Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

  It was all so quick. The soda siphon was useless against it, there was no time to quell the flames, and no one knew where the fire buckets were.

  ‘Get everyone down the stairs and quick…Fire!’ Phil tried to make his voice heard over the jazz band. ‘Gloria, go and shut the bloody band up! We need water. Gloria, just snatch the mike. Do a drum roll, anything to get their attention!’

  ‘Please vacate the building at once!’ he shouted but only those round the bar took any notice.

  Gloria made for the mike, but the drunks thought she was part of the act and shouted, ‘Come on, lady…get them off!’

  ‘Shurrup! There’s a fire. Everyone out!’ she shouted until she was hoarse. ‘It’s all under control but go down the stairs…down the stairs in an orderly fashion. Don’t rush. Has someone sent for the fire brigade?’

  Phil was too busy trying to beat out the flames. The smoke was getting thicker, flames were licking up the walls and the smell was suffocating.

  ‘Open the windows and let in some air!’ someone cried, and Gloria felt her panic rising. The mill was an old brick building, tinder dry, and the fake paper flowers and netting were alight.

  ‘I can’t open the windows: they’re all boarded up!’ yelled Betty.

  ‘Then get something to bash them with!’

  Betty dashed for help.

  The kitchen hand brought a cleaver and hacked at the window. The wood splintered and cracked. There was an opening out at last onto the old warehouse hoist and tackle that was hanging out like a flagpole over the canal.

  The crowd were pushing down the stairs, held back by a funnel of smoke and darkness. Some poured bottles over their heads and tried to rush the flames; fifty people pushing and shoving, yelling, pushed back by fear, and the flames arching above their heads. Then Gloria remembered the kid getting changed in the lavatory behind the heavy door. She had to get Jules out of there in one piece…

  Greg and Charlie were on their way to the Bamboo Club to give Gloria a surprise when they heard the clanging of fire engines in the street and smelled the smoke.

  ‘What’s going on? You go ahead, Charlie,’ said Greg. ‘See where it’s at!’

  They stopped a man covered in smoking clothes. ‘Where’s the fire, mate?’

  ‘Bamboo Club’s gone up in flames, down there!’ he pointed, and Greg began to hobble, every inch of him hurting in the race to follow the fire engines.

  There was a crowd gathered on the canal bank, looking up at the building.

  ‘It’s owd mill, afire from top to toe, by the looks of things!’

  There were policemen running round, trying to find another entrance, but it was bricked up. The iron staircase didn’t reach as far as the top storey. There was a furniture store on the first two floors and someone said, ‘If yon stuff catches on…’

  Greg was frantic. ‘My wife’s in there–can’t we do something?’ He tried to make for the entrance but Charlie held him back. ‘The fire engines will get ladders. Don’t you try to get up there. It’s too steep. Let them do their job.’

  ‘I’m going up.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. It’s a fireball up the stairs. The draught will make it a deathtrap, but don’t worry, look…there’s some on the roof, look. The ladders’ll bring them off.’

  Greg looked up and saw the wharf hoist with the lads clinging on screaming, yelling edging over the end to drop themselves down into the canal. He counted six of them jumping into the murky water. There were others scrambling onto the roof, but slates gave way and the crowd screamed as a man fell down to the pavement. Someone rushed over and put her mac over his smashed body.

  The firemen were struggling to get their turntable ladder to reach up high enough. It was all taking too long and bits of the roof were crumbling and cracking, but the hose pipes had arrived and were throwing canal water up as high as they could to get the blaze under control.

  Greg was hoarse, screaming for Gloria, the billowing smoke was clouding everything, and they were being pushed back from the heat. All he could think about was Gloria trapped in that furnace. ‘You’ve got to get them out!’ He was willing her onto that hoist.

  Charlie stood frozen, not knowing what to say. He gripped Greg’s arm as he tried to get through the cordon. ‘Let them do their job, Greg. Gloria’s tough, she’ll find a way.’ All they could do was look up and pray.

