A Ration Book Christmas

by Jean Fullerton

  Her terrified eyes fixed on Jo. ‘But what if it doesn’t wait and—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jo, trying not to sound as terrified as she felt. ‘I’ve covered the theory of delivering a baby in first-aid classes so between us we’ll deliver Master or Miss McCarthy while those up top are shifting the rubble. We’re going to do our bit too,’ stretching across, Jo dragged a rounders bat out from under a box, ‘by letting them know we’re here. I’m going to make us both comfortable on a couple of those,’ she said, pointing the torch at a pile of rubberised floor mats that had spilled out of a box.

  Retracing her steps across the rubble, Jo pulled out two mats from the pile and dragged them across to the wall. Having laid them as flat as she could, she got behind her sister and, tucking her hands under Mattie’s arms, helped her shuffle across and onto the spongy surface.

  ‘There, that’s better. Now, let me snuggle down beside you,’ Jo said, tucking herself in alongside her sister, ‘before I turn off the torch.’

  Panic flashed across Mattie’s face. ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘Yes, to save the battery,’ said Jo, smoothing a dusty lock of her sister’s hair from her forehead. ‘If your baby should decide to be born before the heavy crew reach us, I’ll need to be able to see what I’m doing.’

  Mattie’s terrified eyes held hers for a moment then she forced a smile.

  Jo pressed the switch and plunged them into total darkness.

  Silently in the blinding darkness, images of the women and children huddled in the basement in Poplar started to play over in Jo’s mind but she cut them short.

  Carefully putting the torch in her pocket, she felt her sister tense as another contraction started to build. Jo held her hand.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mattie,’ she whispered, when it subsided, ‘for saying all those hateful things.’

  ‘I know, Jo,’ Mattie replied. ‘And I never told Mum about you and Tommy. She had you evacuated with Billy so that you could look after him because Aunt Pearl threatened to take him back if she didn’t.’

  Feeling tears spring into her own eyes, Jo hugged her beloved elder sister tight. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you, too.’ Mattie’s body tensed again as another contraction began to build. ‘Jo, I’m scared.’

  ‘So was I when Gladys Williams started picking on me in the playground,’ said Jo, struggling to master her own terror. ‘Do you remember how you came over and gave her what for?’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  THROWING A LUMP of what had been the side wall of Shadwell School behind him, Tommy wiped the dirt from his eyes with the back of his gloved hand. Although the winter sun had almost gone from the sky and the December night chill was already putting a thin sheen of ice over shallow puddles, Tommy had sweat running down his face.

  That’s because he, along with the heavy rescue crews from Post 9, the neighbouring depot in the Royal Docks, had been looking for survivors in what was left of the old Victorian school for the past four hours. They weren’t alone: in addition to the Civil Defence teams, people from the neighbouring streets were out in force, offering what help they could.

  It was now close to four in the afternoon and the blackout would be starting in twenty minutes so soon they’d be digging in the dark.

  Stretching to ease the muscles of his back, Tommy glanced across at Jerimiah, some ten foot away from him, who was working a crowbar under a huge lump of bricks and mortar.

  Jo’s father had arrived at the scene of the blast just a step or two behind Tommy and they had laboured side by side all afternoon, both of them locked in the hell of their imaginations.

  Satisfied the crowbar was in place, Jerimiah crouched down and wedged his shoulder under the iron rod. Frowning, he leaned his weight onto it but after a moment or two of grunting, he let it go.

  Muttering, he stomped around in a small circle then jammed his shoulder back under.

  Stepping over a clump of brickwork, Tommy went over to him.

  ‘Let me give you a hand,’ he said, tucking his shoulder in behind Jo’s father.

  Jerimiah grunted by way of reply and then heaved again.

  Taking the strain, Tommy followed suit and the massive clump of rubble rolled down, crashing into the pile they’d already shifted.

  Balancing the heavy metal shaft lightly in his right hand, Jo’s father looked across at him.

  ‘Can you give us a hand shifting that bugger?’ Tommy said, indicating a six-foot-high section of a broken pillar resting on a pile of crumpled bricks.

