Christmas on the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  She could just make out Giles’s smiling expression. However, the smile did not reach his eyes, which were wide open, and she quickly gathered that the light behind the blue eyes, making them sparkle only mo­ments ago, had now gone.

  She gasped in horror. What should she do now? There was no sign of life in the man who meant everything to her. Gloria was vaguely aware of a woman screaming. Then she felt a cold sting on her cheek and the screaming stopped! The screams had come from her. Now there were two men looming over her.

  ‘He’s gone, lass,’ the older of the two men said as he moved Giles’s body out of the doorway. Gloria stood in the recess, hardly able to take it in.

  She watched, barely able to comprehend, hardly able to think straight while the warden put two fingers under Giles’s chin and sadly shook his head. ‘The shockwave sucks the life right out of them! Gone. Not a mark or a blemish!’ They appeared to have forgotten Gloria was still there in the shadows of the shop doorway.

  ‘This chap’s lucky. Sometimes it rips the clothes right off their back and catapults them into walls. I’ve heard of this in London.’ His tone was almost conversational. ‘A bus full of people, just sitting there, all looking ahead like they were waiting for the next stop.’ He shook his head as the younger warden hung on his every word.

  ‘No way, Geoff!’ the young man said, obviously impressed. ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘All dead, lad, every last one of them,’ the older man said. ‘Blast, it were. Blast. Never seen it before now, mind. But I’d stake our Gertie’s life on this being blast!’ He bent and closed Giles’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry, lass, there’s nothing else we can do for him now. Best we get you somewhere safe while I try and find an ambulance.’

  He guided Gloria past Giles’s lifeless body, and turned to the younger warden saying, in a low voice, ‘I doubt there’s any going spare right now!’ The girl looked too shaken to take in anything he was saying.

  Another explosion brought more of the building down, and Gloria’s fine-tuned sense of survival caused her to realise that if she wanted to live, she had to get out of there now.

  She took one last look at the man who had given his own life for her before she allowed herself to be hurried away.

  ‘Come on, lass, let’s get you down to the shelter!’ Gloria, dazed and feeling sick now, stumbled over masonry and rubble, her torn gown flapping in the sleety wind as she made her way to the shelter, her body trembling with the horror of it all.

  ‘There’s not a mark on him!’ Gloria was talking to herself. ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’

  ‘It’s shock, is that,’ said the warden to his pal as he guided her towards the shelter. ‘It can send them doolally, you know.’

  ‘He sacrificed his life to save mine.’ Her hands covered her face as she tried so desperately to block from her mind the sight of Giles’s lifeless body, and then she began to cry. ‘I’ve got to find Nancy! I’ve got to tell her …’

  ‘Aye, love,’ said the warden, ‘and you will, later, but now you’ve got to get to shelter.’

  Utter devastation was all around. Cars lay on their roofs like toys tossed aside. There were huge holes where bullets and bombs had broken the roads and pavements. The sky glowed an eerie orange as incendiary bombs caused fires all over the city.

  ‘The overhead railway has been brought down!’ the warden continued. ‘I’ve just come from fire watching on top of the Liver Building’s roof.’ He looked grave. ‘A circle of light is surrounding the whole city as far as the eye can see. The whole of the docks to the north end are ablaze! Gladstone Dock is a come-and-get-me beacon to the enemy now. If they don’t get it under control soon, the Borough will go the same way as Coventry! It’s like Dante’s Inferno down there.’

  ‘Without a shadow of a doubt – God help them!’ said the other warden.

  But all that Gloria could think was that Giles was dead, and she thought that a part of her was dead now too.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘Mrs Kennedy! Mrs Kennedy!’ Dolly Feeny coughed as thick black smoke from the burning roof began to seep down to the street. She had been in the shelter only for a few moments when someone said the corner shop was on fire. Dolly’s newly learned fire-fighting skills came to the fore. The shop door had been locked when she’d got there and she’d had to grab a young warden to put his shoulder to the door and burst it open.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ Dolly called as she climbed the ladder to the loft, having assured the spotty youth in an ARP uniform that was far too big for him that she could cope alone. ‘I noticed you were not in the shelter,’ she said, popping her head through the square opening to see Winnie Kennedy scrambling on all fours to gather valuables.

