A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  Jenny knew with a dread certainty that there would be more grieving families before the night was over. She also knew that the news of Anthony’s death had to wait. This was not the time for the luxury of tears.

  Linda was toasting bread for her brothers’ tea with a long-handled toasting fork over the glowing embers in the grate when the siren went off. She jumped so suddenly, the toast fell off the fork and dropped into the fire. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

  ‘What’s up?’ Patty called from the kitchen, where she was boiling a kettle.

  ‘I’ve dropped the perishing toast.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have had time to eat it anyway,’ Patty said struggling into her coat. ‘Go and get the hot-water bottles out of the boys’ beds, will you, love? That shelter will be perishing. I’ll fill the flask up with hot tea.’

  Linda looked at her mother with concern. She was right, the shelter would be freezing – the very last place Patty should be spending the night. She scuttled hurriedly upstairs and hoped the raid wouldn’t go on very long and they’d be able to come back inside soon.

  The bottles would keep them a bit warmer anyway, she thought, and she tugged the blankets off the beds for good measure. Downstairs, her mom was pouring the contents of the teapot into the flask. She smiled at Linda and said, ‘Nothing’s so bad if you can have a cuppa, eh?’

  ‘Not half.’

  Yes, it would be nice to have hot tea, Linda thought. The vacuum flask was a wonderful invention and very expensive, but Patty had come home with one a few weeks before, bought from someone at work with contacts.

  ‘Take all that lot down the shelter, Linda,’ Patty said, handing her the flask as well. ‘Then come back and give me a hand with the babbies.’

  ‘You’d better turn the gas off under the stew, too,’ Linda said, and hoped the raid wouldn’t last long because her stomach was growling with hunger. It was as she was returning to the house that she saw a fleet of bombers heading their way. ‘Hurry, Mom,’ she said as she ran in.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Patty said. ‘I’ve got Harry’s bottle ready and a packet of biscuits I put by in case this might happen. Get your coat on. I’ll do Harry, you see to George.’

  She went into the pantry and could hear the drones of the planes get louder and she looked at Linda in sudden fear. There sounded like hundreds over their heads. Both boys picked up the tension of their mother and sister, and Harry started to grizzle as Patty struggled to fasten him into his suit. But she took no notice and then she picked him up and handed him to Linda. ‘Take him down,’ she said. George trailed after his mother, dragging his beloved teddy bear Tolly behind him, his coat flapping open because Linda hadn’t had time to fasten it.

  A resounding crash, terrifyingly close, startled Patty. Her hand closed around the biscuits on the top shelf of the pantry. The sooner they were under cover the better, she thought, and she turned with such suddenness, she almost tripped over George who was clinging to her skirt. The intensity of the raid had unnerved her totally and she screamed, ‘Let go, George, let go! Come on, let’s get to the shelter quick.’

  George was too scared to loose his mother’s skirt and, as another bomb landed too close for comfort, he gave a yelp of terror. Patty bent to pick him up with a suddenness that took him by surprise and Tolly fell from his arms on to the pantry floor.

  ‘Tolly,’ he cried, but Patty wasn’t stopping for no threadbare teddy. She dashed after Linda out of the back door and into the comfortless shelter in the back garden.

  Warmed by the hot-water bottles and wrapped in the blankets, they sat huddled on the bench. It was bitterly cold. Patty doled out biscuits by the light of the hurricane lamp she’d hung from a protruding screw on the shelter wall. ‘We can’t eat them all now,’ she told George as he clamoured for more. ‘We might be here some time.’

  ‘Can we have a cup of tea? I’m gagging,’ Linda asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Patty said. ‘This could go on for hours and it would be daft to have drunk it all then.’