  ‘Come on, Jules, put the towel over your face,’ panted Gloria, crawling on all fours ‘and keep following me. It’s not far. Come on, love, up to the door with the hoist. We can get out there but you’ve got to keep going.’

  Jules was panicking, ‘Don’t leave me, don’t go…What about my baby?’

  ‘Don’t talk, don’t waste your breath, just crawl.’ Gloria was pushing forward, surprised that some had curled up and gone to sleep on the floor. The fresher air in the toilet had filled the lungs with enough oxygen to keep going on. She’d wrapped soaked towels over their faces and clothes. Fire drill at St Felix’s School had come in useful, for once. With the mask over their faces they might make it. She was not going to die in this inferno.

  There was a pushing and shoving to get out, and she didn’t want to think of what they must do when they got out the window. But they were going to get out of that building together, her and the poor kid in a sequined outfit, black-faced, tear-stained, half naked. There was no time to be prudish.

  The roar of the flames grew, but there was a hiss of the water somewhere. It was smoke that was the killer, dense, choking stuff. This was the only way out.

  Everyone was gathered by the window, bodies clinging to the hoist for dear life, too scared to budge or jump onto the blanket down below.

  ‘You’ll be all right, just go…’

  ‘Let me through. Get them buggers off!’ Ken Silverstone was shoving his way to the front but, strangely calm, Gloria stood her ground.

  ‘Shut up! Ladies first. Let this kid go first!’

  ‘Like hell! It’s every man for himself. It was you as started this bloody fire.’ He started pushing but a rugby player shoved him back into the darkness. ‘You heard what the lady said. Wait your fucking turn!’

  Gloria guided Julie out onto the hoist, gulping in the fresher air. She looked down with horror, trying to stay calm for the kid’s sake. ‘It’s just a little jump into the canal.’

  Jules was frozen with fear, looking down. ‘I can’t…I can’t!’

  ‘Yes, you can. Think about your baby. What’s her name?’

  ‘Lesley–Lesley Louise, and what’s yourn?’

  ‘I’m Gloria…Think about Lesley waking up and you’ve not been there. It’s just a dip in the cut! Come on…’

  ‘Why is that bitch holding us up? Get them off there,’ Ken was choking. ‘The smoke’ll do us in. If she doesn’t jump out, I’ll shove them off myself. Get that bloody cow off the ledge…’

  ‘Go to hell!’ Gloria yelled back. ‘Go back where you belong. We’ll jump together, Jules…after three. Come on, you can do it for Lesley and my Bebe.’ She paused. ‘One, two…three.’

  Greg saw two girls straddling the hoist. He hoped to God one of them was his wife. They were edging slowly like trapeze artists on the high wire, waiting for the ladder to reach them and grab them to safety. Then to his horror he saw them jump just as the old hoist cracked under the weight of the three men pushing behind them. There was a terrible scream from the crowd as they all tumbled into the air.

  He saw them all diving feet first into the canal. Oh, Gloria, he prayed, hold on! ‘Can someone help them?’ he cried, but his limbs wouldn’t move.

  There was another splash and then another. Someone dived in to rescue them, hoping the water would have broken their fall. Greg clung to Charlie, full of relief and hope. The roar of the flames, the whirr of the fire engines, alarm bells clanging, screaming from the poor sods still trapped, drowned out his own desperate cries.

  They were pushed back into the crowd so the ambulance men could deal with the burned and the inju
red. Greg searched the faces, blackened in tattered and torn party clothes. But there was no Gloria.

  Then came the stretchers with blankets covering faces as more desperate revellers, jumped to their deaths and missed the canal, and still no sign of his wife.

  ‘Come on, let’s see if she jumped over there. It’ll be fine,’ said Charlie. ‘Look, there’s some on the canal bank.’

  ‘I’m not budging until we find her. She’s gone in the cut, she might drown.’ Then they saw someone coughing and spluttering, and they rushed over with joy. ‘Gloria, you made it!’ But Greg looked down and saw it was the blackened face of a frightened girl in a sequined bathing costume shivering and coughing up.

  ‘Where’s Gloria? Where’s my wife?’

