by Clare Flynn
As they trudged back to the main road for the five mile walk back to the garrison, Jim was near the front of the group. He turned his head to look behind him and saw Walt was watching him, his eyes filled with undisguised hatred.
Bombed Out
Eastbourne
There had been no bombs since before Christmas. The people of Eastbourne were heaving a collective sigh of relief and crossing their fingers that the worst days of the town being used as target practice by the Luftwaffe were now gone. Then the bombing began again.
Gwen was doing a morning shift for the WVS in the town centre. There were just two of them, Gwen reading a book and her companion doing a crossword puzzle. Gwen wished she was on duty up on Beachy Head – at least she felt she was doing something useful instead of this sitting around and waiting for nothing to happen.
Four bombs were dropped that morning from a single plane, which swept over the town at around five hundred feet. The bombs landed in the part of the town known as the Archery, hitting houses in and around Churchdale Road.
As soon as the all-clear sounded, Gwen grabbed her bicycle and set off for the scene. The surface of Churchdale Road had been ploughed up into a deep crater where the bomb had bounced before destroying a series of houses.
A wide swathe had been cut through the row of houses, like a scythe through corn. Gwen left her bike against a wall and made her way into the thick of the scene of destruction. No matter how many times she attended the aftermath of a bomb attack it didn’t lessen the horror. Helmeted ARP men were scrambling over a mountain of debris – bricks, plasterwork, roofing tiles, wooden beams, all piled across the road in the gap where the houses had stood. The air was thick with dust. Suffocating. Choking. Stinging the eyes. Blocking the throat. This was what hell must be. Gwen covered her mouth with a handkerchief, then unfastened the silk scarf from around her neck and tied it across her face bandanna style. She moved forward, picking her way through the detritus, towards the survivors.
Further up the road, a little girl sat on what was left of the kerb clutching a teddy bear to her chest, whispering words of comfort to the bear, as her mother beside her nursed a baby. The mother was apparently oblivious to the gash across her forehead and the blood dripping down her temple. Gwen hurried over with her first aid kit and began to clean the wound, removing shards of glass, but relieved that, despite the blood, it was not too deep.
‘I’d been in the back kitchen washing up the breakfast things just before the bombs dropped,’ the young woman told Gwen. ‘I heard the sound and grabbed the baby and ran out into the yard. Sally here was playing outside. Thank God she was all right. But my grandfather – he was upstairs. Bed-ridden. His heart. Name’s Mr Arthur Moffat. Can you get someone to go over and check on him?’ She looked up at Gwen, squinting against the sunlight and the dust. ‘The wardens wouldn’t let me go back to look for him. The noise will have terrified him. He’s in the little front bedroom. Number 15’
Gwen went to check with the ARP warden who jerked his head in the direction of the gaping hole where number 15 had been. ‘No one inside would have stood a chance. They’ve dug an old fellow out from under the rubble but I’m afraid he was dead. At least it would have been instant. If you have the man’s name, go and tell that fellow over there with the clipboard.’
Once she’d informed the officials, Gwen made her way back to the woman and her two children, her heart heavy. She’d never had to break news like this to anyone before. There wasn’t even time to prepare, to find the right words. She felt hopelessly inadequate.
Mrs Simmonds’ eyes filled with tears. ‘How am I going to tell my granny? She’s in a nursing home. We lost my mother to pneumonia last year. Now this. How will I break the news that Grandpa’s gone?’ She choked back a sob. ‘I can’t believe it. He was sitting up in bed reading the News of the World, smoking his Woodbines and now he’s gone. Poor devil.’ She put an arm around her daughter, pulling her in towards herself and the baby. ‘But thank God it were Grandpa and not these two.’
‘You know the children shouldn’t still be in Eastbourne, Mrs Simmonds. They should have been evacuated months ago.’
The woman looked up at her, eyes narrowed. ‘Got any children yourself, have you? – I thought not. I’m without my husband, my mum’s dead, my grandpa’s just been killed in his bed and now you want to take my girls away from me?’
