by Ann Turnbull
“Unless you’ve got matches,” said Sylvia.
Of course he had. A boy like Vic would always have matches. He kneeled down next to Josie and lit one, cupping his hand around the flame. But the wood was damp and refused to light. The splintered ends caught, flared briefly, blackened and went out.
“Useless,” said Vic. The remark seemed to encompass the whole arrangement, the girls, the game itself. “We’re breaking up that shed. You’ll see a real fire later on.”
But no sign of it appeared. The boys continued their wrecking, and the girls grew bored with the den and played tag, and then switched to stalking games which involved hanging around near the boys, running and squealing.
Suddenly Josie saw a familiar figure walking along a footpath at the edge of the bomb site.
“There’s Alice Hampton!” she said.
Alice still wore her navy-blue school coat and carried her satchel.
“She’ll be off to her lessons,” said Edith. “She has special coaching twice a week, so that she doesn’t get behind because of the war. I heard her telling Miss Hallam.”
“Special coaching!” Sylvia’s voice rose to a squawk. “She needs to be less brainy, that one!”
“Where’s she going, then?” asked Pam.
They took off across the bomb site in pursuit. Josie followed, feeling uneasy, wishing she had not mentioned seeing the girl.
“Hey! Alice! Brainbox!”
They stopped and surrounded her.
“Where are you going, Brainbox?”
Alice’s eyes darted from one to another of them. “Leave me alone.”
“We just want to know where you’re going,” said Pam. Her words were reasonable enough, but she was a hefty girl; intimidating.
“Have you come to play with us?” asked Sylvia, giggling at the idea.
“I’m going to a class. I’ll be late.” Alice started forward, but they kept alongside her. She began to run, her satchel bouncing on her back, her plait tossing from side to side.
They let her go, and drifted back to the bomb site.
“What’s the time?” asked Clare.
No one had a watch. They ran into the street where a church clock said a quarter past three.
“We’d better get home,” said Edith.
The group split up, to Josie’s relief. She’d enjoyed the games, but not the baiting of Alice Hampton; that reminded her too much of the way she’d been picked on at her own school in Greenwich.
She and Edith hurried home and hung up their coats.
“Quick,” said Edith. “The books.”
She opened her satchel and took out books, a pencil, a rubber, and laid them on the dining table. Josie did the same. Twenty minutes later, when her aunt came in, they were both doing their homework.
“Hallo, girls!” she said, putting her head around the door. “Busy? I see Miss Hallam has given you homework already, Josie!”
Josie blushed and looked down at her work. She felt ashamed at deceiving her aunt like this.
A few minutes later they heard Aunt Grace’s voice from the far end of the hall, at the back door. “Oh, Biddy! Poor puss! Didn’t Edith let you in? Hasn’t she fed you?”
“Damn,” said Edith softly.
Her mother appeared in the doorway with the neglected cat in noisy attendance.
“Has Biddy been outside all this time?” she asked. “You don’t seem to have fed her.”
“I forgot,” said Edith. “We were talking – and things. She can’t have miaowed much.”
“She was miaowing when I came in, poor puss,” said Aunty Grace.
Biddy had the offended air of a cat who has miaowed long and hard and been ignored. Now she kept close to Aunty Grace, following her eagerly as she went into the kitchen.
Edith grinned, and said in a low voice, “Remind me about Biddy next time.”
She clearly had no remorse, but Josie felt bad about the cat, about the deceit, about everything. When it began to get dark, she got up and offered to draw the blackout curtains around the flat.
“Oh, that would be a help, Josie,” said her aunt. “The bathroom one is a bit awkward; it’s a board that has to be hung on pegs. Edith will show you. I must get on with the dinner…”
She made shepherd’s pie for dinner, but there was hardly any meat in it. Josie didn’t like the mixture of turnips, carrots and beans, and Edith pulled a face when her mother wasn’t looking; but they all ate it – they were too hungry to be fussy.
