Vinnie's War

by David McRobbie

  ‘Or Jerry crystals.’ Vinnie smiled and went out-side to find a rake.

  ***

  Kathleen found paper and a pencil and wrote a letter:

  Dear Mum,

  We are doing well here and our billet is comfortable, the people very—

  She thought of writing ‘generous’, but if Mrs Watney read this private letter, she might think it was sarcastic or something. Kathleen wrote ‘nice’, and moved on:

  The village is peaceful and quiet, but Joey and I worry about you in the air raids. And Joey asks if you can send his train set, and some books for me, please.

  The train journey here was very long and hot, but the scenery was lovely. We had music most of the way.

  It was difficult, what with wanting to tell her mother the truth, but not worry her. Kathleen bit the end of her pencil, then added:

  Joey and I would love to hear from you, Mum, just to know you are all right and if there is any news from Daddy. We miss you both.

  Love from Kathleen. xxx

  ***

  Vinnie was in the kitchen finishing his biscuit and glass of milk. Joan opened the back door to Constable Breedon. ‘Morning, Joan, morning Mrs Greenwood,’ he said. ‘Just want a word with your vaccy lad.’ He stood red-faced and wheezing with heaviness.

  ‘His name’s Vinnie Cartwright,’ Mrs Greenwood told him.

  Constable Breedon nodded, then faced Vinnie. ‘Packets of custard powder, lying outside the back door,’ he began. ‘How do you think they got there, young fella?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Vinnie folded his arms defiantly, and added, ‘Sir.’

  ‘Stealing food in wartime’s a very serious offence,’ the constable went on.

  ‘Vinnie didn’t leave the house last night,’ Mrs Greenwood said.

  ‘He could have sneaked out,’ Joan put in. ‘The back door’s never locked.’

  ‘Joan, Madam’s lying down, so you can tidy the music room.’ Mrs Greenwood nodded in that direct-ion.

  ‘I was only saying,’ Joan muttered and huffed away.

  ‘And don’t touch Madam’s piano. Whatever you do.’

  Constable Breedon persisted with Vinnie: ‘So, lad, you never left the house?’

  ‘What is this? We vaccies turn up and straight off we’re guilty?’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ the man said doggedly.

  ‘You can take my dabs if you like.’ Vinnie held up his hands, palms outward.

  ‘Dabs?’

  ‘Fingerprints,’ Vinnie said. ‘It’s what we call them in London.’

  ‘Ah,’ Constable Breedon grunted, ‘so you know all them criminal words, eh?’

  Mrs Greenwood intervened. ‘Constable, Vinnie said he knows nothing about the custard powder. This isn’t why I rang you. He’s just got here and hasn’t even found his way around, so maybe you ought to look somewhere else.’

  ‘Just letting newcomers know they should watch their step.’ Constable Breedon wasn’t giving up easily. ‘So I’ll say good morning to you, Mrs Greenwood.’ With a warning frown in Vinnie’s direction, Constable Breedon took a look around the kitchen, as if there might be a cup of tea on the go. There wasn’t, so he left.

  Mrs Greenwood shook her head. ‘Never mind, Vinnie.’

  ***

  There was no putting it off. The following Monday came around and it was time for the evacuees to enrol in Netterfold Primary School.

  The bus driver, Mr Preston, still seemed unhappy with the world. He sat hunched over the steering wheel and barely looked up when Vinnie came aboard. Kathleen was already sitting alongside Joey. Dobbs was in the seat behind.

  ‘Wotcher, Kath, wotcher Joey,’ Vinnie greeted them, Cockney fashion, as he took the seat beside Dobbs and asked, ‘You get a visit from the law?’

  ‘I did.’ Dobbs puffed his cheeks and stuck out his stomach. ‘Scotland Yard on a bike with flat tyres. Asking about stolen food.’

  ‘That’s the man.’ Vinnie laughed. ‘There was some mystery custard powder found outside my billet. He accused me of nicking it.’

  Joey turned around in his seat, squirming excit-edly. ‘Guess what, Vinnie? I can watch trains!’

  Kathleen explained: ‘The railway line runs along beside a street near our billet. So Joey’s happy. Well, happier.’ With finger and thumb, she indicated the amount.

  ‘We’ve already been twice,’ Joey added. ‘There’s a goods yard, too. Wagons everywhere.’