Gwen swallowed. ‘It’s not safe here.’
‘Am I daft?’ Mrs Simmonds waved her hands at the scene of desecration in front of them. ‘But I don’t want my girls being cared for by a bunch of strangers. And I’m not leaving while my granny’s here. She’s in an old folks’ home. Can’t look after herself. She lives for visits from me and the kids. Now Grandpa’s gone I’m all she’s got. If we’re going to cop it we’ll all cop it together and that’s final.’ She turned away and focused her attention on the child in her arms.
By the time she got back to Meads that evening, Gwen was exhausted. Too tired to cook anything. She had been living on a diet of toast, tinned pilchards and baked potatoes, and all too often forgetting to eat at all. Never having had to cook she lacked the skills to rustle up meals from her meagre rations and there always seemed to be more pressing things to do than cook and eat. She ran her fingers under the waistband of her skirt. Hanging off her. How much weight had she lost? She couldn’t go on like this.
She looked around her comfortable lounge, its generous proportions dwarfing her. Why should she have all this space when the displaced people from Churchdale Road were crowded into a rest centre?
Next morning, Gwen walked down the hill to the town. She walked to the school where the bombed-out people from the Archery were sheltering. Mrs Simmonds was sitting on the edge of a camp bed, brushing and braiding the hair of her daughter as Sally stood patiently in front of her, wedged between her knees. The baby was sleeping in a cradle made from a drawer.
Gwen marched up to them. ‘Do you still want to stay in Eastbourne, Mrs Simmonds?’
The young woman looked up, surprised. ‘They said last night they’re going to send me and my kids to Gloucestershire. I don’t even know where that is.’ She scowled. ‘This town’s my home and I don’t want to go and live in some strange place. Little Brenda's only eighteen months. But they say that as we don’t have a home to go to I don’t have a say.’
‘Can you cook?’
‘Course I can cook.’
‘Then I have a proposition for you. I live up in Meads. Right at the top by the Downs. It’s far from the railway and the gasworks and the town centre so less chance of a stray bomb up there. How would you and your girls like to come and live in my house? You’d have your own quarters. There’s a big garden for Sally to play in. I can provide you with bed and board and two pounds ten a week in exchange for a little light housework and the cooking. What do you think?’
‘And the girls wouldn’t have to go away?’
‘They can’t force you to have them evacuated if they have a place to live.’
A wide grin broke across Mrs Simmonds face. She spun Sally round and planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘Hear that, Sal? We can all be together and live in a posh house. How about that!’ Then she reached for Gwen’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Thanks ever so, Mrs. Sorry I don’t remember your name. But you can call me Pauline.’
The Stag
Aldershot
Greg had got a bad attack of the blues. He wasn’t alone; virtually everyone in the barracks was suffering from homesickness. The fact that they were not involved in any enemy action, coupled with the miserable rainy weather, conspired to ensure that a pall of misery descended over the Canadian recruits.
Jim’s misery was of a different nature. He was still overcome with loss and grief at what had happened, accompanied by shame – that he had not been good enough to hold onto his girl, that he was lacking something that his younger brother had, that he had been so self-absorbed that he had failed to have even an inkling of what was going on.
The constant sneering and bullying of Tip Howardson made matters worse. Howardson lost no opportunity to goad him about Alice and Walt, trying to push Jim to lose his self-control and lash out. That would give the corporal the perfect excuse to punish and humiliate him. Jim was determined not to let that happen. Howardson had even tried to make capital from Jim’s mother being of German origin. If he had hoped this would turn the other men against Jim, Tip was disappointed.
There was also the odd encounter with Walt. Jim did everything he could to avoid it but Aldershot was a small town and it was inevitable they would run into each other occasionally, especially in training exercises. Walt’s attitude was surly, still smarting from being out-manoeuvred in the ambush of the ruined farmhouse. Jim sensed that Walt was regretting the decision to join up and blamed him for it. He was seeing aspects of his brother he had not noticed before – or perhaps had chosen not to acknowledge.
