London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  What had started her off was thinking about the old days. It had all been so happy and carefree then. Such a blissful life with Percy making a name for himself at the garage. And giving her big expensive presents like a rug. And going out at all times of day to meet his friends and enjoy himself. There hadn’t seemed anything more that she could ask. That was why Percy’s arrest had come as such a shock to her. It had been like a nightmare in the middle of a warm night’s sleep.

  For a time she hadn’t been able to understand how God could ever have let it happen. And worse than that. It was as though He weren’t listening to her prayers. As though, suddenly in the midst of things, she were cut off. But she was beginning dimly to see how foolish she had been. How foolish and how wicked to have doubted. It was all becoming clear to her.

  Because, even though she didn’t read the papers or listen to the wireless very much, she knew how terrible things were over in France. There wasn’t a woman’s son over there whose mother could be sure about his safety. And, if Percy had been free to volunteer, she knew that he’d have been one of the first to go. But he wasn’t free. That was the whole point. While others were being maimed and giving up their lives, he was being shielded from it all. Kept away and intact. Preserved, she didn’t question, for something important. She put her two hands together.

  ‘Oh, Holy Mary and all the Saints,’ she began, ‘praise be for having spared him…’

  And this was odd because she’d always imagined Percy as a hero. A real hero. A V.C. or something. She’d seen his name that way when he was still quite little. And now she supposed that could never happen.

  He would just be plain Percy Boon, for ever.

  3

  And there was at that moment a third person, awake, away from home and remembering Dulcimer Street. But with one big difference in his case. Ted was busy. He was holding up the German army.

  Come across to the other side and join him for a moment in the small hours of that day as May is departing and June preparing to come in, flaming and full. It’s noisy. And it’s dangerous. But it’s history.

  Ted is tired. You can see that at once from the way his eyes are fixed and bloodshot. And the hands that fumble with the cartridge‐clips are trembling. Not from fear. Just from fatigue. Sheer fatigue. He hasn’t had any sleep for forty‐eight hours. In fact, if you hadn’t known him as a member of the family circle you probably wouldn’t have recognised him. He’s so dirty. It’s days since he shaved, and he’s got a rough unsightly stubble all over his chin, with the dust clinging to it. There’s more than dust on his forehead. There’s a long half‐moon of a gash, dried almost to mud‐colour. And he doesn’t know what caused it. There were such a lot of things flying about where he has been. His uniform is torn and dishevelled. It’s even scorched in one place where the lorry next to him caught fire. He is still lying there in the chassis embers. He moved back again for protection as soon as the metal parts had cooled down a bit.

  It isn’t dark where Ted is. Because more than the lorry has been alight. Behind him where the port lies there is a big crimson glow the shape of half a grape‐fruit. Sometimes there are yellow and vermilion streaks in it when an ammunition dump goes up. And even while it is just glowing quietly it is bright enough to light up the bushes in front of him. Altogether, it’s been military bonfire night. The Germans are igniting everything British that they can see. And what is left over we are setting fire to ourselves, so that it shan’t fall into German hands. A moment ago there was a great whoosh as a whole convoy went up like Guy Fawkes night. The vehicles are just burning quietly now, the flames lap‐lapping over steering‐wheel and dashboard. And it’s still lively round about because a battery is shelling the spot.

  The one thing that worries Ted is how long he is expected to stay there. He can’t ask the sergeant because the sergeant has been killed. Those are his legs just showing over the edge of the ditch opposite. And there isn’t anybody else to ask because there were only the two of them to start with. No wonder Ted’s anxious. He’s one stripe up already and he doesn’t want to do anything silly. As soon as it’s a bit lighter he’s going to make a reconnaissance. Edge down toward the sea‐front somewhere. He and the sergeant were making for the ‘English Spoken’ quarter when the sergeant had his accident.

  He looks at his watch. It is a fat, old‐fashioned Ingersoll. And it’s been standing up to things remarkably. Trodden on, left under water and finally the glass smashed, it has faithfully recorded every moment of the retreat. Right up to now, that is. Because the strain of the last two days must have been a bit too much for its old works. It is stuck at a quarter‐to‐two. Which is what it was when Ted looked at it he doesn’t know how long ago.