  Mr Preston started his engine, but waited as the local boys and girls got on the bus and stalked in single file to the rear seats. As they passed, they gave the evacuees sour looks. At the back of the bus Freddie Preston called out, ‘You vaccies better not be going to our school.’

  ‘Yeah,’ a local girl added nastily, ‘place’ll need to be funigated.’

  ‘I think that’s fumigated,’ Kathleen remarked over her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, my,’ the girl sneered. ‘Clever, are we?’

  Kathleen caught Vinnie’s eye and shrugged. It was not going to be nice.

  Netterfold Primary School was a small place in a peaceful setting, with fields of grazing sheep and cows in the background. It was beautiful outside the school grounds, but with their unfriendly attitude the locals spoiled the inside.

  Vinnie, Kathleen, Dobbs and four other evacuees, two boys and two girls, were in Class Seven. Joey was in a lower class, and when the bell rang for them to go in he grabbed Kathleen’s hand. She tried to cheer him up and Vinnie helped out with a promise: ‘After school, we can watch trains.’

  ‘All right.’ Joey brightened and went off to his classroom.

  Vinnie, Kathleen and Dobbs followed the crowds to their own classroom.

  ‘I say, you chaps.’ Dobbs put on a posh accent. ‘I wonder, where is Ralphie and his chum?’

  ‘Can’t see them coming here,’ Kathleen said.

  ‘Yeah, not a cricket pitch in sight,’ Vinnie added, then laughed to hide his anxiety.

  The evacuees found desks on the left side of their room, under the window. Freddie Preston and five other local boys and girls sat in a group near the door, muttering among themselves. Kathleen whispered to Vinnie and Dobbs, ‘We could be here for a whole year. Putting up with…with this.’

  Vinnie nodded and got to his feet, then faced the locals. ‘Listen, you lot. We didn’t ask to come here. So how about you get used to it?’

  At that moment, the classroom door opened and an elderly man entered. He had to be their teacher. The locals suddenly sat bolt upright, looking ahead with folded arms. The teacher stabbed a finger at Vinnie and demanded in a growl, ‘What do you think you’re doing, boy?’

  Vinnie froze while Freddie Preston and another local boy wore sudden smiles that said ‘now you’re for it’. The teacher wore half-glasses that glinted coldly in the morning light. He looked at Vinnie, then repeated his question: ‘I asked, what do you think you’re doing? Standing there as if you’re about to make a speech.’

  ‘I was doing nothing,’ Vinnie answered and sat down.

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ the teacher growled. ‘Remember that. In this classroom, you need to know who is sir and who is not sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ Vinnie responded and added, ‘sir.’

  The teacher’s eyes landed on a local boy who still wore a bonnet. ‘And you, ill-mannered galoot, never, never wear a hat indoors. Not in my classroom. Do you understand?’ The boy whipped his bonnet off and lowered his head.

  The teacher didn’t bother giving his name, but the evacuees found out later he was Mr Murdoch. He’d retired two years earlier, but since younger teachers had gone to fight the war he’d been coaxed back to the classroom.

  After his abrupt introduction, Vinnie was on his guard. Mr Murdoch wasn’t out to make friends, calling one local ‘a grea
t hollow lump of uselessness’, another a ‘wet weed’. The locals already knew him and were wary. The vaccies and the locals had a common enemy, but it didn’t unite them.

  On that first morning, Mr Murdoch entered the evacuee names in the roll book. It went calmly enough until it was Dobbs’ turn. He stood up and said politely, but with a heavy Polish accent that he hadn’t had before, ‘Kind sir, I have the honour to be Dobroslaw Szczepanski.’

  ‘Eh?’ Mr Murdoch looked over the top of his glasses. ‘Never mind the honour, boy. Just give me your name.’

  ‘That is my name, kind sir. Dobroslaw Szczepanski.’

  Mr Murdoch gave a heavy sigh, then started to write in the roll book, but gave up. ‘So spell it. If you’re able.’

  Dobroslaw Szczepanski began to spell his name, letter by letter, and Mr Murdoch added them one by one to the roll book. When Dobbs finished his first name, he waved a finger to demonstrate how the ‘l’ should be written. He explained, ‘In my country, kind sir, we put a stroke through it.’

