by Peggy Savage
Charlie felt a moment of shock. He had been so engrossed, so filled with his achievement, that he had forgotten everything but the joy of the moment. He hadn’t imagined the obvious – that he was being trained to dive and twist and weave with a hungry German fighter on his tail. He was instantly sobered. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
His mother hugged him when he got home, smiling, but he could sense her tenseness. ‘Well done, darling,’ she said, but her mouth trembled.
‘I’ve had a letter from one of the chaps at college,’ he said. ‘Arthur Blake. He’s asked me if I’d like to go and stay with him in Manchester for a few days.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I suppose he flies too?’
‘Yes,’ Charlie said, ’but he’s doing it just to get more experience with aero engines. He’s an engineer. He knows how everything works. He’s offered to give me a few tips.’
‘I see,’ Amy said, keeping her voice carefully neutral. ‘I suppose that would be very useful.’
‘Yes, it would.’ It was time to tell her, he thought. Things didn’t look good. No point in hedging now. ‘It would help me to get into the RAF.’ He saw the colour drain from her face and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘That’s what I want to do, Mum, if war breaks out.’
She leant her head against him ‘I know, Charlie. Why else would you be flying?’
‘It’s great, Mum,’ he said. ‘The best thing I’ve ever done.’
She reached up and kissed his cheek and he saw the tears in her eyes. ‘I know, darling. Go and see your friend. The more you know the safer you’ll be.’
‘It’ll be all right, Mum,’ he said. ‘We’re better than they are.’
She didn’t reply. For a few moments he hung about, awkward, not knowing what to say, then he went up to his room and sat on the bed. He hadn’t thought much about death. Life had been unquestioned and unquestioning. But if war came, the possibility was there. The possibility was always there, but war was different. So far no one had actually been trying to kill him. If he died, his parents would still have Tessa, and she would see them through, she was the practical one. He smiled. Practical to a fault in some ways. As far as Tessa was concerned, if you couldn’t get it into a test tube, it didn’t exist. It wouldn’t occur to her to question the morality of this war. Enemies were there to be defeated, be they disease, or want, or Germans.
We’re the wrong way round, he thought wryly, Tessa and me. But ever since his first solo, he had felt an absolute and pure determination to defend what he loved. He was under no illusions. War was a bloody and cruel business. History had taught him that. He did not see Agincourt or the English and the American civil wars as a kind of sanitized Hollywood adventure. He was aware of the cost and the pain. You couldn’t spend your life with two doctors and not be aware of those two realities. Pain and death could not be romanticized. And yet, in a way, he thought that Arthur was right. If he wanted to see it that way, he had been handed his steed and his sword.
He took the train from Euston. It was crowded, even more crowded than the Cambridge train when term started. There were uniforms everywhere, mostly army, and a few navy and RAF. There was conscription now, he remembered, for men over twenty. He was only nineteen. It doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll volunteer – get in on the ground floor. He looked at the faces of the young men in their new uniforms and boots. They seemed mostly to be unperturbed. The older men in uniform – regulars, he supposed – looked, not pleased exactly, but confident, determined, casting steely, sardonic eyes on the raw recruits.
The train got more and more crowded as they travelled north. The voices changed, to accents he sometimes had to strain to catch. Homburgs and trilbies gave way to flat caps. They rolled through beautiful countryside, and then, at intervals, through the cheerless back streets of city suburbs.
They arrived at Manchester Piccadilly station in the early afternoon. Arthur was waiting for him. ‘We’ll get the bus to Trafford Park,’ he said. ‘There’s a bus station just down the road.’ Charlie looked about him. It looked much the same as any other big city, he thought, greyer than London perhaps, and the streets not so wide. There were a few fine buildings, big department stores, well-dressed women. Then as the bus took them away from the city centre the scene slowly changed. The streets became narrower and grubbier. There were groups of men standing on street corners, doing nothing, smoking, watching the bus go by with empty eyes.
