Put Out the Light
Page 1
Put out the light, and then put out the light.
From Othello by William Shakespeare
Since they are attacking our cities, we will wipe out theirs.
Adolf Hitler, German leader, speaking in August 1940 after the bombing of Berlin.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Winston Churchill, British war leader, speaking in August 1940 about the Royal Air Force defence that became known as ‘The Battle of Britain’. The pilots are remembered as ‘The Few’.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
About the Author
August
Chapter 1
Sheffield, England 6 August 1940
‘Put out the light!’ the warden cried.
‘Put out the light!’ we shouted after him.
It was dark in the alley and we hid in the shadows of the doors that led into the yards. He couldn’t see us.
My sister Sally giggled. She was small and stupid and rather smelly. I suppose I wasn’t daisy-fresh myself, but I always thought Sally smelled worse.
The streetlights were switched off. Heavy black curtains hung at every window. But from time to time, a chink of light escaped and the warden shouted, ‘Put out the light!’
Every time he shouted, we shouted, too. A silly game, I know. But we were bored. It was the summer holidays. We had no school. No friends. Mine had all been sent away to the safety of the countryside. But not me. Not Sally. We stayed in Sheffield and waited for the bombs to fall. Bored.
The man turned at the end of the row of houses and began to walk down the alley. Most of the houses had their toilets there and it smelled worse than Sally on a bad day.
‘Put out the light!’ he cried, and before we could echo him, a yard door flew open and an old woman stuck her head out.
‘Who’s that? Who’s that shouting? Clear off, you cheeky beggar. Clear off or I’ll call the police.’
The man stopped. In the starlight, we could see him step towards her. He wore a long coat and a steel helmet like an upside-down soup plate. He pointed to the white letters on his helmet – ARP.
‘Air Raid Precautions, Mrs Grimley,’ he said. ‘It’s me, Warden Crane. I can see light in your window.’
‘Of course you can see light. I’m reading the paper. I can’t read in the dark. What do you think I am? A cat?’
‘No, Mrs Grimley. But you have to draw the curtains tight. It’s the blackout. You can be fined five pounds, Mrs Grimley. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘Who says?’ she snapped. Her white hair glowed like a halo and her round spectacles shone.
‘The law, Mrs Grimley. Now, let me come and check that curtain and you’ll stay out of trouble.’
‘I’ve never been in trouble in my life,’ she said as she led the way into the back yard.
Sally and I crept closer. The smell of the toilet made my eyes water.
‘We don’t want German bombers seeing your light and dropping a bomb on your head, do we?’ the warden said as they moved towards Mrs Grimley’s kitchen door.
‘Bombers? Bombers? There aren’t no bombers,’ she argued.
‘No, but there could be at any time.’
‘Why would they want to drop bombs on me? I never did nothing to them Germans.’
‘True, but they’d send bombs to flatten the steelworks over at Tinsley,’ the warden explained.
‘Tinsley? We’re two miles from Tinsley!’
‘They might miss, and then where would you be?’
‘In the shelter at the end of Stanhope Street,’ she said sourly and closed the door behind them.
‘That told him,’ Sally said, laughing.
‘You’d better watch he doesn’t catch you,’ I said to my little sister. ‘He’ll have you locked up.’
‘Mum’ll kill you if I get caught,’ she said. ‘She says you have to look after me.’
‘I know,’ I muttered. ‘Oh, I know!’
And that was the night we did get caught.
Warden Crane left the house and walked to the end of the alley. ‘Put out the light … and then put out the light!’ he cried, and we called out, too. But he didn’t seem to hear.
He turned onto the main road and we raced after him. But as we hurtled round the corner, we ran straight into his waiting arms. ‘Now, you two, you’ve had your fun. Just run along home. It’s ten o’clock.’
‘Are you going to send us to prison?’ Sally squealed.
‘You think I should?’ the warden asked. He was tall and broad and over sixty years old, I reckon. His hair was grey and just a little too long. It curled out under his helmet.
‘You talk funny,’ I said to him. ‘I mean, the other wardens say, “Put that light out”, but you shout, “Put out the light”.’
‘Shakespeare,’ the warden said in a deep voice. ‘He was a writer. He wrote great plays, but he’s dead now.’
‘In the war? Did a bomb fall on him?’ my sister asked.
‘No, he died over three hundred years ago. But actors like me still perform his plays. And one of his greatest plays was called Othello. A man creeps into his wife’s room…’ The warden’s deep voice turned soft and low and spooky. ‘He blows out the candle and then he smothers her. He says, “Put out the light, and then put out the light.”’
‘So he put out two lights?’ I frowned.
‘No, he put out the bedside candle and then he put out the light of her life – he murdered her.’
Sally shook herself free. ‘You can’t be an actor. You’re a warden.’
‘In the war, we do what we have to,’ Warden Crane explained. ‘In a lot of cities, even children work with the ARP service.’
‘Shouting, “Put out the light”?’ Sally asked.
‘No, as messengers. I mean, if I see a fire, I can’t run to the nearest telephone very quickly. I’m a bit old for that. But children make good runners. They can have the fire service out here before any real damage is done.’
