The Girl With No Name

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘Ah, Billy, Charlotte. Glad you’re both here. Need to have a word before you go home, Charlotte. I saw Miss Everard, by the way. Said I’d run you home in the car, after tea.’

  The two children looked at each other and Billy said, ‘Yes, all right, Dad, we need to tell you something, too.’

  ‘All sounds very mysterious,’ Margaret said as she took a pot of stew out of the oven and dished up a portion for her husband.

  ‘No, not really,’ answered John between mouthfuls. ‘Just need to ask them a couple of things, that’s all.’

  When they had finished eating he looked round the table and asked, ‘Where did you two go this afternoon?’

  ‘Up over the top, Beacon way.’

  ‘Yes, I thought it must’ve been you.’

  ‘Been us, what?’ asked Billy.

  ‘Been you up towards the trig. With the dogs.’

  ‘Yes. We lost them for a while and we were looking for them when this bloke appeared and asked what I was doing. He was in uniform, RAF I think, and he had a gun.’

  ‘Yes,’ put in Charlotte, ‘and he was pointing it at Billy.’

  ‘He wasn’t one of your Home Guard blokes, was he, Dad?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. Now, Billy, Charlotte,’ John spoke seriously, ‘today you seem to have wandered rather close to a new military installation.’

  ‘What’s an installation?’ asked Billy, intrigued.

  ‘The military have taken over an area of land and no one is allowed to go there. We don’t know what they’re doing there, but that doesn’t matter. They’re doing something for the war effort and people have got to stay away. The man you met today was a sentry.’

  ‘But that bloke wasn’t guarding anything!’

  ‘You didn’t see what was there because he stopped you from going too close,’ pointed out his father. ‘It’s a military zone now and there are wide boundaries. Whoever is in command up there heard how close you’d been and rang Home Guard HQ. Did you say you came from Wynsdown?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Billy. ‘The man asked and I told him.’

  ‘Well, the message came through to Major Bellinger and we guessed it was you two because they mentioned the dogs. I said I’d speak to you.’

  ‘And tell us what they’re doing?’ asked Bill excitedly.

  ‘No, quite the opposite. I don’t know what they’re doing and we’re not going to discuss it. But, and this is important, you are not to tell anyone about what happened today, understand?’

  They both nodded and John smiled as he added, ‘It’s top secret and it has to stay top secret.’

  It didn’t, of course. Billy and Charlotte weren’t the only ones to be warned off and before long everyone was talking about it. Several people went to look and all sorts of rumours began to fly.

  ‘What d’you think they’re doing?’

  ‘Enemy alien camp?’

  ‘POWs?’

  ‘I heard it was an explosives factory.’

  ‘Secret weapon plant. Had it from the brother of a bloke who’s working there.’

  ‘They’re training spies. You’ll see. Keep our eyes open for them.’

  ‘How will we know?’

  ‘We won’t, not if they’re any good.’

  ‘I reckon it’s another anti-aircraft battery, to help protect Bristol and Weston.’

  ‘Bet the Home Guard know.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t tell them.’

  There was certainly activity, men coming and going, lorries arriving and departing, but usually at night. No one knew what it was all about but speculation was rife.

  ‘You reckon they’re building a POW camp, Dad?’ Billy asked his father one dinner time.

  ‘I don’t know what they’re doing,’ John Shepherd maintained. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But you’re number two in the Home Guard. Can’t you ask Major Bellinger? He must know.’

  ‘He may do, but if he does, I doubt if he’d tell me or anyone else.’

  ‘There’s loads of men working on it, whatever it is,’ Billy said. ‘The Morgan twins went to look and saw them. Got shouted at by a guard with a huge Alsatian, so they ran for it. Must be very secret, mustn’t it, Dad, if they’re guarding it with dogs?’

  His father shrugged. ‘Which is probably why we don’t know nothing about it.’

  Billy remained intrigued, but though he had the feeling that his father knew more than he was saying, he was unable to prise any more out of him. Rumours continued to flourish, but no one knew for sure what was happening in the military zone. Except Major Bellinger.

