by Anne Bennett
The sirens rang out every night. Sometimes Carmel and Lois were at home, and often in bed, and sometimes there were false alarms. Getting home itself was quite an adventure at times. They often had to go by vastly convoluted routes, or just get off and walk part of the way, for there might be a gigantic crater in the road, or the tar might have melted, slid into the gutters at the edge of the road and buckled the tram tracks. The girls had got used to the smell of gas, cordite and dust in their noses and throats, the clambering over piles of rubble that used to be houses or shops, often still smouldering, and pavements that ran with water fed by dribbling hosepipes snaking along them. And they stepped over many damp and seeping sandbags.
Carmel was weary of the daily strain and shattered by the sight of so many damaged buildings.
‘Tell you, these raids are getting to me,’ she admitted one day to Lois as they ate their evening meal together. ‘I feel worn to a frazzle, to tell you the truth.’
‘Me too,’ Lois said. ‘And I will tell you what I find annoying and that is that they seldom mention Birmingham by name with regard to any attack, however severe, whether it is in the papers or on the wireless.’
‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘I’ve noticed that too. The Evening Mail does sometimes, but most times it is referred to as “a Midland town”. Why is that do you think?’
‘Well, Uncle Jeff said Birmingham makes so much war-related stuff, they don’t want Hitler to know he has reached his target, but it does seem strange when every other town and city is named.’
‘Let’s hope that whatever we are called there isn’t anything to report tonight because I want to sleep the night through for once.’
‘It’s hardly likely,’ Lois said. ‘There is a full moon. I noticed it when I was putting rubbish in the bin. The night is cold and crisp and as clear as a bell.’
Hitler did not leave them alone that night. The raid was a bad one and extensive enough for the two women to rouse Beth and go down to the cellar. However, Hitler’s real target that night was another ‘Midland town’, although Lois and Carmel didn’t find that out until the next day, when the Birmingham Gazette’s headline was, ‘Coventry Our Guernica’.
Rumours had been running around the hospital all day about some massive raid in Coventry and now there it was in the Birmingham papers. In fact, so successful was the Luftwaffe’s near destruction of Coventry that the British papers claimed a new word had entered the German language—‘Coventration’, which meant the razing to the ground of a place.
That night, Carmel was hardly in the door after work when Jeff knocked on it.
‘Come in, Jeff,’ she said, but her heart sank when she looked at his face for she knew what he was going to say.
‘Now then, Carmel, I let you go your own way when you decided to return to nursing. I said I wouldn’t harass you and I haven’t, have I?’
‘No, Jeff. You have been very good about it.’
‘Well, you must see that the bombing of Coventry has changed all that?’
‘No,’ Carmel said. ‘You have me there, Jeff, for I don’t see that at all.’
‘What happened in Coventry will happen here sooner or later,’ Jeff said. ‘And I want you out of there. You, and Lois too, preferably,’ he nodded across to his niece. ‘But certainly you. I owe it to Paul and you owe it to that child you have just lifted from the pram.’
‘And tell me, Jeff, when this dreadful raid happens and all these people are terribly injured and desperately needing care, who is going to treat them if all the nurses and doctors take off because they are scared?’
‘I’m not talking about everyone, I am talking about you.’
‘Remember, Jeff, nearly everyone there is special to someone,’ Carmel said, but gently because she knew he was seriously concerned about her. ‘I am not a special case and I am staying on at the General because that is where I am needed.’
‘And you, Lois?’
‘I feel the same.’
‘Do you know the danger you are putting yourselves in?’
‘We know it, Jeff,’ Carmel said. ‘We’re not stupid. I won’t pretend I’m not scared either, because I am often, but I will not turn tail and run away.’
In one way Jeff wanted Carmel to listen to him, to stay at home and bring up his granddaughter in relative safety, which Erdington was in comparison to the centre of town, but in another way he couldn’t help but admire her courage and determination, and that of Lois too. It went against the grain with him to have women imperilled in any way and yet this war was not being fought on chivalrous lines. Civilians were often in as much danger as fighting men. If Carmel and Lois felt their place was with the wounded, he had to respect that attitude.