They got off the bus at the end of a long, grey street and walked to Arthur’s house. The front doors of the houses opened directly on to the street. Here and there, women in flowered aprons sat on stools or hard chairs on the pavement, chattering, laughing, fanning themselves with bits of paper. There seemed to be children everywhere, some of them, he saw with surprise, hardly more than babies. No cars, he saw; not even a bicycle. The children seemed to be alone.
‘Where are their mothers?’ he asked.
‘Inside,’ Arthur said, ‘doing their housework or baking or something. The older kids look after the little ones, and there’s always an adult about somewhere. It’s very neighbourly.’
They arrived at Arthur’s house and he opened the door. ‘My mam’ll be in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Come through.’
They walked down a short narrow hallway to the kitchen at the back. Arthur’s mother was making bread. She wiped her floury arms on her apron and shook Charlie’s hand. ‘Pleased to met you, Charlie,’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘I expect you’d like a cup of tea.’
‘Thank you,’ Charlie said. ‘I’d love one.’
‘Sit down then.’ She bustled about, pouring water into a teapot from a black iron kettle on the range. ‘Have a piece of currant pastry,’ she said. ‘I’ve just made it.’
‘Thank you,’ Charlie said again. They sat down at the kitchen table. Charlie took a bite of the currant pastry, aware that Arthur was watching him. It melted in his mouth, crumbly and sweet. ‘That’s the best pastry I’ve ever had,’ he said.
Arthur’s mother smiled delightedly. ‘Good lad. Always had a good hand with pastry. Have some more.’
Arthur laughed. ‘You’ve made a good impression, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Praise my mam’s pastry and you’re a friend for life.’
When they had finished, Arthur took him up to his room. It was simply furnished, brown lino on the floor and a rag rug by the bed. There was an iron bedstead with spotless white sheets and in the corner, a washstand with a large jug and a bowl.
Arthur picked up the jug. ‘I’ll get you some hot water,’ he said. He looked about him. ‘Not what you’re used to, I expect,’ he said.
‘It’s grand,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll be very comfortable.’
‘The lavatory is out in the yard,’ Arthur said, ‘and there is a bath in one of the bedrooms. My dad put it in, in one of his flush periods. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Charlie sat down on the bed, looking about him at the gleaming lino and the sparkling window. This, he thought, must be the cleanest house he’d ever seen.
Arthur came back with the water. ‘Arthur,’ Charlie said, ‘I’m very grateful for this. It’s very kind of your parents to have me. If there’s anything I can do.…’
‘If you mean money,’ Arthur said, ‘forget it. My dad’s in work, and my mother would be upset.’ Charlie nodded and coloured a little. ‘Come down when you’re ready,’ Arthur said, ‘and I’ll show you round.’
Charlie washed his hands and face, and brushed his hair and went downstairs.
‘We’ll go and have a walk round,’ Arthur said. ‘Show you the sights.’
They walked down one long, grey street after another. The doorsteps, Charlie noticed, looked scrubbed clean, many of them edged with a neat white band.
‘White stone,’ Arthur said. ‘The women put it round the steps after they’ve scrubbed them. ‘Makes it look neat.’ He gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘They often scrub their bit of the pavement as well,’ he said. ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.’ H
e paused for a moment. ‘It’s the only way most of them have of keeping their dignity.’
They walked on. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Charlie asked.
‘My sister’s married and my brother’s just joined the army,’ Arthur said. ‘Just in time to get his head blown off.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll meet my father tonight. You’ll have to be prepared for my father. He’s Labour to the bone. You’ll be getting a party political lecture probably.’
A group of children ran shrieking along the street, many of them, Charlie noticed, in ill-fitting old clothes, and some of them without shoes. ‘Look at them,’ Arthur said. ‘It’s a disgrace.’
‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘It is.’ He was aware of a deep shame.
They came to a small municipal park, some green lawns, sparsely planted flower-beds and a tree or two.
‘Here we have the only breathing space,’ Arthur said with heavy sarcasm, ‘for the workers to relax. But can the children play here? No.’ He pointed to the signs: KEEP OFF THE GRASS. ‘And there’s a park keeper employed to make sure that they do. Can’t have the workers’ children running about on the grass or climbing the trees, can we? They might get above themselves.’
