Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

by Mary Gibson

  When she came to, she was lying face down, her mouth full of wet clods of earth. With eyes stinging and watering from the smoke, at first she couldn’t make out what or who had survived. But then she felt a stirring at her side and a voice groaned, ‘You all right, May?’ Emmy crawled forward on her elbows.

  ‘Right as rain,’ May croaked. ‘So much for my predictor girl’s dream. I didn’t factor in the fuel running out…’ Her own voice seemed to come from far away.

  ‘Well, whatever you didn’t factor in, you knew it was coming before the bleedin’ thing cut out and that’s what saved us. We’d have all been dead otherwise, May.’

  May felt herself descending into the centre of a red mist, as she puzzled at what Emmy was saying. Surely they’d all heard the silence, hadn’t they?

  But it seemed they hadn’t, and before she finally crawled into bed that night May earned another commendation. It was May’s prompt action, the captain said, that had saved the lives of her team, and he would be recommending her for her sergeant’s stripe. She drifted off to sleep, bruised but exultant, wondering if Bill would be proud of her. Tomorrow she would write and tell him all about it.

  The phone call came through early next morning. She was up, mustering the parade, her bandaged burned arm not seen as serious enough to excuse her duties. With pounding heart, she raced to the duty officer’s room. ‘Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘don’t let it be Bill.’

  It was a voice she’d never expected: her grandfather’s, broken by unhelpful tears. ‘They’ve been blasted out. They’re still under it all, gel. The side wall’s fell in on ’em, they was in the kitchen.’

  ‘Who? Who’s under it all?’

  A choking sigh obscured the name and she had to ask him to repeat it.

  ‘I said it’s your dad… and Peg. Thank gawd the baby was at Mrs Gilbie’s. You’d better get yourself home.’

  And though all leave was still cancelled, and every possible body needed on the gun park, when the voice of her grandfather, cracked and broken, had said, ‘You’d better get yourself home’, the summons had rung more clearly than any call to arms. She ran to the captain’s office and begged the clerk outside to get her in. The captain, the one who’d said she should have another stripe, listened intently as she gave her reasons for requesting compassionate leave.

  Then he offered her his handkerchief.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lloyd, but I can’t grant you compassionate leave. If I did that, I’d have to give it to everyone. I’ve had women in this office who’ve lost husbands, lost parents, and I’ve had to say “no” to them. I simply can’t make an exception for you. The order is still in force – no leave until further notice. I’m afraid this is a sacrifice you’re being asked to make for your country, Corporal Lloyd. Just as important as the sacrifice of our boys in Normandy or Singapore, just as important...’ He looked at her, not unsympathetically. ‘You do know how much you’re needed here, don’t you?’

  ‘But, sir, my gun took a direct hit last night. It’s out of action. Surely…’

  ‘You’ll be needed to support the others and I don’t have to remind you that every buzz bomb we stop here is one more that can’t fall on innocent families like your own. Dismissed, Lloyd.’

  The captain bent his head to his paperwork. She wanted to throw her extra stripe back into his understanding face; she didn’t deserve it. For though she might have saved the lives of Bee, Mac, Ruby and Emmy last night, one of those doodlebugs with Tower Bridge written on it had got through their defences and made its way unerringly to its target; the fuel had run out just before it passed over Southwark Park Road.

  Knowing it was useless to plead further, she put the captain’s handkerchief on the desk, saluted and marched determinedly towards the stores.

  Pat ran to her from behind the counter. Taking both of May’s hands in her own, she looked her fixedly in the eyes before speaking. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  ‘Dad and Peggy – the house’s been blasted and they’re under it!’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I need a pass and a travel warrant.’

  *

  It would be hours before anyone knew she was missing. She’d already been excused parade, and no one would notice her absence from breakfast. Bee was going to explain to the sergeant that she’d gone to first aid for her arm to be re-bandaged and that would take care of hut inspection. In the afternoon she was due to check fire buckets and stirrup pumps around what was left of their gun station and Emmy had promised to cover that.

  She looked out of the train window at the early morning mist dispersing above the fields. Mentally urging the train to go faster, she patted the forged documents buttoned reassuringly in her top pocket. Pat hadn’t faltered. She’d left May in the little brew-up room with a cup of hot sweet tea while she disappeared into the stores to find a blank book of passes and a travel warrant. She’d sat at the table beside May, carefully copying the captain’s signature from an old pass of her own. Then she’d stamped it with a brand-new stamp from supplies.

  ‘This’ll get you through Barkingside and on to the train. But the MPs at Liverpool Street are mustard, so change or get off earlier, anywhere but a mainline station, all right?’

  May nodded. It felt strange that for once it was Pat directing her, but as a stores woman she had access to all the documents May needed and being an army brat had picked up all the dodges for evading MPs. Pat was a ready-made escape committee, but May knew she was asking a lot of the girl.

  ‘You’ll get into trouble, Pat, once they find out.’

  Pat shook her head. ‘Once you get home, just destroy the passes. They won’t have any evidence. But whatever you do, when you get to Bermondsey, don’t stay with your family, or anywhere they can trace, because the MPs will be after you, May, as soon as they know you’re missing.’

