Ambulance Girls At War

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘I’m up for it,’ he said. ‘Lay on, Macduff.’

  We began our journey as one always did when there was no moonlight, by relying on our thin torchlight and the white bands painted around trees and on kerbs. I let the masked light of my slim torch shine on the ground by our feet, assisted by Michael’s torchlight. When we rounded the corner, the glow of a fire somewhere over to the north-west gave us enough light to walk without turning an ankle on the inevitable detritus left by a raid.

  Rescue workers had closed off Dean Street all the way to Oxford Street because of an unexploded bomb. So, arm in arm, Michael and I advanced tentatively towards the deeper shadow that was Soho Square.

  ‘We haven’t resolved our dilemma,’ said Michael, holding me firmly as I slipped on some rubble in my ‘skyscraper’ shoes.

  ‘I’m still thinking about it,’ I said.

  It was very quiet in the square itself, but the sounds of fire engines, ambulances and rescue trucks echoed in the streets nearby. We emerged from Soho Street on to Oxford Street, and turned into a small thoroughfare, more like an alley, which was, I knew, a shortcut to Tottenham Court Road.

  ‘What the hell …’ said Michael, and pulled me to a stop.

  A break in the clouds had revealed a scene of devastation. The house in front of us had suffered a direct hit. Nothing was left but a neat pile of wreckage, which in the moonlight had an unreality about it, as if it were one of the follies they used to build in fancy estates to add a gothic air. A water pipe had split open, so a fountain gushed into the sky, adding to the unreality of the scene.

  ‘Why is no one here?’ asked Michael. ‘No rescue crews?’

  ‘Perhaps they know it was an empty house. Or they’re busy somewhere else and haven’t got to this one yet. Or it’s not been reported yet. This is a secluded little street.’

  It was the dog that alerted us. Michael heard the whining first, and squeezed my arm.

  ‘Is that a dog, or a child?’

  I listened. It was a sad little whimpering sound.

  ‘Dog, I think,’ I said.

  Michael released my arm and moved carefully over the wreckage, sliding a little because it was unstable, towards the pitiful noise.

  ‘It’s a dog,’ he called out. He shone his torchlight on a small brown dog of uncertain lineage. It was whimpering and scrabbling in the debris, trying to wriggle itself into the mess of broken beams and plaster towards the back of what had been the house.

  ‘Do you think someone’s trapped in there?’ he called out.

  ‘It looks like it. Should I run for a rescue crew? There must be one in Dean Street near the UXB.’

  ‘They’ll be here soon enough. I’ll see what I can do in the meantime.’ He took off his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. ‘All I have is a pocket-knife,’ he said. ‘You got anything better?’

  ‘Just a torch.’

  ‘Better bring it here. Shine it where I’m working.’

  Gingerly, in my high heels, I walked across the mess to him and held the torch as he pulled away larger bits of wreckage, broken beams, bricks and plaster. Every so often he would call out, ‘Hello? Anyone in there?’

  We listened. We heard nothing.

  ‘Journey’s end,’ said Michael suddenly. In front of him was a tiled wall. ‘Looks like a bathroom wall. I think the place was empty. Or they didn’t survive the bombing. I can’t get further in. Don’t have the tools.’

  We turned to leave, and had taken a step when we heard it. Faintly, very faintly, from somewhere beyond the wall in front of us, a man’s voice was calling, ‘Help. Help us please.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Michael stiffened and swore softly under his breath. ‘I’ve got nothing, Maisie. Nothing. If I had a pickaxe, or a mallet … but there’s nothing I can use.’

  ‘I’ll run for help.’

  ‘Where to? You can’t go dashing off alone into the dark streets.’

  ‘Why not?’ I said, bitterly, because I felt so helpless. ‘Because you might lose your precious negatives?’

  Michael turned and grabbed my arms, then shook me. There was real fury in his voice. ‘Because that man might be dying and I can’t help him by myself. And because dashing off all alone into the dark wearing shoes like that is a real stupid plan. I thought you were smarter than that. Now shut up and let me think.’