‘Can we be your runners?’ Sally asked.
‘Sheffield doesn’t have runners,’ he said. ‘But when the bombing starts, you may be able to help me.’
‘Do you think the bombing will start?’ I asked.
‘Bound to, lad – what’s your name?’
‘Billy. Billy Thomas, and this is my sister, Sally.’
‘Yes, Billy. Sheffield steel makes planes and tanks. The enemy will want to put a stop to that. Oh yes, they’ll be here any day, and we’ll be ready for them.’
Of course, he was right.
Chapter 2
Warden Crane walked off into the darkness. The new moon glinted on his shiny black helmet. We wander
ed past the end of the houses. There’s usually a wind off the Pennines in Sheffield. It’s a black-bricked, smoke-skied, wind-chilled steel town, where the factory chimneys rise across the skyline like broken teeth and the people can be hard as the metal made there. The wind made the ragged posters on gable ends flap. Some of the posters were selling stuff like Tetley’s ale, Fry’s chocolate (if your ration book let you buy the stuff), Woodbine cigarettes, John Bull tyres and Nugget boot polish.
I pointed to one at the top. ‘Monkey soap. Hey, Sally, that would suit you!’
She pretended she hadn’t heard.
There were new posters, too; posters about the war saying things like Women of Britain, come into the factories or Dig for Victory and a picture of a warden like Mr Crane telling off a little boy in a bombed street. He was saying, ‘Leave this to us, sonny. You ought to be out of the city.’ Mum and Dad had ignored that one.
Sally and I walked back down the alley and stopped near the door to Mrs Grimley’s back yard.
‘Come on, Sally,’ I said. ‘Mum says Sexton Blake’s on the radio tonight. He’s the best detective in the world.’
‘Not as good as Sherlock Holmes,’ she argued. My sister liked to argue.
‘Sherlock Holmes is dead,’ I said. ‘That makes Sexton Blake the best. We don’t want to miss him.’
‘Don’t care,’ she sniffed.
But before we could move, we heard the clatter of marching boots on the cobbles. The footsteps were getting closer.
A man walked down the alley towards us, just a shadow against the purple sky. He was whistling softly. As he drew nearer, his face became a pale oval. We could make out that he was a young man in uniform.
‘Hello, kids. What are you doing out at this time?’ The man peered down at us. He had a handsome face and I saw from the badges it was an Air Force uniform. The silver wings showed he was a pilot. My mouth went dry. A pilot. A real pilot.
‘We’re running,’ Sally said.
The pilot blinked. ‘Well, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re not running very fast. In fact, you look like you’re standing still!’
‘Very funny, ha ha!’ Sally sneered. ‘We are runners for Warden Crane. If there’s a fire, we race to the fire station and get them here faster than a bullet from a cowboy’s gun.’
‘There aren’t any fires here,’ the airman said. ‘So why are you hanging around?’
‘What’s it to you?’ Sally asked rudely.
‘Sally!’ I croaked when I found my voice.
‘This is my house and I have a right to ask who’s standing at my back door,’ he explained.
‘Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!’ Sally said, raising her voice. ‘This is Mrs Grimley’s house. We just saw her go inside.’
‘And I am Paul Grimley. Ada’s my mother. Now push off home before I call the zoo and have you locked up in a cage, like the little monkey you are.’
‘Eeeeh! The cheek! Did you hear that, our Billy?’
‘Let’s go, Sally,’ I murmured. She ignored me. Even under the thin moonlight I imagined I could be seen glowing red as a steel furnace. Little sisters usually show lads up, but Sally was the worst in the world.
‘Why aren’t you out shooting down German bombers?’ my sister demanded.
‘First, I can’t see any bombers. And second, I’m a bomber pilot,’ he explained.
‘Ohhhh!’ Sally sighed. ‘They’re boring. Fighter pilots are best. Our dad works at Firbeck air base and he says – stop pulling my sleeve, Billy – he says fighter pilots are the cream of the cream.’
‘And my mum always says cream is full of clots,’ the pilot said with a laugh. ‘Now clear off!’
Before Sally could answer, I dragged her away. We heard the back door of the house open, and Mrs Grimley called, ‘Is that you, our Paul?’
‘Yes, Mum, I’ve got twenty-four hours’ leave before we set off on the next mission.’
‘Come on in then. Come and tell us all about it.’
The door closed and silence fell on the dark streets. Somewhere, a church clock chimed the hour.
‘Sexton Blake!’ Sally cried. ‘He’s on the radio now. He’ll have solved ten murders if we don’t hurry. We don’t want to miss it.’
‘I already said that,’ I argued.
‘He’s better than Sherlock Holmes,’ she told me.
‘You said –’ I began. But Sally was racing down the lane to the end of our street. Sometimes, I wished one of those murderers would get his hands on our Sally.
Sisters!
Chapter 3
Dachau, Germany 6 August 1940
The teacher’s eyes shone. ‘Boys!’ he cried and clapped his hands. ‘Today our maths lesson is cancelled.’