  It had been Pat who’d come up with the plan for the girls to cover her absence.

  ‘I’ll fill them in, Corp, don’t you worry. Just be sure it’s what you want to do – it could be a court martial, you know…’

  May’s hands had trembled slightly as she took the papers from Pat. ‘I’m not frightened of that, Dobbin. My place is at home now…’

  So, thanks to Pat, she was on her way, squashed up against the window in a carriage full of RAF boys. May gave up her mental tricks; nothing could make this clattering old heap go any faster. She closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. But persistent tears forced themselves under her lids and she had to keep brushing them away. She felt like a child, too young to understand hide-and-seek, who shuts their eyes tight, believing that alone will keep them hidden. She counted the stations until the one before Liverpool Street and then she opened her eyes. Like floodgates opening, the brimming tears fell freely and she had to blink several times to see the station sign. She hurried off the train. The plan was to change here on to the Tube and get out at Tower Bridge Station, which would be her back door into Bermondsey.

  She prayed she’d only have to show the travel warrant to the ticket collector, but as soon as she stepped off the train she saw the tall figures of two MPs painstakingly checking each pass. She tried not to stare at them and tucked herself behind a huddle of rowdy sailors making their way to the barrier. They’d obviously made the most of their shore leave and though it was only nine o’clock in the morning, some still looked the worse for wear. She made sure she had the pass and travel warrant to hand, and was about to present it when one of the sailors came to her aid by vomiting over the polished boots of the first MP. As he hopped back, May skirted the groaning sailor, now doubled up and surrounded by his concerned shipmates.

  She hurried out into the fresh June morning and darted straight as an arrow across the road, dodging traffic and late office workers to reach the Tower of London. This side of the river always brought back memories of a childhood trick Jack had played on her. One day her brother, seeking to test her homing pigeon instinct, had the idea of blindfolding her in Bermondsey, then l
eading her across Tower Bridge and removing the blindfold before running away, leaving her to get home on her own. As she was only five at the time Jack was in deep trouble when he returned home. Her parents were just about to go to the police when she arrived home herself, having navigated by a sense she couldn’t name back over the bridge, keeping the Tower on her right, left down Tooley Street, following the smell of the river, the shape of roofs and the light in the sky until she fetched up at Cherry Garden Street, where they lived then. Her mother had been in tears and so had Jack, but it was the first time May knew that not everyone had this ability.

  This morning the old fort looked battered but unbowed; it had taken a few hits and its soot-streaked stones were knocked about in places, but it hadn’t sat there for eight hundred years to crumble for the Luftwaffe. May breathed deeply as she skirted the wide moat, now packed to the bastion walls with neat allotment squares. She looked down upon rows of fresh green leaves and tall bean sticks, with wispy tendrilled plants coiling up them. A few stooped-backed gardeners were tending the rows, in utter defiance it seemed to May of the doodlebugs, which, needing no cover of darkness, were arriving by the hundreds at all hours of the day. She hurried on round the back of the Tower, past Traitor’s Gate, with the smell of salad and strawberries wafting up from the site of so many tragic entrances. To her right, the dank river smell curled up from the exposed foreshore of the river. Then, taking the steps two at a time, she mounted the stairs to the bridge, looking all the while downriver towards Southwark Park Road. In the middle of the bridge she halted, while office workers and servicemen skirted round her. Did they know, she wondered, that they were standing at the heart of the bullseye, that the Germans deliberately aimed all their venomous darts at this very spot where she was standing? She looked down through the gap between the bascules, the sun glinting off the rippling waters. Today the Thames looked gentle and suddenly she felt exposed. Though it was summer, she shivered and broke into a half trot. The sooner she was off this bridge, the better.

  She pondered whether to make a detour to Guy’s Hospital, for she preferred not to believe that her father and Peggy might still be covered by tons of rubble. But it wasn’t certain they’d be at Guy’s. No, the only place for her to go was home.

  She hopped on a passing bus going up to Rotherhithe Tunnel, then ran the rest of the way to her house. She hadn’t gone far before she came upon the blast destruction, which seemed to have spread out from a hit on a neighbouring street, its deadly ripple stripping trees bare of their bark, smashing through front rooms and kitchens, tossing a child’s cot on to a rooftop, levelling a pub and school, flattening hundreds of houses and shops in its wake.

  Ambulances and fire tenders clogged the cordoned-off road. Choking dust caught in her throat and she looked around for someone to let her through. Everyone seemed busy, so she took her place in the queue at an Incident Enquiry Point that had been set up in a caravan near the cordon. She gave her name and house number to one of the WVS volunteers, who shot her a worried look. ‘Are you Peggy’s sister?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Then May recognized the woman. ‘Is it Babs? You were Peg’s driver, weren’t you? I remember you from the christening.’

  ‘Yes, I gave Peggy the shawl.’

  ‘Do you know what’s happening, is it bad?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, but your house is still cordoned off. The rescue crew’s not finished, but…’

  Bab’s ashen face said more than words ever could and May swayed slightly. The woman caught her.

  ‘I need to get down there.’

  The woman turned to whisper something to the other WVS volunteer.