  He asked me to shine the torch over the debris that was beyond the tiled wall. It looked like the entire house had fallen in. Michael tried to climb up and over the jumbled pile of rubble, wood, bricks and plaster that lay above the tiled wall, but it was too unstable. He picked up a piece of wood from the wreckage and tried to smash the tiles. They held, but the pile of debris on top of and behind it shifted worryingly.

  ‘I guess there’s some sort of cavity behind this,’ he said, ‘or another room, but I can’t smash my way into it without a pickaxe. Even if I had a pickaxe I’d be worried about causing a further collapse. It looks pretty unstable up there and I don’t want to bury the man further, maybe kill him.’

  Michael put his back against the tiled wall and slid down so that he was sitting on the pile of rubble. ‘I have to think, but there’s no time to think it through properly.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small penknife, about six inches long. ‘So I’ll need to be smart, and very, very patient.’

  He opened the knife and looked at the small blade, sighed and stood up.

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked.

  ‘Use this to hack at the grouting around the tiles. It won’t disturb the junk on top. I suppose there’s lath and plaster underneath. I’m hoping to get through that into some sort of cavity or room that leads to whoever is trapped. Keep that torch on me, will you. I need to see what I’m doing.’

  He used the blade like a small pickaxe, chopping at the grouting around the tile until the grouting splintered. Then he hacked into the strips of wood and plaster beneath. Hack, hack, hack went the little blade, a quick, neat movement that did little on its own but with constant repetition wore away the wall.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he said. He looked around and picked up a piece of wood. One sharp thrust with this and the tile fell through into a cavity beyond. He shone his torch into the darkness and called, ‘You still there, buddy?’

  Faintly the voice came back. ‘We’re still here. My wife was hurt when the house fell in. She’s in pain. I’m all right, but we’re both very thirsty.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the coal cellar, off the kitchen.’

  ‘I’m at a bathroom wall.’

  ‘That’s next to the kitchen.’

  ‘I’m doing all I can. Hang on.’ Michael turned to me. ‘Looks like we’re settling in for the night. Call for room service, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, in the same light tone. ‘Champagne? Caviar?’

  ‘I’d prefer a strong cuppa Joe, but your taste is obviously on a higher plane than mine.’ He dropped the light tone and said, ‘I’m going to have to cut a hole through this wall, but I’d prefer to keep the wall itself as intact as possible. Frankly, I’m not sure about the structural integrity of what remains of the house. The last thing we need is more of it coming down on the couple in there. So I’ll need to work on one tile at a time. When I’ve made a hole big enough I’ll crawl through and figure out the best way of getting to them.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Your job, kid, is to keep the light shining where I’m working so I can see what I’m doing.’

  It was a long, tedious and thankless task. The little dog ran around our feet, whimpering and crying, until Michael huffed out an angry breath.

  ‘Will you please tie up that damn dog.’

  ‘Using what?’

  He ignored me, continuing his hacking at the tile grouting. I had an idea. ‘Oh, I know, I’ll use the belt of my raincoat. I mean your raincoat.’

  Michael grunted, and I pulled out the belt, tied it around the dog’s neck and then attached the o
ther end to a piece of wreckage. The animal continued to whimper piteously, but at least it was out of our way.

  One by one, painfully slowly, Michael’s chopping loosened tiles and he used the piece of wood to push them in.

  ‘I wish I could help.’

  ‘Talk to me, kid,’ he said. ‘That’ll help.’

  I shone the torch on his face. It was dirty and sweaty and he was frowning at the tile he was attacking, looking grimly handsome and completely focused on the task at hand. Deep inside me it was as if something twisted, causing a sharp pain.

  ‘Keep the light on the tile,’ he said sharply. I moved the light down and he began to hack away at another tile.

  ‘What do you want me to talk about?’

  ‘Tell me about yourself. About Sheffield. Dancing? Anything that gets my mind off this. You said you grew up poor. Poor like those East End slums? Or poor like only one servant?’ His little blade rasped on the cement as he hacked away, and the dog began to howl.