  The girl looked up at him, trying to fix her eyes to where the voice was coming from. ‘Gloria saved my life. It were her what made me jump. Gloria, that’s her…’ Then the girl fainted.

  He tugged at the sleeves of everyone who passed in desperation. ‘Did you see my wife jumping? Gloria Byrne?’

  ‘Down there, she jumped,’ said someone, pointing to further down the tow path.

  They were pumping out her lungs, her face soaked with mud and slime. They were pumping, pumping in desperation.

  ‘That’s my wife!’ Greg sobbed. ‘Gloria, love, wake up.’ He was on his knees now. ‘We’ll make a go of it, don’t you worry. We’re so proud of you. You just wake up for me.’

  For a brief second her eyelids flickered and then she coughed and vomited. It was a good sign.

  ‘Come on, love, it’s Greg here, and Charlie’s here. We’ll take you home, you just wake up there. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.’ He knew she could hear him; her fingers were fluttering the response. Only then did he see the way her limbs were splayed out like a rag doll. She must have broken every bone in her body.

  They put her in a side room next to the sister’s office. Doctors pointed and prodded, cleaned her up, made her comfortable, but their faces said it all. There was never any hope. Greg sat with her night and day, willing her limbs to respond.

  ‘I can’t feel my legs, anything,’ she whispered. Her lungs were full of smoke and they were giving her oxygen in a mask.

  ‘Don’t worry, the doctors can do marvellous things,’ Greg replied, leaning over her. ‘Look at me–how I bounced back all of a piece.’ He was trying to cheer her up.

  ‘I want to see Bebe…I don’t care what they say, I have to see her. How’s Jules?’

  ‘Those flowers in the vase are from her family. You saved her life…the papers are full of it. Fame at last!’

  Gloria closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘How many died?’

  ‘Nineteen, I’m afraid. Some got caught in the smoke–Phil and his brother. They found them curled up as if they were asleep, all together in a corner and not a mark on them.’

  ‘Did Ken Silverstone make it then?’ She hardly dare ask.

  ‘I don’t think so. What’s he got to do with this?’

  She saw the panic on his face. ‘He brought that kid to do a striptease…little Jules. He tried to shove us off the edge. I wasn’t having any of it. I kicked him back. He doesn’t deserve to live. If he’s gone then I’m glad.’ Her voice was hardly audible, and it was a struggle to breathe.

  ‘Don’t waste your breath about him then. You’ve got so many cards and flowers. Your mam’s on her way to see you…when you get better…’

  ‘Don’t talk soft. I can’t breathe and there’s such a pain in my chest. I can’t move. I’m sorry. Oh, why do I always do the wrong things? I’ve let everybody down.’

  She took some gulps and spoke again. ‘Promise me you’ll look after Bebe. I wouldn’t have had the courage to jump without her. She’s all that matters now…do tell her that, won’t you?’ She saw how Greg’s eyes were full of tenderness and love.

  ‘Don’t tire yourself out. Stop fretting. Rest is what you need, and I’m so proud of you,’ he whispered.

  Why did she have to be on her last legs to have his undivided love? ‘Shut up and listen. You’ve got to tell Maddy something for me…It’s important…just tell her Under the Victory Tree. She’ll know what that means…Under the Victory Tree…promise?’

  It was good to get that off her mind before she got cosy again. It was funny how she kept drifting back to Sowerthwaite, kicking leaves, dancing down the Avenue. They’d been such happy times in their own way. What a pity she had to grow up and leave it all behind. The terrible stuff didn’t matter any more; all those awful things that happened didn’t make sense when she was in the middle of them, but now she understood when it was too late. But she’d done something good and saved a life. That sort of balanced it all out, she hoped…no matter.

  She was tired, so tired and ready for a long, deep sleep. She hoped that Heaven would be like Saturday afternoons, dangling legs in the Victory Tree, sucking the biggest ice-cream cone money could buy and looking forward to going to the pictures with a friend.

  Maddy read the account of the terrible fire at the Scarperton mill and the names of the victims with dismay.

