by Trevor Hoyle
Terry fiddled with his bus ticket. He noticed an ink stain on the index finger of his right hand, just where he held his pen. It must be leaking, he thought. For the life of him he couldn’t remember what Betty Wheatcroft looked like. He remembered her hair, which was brown and worn in long loose ringlets (he used to tie them together when he sat behind her in 4A at Heybrook), but when he thought of her face all that he could see was a white space with a black blob where one of her eyes should have been.
Margaret continued to make embarrassing sounds all the way along Entwisle Road and Terry had to help her off the bus when it stopped at the Arches. She leaned against him, weak, shaking, her cheeks inflamed with the salty moisture. Terry supported her; it was like holding a large helpless doll.
‘Do you want me to come home with you?’
‘No.’
‘It won’t take a minute.’
‘No.’ She straightened up and opened her satchel.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Another hankie.’
‘Use mine.’
It was clean today, thank goodness, with no chewing gum or crows stuck to it. He gave it to her, thinking what nice hands she had. He himself felt nothing about Betty Wheatcroft’s death. He didn’t believe she was dead. He tried to think of how she had been when alive (waving to him on her way to the Co-op with a shopping bag) but that too was unreal, because then she was still living. Perhaps he didn’t have any feelings or emotions. Supposing he had to go through the rest of his life not really caring for anybody. But neither was that thought real: thinking about what he should have been thinking was of itself empty, without meaning. He might have been filling in the solutions to a crossword puzzle. Answering an exam paper.
The least he could do was to see Margaret across the road. Then he went home for his tea. He didn’t tell his mam about Betty Wheatcroft because he didn’t know what kind of expression to put on his face when he told her. The one thing, the only thing, that had any connection with her death and his life was remembering that Margaret or Muriel or somebody had once said that Betty Wheatcroft fancied him. That was the sum of it. Nothing else. It staggered him, this callous indifference – that he could be so utterly devoid of feeling. And therefore he went up to the back bedroom and had a little private weep, squeezing out the tears one by one from beneath dry eyelids like drops of glycerine.
Under Attack
AFTER TEA ALEC BLAND CAME TO CALL FOR him, and though Terry had some homework he calculated he could do it tomorrow dinnertime, before the French period in the afternoon. Besides, he hated Reggie Short’s guts, and he suspected the feeling was mutual. Terry was rather proud of his French accent but he was hopeless at the grammar; he couldn’t get the hang of rules like ‘Preceding Direct Object’ and so Reggie gave him consistently low marks.
There was nothing to keep him in the house, especially since Dick Barton Special Agent had finished on the radio a few months ago. Terry still missed it badly, the thrilling music and the knife-edge suspense, the screeching car chases and fists socking jaws, sitting on the cold linoleum with his ear glued to the speaker.
‘Hurry up, don’t keep Alec waiting at the door,’ Barbara said. ‘And get well wrapped up, it feels parky.’
‘Where’s Uncle Jack? Has he got Champ with him?’ Terry asked, taking his windjammer from the hook.
‘You know very well where Uncle Jack is, he’s upstairs,’ Barabara said, exasperated.
‘Oh yeh,’ Terry said, ‘I forgot,’ content to have reminded Alec who they had living with them. But Alec didn’t take the bait right away, which meant Terry had to raise the topic again as they were walking along the Top Track.
‘My dad used to build bombers during the war, in Chadderton.’
‘My dad was in Burma,’ Alec said, ‘in’t jungle.’
‘Is that why he’s ill all the time? He’s dead thin, in’t he, and a funny yellow colour.’
‘Me mam says it’s murry-earlier or summat.’
‘Is he going to die?’
Alec shrugged. ‘Dunno. He can’t work.’ And at long last: ‘Your uncle was in the war, weren’t he?’
‘The Desert Rats. They were in Africa near the pyramids. He fought against Rommel.’ Terry nearly corrected himself; weren’t the pyramids in Egypt?
‘Who was that?’
‘German general called Rommel. He was in charge of the Pansies.’ He wasn’t entirely sure about this either, though that’s what it sounded like when Jack told him about the tank battle near somewhere called Tobruk. Before Alec had the chance to doubt him, or even worse, question the truth of the story, Terry went on quickly: ‘Yeh, he brought back some spoons with swastikas on them – they’re a funny grey colour and you can bend ’em dead easy. And a real Luger gun, weighs a ton, you need both hands to lift it.’