Being stuck in a bleak barrack room with a morose Greg Hooper was not helping Jim’s own morale. In an effort to raise Greg’s spirits, Jim suggested they go out into the town one evening, but Greg was unmoved, preferring to lie on his bunk and stare at the ceiling. The dark mood was beginning to infect Jim too. If he was to get through this war – or get through this training period and into battle – he had to keep some sense of equilibrium. Losing patience with Greg, he grabbed hold of his friend’s ankle and yanked him off his bunk bed.
‘Get up, you miserable bastard. Stop feeling so darn sorry for yourself.’
Greg, taken completely unaware, sat on the dorm floor, looking up at Jim, eyes wide. He shook his shoulders, as though shaking something off, then picked himself up off the floor. Jim’s action was the shot in the arm he had evidently been waiting for. He grinned at his friend and said, ‘Okay, pal, let’s go. You win.’
Rather than going to the nearest public house to the barracks, their usual drinking hole, the men ventured further into the town. The Stag was a large ugly building straddling a street corner and neither of them had visited it before. Once they had penetrated the protective blackout curtains inside the door, they found the interior of the establishment unexpectedly welcoming and cheery – a marked contrast to the spartan facilities of the beverage rooms they had known back in Canada. There was beer on tap, music from a piano livening one of the bars, and – the biggest difference – women on both sides of the bar.
The noise was deafening. Men were singing along to the piano; voices were raised in conversation as everyone struggled to be heard. Jim and Greg pushed their way through the throng and then, to avoid the crush, retreated from the scrum in the public and saloon bars to a small room marked “Snug” at the back of the pub. Inside, it was anything but snug, the fire in the grate being little more than dying embers. The coal scuttle beside the hearth was empty, evidence of rationing. But at least the room had the advantage of being quiet and there were a few seats available. The rest were occupied by civilians: a group of older men playing cards, an elderly couple sitting side by side in total silence, half-empty glasses of stout in front of them. Greg was about to pull Jim back into the more convivial atmosphere of the main bar when they spotted a pair of young women at a table in the corner. Greg nodded to Jim and pulled him by the sleeve towards the pair.
‘Good evening, ladies,’ said Greg, with a friendly smile. He offered to buy the two of them a drink and when they thanked him, headed over to an open hatch in the wall which gave on to the central bar area.
One of the women motioned to Jim to sit down and join them. He hesitated a moment. What kind of women hung out in a drinking house? Back home, women weren’t even allowed in the refreshment rooms and, had they been permitted entry, he thought it likely only prostitutes would take advantage of the opportunity. But these women didn’t look like prostitutes. One of them was wearing uniform for a start. He sat down, nervous and self-conscious and waited for Greg to return while the women ignored him and continued their conversation.
Greg came back with the requested lemonade shandies and a couple of pints of beer. Jim had been avoiding drinking beer since his experience in Toronto but he decided it was time to put that behind him. Besides, this was English beer. He took a mouthful of the unfamiliar drink: flatter, more bitter than back home and served at room temperature. His first thought was that it was disgusting, but he was thirsty and a few more mouthfuls convinced him he actually liked it. It was rich, earthy and hoppy, a quickly acquired taste.
Meanwhile Greg was busy with introductions and had established that one woman was in the ATS and called Joan, while the other, Ethel, worked in a munitions factory and spent her days packing bullets into boxes. Both were good-looking but Ethel was the prettier of the two. She was blonde and that made Jim think of Alice. He pushed the thought away. Joan’s dark hair was cut in a long glossy bob which she kept pushing back behind her ears. While Jim drank his pint in silence, Grass soon established that Joan was engaged to be married and from that point on he evidently felt no longer obliged to make conversation with her, fixing his attention on Ethel, leaving Jim to entertain Joan.
The evening passed quickly as Joan proved to need little encouragement to talk and seemed unconcerned whether her words elicited any response from him. He looked over the top of his third pint and saw that Greg and Ethel were already holding hands.
‘Why do you call your friend Grass when his name is Greg?’ Joan asked.
