by Annie Groves
Personally she did not feel any animosity towards the Yanks. After all, they were the allies and here to help win the war.
‘Oh, well, you would be in sympathy wi’ them Yanks, Sally,’ Shirley, one of the Waltonettes, had sniffed deprecatingly when Sally had said as much. ‘What with your Ronnie being a Jap POW and all them Yanks being took prisoner by the Japs as well, wi’ Pearl Harbor and all that.’
When Sally had related this conversation later to her best friend, Molly Brookes, Molly had immediately sympathised and tried to comfort her.
Yes, Molly was a good friend to her, and yet it had been June, her elder sister, whom Sally had palled up with first, when they had been young wives and then young mothers together. But then poor June had been killed during a bombing raid. Molly had gone through her own fair share of heartache, what with one engagement being broken off, and then losing her handsome young Merchant Navy fiancé when his ship had been torpedoed, before June was killed. June and Molly had been particularly close on account of them losing their mother very young, so perhaps it was no wonder that Molly had ended up marrying her sister’s husband, in January, and was now mothering June’s little girl, Lillibet, just as if she were she own, while waiting for the birth of her and Frank’s own baby.
They were already into September and the home front was destined to became harder. At the end of the October the double daylight saving time, introduced so that the country could make the most of the long summer daylight hours, would come to an end and they would be plunged back into the misery of the blackout. Then they would have the winter to live through with only a meagre amout of fuel allowed for fires, and the dreariness of thin soups made from whatever bones and scraps of meat could be had, thickened with whatever winter vegetables were available.
They were fortunate on Chestnut Close, Sally recognised, in that one side of the Close backed on to a row of allotments, maintained in the main by the Close’s residents.
Albert Dearden, Molly’s dad, had always been kind enough to help out Sally with veggies and the like from his own allotment, treating her almost as though she were another daughter, and her two boys his grandsons.
Yes, the residents of Chestnut Close had pulled together right from the start of the war, when they had set to to erect their communal air-raid shelter, Sally acknowledged half an hour after leaving the Grafton, as she got off the bus and crossed Edge Hill Road to turn into the Close. Not that it had always been plain sailing or happy families. There had been a fair few fall-outs since the war had begun in September 1939, none more spectacular perhaps than those between June Dearden, as she had been then, and her widowed future mother-in-law, Doris Brookes.
Poor June, she had never really taken to Doris, nor Doris to her, and yet really you couldn’t have wished to meet two more decent sorts.
It had been Doris, a retired midwife, who had delivered Sally’s own first baby, commandeering Molly to help her when Sally had gone into early labour. Doris had refused to seek shelter for herself, despite the warning wail of the air-raid alarm, which had everyone else rushing for the protection of the newly erected shelter. Instead she had bustled Sally upstairs to her spare room, where she had given birth. On that occasion the air-raid warning had simply been a practice drill, but they had all had plenty of opportunity to make use of the air-raid shelters in the second half of 1940, especially in December, and in the May of 1941, when Liverpool had been well and truly blitzed in a week of nonstop bombing, and poor June had been killed.
Sally was on her way to Doris’s now to pick up her sons. Littlewoods provided nursery facilities for its workers but the number of places was limited, and whilst Sally had been offered a place for Tommy she had not been able to get one for Harry as well. She wasn’t going to have her boys separated, so she had to rely on the kindness of Doris, who luckily worked a day shift at the hospital, and who had offered to have the boys sleeping in her spare room whilst Sally was at work.
What a long day it had been – the factory, the Grafton, now the boys to see to and, always at the back of her mind, worry about Ronnie.
TWO
Betty the conductress might have thought she was doing Sam a favour by warning her not to try to walk through the worst of the bombed-out heart of the city, but the truth was that all she had done was increase Sam’s desire to see it. Not that she could see very much now that it was growing dark. A thin drizzle had started to fall, mixing with the fret of mist coming in off the sea and the dusk, so that when she peered down streets flattened to the ground apart from the odd half-destroyed building, the uninhabited emptiness took on an almost ghostly otherworldliness that shifted shape around her. Her footsteps echoed in the mist as she walked down cobbled streets, mentally reckoning the direction she was taking so that she wouldn’t get lost. So long as she kept the sea on her left she knew she must turn right to get back to Lime Street Station, which was the only real reference point she had, but when she decided she had had enough and that she might as well go back, the first street on the right she came to was closed off with sandbags and a sign that read ‘Danger Unexploded Bomb’.
Well, if it was still unexploded then it wasn’t that dangerous, was it, Sam decided, and to judge from the faded paint on the sign, the bomb had been around for a while. The main reason the authorities put up such signs was to deter children from playing where it was dangerous – everyone knew that. Besides, this was the only right-turning street she had come across in ages, and she needed to get back.
Determinedly Sam hopped over the sandbags, ignoring the sign.
