A Band of Steel

by Rosie Goodwin

  ‘German forces have invaded France,’ he said heavily.

  Freyde’s heart leaped into her mouth. ‘But Dovi is in France,’ she whispered.

  ‘So are thousands of other young men,’ her husband replied, and they both then fell silent. Each day, word reached some poor family in the town, that their loved one was dead or missing, and now all the Schwartzes could do was pray that their son would not be amongst them.

  When Adina entered the staff room that morning, the teachers were all talking about the dramatic turn of events. Like her parents, she was terrified that Dovi would be amongst the dead or injured, but there was nothing that she or anyone else could do but go about their daily business as best they could.

  As well as teaching at the school, word had spread about how skilled she was at sewing, and each afternoon Adina spent working on the Singer sewing machine that her father had put in the corner of her bedroom for her. At present she was making a wedding dress for a young girl from Stockingford. Fabric, like so many other things since rationing had been enforced, was hard to come by now and so Adina had taken apart the bride’s mother’s wedding dress and painstakingly remade it in a more modern style. The girl was coming for her final fitting that very afternoon and Adina could only hope that she would approve of what she had done to it. All that remained to be done now was the hem, but that couldn’t be finished until the bride had tried it on.

  The young woman arrived at three o’clock in the afternoon with her mother, all starry-eyed and excited about seeing her gown, and Freyde politely showed them upstairs.

  ‘I believe it is almost finished now,’ she assured them with a smile as she tapped on Adina’s bedroom door. The gown was on a mannequin that Ezra had managed to find on one of his frequent visits to the secondhand shop, and when the girl stepped into Adina’s room she gasped with delight.

  ‘Oh, it’s absolutely beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘It looks brand new.’

  ‘I washed and pressed the material once I had taken the original gown to pieces before I started to remake it,’ Adina explained, blushing with pleasure. In actual fact she herself was more than pleased with how the gown had turned out. The weight of the heavy satin ensured that it hung beautifully and the girl could hardly wait to try it on.

  Once she was in it, she twirled this way and that as her mother looked on with a proud smile on her face. There was no doubt about it, she was going to make a beautiful bride.

  ‘If you could just climb up onto this chair I’ll pin the hem up and then I can have it ready for tomorrow for you,’ Adina told her through a mouthful of pins.

  When the bride and her mother had departed, she set to and within an hour the dress was finished.

  ‘Why, you’ve excelled yourself,’ Freyde told her when she came back to check on how Adina was progressing. ‘The Queen herself could wear such a dress. What with your sewing and teaching, I think I’ve ended up with a very talented daughter. No wonder you are in such demand.’ It was she who had taught Adina to sew almost from as soon as she could hold a needle, but Freyde was happy to admit that her daughter was a much better seamstress than herself now.

  ‘Then I hope I shall never be out of work,’ the girl retorted teasingly, and when her mother grinned she stood back to admire her work with a satisfied smile on her face. It was nice to be able to make people happy.

  Chapter Five

  14 November 1940

  Come along, you must drink it,’ Freyde urged as she pushed a cup of chicken soup towards her daughter. Ariel had developed a bad case of whooping cough, which had already caused her to lose three weeks off school, although thankfully she did seem to be on the mend now.

  Ariel grudgingly did as she was told as Ezra threw some more coal onto the fire and shuddered. He had just been out to the coal-house to fill the scuttle and it was bitterly cold.

  ‘I’m glad we don’t have to venture out tonight,’ he commented as he prepared to settle down in the chair at the side of the fire. The words had barely left his lips when the air-raid siren wailed.

  ‘Oh no.’ Freyde always panicked whenever this happened, but tonight she was even more frightened than usual. Normally they would all huddle together in Mrs Haynes’s Anderson shelter, but tonight she knew that Ariel was not well enough to go out into the cold air.

  As if reading her mind, Ezra ushered her and Ariel towards the heavy oak table at the side of the room, and as Adina spilled out of the stairs doorway white-faced, he told her, ‘Run upstairs and bring as many pillows and blankets as you can carry. We shall all have to shelter beneath the table tonight.’

