Once outside, Harry looked about him. He could see little damage in the immediate area, but smoke filled the air and the sky burned orange. Everywhere people were exclaiming their relief at being safely through the raid, many returning to the buildings they had left, others hurrying away to discover the fate of their own homes elsewhere. Harry set off to walk back to the hostel. It was a long walk, but there seemed to be no buses and he was loath to take the Tube, even if he found one running. He’d had enough of being underground for the time being.
He reached the hostel just as the second warning began to sound. He had passed through areas where there had been considerable damage and he spared another thought for Lisa travelling by herself on the bus.
She’ll be all right, he told himself. She’ll have sheltered somewhere and be on her way back home now. I’ll go round the school on Monday, he thought, see how she’s doing.
The warden at the hostel was hurrying its inmates into the nearby shelter and Harry, pressed in among them, had to spend the rest of the night cheek by jowl with the other boys who lived with him.
Next morning he set out to find Mikey Sharp to report back on his meeting with Dave Dickett. As he headed towards Petticoat Lane he was shocked by the amount of damage he saw. Buildings destroyed or burned out. Fires still burning. The East End of London had been badly bombed as the raiders aimed for the docks, warehouses and any shipping lying in the port of London. When he’d been crushed in the shelter near the hostel he’d told himself ‘never again’. He’d risk being above ground, take his chances with the bombs, but now, as he hurried through the streets and saw the havoc they’d caused, he wasn’t so sure.
He found his boss with two of his henchmen in a back room at the Black Bull just off Middlesex Street. Harry waited nervously for Mikey to notice him. The other two men left the room and Mikey finally gave his attention to Harry.
‘Well, kid, did Dickett turn up?’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Sharp,’ Harry said. ‘He coming Tuesday like you said bringing—’
‘The merchandise,’ interrupted Mikey.
‘Right and say he might have something else you like to see.’
Mikey raised an eyebrow. ‘Did he now? And what was that?’
Harry looked round to be sure he wasn’t being overheard and said, ‘Whisky. Had some crates he’d “lib... librated” or somethink.’
‘I see. So what’s he going to do about that?’
‘I tell him to bring on Tuesday,’ Harry said.
‘Did you now?’ Mikey gave a brief smile. ‘Aren’t you the bright lad?’ He pulled a roll of notes from his pocket and peeled off a pound. ‘Here you go,’ he said, handing it to Harry. ‘Shove off now. Be back at the lock-up Tuesday. I’ll need you to unload.’
That evening the Luftwaffe were back, bombing the docks and the surrounding area. The raiders seemed to come from all directions, guided by some of the still smouldering fires, but this time they certainly didn’t have it all their own way and fewer than the previous day got past the south coast defences. But come they did, flinging themselves against the barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Their bombs hurtled, whining, to earth, exploding into lethal fragments as they obliterated warehouses, stores, homes, people.
Searchlights directed their powerful beams up through the darkness, criss-crossing the sky as they attempted to pin marauding planes in their beams, targets for the anti-aircraft gunners below. Shells exploded in the night sky, bursting round the enemy planes, brilliant flashes of orange and white, driving them away. Several bombers were shot down in flames, spiralling downward with a shriek of destruction before, still carrying their lethal load, they exploded in a display of pyrotechnics, fireballs that lit the sky for miles round as they hit the ground below.
Dan and his team scrambled from place to place, dousing small fires, calling the regular firemen to the big ones. Around them buildings crumbled and fell, showers of bricks from collapsing walls thundered down into the streets below. The noise was deafening and they had to bellow at each other to make themselves heard. There was no respite and the volunteers laboured as hard and as long as the men in the regular services. Everyone knew that it was up to each man to give his utmost to help save the city.
Naomi and Shirley crouched together in the cellar of number sixty-five. They could hear the crashes, booms and bangs, some distant, some frighteningly close.
‘How long can they keep this up?’ cried Naomi as another blast shook the house.
‘How long can we put up with it?’ said Shirley unsteadily. ‘There ain’t going to be nothing left of London soon.’
‘That’s what Hitler wants,’ said Naomi. ‘Dan says he’s trying to terrify us so’s we sue for peace.’
‘He’s took my home,’ said Shirley, sounding braver than she felt, ‘but we ain’t going to let him march in here.’
‘He’s taken my Lisa,’ Naomi said, and so saying, her iron grip on her emotions crumbled and she burst into tears.
‘Tell me,’ Shirley said, reaching for her hands. ‘Tell me what’s happened to her.’
So, sitting in the torch-lit cellar, Naomi told Shirley all about Lisa, where she’d come from, how difficult it had been to start with and finally what had happened to her the previous night.
Shirley had known that the Federmans were fostering a child, but though she’d seen Lisa about, she hadn’t got to know her. Hearing about her now, she wished she had made more effort to be friendly.
‘You don’t know she’s dead,’ she said when Naomi had finished. ‘You don’t know she was in that house when it was hit.’
‘They found bodies,’ Naomi said, adding with a gulp, ‘bits of bodies. Adults and children.’
‘Still might not be Lisa,’ said Shirley. ‘You said there was children living there anyway. Could be them.’
