Love on the Waterways

by Milly Adams

  ‘Yes, Sarge,’ they yelled above the chaos of sound. Someone else, or the same person, was vomiting near Tom.

  When the landing craft were within striking distance of the beach, they broke from the convoy and tore towards the shore, first one craft and then another, ramming their prows into the beach. The one before them was hit by a shell and exploded. Tom staggered as his craft shuddered to a halt on the shingle. Don grabbed him to steady himself, his helmet slipping over his eyes. ‘Bloody thing.’

  A sailor lowered the ramp and there they were, exposed, with the beach in full sight, the chaos and the screams louder, the bullets zipping over them, in front and to the side, and into them. Don fell. The sergeant swung round. Tom checked his mate. ‘He’s gone, Sarge.’

  They lugged him to the side. The sergeant and corporal were outdoing one another as they shouted orders. ‘Out you get, into the surf. Have a paddle, why don’t you?’

  ‘Listen to the sarge, keep yer ’eads down and don’t bloody stop.’

  Down the ramp Tom went, the craft slipped back, he stepped off into deep water. ‘Bugger.’ It was Corporal Jones. ‘Sarge, it’s four foot if it’s a bloody day.’

  The noise was growing, with explosions behind, in front and to the sides. And screams.

  ‘Got to get ’em off, as the guide leader said to the scout leader.’

  Those were the last words Tom heard as he fell beneath the waves. The sea filled his waders, and he was being dragged this way and that as he scraped along the bottom. He fought to the surface, his pack weighing a bloody ton. Someone knocked him aside, and down he went again. He found his footing and barged his way clear of the squad, struggling on as bullets flew over and into the water.

  He was on shingle, on his hands and knees, being rolled over and then back, his waders so full that they pinioned him. He saw someone upright to his left and started to haul himself up on them. It was the corporal, who heaved him to his feet, then left Tom to help someone else. Others were struggling forward alongside, in front and behind. The bullets still flew. A man surged past, holding a collapsible cycle high.

  Tom followed, the water churning and buffeting him. He forced himself on, cursing his waders. A helmet nudged him. Step by step, he thought, just like the bastard Brum Bum. Step by bloody step. He slipped backwards on the rising shingle slope, but rammed his boots into it, taking another step and then another, holding his soaking rifle above his head. He fell again in shallow water, dropped his rifle, feeling for it, finding it and crawling out of the surf, coughing. Someone fell over him. It was Paul.

  Behind him the sergeant called, ‘I said no time for a bloody brew, Brown. Get up and stop muckin’ about.’ Paul heaved him up. Together they struggled forward. Somewhere bagpipes were playing, or that’s what Tom thought. Was he going mad?

  Paul yelled, ‘The bloody Scots are here. God bless the daft buggers.’

  Tom laughed like an idiot. Paul and he tore at their waterlogged waders, ripping them off, heedless of what the sarge might say. He said nothing. They struggled up the beach, with the beach master and his men waving them on, ever on; over and around bodies. Yes, bodies. He felt sick again, and it was nothing to do with the sea. Tin hats lay all around, their owners splayed out near them. A shell landed, and the smell of cordite filled the air. Paul staggered.

  Tom pulled at his arm. ‘Come on, we need to get off the beach.’ But Paul was on his knees, staring at the shingle. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t go on.’

  But it wasn’t a whisper, it was a shout that Tom could barely hear. Another shell landed and there was a blinding flash; the spraying shingle stung and cut, the smell of cordite drenched them. He dragged Paul to his feet. ‘Come on, come on. If we stay here, we die. We have a chance off the beach. Keep going.’ On they trudged, heads down, bullets chattering, zipping. ‘Keep going,’ he said to himself with every footfall. ‘Keep going like the girls, day in and day out, lock after lock. Keep going.’

  Paul pulled him round. ‘Listen.’

  They heard a voice above the mayhem, to their left, nearby. It was a lieutenant. ‘Lads, I need a hand.’ He was trying to drag the cover off a Bren-gun carrier. They crunched over, yanking at the tarpaulin, releasing where it had caught, like the girls on the boats. They stared at the destroyed carrier beneath. They struggled on. Tom swung round to see how far they had come, and then forward, and could have wept. There was so much further to go. There was a sound, a sort of squeak. It was Paul, prostrate. Tom turned him over. It was his shoulder. ‘Get up.’