  ‘But you and Adina could go out into the shelter,’ Freyde argued, terrified of putting them at risk.

  ‘We are a family and we shall stay together,’ Ezra told her grimly as he dragged the settee in front of the table. ‘It won’t be very comfortable under here, but at least we shall be in the warm.’

  Knowing that it would be useless to argue with him, she ushered Ariel beneath the table, and when Adina appeared with her arms full of pillows and blankets she began to make them as comfortable as she could. In the meantime, Ezra collected their gas masks and checked that the blackout curtains were in place before scrambling down to join them. Within seconds the drone of enemy planes sounded overhead and they all looked at each other fearfully. Minutes later, they heard the first distant explosions, and inching out from beneath the table with firm instructions to his family to stay where they were, Ezra crossed to the window and carefully tweaked the curtain aside. Parachute flares hung in the sky like great white iridescent chandeliers to mark the targets for the ordinary bombers that were soon to follow, and in the distance multi-coloured incendiary bombs were dropping from the sky like fairy lights. Searchlights were sweeping the sky and the sound of heavier bombs falling was deafening. The ack-ack guns and Bofors burst into life, but the sky was dark with enemy planes and Ezra feared that they were wasting their time.

  ‘It sounds as if they are targeting Coventry, may God help them,’ he told his family, and then they all fell silent as the terrible attack continued.

  The raid went on and on, but thankfully none of the bombs seemed to be falling near them. Adina and Ariel eventually fell asleep, but Freyde and Ezra sat on listening to the deafening crashes and praying for the people who were being attacked. It was 6.15 the following morning before the all-clear finally sounded, and by then Ezra and Freyde were dropping with exhaustion. Even so, Ezra ventured out into the street to speak to people who were finally emerging from the shelters.

  ‘They say Coventry city centre is flattened, Saint Michael’s Cathedral along wi’ it,’ one man told him. ‘My brother is in the Home Guard an’ he were there till a couple of hours gone. He said the place is like an inferno, whole streets o’ houses flattened just like that and God knows how many dead. The Army were already there diggin’ the bodies out o’ the rubble when he left, the poor sods. They reckon there were over five hundred German bombers in all. They were after the factories, but there have been a lot o’ civilians killed too, by all accounts. Nearly six hundred, if what they’re sayin’ is true.’ The man wiped his face in a gesture of despair. ‘They knocked out the water mains, the electric and the gas in most areas, an’ the roads are so bad that the fire engines couldn’t even get through to some areas.’

  As Ezra shuffled back inside, all he could do was thank God that his own family was safe and pray that his son was too, wherever he might be.

  The newspapers were full of the story. It was reported that the Luftwaffe had christened the raid ‘Moonlight Sonata’, which Ezra considered was too beautiful a name for such a murderous attack.

  The people of Coventry were heartbroken at the fall of their once fine city, but on Saturday 16 November, King George visited them – and the sight of him walking amongst the ruins of the Cathedral with tears on his cheeks gave them the courage to go on.

  On 20 November, the first mass burial of the people who had been killed took place at the London R
oad Cemetery, but as workers continued to dig amongst the rubble, yet more bodies were found, and the following week a second mass burial took place. It seemed that there would be no end to the tragedy.

  The following week Mrs Haynes was outside scrubbing her front step and chatting to Freyde who was cleaning the front window of the shop when they both suddenly heard the sound that every mother and wife had come to dread. Mrs Haynes straightened as the telegram boy came hurtling down the street towards them on his bicycle. Hitching her ample bosom beneath her wraparound pinny, she prayed for him to ride past. But just as both women had feared, he slowed down as he approached them, peering at the numbers on the doors.

  ‘Mrs Haynes?’ he asked, and Freyde’s hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Y-yes . . . that’s me.’

  He handed her an official-looking envelope before cycling away, and for a moment the woman stood there staring at it as if she couldn’t believe it was real.

  ‘Why don’t you come in and open it while I make you a hot drink?’ Freyde suggested quickly. She knew that Bert, Mrs Haynes’s husband, was at work and didn’t want her to be alone if it contained bad news.

