War Babies

by Annie Murray

  As she sat on the tram heading back into Birmingham, she was full of a loving glow. The memory of the feel of him pressed close to her, still so fresh, filled her with happiness so that she could have danced along the street. Danny loved her!

  He’s my man, she said to herself, solemnly. This seemed very grown up. He’s the one.

  She thought about home, the bleakness of the flat over Fred Horton’s shop. After all, who else was there? She knew she loved Danny, that she almost always had. Her Danny, with his little book of happy dreams of Jack and Patch. Jack, the boy he wanted to be. He was the one person in the world who she wanted with all her heart.

  Fifteen

  They rode the tram out to the Lickey Hills the next Sunday afternoon, sitting on the top deck, full of excitement as it swooped out along the Bristol Road. The tram was not too crowded because they had set out so late. Most of the families out for the day had left earlier, to make the most of it.

  ‘I can’t get out of having dinner at home,’ Rachel had told Danny. ‘Not on a Sunday.’ She made a face at the thought of Fred Horton. ‘The old man, head of the table – they’ll want to know where I’m going. I’ll get into town as soon as I can after. Meet me in Navigation Street?’

  It was a warm, bright day. Rachel had on the pink frock, a white cardigan and her black work shoes. Danny wore his usual grey trousers, had his shirtsleeves rolled up. At the sight of him waiting for her, seeing his smile, she had leapt inside with excitement. An afternoon to themselves!

  She knew things were not easy at Gladys’s house now, with Jess and Amy there. Both of them were playing Gladys up. Jess was angry and defiant. She and Amy were sharing a mattress in Danny’s old room. Gladys had cleaned up the attic, where she usually stored stuff for the market, for Danny to sleep in. Both girls were finding the adjustment to this new place very difficult and Amy wet the bed every night, which enraged Jess so much that she would slap Amy and make her howl. Neither Gladys nor Danny knew what to do for the best.

  ‘Does Auntie get cross?’ Rachel asked him.

  Danny shook his head, staring out of the window ahead. ‘Nah. She’s all right with ’em. Dolly keeps coming round – and Mo. He keeps larking about, trying to get them to come out of themselves.’ Rachel smiled at the thought of Mo’s burly figure and cheerful face. It would be a tough person who would not smile at Mo Morrison. ‘Jess’ll talk a bit – to me. Only all she talks about is the home . . . I said summat about our mom, her passing and . . .’ He looked away for a moment. ‘I dunno if she remembers her. She dain’t seem to.’

  Rachel could see why Danny was keen to get away from it all for a bit.

  They were halfway along the tram on the left, with Rachel next to the window. As Danny sat beside her she could feel that he was in one of his tense, restless moods. He made jokes and fooled around all the way out to Rednal, making her laugh with his whispered observations about some of the other people on the tram – ‘Look at that hat. You could turn that upside down and use it as a po!’ – and cracking jokes. And she did laugh, but she also hoped that sooner or later he would calm down. His endless joking also felt like a way of shutting himself, and what was troubling him, far off, away from her.

  He pulled his small canvas bag on to his lap and opened it. Rachel heard the faint clink of bottles. ‘Look, Auntie’s sent me off with some tea and butties – jam.’

  ‘God, Danny, don’t you ever think about anything except your stomach? We’ve only just had dinner!’

  Danny grinned. ‘Not much, no. A man has to eat! We’ll get hungry later – and if you don’t, I’ll have yours!’

  They got down at Rednal and everyone headed off into the Worcestershire hills known as the Lickeys. The two of them strode on quickly, overtaking some of the straggling families, and climbed up Beacon Hill. At the top was a little fort-like construction on which you could stand to look at the view all around. They stood amid a gaggle of people looking out. Rachel felt different standing up there. It wasn’t like being down in the streets where you could not see out. She looked at Danny, loving the sight of him as he stood gazing around him in the sunshine, taking in deep breaths. Birmingham lay spread in the distance, barrage balloons swimming like little fish above it in the blue sky. It felt lovely to be getting out of town. It was like getting away from the war as well, from the shelters and sandbags and all the rest. But when she said so to Danny he pointed across the green.