  The failure of his watch depresses him. It’s his last friend gone. Now he is really alone. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what’s in front of him. Or behind. Or on either side. He doesn’t even know the time. There is nothing for it but to stay where he is by the lorry until it’s light enough to move on. And with his watch ruined in his own keeping, how does he know what’s happened to the other things he left behind him when all this trouble started? Somewhere or other there is his knapsack with a diamanté ear‐clip for Cynthia and a little toy bedside table complete with chamber‐pot for Baby. The chamber‐pot is a bit vulgar perhaps. But the whole thing was only 8 francs 50 and Cynthia can throw the chamber‐pot away if she doesn’t want Baby to have it. Or could have done. Perhaps she won’t ever get it now. Some little Nazi baby will play with Ted’s present. And some little Nazi mother will let it.

  The battery that had been shelling the convoy turns its attention to the road a little higher up. And Ted has to lie lower than ever now. One shell in particular, a regular stinker that he knew somehow was coming, covers him up with earth and sand and bits of twigs and bushes after it’s missed him. It leaves Ted half smothered. To see him at this moment, the Co‐op. wouldn’t have believed it of him. Not that Ted is worrying about appearances. He’s got such a roaring, buzzing sound inside his head from the concussion that he doesn’t care how he looks.

  It’s getting lighter. Distinctly lighter. There’s a glow in the sky that isn’t simply burning stores this time. The sergeant’s legs show up quite plainly. He might merely be resting there in a rather unusually comfortable position. But Ted can’t hang around for him. Slinging his Bren‐gun, he begins to move off. It’s certainly a proper mess all right. He picks his way gingerly by other burned‐out lorries, tanks, ambulances, field‐kitchens. And by other sergeants, a bit past it, like his own. First of all, there’s a flat scrubby field to cross. Then a six‐foot ditch so deep that he has to push himself off from his side and swim for it. One stroke and then a scramble up the bank opposite with his clothes all dripping.

  ‘I could have jumped it,’ he tells himself. ‘And I probably would have done if I hadn’t been so tired.’

  The stupidity that comes from tiredness is rather alarming. It means that he’s practically sleep‐walking.

  But he’s getting on. There are some of his own chaps in front of him, sheltering up against a barn. About thirty of them with a bandaged major who is blasting someone for having let the maps get wet. Ted salutes him and passes on. The going is easier. Ted does a mile in half an hour. And he isn’t lonely any longer. There are quite a lot of the boys about. None of his own fellows. No one he can recognise. But he’s on the way. It’s English Spoken everywhere. Out of the half‐light comes a company of Guards. They’re marching perfectly. Long strides, perfectly in step. The young captain with them carries a little cane. The only thing that strikes Ted is that there are so few. Not more than a couple of dozen at the most. And half these are wounded. Even the officer has got his left hand in a sling. Ted waits at the side of the road for them to pass and then follows up the column. But the pace is too much for him. He falls behind.

  At a cross road there is a military policeman standing. Ted goes up to him. The man is calm and imperturbable. He scarcely looks
in Ted’s direction. He just says ‘Stragglers straight on. Beach muster.’ So Ted’s a straggler now. The thought depresses him. He can see his one stripe going.

  Another half‐hour and he’s there. It’s quite light by now. And what a sight. The beaches of Dunkirk are like Blackpool in Wakes week. Only everybody is in khaki, of course. Men standing in ranks, lying in the sand‐dunes, squatting by break‐waters, wading out to rowing‐boats. And the sea beyond them is just as full. The junk Armada is standing off the shore, tramps, coasters, trawlers, steam‐yachts, everything. And a ferry‐service is plying across the surface of the sea like beetles.

  ‘So the sergeant was right,’ Ted tells himself. ‘They are getting us off.’

