Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

  She’d picked him out and given him a job to do, asked him to meet another kid and trusted him. That was a change! He was so used to being called ‘a bad ’un’.

  Greg had no memories of any home but Marston Lodge. When the orphanage was right in the firing line off the Sussex coast, they were moved lock, stock up north, and he’d been picked for farm work, on account of his size.

  The farmer near York had treated him worse than his animals, and that was saying much. When he fell sick, he’d been picked up and sent to live with the vicar as a ‘special case’.

  They’d kept him in a room over the stables and they sent him to a posh school where he got in fights and got beaten up just for being a ‘vaccy’. That was when he learned a thing or two in the boxing ring.

  Just when he was settling down, having bashed in a few heads of his own, along came that curate creep with the funny stare who had tried to touch his privates. He’d punched him a right hook and been sent to the correctional hostel for being ‘out of control’. Here he’d lost his southern accent for good. Now Greg was on the move again and he was sick of fighting his corner, sick of being labelled by the panel as ‘delinquent’ and a ‘dunce’.

  Well, he wasn’t stupid. He could read and write as well as anyone else, but he just didn’t hold with school any more. If only he was fourteen and could leave. He wanted to be where there was danger and bullets and excitement, not to be sent on an errand like some ‘trusty’.

  As he walked out of sight, the ‘trust’ word hung heavy. Mrs Belfield had picked him out and chosen him specially. Perhaps it would do no harm to fetch the kid and then bunk off, as these were orders, not punishment for a change.

  Then he saw her, the kid in the white school hat with glasses, looking lost and trying to be brave. It was a look he knew so well. Blast it, he couldn’t leave her standing there–even if she wasn’t on her own.

  Maddy stood clutching her charges, feeling suddenly abandoned. There was nobody waiting to meet her on the platform. She had checked this was Leeds Station and she daren’t move. Sometimes they made announcements over the Tannoy but no one called her name. She stood frozen to the spot.

  Where were the teachers who should’ve gathered up Gloria and her brother? Now she was stuck with them too and it was cold, damp and sooty, the trains like smoking black dragons on huge iron wheels.

  Maddy had her ticket but did they have theirs? What if the guard didn’t let them through the barrier? How horrid was Aunt Prunella to abandon her like this?

  Then she saw a boy limping down the platform, a big string bean of a boy who looked her up and down.

  ‘Are you Madlin? Mrs Belfield sent me. She’s on the other platform with me mates,’ he smiled, pointing across the platforms.

  ‘And who’re you?’ Maddy eyed him with suspicion. He wore shorts to his knees, and plimsolls, his socks were dirty and his straw-coloured hair stuck up at the back.

  ‘Greg Byrne. Who are these two?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were here on your own?’

  ‘Gloria and her brother…they got lost. I have to find someone to take them.’

  ‘Bring them along then. Her in charge seems to be on top of the job, she’ll sort ’em out. Did they chuck you out of your hostel?’

  ‘I was bombed out. I’ve got to go to my granny’s.’

  ‘You’re not one of us then?’ he said. ‘These two look like a right pair of book ends. Where did you find them?’

  Maddy tried to explain to him as he shepherded them back towards another platform.

  ‘Hurry up or we’ll miss the train. Wait till you see her hat, the missus they sent…looks like a dartboard.’ Greg was racing them down the platform and Sid was half carried between them.

  Gloria said nothing but gazed up at him as if he was a creature from another planet. ‘Where you taking us? Don’t leave us, will you?’

  ‘There’s a picnic on the train. Just get them on the train and say nowt. It’ll be all right. I think her in charge’s a toff,’ Greg explained.

  ‘Mrs Belfield is my granny,’ Maddy announced proudly to put him in his place.

  ‘Blimey! She’s the youngest gran I’ve ever seen then.’

  There was this pretty woman in a big hat standing outside the carriage, waving to her. She rushed up and held out her hand. ‘Madeleine, at last…I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet you but I had to collect a few others and I was late, but I knew Gregory would find you.’

  ‘Are you Aunt Prunella?’ Maddy asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the smiling face, those dark blue eyes and that amazing hat with the net hanging down.

