The Girl With No Name

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘You’re in hospital now, because you were caught out in an air raid. You’ve had a bump on the head and broken your arm. But we don’t know who you are.’

  The girl listened, but again shook her head.

  ‘We know your last name is Smith,’ went on the sister encouragingly, ‘and we know you come from Harrogate, in Yorkshire, but we don’t know your Christian name. What shall we call you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know your name?’

  ‘I don’t know it,’ replied the girl, adding with an edge of panic in her voice, ‘Who am I, please?’ The sound of explosions not far away drowned out anything else that she had been going to say and the two nurses, called to the aid of other patients, left her lying in her bed, wide-eyed and afraid, as the raiders did their best to annihilate the world outside.

  10

  Dan and Naomi slept for an hour, but their underlying anxiety for Lisa woke them again soon after the sun rose. Naomi slipped out of bed and went down to the kitchen to make them a pot of tea, managing to squeeze something approximately tea-coloured out of the already twice-used tea leaves. She took the cups back upstairs and found Dan still sitting up in bed.

  She handed him the tea and then went to the window to take down the blackout screens.

  Outside, the street was just coming to life again. The damage to the houses opposite, homes of long-standing neighbours, looked far worse by daylight. One, belonging to an elderly couple called Goldman, was little more than a ruin, its brickwork blackened, shattered windows staring sightlessly across the road, the roof burned out, charred beams pointing to the sky, accusing fingers daring the bombers to come back. The house next to it had fared a little better. Its roof sagging and its windows and doors blown out, it was uninhabitable, but its walls still stood, defiant, in the morning sun.

  ‘Poor Shirley Newman,’ Naomi said with a cry. ‘She’s quite bombed out; and she’s all on her own cos her husband’s away at sea. What’ll she do now, I wonder? And the Goldmans, too. I saw them last night, trying to save some of their stuff. The firemen wouldn’t let them go in.’

  ‘They was quite right,’ said Dan. ‘If they had gone in, some poor firefighter would have had to risk his life just to pull ’em out again.’

  ‘You can understand it, though,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s their home. Only last week she was telling me they’ve lived there for over forty years.’ She opened the window and leaned out, looking further along the road to the third damaged house, belonging to the Drake family. Its chimney had crashed through the roof but it had not caught fire.

  ‘I think they was all in the Hope Street shelter,’ she said as she shut the window and turned back to Dan. ‘Don’t think there were any casualties in our street.’

  Dan downed the last of his tea and got out of bed. ‘Now it’s daylight I’ll get round to the Langs’ and fetch Lisa,’ he said as he pulled his shirt over his head. ‘Want to get our girl back as soon as we can, don’t we?’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ Naomi said, throwing on her dress and searching for her shoes.

  Five minutes later they were on their way along the road, heading for the Langs’ house in Grove Avenue. As they reached the end of Kemble Street they paused for a moment to look at the heap of stones and debris that had once been the Duke of Wellington.

  ‘Can’t believe it’s really gone,’ said Naomi.

  ‘Had to happen,’ Dan said. ‘Couldn’t stay like it was. If the blast hadn’t finished the job last night, the demolition squad would’ve been round in a couple of days. Just thank God no one was inside this time.’

  They continued through the battered and blistered streets where exhausted firemen were still damping down the last of the fires or shovelling sand on to still-glowing embers. They passed the Hope Street shelter, the brick shelter built to serve the surrounding area. It was empty now and a volunteer was sweeping it out, brushing away the detritus left by those who’d been crammed into it for most of the night. All around there was the evidence of the night’s bombardment, broken windows, flattened doors, heaps of rubble, smoky dust filling the air.

  ‘Glad Lisa didn’t try and come home through this lot,’ Dan said as he gave Naomi his hand to help her over a pile of bricks. ‘Glad they kept her there.’

  ‘Yes,’ agree Naomi. ‘I was thinking last night, I’d have done the same if Hilda had been with us.’

