Contents
Cover
Title Page
Note from the Author
THE RUINED CITY OF KOR
THE THING UPSTAIRS
OPERATION CROMWELL
ROSIE
Copyright
About the Publisher
Note from the Author
A brief word about the stories. All the startling facts – the Bren gun carrier in the school, the ‘ruined city of Kor’ itself, the deadly euphoria of the pilot after the crash, the crazy events of the night of Operation Cromwell – are all either from my own experience or well-documented in studies of the time. However, the haunted shelter in Liverpool is, I think, no more than urban legend, though the pigswill dumps and drunks were all too real. Liverpool did have large brick surface shelters because lack of gardens in the poorer suburbs made Anderson shelters impossible.
THE RUINED CITY OF KOR
As soon as the bombing of Tyneside got bad, the timber-yards down by the river moved their wood piles out into the open fields.
Albert Bowdon and I were the first to find them, on Lawson’s Farm. We were cycling around as always, looking for war souvenirs and trouble.
Lawson’s was a favourite calling-stop, right out beyond the edge of town. It had been sold to a house builder just before war broke out, but the farm-buildings still stood, a marvellous place for the gangs to practise street-fighting each other, shinning up the ladders into the haylofts. Though no matter how hard you machine-gunned the enemy with your wooden tommy-gun, no matter how hard you shouted “Wa-wa-wa-wa!” he would never admit to being dead. Just say you’d narrowly missed and go on fighting.
There was also, at Lawson’s, the head-high walls of a street of new houses, frozen dead by the War. We called it the Maginot Line ’til the French surrendered to the Nazis, after which we slowly kicked it to bits, brick by brick, in disgust.
Lawson’s was deserted that night because it was a long walk from town, and the gangs usually saved it for weekends. But, looking through Lawson’s wildly overgrown hedge, we saw a new city grown up like mushrooms overnight. A city of many streets, and pale gold and white buildings. A city of flat roofs, which gave it an eastern look, like something in the background of a Christmas crib; which was why we called it the Ruined City of Kor.
It was the smell that told us it was a city of solidly-piled wood. The sweet smell of pine and resin and mahogany. Kor never again smelled as sweet as it did that night. We climbed through the streets between, giving them names because we were the first. The Street Called Straight, the main thoroughfare was named that night; and the Street of the Goldsmiths.
And the uneven lengths and piling of the wood made little caves where you could hide and plot, or keep dry in the rain, or even, greatly daring, light camp-fires.
Later, there was a sidestreet of caves used by lads who’d got taken short or couldn’t be bothered to walk home, and that got called Rotten Row. People brought chalk and paint, and labelled the streets with their names in big scrawling letters.
Of course it was a nuisance when men came with lorries during the day, when we were at school, and took our buildings away, or built new ones. But they were never there when we were, not even a night-watchman; even the old gaffers had gone for war work.
There were two games we played in the Ruined City of Kor, besides street-fighting. If several gangs got together, you had ‘Breakout from Stalag Luft VI’ which was a marvellous chase over the piles and the long planks we laid between them, miles above the ground.
But even if there were only two of you, you could still play ‘Paratroops’. From the tallest pile, a plank sloped down at forty-five degrees, a plank smoothed over the weeks by a hundred bums – and one or two tin trays, when the plank was new and full of splinters. But what did a few splinters in your bum matter? Britain stood alone; it was a time for courage. You whizzed down the plank at breathtaking speed, pushed up your kid’s tin hat when it fell over your eyes, and machine-gunned everything in sight in a mad rage.
Albert and I were playing ‘Paratroops’ the evening things really happened. Our mothers hadn’t wanted to let us come because there’d been a lot of daylight raids that week, and they were nervous. But it was a lovely golden evening, with the barrage balloons up so high that the setting sun winking on their silver sides made them look almost like stars.
People thought then that if the barrage balloons were high, there wouldn’t be a raid. They used them like the weather forecast.