  Linda said nothing, but her stomach continued to rumble; the biscuits had done little to fill her up and a cup of hot tea would have been comforting. The crashes and explosions all around them were frightening the boys and Linda began to rock Harry to and fro as she and her mom started to sing to the boys as they’d done before to calm them down. They started on all the nursery rhymes they’d ever known to encourage George to join in, and then all the rousing war songs to counteract the explosions and the tremors they felt even through the shelter. In time the lateness of the hour, Linda’s rocking motion and the sucking of the warm milk caused little Harry’s sobs to ease and his eyelids to droop. But George suddenly sat up straight, all sleepiness forgotten as he said, ‘I want Tolly.’

  Linda raised her eyes questioningly to her mother, who said, ‘He dropped it on the pantry floor when I picked him up to run in here.’

  Linda knew of George’s devotion to Tolly. ‘He’ll be all right, George,’ she told him. ‘He’s looking after the house.’

  George lifted a tear-streaked face and said, ‘No he ain’t, ’itler will bomb him.’

  ‘No, he won’t, George.’

  ‘Yes, he will. Else why we in ’ere?’

  Linda couldn’t answer that and as George began to cry again, she said, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be all right.’

  Patty unscrewed the flask and poured out a half-cup for George. ‘Here,’ she said to Linda, ‘see if this will shut him up.’

  Patty took Harry from Linda and tucked him in the bunk with a hot-water bottle and a blanket, and left him sucking the last of his warm milk while Linda was blowing the hot tea until it was cool enough to give George.

  ‘Beattie’s well out of this tonight,’ Patty remarked.

  ‘Oh yes, didn’t she say Sutton Coldfield’s too posh to bomb?’

  ‘Got no industry, that’s why,’ Patty said.

  ‘She’d better stay there then,’ Linda said, ‘than put up with this. This isn’t a place I’d like to spend much time in.’

  Patty’s chest was hurting her again but she tried to control her coughing so as not to worry Linda. ‘I agree with you,’ she said at last. ‘These shelters are not the healthiest places in the world, but we must be safer in here than out there. Our Beattie won’t stay longer than she can help at her Vera’s. She always says she can’t stand her, nor the place where she lives. Apparently they never got on, even as kids. But there you are, blood’s thicker than water when all’s said and done.’

  ‘Well, she’s lucky to be there tonight at any rate, ain’t she?’ Linda said. ‘If she was here, she’d be sharing our shelter and probably our biscuits too.’

  Patty opened her mouth, but before she could say anything George handed Linda back the empty cup, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said, ‘Can we go and get Tolly now?’

  ‘God, child, I’ll brain you in a minute,’ Patty cried.

  ‘It’s stopped,’ George said flatly.

  The raid hadn’t stopped exactly, but the explosions were further away, certainly. ‘I’ll run back to the house and fetch Tolly for you,’ Linda said.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing.’

  ‘It’s eased a bit. Listen.’

  ‘Any minute they could be back.’

  ‘I’ll only be a tick,’ Linda said. ‘You know our George won’t settle without that flipping bear.’

  George began to whimper and cry again. ‘I want Tolly, I do. Get me Tolly, Linda.’

  ‘Honest, Mom, it won’t take me a minute,’ Linda said. ‘Pour me a cup of tea and I’ll be back to drink it.’

  She was out of the shelter before Patty could stop her, glad for a moment of the blast of cold air after the stale damp mugginess of the shelter. The air smelt smoky and the night sky was lit up by searchlights; there was an orange glow everywhere. Her ears were filled with the loud tattoo of anti-aircraft guns, the drone of aeroplanes and the sirens of the emergency services.

  She’d almost reached the house when she saw
the formation of planes that seemed to have come from nowhere and were heading straight towards her like menacing black beetles. She bolted in the back door; the sooner she got George’s bear and was back inside the shelter the better, she thought.

  She’d reached the living room and turned on the light when a whooshing sound seemed to knock her off her feet and take all the breath from her body. She lay where she’d been thrown for a moment or so. The house had been plunged into darkness and debris continued to fall all around her. Linda knew a bomb had fallen terrifyingly close and her house had been caught in the blast. She was frightened to death, trembling in every limb, fearing at any moment the house would fall on top of her.