Aunty Grace made a pot of tea – weak, to save the ration. As they cleared away the dishes she said, “Shall we have some music? Have a look at the gramophone records, Josie, and choose something you like.”
But at that moment an unearthly sound penetrated the house: the rising wail of the air-raid siren.
Chapter Five
Air Raid
“Bother!” said Aunty Grace. It was a strong word for her.
If she felt fear she didn’t show it. “Go down, girls. I’ll follow with the tea.” She began pouring the three cups of tea into a thermos flask.
Josie wanted to run. She always felt panic when she heard that sinister rising and falling wail. At home it meant a dash to the back door, where her mother kept a bag of nightclothes and other essentials ready packed, and then out into the cold dark garden.
But here there was no Anderson shelter.
“Down these steps.” Edith had seized Biddy before the startled cat could protest, and now she opened a door in the hall and switched on a torch. In the pale circle of light Josie saw steps curving down, and at the same time she heard the throb of approaching bombers. Edith went first with the cat, and Josie followed, turning right at the bottom into a large room full of shadowy objects.
Behind her came her aunt with the thermos of tea and what looked like a biscuit tin. When they were all assembled, Aunty Grace lit a paraffin lamp; and as the strong bright light intensified Josie was able to see around. The room was furnished with a folding table and chairs, and three camp beds made up with blankets and pillows. There was an old kitchen cupboard with the doors open, full of books and games. There were shelves of food: dried milk, orange juice, tins of baked beans, Spam and corned beef. And a basket of knitting, buckets of sand and water, a toolbox, a first-aid kit, candle holders, towels, a bowl to wash in… Aunty Grace was very thorough, Josie thought. She’d seen such rooms illustrated in her mother’s magazines, but Mummy had said no one would really do all those things.
She felt safer now. People said a cellar wasn’t as safe as an Anderson, that you could be buried alive if the house collapsed, but it felt strong. And she knew there were sandbags all around the walls and the doors were reinforced. Best of all, it looked comfortable.
“It’s like a whole separate house!” she said. “Our Anderson is horrible – all spidery and damp, and nowhere to move.”
“There’s another room too,” said Edith. She showed Josie. “This used to be the laundry in the olden days, when they had servants.”
She flashed the torch around and showed Josie a room full of junk: old bicycles, a pram, a decayed wicker chair, flowerpots. There was also a shallow stone sink and a fireplace and a big old tub that Edith said was once used for washing clothes.
“Switch that torch off, Edith,” her mother said. “Come and drink your tea.”
They sat down, and to Josie’s delight Biddy jumped onto her lap. She stroked the cat. “Don’t worry, Biddy. Hitler can’t get you here.”
As if to prove her wrong, there came the crump of a distant bomb, followed by a series of loud bangs that caused Biddy to leap off Josie’s lap and vanish under a bed.
They heard voices close by. Josie looked up, startled.
“That’s the upstairs tenants,” her aunt said. She nodded towards a closed door on the other side of the stairs. “We’ve agreed to share the basement for the duration. They come down the outside steps into their half.”
She stood up as someone knocked on the connecting door and a woma
n’s voice called, “Are you there, Mrs. Felgate?”
Josie’s aunt opened the door. A woman came in: tall, with neatly rolled fair hair and a look of natural authority about her. She wore an air-raid warden’s uniform and was holding her tin hat.
“Everything under control?” she asked. “No problems? Cat safe?”
“We’re quite all right, Miss Rutherford, thank you. I didn’t think you were on duty tonight?”
“I’m not, officially, but I phoned HQ to ask if they could do with any help. Seems Bertie Melford’s away, so I said I’d go in. I’m just off to do a check of the street.” Her glance took in Josie. “This must be your niece?”
“Yes, this is Josie – Josephine Bishop.”
Miss Rutherford shook Josie’s hand; she had a firm grip. “Pleased to meet you. Nice for Edith to have company.”
She put on her tin hat and went back through the doorway.
Then the other people came in: an elderly couple, the old man walking with the aid of a stick. There were more introductions.
“You remember Mr. and Mrs. Prescott, don’t you, Josie?”