  ‘Why are you interested?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m interested in you. You’re interesting.’

  ‘If you must know, poor like the East End slums.’ I blew out a breath and the torchlight wavered. ‘Do you know what a back-to-back house is?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘We lived in one. No running water, often no money for food or proper clothes. Mam had been a dancer, but after I was born she returned to the steel mill where my grandfather worked. We had enough money to survive, but often nothing left over. My grandmother was very ill.’

  ‘Tough. How was she ill?’

  I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly ‘Lead poisoning. She’d been a file cutter, and they call it the file cutters’ disease. Her muscles and joints were always painful, she was often ill and her arms were weak. And …’ My voice fell away.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’d fall into awful rages without any warning. When she did she’d blame me for … everything really.’

  I paused, remembering the terror of Nannan’s rages. I grew up in a house that was ruled by her moods. Without any warning, and in a matter of seconds, she would go from quite nice to a screaming harpy, and I was usually the butt of her anger.

  ‘Keep talking, kid,’ said Michael, after a few minutes of silence, broken only by the faint sound of fire engines and ambulance bells and the tap tap of Michael’s little blade on the cement around the tiles. ‘It’s mighty boring, this job.’

  ‘Sorry. It wasn’t her fault, you must understand. Lead poisoning is terrible, Michael. And – and she lost four babies, three to scarlet fever and one to diphtheria. Only Mam survived her childhood. Granddad said that it changed her. She didn’t know what she doing when she hit me. I know that now. I forgave her years ago, but that doesn’t mean I want to see her.’

  Again there was silence for a few beats. Hack, hack, hack. Michael seemed to have a second wind, as he now hacked at the wall fiercely, almost angrily.

  ‘What about your grandpa?’

  I thought of Granddad, big, strong Granddad and his hellfire sermons. I smiled. ‘He was kind when he could be. But if he made a fuss of me it made Nannan worse. She made life hell for Mam, too,’ I said. ‘So Mam and I were happy to leave Sheffield to go to London.’

  ‘They your only family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve been dancing since you were young?’ he said, after a while.

  ‘Since I was four.’ I smiled into the darkness. ‘I fell in love with it when Mam took me to Cinderella at the Theatre Royal.’

  My life changed forever when I saw the fairies dancing before a gauze curtain all lit up with twinkling lights. I’d gasped and clutched the railing with one small hand and my mother with the other, half-afraid and half-hoping I would fall over the balcony and drift down to where the enchanting creatures flitted across the stage. I can still hear my determined little voice, whispering to my mother as we sat up in ‘the Gods’, telling her I wanted to learn to dance like a fairy.

  ‘Poor Mam,’ I said. ‘I pestered her shamelessly to pay for lessons she couldn’t afford.’

  ‘How did she manage it?’ asked Michael. Hack, hack, hack.

  ‘I helped,’ I said, with a note of real triumph. ‘Mam hauled me down to the Gwen Wilken School of Dancing, For Correct Training in all Branches of the Art –’

  Michael gave a soft snort of derision.

  ‘– and demanded that Miss Wilken audition me. Miss Wilken saw my potential and agreed to give me the lessons for half-price.’

  I remembered it vividly. Miss Wilken had told me to pretend to be an autumn leaf. She said to me, ‘At first you will be happily drifting slowly down to earth, the way leaves do. Then the wind will catch you and make you whirl around. Finally you will fall to the ground, a dry brown leaf, shrivelled and dead. Can you do that?’

  When the music began, I had lifted my arms and let the music take me. I became a floating leaf on its journey earthwards. And when I was at last lying on the ground, all shrivelled up and dry, I had tears in my eyes. Poor little leaf, I thought. It didn’t fly for very long.

  ‘And you were …?’ said Michael. Hack, hack, hack.

  ‘Five.’

  ‘How did your mom afford even the half-price fees?’ Michael wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and began hacking at the next tile.

  ‘She took on extra shifts at the factory. Most of the other girls at the classes came from far more privileged backgrounds than me. They wanted to learn ballet to become more graceful, but I knew from the beginning that dancing was to be my future.’