Charlie felt the isolation of the place. This empty park seemed to encapsulate the whole poverty-stricken desolation of it all. Instead of being a place of peace and beauty and colour and childhood joy, it seemed only to be an open wound in this grey place, a sop, grudging and ugly. It seemed significant to him that there was no one there. He thought of the Round Pond at home in Kensington Gardens, of the children with their mothers or their nannies sailing their little boats, riding their little tricycles, running on the grass. Truly a different world. And still the women cleaned and baked and strove to keep up standards, and the children laughed and played with whatever scraps they could find. It shouldn’t be like this, he thought. It shouldn’t be like this.
‘We’d better get back and do some work,’ Arthur said. ‘That’s what you’ve come for, isn’t it? We’ll start with Bernoulli’s theorem and the theory of flight, construction and function of controls, and then we’ll do the engine. I’ve got an old motorcycle engine in the yard that we can take to pieces. Give you some idea.’
‘I’m very grateful, Arthur,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve got to get into the RAF.’
‘Oh, you’ll get in,’ Arthur said. ‘That’s what the university squadrons were for. They’ll bite your hand off.’ He kicked a stone and it went bouncing down the street. ‘They’ll go through pilots like a hot knife through butter.’
Charlie glanced at him, wondering if he meant what he said. ‘You sound very pessimistic.’
‘Realistic, Charlie. But knowledge is strength, so they say. So we’ll give you a bit extra.’
Arthur’s father came home from work in the evening. He was short and stocky, his hair cut very short. He shook Charlie’s hand vigorously. Arthur’s mother produced a large meat-and-potato pie and peas. She gave a smaller one to Arthur. ‘Just go and give this to Mrs Green,’ she said. ‘She’s the old lady next door,’ she said to Charlie. ‘She hasn’t got much.’
They sat at the kitchen table and Arthur’s mother gave them each an enormous piece of pie. Charlie was suddenly very hungry. The scents of meat and potatoes and gravy and Mrs Blake’s excellent pastry rose up.
‘So you’re going to join up, Charlie?’ Mr Blake said. ‘Going to be a flyer.’
Charlie nodded. ‘If I can get in. Arthur’s giving me some tips.’
‘Your parents are doctors, are they?’
‘Yes, both of them. They were in France in the last war.’
‘War,’ Mr Blake said. ‘There’s one thing if it happens – everybody will have jobs, even if it’s only killing Germans.’
‘That’s a horrible thought,’ Charlie said.
‘Aye, it’s a horrible world, Charlie. Look at the state we’re in. I’m lucky, I’ve got a job, but thousands haven’t. Look at the old lady next door. Wouldn’t get enough to eat if the neighbours didn’t help. And on this other side of us,’ he pointed with his fork, ‘eight children and out of work. Do you know what goes on?’
Arthur caught Charlie’s eye and smiled, but his eyes were dark and thoughtful.
‘The means test people come round,’ Mr Blake went on, ‘to see if there’s anything they can be forced to sell to reduce the dole. They ask if the baby’s breast fed, and if it is they knock off two shillings a week. Hundreds of boys try to get into the army to get fed, and a few years ago sixty-six per cent were rejected on medical grounds. Medical grounds! Starvation, more like.’
‘I think Charlie’s had enough of that, William,’ Mrs Blake said.
‘It’s all right,’ Charlie said. ’My parents feel the same and so do I. There has to be a better way. I was in Berlin a few months ago. There didn’t seem to be much poverty, but I suppose I wouldn’t have been shown that. They seem very prosperous, but there’s something wrong there, something nasty.’
‘I know,’ Mr Blake said. He held his knife and fork upright on the table. ‘The British aren’t like that. We don’t go in for extremes. We’ll never be communist and Mosley and his blackshirts just make us laugh. But we want justice, and by God, after this war is over we’ll get it, or we’ll know the reason why.’