  And he needn’t have worried about being a straggler. There are about ten thousand other men there already and he isn’t conspicuous. A provost‐major genially tells them all to hang around and wait for transport. It’s being organised, he promises. It’s a little difficult, however, to hear what he’s saying because the beach is under such heavy shell‐fire.

  There’s another trouble. Now that it’s lighter the dive‐bombers are back again. Ted can see them out of the corner of his eye. But he’s so used to them that they don’t trouble him. He simply wonders what they’re going for. As they string out, a light ack‐ack somewhere down by the port sends up a solitary shell a hundred yards behind them. Some of the chaps cock their Brens instinctively ready to take a pot‐shot at anything.

  Then Ted knows what the dive‐bombers have picked on. It’s the beach muster. In line now, they’re pointing straight at it like a ruler. ‘Down flat,’ the provost‐major tells them, and he lies down himself with his legs spread out as though swimming.

  There are six Stukas and they’ve got the whole thing marked out like a chess‐board. Ted hears the first two bombs as they come down. And as they go off. But not the third. He only hears that one coming down.

  When the smoke from the last one clears away – not that a little smoke more or less is really noticeable on those beaches – the provost‐major gets up again. There still seem to be plenty of soldiers left all round him.

  And, in the general hubbub, he’s to be excused for not noticing that Ted isn’t there any longer.

  BOOK SEVEN

  London Lights the Clouds Up

  Chapter LXXXVII

  1

  It was August.

  The Jossers had been in Conservatory Cottage for three months now. And looking back over that quarter of a year it seemed that their lives had been divided sharply and brutally. Cut clean through, as it were, so that the portion which they were now living hadn’t got very much to do with anything that had gone before. One by one, the links binding past and present had been severed until, in its total effect, the change added up to something more like a re‐incarnation than a move.

  Mr Josser still spent a lot of his time thinking about Dulcimer Street. And you could tell from odd remarks that Mrs Josser let fall that she was remembering the old days, too. ‘It can’t be easy for Mrs Vizzard on the tea‐ration. Not with just the one of her,’ she would say. Or: ‘Nothing from Clarice. I hope that doesn’t mean she’s ill or anything.’ But it was no use. It was a different Mr and Mrs Josser who had lived in those comfortable first‐floor rooms in No. 10. Those Jossers had had a son who was coming home to them.

  Naturally, as soon as they had heard that Ted was missing – and it was Doris who sent the telegram on to them from town – they went up immediately to be with Cynthia. Mrs Josser didn’t lose a minute. Simply piling the breakfast dishes unwashed in the kitchen‐sink she left them there. And Mr Josser did not attempt to argue with her. There was, he recognised, something sacred and indisputable about such a moment. Not that it was the slightest use. Five minutes saved now wasn’t going to be any good to Ted. But, somehow or other, not saving it would have meant that they hadn’t done all they could.

  And on the whole it was a good thing that they went up when they did. Because Cynthia was obviously in a bad way. In a very bad way. Though not half so bad as Mrs Josser had expected. And the fact that she was not prostrate was for the terrible, the futile, reason that she didn’t believe her news.

  ‘He’ll come back. I know he will,’ she said cheerfully. ‘He told me so before he went away. Ted’s always done what he said he would…’

  Only, at this stage, she broke down. And it was then that Mrs Josser was so useful. Because she was able to distract Baby and amuse her so that she shouldn’t notice that anything was the matter. And while Mrs Josser was looking after Baby, Doris was able to comfort Cynthia. Not that it was easy for any of them. Because Baby, with the all innocent torture of childhood, insisted on going on with the conversation. She said ‘Daddy’ over and over again, pausing attentively in between as though waiting for an answer.

  Because of her resolute faith in Ted’s return, Cynthia refused even to consider leaving Larkspur Road.

  ‘Suppose he comes back and finds me and Baby gone…’ she said every time Mrs Josser raised the point. And in face of reasoning such as that Mrs Josser did not press it. Not for the moment, at least. It was obvious that any appeal she made would pass unheeded. And she had no strength left with which to be persuasive. It seemed that with the telegram all her powers had gone out of her. There was just nothing of her left. And, in the end, she had allowed herself to be brought back to Ditchfield, empty, broken and exhausted. And conscience‐stricken. She’d promised Ted that if anything happened she’d look after Cynthia and Baby. And she wasn’t doing it.