  Peter Bellinger had been informed about what was going on because there could come a day when it affected all the nearby villages. He had been called in to the local Home Guard HQ and had the situation explained to him.

  ‘Last raids on Bristol were pretty bad,’ the CO said. ‘Once the pathfinders have come over and dropped their flares, the bombers just home in on the fires to drop their load.’

  Peter Bellinger nodded.

  ‘So we’re going to fool them.’

  ‘Fool them?’ Bellinger exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. We’re laying out a mock town up on the hill. They’ve modelled it on Bristol; designed a decoy city with fake streets and factories and even railway yards. If they’re heading for Bristol again we’ll put it into action, allowing a little light, the occasional flame to escape as the pathfinders come over. With a little luck they’ll drop their flares on the decoy and the following bombers will do the same with their bombs. Should save Bristol a pasting!’

  Peter Bellinger stared at him in amazement. ‘Do you think it’ll work?’ he asked.

  ‘Better bloody work,’ came the reply. ‘It’s taken enough time, effort and money. The thing is, if it does, it may put some of the nearby villages at greater risk. You and your men must patrol your village at night and enforce the blackout rigorously. If there’s the slightest sliver of light in the wrong place it could defeat the object of the exercise and also destroy your village.’

  ‘But from the air, does it really mimic Bristol?’ Peter Bellinger couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

  ‘So I’m told,’ replied the CO. ‘Haven’t been up to see myself. The thing is, your job is two-fold. You have to enforce the blackout and you have to ensure that no one from your area wanders over there to have a look. The perimeter is well guarded, but we must ensure that no civilians get wind of what’s going on.’

  ‘They’ll know straight away if the decoy works,’ pointed out the major. ‘Mendips’ll suddenly be bombed to bits.’

  ‘With careful information management that can be passed off as a German miscalculation... which of course it will be. There’s no need for the general public to know about the decoy.’

  Major Bellinger was sworn to secrecy and so he returned home unable to share any of this amazing information even with his wife. He simply had to tell his men that no one was to be allowed to approach the new military zone.

  ‘If you see anyone hanging round over there,’ he said, ‘then you arrest them and bring them to me.’

  ‘But what is going on over there, sir?’ asked Bert Gurney.

  ‘I have no idea, Gurney. Our orders are simply to ensure no one goes near the place. It’s all part of an exercise we’ve been ordered to join.’ It was the only explanation he would give.

  His men accepted this and patrols were set up to monitor the blackout and to keep any inquisitive folk away from the military zone.

  It was the early hours of a Sunday morning some weeks later that the air raid sirens began to wail. Though there was no moon, the sky was clear and it wasn’t long before the roar of approaching aircraft and the blast of ack-ack could be heard. The Home Guard were out in force, checking all the houses in the village and the outlying farms to be sure no lights were showing. Billy and his mother, asleep at Charing Farm, woke with a start and Billy hurriedly pulled on some trousers and a thick jersey over his pyjamas.

  ‘I’m going out to the barn,
Mother,’ Billy said. ‘Dad’s out on patrol and someone should be in there with the last of the ewes. This noise’ll terrify them.’

  Reluctantly his mother agreed and Billy hurried out across the yard. The thunder of the planes filled the sky now and as he reached the barn he looked up. Coming in from the south, the planes flew in formation, dark sinister shapes against the night sky.

  Heading for Bristol again, he thought as he watched them. Hope Jane’ll be all right. The first flight were almost out of sight when they seemed to release a trail of lights. Bright flares spiralled downwards, erupting into brilliant yellow and white fires, targets for the bombers following in their wake.

  ‘They’re dropping short!’ Billy cried as he watched the incendiaries burst into flame somewhere beyond the ridge on the distant hillside. Anti-aircraft guns, dug in somewhere up on the hill, pounded away at the incoming planes, blasting the sky with shells in an effort to bring down the enemy, or at least to drive them away.