  ‘Call me Plum, dear, Aunt Plum. I hate Prunella–it sounds more like a box of dried fruit.’ She laughed and her eyes creased into a grin. ‘Thank you, Gregory.’

  Gregory had sneaked into the carriage behind Aunt Plum’s back with Gloria and Sid.

  ‘Oh, I was so sorry to hear your bad news. Your daddy has rung but the line was terrible. They’ll be on their way home, darling, but it’s going to take an age. What a rotten time you’ve had, but you’ll have a home with us for as long as you like. Come on, we’ve grabbed a whole carriage to ourselves and you can meet the other evacuees. They’re going to live in a hostel in the village. Won’t it be fun!’

  Plum was so relieved to have them all safely gathered in as the train chugged out of the station. It was getting dark and the covered lamps flickered; all she could see were legs tangled up. There was a plump boy in shorts with a grimy bandage half hanging off his knee, full of grit and raw skin. He smelled of Germolene.

  Then came Gregory, his strong calves covered in yellowing bruises, wearing plimsolls with holes in the sides and carrying the overwhelming stench of sweaty socks. The next set of knees were bony like door knobs, with raised weals, looking as if they’d been leathered with a strap. Across the seat were Enid’s long thin legs in grubby ankle socks, and she wore a pair of patent ankle-strapped shoes that looked two sizes too small.

  The next pair of plimsolls were very small indeed. There was a small girl huddled in the corner with another little boy. Their knees looked scrubbed clean but they smelled of wet knickers. Then Plum glanced over at her niece in her brogue shoes and woollen stockings, her school uniform two sizes too large for her and those awful round glasses that hid her big grey eyes.

  Why did she think of a tin of broken biscuits when she looked at her charges? They were a bunch of misshapes indeed. Broken biscuits were sold by the pound and thrown together in bags, they got crushed and splintered but they tasted just as good once you sorted them out: Abernethy, Nice, Bourbons, Custard Creams and Garibaldis.

  But these were children, not broken biscuits, tired, lost, wretched-looking children. Even Madeleine looked haunted and exhausted.

  These were not first-timers, full of excitement at being evacuated to the countryside. No, this lot knew the score. Each had a story to tell and had been labelled as a delinquent, a runaway. A quick flip through their files would yield a catalogue of misdemeanours and black marks.

  This was their last chance to settle down and behave. There should be six evacuees and her niece, but when she counted them Plum realised to her horror that there were two extras huddled behind Gregory.

  ‘Who are those?’ she asked, her heart pounding at the implication. ‘Gregory?’

  ‘Dunno, miss. The girl brought them with her off the train. We couldn’t leave them,’ he said.

  ‘Madeleine, who are they?’ Plum was trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  ‘Their mother put them on the train and told me to look after them. I couldn’t find their teacher. No one came to collect them so we brought them to you,’ she said, and Plum could hear the others giggling at her refined accent.

  ‘’Er don’t half talk posh, miss,’ said Enid.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ the girl snapped. ‘Did I do wrong, Aunt Plum?’

  More guffaws as they heard her nickname.

  ‘Shush! Have you found out their names?’

 
‘The lady called them Glory and Sidney, but she says she’s Gloria Conley and they don’t go to school, and it was six stops before Leeds when they got on…Manchester, I think. I’m sorry but I didn’t know what to do,’ whispered her niece. ‘Oh, the lady said there was a letter in her pocket and “she don’t read”.’

  ‘Well done, darling, you did what any of us would’ve done. Just check her pocket but don’t wake her yet,’ Plum whispered.

  ‘Shall I pull the cord and stop the train?’ offered Peggy.

  ‘No!’ Plum snapped, the panic rising within her. What if someone was searching the station for them? What if worried relatives had called out the police? Oh, why had Miss Blunt not come with her?

  ‘Here, miss, in her pocket, a letter…’ Gregory leaned over and shoved a paper into Plum’s hand. The note was written in pencil on the back half of a torn envelope.

  To whom it concerns.

  I am sending them away for good. My fella got killed and I can’t take no more. I have no proper home for them and am going away so don’t come looking. Tell them they is better off. You can call them what ever name but they will answer to Gloria Beryl and Sidney Leonard. She is ten but don’t look it and he is five. I cannot take them with me but they will be ever in my heart. Tell them they deserve better than me.

