The Wasted Years

by Mary Larkin

  ‘Well, it all depends on what the latest is. I’ve heard so much today my mind boggles.’

  Her mother smiled faintly as she asked, ‘About the Pope leading the German planes in?’

  Rosaleen’s mouth dropped open. ‘Ah’ – she waved her hand in disbelief – ‘you’re having me on!’

  ‘No. No, I’m not, the rumour’s goin’ around that the Pope must be leading the planes in. Ye see, a lot of Protestant churches were hit last night and not one single Catholic church was touched.’

  ‘Tut! I never heard the like of it.’

  ‘Aye, I agree with you.’ Thelma had to smile at Rosaleen’s outraged dignity. ‘Are you goin’ down to help out in one of the schools?’

  ‘Yes, St Paul’s. Are you?’ When Thelma nodded in confirmation, Rosaleen added, ‘I’m waiting for someone to collect these things.’

  ‘We’ve a pile of stuff ready too. Your da has the key, he’s calling to collect it.’ Thelma’s face puckered and there was a catch in her voice. ‘It must be awful to lose your home … all your belongings.’

  ‘And so many dead. We were lucky last night, but tonight we might not be. I’m not waiting for the sirens to go off. I’m going to take Laura up to the Falls Park the minute we get our dinner. As far away from Mackie’s as I can. I learnt one thing last night: those fields beyond Daisy Hill aren’t far enough away. If Mackie’s got hit, there’d be pieces flying everywhere.’

  ‘We’ll come with ye, so we will. Where’s Laura now?’ Thelma’s head went back as she looked reproachfully down the length of her nose at Rosaleen. ‘Ye know, you should’ve kept the child in the country, so ye should.’ Her voice was accusing and Rosaleen turned angrily on her.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to her.’ She blinked furiously to contain the tears before adding, ‘Amy has her at the moment.’

  Thelma had the grace to look ashamed. Rosaleen was bound to be feeling guilty without her piling on the agony.

  Suddenly they both leapt to their feet and Thelma screamed, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph … what’s that?’ as a huge explosion rent the air and the house shook.

  They bumped into each other in their effort to get out of the door to see what was wrong, and over and over again in Rosaleen’s mind ran the plea: Laura … Laura … Oh, please let Laura be all right. Please … please!

  Once out on the street Rosaleen saw from the direction of the thick smoke that the explosion was round behind Iris Drive, further up Springfield Avenue. She was also relieved to see Amy turn the opposite corner, an excited Laura by the hand.

  ‘Thank God you’re all right.’ Rosaleen hugged Laura tight, and eyeing Amy over her head asked, ‘What happened?’

  Amy mutely shook her head. It was a passerby who answered Rosaleen.

  ‘A delayed bomb went off at the corner where Springfield Avenue meets Cavendish Street. It has demolished some houses, but thank God nobody’s hurt.’

  ‘Thank God indeed,’ Rosaleen agreed with him, and her mind was full of the thought that it could just as easily have been her home.

  As they worked side by side with Protestant women, making up camp beds and sorting out groceries, Rosaleen was close to tears. There were three hundred refugees here in St Paul’s school and her father said as many again were in St Gall’s and some further up the Falls Road in St Mary’s Training School. And that was just this end of town; there must be thousands homeless. It was heartbreaking watching people wandering about in a daze. Some of them didn’t even know whether or not the rest of their families were still alive, and each policeman, each air-raid warden that appeared was besieged with questions.

  To add to their problems, as a result of fractured pipes, water was not reaching the houses and everybody had to queue up at water stands in the street to fill their kettles and buckets, and some houses were also without electricity.

  Their duty done for the day, after a rushed scanty meal, Thelma offered to look after Laura, when Rosaleen and Annie voiced their desire to take a walk and see what damage had been done the night before. The radio had requested that sightseers stay away from the bombed areas, as they were hampering rescue work, but Rosaleen and Annie did not intend going too near. They just wanted to see for themselves what the town was like.