He spread his arms helplessly and said, ‘You have me beat, the pair of you.’
Carmel laughed at the expression on Jeff’s face. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Don’t take it all so seriously. Come and mind your granddaughter while I get things organised for a meal. Will you join us?’ She saw him hesitate and went on, ‘Don’t worry about rationing because we have most of our meals at the canteen and so we stretch our allotment out quite well. Lois can work miracles with food, anyway.’
‘If you are sure?’
‘I am,’ Carmel said. ‘And now will you take this child out of my arms? She’s trying to launch herself at you already.’
The raid of 19 November began at a quarter-past seven. Carmel and Lois had eaten and Carmel was getting Beth ready for bed. When the sirens began their unearthly wail she zipped Beth into a siren suit over her pyjamas in case they had to go down the cellar and said to Lois, ‘Pop round to see if Ruby wants to come in with us. When I collected Beth earlier, she said that George was on duty tonight and so she will be on her own.’
Ruby was glad to be asked, though, as she said, it might all be over in an hour or two and she would be able to go back home. Carmel, though, had a funny feeling about this raid. She laid the child to sleep in the pram rather than putting her in her cot upstairs and she ran up for extra blanket, which she laid by the cellar door, but didn’t suggest going down yet; the bombers were too far away.
They didn’t stay that way for long. The women were in the cellar, with Beth fast asleep on the palliasse and the stinking oil heater lit, within an hour of the raid beginning. Carmel listened to the distinctive intermittent drone of the German planes, wave after wave of them, expelling their harbingers of death with crashes and booms, muffled slightly because of the stout cellar. She heard the rattle of the ack-ack response, which seemed to have little effect.
Suddenly she said, ‘I think this is our Coventration.’
The other two women looked at her in fear and panic. ‘He couldn’t possibly raze a city the size of Birmingham to the ground,’ Lois said.
‘Maybe not, but he can have a damned good try,’ Carmel said grimly.
‘God,’ said Ruby. ‘My George is out in this.’
Carmel didn’t try to say everything would be all right and George would be fine. Ruby wouldn’t welcome empty reassurances from anyone, but she put her arms around the older woman’s shoulders and held her tight.
The air raid went on hour after hour.
Eventually Ruby said, ‘A cup of tea—that’s what we all need. I am not going to worry about George one more minute unless I find there is something to worry about. Meeting trouble halfway, as my old mother would say.’ Brave words, but her distressed eyes told a very different story. She bent her head to ferret in her shelter-bag for the flask. ‘Filled up with hot, sweet tea,’ she said. ‘Just the job, ’cos a cup of tea can be a life-saver, I always think.’
It was half-past four in the morning before the all clear was blaring. By then the three woman were almost too weary to climb the stairs. ‘Though I am tired, I am too hungry to sleep,’ Carmel said, as she laid the slumbering Beth in the pram.
‘I agree,’ Lois said. ‘Thank God tomorrow, or rather today, is a day off. Will you stay for a bit to eat, Ruby?’
‘N
o, I won’t take your rations,’ Ruby said. ‘Besides, I am that anxious about George. I will go down the warden post and see if I can find anything out.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Carmel offered valiantly, though her stomach growled in protest.
‘You’ll not,’ Ruby said. ‘You’ll get something to eat and seek your bed. You might have the day off but Beth will likely be awake in an hour or two because she has slept the night through.’
Carmel knew what she said made sense and yet neither of them could let Ruby go out into that cold dark ness alone. They prevailed on her to have at least a cup of tea and slice of bread smeared with margarine before she and Lois went together to see if they could find George or someone who knew where he was.
Carmel washed the few things up and then watched the clock tick round slowly, knowing she wouldn’t sleep till they returned. When eventually she heard them at the door, it was almost half-past five. Ruby’s feet dragged as she came in and her face was white and lined with strain.