Embarrassed by all this adult attention, Josie looked around for Edith, but her cousin was half under a bed, trying to persuade Biddy to come out.
The Prescotts and Felgates were evidently in the habit of spending air raids together. Mrs. Prescott fetched her knitting and a thermos and the two women settled down to talk while Mr. Prescott read a newspaper.
Mrs. Prescott turned to Josie. “I seem to recall that you had an elder brother, Josie?”
Josie took a breath. “Yes,” she said – and braced herself.
But before she could be asked any more, Edith erupted from under the bed. She grabbed at the cat, which leaped out of her arms, landed on the table, and skidded off, knocking over a cup of tea before disappearing under another bed.
Both girls collapsed in giggles. Mrs. Prescott dabbed at the spilled tea with a handkerchief, while Edith, still laughing, tried to entice the cat out again.
“Edith!” her mother remonstrated. “Leave Biddy where she is.”
“That cat doesn’t like me,” said Edith.
“I’m not surprised. You only bother with her when she doesn’t want you – and you forget to feed her. Why don’t you and Josie find a quiet game to play?”
Yes, thought Josie. Something that will keep us away from the grown-ups. Aunty Grace obviously hadn’t told her neighbours about Ted, but now, when they could all be here together for several hours, the two women would be sure to talk about their families. Mrs. Prescott might ask about Ted, and Josie knew that Aunty Grace would not tell a lie.
But at first, as Edith rummaged among the games, the adults talked about Miss Rutherford.
“I do admire her,” said Josie’s aunt. “She works so hard. She’s in that office in Whitehall all day; then she takes on the warden’s post in the evening.”
“She’s a very committed person,” agreed Mrs. Prescott.
The whistle of a descending bomb sounded overhead and Aunty Grace looked up sharply and exclaimed, “Edith! Girls! Come here!”
They all huddled close together as the crash came, somewhere nearby. Josie felt the walls shaking. Perhaps the whole house was shaking. It was an old house. She imagined the ancient timbers giving way, the floors falling through, the way she’d seen them sometimes in other houses after a night’s bombing: buildings collapsed in on themselves, reduced to a pile of wood and bricks. I wish Mummy was here, she thought; then I wouldn’t have to pretend I’m not scared.
“It’s not as near as it sounds,” said Aunty Grace.
Mr. Prescott agreed. “Belgravia, I’d say.”
“Battersea caught it last night,” said his wife. “Miss Rutherford was telling us.”
They heard the guns start up.
“Those are ours.”
They had all become expert at interpreting the sounds. When you could put a name to what was happening, Josie thought, you didn’t feel quite so defenceless.
The guns went quiet again, and Edith drew Josie away and showed her the packs of cards and puzzle books in the cupboard. They played Blackout! and Old Maid, and then Snap.
As they slapped down the cards Josie half listened to the adults’ conversation. Don’t mention Ted, she silently begged her aunt. Don’t let all that trouble follow me here.
“Snap!” Edith grinned at her. “You weren’t paying attention!”
Chapter Six
Bad Company
The next day Edith and Josie went off early to school, eager to find signs of the previous night’s bombing and to look for shrapnel. There was nothing nearby, but when they reached Pimlico Road they saw that a bomb had fallen in Elm Walk. The pavement was the usual mess of broken glass and brick debris, and the smell of cordite hung on the air. People were sweeping footpaths and pavements as if the glass were autumn leaves.
Josie spotted the tailfin of an incendiary bomb and picked it up.
“Oh! That’s good!” Edith scuffed around with her shoe, hoping for another souvenir. There were some bits of metal, but they were too large and jagged to take to school. “They’ll be gone by the time we get back,” she said.
An air-raid warden came and shooed them away. “You girls should be at school!”
Reluctantly they left and walked to Norton Terrace and into school. The girls there were all in a state of excitement about last night’s raid. One of them came from Elm Walk; and there had been another bomb in Belgravia, where some of the others lived. There were stories of windows blown in, dogs gone missing, incendiaries put out with a stirrup pump, shrapnel found next morning. Before Christmas the bombers had come every night, but this was the first raid for a week or so and everyone was talking about it.