  Paul screamed. Tom scrabbled for his morphine ampules and the attached needle, and shoved one in his mate’s arm. ‘Get off the beach, mate,’ Paul muttered.

  Tom stared around. Casualties were collecting nearer the waterline, over to the left, where the medics tended them. Oh God, all the way back? He heaved Paul up, kept his arm around him and dragged him, almost slipping down the shingle. It’s what Verity would do, it’s what she did – what they all did. One for all. He kept going, seeing Verity, and suddenly it seemed all right. He could see her, hear her and if he drew his last breath, it would be with her here, in his mind and heart.

  He slid and fell, and Paul with him. A medic came over. ‘I’ve got him, lad, you go on. Do your job.’

  Tom nodded, turned and struggled back up, footfall by footfall. As he reached the dunes he saw that some infantry had started to dig in, and were brewing. Not here, not now, he wanted to yell, but he had no breath and kept walking. And now he realised the dunes were protecting them from the wind, a wind that he hadn’t realised was blowing. Behind him someone yelled, ‘Get your arses off the beach, you bloody tea-drinking idiots.’

  He could hear the mortar fire, rapid but flying in an arc over them. He found others from his company. He was not alone. But he hadn’t been, for he had been with her; her courage, her endurance, the endurance of them all. They all passed into the last of the dunes, and the sergeant came after them. ‘All right lads. Take five.’ They fell on the sand. Ahead was a signpost that had seen better days: Achtung Minen; it was old, weathered, decrepit – like bloody Germany, Tom hoped.

  The sergeant was looking at his compass. Tom sat and rested his arms on his knees, his head on his arms. It seemed mere seconds before the sergeant was saying, ‘We’ll skirt round this little lot.’

  They marched on, out of step. ‘Get yourselves sorted,’ bellowed the sergeant. They did, reaching tarmac: a road, pitted, potholed and blasted, but a bloody road, and houses, a shop. But it was sniper alley, so they ducked off it, but still the snipers found them. They hugged the few motorised transports that had been hit, and a blasted German military jeep, zigzagging between whatever they could find, even a lamp post. How bloody silly; who was skinny enough for that to make a difference?

  Mortars were still falling, whistling above them, crashing, flashing, smelling. Somehow they lived, somehow they continued until a rest was called, in a ditch, with the clouds scudding above them and a gull wheeling. How could it still be flying? All the time Tom had pictured the girls hauling their butty through the filth of the Brum Bum, enduring; so he could, too.

  He grappled for his water bottle. It was empty. There was a bullet hole in it. ‘Bugger,’ he said, his mouth so dry it was a mere whisper. The sergeant threw him his own. ‘Take a gulp, son. And I would have stopped for a mate, too. Perhaps he’ll be all right. Perhaps he’s on his way home, or will be soon. For us, it’s just begun.’

  Tom muttered, ‘The beginning of the end. Better bloody be, I’ve got things to do, and someone to do it with.’

  Bill, a Geordie with a lance corporal’s stripe, lifted his head from his knees. ‘Aye, lad, reckon we all have. About time this bloody lot learned to mind their manners and stop being so bloody greedy.’

  Chapter 23

  Sunday 18 June – at Bull’s Bridge on the lookout for doodlebugs

  All the way down from Birmingham’s Tyseley Wharf the three girls had listened and looked, even down the Aylesbury Arm
. ‘I was thinking, not so long ago, that the bombing was over and done with, and then the buggers start sending these damned doodlebugs over,’ Polly shouted.

  Verity steered Marigold back towards the main cut and shouted, ‘They’re not bombs, they’re Hitler’s bloody rockets, and the correct term is a V-1, ignoramus.’

  Polly, on the other side of the tiller, elbowed her. ‘Stop showing off, for heaven’s sake. Whatever the buggers are, they scare the wotnot out of me. Doesn’t ruddy Hitler know he’s beaten?’

  Verity shook her head. ‘Clearly not, darling. Maniacs never do.’

  They headed on for Cowley lock, where Steerer Ambrose shouted as he passed, heading north, ‘Yer ’ear t’engine buzzin’, then it cuts out and seems to fall backwards, but fall ’em do, makin’ a right mess. I ’spect it’s bad over east like it were in the Blitz, so keeps yer ’eads down. Someone should shoot that bugger ’Itler.’