  The sights that met their eyes as they walked down Divis Street, past Percy Street, where a bomb had taken sixty lives, were awful. They could see that complete rows of houses were demolished and piles of rubble were all that was left of what used to be prominent buildings. In some streets, pathetic heaps of furniture which had been salvaged from houses stood on the corner, as though rejected, furniture that had probably been someone’s pride and joy.

  Most of the bombs had fallen on civilian targets and soldiers still toiled digging bodies from the ruins, laying them side by side until such time as they were delivered to the morgue.

  To their surprise the town centre appeared to be all right, although as they walked along Royal Avenue they could see that the Public Library was pitted all over and every window in the big Co-op Stores in York Street was broken. Even as they watched, looting was going on, furtive figures darting from buildings with stolen goods in their arms. They also observed that the nurses’ home in Frederick Street was completely demolished, and wondered how many lives had been lost there.

  It was soon obvious to them that it was the poor districts that had suffered most, and as they made their way home they pondered how lucky they on the Falls and Springfield Roads had been.

  ‘I can’t stand it,’ Annie cried. ‘We were very lucky last night, but that could be our street tomorrow. I know one thing – never again will I feel guilty about making bits of planes and bullets.’ She thrust her face towards Rosaleen. ‘I did, ye know. I felt awful when I thought that maybe the bullets I was helping to make would kill someone. But not any more … Oh no, not any more. I just hope the Germans are suffering like we are.’

  They arrived home in Iris Drive to find their father on the doorstep. He was dropping with fatigue and didn’t need any coaxing to stretch out on the settee.

  ‘I came to warn you t’get away up the Falls Road early t’night. Don’t wait for the siren t’go off. As soon as ye get your tea, start out.’

  ‘Yes, Da, we’re not stupid … that’s what we intend to do,’ Annie informed him. ‘Are you coming home with me now for your tea?’

  ‘Aye, I am Annie. And I hope to get a couple of hours sleep.’

  ‘You’d need to. You’re out on your feet, Da. Come on, the sooner we go, the longer you’ll be able to sleep.’

  Still he lay prone, too tired to move, his mind full of the horror of the night and the long day.

  ‘It’s been awful. They couldn’t find anywhere big enough to store all the bodies. The City Morgue’s stacked high with coffins, and there’s a hundred and fifty more in St James’s Market. So they came to the Falls Road. The Falls Baths are piled high with coffins, they’re everywhere. They arrived in hearses, lorries, coalcarts … even the bin lorries brought some. And when they ran out… do ye know what we had to do?’

  When Rosaleen and Annie could only shake their heads mutely, he continued, ‘They let the water out of the pools and we wrapped the bodies in blankets and laid them on the tiled floors. There was just limbs … legs, arms … awful, I even saw a head lyin’ on its own … it was awful.’

  His voice trailed off and they sat some moments in silence, minds alive with horrible pictures of the scene he described, waiting for him to continue his narrative, until eventually it dawned on them that nature had taken its course and he had fallen asleep.

  When Annie would have wakened him, Rosaleen stopped her.

  ‘Don’t. Let him be. I’ll waken him at about seven and give him a bite to eat. That should be early enough, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, about seven … or even eight. That’ll give him four hours sleep. Thank God I’m on the dayshift. It’ll be awful on the night shift in Mackie’s a
fter last night … it was bad enough before. Me mam and I’ll bring Laura down for you to get ready, at about half-eight and we’ll go up to the Falls Park. All right?’

  Rosaleen nodded, ‘Yes, I’ll have all Laura’s things ready and we can call for Amy on our way out.’

  The nightly journeys up the Falls Road to the park and countryside became a monotonous, boring habit and if it hadn’t been for Laura, Rosaleen would have taken her chances and stayed at home, in spite of being so close to Mackie’s Foundry. Thousands made the journey every night, and some didn’t bother coming down again, staking claim to old barns and shacks. They had no homes to go to and the Corporation was finding it hard to find accommodation for everyone in need.