This street seemed to have suffered less bomb damage than the street she had just been in, with only one large gap where houses had once been. There was just enough light left for her to see the wallpaper hanging from what must have been the bedroom walls of the boarded-up houses either side of the empty space, rubble from the bombed houses spewing out on the pavement and into the street. She had seen newsreel images of streets like this, which, in the secure environment of Aldershot, were as close as she had got to the reality of bomb damage, and naturally she was curious to take a closer look. The street was deserted, and there was no one to see her wriggling past the second ‘Danger Unexploded Bomb’ warning, to clamber over the mound of broken bricks and wooden beams. She had with her the small torch such as everyone carried around with them because of the blackout, and as soon as she was close enough she felt in her pocket for it, removing it and switching it on.
There below her, and much deeper than she had expected, was the bomb crater, a hole in the ground easily wide enough for a person to fall into.
And be buried alive there? Immediately Sam recoiled, sending some loose pebbles and soil falling noisily into the hole. Thanks to her brother, Russell, and his friends she had an intense and secret dread of being trapped underground, and sometimes still had nightmares about the original cause of that dread. Russell and his friends hadn’t meant any harm, of course, when they had persuaded her to crawl into a tunnel they had been digging, which had then collapsed on top of her. Fortunately a neighbour had realised what had happened and quickly dug her out, but it had left her with a terror of being trapped underground and dying there that she knew she would never ever lose.
‘Hey, you! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Can’t you read?’
The sound of an angry male voice from inside the crater startled her so much that she lost her footing, dropping her torch as she did so, and then realising to her dismay that the debris on which she was standing had started to move, the bricks slipping from under her feet, carrying her down into the crater. Her fear was engulfing her now, a feeling of sickness filling her stomach and her heart thudding.
‘Don’t move. Keep still unless you want to blow us both to kingdom come.’
Did he really think she had any choice in the matter, Sam wondered frantically as she tried to remain calm and to find a secure foothold in the gathering force of the sliding bricks. She must not panic. She must not. But she couldn�
��t stop herself from sliding closer and closer to the crater’s edge. Then suddenly the breath was jolted out of her body and she was thrown forward and knocked to the ground onto the rubble by the weight of a man hurling himself on top of her, somehow miraculously stopping her slide.
Relief, dismay, shock and a guilty awareness that she had brought what had happened on herself – Sam was experiencing them all.
It was just as well she was wearing her greatcoat otherwise her skin would have been cut to ribbons on the rubble, she decided almost light-headedly, but as she struggled to voice this fact to the man who was now lying on top of her, he shook his head and placed his hand over her mouth.
There was just enough light for her to see how disreputable he looked, even if he was in uniform. He needed a shave, and his dark hair looked in need of a cut, his face was streaked with dirt and the hand he had placed over her mouth smelled of dirt and oil.
He was looking at his watch with a fierce concentration that made Sam wonder if he was some kind of madman. If so, he was soon going to learn that she could look after herself. All she was waiting for was the right opportunity to raise her knee and use it in the way her elder brother had taught her would deter any overeager male. He was leaning intimately into her now, his hand still covering her mouth.
She could feel his breath against her ear, as he mouthed quietly, ‘I hope you know how to run.’
What did that mean? She looked up at him, intending to tell him what she thought of him but the look in his eyes made it clear that his words were not intended as some kind of chat-up line. Army rules and regulations must have been instilled in her more than she had known, she recognised as she nodded obediently.
‘Good,’ said the man in a soft whisper. ‘So when I say move, you get to your feet and you run and you do not stop. There’s a two-thousand-pound unexploded bomb in that crater, and all it could take to set it off is being hit by one of these bricks. Savvy?’
Knowing now not only that he was completely serious, but also the danger they were in, all thoughts of kneeing him in the groin faded as Sam nodded a second time.
‘We’ve got ten more seconds. If we survive those without it going off, then we’ve got two minutes to get clear.’
At three and nearly two years old respectively, Sally’s sons weren’t old enough to be aware of the dark times they were living through, and as usual when Doris let her in and then led the way to her cosy parlour, both Tommy and Harry hurled themselves at her, wrapping their small arms around her knees.
‘Have you two been good boys for Auntie Doris then?’ Sally asked them lovingly as she kneeled down to hug and kiss them.
‘Yeth,’ Harry lisped adorably, whilst Tommy nodded firmly.
‘It really is good of you to have them for me, Doris,’ Sally thanked Molly’s mother-in-law gratefully.
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. As fond of your pair of young scamps as if they were me own grandchildren, I am,’ Doris Brookes assured Sally affectionately. ‘I’ve given them their tea. Now don’t you go saying anything,’ she warned Sally firmly. ‘I had a bit extra on account of me being on duty at the hospital these last few nights and eating there. I’ve given our Lillibet her tea as well,’ she added, nodding in the direction of Molly’s stepdaughter and niece.
‘I’m sorry I’m a bit later than I said. I managed to call in at the chemist’s, though, and I’ve collected all the kiddies’ orange juice and cod liver oil allowances. Here’s Molly’s.’ Sally handed over the bottles, along with the necessary stamped ration books.
‘Lillibet will really thank you for that,’ Doris laughed. ‘She hates that cod liver oil.’