  ‘I checked all the rooms and the cellar but you weren’t there.’ Dolly did not fail to notice the well-stocked storeroom, hidden, no doubt, from prying eyes and probing questions. And, even though Christmas was around the corner, Dolly knew the kind of luxury goods in Winnie’s cellar were very hard to come by lawfully right now.

  ‘You’d better get yourself down to the shelter. It’s not safe in here.’ Dolly had seen the flames licking out of the roof of the shop while she was hurrying from the shelter after making sure the children were safe with Violet. As the elected auxiliary fire warden for Empire Street, Dolly had a duty to make sure everybody was safe, and that all incendiary bombs were put out before they were allowed to take hold.

  Hurrying up the street from the shelter, she’d noticed the incendiaries had gone right through Winnie Kennedy’s roof and smoke was pouring out.

  Having paid attention in her training, Dolly was keenly aware the incendiaries and the chemical bombs, with their brilliant white light designed to start signal fires, would alert enemy bombers. One large bomb could, and did drop hundreds of incendiaries, and Dolly knew there were many large bombs being dropped tonight.

  Being only a few hundred yards from the docks, Dolly knew everybody was in peril. But it was now clear by the ever-increasing number of fire-fighters and the increasingly determined sound of the ack-ack guns that people were not prepared to sit around wondering what time they would meet their doom. Their Maker would just have to wait until the fires were out! The people of the dock road would do all they could to stop the enemy taking their houses and their livelihoods – or they would die trying!

  ‘You just get yourself down to the shelter now, Mrs Kennedy,’ Dolly ordered. She could not believe the stupidity of this woman who would rather save a few paltry insurance policies than her own skin! ‘You could have been trapped up here and nobody would have known. You’ve got to get down to the shelter!’

  Dolly knew her daughter Rita was on duty at the hospital in Linacre Lane, probably too busy to blink with all casualties being diverted from Bootle General on Derby Road. Winnie’s son, Charlie – she refused to think of him as her son-in-law – was tucked safely away in Southport, thinking it far too dangerous for him to stay here.

  That said it all really, thought Dolly: her courageous daughter would never shirk her duty, while Charlie would always get as far away as possible and then hide behind a woman’s skirts. However, this was no time for opening old wounds, no matter how much the Kennedys aggravated her.

  ‘You’re not getting me in that filthy hole! Have you seen the state of them? They stink!’ Winnie spat. ‘I would rather die.’

  ‘And you might just get your wish,’ Dolly answered as she scrambled through the loft hole. Winnie never mixed with the locals unless she was taking their money. Dolly knew that to join the rest of the inhabitants of Empire Street in the communal shelter would give Winnie the vapours. She usually preferred to stay in the shop cellar and protect her stock. The cellar was big enough to hold a few people but Winnie never invited anybody to shelter there and now Dolly knew why.

  After witnessing what she just had, Dolly suspected Winnie would not want the authorities mooching around down there when necessities were so scarce.

  ‘I have to get my pa
pers!’ Winnie began throwing cardboard boxes out of the way and Dolly guessed that whatever the box she was looking for contained, it must be more significant than insurance policies.

  ‘What good will they be if you’re blown to bits, missus?’

  ‘I must have them.’ The other woman was insistent to the point of hysteria. Dolly looked out of the skylight and could see Heinkels coming over in droves so close she felt she could touch them. The glow of incendiaries, falling like rain, lit up the sky.

  ‘Come on, we have to get out of here,’ Dolly said impatiently. ‘The place could go up in no time.’

  ‘I’m coming now,’ Winnie said, seizing the box she had been searching for, a yellow King Edward cigar box. In the corner of the loft, the blaze was devouring things that had been stored for years. Dolly, trying to keep her voice light, caught Winnie’s hand.

  ‘Come on now, Mrs Kennedy, you’ve got to hurry.’ She guided the shopkeeper quickly and calmly to the loft ladder. All the while her heart was pounding. She was surprised when the stubborn shopkeeper did as she was asked to do, for once.