‘Hooray!’ Manfred Weiss cried, jumping to his feet. No one else in the class had dared to move.
Herr Gruber, the teacher, turned red and glared at him. ‘I will deal with you later, Weiss. I will cane you so hard that you won’t sit down for a week.’
‘Would I have to stand up to do my lessons, sir?’ Manfred asked.
Manfred was a tall boy with a mop of brown hair and the round face of a baby. His small friend, Hansl, sat next to him and swallowed a choked cry. He wasn’t sure if Manfred was being stupid or cheeky. But it was a dangerous way to talk to Herr Gruber.
The teacher breathed heavily. ‘Stand up, boy. I look at you, Weiss, and I remember the story of the father who wrote to Herr Hitler. The father said his son was feeble-minded and asked Herr Hitler if he could kill him. And what did Herr Hitler say?’
‘He said, “Yes”,’ Manfred replied.
‘Exactly. This is still a maths lesson, Weiss, so let me give you a little test – it costs four marks each day to keep a feeble-minded person alive. There are 300,000 feeble-minded people in German asylums. How much would we save each day if we did not have to care for them?’
Manfred closed his eyes and thought. ‘One million … and two hundred thousand marks.’
‘Exactly, Weiss. The Nazi Party has plans to deal with the feeble-minded, Weiss. Be careful, or I will add you to the list of mental cases.’
Some of the boys giggled at Manfred’s embarrassment, but Herr Gruber didn’t seem to mind. He carried on as Manfred stayed on his feet. ‘Every family has a black sheep. Luckily, your family also has a sheep as white as fresh snow.’ Herr Gruber turned to the class. ‘And we are honoured to have Weiss’s brother, Ernst, here today.’ He walked to the door and threw it open. ‘Come in, Oberleutnant Weiss.’
A young man in the uniform of the German Air Force marched into the room. He looked uncomfortable under the gaze of forty boys and his high collar appeared too tight. The oberleutnant carried a rolled paper under his arm. He gave a sharp nod to the teacher, then turned to the class, pink-faced.
Herr Gruber said, ‘We are one year into this war and we have many heroes – great German fighters like Oberleutnant Weiss. I invited him here today to tell us about life in the Luftwaffe and how we plan to invade Britain and end the war. Give him a round of applause, boys.’
The pupils clapped politely and the pilot tried to look modest. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I am Ernst Weiss and I am the captain of a bomber aircraft.’
‘What sort?’ a small boy at the back asked.
Weiss gave that sharp nod again and took the roll of paper from under his arm. He let Herr Gruber pin it to the blackboard. ‘There are three main attack bombers in our squadron and here they are. It will be useful for you to know what they look like in case you see one flying over the city. If you see a large plane that does not look like one of these, it could be an enemy bomber, so you should run like hell!’
The boys laughed and the pilot pointed at the diagrams. ‘We fly Junkers Ju 88s, Dornier Do 17s and Heinkel He 111s.’
Excited questions flew for an hour and the boys listened more eagerly than they ever did to Herr Gruber’s maths lectures.
‘Have you killed many English people?’ Hansl asked.
Oberleutnant
Weiss became serious. ‘We do not want to kill English people,’ he said quietly. ‘First, we aim to wreck the airfields so they cannot send up planes to stop us from invading. Soon, we will send an army over in ships and barges to land on the south coast.’
‘Operation Sealion,’ little Hansl said. ‘My father told me about it.’
The pilot nodded. ‘We want to destroy the factories that make the tanks and aircraft, the shipyards that build the battleships, the power stations and the railway lines. We want the British army to suffer so much loss that they tell their government to surrender.’
‘Like Germany had to in the last war,’ Herr Gruber nodded.
‘The women and children of England will not be hurt, unless a bomb has their name on it, of course,’ Oberleutnant Weiss said.
‘You put the names of women and children on your bombs, Ernst?’ Hansl gasped.
‘No, no, no,’ the pilot cut in. ‘It is an old belief. Everyone has a time to live and a time to die. If a bomb falls – or a bullet is fired – it will not kill you unless it is your time to die. We fly over England and the British send their Spitfires and Hurricanes to shoot us down. Some of my friends never return. It was their time to die.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ the small boy at the back asked.
‘What is the use? I cannot change a thing. It is fate. If it is not my time, then a thousand Spitfires cannot kill me. And if the British send aeroplanes to bomb our town, then you will be safe, unless a bomb has your name on it.’
The boys fell silent. The teacher rubbed his hands and said, ‘Enough of this gloomy talk of death. You must have some other questions for Oberleutnant Weiss?’
‘When will our army invade England?’ Manfred asked.
‘That is for our Führer, Herr Hitler, to decide,’ the pilot said. ‘It has to be before the end of September. The weather in the English Channel will be too stormy after that. But we must win the war in the air first.’ Then with a small smile he added, ‘When Herr Hitler has decided, you will be the first to know, Manfred. I will ask him to send a special messenger to our house to tell you.’
The boys laughed. They had a hundred other questions to ask, but Herr Gruber told them it was four o’clock and time to go home.