‘What is it?’ Carmel cried. ‘Has anything happened to George?’
‘We don’t know,’ Lois said. ‘There was no warden post left, just a pile of rubble where it had once stood.’
‘But George probably wouldn’t have been in there, would he?’ Carmel said to Ruby.
‘That doesn’t help really,’ Ruby said, ‘knowing he was out in that raid last night.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘The trams start again at six. If I haven’t had word by then, I am going to try the hospitals.’
The words were barely out of Ruby’s mouth when there was a fearful pounding on the door. The three women looked at each other for a moment, faces full of fear and trepidation, before Lois, with a nod from Carmel, went to open it. Carmel instinctively moved closer to Ruby.
‘George!’ Lois cried as she opened the door.
And it was George. He was covered in brick dust, only his face clean, so they could clearly see the black eye and massive bruise on his cheek and the bandage wrapped around his head. There was another ARP warden with him and, mindful of the blackout, Lois drew them both inside where the man removed his helmet.
With a nod of acknowledgement to Ruby he said, ‘George said we’d likely find you here. We have come from the General Hospital and they wanted to keep him in, but he insisted on coming home.’
‘But what’s happened to you, George?’ Ruby cried as Carmel ushered them all into the breakfast room. Then, as George gave a shrug and appeared unable to answer her, she turned to the warden. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He don’t remember owt about it,’ the warden told her. ‘He was caught in a blast from a bomb and blown right across the road. Most of his injuries are from masonry falling on him. Something caught him a right purler on the back of the head, near split it open and knocked him clean out. That’s why they wanted to keep him in, like, ‘cos he didn’t come round proper till he reached the hospital. When he insisted on going home they said someone had to go with him in case he collapsed or summat, I s’pose, and I offered ’cos I live this way anyroad.’
‘Why didn’t you stay in, George, you silly bugger?’ Ruby cried.
‘Look, old girl,’ George said. ‘It was mayhem there. I have never seen so many injured, and a lot of them woman and little nippers too! Christ, it was terrible. I even felt guilty about taking up the attentions of a doctor, and all to examine me and the nurse to patch me up. I certainly wasn’t taking up a bed that someone else more damaged than I was could make more use of. I can rest up just as easy here as there.’
Nobody spoke, not even Ruby, for she could see George’s point of view perfectly.
Then he looked across at Carmel and Lois, and said,
‘Your lot are run off their bleeding feet, and so brave as well, ‘cos the bombs was falling all the time, you know.’
Carmel felt the tiredness drop from her and she looked at Lois and then back at Ruby. She didn’t say a word and didn’t have to.
‘Get ready and get yourselves off,’ Ruby said. ‘From what George says, they need every hand on deck down there tonight. Beth will be all right with me until you get home, whatever time that is.’
‘Don’t know how you will get there, though,’ the warden said glumly. ‘It’s bloody chaotic out there, and no trams are running until six. Someone gave us a lift or we would have had to walk.’
‘It’s nearly six now,’ Lois said. ‘The first tram passes here about a quarter past, which we’ve used many a time.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t know how far you will get, that’s what I am saying.’
‘Well, we’ll find out,’ Lois said quite sharply. ‘And walk the rest of the way if we have to. But we are wasting time talking about it when we should be getting ready.’
‘You are right,’ Ruby said, taking hold of the pram. ‘I’m off home. Come on, George. You need a bleeding good wash before owt else.’
Carmel and Lois went scurrying up the road just after five past six. There was dust swirling in the air. It couldn’t be seen except sometimes in the beam of the torch Lois played in front of them, but it could be felt in the back of the throat and smelled, and there was a strange orange glow on the horizon.
They hadn’t a long wait for the tram. When it trundled to a stop beside them the conductor called out, ‘Where you bound for, girls?’
‘The General Hospital,’ Lois said. ‘Apparently it is hell on earth down there.’
‘So I believe,’ the conductor said. ‘And we can’t promise to deliver you to the door but we’ll take you as far as we can get. Will that do?’