‘Well, there’s Arthur,’ Mrs Blake said quietly. ‘And boys and girls like him. They’re going to change things.’
Mr Blake looked at his son, his face filled with pride and affection. ‘That he will,’ he said. ‘Clever. First person in the family to go to university, and Cambridge at that. He’ll change things.’ Charlie glanced at Arthur’s mother and saw her face fall and twist, love and pride replaced by raw, terrible fear.
Tessa arrived in the casualty department and was introduced by her father.
‘We haven’t much in at the moment,’ the casualty officer said. ‘A lady with a broken wrist – classic Colles fracture, fall on the outstretched hand. You can help me put on a back slab.’ He showed her the X-ray.
‘I’ve only just finished first year,’ Tessa said, ‘so I don’t know anything really. But I would like to be of some use if there’s a war.’
‘You’re at Cambridge,’ Dan said. ‘You won’t have to do anything except get on with your work. No one would be depraved enough to bomb those irreplaceable old buildings.’ Why are we talking about this, he thought, as if it’s real?
‘You don’t know that, Dad,’ she said, ‘and I’ll be at home in the vacations.’
‘No,’ was Dan’s first thought. ‘Not Tessa. Not both of them. She was just starting her life. Did it have to start like this? He thought of those girls in 1914, the things they had done, things they could never have imagined in those pre-war years; Amy had been there beside him, operating on the endless streams of men with ghastly wounds. He thought of the gently raised girls nursing in France, driving ambulances, carrying messages on motorbikes through the soaked and shell-rutted lanes, of the horror and the carnage. Did Tessa have to see that? He glanced at her. She seemed so calm. He comforted himself with the fact that she was only in the pre-clinical part of her training. She would be in Cambridge for the next two years. He would not even think of what might happen if the Germans invaded.
‘I think we’ll start with the basics,’ the casualty officer said cheerfully. ‘Controlling haemorrhage. How much anatomy have you done?’
‘Only the arm and the leg,’ she said, ‘and a bit of head and neck.’
He smiled. ‘That’s a good start. ‘You’ll have a good idea where most of the major arteries are.’
Sara went to tea with Kathy again. They sat in the garden in the sunshine, drinking Kathy’s mother’s home-made lemonade.
‘My mother says she’s going to send me away if there’s a war,’ Kathy said, ‘so I won’t get bombed.’
Sara stared at her, round-eyed. ‘Away where?’
‘I’ve got an aunty in the country,’ Kathy said, ‘in Kent. My mum says there won’t be any bombs t
here.’
Sara felt a moment of panic. ‘But what about school?’
‘My mum says that doesn’t matter – I can go to school there. She just wants me out of London.’
Sara was shocked. She had never even thought of this possibility, that she might be sent away, deprived of her school when she had only just started, of everything she wanted to do. ‘Well, I’m not going,’ she said, ‘whatever they do.’
‘You might have to,’ Kathy said. ‘They might make you. I could ask my mum if you could come with me to Kent. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
Sara went home on the bus, deeply upset. ‘Mum,’ she said, as soon as she stepped into the house, ‘You won’t send me away, will you?’
Nora looked puzzled. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Kathy says her mother is going to send her away if there’s a war. You won’t send me away, will you?’
Nora paled. ‘I don’t know yet, dear,’ she said. ‘It depends what happens.’ She looked at Sara for a few moments. There was no use any more in pretending that nothing was happening. The child seemed to have grown up suddenly, her face set and resolute.
‘I’m not going,’ Sara said. ‘I’m not leaving home and I’m not leaving school.’
‘I just want you to be safe,’ Nora said. ‘If the government thinks the children ought to be sent out of London, you’ll have to go. They know more than we do. I won’t have you being in danger. I couldn’t live with that.’
Sara went up to her room. She laid her books out in an orderly row on her little table. For the first time, she felt frightened, not of a war or anything the Germans could do, but of the possibility that she would have to leave her school, be prevented from doing her studies, from getting to university. ‘I’m not going,’ she said out loud. ‘They can’t make me.’
Chapter Eight