  Jerimiah’s massive hand flexed around the crowbar a couple of times then he gave a curt nod. Turning his back on Jo’s father, and the metal pole in his hand, Tommy nimbly stepped across the rubble to the shattered square column, which was still clad in green tiles.

  Tommy stood back while Jerimiah jammed the crowbar beneath the base and then they heaved in unison, sending the block tumbling down to join the lump they’d previously shifted.

  As the street light went out, signalling the start of the blackout, Tommy turned and faced Jerimiah again.

  ‘Mr Brogan, I—’

  ‘We’ve found another one,’ shouted Brian Oldham, one of Post 9’s heavy rescue leaders, for the fourteenth time since they started digging. ‘It’s a woman.’

  With his heart beating widely in his chest and with Jo’s father just a step behind, Tommy leapt across the rubble towards the gap that had once been the school hall’s tall mock Gothic window.

  They arrived just as two light rescue bearers brought out a stretcher. The rescue crews stood with their caps off in respectful silence as the dust-covered body passed between them. Tommy, with Jo’s father just a pace behind, followed them over to the row of shrouded figures lying on the pavement.

  Placing the stretcher down the two bearers gently lifted the body onto a shroud spread out ready.

  Tommy gazed down and relief flooded through him.

  ‘Do you know who it is, mate?’ asked Brian, coming to join them as the shroud was wound around the body.

  ‘Doris Bigly,’ said Tommy, looking down at the matron, whose green WVS uniform was hardly distinguishable under the layer of brick dust. ‘Nice woman. Always giving out tea.’

  Jerimiah stood in silence for a moment then, covering his eyes with his hands, he stumbled off across the rubble and around the corner of the building, out of sight.

  Ida and her mother-in-law Queenie had been standing amongst the small crowd of waiting relatives.

  ‘Is it one of the girls?’ she sobbed, hurrying over with Queenie in tow.

  ‘No, Mrs Brogan,’ said Tommy, as she came to a halt beside him.

  ‘Praise be,’ she said, as she and Queenie crossed themselves rigorously a couple of times. ‘When I saw Jerry run off like that I thought . . .’ She placed her hand on her heaving chest. She glanced over to where he’d disappeared. ‘Perhaps I ought to go and see if he’s all right?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll go.’

  Leaving Jo’s mother and gran talking to the rescuers, Tommy stepped over a mangled window frame and, placing his feet carefully in the failing light, headed off after Jerimiah.

  He found him standing next to the largely intact west wall, staring up at the evening stars sparkling in the crisp winter night.

  Although he stood with his shoulders straight, in the last rays of light his expression was one of utter desolation.

  ‘I’ve been sick with fear every time they find a body,’ said Tommy. ‘So God only knows how you feel.’

  Jo’s father stood resolute and straight for a moment or two more then his face crumpled.

  ‘Please, Mother of God, not both of them,’ he murmured.

  With his arms dangling loose at his side, Tommy stared helplessly at Jerimiah as his own grief held the breath in his lungs. And then he heard it.

  A faint tapping.

  Tommy grabbed Jerimiah’s upper arm. ‘Mr Brogan, listen.’

  Jerimiah looked up
. ‘Where’s it coming from?’

  ‘Below us, I think,’ said Tommy, looking down at the roof slates and broken bricks under their feet. ‘There it is again.’

  They stood stock still and listened to a muffled two taps followed by three taps then two again.

  ‘What’s under here?’

  ‘The school’s basement,’ Tommy replied.

  Hope flashed across the older man’s face. ‘Could Jo and Mattie be down there?’

  ‘They could,’ Tommy replied, as his spirits soared.

  ‘How do we get down there?’ asked Jerimiah.

  ‘By the stairs at the back of the hall,’ Tommy replied. ‘But they’re filled with rubble from the floor above.’

  ‘Well, then we’d better get shifting it,’ said Jerimiah, walking past him.

  ‘Wait!’ Tommy shifted the debris with his boot. ‘The coal hole should be around here somewhere and as long as the door’s not blocked on the other side—’

  The droning wail of the air raid siren cut between them.

  ‘We need to clear this lot,’ shouted Tommy, pointing at the wreckage from the roof under their feet. ‘And locate the cover.’