How wrong they were! I was just picking a splinter out of my bum when the siren went.
No, we weren’t terrified. We just got that little sinking feeling in our guts. We were old hands at air-raids. Nobody ever panicked; everybody else would have sneered at them – their lives would’ve been misery for months afterwards.
I just looked at Albert and he looked at me. We were over two miles from home and the siren only gave you a couple of minutes warning before the bombers were on you.
“Dig in?” I said. And Albert nodded.
We went and dragged our bikes into the deepest cave and squatted over them. We didn’t feel in any danger from falling shrapnel, not under twenty feet of wood. Not unless Jerry dropped incendiary bombs on us, and then we could still get out fast, before the whole place went up in flames.
“It’ll only get you if it’s got your number on it,” said Albert.
“Me mam’ll be worried,” I said.
“No point,” said Albert. “If we try and belt home, some warden will only shove us down the nearest shelter.”
“We gotta good view.”
Normally, in raids, I was down our shelter, with nothing to stare at but a pile of sandbags our dog had peed on more often that I care to remember. But now I could see the whole town spread out before me. The gasworks, the masts and funnels of the ships in the river.
“There they go,” yelled Albert. And I caught a fleeting glimpse of a handful of long thin shapes streaking over the works chimneys down by the river. “Keeping low so the guns can’t get them.”
“If the guns don’t get them the fighters will …”
“Hurricanes from Usworth and Spitfires from Acklington,” we chorused together, with great satisfaction. “Gonna be a dogfight.”
And then we began to hear the machine-guns up in the clouds; they sounded like a boy running a stick along a row of iron railings. Only lots of boys, and lots of railings.
“Goin’ out for a look,” said Albert.
But he never did. Because at that moment we heard the engines. Howling, screaming. Coming straight at us like the end of the world. Louder and louder and louder ’til it couldn’t possibly get any louder. Only it did.
The noise pressed you flat like a huge hand. And kept on pressing. Just when I had given up all hope, and Albert’s mouth kept opening and shutting and no sound came out, a great fat Jerry plane, a Heinkel, whizzed into view, all pale-blue belly and the machine-gun underneath sparking away like a firework.
And then it was just a dwindling speck, and the stink from its smoking exhausts.
“There was a British fighter after that Jerry,” said Albert. “The Jerry was shooting at it.”
“Where is it then?” I said.
It was then we heard the crash. It was like the night me mam pulled the Welsh dresser over, trying to hang up the Christmas decorations, only worse.
Then silence. Only a dog barking in the distance.
“Something’s got shot down,” said Albert.
“Wasn’t the Jerry.”
“Oh God.”
We sort of screwed up, like when the opposing team score the winning goal. It was an awful feeling.
“Shall we go and look?”
“He might be trapped … He might be …”
It was u
nsayable. But we went.
It took a long time to search ruined Kor. Expecting at every corner …
But what we found was a surprisingly long way off. A new row of furrows in the field beyond Kor, as if a farmer with six ploughs joined together had …
And a gap in the hedge that something had vanished through. Something definitely British, because a lump of the tail had fallen off, and lay with red, white and blue on it.
We tiptoed through the gap.
It looked as big as a house.
“Spitfire.”
“Hurricane, you idiot. Can’t you tell a Spitfire from a Hurricane yet?”
“It’s not badly damaged. Just a bit bent.”
I shook my head. “It’ll never fly again. It looks … broke.”
The tail was up in the air; the engine dug right into the ground, and the propeller bent into horseshoe shapes.
“Where’s the pilot?”
“He might have baled out,” suggested Albert, hopefully.
“What? At that height? His parachute would never have opened. Reckon he’s trapped inside. We’d better have a look.”
“Keep well back,” said Albert. “There’s a terrible smell of petrol. I saw petrol take fire once …”
There was no point in mocking him. I was so scared my own legs wouldn’t stop shaking. But it was me that went a yard in front.