‘Does it fire?’
‘Course it fires. He fought a German captain for it, in a trench. The Jerry was just going to shoot and Uncle Jack jumped on top of him and kicked it out of his hand, sent the gun spinning.’
‘That’s what Biggies did to von Stalhein!’ Alec said alertly.
A voice called out: ‘Halt! Friend or Foe?’
They made out the dim figure of Dougie standing near the entrance to the air-raid shelter.
‘Friend,’ Terry said.
‘Password?’
Terry sucked his lips. ‘What’s the password, Alec?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘What’s the password, Dougie?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’
‘How do we get in if you won’t tell us?’
Dougie sniffed loudly and stared at them in the gloom. Eventually he said: ‘What do paratroopers yell just before they jump out of a plane?’
‘Geronimo,’ Terry and Alec said together.
‘Pass, Friend.’
‘Where’s the rest of ’em?’ Terry asked, poking his head inside the shelter to find Spenner on his own.
‘Kevin, Roy and Mitch are coming down later.’
‘It’s still not going to be enough of us if they attack, is it?’
‘Who you scared of – Brian Creegan? He’s nowt but a tub of lard.’ Spenner was rummaging through the piled-up wood.
‘What you doing?’
‘Them doors and window-frames’ll burn great… Dougie, where’s that candle in the jam-jar? I’m going to make a table out of this door. Get hold of that end, Webbie. If we prop it on them boxes we can put the candle in the middle and sit round.’
In a few minutes they were sitting facing one another in the wavering beams from the jam-jar.
‘Great this, innit?’ Terry said. ‘Like being underground.’
‘In a bunker,’ Alec said. ‘Hitler was killed in a bunker.’
‘Anybody got any cigs?’ Dougie asked.
Spenner said, ‘I’ve got a dimp. We’ll pass it round.’ He lit up and they each took a drag. Sucking in smoke, Dougie said:
‘Hitler’s not dead, you pie-can. He was captured by the Russkies and they took him to Sibera. He’s there now, nobbut a skeleton, chained up in’t salt mines.’
‘That’s all you know,’ Spenner said with a harsh laugh. ‘He’s in South America. He had a U-boat waiting to take him there when the Jerries surrendered.’
‘Give us another drag, Spenner.’ The dimp went round, scorching their lips.
‘Anybody seen Commanche Territory at the Ceylon?’ Terry asked.
‘Who’s in it?’
‘Randolph Scott.’
Alec kept looking over his shoulder. ‘Why don’t we start a fire?’
‘We don’t want to waste all our bommie on a tiddly fire,’ Spenner said.
‘Well let’s keep a look-out then in case they sneak up while we’re in here. They might—’
‘Ssssshhh!’ Dougie said. The shelter went deathly quiet except for the holllow sounds of breathing. Terry couldn’t hear anything. Alec was chewing his lips.
‘What is it?’ Terry whispe
red.
Then they all heard it – a scuffle of footsteps, low voices, muffled laughter.
Alec jumped up. ‘Steaming Nora – it’s them! – they’re coming! – we’re being raided! —’
‘Is it buggery, that’s Kevin, laughs like a hyena.’ Spenner called out, ‘We’re in here!’ Kevin Hartley, Roy Pickup and Billy Mitchell came in, still sniggering at a joke Roy had told them about a bloke whose knob fell off. ‘Seen any of the South Street lot?’ Spenner asked.
‘I saw Brian Creegan near the Co-op,’ Mitch said.
‘When?’
‘Half hour since.’
‘Which way was he going?’
‘Down here. Anyroad towards Kellett Street.’
‘On his own?’
‘Yeh.’
Spenner took a final drag and ground the dimp into the concrete floor. ‘Could be an advance scout. We’d better post sentries. Terry and Alec – get up on the roof, lie flat, keep your eyes skinned. Roy, Dougie, Kevin – spread out on three sides and get down in’t grass. Mitch – you go to the top of the embankment. You can see right to the far end of Kellett Street from there. If any of you spot anybody, shout “Bandits”.’
‘I’ll be on me own,’ Mitch complained. ‘Why is it allus me on me own? Send Alec or Dougie …’ He usually got the short end of the stick because he was six months younger than the others.