  ‘Here you go; I’ll take the box while you hold on to the ladder.’

  ‘Don’t go rooting.’ Winnie’s voice was stern as usual. ‘Everything is private in there.’ Dolly, if she had the time and the inclination, could have been offended by this haughty woman’s suggestion, but she decided to treat her remark with the contempt it deserved and did not retaliate. Instead, she busied herself with the bucket of sand from nearby Seaforth shore, which thankfully Winnie had kept filled and ready on the landing since the raids began. Being so close to the coast, one thing these houses were not short of was sand, which was the best thing for putting out incendiary fires, although there was a stirrup pump downstairs in the shop, Dolly noticed.

  Making her way back into the vast loft, which extended above the whole shop and living quarters, Dolly scrambled on her stomach towards the fire at the far end near the gable wall, pulling herself forward on hands and knees, staying low where the air was not so smoky.

  Quickly, she spread the sand and watched as it killed the flames. Thankfully it had not burned through the floorboards. When she was sure the fire was completely out she rummaged around some more just in case she had missed anything. Satisfied, she headed to the loft opening and, taking the cigar box, untouched by the fire, she quickly made her way down the ladder. Not surprisingly, Ma Kennedy had already fled to the cellar beneath the shop. Lifting the trap door behind the counter, Dolly noted that Winnie had made herself very comfortable on a chair at the bottom of the wooden steps, while anti-aircraft guns pounded constantly above.

  Dolly had to get back to the shelter at the bottom of Empire Street to make sure her family were safe. There would be many more casualties tonight without a doubt. Somewhere at the back of the shop, in the next street perhaps, Dolly felt the shudder of an ear-splitting crash and she made her way through the shop to the rear of the building, from where she could see that the back yard wall had collapsed. Even though the back living quarters seemed fine, she was taking no chances.

  ‘You’ll have to go down to the public shelter, Mrs Kennedy!’ Dolly called over her shoulder. ‘I can’t leave you here. It’s not safe.’

  Empire Street, behind the blackout blinds, seemed bathed in a greenish-yellow glow and looked strangely eerie, but Dolly, dragging Winnie Kennedy up the wooden steps out of the cellar, did not have time to stand around pondering, as another explosion ripped through the next street.

  ‘What if someone comes in and clears me out?’ Winnie wailed as Dolly, the box still in her hand, urged her towards the shop door.

  ‘And what will you do against the whole German army?’ Dolly called to the stubborn shopkeeper. Although, if she had time to think on the matter, it was something Dolly would pay good money to see.

  ‘I can’t leave me shop!’ Winnie said, dragging the box from Dolly as another explosion, closer this time, sent the stock falling from the shelves and shattered the back windows.

  ‘Come on now; get yourself away out of here!’ Dolly said as Winnie dived under the stairs clasping the oblong cigar box to her body like a shield that would save her.

  ‘They’ll rob me blind,’ she whimpered. ‘I’ll be looted out of business.’

  ‘There are no looters in these streets!’ Dolly’s rising fear was making her impatient now. ‘They’re all too busy saving themselves the bother of being blown up! Now come out of it!’ Dolly did not have time to stand around chewing the cud with a stubborn woman who thought she was invincible to Hitler’s bombs.

  ‘Incendiaries will not only set your loft on fire – they will do the same to you – but they’re not doing it to me!’ Dolly shouted. ‘Now you have to get down to the shelter!’

  ‘But all my Christmas stock is in the cellar.’ Winnie put the box back on the counter just as Dolly grabbed her bodily and threw her out of the door.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ Dolly said with a hint of irony. ‘I’ll do a full inventory before we get blown sky-high!’

  ‘Oh, that’s good of you.’ Winnie said just as mockingly, and Dolly shook her head.

  Did this woman have no sense?

  The young pimply warden had come back to the shop. ‘Off you go with the nice warden,’ Dolly said to Winnie as if talking to a small child.

  Winnie glared at her. ‘I’ll hold you personally responsible for my stock, Dolly Feeny,’ she said with menace. ‘Make sure there is nothing missing when I get back.’