  She could see nothing. The darkness was so thick she felt she could almost touch it. Yet she told herself to keep calm, and to try and remember where she’d been in the room when the blast had knocked her over.

  Cautiously she got on to her hands and knees and began to crawl frantically over the rubble, whimpering with fear and knowing there was just one place where she might be moderately safe and that was the pantry. However, in the pitch black, she had no idea if she was even going in the right direction.

  She found the remains of the pantry door first, and crawled over it into what remained of the small room. She was only just in time. As she lay, panting with fear, the house began to give ominous creaks; there was a sliding, splintering sound and Linda curled in a ball with her hands over her head as with a roar the house collapsed. There was a crash of falling masonry, the smell of brick and plaster, and the stink of charred wood.

  Never in all her life had Linda felt such intense terror and she broke out in a cold sweat. The dust swirling in the air was gritty in her eyes, stopped up her nose and filled her mouth, threatening to choke her. Any minute she expected to be buried alive.

  Eventually, things stopped moving and there was no sound at all – only a deep silence. She moaned in relief, almost surprised that she was still alive. She tasted blood in her mouth and realised she’d bitten her bottom lip and hadn’t been aware of it. She was so tense, every bone in her body ached.

  She was mighty glad her mom knew where she was. She even knew where it was Tolly had dropped out of George’s fingers, so she could pinpoint exactly where Linda would be right away. Until then she knew she just had to stay calm and eventually they’d dig her out.

  It was hard though to remain calm, all alone in the dark, and soon she began to shiver with cold and shock. Had she been injured anywhere? She felt all over her face and extended her arms, very gingerly one at a time, not sure how much space she had. She did the same to her legs and gave a sigh of relief when she found there was room to stretch them out fully. It was a fairly large space, she reasoned, so there’d be plenty of air if it was a long time till she was rescued. Suddenly, there was a loud crack above her head and she opened her mouth in a scream. But before she was able to utter a sound and before she could pull her legs out of harm’s way, the bottom of the stairs collapsed on top of them. The stairs had held the weight of the house and of the houses adjoining, and the pain that ran through Linda’s body was agonizing. She was also stuck fast. At first she couldn’t believe it and began wriggling and struggling, but it achieved nothing but more pain.

  She forgot about being brave and staying calm. She wanted her mom and she began to shout for her, but her mouth filled with dust and she started to cough. She thought she was going to die, die here all alone in the blackness, and tears poured down her cheeks as she continued to yell for help.

  Eventually though, she was too tired and her throat too sore to shout any more and she lay quiet, shaking all over. She tried to calm herself; she wouldn’t be there long. People were probably looking for her right now. She listened intently, but couldn’t hear anything. Maybe the raid was still going on. She had to be patient; they’d come as soon as they could.

  When her fumbling hands came into contact with fur, she realized she’d found Tolly and was absurdly pleased. She’d thought he would have been buried under the rubble that had once been their home. George would be pleased at least, she thought, by the return of his beloved bear, but her mom would be cut up by the loss of the house she loved. Linda wondered where they’d all live. Something would have to be found for them; they could hardly camp out in the street. Mom would sort it all out, Linda thought sleepily.

  She wished she could see her, or hear her voice. She cuddled Tolly, surprised how comforting it was. The bear smelt of her brother George and she leaned her head against the toy and closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep, to pass the time away till she was rescued, and she thought of all the tales her mother had told her about her real father. She pictured his face before her as he had been in his wedding photograph. ‘Oh, Dad,’ Linda whispered into the darkness. ‘I wish I could remember what you really look like. I wish you were here now.’ That was the last thing Linda could remember. It was as if a deep peace came over her and eventually she slept.

  FOUR

  Phil Rogers, the chief ARP warden, surveyed what was left of what had once been six houses, virtually opposite Paget Road Senior School. He and several wardens like himself had worked through the teeth of the continuing raid to pull people from the rubble and now as the planes still droned above in the black sky and with the crashes and thumps and explosions all around them, he said, ‘We’ll have to leave the rest; I can’t risk any more lives. There’s an unexploded bomb in the school playground and everyone has to be evacuated out of the area.’