  ‘I er . . . reckon I might take yer up on that offer, luv,’ the woman replied as Freyde gently took her elbow and guided her into the shop. Ezra looked up as they entered and frowned when he saw their neighbour’s face. She was holding an envelope at arm’s length as if she was afraid it might bite her.

  ‘Mrs Haynes has received a telegram and I thought she might like to open it in here, seeing as her husband isn’t at home,’ Freyde said quietly.

  ‘Oh yes – yes of course. Let me close the shop for a moment and I’ll come through to the back with you,’ Ezra offered.

  On entering the kitchen, Freyde looked at Ariel, who was curled up in the chair at the side of the fire reading a comic, and said firmly, ‘Go upstairs and read that, would you, there’s a good girl.’

  Ariel, who was normally wilful, took one look at Mrs Haynes’s stricken face and rushed away like a frightened rabbit to do as she was told for once.

  Seconds later, Mrs Haynes was seated at the kitchen table whilst Freyde quickly filled the kettle and placed it on the stove to boil, but still she did not attempt to open the envelope.

  It wasn’t until there was a steaming cup of tea in front of her that Ezva suggested gently, ‘Don’t you think you should read it, Mrs Haynes?’

  ‘No – you do it,’ she told him, pushing it into his hand.

  He glanced towards Freyde and when she nodded encouragingly he began to open it. The way he saw it, there was no use delaying the agony, and maybe it wouldn’t be bad news, after all.

  But Freyde instantly knew that it was bad news as the colour slid out of his cheeks too.

  ‘Would you like me to read it to you?’ His voice was little more than a whisper.

  Mrs Haynes shook her head as she took a scalding gulp of her tea. ‘You’ve no need to. I already know what it says. It’s our Anthony, ain’t it? He’s dead.’

  ‘I-I’m afraid he is.’ Ezra wished he was anywhere but there at that moment, but he could not lie to her. ‘He was shot. He died a hero and you should be proud of him.’

  She nodded, appearing to be outwardly calm, while tears slid unchecked down Freyde’s cheeks, for she knew that it could quite easily have been her receiving a telegram about Dovid, and the thought was unbearable.

  ‘He were just nineteen years old,’ the woman muttered as she stared off into space. ‘He had his whole life ahead o’ him an’ he were bright as a button at school, yer know. He could ’ave been anythin’ he wanted to be but that ain’t goin’ to ’appen now, is it? An’ the worst of it is, we probably won’t even know where he’s buried till after the war. We can’t even give ’im a decent send-off.’

  Feeling her pain, Freyde and Ezra hung their heads. Words of comfort could only sound inadequate, so they remained silent.

  And then at last they came – great gulping sobs that shook the woman’s body and threatened to choke her as Freyde sprang forward to wrap her in her arms.

  ‘Ask the neighbours the other side of us where Bert works and go and fetch him,’ Freyda ordered urgently and Ezra shot off like a bullet from a gun, glad to escape the heartrending sight of a mother who had just lost a much-loved son.

  Adina was devastated when she came home at lunchtime and heard the news. Mrs Haynes was back in her own kitchen by then with her husband, who was even more griefstricken than she was. She made them a large meat and potato pie for their evening meal and took it round to them, guessing that her neighbour would be in no mood to cook, and then she hastily retreated, leaving them to the endless stream of visitors who were calling to pay their respects as word spread of the tragedy.

  ‘This war is so senseless,’ she raged to her parents once she was back in her own kitchen and they both nodded in agreement. But they didn’t make a comment. There was nothing they could say.

  Six months later, on 8 and 9 April 1941, Coventry again came under attack when 237 bombers dropped 315 high explosive bombs and 710 incendiary canisters on the city. Two days later they were back and a further 475 people were killed and more than 700 people were seriously injured. By then the spirits of the people were very low as all the work they had done to rebuild their city was undone again.

  ‘Thank God we live in Nuneaton and not in Coventry,’ Ezra told his wife, and although Freyde nodded, she lived in fear, wondering how long it would be before the town they had chosen to live in was targeted too.