  ‘Naked striptease artiste saved by a manageress’ was one of the more garish headlines. She wrote a careful letter of condolence to Greg and the child, but didn’t attend the funeral. It would have been hypocritical to go when she’d been so livid with Gloria, but the anger was replaced now with such sadness.

  Instead she took herself down to the Victory Tree to post in a letter for old-times’ sake. It was the only way she could think of to say goodbye.

  I’m sorry you died in such a tragic way and I am glad you helped to save someone else’s life. I don’t understand you and never will. We could have been such great friends, and were for a while, but what I had and what you didn’t got in the way somehow. We don’t choose our family. I was blessed with love and support right from my first breath. You were not so lucky but you found it with Greg and let it go.

  Wish I knew what you were thinking when you deceived me. When trust is gone friendship soon follows. I hope it troubled you but it’s over and done now. You told me most of what I needed to know. You set me free.

  I shall miss the fun and the mischief we had as kids. You always made things exciting fun. I was such a serious child. When things were very sad for me, you came to play and helped me forget. I shall miss your kindness when I had the eye operation, and you came to cheer me up. Why did it go so wrong?

  I wish it all hadn’t ended like this before we had a chance to understand each other. What matters is that you came so strong in the end. You could have saved your own skin, but you helped another mother on her way so while she and her child live, you’ll never be forgotten.

  For old-times’ sake I’ll post this into the tree as your forever friend. God keep you in his care now.

  Love, Maddy

  The tree would keep their secrets. Soon it would be shelter to other secrets, prams of babies watching the sky through its leaves, she hoped. More than ever now, Maddy was determined to make her plan come true. Plum had suggested the seclusion of the Brooklyn for the pregnant girls, but those who stayed on with their babies for a while would live in the town like normal mothers.

  They formed a committee of worthies to support her application in secret. No one wanted to risk their public reputation in being seen to support immorality. Archie Murray, Barney Andrews and some of the women from the WI promised their support and went out on a limb to no avail.

  ‘You’re too young to hold the responsibility,’ said the man from the council. ‘We cannot approve anything official.’

  ‘You need to be affiliated to one of the charities or a Church,’ said another.

  The Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child suggested another way forward that bypassed all the red tape.

  Why not open Brooklyn Hall and the Old Vic as private hostels, like guesthouses for special guests–convalescent guesthouses, open only to girls referred by doctors and almoners and probation officers? They would have t
o be run on a shoestring if there were no grants offered, but it just might work.

  The Bamboo Club fire made Maddy inspect her properties for safety. They would need an iron staircase outside the hall. She may be young and inexperienced but she’d gather the wisest heads around her: welfare officers and midwives, clergymen, anyone in sympathy with her cause.

  Barney Andrews had come on board with a useful suggestion to form a Board of Trustees. He was being extra attentive, but she ignored his mild flirtation. She’d no time for romance now. This was her cause, her baby, she thought wryly.

  If life had taught her anything it was that she must make herself useful, leave her own stamp on all she’d been given, justify her existence and make her parents proud.

  Only she, of all the committee, knew the shame, guilt and confusion of a young girl finding herself pregnant in an unforgiving world.

  At the Brooklyn there would be choices made away from prying eyes, a safe haven for some that decided to brave it out and keep their babies. If Sowerthwaite didn’t like it, well, tough! That was how it was going to be.

  23

  In the months following Gloria’s death, Greg fought the nightmares with his bed sheets, the smell of acrid smoke waking him, the scorching heat burning his skin. In slow motion he kept seeing the silhouette of those girls edging onto the hoist, the crack of the joist and the figures falling into the black canal, the limp bodies on the tow path, and he woke up sweating and crying out, ‘Gloria! I’m sorry…’

  Each morning he got up only for the sake of Bebe, the precious daughter who was a daily reminder of his wife, with that glorious red hair and those bright eyes. When she was tired and cross she cried for her mummy and wouldn’t be consoled, kicking and screaming until he soothed her with tales of her parents as little children.

  ‘Tell me again about the Victory Tree?’ she’d ask. They were reading Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood, with its story of the Faraway Tree and she got it into her head that it was real. ‘Can we go and find the magic tree?’