The cockpit canopy was closed. Inside, from a distance, there was no sign of any pilot.
“Baled out. Told ya,” said Albert.
“With the canopy closed?”
“The crash could’ve closed it, stupid.”
“I’m going to have a look.”
I don’t think I would have done if I’d thought there was anybody inside. I edged up on the wing, frightened that my steel toe and heel caps would strike a spark from something. The smell of petrol was asphyxiating.
He was inside.
Bent up double, with only the back of his helmet showing. And there was a great tear in the side of the helmet, with leather and stuffing … and blood showing through.
“He’s a dead ’un,” said Albert, six inches behind my ear. I hadn’t even heard him come – he was wearing gym-shoes. “Look at that blood.”
I felt sick. The only dead thing I’d ever seen was the maggot-laden corpse of a cat in the ruins of Billing’s Mill.
“Let’s go an’ fetch the police,” said Albert. “They deal with dead ’uns.”
I was just edging carefully back down the wing, when a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye made me jump.
The dead ’un was sitting up.
The dead ’un was looking at me with two bright blue eyes.
The dead ’un grinned at me. Made a little ‘hello’ gesture with his gloved hand. My terror turned to rage. I was so angry with him because he wasn’t dead. So I hammered on the closed canopy and shouted, “Open up, open up!” like a policeman.
His hand went up, and he undid a catch and pushed the canopy back, where it locked open.
“Hi, kids.” He sounded American, or at least Canadian.
“Boy, have I got a headache! Haven’t got a fag, have you?”
I didn’t think. I had a fag and a half, in an old tobacco tin, that I’d pinched from my father’s cigarette case. We sometimes came to Ruined Kor to smoke, in secret. And now I got it out. I mean, the RAF were our heroes, the Brylcreem Boys …
Albert gave one look at my box of matches and fled. Screaming about petrol.
It was then that I realised the dean ’un mightn’t be dead, but he was in a pretty queer way. That bullet in the head must have driven him mad; his brain was not working right …
“Come on,” I shouted. “Get out. You can’t stay here.”
He just grinned lazily again. “What’s the hurry, kid? It’s a lovely evening. Let’s take it easy.”
I looked at where the engine was. The engine-covers had crumpled up and I could see the engine. And feel it. It was so hot it was practically giving my bare knees a sunburn.
As I watched, some liquid dripped on to it and vaporised into a puff of white smoke. Then a little shower of electrical sparks …
I ran like hell. I didn’t stop running for fifty yards, I was so terrified the plane was going to blow up.
We stood and watched him from a safe distance. We saw the heat-shimmer rising from the engine, the petrol oozing dark from the tank in the fuselage behind his head.
And he went on smiling at us, waving to us.
“Like he’s on his holidays,” whispered Albert.
I just wanted to run away. The idea of seeing him smiling one minute, then frizzling up like a moth in a candle-flame the next …
Then I had my brainwave. I took out my tobacco tin and waved the whole cigarette at him. Greatly daring, edging towards him, at a distance of thirty yards, I lit up the half-fag and blew a luxurious smoke-ring in the still evening air.
It worked. He bellowed, “For God’s sake, kids,” and began to heave himself out of the cockpit with a big grimace.
The first time it didn’t work. The second time he managed to remember to undo his parachute and safety-harness.
Then he was weaving slowly across the grass towards us, like the town drunk. Snatched the fag off me, cupped his hands round mine, which were shaking so much I could hardly strike a match, took a big drag, and fell flat on his back, and lay there laughing up at us and blowing much better smoke rings than mine, and groaning what a headache he had.
“We’re still too close,” screamed Albert, looking at the plane. “Get up, Mister.”
The pilot just lay there and laughed.
“Grab his feet,” said Albert. We dragged him away by main force, ’til his boots came off in our hands. But fortunately there was no blood inside, just some rather smelly socks and …
“He’s wearing silk stockings,” said Albert, incredulously. “Women’s silk stockings.”