  ‘Not quite – look. Guns.’

  The high vantage point was a good place for gun emplacements and spotlights. There was no escaping it completely.

  ‘Come on.’ Danny prodded her gently. ‘Let’s go. Get away from all these people.’

  As they walked off along one of the wooded tracks across the hills, he said, ‘You can breathe up here. I hate being shut in – walls around you you can’t get out of.’ He gave a shudder. She thought he was going to say more, but he clammed up. The walk away from the tram seemed to have altered his mood. He was quieter, seemingly involved in his own thoughts. It felt as if there was a different sort of wall around him – of things she did not understand.

  ‘Danny?’ she said, as they wandered in the coolness of the trees. ‘What was it like where you were – in the orphanage?’

  He walked with his eyes on the ground for a moment, apparently so closed down to her that she thought he might not answer. Like a reflex, he put his hand in his pocket where he kept the notebook. ‘What d’you think? Walls all around you. Other kids. People ordering you about.’

  ‘Were you naughty?’ she asked.

  Danny considered this. ‘No, not much. Wasn’t worth it.’ He stopped abruptly as if thinking, then took her hand. ‘Come on – let’s go in here. Get away from everyone.’

  They could already hear laughter along the path behind them. On this lovely day it felt as if there were always other people not too far away. Holding Danny’s hand she followed him into the woodland glade among the pale green growth on the trees, dry leaves and soft mulch under their feet. They came to a place where there were two bushes close together, screening them from the path.

  ‘Let’s sit here,’ Danny said.

  They both realized then that they had brought nothing to sit on. Rachel looked down at her soft pink dress.

  ‘Never mind – it’s quite dry,’ she said and settled herself on a bed of old leaves. Danny sat beside her and fumbled in his bag.

  ‘Want a bit of tea?’

  ‘Go on then.’

  He handed her an old stera bottle – it had had sterilized milk in it – full of now cold tea, with a piece of cork plugging the top. She pulled it out and swigged some of the slightly sweet tea. She felt suddenly light-hearted, but when she looked at Danny, sitting tensely forward, leaning on his bent legs, he seemed enclosed in sad thoughts. She was not sure what to do or say. After a moment she put her hand lightly on his back and felt him flinch slightly before settling under her touch.

  ‘Penny for them,’ she said softly.

  Without turning his head, Danny said, ‘You asked me what it was like. No one’s ever asked me that before. I was thinking about it. Six years I was in that place, nearly. When our – when my father – stuck me in there I thought it was . . . I dunno. I just dain’t know anything. I thought he was coming back to get me. He never said he was, but that’s what I thought. It felt like a mistake. One minute we was all there at home with Mom and everything. The next – everything’d gone. The old man was always hard. He was a wreck, Mom said, because of the war. She never said what happened to him and he looked all right – nothing missing, you know, not in his body, any road. But she said he’d never been the same. And then –’ His voice took on a bewildered tone. ‘It was all right when Mom was there. She stuck with us. She was an angel, our mom. She got between the old man and us, when she had to. But then he’d . . .’ Danny lowered his head. ‘I’d have a go at him, whenever he started on our mom. I tried to fight him . . . She said I shouldn’t, I should keep out of it. And then . .
.’ He kept getting stuck, as if he could not get the words out. She heard the strain in his voice, the tears he was fighting.

  ‘Oh, Danny,’ she said. She shifted closer, cautious, sensing that he could not stand too much sympathy. She rested her arm along his back.

  ‘Then she’d gone and everything . . . Nothing was the same . . . And he . . .’ He broke down then for a moment, hanging his head. ‘I wish someone else could remember, not just me – Jess must do, but she won’t say . . .’ He shook his head and a sob came from him. Rachel felt his shoulders heave. She was overflowing with feeling for him. All she wanted was to take him in her arms and hold him. But she held back and stayed close, her hand on his warm back, waiting.