  The first aircraft peeled away, their job as pathfinders done, but the roar of engines didn’t fade as another flight passed overhead and, homing in on the incendiary-lit target, off-loaded their bombs. Explosions cracked the air as the waves of bombers emptied their bomb bays before swinging south again towards France.

  Billy wasn’t the only one watching, fascinated, as the Luftwaffe mistook its target and bombed the open hillside. The bombing sounded so close that people from most of the villages that nestled among the hills were at their windows, staring incredulously as the last of the raiders flew away. How had the Germans made such an incredible mistake? Surely they must have been aiming for Bristol. No one could speak of anything else.

  In Wynsdown they gathered outside the church for morning service, exchanging ideas as to what could have happened.

  ‘How did they come to miss Bristol like that?’ Billy asked his father as they went out to the sheep. ‘You were out on patrol, you must’ve seen the whole raid from out there.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied John. ‘It’s the pathfinders must’ve got it wrong. They drop their lights and the bombers drop their bombs. If the pathfinders get it wrong, like last night, then the bombers do, too. Just thank God they did. Saved Bristol from a rough night.’

  ‘Thank God indeed,’ echoed his wife, her thoughts flying to Jane working in Bristol.

  Billy thought about the bombs. There must be huge damage after such a heavy bombardment. He knew roughly where they had landed and was even more intrigued.

  ‘You know what, Dad? I reckon they were targeting that military zone. P’raps it wasn’t a mistake. P’raps they knew there was something top secret there and bombed it specially.’ He shook his head. ‘The poor buggers underneath it all. Whatever it was, it must be destroyed now.’

  It was a plausible explanation and one which many local people came up with. Somehow the Germans had learned that there was a top-secret project and had set out to destroy it, but, surprisingly, the army land was still occupied and so they must have failed.

  All built safely underground was the perceived wisdom, so the project, whatever it might be, was safe.

  ‘Must have been told by a spy,’ said Bert Gurney. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it? There’s spies about, fifth column.’

  29

  ‘My dad says there’s a German spy round here,’ Tommy Gurney announced to the school bus two days later. ‘He says there must be, cos how else did they know where to bomb?’

  ‘But they missed Bristol,’ pointed out Fred Moore.

  ‘Yeah, but maybe they didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Didn’t miss Bristol. Maybe they hit their target. My dad says that they must’ve knowed that there was a top-secret place up there and that’s what they was aiming for.’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly top secret,’ put in Stephen Morgan. ‘Me and Sid went over that way the other day and we was chased off by a man with a big dog.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sid agreed. ‘Couldn’t get close enough to nothing, so must be top, top secret. Them Germans’d want to bomb that, wouldn’t they.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,’ Tommy averred. ‘My dad says someone must’ve tipped ’em off. Someone what knew it was there. Someone who’s German!’ He stood up and looked round the bus. ‘And who do we know who’s German?’

  ‘Sit down, Tommy Gurney,’ Sam roared from the front of the bus. ‘No standing up while we’re moving.’

  Tommy flopped back down on to his seat, but he could see he’d made his point and he grinned wolfishly at Charlotte, sitting pink-faced beside Clare halfway down the bus.

  Clare turned to face him. ‘You talking about Charlotte?’ she demanded.

  ‘Anyone else we know German?’

  ‘That’s just stupid, Tommy Gurney,’ Clare shouted at him. ‘How would Charlotte get a message to Hitler?’

  ‘That’s what we’d all like to know,’ shouted Sidney Morgan. ‘Spies have ways.’

  ‘Yeah, they send messages in code!’ cried his brother.

  ‘Charlotte’s not a spy!’ cried Clare.

  ‘How do you know? You don’t know. She might be.’

  ‘Nobody knows where she came from, do they? Just turned up with you vaccies.’

  ‘She could be fifth column,’ called out Ernie Clegg. ‘She’s probably been telling them all about us ever since she got here.’

  ‘She’s fourteen,’ Clare said dismissively. ‘What Nazi is going to use a fourteen-year-old as a spy?’

  ‘She’s German,’ stated Tommy, undeterred. ‘She’s German and we hate Germans, don’t we?’