  The Corporation had ordered buses to be kept ready at the depot at the bottom of the Glen Road, to take those who preferred to be further afield out into the countryside when the siren sounded. The first to arrive every night settled in the buses and a party atmosphere reigned as stories were told and songs sung, and the dreaded siren was awaited.

  Days passed without any further raids and it was decided that the bodies that weren’t identified would have to be buried. There was a notice in the newspapers, and for those who were homeless and unable to buy them, posters were pasted up all over town advising those with relatives still missing that they had two days left to try to find them.

  The stench of the decomposing flesh and the risk of infection was too great to risk keeping them any longer, and arrangements were made for a communal burial. As she listened to her father, who had volunteered to help out in the Baths, recount tales of men and women hunting for their lost partners or members of their family, and then having to be sprayed with disinfectant as they left to lessen the chance of infection, Rosaleen’s mind baulked at the horror of it all. Imagine not knowing whether or not one of those horribly mutilated bodies that were rotting away was a husband or a wife or one of the family. The stench would stay in your nose forever. No wonder so many people were wandering about in a daze, not caring what happened to them.

  The funeral of the unclaimed dead was held on Monday, April 21st. There had been so many private funerals that people were used to seeing hearses go up the Falls Road and would bow their heads, say a prayer and then go on about their business, but for the communal funeral it was different. Thousands lined the road, and both men and women cried openly. The authorities had ordered the bodies to be examined, and any with crucifixes or rosary beads or prayer leaflets were deemed Catholics and the others taken to be Protestants. After separate religious services, by a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister, the bodies were taken in military vehicles to the City Cemetery where the Protestants were to be buried and then continued on up the Falls Road to Milltown Cemetery for the burial of the Catholics. Those with relatives and friends still missing formed a procession behind the vehicles and followed them up the road, stunned and despairing. It was a scene that would stay with those who observed it until the day they died.

  Due to the demolition of the shipyard and aircraft factory, thousands of people were out of work and others had neither the energy nor the inclination to spend the night in the fields and parks and then go into work. So, according to the newspapers, production was down a quarter of what it was before the awful blitz on April 15th, and the government urged all hands to help get production going again in case of another raid. Mackie’s, having received only a few minor hits, all taken care of quickly, was working all out, taking over some orders that Shorts’ aircraft factory was unable to fulfil and employing more staff as a result.

  One good thing emerged from all this desolation and trouble. A new affinity was created between Catholic and Protestant. As they gathered together night after night and listened to each others’ tales of woe and sometimes even joy, like when a child was born or a beloved relative thought dead was discovered alive, they realised that they were all the same under the skin. They had the same aspirations for their children – better homes and jobs, a better start in life than they themselves had known – and many firm friendships were made that were to stand the test of time.

  Rosaleen discovered that the people of the Shankill were just the same as the people of the Falls, encumbered with the same lesser paid jobs and slum areas that were a breeding ground for the dreaded disease TB, which was becoming very common among the working classes. How come she had thought that the Shankill Road people were better off? Just because they were Protestants? She thought it was only the Catholics that were the underdog. Now it looked like she was wrong.

  Disenchantment with the government and fear of Hitler brought to Catholics and Protestants a closeness they had never achieved before. They were also united in their resentment of the Corporation. Never was the prestige of the Belfast Corporation so low, and bitterness against it was rife as the homeless queued up for food.

  ‘Other big cities were prepared. So why wasn’t Belfast?’ they asked angrily.

  Other problems also gave cause for grave concern. The people on the Antrim Road and surrounding district were worried about what would happen if the zoo at Bellevue was bombed. Wild animals would be free to roam the countryside, so it was decided that all the dangerous animals must be put down. These included the beautiful lions, tigers, and wolves Rosaleen had been admiring at Easter, as well as a giant rat she hadn’t liked the look of. The thought of their fate brought tears to her eyes, and she was not surprised when it was reported in the newspapers that the head gamekeeper had cried when his lovely animals had been slaughtered.