Jim had grown used to her keeping up a monologue and it was only when she repeated the question that he realised she was asking him something that required a response.
He explained.
‘A pretty stupid name if you ask me,’ she said.
Jim wanted to say that he hadn’t asked her, but instead gave a noncommittal nod.
‘And why do Canadians keep saying “eh” all the time. Specially him.’ She nodded in Greg’s direction.
Jim looked at his watch and shrugged. ‘Do we?’
‘Yes. But you don’t, come to think of it. But then you don’t say much at all.’
Jim suddenly felt ashamed. It wasn’t Joan’s fault that they had been stuck with each other. She was probably enjoying the evening no more than he was. He decided to be more friendly. As he was trying to think of a topic of conversation the bell for last orders rang and Joan jumped to her feet. She dug Ethel in the ribs. ‘Come on, I promised Aunty Vi we’d be home before eleven.’
A reluctant Ethel pulled on her coat and the two Canadians accompanied the women through the blackout to a nearby bus stop. Jim and Joan shuffled their feet and shivered in the cold evening while Grass and Ethel kissed against the wall of the bus shelter.
‘Your friend doesn’t waste much time, does she?’ Jim said and immediately wished he hadn’t.
‘I could say the same about yours, couldn’t I?’
Unable to dispute Joan’s logic, he leaned against a tree, avoiding looking back through the gloom to the bus shelter, where, as well as Ethel and Grass, at least half a dozen other Canadian soldiers were kissing women they had met in the pub. He wished the bus would appear and liberate him.
Joan moved towards him, pushing her body against his. ‘You can kiss me if you want. I don’t mind.’
Surprised, he said, ‘I thought you said you were getting married.’
‘So what? A kiss isn’t a promise.’ She looked up at him. In the faint moonlight she looked pretty and Jim was tempted. What harm was there? – it was only a kiss. Maybe the war made people behave differently. Or maybe English girls weren’t so fussy about kissing strangers. He hesitated for a moment then bent his head to kiss her. Her lips were soft and drew him into the kiss. He had begun to enjoy it, when she pulled away.
‘That’s your lot, soldier. No need to make a meal of it. The bus is coming.’
People piled onto the vehicle, but Ethel and Grass were showing no sign of ending their embrace. The bus conductress rang the bell and called out, ‘You getting on or walking home?’ Joan grabbed her friend by the sleeve and hauled her onto th
e platform as the bus began to move away.
Greg slapped an arm around Jim’s shoulder. ‘That was a great night, eh?’
Jim grunted in response. He’d enjoyed the beer and the friendly atmosphere of the pub but he wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to meet the women again. The kiss with Joan had been enjoyable but kissing another man’s fiancée was not something he was keen to repeat. Besides, the kiss was a reminder of what he had lost. He felt the anger about Walt and Alice rising in him again and kicked out pointlessly at a tree as they passed it.
Greg was exuberant and didn’t pick up on Jim’s darker mood. ‘I’ve met the girl I’m going to marry,’ he said, triumphantly. ‘I’ll take her back home to Regina after the war. The future Mrs Ethel Hooper, eh.’
Jim roared with laughter, his dark mood forgotten. ‘You’re kidding me!’
Greg grabbed his friend by the front of his battledress jacket. ‘I mean it, Jim. I’m not being funny.’
‘You’ve only known her an hour or so.’
Greg slung an arm over Jim’s shoulders and they moved on, walking as steadily as they could in the dark and after the beers. ‘That’s all it took. Not even that. I knew it the moment I saw her.’
Jim shook his head, still disbelieving. ‘So you’re seeing her again? Did you even get her address?’
‘You bet I did. And we’re going there for tea a week on Sunday, Sunny Jim.’
‘We?’
‘You’re invited too.’
‘Oh no! You’re on your own.’
‘You have to come too. Her mother will be there. Ethel says they want to pull out the stops for the brave volunteers who’ve come to help them win the war. There’ll be cake. They’re going to pool their rations specially. I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait that long till I see her.’