  Plum went cold when she read the contents of the note. In desperation the poor mother had just thrown them on the train to the mercy of strangers. How grief-stricken and depressed must she have been to have done such a wicked thing? She must be traced and found, and made to face her responsibilities, but first they would have to take these children to Sowerthwaite for the night, inform the police and authorities and find a home for the mites.

  How was she going to explain all this to Matron, and what would Pleasance make of her granddaughter? At least she showed initiative, and Gregory had sneaked them on behind her back. He was a natural leader and they were going to have to watch him.

  Perhaps sometimes things just happened and you had to respond as best you could. She had wanted a challenge and, by God, she’d got one now.

  Maddy could see Aunt Plum was upset as she read the letter over and over again. It was all her fault but the lady had told her to look after them and for once she’d been obedient. Now she would be in trouble for letting them get on this train, but Gloria was still sticking like gum to her side. The other girls were staring at her now with interest ’cos she’d done something naughty in their eyes.

  ‘Child snatcher!’ whispered the biggest one. ‘You’ll be for it!’

  ‘Shut up, stick insect,’ said Gregory in her defence. ‘She done what she had to do. She’s been bombed out.’

  ‘What’s it like? Did you see any stiffs?’ asked another of the boys.

  ‘It was horrid and my dog ran away,’ Maddy answered.

  ‘We had to have ours put down. Uncle said as we couldn’t feed it proper and the cat too. He put them in a sack and threw them in the dock.’

  ‘I know a lad as put his kittens through the mangle,’ boasted the fat boy with the bandage.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Aunt Plum, in such a sharp voice that everyone listened. ‘We’re going to have to be kind to Gloria and Sid. It won’t be long before our station so get all your parcels and cases and follow me. You’re in the Yorkshire Dales now–it’s wild and dark, and if you jump ship you’ll get lost on the moors and get swallowed up in a bog and never found. Do I make myself clear?’ she ordered, but there was a smile in her voice.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Plum,’ said a lone voice, and everyone giggled.

  ‘I rather like that, Peggy, so you can call me Mrs Plum if it helps you remember what I say.’

  Greg stared out into the darkness, wondering what he’d let himself in for. Why hadn’t he scarpered when he got the chance? Now he was stuck with this lot and miles away from civilisation, just like before.

  They all clambered off the train and stood on the blacked-out station. The air was damp and chilly, but it felt fresh and Greg sniffed the scents of wood smoke and steam. There was a crisp wind that rattled round them as they made their way over the steep footbridge and out through a gate to the waiting black saloon, with pull-down extra seats and a luggage rack on the back.

  ‘Madam says to cover the seats in case these vaccies bring anything with them,’ said the chauffeur in leather boots and a peaked cap, eyeing them all with suspicion.

  Greg took one look at the car and sighed…That’s more like it, a whopping big Daimler saloon.

  Everyone had to crush in and Sid woke and started to cry so the Plum woman put him on her knee. The man in the black jerkin drove them ever so slowly up a long steep hill with only pinpricks for lights, and Greg couldn’t see a thing for Enid’s bottom in his face. Where were they going now, miles from anywhere? It was pitch-dark outside and eerie.

  All he could see were miles of stonewalls on either side of them. It was like driving through a stone maze. It had been such a strange day and he had almost forgotten why he was here. There was no sound of gunfire or planes overhead. How could this place be so quiet and peaceful and hidden away, and where were the smoking chimneys and factories of Yorkshire?

  They stopped outside a long stone house and went inside. He smelled the familiar whiff of Lysol and polish. A woman in a starched apron and a funny helmet and uniform stood with her arms folded, inspecting them as they came through the door.

  ‘Girls to the left, boys to the right. What’s this, two extras? They’re not on my list, Mrs Belfield.’

  Here we go again, Greg sighed. There was always one of these tough old birds waiting to lick them into shape. He should’ve run while the going was good but it was late and he fancied another butchers at that Daimler.