  ‘Come with me, dear.’

  She led May to the cordon and spoke to the Pioneer brigade sergeant who was manning it. Before she passed through, Babs hugged her. ‘God bless, my dear, I’m sure you’ll find her.’

  Then May dashed forward into an area so thick with fine brick dust and ground glass that it seemed night had already fallen. But she could not find the spot where her house should be; there was nothing she recognized. This was impossible; she was the child who could always find her way home. She looked around frantically, ducking low as a small crane swung in an arc above her head.

  ‘Miss, miss! You can’t stay here, get back!’ A dust-covered man paused in front of her. ‘It’s dangerous – that roof could go any minute.’ He pointed to where a slate-pitched roof was balancing precariously on three walls of a house. One side wall had collapsed inward. The slates on the roof were new and May recognized them.

  ‘That’s my house!’ she screamed at him. ‘Have you got anyone out yet?’

  He took her by the shoulders, pulling her away from the pile of rubble where two more of the rescue crew were tossing brick after brick over their shoulders in an attempt to uncover what was beneath.

  ‘Not yet, love, but you’re best to leave us to it…’

  ‘No!’ She shoved him away and ran to the side that would have been Flo’s house, if it had still been standing. It was breakfast time and Dad and Peggy would have been in the back kitchen.

  She called to the crew standing on the mound of debris. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place! Here, here’s where they’ll be!’

  And getting on her hands and knees, she tore at bricks and hauled out bits of a splintered window frame. Coming across her mother’s pewter soup ladle, tossing aside a saucepan, and digging her hands into a packet of flour, she was dimly aware of the crew joining her and she heard one man say, ‘Leave her be, she knows where they are. Get the crane over here.’

  She tore fingertips and fingernails, throwing the broken remnants of their home behind her like some tunnelling mole, until finally her fingers touched warmth, soft flesh instead of hard brick. She felt along the yielding shape, an arm, a shoulder. Then gently brushing away a thick covering of ashes, she revealed a face. Lashes, powdered with white dust, flickered and eyelids opened. Cloudy eyes searched her face and bloody lips parted.

  ‘Who’s that? I can’t see you.’ The voice was cracked and each word pronounced with great effort.

  ‘It’s me, Dad, May.’

  He attempted a smile. ‘Is it my May? I never expected you home…’

  And cupping his battered face in her torn hands, she said, ‘Where else would I be, Dad? What sort of bird am I?’

  29

  Missing

  June–October 1944

  The sound was annoying, a persistent drip, drip, drip. Dad really should have got round to fixing that blasted tap by now. It had been dripping like that ever since the awful Christmas in 1941. He didn’t need a bloody repair crew for a tap, that was for sure. She’d better get up, but she was so tired. Some people complained about treble shifts, but she preferred it – night times were the worst. What was the point of staying awake all night tormenting herself, thinking about Harry? So she’d volunteered for another all-nighter at the factory. Thank God for Nell Gilbie, but the poor woman needed a respite. She ought to collect the baby, but oh, she was tired. Just another five minutes. No, sod it, she couldn’t lie in this bed a moment longer. She tried to open her eyes, but they were stuck fast, heavy as lead. She pulled her slumbering consciousness to the surface, only to have it sink back again. The bed was so warm, so wet… Don’t be stupid, Peggy. Now with a monumental effort, as though she were lifting a ton weight, she opened her eyes. Blackness surrounded her, not a chink of light sneaking in through the blackout curtains. That’s having an ARP for a dad. She blinked and went to throw off the covers, but they were wet. The dripping of the tap resolved itself into a pulse. How strange, it was dripping in time with her heartbeat, and she could even feel her heart, throbbing against the eiderdown. But the cover was heavy, pushing down on her chest, compelling a sleep she never wanted to leave. She clenched and then unclenched her fist, feeling it wet and sticky, and from her fingertips came a steady drip, drip in time with the tap. And only now did she understand. It wasn’t water at all, it was her own lifeblood, drop by
drop, draining away. And it wasn’t her quilt cover pressing against her heart, but a wooden board. The table? Yes, she hadn’t been in bed at all, she’d been sitting at the kitchen table, pouring tea for Dad.

  Had she left the gas on? It smelled like it. She’d better get up and check, but she couldn’t move, not a muscle. And then she remembered what had happened and a scream ripped from Peggy’s throat.

  *

  It was a muffled, strangulated cry, rising in strength and pitch, till it tore through May’s heart.

  ‘Over here!’ she called to the nearest crewmember. ‘I’ve found my dad!’

  She stood up, and while two of the crew set about uncovering her father she scrambled to the place where she’d heard the scream. It was a small mountain. Almost the whole side wall had tumbled into a cone on top of where the kitchen had been. She pulled aside another crewman. ‘I think my sister’s under this lot.’

  The man wiped grit from his eyes and rubbed his blackened face. He pointed to Flo’s old cast-iron fire surround, which was perched on top of the mound, and then the great beams which had been acting as props to keep the side wall up. ‘This lot’ll take some shifting. Hang on, love. Swing that crane over here!’ he shouted, then scrambled back over the brick and stone-strewn ruin to direct the driver.