  Verity felt almost hysterical as she shouted, ‘You’ve got it in one, Steerer Ambrose.’

  Tom was heading Hitler’s way, like so many others, all combining to stop the maniac and his bloody stupid army. She knew that, because otherwise he would have telephoned to let her know he hadn’t gone with the invasion force, just as Saul had, leaving a message at Tyseley for Polly to say he was still in England, training.

  They reversed into the lay-by at Bull’s Bridge just before lunchtime, watching the sky and listening hard for the buzzing, over the engine’s pat-patter. Sylvia grabbed Marigold’s mooring strap, once she’d tied up the butty. ‘I’ll say it again: try not to worry about Tom,’ she called.

  Verity nodded. ‘And I’ll reply, again, darling: that is like trying to stop a bull charging.’ She jumped onto the kerb.

  Polly was running over the cabin top carrying the brooms. ‘Come on, let’s clean the holds, then we can find a pub. We need it, we’ve barely stopped.’

  ‘Lavatory first, thank you very much,’ Verity snapped. Polly was all right; her bloke was safe, not like Tom. She stormed off, stalking past the wash boilers on the kerb.

  ‘’Ow do,’ Ma Mercy called, as did the others. Mrs Brown approached, her string shopping bag bulging with vegetables, calling out, ‘I miss our Saul’s rabbits, that I do, and the pheasant. Didn’t know rightly how much ’e catched for oos, I didn’t. Makes yer wonder when the lad slept. Not ’eard from yer Tom then? But I got a good feelin’ in me waters, I have, about the lad.’

  Verity stopped dead. ‘Have you really?’ she asked, reaching out a hand.

  Mrs Brown’s gnarled fingers gripped hers. ‘It says it in the tea leaves. The lad’ll be home. That Saul, too.’

  Verity stared at her. ‘Saul’s gone?’

  ‘So’s I feel, and I’s usually right.’

  Verity walked on into the yard. She used the lavatory and then called into the Administration Office. Bob looked up, tired and with bags under his eyes.

  ‘How’s it been?’ she asked.

  Bob grimaced. ‘First the Blitz, now this. You be careful; but yer might be lucky and ’ave a pick-up from Brentford, and you can get back out and away quicker, which is what I ’ope for yer. London’s copping it, no rhyme or reason, they’re just falling all over the place. Barrage balloons are helping to snarl ’em and bring ’em down, and our lads take up their planes to try and whack ’em. Ack-ack is busy too.’

  He was groping under the counter.

  ‘I got a message fer yer mate, young Polly – on the QT, I reckon. A telephone call: Saul said he’s off. Yer tell her, would yer? I’m sick of giving these bloody messages and seeing the faces. ’E said something about a fruit or summat.’ He leaned forward, beckoning her closer. ‘I ’eard from a bloke in the pub that some of ’em ’ave been building a floatin’ harbour for landing supplies. Top secret, it were then, but I reckon now it’s getting in place over there, it ain’t a secret no more. Called summat like a Gooseberry, so it could be a Mulberry instead. Got something to do with War Transport. Makes sense for a boater, don’t it?’

  Verity was about to snap about some people being bloody lucky, then stopped. What the hell was she thinking? Perhaps he saw, because he said, ‘Yer lasses are lucky; yer got one another to prop up against.’

  She nodded. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without the other two – we’re family, you know.’

  He handed over the letters for Marigold and the message from Saul, which he’d written on a scrap of paper. She shoved them in her pocket and hurried off to the Orders Office to hand over their dockets. ‘Any orders, Ted?’

  He shook his head. ‘Yer could get off for the afternoon, but take care, them’s aren’t seagulls up there.’

  ‘Has there been much damage?’

  ‘Over London, south especially and the east, so don’t yer be ’anging about.’

  On her return to the boats she waved the letters. Polly and Sylvia called in unison from the hold, ‘File them.’

  Verity stuck them on the bookshelf. One was from her mother, one from Polly’s mother and another was for Sylvia. She took her place in the hold, cleaning out the coal dust and filling the hessian sack with the usual lumps for the coal bucket. She handed Polly Bob’s scribble, saying, ‘The Mulberry could come under War Transport, so maybe Mr Burton used that to swing it.’

  ‘My mum swung it, don’t you mean?’ Polly’s tone was like acid; corrosive and damaged.