  It took far longer than usual to reach Grove Avenue. Several streets were closed off with unstable buildings threatening the pavements or because of craters in the road. In one a fractured water main was flooding the thoroughfare and in another a ruptured gas main burned merrily in the early-morning light. Everywhere labouring workmen struggled to clear away the ravages of the raids and make the area safe once more. People were doing what they could to repair the damage to their homes; men and women too, already up ladders, nailing tarpaulins across torn roofs, boarding up broken windows, mending hanging doors. Hitler had given them all a bashing last night, but they weren’t giving in. As Dan had said the night before, they were determined not to let the buggers win!

  At last they turned the corner and stepped into Grove Avenue, but what they saw brought them up short. The street was almost empty, but the damage that it had sustained was enormous. Halfway along there was a gaping chasm between the houses. Two houses were no longer there. Not just damaged or burnt out, but pulverised to nothing from the direct hit of high-explosive bombs. The houses on either side leaned drunkenly towards the gap between them, their walls, blackened from now-extinguished fires, yawning open to reveal the rooms within. Dan and Naomi simply stood and stared.

  ‘Which house was theirs?’ whispered Naomi.

  ‘Thirty-four, weren’t it?’ replied Dan.

  ‘But which is thirty-four?’

  ‘Much further down, I think,’ answered Dan. ‘Come on, let’s have a look,’ and taking her hand, he led Naomi into the ruins of the street.

  ‘Road closed, mate,’ called a voice and a man in ARP uniform came out of one of the houses towards them. ‘Buildings too dangerous.’

  ‘But we’re looking for our daughter,’ Naomi croaked. ‘She was staying here last night.’

  ‘Probably in the shelter in Madison Road,’ said the man. He pointed back the way they’d come. ‘Next street on the left. The wardens’ post’s there. You can ask the bloke on duty.’

  ‘Which is number thirty-four?’ asked Naomi. ‘She was staying at number thirty-four.’

  The warden’s expression changed. ‘Thirty-four, you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Dan. His cheeks grew pale as he could already read the answer in the man’s face. He looked again at the gap where two houses should have stood. There was nothing left of either of them. The warden looked in the same direction.

  ‘Sorry, mate, no survivors there. Whole family gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Naomi had yet to take in the import of what she was being told. ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Direct hit, nothing left of them. No survivors.’

  Naomi’s head spun and Dan clutched her in his arms as she sagged towards him in a dead faint. Together the two men managed to get her into the house from which the warden had emerged.

  ‘This is my house,’ he said as he pushed open the front door. ‘Doris,’ he called, ‘lady here fainted.’

  His wife bustled out of her kitchen and pushed open the door of her front room. ‘In here,’ she instructed, ‘bring the poor dear in here.’

  The two men laid Naomi on a settee and Doris produced a blanket which she laid across Naomi’s prostrate form.

  ‘Joe, what happened?’ she asked her husband.

  ‘She thinks her daughter was staying in number thirty-four.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ breathed the woman. ‘That was the Langs’ house.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ murmured Dan. ‘She was visiting her friend Hilda when the sirens went. We thought she’d stayed in their shelter with them. We wasn’t surprised when she didn’t c
ome home after the first raid. Would have been stupid to walk through them streets when it was getting dark. We thought she’d stayed with them for safety.’

  ‘She probably did,’ replied Joe. ‘The Langs’ house went in the second raid.’

  ‘But weren’t they in the shelter?’ demanded Dan. ‘Why weren’t they? Surely they’d have taken shelter.’

  ‘No, no sign of anyone in the Anderson, what’s left of it. We looked straight away.’

  ‘But they did have one?’

  ‘Oh yes, most houses in this street have them, but they don’t all use them.’

  ‘But that’s crazy!’ exploded Dan.

  ‘Agree with you, mate,’ replied Joe, ‘but I can’t force them.’

  ‘Are you sure that they were actually in the house? Perhaps they took shelter somewhere else. You said there was a shelter in Madison Road? Perhaps they went there to be safer.’

  Joe glanced across at Naomi who under Doris’s ministrations was coming round.

  ‘It was a direct hit,’ he whispered again, ‘and there are... remains. Definitely, both adults and children. Sorry, mate.’

  It was some time later, with the assistance of Joe, that Dan got Naomi home again. She walked, supported on both sides by the two men, through the crumbling streets, back to Kemble Street.