  I reached into my handbag, took out my handkerchief and used it to wipe his forehead.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It was a good investment, because it wasn’t long before I began to earn money in the children’s ballet troupe of pantomimes and shows.’

  ‘Why’d you go to London? For work?’

  ‘I was dancing in pantomime one Christmas, when I was nearly twelve, and I was seen by Italia Conti, who runs a very prestigious theatre academy in London. She offered to train me at a discounted rate. It was too good an opportunity to miss, so Mam and I moved to London. Miss Conti thought I was a good enough ballerina to try out for the Vic-Wells Ballet company. Classical ballet is my great love. Oh, Michael, you just can’t imagine what a wonderful sensation it is to dance en pointe; it’s as if you are about to fly away.’

  He smiled, and continued to hack at the tiles.

  ‘Why the chorus line, then?’ Another tile was pushed through with a thwack.

  I heard the touch of bitterness in my laugh. ‘Because I grew like a beanstalk and began to pop out in all directions. No professional ballerina is five foot eleven with a bust like mine.’

  ‘Tough,’ he said, but I saw him smile as he wielded the knife blade.

  ‘So I accepted the inevitable, left school at fourteen, and made a reasonable living out of dancing in the chorus lines of shows in London and the provinces.’

  Another tile pushed through. Then another. Michael coughed a little in the dusty air, then sighed. ‘I’d kill for a cup of Joe.’

  ‘What is that? You keep mentioning it.’

  ‘Coffee,’ he said with a smile. ‘Plain old glorious coffee.’ He raised the penknife and hack, hack, hack. Another tile was pushed through. The hole he had made was about two feet square. He shone the torch into the void. ‘Dammit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s filled with debris. I’m going to have to tunnel in, using my hands.’

  ‘Tunnel with your bare hands? You can’t.’

  ‘No choice, kid. I’ll need to shore up the walls as I tunnel it.’

  He began on the next tile.

  ‘But, Michael, you can’t—’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Then what happened in the life story of Maisie Halliday? C’mon, I need something to take my mind off this.’ He began hacking at the tiles again. They came out more easily now, it
seemed to me.

  ‘Oh, there’s not much to tell, really. Mam died and I became a Tiller Girl.’

  ‘What about your time in Paris?’

  I shrugged. ‘It sounds glamorous, but it was a hard life in many ways. We’d finish the second show of the night at one fifteen in the morning, catch a few hours of sleep and begin rehearsals. Those went on throughout the day until the first show began at eleven fifteen at night.’

  ‘And you were sixteen?’ Hack, hack, hack.

  ‘Mmm. I danced there for two years, living on my nerves and my wits. Honestly, Michael, as long as I could dance I was happy. And in those days I was dancing all the time. If ever I felt tired I would say to myself, “I am being paid to do something that I’d do for free”. But after a couple of years I thought I’d like to try something different.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I got offered a job as an exhibition dancer in a very smart hotel on the French Riviera.’

  ‘Exhibition dancer?’ He pushed two tiles through at once. The hole was now double the size, and very nearly big enough for Michael to squeeze through and begin the even more difficult task of finding a way into the wreckage to find the trapped couple.

  A faint, wavering voice floated in from the darkness beyond. ‘Are you still there?’

  Michael yelled back, in an encouraging way. ‘Still here. We’ll be with you soon. Hang on.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘Tell me about exhibition dancing,’ he said, chipping again at the tiles.

  ‘Now that was fun!’ I said, in a tone of forced light-heartedness. ‘Are you sure I can’t help? Let me push the tiles through.’

  ‘It’s a hard shove. You just keep talking. It helps.’

  ‘Um, I loved the Riviera climate, the beaches and the easy life there. All I had to do was put on four exhibition dances each evening and then dance with any guests who asked me.’

  ‘Who’d you put these exhibitions on with?’

  ‘My partner was an Argentinian, Tito Moreau. He was tall, dark, very handsome, and—’