Spenner said, ‘More likely they’ll come across the Common and down Ma Rigall’s back-entry. Or maybe through the pens. Somebody better keep a watch on the Ginnel as well.’
Kevin said, ‘Shit and corruption, it’s like the Black Hole of Calcutta down there! There’s no gas lamps.’
‘What’s up, Kevin, chicken?’
‘Shut it, Dougie, fart-face.’
‘You bloody make me.’
‘Think I can’t?’
‘Will you two belt up!’ Spenner yelled. ‘Honest, you’re worse than kids in th’Infants class. We’re supposed to be fighting the South Street gang, not each other. Right, get going… spread out and keep quiet!’
Lying flat on the roof of the shelter, it occurred to Terry to wonder what defence they could actually muster if they really were attacked. Cob a few half house bricks he supposed. But would the South Street lot bother traipsing all this way for a few doors and window-frames? He huddled deeper into his windjammer. He could hear something rattling; it was Alec’s teeth.
‘Jesus wept, Terry, I’m bloody frozen. Me feet are like lumps of ice.’
Peering into the darkness, Terry couldn’t see any of the others, and it had gone eerily silent. ‘Where’s Kevin and Roy got to? And what’s happened to Spenner?’ It was unnerving, with only the wind whispering through the grass.
‘I want to go home,’ Alec said, clenching his teeth to stop them chattering.
‘You can’t do. We’re supposed to be on guard—’
They both cried out as a bright flash like splinters of light burst overhead, followed a second later by the deafening crack of an explosion. Several more bangers went off, nearer and louder, and they heard whoops and cries in the distance, also getting nearer and louder.
‘Hell’s bells,’ Alec said, ‘they’re coming. I’m buggering off!’
Terry had started trembling all over. ‘I can’t see a bloody thing.’ He hung his head over the rough edge of the concrete roof and called in a hoarse, strangled whisper: ‘Spenner… Spenner! They’re attacking!’
Stones and chunks of brick started raining down on them, bouncing off the roof. ‘I bet the yellow sods have scarpered,’ Terry said, really scared now.
‘They’re cobbing dirty great house bricks,’ Alec whimpered, curling up in a ball. ‘I want me mam.’
Something fizzed through the air in a pretty sparkling arc and the banger went off a few feet over their heads, deafening and blinding them. Alec started crying. ‘What’s up, are you hurt?’ Terry could hardly hear his own voice, it sounded muffled by cotton wool.
‘They – they roast you alive,’ Alec’s voice quavered between sobs, ‘in dustbins … over the fire … with the lid on …’
‘There’s somebody on the roof,’ a voice said. ‘Boot ’em down, Hoggy.’
A grinning head appeared, crooked teeth in a grimy face. ‘There’s two up here, Bri – a couple of little squirts.’ Terry recognised him, a lad called Harold Hodges. His hair, which looked orange in this light but was, Terry knew, bright red, stuck straight up in spikes. He was one of the ugliest kids this side of Yorkshire Street.
‘Don’t let ’em escape, Hoggy. They’re our prisoners.’
‘Looks like your pals have buggered off and left you,’ Hoggy said. ‘Do you want to get down or be thrown down?’
As a form of greeting, as they reached the ground, and to show them who was boss, Brian Creegan shoved Terry aginst the wall of the air-raid shelter and punched him in the ribs.
‘Ow, quit that, Creegan.’
‘Who you calling Creegan?’ Brian Creegan said, and punched Terry harder, aiming for the kidneys. ‘Gone soft all of a sudden, eh? Now yer mates have gone. A minute ago you were cobbing house bricks at us.’
‘No we weren’t. You were cobbing ’em at us! And bangers as well.’
‘I’m a liar am I? Who was cobbing ’em then? Eh? Eh?’
‘Don’t hit me,’ Alec snivelled. ‘I’ve got a weak stomach.’
‘Oh dear, hecky thump – hear that, Bri? This little squirt’s gotta weak stomach.’ Hoggy poked Alec with stiff ramrod fingers. ‘Where’s it weak then? Hereabouts is it? Here?’