They filed into the hall for Assembly. Miss Gregory, the headmistress, led the prayers. She told the girls to think of their fathers, uncles and brothers serving abroad, all of them risking their lives to protect Britain from invasion.
Edith leaned towards Josie. “All except Ted,” she whispered.
“Shut up!”
So much for Edith saying she doesn’t blame me, Josie thought; she still can’t resist a dig.
“We shall sing hymn number 261,” said Miss Gregory. “‘Bless’d are the pure in heart’.”
As they began singing Edith whispered again, “I didn’t mean it.”
No; but you said it, Josie thought.
She sang:
“The LORD, Who left the heavens
Our life and peace to bring,
To dwell in lowliness with men,
Their Pattern and their King…”
Ted had said to her, the day he went to his tribunal, “It’d be easier if I was religious – a member of some church, or a Quaker. They think no one else has a conscience. I’ll need to convince them that I truly believe we should not go to war; that I’m just not prepared to be part of it.”
“…Still to the lowly soul
He doth Himself impart…”
When Assembly was over and they went into the classroom, Josie took her seat next to Alice Hampton. She didn’t want to sit next to Alice now; she felt guilty and embarrassed. But if Alice resented her, she didn’t show it; neither was she any more friendly. Josie wanted to say, “It wasn’t me – wasn’t my idea,” but Alice gave her no way to make amends.
During the morning it began to rain, and by lunchtime it was far too wet and cold to go to the bomb site. Edith and Josie hurried home. Edith’s mother had left a shopping list for them, so they went to Oakley Street and bought groceries: dried milk, a tiny amount of butter and cheese, bacon, sugar, bread; and their own sweets ration: Josie chose aniseed balls and Edith had sherbet lemons. “Then we can share,” she said.
Josie enjoyed shopping in a place where she was not known. At home in Greenwich the shopkeepers were often cool towards her, and she would sometimes be aware of curious or hostile glances from other customers. Once, she had walked into Hollamby’s when the shop was c
rowded and full of the buzz of conversation, only for the place to fall silent at her appearance.
Aunty Grace came home and put the shopping away, shaking her head over the small size of the butter ration. She began cooking while the girls did their homework.
That night there was no bombing.
“Too cloudy,” said Aunty Grace. She was relieved, and sat knitting and listening to the wireless while Josie wrote a letter to her mother and Edith teased the cat.
The next afternoon – Wednesday – Edith said, “I’ve got Red Cross Cadets group at two, at the church hall. We’re learning first aid. Do you want to come?”
“If they’ll let me.”
They did; and the two of them spent the afternoon with a group of cadets and two women from the Red Cross, bandaging, splinting and resuscitating each other.
It was Thursday before they went to the bomb site again. This time the boys had the promised fire alight, fed with wood from the smashed-up shed. The girls stood around watching.
The usual boys were there: Vic; his younger brother Stan; and Ray, a big, excitable boy of about thirteen.
“You’ll get the warden after you, lighting that fire,” said Clare.
Stan laughed. “We’re not scared of him!”
Edith turned to Vic. He was the one whose attention the girls all vied for. “Did you get any shrapnel on Tuesday? We found a bit of an incendiary.”
“I found it,” said Josie. She brought it out of her pocket to show him.
But Vic was unimpressed. “I’ve got tons of those. Got a bit off a Dornier—”
“I’ve got a dial—”
“We found an unexploded bomb—”
A clamour of voices, male and female, had broken out. Ray waved his arms about, telling a story about a grenade he’d picked up and taken home. “Threw it in the backyard – whoosh! – bits of fence everywhere! Dad went mad!”
Vic drew Edith and Josie aside. “Have a look at this.”
Out of his pocket he brought a watch. Josie sensed instantly that it was stolen. It was a man’s watch, gold, expensive-looking, with a brown leather strap, and had a tiny second hand that went round in its own circle.