  ‘In this country, we don’t!’ Mr Murdoch retorted. ‘And never mind the kind sir routine. Sir will do. Now, let’s have your next name.’

  Dobroslaw started spelling ‘Szczepanski’, but with so many jostling ‘c’s and ‘z’s, Mr Murdoch became confused. He made three attempts and ended up with a blot in the book. Eventually he growled, ‘I’m still hoping for a vowel to come along soon.’

  ‘Sir, if it makes it easier for you, my friends just call me Dobbs Stefanski.’

  ‘Well, I’m not your friend,’ Mr Murdoch snarled. ‘I’m your teacher.’

  ‘Thank you, teacher sir.’ Dobbs sat down and exchanged a wink with Vinnie. Mr Murdoch closed the roll book, then opened his mouth to speak. At that moment, the school bell rang for a special morning assembly. So he contented himself with a surly frown and let the class go.

  As they left the classroom, Vinnie said to Dobbs, ‘You’ll have to keep that phoney accent going forever.’

  ‘Yeah – fun, ain’t it?’

  ***

  The special assembly was to check that every Year Five, Six and Seven student had a gas mask and knew how to fit it. Only Vinnie and two other evacuees didn’t have the proper mask, so they were each promised one.

  The gas-mask drill was held in the school’s coal cellar, which doubled as an air-raid shelter. Teachers and students assembled dutifully on long, backless seats, wearing their masks. Some boys discovered that if they breathed out quickly, the air burst noisily from the sides of their masks where the rubber pressed against their cheeks.

  Before long the cellar was filled with farting noises. This annoyed the teachers, but their voices were muffled and some of them made rude noises of their own as they tried to regain control. But students had to breathe in and out, especially out. So the noise continued.

  At last the drill was over and everyone was allowed outside for morning break. In the playground, Joey ran to Kathleen, who took one look at him and asked, ‘What’s making you so happy?’

  ‘My teacher’s really, really nice. She’s even better than the one in London.’

  ‘Can we come to your class?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘You’re too big, and I’ve got to go. I’m playing marbles with my friends. One’s called Jimmy and the other’s Albert.’

  In the playground, Freddie Preston and the locals kept to themselves. They huddled in a sulky group, muttering and sometimes glowering at the evacuees. Meanwhile, two of the local girls started skipping with a rope, chanting in time:

  Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea Silver buckles at his knee He’ll come back to marry me Bonny Bobby Shaftoe

  They skipped on for a bit, then stopped. Something more interesting was about to happen…

  As if with one mind, the locals marched to- wards Vinnie, Kathleen and Dobbs. ‘We heard some of you got spoken to,’ Freddie Preston announced, ‘by Constable Breedon.’

  ‘How’d you hear that?’ Vinnie asked.

  Freddie ignored this. ‘We know you lot came from a slum, with dozens of criminals. So we’re watch-ing you. Got it?’

  A girl pointed to Vinnie and said, ‘Cowardy, cowardy custard! That’s you, isn’t it?’

  Vinnie thought, Custard, eh? So, word about those mysterious packets has already got around.

  With that job well done, the locals went off, still in their group. The bell rang for the end of the morning break.

  Kathleen spoke gloomily: ‘So this is to be our school? Nasty outside, and nasty in?’

  ‘Yeah, out here’s the frying pan, in there’s the fire.’ Vinnie pointed to the classrooms. Kathleen managed a smile.

  ***

  When class resumed, Mr Murdoch took a piece of chalk and started writing a row of numbers at the top of the blackboard. Below this, he added more numbers until the blackboard looked like this:

  1 2 4 6 8 9 0 4 7 3 8 0 9 1 2 0 8 9 8 4 8 7 6 9

  1 5 4 8 9 3 5 2 9 0 3 5 1 2 8 0

  4 6 7 8 9 3 4 5 6 1 2 9 5 6 8 4 5 6 2 4 8 9 7 6

  7 8 4 8 5 6 2 9 0 2 7 8 9 0 1 3

  9 3 9 4 8 5 7 6 1 9 2 1 7 8 9 4 5 6 2 7 8 4 5 6 0

  3 5 7 2 8 1 9 0 3 5 6 3 7 8 0

  3 5 6 7 8 9 2 3 4 9 7 6 8 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 3 4 5 9 0

  8 7 5 6 7 6 4 3 5 2 4 5 7 6 7

  And still he wrote on! It took him a full five minutes of silent concentration until he had written nine rows of figures. He finished with a plus sign then drew a long line under the numbers. In his menacing voice, he said, ‘Just do that sum. See if you can get it right for once.’ Then he went to his desk, took out a newspaper and began to read.