  ‘In there, in the home, they don’t like you talking. Whatever you do or say, they tell you to stop it, to shut it. Speak when you’re spoken to – or not even then. Keep quiet. So you do, in the end. Course we whispered to each other and played about. But why say anything much? There’s no one to say it to. It’s better to tell jokes and think up silly things like that. At least you can make someone else laugh for a minute or two. It was us and them. They were nasty really. It was better to make out that you weren’t very with it – you know, a bit slow. They dain’t like anyone who could think a bit, as if you were against what they were doing. Some of ’em’d beat you if you so much as looked at them a certain way. There was this room they’d take you to . . . It was as if they thought we was rubbish, sort of thing. Lowest of the low. As if it was all our fault.’

  ‘The people in charge?’

  He nodded, face twisted into a bitter expression.

  ‘Why didn’t you run away, Danny?’

  ‘I thought of it. I s’pose I was scared. For a start I dain’t know where I was. It sounds stupid but I never even knew we was so near Birmingham. And I dain’t want to run back to our dad. He said to me if I was any trouble they’d send the peelers after me and have me in jail. He put the fear of God into me. I dunno whether jail’d be any worse really but I’d built it up into a bogey sort of thing in my mind. All those years locked in there I just felt as if I was somewhere else altogether. Another world. Devil’s Island or somewhere. And the longer I stayed there the more it felt like that. I dain’t know where Jess and the others were. Time just went by and I dain’t know what to do . . .’ He stopped, thinking for a moment. ‘A few of the others went away. I think they went to families – fostering they call it. I dunno why or who decided who’d go but no one ever picked me.’

  ‘So you did your drawings?’ she said gently.

  Danny nodded. ‘There was a dog a bit like Patch back where we lived, in Ladywood. He used to look at you and his eyes were all bright. Cheeky, like. And Jack – he did all the things I wanted to do . . .’

  ‘And then they let you out?’

  ‘I was old enough to go to work. I told them I had an auntie even though I had no idea whether I did by then. Auntie told me she was trying to find me on and off all that time but no one seemed to know anything about me, or the girls.’ After another pause, he went on, ‘I knew I’d get out one day. I said to myself, when I’m ready I’ll get out. I’ll just walk away.’

  He sat silently for so long that she thought he was not going to say any more. But suddenly, in a low, fierce voice, he said, ‘If I ever have kids, I’ll never be like my dad. Never.’

  ‘I missed you,’ she said, her throat aching. ‘When you went.’

  Danny turned. In his eyes she saw uncertainty, fear, hunger.

  ‘Come here.’ She held out her arms. A moment later she was on her back on the bed of leaves, Danny pressed close beside her. They held each other tight. He felt warm and powerfully strong.

  ‘Rach?’ He leaned on an elbow and looked down into her eyes.

  She looked back, full of feeling, but he didn’t say any more. He moved his lips closer to hers. They tightened their arms round each other and clung together, kissing and touching as the afternoon drifted by. Rachel was dimly aware of voices passing in the distance, of bird-song and the changing angle of the sun through the leaves. Sometimes they stared into each other’s faces and said, ‘I love you.’ Sometimes they said nothing. Rachel was lost in Danny’s blue eyes, in the feel of his body pressing against hers. Nothing else mattered. When they had to get up and brush off their clothes to go and catch the tram, it was like waking from a dream.

  Sixteen

  ‘The Battle of France is over . . .’ The new prime minister Winston Churchill’s voice growled from the wireless that June evening. If necessary, Britain would fight alone.

  Rachel heard the news at home, in the upstairs parlour, with her mother and Fred. The war was moving closer. The Maginot Line, built to keep the Germans out, had failed completely. The French had signed the armistice, surrendering only six weeks after the Germans had invaded.

  ‘My God,’ Fred said, clicking the wireless off. ‘They even made them sign it in the same railway carriage – that’s where they signed the armistice in nineteen eighteen. What a disaster!’

  Peggy had wept a month ago when Mr Churchill made his first speech in the House of Commons as prime minister. ‘Our poor Mr Chamberlain! But oh, what wonderful words – I feel better already for hearing him!’

  This did not seem to last long, however, and she was soon full of woe again. ‘We’re going to be invaded, I know we are. Overrun! Those horrible Germans will be striding down our streets, doing terrible, savage things . . .’

