.

  When she arrived at the civil defence HQ she said, ‘We’ve zapped a German plane. Two Spitfires downed it over the sea.’

  Her news was met with cheers and applause.

  The local head of the WVS, Val Robson, said, ‘Let’s hope that means we’ve avoided another attack today. Maybe they’ll leave us alone for a while.’

  ‘Gosh, let’s hope so. We need a bit of a respite to clear up after what happened yesterday,’ said one of the helpers.

  ‘Talking of which, we need to get our skates on.’ Val Robson picked up her clipboard. Before the woman could issue her instructions, they heard the scream of the air raid sirens. They scrambled down the stairs to take shelter in the cellar of the building where they crouched down on the floor, waiting.

  Gwen sat, legs crossed in front of her, on a blanket on the cold floor, a couple of wardens and three other WVS women alongside her, all listening intently. They heard the sound of explosions nearby.

  ‘That sounds close.’

  ‘They’re going for the town centre again, the filthy rotters,’ said Mrs Robson.

  There was a brief period of silence, after the departure of what sounded like two planes, and they waited anxiously for the all-clear to sound. But instead of the siren they heard the noise of low flying aeroplanes again and counted as more bombs exploded. The noise seemed to go on for ever. The walls above them shook with the vibrations and the sound of the bombs was deafening.

  ‘That’s more than twenty by my count,’ said Gwen.

  The woman sitting beside her began to whimper. Gwen looked at her – she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Gwen reached for her hand and squeezed it. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon. We’re safe down here.’

  The woman, Gwen remembered her name was Susan, said, ‘I’m not scared for me. It’s my mum and dad. They have a jeweller’s shop in Cornfield Road. They’re both in there. The bombs yesterday caused a lot of damage and they’re sorting out their stock. They’ll be right in the thick of it again today.’

  There was nothing Gwen could say. What was the point of reassurances when she was in no position to give them? She put an arm around the young woman’s shoulder and drew her towards her. Feeling the heat of the other body agai
nst her felt strange. Gwen had rarely experienced physical closeness with other people. She had always kept herself apart, distant, remote. Yet now she gained some comfort in this intimate contact with a near stranger. War was changing everything.

  They waited in silence. Gwen glanced at her watch, two thirty. It must be over now. But it wasn’t. This time the bombs were a little further away, but probably still within a few hundred yards. Gwen counted a total of seven explosions as Susan wept into her shoulder.

  Surely they must sound the all-clear now? Three consecutive air raids. That must be it. But the enemy wasn’t done with them yet. At a quarter past three they heard more explosions, this time to the south. Susan’s weeping was now uncontrollable. Big jerky sobs. Shaking and shivering. The shoulder of Gwen’s dress was soaked.

  Gwen was surprised to realise she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t want to die, to be crushed to death under the weight of the building, but she didn’t believe she would be. And if it happened it happened. Rather than fear, she felt an adrenaline rush, heart beating, throat catching, almost excitement.

  When the siren finally sounded the all-clear, the group emerged from the bowels of the building to a scene of devastation. The almost continuous afternoon of bombing had taken its toll on the town. Trees were uprooted and lying across what was normally a busy thoroughfare, their branches tangled with bricks, broken glass, roof tiles, rubble and lampposts. The building opposite, its facade blasted off, revealed its shattered interior, like someone surprised in their underwear. Susan gave a strangled cry and ran, scrambling over the piles of debris, rushing to find out the fate of her parents. Gwen closed her eyes, shaken, and filled with dread at what the young woman might find.

  Doing her rounds on the Sunday morning, Gwen was relieved to find out that Susan’s family had been unhurt in the previous day’s attack. That night the bombers returned to drop another eighteen bombs and a number of incendiary devices on the town. The heavy bombardment fortunately produced no casualties.