  In silence the class opened their exercise books, copied the numbers and then started to add them up. It was all they did for the rest of the morning, just that one huge sum.

  About five minutes before the bell rang to signal the lunch recess, Mr Murdoch took an aloof interest. He asked only the local boys and girls to give their answers to the sum. Only two of them got the same number. Vinnie noticed that they sat next to each other, so maybe that had helped.

  Mr Murdoch said, ‘Well, that seems to be the answer.’ Then the bell rang and without another word he walked out. The locals followed; then the evacuees went chattering from the room.

  In the afternoon, it was silent reading, but few of the evacuees had books. The locals, who knew about this sort of lesson, eagerly produced library books and settled down. Vinnie noticed that Freddie Preston had a large book propped up on his desk with a Dandy comic hidden inside. Mr Murdoch wasn’t the kind of teacher to pace between the rows of desks, so Freddie was quite safe reading his comic.

  As for the evacuees, the only books most of them had were the arithmetic and English grammar texts already in their desks. The afternoon passed slowly. At last the bell sounded.

  And the final mean lesson of the afternoon: Freddie Preston and his mates made a rapid beeline for the school bus, which took off for Netterfold leaving everyone else behind. ‘Well,’ Vinnie said, ‘we’re learning. We won’t get caught like that again.’

  ‘It’s as if we’ve left one war,’ Kathleen observed, ‘only to come to another.’

  It was a long trudge back to the village, but Vinnie had his harmonica, so he cheered them on by playing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ and other marching tunes. When he got tired of it, the evacuees whistled ‘Colonel Bogey’ until Dobbs made them giggle by marching a gigantic goosestep with his long legs. Then the ground began to shake.

  They faced each other, puzzled. Joey moved closer to Kathleen. Next came the noise – a dull roar. Alarmed, they looked to the sky, but it was not coming from there.

  Dobbs pointed. ‘It’s not a Gerry, it’s ours!’ Around a bend in the road they’d just walked came an army tank so wide it almost brushed the hedgerows on each side. A commander stood high in the turret, his bere
t at an angle.

  Vinnie, Kathleen, Joey and Dobbs scrambled up on a farm gate as the tank surged nearer. The commander held up two hands with all fingers outstretched and nodded behind him, then roared on his way.

  ‘He means ten more to come,’ Vinnie said. They sat on their gate and watched as tank after tank growled past, each one with a friendly commander in the turret, who’d give them a wave, a wink or a thumbs-up.

  ‘What about the size of them!’ Vinnie was amazed.

  Dobbs held his hands apart. ‘The tracks are that wide.’

  ‘We should have a flag,’ Joey said. ‘To show we’re on their side.’

  When the last tank had roared away, the evacuees resumed walking back to their billets. At a T-junction in the road they could see from the marks on the ground that the tanks had swung left and not gone through the village.

  ‘If we’d got the bus, we’d never have seen them,’ Kathleen remarked.

  ***

  In the village, they found Freddie Preston and his friends outside the post office, arms folded, leaning against a wall. The locals were slyly amused at the success of their stunt with the school bus.

  Dobbs said, ‘I’ll just have a word with Friendly Freddie.’

  ‘You mean the enemy.’ Kathleen shook her head to warn Dobbs to let it go.

  ‘Only a little word,’ he assured her with a danger-ous wink, then approached the locals. ‘Wotcher, Fred! What about that stupid bus driver, leaving us vaccies behind?’

  Freddie bridled. ‘That stupid bus driver’s my brother, George.’

  Dobbs shook his head in a sympathetic way. ‘So, George is your stupid brother, eh?’

  Freddie realised his mistake. He ground his teeth. ‘Just watch it, you.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Dobbs persisted. ‘Why isn’t George in uniform?’

  Freddie sprang upright. ‘What do you mean?’ He raised a fist. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Bus driver’s uniform,’ Dobbs explained. ‘Don’t they have them here? We’ve got them in London. Tram drivers, too. They’re all in uniform. With a badge. And a cap.’