“Lot of them do,” I said. “Keeps them warm. Keep pulling.”
So we dragged him, still laughing and shouting, “Lay off, kids.” And so we got him to a safe distance, and put his boots back on, him giggling and saying that we tickled.
“’Nother fag, kid?” he said.
I said, with low cunning, “Haven’t got any more. But me dad’s got plenty. I’ll take you to him, if you’ll get up and walk.”
We got him up and walking in the end. But to keep him pointing in the right direction … He would wander off to one side to admire a dandelion. Or a pile of dog-dirt.
“S’funny. Dog-dirt’s a beautiful brown. But nobody likes it.”
When we reached the first houses there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was then I realised the air-raid was still on. Down in the town, two bombs exploded. The guns were firing at something above the clouds, and shrapnel from the exploding shells began to rain down. We tried to drag him towards a shelter, but he just went blundering on like a great bull out of control. And we hadn’t the heart to leave him …
In the end, we were picked up by a policeman.
Who said, sharply, as if we were little criminals, “What are you boys doing with that airman? Give him to me. And get down a shelter immediately.”
He didn’t wait to see us do it, but we knew we’d be in trouble if we followed him.
We turned, and looked back at Lawson’s Farm.
We might have lost our pilot, but we still had our plane …
It took fire when we were halfway back. All we could do was watch it burn. It must have been one of the earliest Hurricanes, with wooden wings as well as a wood-and-fabric body. It burnt fast; within half an hour there was just the engine and the tyreless wheels, and the machine-guns and a blackened tangle of wires, and a lot of white ash, the shape the wings had been.
All too hot to grab as souvenirs.
Then the all-clear went, and in five minutes my dad was there on his bike.
“Thought I’d find you here,” he said. “Where were you in the air-raid?”
He was
as mad as hell with me, for worrying him and me mam so much, so I just said, “A woman had us down her shelter.”
If I’d told him the truth, I think he would have taken off his belt and larruped me there and then. Terrible man, my dad.
“C’mon home to bed,” he said, very fiercely. “This minute.”
“Can’t we stay ’til it cools? For souvenirs?”
“I won’t speak to you again,” he said. “Where have you left your bike? I hope nobody’s pinched it …”
What more could I do? What more can I say? There was a whole crowd of kids gathering by that time, avid for souvenirs.
When we went back the following day, thieving kids had stripped the site bare. There wasn’t a scrap, except the big engine and bent propeller. And the RAF soon sent a lorry to take that away.
I think every kid in the district was carrying round a bit of that Hurricane, except us.
But we still think it was our Hurricane. And we shall carry our secret to the grave.
THE THING UPSTAIRS
Maggie came slowly out of school and instinctively looked up at the sky. But there were no German bombers; just one high thin vapour-trail which was the Germans photographing England, getting ready for their invasion. Photographing every house, Billie Cramer said, every garden. So the Gestapo would know where to come to arrest you. But Billie Cramer was such a liar …
Below the school on its cliff, the Channel lay blue and peaceful. But from the far side, from the dim shadow of the French coast, there was that low rumble that never ceased. The German guns around Dunkirk. Hemming the British in. Hemming their dads in.
Some dads had escaped and were home on leave. Tony Milburn’s dad was, limping with the aid of two sticks. But still in khaki uniform, still with his rifle in the cupboard at home in case the Germans came. Aggie Phipps’ dad fetched her from school every night, in his filthy oil-stained battledress. As if he was afraid the Germans might steal her; he hugged her so tight.
But of Maggie’s dad there was no sign. He was still over there, somewhere, with his beloved lorry that he called ‘Martha’.
The boys had been playing a game called ‘Dunkirk’ for days. Tearing round the yard machine-gunning everyone on sight, even the Head, with invisible machine-guns, going “Wa-wa-wa!” with their mouths.
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