  The following month, as the family sat down to supper, the air-raid sirens sounded once again and Freyde sighed with fear and frustration. It was getting to be a regular occurrence now, and she often opted to hide beneath the table rather than join the Haynes family in their shelter. It was a dark dismal place, despite Mrs Haynes’s attempts to cheer it up. Bert had erected a makeshift bunk bed to one side of it, which the children slept in, and she always kept a good supply of candles in there, but still it was damp and cold and Freyde always felt panic build in her as soon as she set foot in the place.

  ‘Fetch the pillows and the blankets, Adina,’ she said regretfully as she looked at the lovely meal she had prepared for them.

  ‘I think we should go into the shelter tonight,’ Ezra frowned.

  ‘But why?’ Freyde asked. ‘No doubt they will be aiming for Coventry again so we shall be quite safe in here.’

  Ezra had a bad feeling, but knowing Freyde’s fear of the Anderson shelter he decided against his better judgement to comply with her wishes. They had barely settled beneath the table when the drone of the planes approaching sounded high above them. And then there was a deafening explosion and the windows imploded as Ariel began to scream.

  ‘Quickly, we must go to the shelter now,’ Ezra shouted as he hauled the child from her hidingplace. She was crying and clung to her father as she buried her head in his shoulder, and then as they ran towards the door there was another explosion, closer still this time, and a fall of soot from the chimney extinguished the fire and covered them all in dirty black ash. The ornaments on the mantelshelf danced along the polished wood before crashing into the hearth as Ezra yanked the back door open. Heedless of the carpet of glass beneath his slippered feet, he struggled with the catch on the back gate, and then Mrs Haynes was there in the doorway of the shelter urging them on and he breathlessly pushed his family inside ahead of him.

  ‘It sounds like they’re aimin’ fer the train lines on the Coton Arches,’ she told them as she took Ariel from her father and cuddled the terrified child against her. And then another terrible bang shook the shelter and Ariel began to sob with fear.

  ‘It’s all right, luvvie,’ the woman soothed her as she rocked her to and fro.

  The first air raid on Nuneaton had been back in August when the Germans had targeted Weddington. One person had been killed then, but if the sounds reaching them now were anything to go by, they guessed that the death rate would be much higher tonight. And so th
ey sat in silence as the ground shook around them with the sheer force of the raid and they could do nothing but wait and wonder if they would have homes to go to – if and when they got out of the shelter. At one point, Mrs Haynes attempted to light some candles as Freddie and Ariel wailed pitiably, but the matches were damp, so in the end they resigned themselves to being in darkness until the raid ended.

  The women closed their eyes and silently prayed as the roar of bombs crashing about them obliterated every other sound. At last, after what seemed like a lifetime, the all-clear finally sounded and the adults rose, stretching their aching limbs as they looked apprehensively towards the door of the shelter. Amazingly, the children had fallen into a doze, and not wishing to disturb them, Mrs Haynes whispered, ‘D’yer reckon our houses will still be standin’?’

  ‘There is only one way to find out,’ Ezra replied as they stepped out into the damp night air. The first thing they saw was the silhouettes of their homes in the darkness and they all sighed with relief before heading towards the entry. The rattle of bombs dropping had been replaced by the clanging of fire engines’ bells as they emerged onto the street – where they all stopped dead in their tracks as they saw the devastation that had been caused.

  To their right, flames were licking into the sky and there were great smouldering craters in the road.

  ‘Looks like the church has been hit,’ Ezra stated as he gazed towards the Coton Arches which miraculously were still standing.

  As they rounded the end of the road they saw ambulances trying to deal with the wounded. Many of the houses there had been flattened and already people were frantically digging in the rubble for signs of those who had not been able to get to the shelters. The whole area was shrouded in a cloak of smoke and water was spurting into the air from the mains that had been hit.

  ‘My dear God,’ Mrs Haynes mumbled as she gazed about in horror. Even from here they could see that the church had been destroyed and headstones flattened. Home Guards were rushing about in tin helmets and as one of them raced past, covered in blood, he shouted, ‘Get back to your homes if you still have one! Unless you can help, you’re in the way. Better still, get back to the shelters. They could come back!’