‘I’m sure it was them as well,’ Naomi said bitterly. ‘But Lisa must’ve been there, where else can she be?’
‘Have you checked all the rescue centres? The hospitals? Talked to all the local air raid wardens?’
‘No, we haven’t,’ sighed Naomi. ‘There’s no point. She was in that house and the warden round there said it was a direct hit. Everyone was killed, there was almost nothing left to find.’
‘Well,’ said Shirley, ‘if it was my kid, I’d be round all the hospitals and centres before I’d be sure I’d lost her. If she’s been injured or sommat, they may not know who she is.’
The idea gave Naomi a flicker of hope. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’ll do first thing in the morning. Oh, Shirley, I’m so glad you’re here with me. Last night I was here all by myself and I was so frightened.’
‘I was in the Hope Street, ’ Shirley said, ‘and it was scary enough in there, too. I feel safer here.’
Naomi poured them some cocoa from her flask and they drank it as they listened to the war going on in the world outside. It was still scary, but at least they had each other for company, to talk to.
Shirley spoke about her husband, Derek, who was in the merchant navy. ‘Trouble is,’ she said, ‘they’re as much a target as the warships and they don’t have no guns. He wrote to me last time he was in Liverpool, but that was ten days ago. He could be anywhere now.’
Naomi talked about Dan, pouring out her worries about him being above ground during these dreadful raids, and before she knew it she had confided their secret, that she was expecting.
‘Oh, Naomi, that’s so exciting,’ Shirley enthused. ‘But that means you have to be extra careful now.’
‘Yeah, I know. But what sort of a world am I bringing a baby into? Poor little mite’ll being bombed from the moment it’s born.’
‘Not if you get out of London,’ said Shirley. ‘That’s what I’d do if I had a kid on the way. Can’t risk it being killed before it’s born, can you? What does your Dan say?’
‘I don’t know,’ Naomi said, ‘we haven’t talked about it.’
‘Well, you should,’ said Shirley in her forthright w
ay. ‘Specially now these raids is getting worse. You need to get out into the country somewhere Hitler don’t know about.’
When the all-clear sounded the two women went back upstairs. As before, they peered out into the street, but could see no activity that suggested there was any more destruction nearby. There was smoke in the air and the sky was still on fire, but Kemble Street seemed to have escaped any further damage.
‘Come on,’ Naomi said. ‘Better try and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.’
‘What about your Dan?’
‘He’ll be home soon as he can,’ Naomi replied. ‘’Spect he’s still going flat out with them fires out there.’ She longed to hear him opening the front door, but now she had re-established control of her emotions she wasn’t going to let go again. She would go upstairs to bed and wait for him there.
She found blankets and a pillow for Shirley and when she’d made her comfortable on the old couch in the front room, Naomi went upstairs. She looked into Lisa’s room. She could have offered Shirley Lisa’s bed, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Until she had done everything she could to find Lisa, until she knew for certain that she wasn’t coming back, she didn’t want anyone else sleeping there.
Dan came home with the dawn, his face black, his eyes red-rimmed. He crept upstairs and crawled into bed beside Naomi. She gathered him into her arms and on the instant he plunged into the depths of slumber. Naomi lay beside him, her brain churning as the events of the day flooded through her mind. Be positive, she told herself. Shirley could be right. And Naomi began to plan her search for Lisa in the morning. School, rescue centres, hospitals. She would visit them all.
I won’t go in to work, she decided. They can do without me for another day. I’ll tell them why later.
She thought, too, of what Shirley had said about getting out of London. She knew that many expectant mothers had left the cities when war had first been declared, but lots of them had returned when the expected bombing hadn’t happened. Now the much-feared Blitz had indeed begun, would they go again? Should she go? How could she go and leave Dan to face the bombing on his own? Could she bear to be without him for weeks at a time? But then, Shirley was without her Derek, away at sea. Thousands of women were living without their menfolk. Why should she be any different? She should be protecting the baby. Her most important duty was to her unborn child. But to be without Dan, when Dan was exposed to the Blitz, not even safe in the cellar, but out on the streets, unprotected... Her heart contracted with love and fear at the very thought of it.
Finally she, too, drifted off to sleep and awoke only when she heard someone downstairs in the kitchen. For a moment she couldn’t think who it was. Dan was still fast asleep beside her. Then she remembered Shirley. It must be her. And she slid out of bed, threw on her dressing gown and went downstairs to see.
‘Couldn’t sleep no more,’ Shirley said, ‘so I come in to make a drink.’
‘I couldn’t sleep neither,’ Naomi said and poured herself some tea from the pot Shirley had made.
‘When I’ve had this,’ Shirley said, lifting her cup, ‘I’ll be off round the rescue centre to see if they can find me somewhere to live, temporary like.’
‘You can stay here for a bit,’ Naomi offered. ‘I was glad you was here last night through the raid.’
‘Thanks, and I will if I have to, but it’ll be better if they find me somewhere more permanent, like.’ As soon as she’d drunk her tea she slipped out of the house and was gone.
When Dan came down he looked round. ‘Where’s Shirley?’