  It was a tense, frightening summer as the Battle of France became the Battle of Britain, fought out over the south-east by the air force and the ground defences. By the late summer it was becoming clear that they had fought off the invasion, but all through those months, rumours were flying. At work, Rachel found, there were stories of secret German invasions, of spies in exotic disguises. Shortages of everything increased and everyone was being asked to hand in pots and pans to be melted down to make aircraft. There was a sense of unease and panic.

  It was all coming closer, and there was the worst tension of waiting for the unknown. What was going to happen – and when?

  When the air-raid sirens first went off, Rachel felt a few moments of relief. Now it was coming – it was beginning. This soon turned to panic and terror. They had heard the sirens before, of course. There was a daylight raid in Erdington, to the north of the city, earlier in the month, but hearing it that night in late August, the sound made every nerve in her body jump and jangle.

  ‘Down in the cellar everyone!’ Fred commanded.

  They had prepared it down there, even though it was a cold, dank hole. Fred had got hold of a couple of old mattresses and they had a torch and an oil lamp ready as well as some blankets to take down.

  There was confusion at first, none of them used to this.

  ‘I ought to bring Cissy some milk!’ Peggy cried, dithering at the top of the steps with the sleepy child in her arms. Cissy was the only one of them who was calm.

  ‘Just get down in there where it’s safe,’ Fred bossed. ‘You go with her, Rachel. We don’t know how long we’ve got.’

  Rachel followed her mother down the steep cellar steps, still just able to hear the horrifying yowl of the siren outside. Fred followed and in that moment Rachel realized another thing – if this was going to happen a lot she would end up spending nights in the company of her mother and stepfather.

  ‘Hold your sister while I get sorted out,’ Peggy commanded.

  Rachel scrambled onto one of the cold mattresses while Fred lit the tilly lamp. She held out her arms and Peggy lowered the plump child into them. Cissy, now almost a year old, had gingery hair like her father’s but luckily, so far as Rachel was concerned, she did not look like Fred in any other way. Her hair fell in loose curls, she had a pink-and-white complexion and big blue eyes which she opened now, looking round in bewilderment. Seeing her sister’s face above her, she made a little happy noise and smiled sleepily.

  ‘S’all right, Cissy – you go back to sleep,’ Rachel said. Sh
e cuddled the little girl close. She hadn’t had much to do with Cissy when she was a small baby. All she’d done then was eat, sleep and scream, and Rachel kept resentfully out of her way. But nowadays Cissy was more settled and was starting to know who everyone was, and she had a sunny personality. She adored her big sister and immediately reached her arms out towards Rachel whenever she saw her.

  She’s all right, Rachel thought, with a rush of fondness for the little bundle in her arms. She is half my sister, after all. It was comforting now they were experiencing this first real, frightening raid, to have someone smaller than herself to look after, especially someone so warm and sweet.

  Peggy sat down on the other mattress beside Fred. He had arranged them at right angles to each other, along two walls. There was a bitter smell of coal dust and it was very dark but for the light of the lamp flickering shadows across their faces. The night was warm, but the cellar always felt chill, and the damp from the cold bricks seeped into her back. Rachel wished she had a blanket behind her and shivered, thinking what it would be like down here in the winter.

  ‘Right – I’ll have her back if you like,’ Peggy said.

  ‘It’s all right, she’s settled,’ Rachel said. ‘She can stay here with me for now.’

  ‘Huh – that’s a turn-up for the books, you taking an interest in your sister,’ Peggy began. But she was silenced by Fred.

  ‘Shh, wench – listen. That’s them coming!’

  Peggy was too aghast even to protest about being called ‘wench’. They could barely hear the sound of the planes’ engines down there but the distant thumps and explosions were not lost on them.

  ‘Oh my Lord,’ Peggy said. ‘We could’ve all died in our beds.’

  They lapsed into a tense, listening silence, all trying to hear what was going on outside.

  As it quietened a little, Fred muttered, ‘Those buggers – we should’ve finished ’em off good and proper the first time.’