  Jenny was feeling very sick. She’d helped pull apart the buckled corrugated iron and burst sandbags of the Anderson shelter in the garden of the end house to get at the woman with the two little boys. She’d fought the nausea that rose in her throat as she pulled out the little crushed bodies, one little boy was just a baby, the other only slightly older. ‘Poor sod lost her man at Dunkirk,’ one of the neighbours said as she was being carried to one of the three ambulances standing by.

  Oh God, Jenny thought, a whole family killed through this stupid, stupid war. She felt anger and hatred towards the German nation and in particular, the bombers, bringing such misery into people’s lives.

  The first three houses were reduced to a mountain of rubble; the fourth had no upper floor, but part of one of the downstairs walls still stood; the fifth had been sliced clean in two.

  ‘Bleeding good job Beattie was out of the way tonight,’ the woman said as she passed Jenny.

  ‘Beattie?’

  ‘Beattie Latimer, her what lived next door to Patty Prosser.’

  ‘What, the woman who was killed?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ the woman said. ‘Reckon she’d have been a goner an‘ all, I do, but she’s been at her sister’s all afternoon. She told me herself when I met her coming in from work this afternoon, and her old man’s on nights down the Dunlop.’ She shook her head sadly and gathered her own two children closer to her. ‘Bloody shame it is. Proper shook me up, to see a family wiped out like that. I mean, it’s bad enough losing your house, ain’t it? You spending your life building it up like, and then it’s smashed to bits, but then you look at the likes of Patty Prosser and you thank God for what you’ve got left.’

  ‘Come on missis,’ Phil shouted. ‘Let’s get you and the babbies out of it. Hitler ain’t finished with us yet.’

  And he hadn’t. Bombs still whistled from the sky, as they marshalled the women and children and a few men down Paget Road. The incendiaries that had fallen had set up pockets of flames that lit up the black sky, but did nothing to take the damp chilling coldness from it, and all the families shivered as they hurried along.

  Jenny, watching them, shivered herself, and Gladys, a fellow warden, asked, ‘Are you all right, Jenny?’

  ‘Oh Gladys, how could anyone be all right after what we’ve just witnessed?’

  ‘God, don’t I know it,’ Gladys said. ‘But you’ve been quiet all night.’

  ‘So would you if you’d just learnt your brother had been shot down,
’ Jenny could have said, but she didn’t. Too many people had been killed that night and she felt particularly sorry for the two little children who’d been crushed to death in the one place the government had promoted as a safe place to shelter. But she couldn’t say this either, or she would bawl her eyes out and she was glad the light was too dim for Gladys to see her face.

  Gladys was one of the women Anthony had talked about. She drove the double decker buses around the streets of Birmingham and he’d been proud of her for doing a traditionally male job. Jenny didn’t know how she managed it because Gladys was no bigger than she was, though a lot stouter. But she’d said it was much easier to be out driving a bus than sitting at home worrying about her lads, who were both away fighting. Jenny guessed that work was as much a life saver for Gladys as it was for her, and so she gave a sigh and said, ‘I’m all right Gladys, just tired like everyone else.’

  As the news came through to the post that night, it was obvious that the Luftwaffe was out to try and paralyse many of the factories making things for the war effort. One of the prime targets was the BSA, Birmingham Small Arms, where Peggy McAllister was working the night shift. She’d always told Maureen and Jenny that in the event of a raid, she’d be all right, for there was a large reinforced basement to shelter in.

  However, earlier that day, smoke vapour had been dropped over the factory by a German plane, forming three rings over it, and when Peggy went into work, all those leaving the day shift were on about it. They said RAF planes were sent up to try and disperse the smoke rings but they had been unsuccessful. Then, as the raid began, the incendiaries dropped first made the ring more visible so the bomber was able to pinpoint the factory accurately. The one plane dropped three high-explosive bombs, with such precision that the badly damaged, blazing, four-storeyed building began to collapse into the basement.