  Mrs Plum was for it too and tried to explain, but everyone started talking at once and pointing at Madlin and the little ones and she blushed. Gloria started to snivel and Sid screamed and said his ear was hurting. Matron felt his forehead and said he was burning up and he couldn’t stay there.

  ‘Now look here, you can’t just pick up any waif or stray and bring them here. They haven’t a scrap of identification on them and no ration books. We’ll have to call in the constable. What did you think you were doing?’ she spat out a spray of spit in his face.

  ‘Don’t be cross with him,’ said Madlin, the thin one with the squint. ‘I told him not to leave us.’

  Greg was touched that someone was sticking up for him, even if it was only a girl, but he could look after himself. He was about to launch into the old bat when Mrs Plum caught his arm, as if reading his mind.

  ‘Matron, I think we should discuss this in private after we’ve settled the children,’ she said, quick to jump to his defence. ‘They’re all tired and hungry and need to get their bearings, and I need to take Madeleine to the Hall.’

  ‘Well, she can take her two charges with her until I’m told otherwise. We aren’t geared up for extras. The bedrooms are full as it is, Mrs Belfield. Though heaven knows what her ladyship will say to these two scruffs. He’ll need the doctor, by the look of him.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you to your duties,’ said Mrs Plum with a sniff and blazing eyes. ‘Come on, you three, time for one last trip to the lavatory and then bed.’

  The lads were taken into the attic. There was a row of beds with large jam jars by the side. ‘What’s these for, ashtrays?’ Greg joked.

  ‘Just a trick the doctor thought up to stop any bedwetting, but aim straight!’ came the order. ‘The lavatory is a long way off and I know how lazy boys can be. Unpack your bags and supper is in the kitchen.’

  Greg bounced on his bed. So far so good: clean sheets–a good sign–and a locker for his stuff. It would do for a few nights until he got his bearings and then he’d make a run for it again. They’d gone north and west from Leeds. He knew his geography. They couldn’t be that far from a seaport but he fancied another ride in that Daimler.

  Gloria was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open as they drove
up a long path with tall trees, and then a great white owl flew across in front of them.

  ‘What’s that?’ she whispered to Maddy. ‘I don’t like this place.’

  ‘Just a barn owl and it’s not far to Brooklyn Hall,’ said Mrs Plum. ‘But you’ll have to be very quiet when we arrive. Mrs Belfield is not used to little children so let me explain what’s happened first.’

  ‘My ear hurts,’ moaned little Sid, whimpering.

  ‘I know, darling. I’ll find some cotton wool and warm oil for it.’

  ‘Is this it?’ Gloria looked up at the huge stone house with a square tower in the middle and windows like a castle. It was bigger than all of Elijah Street put together. It was all shuttered up and unwelcoming. There was a huge oak door at the top of some wide stone steps.

  ‘The windows have got their eyes shut. It looks as if it’s sleeping,’ she said, making Mrs Plum smile.

  They pulled the bell and a young woman in a pinafore came to the door. They were ushered inside and the driver took the car around the back. Maddy thought there must be some mistake. Were they being taken into a school?

  A woman came down the stairs with a stick, a tall woman in a long black dress with a shawl around her arms, her smoky-grey hair piled up high. She smelled of flowers.

  ‘At long last, Prunella…Oh, what a pretty child,’ she said, grasping hold of Gloria, eyeing her carefully. ‘This is not the Belfield golden hair. Where did such extravagant curls come from? So small for her age…Come here, child and let me see you. We can do something with you.’

  ‘That’s Gloria, an evacuee,’ spluttered Mrs Plum. ‘Madeleine, your granddaughter, is over here,’ pointing in the other direction to where Maddy hung back in the shadows.

  ‘Oh, I see…Take off your glasses, girl, let the dog see the rabbit.’ The lady eyed her up and down. ‘Oh dear, how unfortunate…Not our side of the family at all, is she? She’s like a horse with a wall eye, not to be trusted. Ah well, it was to be expected.’

  Gloria’s eyes were on stalks. She’d never seen such a grand room except in the pictures. She’d seen Little Lord Fauntleroy and Shirley Temple at the fleapit on Saturday mornings. She was living in fairyland in the middle of the pictures and this was going to be her new home. Then the old lady saw Sid whining. He was going to spoil everything.