‘Gone. May be back later. You going out in the cab today?’
‘Yes, have to,’ replied Dan as he ate the piece of toast she’d made for him. ‘Can’t afford to miss another day, can I? What about you?’
‘No, I ain’t going to work today. I’m going round the school. They was supposed to start the new term today. Maybe some of the kids might have seen her.’
‘Naomi—’ began Dan, but she cut him off.
‘Don’t say it!’ she said sharply. ‘I’m going to look for her, Dan. After the school I’m going round the hospitals, see if she’s been taken to one of them. She could have been,’ she said firmly when he was about to interrupt again. ‘Then I’ll go to the rescue centres. Maybe they found her and are looking after her. She could still be alive, Dan. She mightn’t have been in that house.’
Dan looked across at her with a reluctant smile. He didn’t think she had a hope in hell of finding Lisa, but he admired her determination to try. ‘You do that, girl,’ he said, ‘but please, darlin’, don’t get your hopes up.’
Dan left the house and went to the railway arches where he and several other cabbies kept their taxis. He hadn’t been there for two days and was dreading what he might find. If the cab had been destroyed in one of the raids, then apart from Naomi’s paltry wage, their source of income was gone. When he reached the arches he found several of his mates there as well. All were relieved to see their cabs parked where they had left them, still undamaged.
‘May have problems finding a way through the streets today,’ said Jim Tucker. ‘The damage is something fierce, specially round the docks.’
‘Had to detour round Milton Road,’ said Bert Halford. ‘Unexploded bomb!’
‘Think I’ll head up west,’ Dan said. ‘Usually pick up a fare round Whitehall.’ The cabbies drove their taxis out from the shelter of the arches and set out to do a day’s work. The night’s bombing was over and, unbowed by the German air force, they were back in business.
Naomi cleared away the breakfast things and then put on her coat and went out. She’d chosen the school as her first port of call. Walking the route Lisa would have taken, she kept an eye out for any children she might know, but she recognised none. When she reached the school gates she looked into the playground. There were a few children arriving, but not the usual crowd waiting for the bell. Where are they all? she wondered. She very soon had her answer. When she asked to see Miss Hammond she was taken straight into the head’s office.
Miss Hammond looked pale and exhausted. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked wearily. ‘There’s no school today, we’re sending them all home again, so if you’ve come to say Lisa won’t be coming, don’t worry. Nor will anyone else. Not today.’
Naomi’s heart sank. ‘No,’ she murmured, ‘I wasn’t coming to say that. I was coming to ask you if you’d seen Lisa. She’s been missing since Saturday afternoon.’
If possible, Miss Hammond went even paler. ‘Not Lisa, too?’ she whispered. ‘I just heard that Hilda and Peter Lang and their parents were killed on Saturday night.’
Naomi drew a deep breath. ‘We think Lisa might have been with them.’
‘At the Langs’?’
‘We don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to find out. She was supposed to be round their house on Saturday, but maybe...’ Naomi’s voice broke on a sob, ‘we thought maybe she’d been on her way home and had sheltered somewhere.’
‘Perhaps she has,’ Miss Hammond said. ‘Have you tried asking at the hospitals?’
‘Doing the rounds straight after here.’ Naomi blew her nose. ‘Just thought I’d ask here first... case any of the other kids had seen her, or she’d been with someone else.’
‘I’ll ask around, Mrs Federman, and if I hear anything about her, I promise you’ll be the first to know. We’ve cancelled school for today; we’re trying to organise evacuation again for those that want it. London isn’t safe, and you can be sure there’s more of this to come. We can’t risk losing any more children.’
Naomi left the school and set out to try the local hospitals. She knew there were several hospitals in the area and if she’d been injured somewhere, Lisa could have been taken to any of them. She was determined to visit every one.
At each one she went first to the Casualty department and spoke to the receptionist on the desk. Casualty was still hectic, with more victims of the bombing still coming in, some
to be patched up and sent home again, others to stay in for more serious treatment.
The receptionists were all extremely busy dealing with the continuing influx of patients, but in each case they made time to look at the register to see if the name Lisa Becker was there.
‘Sorry, dear,’ said the woman behind the desk at Bart’s. ‘No one of that name been treated here.’
‘She’s only just turned fourteen,’ Naomi explained. ‘I just wondered if she’d been brought in, you know, without anyone knowing who she was.’
‘No unknown teenage girls brought in on Saturday,’ said the woman firmly. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you.’
‘Could I speak to someone who was here at the time?’ Naomi asked.
‘Madam,’ the receptionist’s voice became brusque, ‘you have no idea of the chaos we had here on Saturday night and it’s little better now. If the child’s name is not in the book as having been treated, then she wasn’t treated here.’ She looked over Naomi’s shoulder and called, ‘Next!’
It was the same at the London Hospital. ‘No, afraid not, no one of that name brought here.’
‘Any girls of about fourteen?’ asked Naomi desperately. ‘You might not have her name.’
‘No, the only child we had in on Saturday who was unidentified at first turned out to be called Smith and came from Harrogate. Sorry. Try King’s College...’
‘Try Guy’s...’
The Girl With No Name Page 13