  After many false alarms, Sunday, May 4th dawned bright and frosty, and as the day wore on Rosaleen was filled with hope. There was been no bombing since April 15th; perhaps Hitler was finished with Belfast! The afternoon was hot and sunny and it was the first day of the new scheme thought up by the government to save fuel by lengthening the hours of daylight. That morning the clocks had been put forward an hour, meaning dusk would be one hour late. Encouraged by the hot weather and the extra hour of daylight, Rosaleen decided to wash some bedclothes. For boiling bed linen and whites, she had a small boiler which was kept in a shed in the yard. Now she pulled this out into the warm sunlight and, filling it with water, stripped the beds and gathered together towels and whites. May as well make hay while the sun shines, she thought happily as she set the water to boil, and later, when Amy popped in on a visit, they sat out in the yard, lapping up the sunshine and watching the washing sway in the light breeze.

  But the hope that lifted Rosaleen’s spirits was soon dashed. The Germans chose that night to launch their second major bomb attack on Belfast and it was another night of horror.

  This time the moonlight was so bright in a sky free from clouds that the planes didn’t need flares to see their targets and their aim was accurate as they devastated the shipyards, destroying three corvettes that were nearing completion. They also managed to inflict more damage to Shorts’ aircraft factory and hit the Harbour Power Station. York Street Railway Station was reduced to rubble.

  It was on this night that St Paul’s Parish suffered its worst damage. At dawn, as Rosaleen and company trailed wearily home from their night in the Falls Park, they saw as they neared Beechmount Avenue that a bomb must have fallen nearby. Smoke hung in a dense cloud over Our Lady’s Hospital on the Falls Road just above Beechmount Avenue and wafted down on to the road, catching their breaths. Horrified, they deduced that one of the streets that ran off Beechmount Avenue must have been hit. Crowds were milling to and fro and Annie grabbed a man by the arm.

  ‘Where did the bomb hit, mister?’

  ‘The top of Beechmount Street, and it’s demolished about eight houses,’ he informed her.

  Dazed, Annie stood as if turned to stone, and Rosaleen clutched her. They were thinking of Sean’s family who lived at the top of Beechmount Street.

  It was Thelma who took control. ‘Rosaleen, you go with Annie and see about Sean’s family. I’ll see Amy home and then bring Laura to my house until you come back. We’ll go
down the Falls Road way, it’s too smoky for Laura over there.’ She nodded in the direction of Beechmount Avenue. ‘Take your time. Stay as long as you have to, but don’t leave until you know how Sean’s family are. OK?’

  ‘Yes, Mam. OK.’ With a kiss on the brow for the sleeping child and a nod of farewell to Amy, Rosaleen slipped her arm through Annie’s and led her down Beechmount Avenue. ‘Come on, Annie, let’s go and see what we can find out.’

  At the bottom of Beechmount Street, air-raid wardens tried to turn them back but when Annie explained that her in-laws lived at the top of the street, they were allowed through. It was with apprehension that they climbed the street, to stand aghast at the sight that met their eyes. The houses at the top were completely demolished and covering their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs against the thick dust and grime, they watched fearfully as bodies were carried from the ruins. It was with relief that Annie hailed one of the stretcher bearers.

  ‘Mr Devlin … Mr Devlin!’

  When the grime-covered figure turned at her call, she threw herself into his arms and sobbed against his breast.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re all right … is the rest of the family all right?’

  Jim Devlin nodded his head. ‘Yes, love … yes, we’re all right. But that complete family has been wiped out.’ He nodded to where bodies lay, but Annie kept her head down and refused to look.

  ‘Why were they in the house?’ she cried. ‘I would’ve thought that anybody with sense would make for the open country.’

  ‘I know, Annie … I know. And normally they would’ve been away in the fields, but ye see, the man of the house was in a wheelchair and he was poorly, so his wife and son stayed to keep him company.’

  ‘Oh, dear God … how awful … awful!’

  ‘Ah.’ He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they would have preferred it that way. All to go together. They were a very close family. But look here, Annie …’ he glanced down at her kindly ‘… you must be tired. You can do nothing here, so away home. But thanks for coming to see how we’ve fared.’