  But all that seemed a long while ago now. Cynthia and Baby, despite all the visits she had paid them, had detached themselves and become separate. Even Doris, her own child, was separate, too. She didn’t belong to them any more. When she might have been coming down to Ditchfield she was going instead up to Carlisle where Bill was stationed. Because Bill had been one of the lucky ones. Unhurt and undefeated, he had taken the same road that Ted had taken. Only Bill had taken it further.

  And with no Doris and no Ted, it was only Mr and Mrs Josser who were left. Just the pair of them. A rather elderly couple in a pleasant country cottage. And being alone so much there was a lot of time for thought. The same thought. A thought that neither of them would admit. More than once, their eyes had met when they were both wondering what was the meaning behind it all. Why should Bill have been spared and Ted taken? Simply that.

  And each time they had looked away again, before the other could possibly admit it.

  The truth, though Mr Josser wouldn’t have admitted it, was that he had severed quite a few of the old links himself. Had just let them slip from him without troubling. Links like the South London Parliament, for instance. Right up to the day of the move, he’d intended to go on with that. Not as a member of the Cabinet, of course. He couldn’t keep that up from a distance. But, simply as an ordinary working Conservative M.P. And, in the result, what had happened? He hadn’t been up there once. Not once.

  Astonishingly enough, there was such a lot to do where he was. In Ditchfield, he was practically one of them by now. Admittedly, the L.D.V.s had turned him down. And so had the Special Constabulary. And the wardens. But in offering himself, he had met a lot of useful people. And, being the one entirely free man among the lot of them, all the odd jobs naturally came his way. In one week, he had collected for the cottage hospital; helped to move a whole family of evacuees – whole, that is, except for the father whose presence would have solved everything; organised a newspaper‐delivery for the members of the local searchlight battery by the simple means of taking the papers over to the site himself; and assisted in the building of the Ditchfield anti‐tank trap.

  The last was by far the biggest undertaking. He didn’t have to do any of the heavy work on it himself. The sawing and digging was reserved for the L.D.V.s. In consequence, Mr Josser’s own task was comparatively light. Light, but responsible. He was stationed a hundred yards or so ahead of the actual spot, just round the bend so that he could wa
rn oncoming motorists. As it happened, nobody, not even a pedestrian, came along while Mr Josser was on duty. But they might have done. And half an elm‐tree mounted on a disused cartwheel wouldn’t have been a pleasant thing to run into. It wasn’t meant to be.

  Another thing that kept Mr Josser busy was that Mrs Josser was out such a lot. And that was something altogether new. In Dulcimer Street she had practically never gone out. Except in emergencies. And here in Ditchfield it was as though there were an emergency practically every day. For a start, on Tuesdays and Thursdays there was the Women’s Institute – Tuesdays for a Make‐and‐Mend Class, and Thursdays for Economical Cottage Cookery. The vicar’s wife had persuaded Mrs Josser to be one of the demonstrators. And the classes were certainly well attended. Which was strange because the pupils who came toiling across the countryside on foot had every one of them been making and mending and cooking economically in cottages all their lives.

  It wasn’t even as though the rest of the week were free. There were bandages to be rolled. And on Mondays there was the inspection at the Rest Centre, and all the blankets had to be taken down and shaken out and then folded up again. Mrs Josser had been put in charge of the amenities. In a locked cupboard there were two tins of condensed milk, a thermos flask, a primus stove, a canister of tea, and a tin kettle. So that if any household in the village were unlucky enough to be bombed out all that they had to do was to move across the road, send for Mrs Josser and, in a jiffy, they would find themselves tucked up between aired sheets and sipping something hot.

  In fact, by August, 1940, Ditchfield like the rest of England was remaking itself. Practically over‐night, the old notion of the family had been discarded and the still older motive of the tribe had come back into its own again.