  There was a murmur of assent all around the bus.

  ‘So,’ continued Tommy, triumphant, ‘we don’t want nothing to do with her.’

  ‘You’re just stupid,’ declared Clare. ‘A stupid, stupid boy!’

  ‘And we don’t want nothing to do with you, neither, stupid vaccie!’

  By the time they got off the bus, Charlotte and Clare were on their own. All the other children preferred to side with Tommy Gurney, seeing safety in numbers. Whether Charlotte was a spy or not they neither knew nor cared, but she was German and therefore the enemy and fair game.

  For Charlotte it was a return to the early days in London. She remembered only too well the days back at Francis Drake Secondary, Roger Davis and his gang with their taunting and bullying; until, that was, Harry had hurtled to her rescue, fists flying. Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of Harry. She could do with him now. This time, however, Charlotte knew that she had to stand up for herself; there was no Harry to come to her rescue.

  She got through the day with pale-faced determination, ignoring the collective spite of the other children. Clare stayed with her in the playground in the morning, but like Hilda, she fell victim by association. On the bus home she sat with Charlotte, but it was an uncomfortable journey for them both as the jeering continued.

  That evening Charlotte’s spirits were low, her face pale, and a haunted look in her eyes. She’d become used to being part of Wynsdown. That she was German had ceased to be important; she was just Charlotte Smith, who lived with Miss Everard and was popular with the girls at school.

  ‘What’s the matter, Charlotte?’ Miss Edie asked over their supper. ‘You seem a bit down. Aren’t you feeling well?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  Miss Edie’s lips tightened. ‘No, you’re not. Come on, tell me what’s the matter.’ She waited, watching Charlotte struggling with her decision. Clearly something was wrong but unless Charlotte confided in her, Miss Edie knew she could do nothing but wait.

  Her silence was rewarded when, with a deep sigh, Charlotte said, ‘They say at school that a German spy told the bombers about that army place.’

  ‘So?’ prompted Miss Edie.

  ‘They say it was me.’

  ‘You!’ Miss Edie gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, my dear.’

  ‘It is not ridiculous if you are me and no one speaks to you.’
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br />   ‘Is that what’s happening?’ Miss Edie’s laughter died as she saw the misery on Charlotte’s face.

  ‘It was Tommy Gurney’s idea, I think,’ said Charlotte and she explained what was being said about her.

  ‘I’ll come down there tomorrow and speak to the headmaster.’

  ‘For me... better not,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’ll stop soon.’

  Yes it will! thought Edie. If she doesn’t want me to go to the head, I won’t, but I will get it stopped.

  That evening, while Charlotte was doing her homework, Edie went out.

  ‘I shan’t be long,’ she said, ‘I just have to see the vicar about something. Don’t forget your piano practice if I’m held up.’

  Charlotte, struggling with an algebra problem, just nodded and Edie went to the vicarage.

  ‘Is the vicar in?’ she asked as soon as Avril opened the door.

  ‘He’s in his office, but he’s got Peter Bellinger and John Shepherd with him. I don’t suppose he’ll be long. Would you like to wait?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Edie replied. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to the major as well, so perhaps I can kill two birds with one stone.’

  They waited in the kitchen and Avril, always someone unhappy with an uneasy silence, said, ‘Nancy Bright was telling me that you used to sing in the church choir.’

  Edie gave a knowing laugh. ‘Well, Nancy Bright would, wouldn’t she?’

  Avril smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid we were talking about the choir and your name came up. It’s a pity you don’t still come and sing. We’re a bit thin on the ground these days and Nancy says you’ve got a lovely voice.’

  ‘Does she now?’ Miss Edie’s face was hard for a moment and then she said, ‘So’s she, for that matter!’

  ‘Would you like to rejoin?’ Avril asked tentatively.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Before either of them could say more, the door opened and the vicar came in with John Shepherd and Peter Bellinger.

  ‘Miss Everard! What a lovely surprise,’ the vicar cried. ‘We were just going to have a drink before Peter and John went. Can I tempt you to one too?’