  ‘We don’t know for sure that she was in that house,’ Naomi said when she was finally back in her own home. ‘Perhaps she was on her way home and she sheltered in one of the public shelters.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem likely,’ Dan said cautiously. ‘If she’d done that, girl, she’d have come home by now.’

  While Doris was giving Naomi some hot tea, Dan had gone back out into the street with Joe. Together they had approached the gaping crater left by the bomb. There was little left to see.

  ‘You sure the bodies you found were in thirty-four?’ Dan asked. ‘I mean, two houses have gone. P’raps the bodies belonged to the folk who lived next door.’

  ‘No, afraid not.’ Joe spoke gently. ‘They was all in the Madison Road shelter. After the first raid they decided to go there. Wanted to be with other people. They’re being looked after in the rescue centre.’

  ‘So their house was empty.’

  ‘Yup, far as we know.’

  ‘And the bodies were in the other one.’

  ‘What we could see of them.’

  ‘But they were identified?’

  ‘’Fraid there weren’t much left to identify. The blood wag— the ambulance came and took what there was. Obliterated, they’d been. Sorry, mate, but I reckon they won’t dig any more for this one. They’ll bring in the dozers and flatten it.’

  ‘Just leave them there?’ Dan was horrified.

  ‘Depends on what else has to be done. After raids like these they have to deal with stuff quick. Have to think of public health and all that, don’t they?’

  Joe was very matter-of-fact and his very steadiness helped Dan to stay calm for Naomi. Neither of them went to work that day. The loss of Lisa was too heart-breaking.

  ‘You say that the warden says the Langs’ house went in the second raid,’ Naomi said sobbing. ‘If I’d gone round there and fetched Lisa after the first raid, ’stead of cowering here at home, I could have saved her, couldn’t I? If I’d’ve gone round there straight away she’d be here with us now.’

  ‘Darling girl, you don’t know that,’ Dan said, trying to reassure her.

  ‘Course I do,’ cried Naomi. ‘The house weren’t bombed till the night-time raid. That bloke said it. D’you think they didn’t go into the shelter cos Lisa wouldn’t?’ she went on miserably. ‘Maybe she wouldn’t go into the shelter and they all stayed out to keep her company. Oh, Dan, I shoulda gone and fetched her home.’

  Dan didn’t know what to say to comfort her. If Joe was right – and there was no reason to suppose he wasn’t – then, yes, if Naomi had gone looking for Lisa she might still be alive, but she hadn’t and there was nothing any of them could do about that.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but listen, Naomi, if you had gone round, you might have been caught in the house, too, and I’d have lost all three of you.’ It was precious little comfort he could offer, but it was the best he could do. The baby was still safe and that meant everything to both of them.

  Naomi’s recourse was to lose herself in hard work. She went through the house, cleaning windows and polishing surfaces within an inch of their lives. Dust from outside had been forced in through the open door and it lay, a thick coating, on all the furniture. She scrubbed the bath and toilet, she swept the landing and the stairs. Cleaning numbed her brain and numbness was what she needed. When she reached Lisa’s room she stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets. She laid out a clean towel and polished all the furniture.

  They could be wrong, she told herself. They could be wrong and Lisa could still be out there somewhere. Her room’ll be ready for her when she gets back. Tucked into the pillowcase she found the letter from Lisa’s mother. She spread it out on the chest of drawers and looked at it. She couldn’t read a word of it, of course, but she knew what it was and refolding it carefully she laid it on top of the chest, so it would be the first thing Lisa saw when she came home.

  While Naomi was cleaning the house Dan fixed the front door as best he could, before going across the road to see what he could do for their neighbours. The elderly Goldmans had borrowed a handcart and were loading it with all they could rescue from their burned-out home.

  ‘Going to the wife’s sister for a few days, till we can find somewhere else,’ Jeremiah Goldman said. ‘Her son’s coming round to fetch this lot. We’ll put it in her garage.’ Dan helped them load the cart and then watched as they trailed off down the street, following their nephew to the illusory safety of another house.

  A little later that day there was a knock at the door and when Dan opened it he found Shirley Newman from the other damaged house along the street.

  ‘Hallo, Mrs N,’ he said. ‘Anything we can do for you?’ He glanced out over her shoulder at the remains of her home and knew there was little. ‘Come on in. Naomi’s in the kitchen. We was just going to have a cuppa.’