  Dolly ignored the hysterical woman.

  ‘Here! I left the box on the counter!’ Mrs Kennedy’s voice carried inside the shop.

  ‘I’ll make sure you get it, now go down to the shelter!’ Dolly’s heart raced as a parachute mine landed on Strand Road and caused a huge blast halfway down Empire Street. Nobody was injured as far as she could see, but she quickly picked up the box and locked the shop door as another explosion caused Winnie Kennedy to head for the shelter without another word.

  At her own house, Dolly put the box on the table and then checked to see if Nancy was back yet in case she was too frightened to go to the shelter on her own. Then she locked her front door and at last headed back to the shelter herself.

  When Dolly had left to do her fire warden duties, Tommy knew that, with fewer pairs of eyes on him, this was his chance to escape the shelter. When Violet was attending to George he muttered something about having seen a school friend at the front of the shelter and he sneaked out and into the street to watch the brilliant light show in the night sky. He was bored stiff in that shelter and wanting a head start on shrapnel collecting before the all clear sounded.

  Watching the anti-aircraft shells zip overhead Tommy, thrilled, gasped in wonder as the tracer bullets streamed across the inky blackness in lines of vibrant orange and brilliant yellow flame. The delight of listening to the army defence attempting to shoot out the flares with anti-aircraft guns before they could assist the raiders was like nothing he had ever felt before. It would be a shame to miss all this because he was stuck in an air raid shelter.

  ‘Monty!’ Tommy hissed through gritted teeth as his faithful canine friend sniffed walls and gateposts. ‘Get over here, now!’ If the air raid precaution warden caught him out of the shelter, he would be marched straight back home again and miss the fireworks. Tommy automatically ducked when a mine dropped nearby, his heart thundering like a speeding train. The noise was incredible. It set his ears ringing and sent a pain shooting through his head. He put his hands over his ears and shook himself. The ringing wouldn’t stop.

  ‘Phew! That was close, fella,’ he said to his dog, who was now pushing against him so snugly that Tommy felt he would be pushed over. ‘All right, we’ll get going now! It’s getting a bit too close for comfort.’ Immediately there was another explosion and, seeing a half-open door of a warehouse Tommy slipped inside, but no matter what he tried to do to coax his canine friend inside Monty would not go into the warehouse.

  ‘Come on, fella, here
’s a treat,’ he said in a whispering voice, which usually brought the dog running. But not this time. Tommy did not know where the blast and the huge ball of light came from. All he knew was that Monty was acting very strangely now, jerking his head in that daft way and looking up to the sky.

  Almost immediately, Tommy realised that the whole world had fallen silent. There was not one single sound. He opened his mouth to call Monty to him but no sound came. He yelled at the top of his voice but there was nothing. Not even a little squeak. He had lost his voice! Monty was jerking his head in that strange way again and Tommy realised he was barking! A spike of fear shot right through him when he realised he had not lost his voice. He had lost his hearing!

  ‘Kitty!’ He opened his mouth and he yelled his sister’s name as loud as he could – but there was nothing – no sound at all. For some strange reason tears began to fill his eyes. Aunty Dolly would be worried. Pop would probably be out looking for him. He was in big trouble now, for sure.

  His face was soaking wet with tears, and Tommy felt his shoulders shuddering, but still he could not hear anything. Not even the bomber overhead that had just dropped another load of high explosives onto the back of the warehouse. Turning quickly, Tommy saw the roof disintegrate like lit paper as the walls plummeted at the back end. Flaming stanchions of wood fell, blocking his path and one wooden girder landed just in front of him so close that his foot was trapped under it. Tommy was too far away from the door to get out. He was going to die! He was going to perish in a disused warehouse on the dock road, because he was too stupid to stay in the air raid shelter and help Aunty Violet with little George.

  ‘My box!’ Winnie Kennedy said, and made a beeline for the exit of the air raid shelter. Dolly took hold of the sleeve of her coat and, with her strident Irish inflection, ordered Winnie to sit down and behave herself.

  ‘You’ll have them all panicking – now put yourself in that chair and we’ll have less of the ructions!’