‘You bet.’
As the blacked-out tram trundled off, the conductor told them of the destruction he had witnessed as he had rode his bike to work that morning.
‘Whole areas have been laid waste—streets and streets of houses and gigantic mounds of rubbish. A bloke down the garage was telling me they got a load of big factories, like BSA and Lucas’s, as well as tons of smaller factories and workshops, all making stuff for the war effort. And then, of course, there will have been huge numbers of people killed and injured.’
‘I know,’ Carmel said. ‘That raid must have been dreadful. We have a cellar we hid out in, but not everyone would have been so lucky. I am actually nervous of what I’ll find at the hospital.’
‘And did you notice the orange in the sky?’ the conductor said, and the girls nodded grimly. ‘That, I think, must be Birmingham burning.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The tram could get Lois and Carmel no nearer than Aston and the two girls had to walk the rest of the way. Although the blackout was as bad as ever, and the pencils of light from their torches barely pierced it, the sky was alight with flames and in its light they saw with shock the extent of the damage.
They saw too what the conductor had spoken about: the vast seas of rubble tumbling on the pavement and road. Those roads themselves often had great craters in them, buckled tramlines, and lumps of melted tar that had slid to the kerbs. The girls slipped and slid over mangled iron bars, twisted and fractured beams and plaster boards, splintered slates from roofs and broken bricks, mixed with the crushed and ruptured contents of dwellings, factories or workshops, glass constantly cracking beneath their stumbling feet.
Some mounds were glowing, smouldering or flickering with small flames, wisps of smoke escaping into the semidarkness to mix with the smell of burning, acrid stink of cordite, definite whiff of gas and the smell of the brick dust.
Others had people on top of them, searching for possessions or moving the rubble with the aid of the glowing sky and shielded flashlights, searching for survivors. They called to the girls, and when those nearest saw that they were nurses, a cheer of support was given by those weary people. It was so grim, so depressing and sad that the girls had few words to say to each other as they trudged along.
No one and nothing could have prepared them for what Carmel and Lois met that day in the hospital. The place was packed, the injured still coming in while others lay on
trolleys, or sat on chairs awaiting attention. Some shambled around, shocked and dazed, their eyes filled with anxiety and fear as they waited for news of relatives or friends.
Most of them were covered in grey dust. It was coating their faces, their eyes rendered bloodshot because of it. It even gilded their eyebrows and eyelashes and was ingrained in their hair and clothes, which often were in tatters. The air stank too with that dust, mixing with the smells of vomit, blood and charred flesh overriding the usual odour of antiseptic. The fetid air reeked with human misery and helplessness.
There was also a cacophony of noise: heart-rending sobs, moans and groans. Some cried or screamed or shrieked out in pain, while others just wept wretchedly. Nurses didn’t try to keep order, for it was futile. They moved amongst the patients, trying to soothe and reassure, and occasionally covering the face of one who had died before they could get even the offer of help.
Carmel knew exactly why George had felt guilty about the treatment he had received. She would have felt exactly the same. Though there were plenty of doctors and nurses, they were all needed. Many who should have gone off duty had stayed, and others had done what Carmel and Lois had, and come in regardless of their shift. Matron, whose shift should have finished at eight the previous evening, was still there and had no intention of going home yet, there was so much still to do. She was delighted to see the Carmel and Lois.
She moved her arms expansively as she told them, ‘You can see how we are placed. Every hospital is the same and we have had to direct some to Lewis’s basement or Ansells. You two will be a great help.’
Carmel and Lois worked as hard as any there, but there were just so many people to see to. Some of the injuries sustained and the courage and stoicism displayed reduced the nurses to tears, most particularly when the patients were children. Carmel dealt with victims of crush injuries and those with bad burns and lacerations, knowing that sometimes, if the internal organs were crushed beyond repair, the burns severe enough, or the lacerations deep enough, the chance of the patient’s survival was remote. She saw and dealt with more deaths, often traumatic and painful, that day than she had seen in all her years on the wards.