‘Tommy’s the same,’ Sally agreed. ‘But I tell him he won’t grow up big and strong like his dad if he doesn’t have it.’
‘Well, Dr Ross that’s to replace old Dr Jennings would certainly agree with you there. He was up at the hospital yesterday and I heard him saying how important it was for kiddies to have it.’
‘What’s he like?’ Sally asked. ‘Only he’s going to have his work cut out if he’s to be as well thought of as Dr Jennings.’
‘You’re right there, Sally. A good man, was Dr Jennings. Thought a lot of him, folks round here did. This new doctor’s a lot younger than I expected. A Scot he is, an’ all, and a bit what they call “dour”, you know: doesn’t say much and looks a bit down in the mouth. He’s moving into Dr Jennings’s old house, of course, since he’s taking over the practice, but I don’t know if we’re going to see him looking after us like Dr Jennings did. I remember Dr Jennings telling me once when my Frank was little, and I’d bin crying me eyes out on account of him being poorly and me not being able to afford to have a doctor round, that I wasn’t to worry because he always charged them patients wot were a bit better off a little bit more so that he could do right by them as didn’t have enough to pay him to come out. Ever so good like that, he was. That’s why everyone loved him so much. There’s many a mother round here has a lot to thank him for, and I can’t help wishing that the old doctor had stayed on until after Molly has had her baby.’
‘I remember when Harry was a few months old how he had that terrible chest and I was worried sick. Came out to him straight away, Dr Jennings did, and wouldn’t take a penny,’ Sally agreed, looking lovingly at her two sons.
Like many boys, they were inclined to be a bit too adventurous at times, but they were loving little lads as well as stout-hearted. They were her pride and joy, and woe betide anyone who ever said a word against them. There was nothing she would not do to keep them safe and give them the very best that she could.
‘Don’t you go tempting fate now saying that,’ Doris warned her, breaking off as the back door opened and her daughter-in-law, Molly, called out a cheerful greeting.
‘My, Sally, you look glam,’ she announced.
Sally pulled a small face. ‘I’ve just bin down the Grafton, practising with the Waltonettes.’
‘You’ve got a lovely voice, Sally,’ Doris joined in. ‘If you was to ask me I’d say there’s not many about that can sing as sweet as you can. I was listening to you in church the other Sunday. Fair lifted me heart, it did, to hear you.’
‘Frank’s mam’s right, Sally, you have got a lovely voice,’ Molly reiterated ten minutes later as they walked down the Close together at a pace slow enough to accommodate Molly’s advancing pregnancy. Sally was pushing Harry in the pushchair she had swapped her pram for, and Tommy walking sturdily alongside them, restrained by the reins Sally was keeping a firm hold of. ‘You could be one of them girl singers wi’ them bands that tour the munitions factories and go on the wireless, and no mistake.’
‘No, I couldn’t, Molly, because that’d mean travelling around a bit and I couldn’t leave my two little ’uns. It’s bad enough as it is, but I can’t afford not to work, and I’d have to anyway just as soon as Tommy reaches five, and he’s three now.’ Sally knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t even tell Molly, her closest friend, about the shameful secret that woke her up in the night and set her heart pounding with sick dread.
‘Five – that’s another two years away yet, Sally. I hope this war’s over before then.’
‘Don’t we all, but it doesn’t much look like being, does it?’ Sally was relieved the conversation had moved away from the subject of her work. ‘I reckon if it was about to be over then we wouldn’t be having all them Americans pouring into the country, would we?’
‘No, you’re right,’ Molly agreed. ‘My Frank was saying that there’s bin a fair bit of trouble in some of the pubs between the Americans and the British servicemen, fights and that.’
Sally bent her head ostensibly to check on Tommy’s reins but in reality to conceal her expression from her friend. However, as though she had guessed what she was feeling, Molly apologised immediately.
‘Oh, Sally, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Me and my big mouth, going on about my Frank when you still haven’t heard anything from your Ronnie.’
Molly nodded.
‘That reminds me,’ Sally went on. ‘I heard the other day that Johnny’s back in Liverpool. Seemingly he’s with the bomb disposal lot.’
When Molly didn’t say anything Sally didn’t pursue the subject. After all, Molly had been engaged to Johnny at one time, even if the engagement hadn’t lasted very long. Then after Dunkirk, when Johnny’s unit had been posted to home duties, Johnny had somehow or other ended up working with one of the army rescue teams at the same time as Molly was with the WVS.
They had reached the gate to the neat small house Sally had been renting since the beginning of the war, and which she now thought of, like the Close itself, as her home far more than she had ever done the noisy terrace in Manchester where she had grown up.
‘We’ll be back to dark evenings come the end of next month when we lose double summer time. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it,’ Molly commented.
‘Me neither,’ Sally agreed. She had more reason than most to dislike the dark nights. You always got some nosy ARP warden asking you who you were and where you were going, just when you didn’t want those kind of questions. ‘Harry will be two the first week in October, and the last time my Ronnie was home was just after Dunkirk. Tommy was only a baby then and Harry not even born.’