  ‘You stay there and keep listening,’ Jerimiah bellowed back. ‘And I’ll get us a couple of shovels.’

  Tommy nodded but as Jo’s father turned away, Queenie appeared around the corner of the building. Clambering over the uneven blocks of brickwork like a spindly elf, she stopped in front of her son.

  ‘What are you doing here, Ma?’ Jerimiah bawled, towering over her.

  ‘Dancing an Irish jig, what do you think?’ she yelled back.

  ‘But there’s an air raid on.’

  Queenie rolled her eyes. ‘Sure, don’t you think I know that, you great eejit? Now stop wasting time and tell me what you’re doing.’

  ‘We think there’s someone trapped in the basement and as Jo and Mattie haven’t been found yet it’s possible it’s them,’ Tommy hollered. ‘So Mr Brogan is getting a couple of shovels so we can find the entrance to the school’s coal bunker.’

  ‘Fetch me one, too,’ said Queenie, as the ack-ack guns on Barking Creek peppered the sky with shells to greet the oncoming enemy aircraft. ‘And you, Tommy-me-lad, put your back into it and find that fecking hatch.’

  ‘How’re you doing, Mattie?’ asked Jo, as her sister’s grip on her hand relaxed a little.

  The ground shook as another bomb found its target and Jo shielded her sister with her body as the grit dislodged by the blast pitter-pattered down on them.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Mattie panted. ‘But there’s hardly a space between.’

  Resting her head back against the vaulting horse where Jo had propped her, Mattie closed her eyes.

  Although it was difficult to gauge time lying in the pitch black, Jo reckoned that as the blackout would have come into force at three twenty and the first wave of bombers usually arrived an hour or so later, it was close to five in the evening, maybe a little later.

  She was starving hungry and her mouth felt like the bottom of Prince Albert’s cage, but she wasn’t worried by either because approximately ten minutes ago her sister had got the urge to push.

  ‘Jo,’ Mattie gasped, groping for her hand in the dark.

  ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, I’m here. Now, Mattie, when the next one starts tuck in your chin and push,’ said Jo, her eyes fixed on the bulging area between her sister’s legs in the mellow light.

  When it was clear Mattie’s baby wasn’t going to wait for the heavy rescue teams to arrive, Jo had arranged her sister’s skirt in a fan beneath her to keep her rear away from the brick dust and then spread her sister’s knickers over that and tucked them under her bottom. She’d also ripped her handkerchief into strips and tucked them into the front of her brassiere, ready to tie off the cord.

  Gripping behind her thighs, Mattie lowered her head as another contraction took hold.

  ‘Come on, Mattie,’ shouted Jo, the ground shaking as a cluster of bombs fell close by. ‘Push that baby out.’

  Mattie strained for a long moment then her head fell back.

  ‘I can’t,’ she sobbed, sweat dripping from her nose despite the icy chill of the basement. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Mattie,’ said Jo, sounding uncannily like her gran. ‘Of course you can. Just a few more pushes.’

  Mattie’s lips pulled into a hard line and fixing her eyes on Jo, she tucked in her chin and pushed.

  ‘I can feel it moving down,’ she gasped, as her face flushed with the effort.

  ‘Keep pushing!’ Jo shouted, praying to every saint in Heaven that a small foot wouldn’t suddenly pop out.

  Mattie drew in a noisy breath then, planting her feet wide, she hunched forward and did as Jo urged her.

  A circle of damp dark hair the size of a digestive biscuit appeared, protruding through her sister’s stretched vulva as the contraction ebbed away.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ gasped Mattie.

  ‘That your baby’s got dark hair,’ Jo replied.

  A small smile lifted the corners of Mattie’s mouth.

  ‘Just like Daniel’s,’ she whispered.

  A lump formed in Jo’s throat.

  ‘Come on, Matt,’ she said softly, wiping a damp lock of hair from her sister’s forehead. ‘A couple more pushes and you can hold your baby.’

  Mattie gave a sharp nod as the next contraction gripped her. The digestive-sized patch of damp curls expanded into a saucer-sized one before the pain waned.

  Crouched between her sister’s knees, Jo stripped off her coat and jumper.

  ‘Right, Matt,’ she said, ‘the next one should have this baby born.’