  Verity lugged her sack of coal into the store and stared at it; at the tools, and the bucket. Were they both being prima donnas, sitting in judgement on their families and knowing nothing, really? Bet’s words, when they were training, came to her, loud and clear. ‘It’s like running a kindergarten.’

  She leaned back against the wall. They were too tired to think straight, and worried almost out of their wits, but the men were fighting and dying while they were being cross, bitter and hugging slights and wounds that were in the past. It really was time they not only shut up, but grew up – she and Polly at least. Sylvia was different, very different, and her problems were nothing to do with growing up.

  Polly’s voice reached her from roof. ‘The hold’s all done. I’m nipping off to help Sylvia to finish the butty. What about orders?’

  Verity edged out onto the gunwale. ‘None for the rest of the day. And what’s more, Pol, I’m going to stop sinking into self-pity, or fury, or whatever you like to call it. We’ve been stoking one another and it’s time for the truth. I’m off to find my real family, and then I’ll know who and what I am. London’s taking a pounding, yet again, and if I don’t do it now, who knows if they’ll be around to ask later on? Who knows if they’re even alive, anyway? All this hating is making me feel sick. And what about you? How’d you feel if your mum was killed by a doodlebug while you’re flouncing about?’

  Polly was stepping onto the butty and didn’t acknowledge the question. Had she even heard? Verity moved across to the butty hold, and all three swept and shovelled, and carried up the hessian sacks into the butty store, after which Polly stormed into Marigold’s cabin, saying, ‘I’m going to have a stand-up wash and come with you. You’re right, you need to sort this out.’

  Verity followed her into the cabin. ‘I repeat, idiot, that we need to.’

  Polly wiped her face and slammed out of the cabin. Sylvia poked her head round the door. ‘That’s your answer, for now. I think she knows you’re right. Perhaps calling her an idiot didn’t help.’ She disappeared and then called, ‘I’ll be in the butty, having a wash, and then I’m coming with you, too. But we need to get a move on, in case we’re called.’

  Verity yelled, ‘We’re laid off until the morning, don’t forget.

  She was stripping off when Polly returned and elbowed Verity away from the bowl, muttering, ‘I need a proper wash, so shove over, idiot. And by the way, I’ve dug myself into a hole and I’m not sure how to get out of it. I know Mum is wonderful, and Dad, but although I know it, I’ve hurt them, blamed them, and part of me still thinks they’ve betrayed me. Give me a bit more time, and then I’
ll sort it.’

  They didn’t reach Poplar until three in the afternoon, and as they rushed along, several doodlebugs roared over, their tails flaring, their engines buzzing. A couple cut out, exploding a little further on. The ground shuddered, the windows shook and previously damaged houses lost more dust, more bricks – even a fireplace hanging off a deserted building crashed into the ruins. It made them think of the one hanging off the wall near the public baths in Birmingham. A chimney smashed into the ground ahead of them.

  Their nerves jangled, but all around them everyone just kept on doing what they were doing, including a telegram boy who cycled head down, as though all this was normal. Watching him winding his way around bricks and debris, they tried not to hunch over, but to walk upright, as though they were out for a stroll in the park. They failed.

  Polly said, ‘It’s a horrid damp day.’

  ‘That’s the most idiotic remark anyone could come up with, when it’s raining doodlebugs,’ Sylvia muttered.

  Verity held both their arms. ‘We’re British, so we talk about the weather when the world is going crazy.’

  Another doodlebug buzzed high overhead in the cloud layer, but kept on going. They tried to ignore the awful screeching and growling of its engine, and the air raid sirens. They passed a damaged terrace on their right. An ARP warden blew his whistle. ‘Get in a shelter, for Gawd’s sake, the lot of you; it’s not ruddy Blackpool pier and a stroll in the sun.’

  They did, sitting there for an hour, and then the all-clear went. They continued on their way, smelling cordite. Trees lining the street near a church had gone, felled by the blasts; the leaves were crushed and that smell was stronger for a moment than the dust and explosives. They crunched over broken glass and slates, listening, always listening.

  Sylvia stopped, her head up. The other two paused, but no, they were hearing things. ‘It’s June, the sun will come out soon,’ she said, coughing in the dust.

  Polly muttered, ‘Bugger that. I want the rockets to stop, that’s what I want. I thought all this was over. I thought now that we had invaded, that was it.’