‘Oh me stomach’s hurting…’
Hoggy mimicked him in a mincing little girl’s voice: ‘Oh me stomach oh me stomach oh me bleedin’ stomach…’
Terry said, ‘It’s not fair. There’s more in your gang than ours. And you two are older than us.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Brian Creegan said, pushing his face into Terry’s. ‘You’re a right cheeky kid, aren’t you. What’s your name?’
‘Terry Webb. You two are thirteen. We’re only eleven-and-a-half.’
‘Aw, mammy’s boy’s only eleven-and-a-half, Hoggy. What a shame.’ He hit Terry hard with his bunched fist on the upper arm, right on the muscle, which hurt like buggery, and Terry burst out crying.
‘You’re a bloody big fat bully, Creegan,’ Terry sobbed.
‘I’m a what? What did you just call me?’ Brian Creegan’s voice sank to a guttural whisper. ‘A bloody what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Am I going deaf or am I stupid or what? Right. I’ve changed my mind. I was going to let you go, let you scram off home to yer mams, but not now. Now you’ve really had it.’
‘I didn’t mean owt, honest,’ Terry said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Too late, Webbie.’ Brian Creegan was enjoying himself.
‘What we going to do with ’em, Bri? Chuck ’em in the brook?’
‘I’ve got a better idea.’
‘It’s not fair, just picking on us.’ Tears were running down Terry’s face. ‘You can have the lousy bommie. Go on, take the lot.’
‘I want me mam,’ Alec wailed until Hoggy elbowed him in the chest. ‘Shut yer gob, you big soft tart. What we gonna do to ’em, Bri?’
‘Tell you what we’ll do. Take their pants off, build a fire and get some red-hot sticks and—’
Alec’s high-pitched scream of terror drowned him out, and then silence fell all of a sudden as an adult voice said, ‘Any of you lads seen Terry Webb?’
‘It’s me, I’m here,’ Terry said. ‘Am I wanted, Uncle Jack?’
‘Wondered if you fancied coming to the flicks. There’s a picture on at the Rialto about POWs in a kraut prison camp. Unless you want to stay with your pals.’
‘No, I’ll come. I’ll come.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Alec said, moving past Hoggy.
‘Your mam says you have to have a wash first and change your shirt and trousers. Sure you want to come?’
‘Yeh, dead sure.’
>
‘Come on then if you’re coming.’ Jack was halfway up the track. ‘It starts at ten past eight.’
‘See you, Webbie,’ Brian Creegan called after them.
‘Not if I see you first, Creegan,’ Terry said over his shoulder.
It was nearly half-past ten when they came out of the Rialto, leaving in the nick of time to miss ‘God Save the King,’ just as the gold lamé curtains came rippling down in overlapping waves. Under normal circumstances Terry wouldn’t have been allowed out so late in mid-week when there was school the next day; he assumed it was because Jack had offered to take him (and more importantly pay for him) that had swung it with his dad. ‘Keep wrapped up,’ Jack said, pulling Terry’s scarf tighter. ‘Your mam’ll drop on me like a ton of bricks if your earache starts up again.’ They walked down Drake Street, which had all the posh shops – Ivesons the Furnishers, Fashion Corner, Butterworths the Jewellers – towards the town centre, deep in discussion about The Wooden Horse, which Terry reckoned was one of the best pictures he’d ever seen. He’d been breathless with excitement when the tunnel collapsed on top of the escaping prisoner, and the other POWs couldn’t rescue him because the grim-faced krauts were watching stony-eyed from the guardtower, itching to spray them with hot lead.
Jack said it was very realistic: the German weapons and uniforms looked genuine to him. They boarded the No. 7 bus and sat downstairs. Terry was about to ask him about the Luger when his uncle gave him kind of a half-grin, one eyebrow raised. ‘What was that performance down at the shelter all about?’
Terry was surprised he’d caught on. ‘South Street lot were after our bommie.’
‘Where was the rest of your gang?’
‘Scarpered off somewhere, leaving just Alec and me. And they’re older than us as well, Uncle Jack,’ Terry said, his voice rising. ‘Brian Creegan’s thirteen—’
‘Age doesn’t matter, Terry. Size doesn’t really matter either, not if you get yourselves organised. There’s enough of you all together in’t there? Ten or more? Get yourselves sorted out proper, build up your defensive perimeter, set ambushes, form a pincer movement. Push ’em one way, towards the river, and then block off their retreat.’