  Mrs Newman followed him into the kitchen and Naomi, who had just sat down for the first time since she’d started to clean the house, jumped to her feet again.

  ‘Shirley!’ she cried. ‘So sorry. So very sorry.’ She didn’t know what else to say and her neighbour simply shook her head and said, ‘I got my life. I was in the shelter.’

  ‘What you going to do now?’ Naomi asked.

  Shirley shrugged. ‘Dunno, do I? Nowhere to go ’cept the rescue centre, but they ain’t got much room, not today after all that last night.’

  ‘You can stay here the night,’ Naomi said impulsively. ‘We don’t mind, do we, Dan?’

  ‘No, course not,’ Dan said, though less than enthusiastically. If you once let a neighbour into your house, even for a night, who knew how long they would stay or how you were going to get rid of them later on?

  ‘I got to go to the fire post in a while,’ he added. ‘If you’re sleeping here, Mrs N, you two can keep each other company while I’m out. And if there’s a raid, you both go down in that cellar and don’t you dare come out again till the all-clear goes. Right?’

  They promised and with a feeling of relief Dan left them together in the house. He had been wondering how he was going to be able to leave Naomi after such a dreadful thirty-six hours. As he walked along he thought about poor Lisa. She’d come here to be safe and now she’d been killed in a raid. Hitler’s long arm had taken her here in London where he’d failed at home in Germany. The irony of it made Dan’s heart ache. Poor, brave little Lisa. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was no good Naomi blaming herself for it, though she would for some time to come, he knew that.

  It’s no more Naomi’s fault than the man in the moon’s, Dan thought, but convincing her of that is going to be a very difficult job. Perhaps if I’d been here it might hav
e been different. P’raps I’d’ve gone and fetched Lisa home.

  But Dan knew his place wasn’t staying safe at home when raids were at their height and so he wasn’t going to blame himself for what might have been; but he knew he would long mourn the refugee child they’d taken in, the brave girl who’d become their own.

  The siren went as he reached his post and from then on he had no time for further thoughts, indeed no time to think about anything but fires and putting them out. The Luftwaffe were back and it was, literally, all hands to the pump.

  11

  Harry had still been in the West End that Saturday afternoon when the raiders struck. He had been to Soho Square to meet a man called Dave Dickett, who was doing business with Harry’s boss, Mikey Sharp.

  ‘Tell him I’ll take any fags he can get,’ Mikey had said. ‘Tell ’im to bring ’em down the lock-up, Tuesday.’ Mikey was more than ready to take a consignment of cigarettes that had been stolen from a lorry earlier in the week, but he was far too fly to be seen meeting with a known thief. Let the lad do the talking. No one would take any notice of a scruffy lad up west on a Saturday afternoon.

  Harry had just left the meet when the sirens began to sound. Bloody Moaning Minnie’s off again, he thought as he looked up. The sky above was clear and blue, the sun still warm, but already he could hear the sound of ack-ack and the ever-increasing thunder of hundreds of planes. Then they were there, a swarm of locusts, flying in formation, filling the sky so that it darkened with their number.

  ‘Off the street, lad,’ shouted a warden as he hurried to clear his sector. ‘Into the shelter with you!’ He pointed back into the square.

  Harry didn’t need telling twice. He ran back to the square, thrusting through the people who were crowding in off the streets, flooding out of shops, pubs and clubs, pushing their way down into the shelter. The underground area was soon packed, people jostling and shoving, trying to find somewhere to sit.

  No wonder Lisa don’t like going into these places, Harry thought as he forced himself through to a place against the wall. He hoped she’d got to safety somewhere. She might even have got as far as Hilda’s and be safe in their shelter. There was a hubbub of noise within the shelter, but it couldn’t drown the thunder of the raid outside. Someone started singing; others joined in and for a while there was a feeling of camaraderie. Everyone in the shelter was in the same boat, and together they’d see it through. When at last, some two hours later, the all-clear sounded, the push to escape from the crush and the foetid smell of the shelter into the fresh air was almost as great as the push to take cover had been. Camaraderie forgotten, they flooded back into the square.