  Mattie’s lips pulled into a determined line and then, as the primal urge to push swept through her, she bore down again.

  Taking off her shirt, Jo slung it over her shoulder then with the icy atmosphere of the cellar raising goosebumps, she cupped her hand beneath her sister’s rear.

  ‘Push!’ shouted Jo.

  Mattie did.

  A small head with a mass of curly black hair popped out and then rotated towards her.

  ‘The head’s out now, try not to push while I check for the cord,’ said Jo, trying to conjure up the images of her first-aid textbook.

  Breathing heavily, Mattie let her head rest back onto the vaulting horse while Jo’s fingers felt under the child’s chin.

  ‘I can’t feel a cord so it seems all right,’ said Jo. ‘So push.’

  Her face screwed up tight with the effort, Mattie pushed again.

  A gush of blood-streaked water shot out, wetting the floor beneath Jo’s knees, and the baby slithered into her waiting hands.

  Whipping her still-warm blouse from her shoulder, Jo wrapped it round the birth-smeared infant.

  A bomb crashing somewhere close by shook the walls. Jo tucked the infant into her as a shower of grit fell onto them.

  ‘Is my baby all right?’ sobbed Mattie, raising herself up in an effort to see.

  The baby answered for itself by giving a loud cry and mother and auntie burst into tears. Taking her knitted jumper from inside her coat, Jo wrapped the baby again.

  ‘Say hello to your new daughter, Mattie,’ she said, laying the baby into her sister’s outstretched arms.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ whispered Mattie as she gazed lovingly down at her daughter’s screwed-up face.

  Taking two strips of handkerchief, Jo rummaged under the baby’s improvised covering and tied off the cord in two places before tucking the jumper around the baby again.

  ‘What are you going to call her?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Alicia,’ said Mattie. ‘After Daniel’s mother . . .’ Tears welled up in her sister’s eyes.

  Jo gathered her sister into her arms.

  ‘Daniel would have been very proud of you,’ she said, kissing Mattie’s moist forehead.

  In the dim light from the torch, Mattie gave her a brave little smile.

  Another bomb, which felt a
s if it had landed beside them, rocked the cellar and the ground beneath them. The torch rolled off the box Jo had placed it on and smashed, plunging them into darkness again.

  Mattie screamed as Jo groped around on the floor.

  ‘It’s all right, I’ve found it,’ said Jo, grasping the Bakelite cylinder.

  She flicked the switch but nothing happened.

  ‘Jo?’

  ‘It’s broken,’ said Jo, feeling tears spring into her own eyes. ‘But don’t you worry, Mattie. The heavy rescue should be with us any moment now.’ Searching around her, Jo located her coat and, fumbling in the dark, she covered mother and baby with it. ‘So, you just sit tight and keep you and Alicia warm.’

  Dressed only in her trousers and brassiere, Jo rubbed her bare arms to warm them then grasping the rounders bat she crawled across the floor to the wall and struck the water pipes, using the two-three-two rhythm again.

  Jo waited as the sound echoed up the lead pipes.

  Nothing.

  Just as it had been nothing for the last however many hours. Nothing as it might be for ever.

  Collapsing against the wall, Jo closed her eyes as images of her family flashed in a jumbled sequence through her mind. Her father kissing a grazed knee better; her mother sponging her when she had mumps; her, Mattie and Cathy snuggled for warmth together in the old brass bed while rain lashed the window, and the look of pride on her gran’s face when she came home from school with the prize for being top of the class. Her thoughts moved on to Tommy, and her heart ached as her mind and body remembered the little white fan lines at the corners of his eyes, the square bluntness of his chin, the scratch of his morning bristles on her bare shoulder, the sweetness of his mouth covering hers and the exquisite bliss of their bodies moving as one.

  Tears pressed at the back of her eyes as despair started to engulf her. Alicia gave a couple of little cries and then in the dark Mattie started humming ‘Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral’, the song her mother had rocked her to sleep with for as long as Jo could remember. The soft refrain that meant home, family and love.

  In the dark, Jo’s face took on a determined look. Grabbing the bat again she thumped on the pipes so hard the vibration juddered up her arm.