‘Just imagine it,’ said Joan Kennard at a Wednesday gathering of the Knitting Circle. ‘Imagine sleeping on that hard, cold platform amongst complete strangers – and what do they do about needing the lavatory?’
Isabel Neville shook her head. ‘It puts all our troubles into perspective when we think of the courage of those Londoners.’
‘And there’s nothing we can do to help them, is there?’ said one of the ladies.
But it turned out that there was vital help to be given by families in North Camp. Before the heavy air raids began, many evacuated children were brought back to London by their parents; now there was urgent need to re-evacuate them. Sir Cedric and Lady Neville opened Hassett Manor to a girl of seven and a boy of five from the East End. At the Rectory space was found for two little motherless boys, terrified of what they had seen and heard; Roland Allingham insisted to his wife that they should do this act of Christian charity, and Joan Kennard put the boys into Josie’s room, returning her cot to the bedroom she shared with Alan. Billy Yeomans refused to take in any evacuees, as did the Nuttalls and Mrs Pearson, but after conferring with her nephew Philip, Miss Enid Temple agreed to take in a silent, underweight boy of ten called Nick Grant who seemed to have no relatives and at first shrank back warily from Philip, though when he realised that the quiet man was friendly and showed him how to play simple tunes on the piano, his fears were replaced by trust and a growing attachment which became mutual.
From Everham came news that the Mundays had opened their home to two young Jewish children from Whitechapel, Ruth and Sarah. ‘We’ve got a full house, but Devora manages to keep us all usefully occupied,’ reported Ernest.
The whole of North Camp tuned in to their wireless sets at teatime on an October day to hear a broadcast message from fourteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth, a message directed towards all the children who had been sent away from their parents to places of greater safety.
Miss Temple wiped her eyes when the princess, seated beside her younger sister, ended her speech with a heartfelt, ‘Goodnight, and good luck to you all.’
‘Excuse me, I’m sorry,’ she apologised to Nick, who had listened with her, and his shy reply, ‘Don’t worry, Auntie Enid,’ brought more embarrassing tears to her eyes.
More tears were shed at the news of the death of Mr Neville Chamberlain, aged seventy-one, remembered now for his ‘peace in our time’ speech after visiting Hitler.
‘After all that good man did to try to save us from war,’ wept Mrs Pearson, ‘and then to die a broken man.’ Tributes were paid to him from all levels, from his colleagues in government down to the patrons of the Tradesmen’s Arms, where Tom Munday and Eddie Cooper agreed that ‘Chamberlain was a gentleman, which made him no match for that lying old bugger Adolf Hitler.’
Soon after this the fury of the Luftwaffe turned from London to the centres of British industry: Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow became the targets of the enemy’s bombs, and on one dreadful night of destruction the beautiful medieval city of Coventry was virtually razed to the ground, over a thousand of its citizens killed, and its ancient cathedral left a blackened ruin. At 47 Rectory Road Tom Munday and his son-in-law reminded Grace Nuttall that her son was well out of the ongoing action, and could look ahead to recovery from his injuries, horrendous as they were.
‘Things are going badly, Tom,’ said Eddie from his chair by the small fire in the public bar. Tom nodded.
‘Yes, they are,’ he said. ‘And the funny thing is that when we sat here a couple of years ago, and couldn’t believe that there’d be another war, in fact we hardly dared think about it – but now that we’re right in the thick of it, I don’t dread the future any more – it’s as if we’re determined to see it through – take everything old Hitler can throw at us, because we know we’re going to win in the end.’
‘Yeah.’ Eddie took a deep swig of bitter from his glass. ‘Yeah, like old Churchill said, no surrender. Not us.’
In Ward Three of the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead, a historic market town in Sussex, young Jack Nuttall was experiencing the darkest night of his life. He lay in his bed, unable to help himself even to reach out for a glass of water with his burnt and bandaged hands. The skin graft to his face had sloughed off, and would have to be attempted again. It smelt unpleasant, and in the silence of the night Jack felt utter despair, for at twenty years of age his life and future had been taken away from him. He had to be fed and helped to use a urinal bottle; he dreaded a bowel movement when he had to be lifted onto a bed-pan, and found it easier to be led to the lavatory during the day. His one change of scene came when he was led to the tepid saline bath in which he could soak without bandages, and every few minutes he took a deep breath and lowered his head right under the water, easing the pain of his face. One day a week he was visited by his parents, which gave him no comfort, for his mother could not contain her distress at seeing him lying there unrecognisable, his face hidden by saline dressings that covered his lidless eyes. She always burst into tears and had to be led away by his apologetic father.
As he lay there in the silence broken by snores and mutterings of the other men, he gave a long-drawn-out groan which turned into a stream of obscenities.
‘Bloody hell, fucking hell, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger …’
The next thing he heard was a man’s voice close by the bedside. ‘Saying a little prayer for us, mate?’
Jack recognised the familiar tones of Smithy, an ex-patient of Ward Three, an early example of Archibald McIndoe’s plastic surgery before the war. His nose and four fingers had been frost-bitten from climbing in the Alps, and although he had to lose his fingers, two from each hand, his nose had been reconstructed over a period of five operations. He now worked in the administration offices of the Queen Victoria Hospital, and as a voluntary visitor to Ward Three, where he would turn up unannounced at any hour of the day or night.
‘Want a fag?’ He lit a cigarette, took a draw of it, then put it in Jack’s mouth through the space in his facial dressings for breathing and feeding. And then he took a chair and began to talk about his own experiences and those of others treated by McIndoe – the Boss, as he was referred to.
‘You know, this is the right place to be, lad, because although it may take a long time and several operations, the Boss is a genius with his knife and tweezers. He’ll do that graft again, and again if need be – you’ve got plenty of spare skin on your bum and thighs – and count yourself lucky you’ve still got your crown jewels intact – there’s many a bloke who’s had ’em fried. I tell you, Jack old son, in this place you can always find somebody worse off than yourself.’ He gently removed the cigarette to shake off the ash, and replace it between Jack’s lips, before going on talking, easily and unsentimentally.
And that was how Jack Nuttall started to return to the land of the living. It would be a long, hard journey, but in that dark hour he discovered new hope.
The bombing of Britain’s towns and cities continued relentlessly, and the whole nation grieved for those killed, injured and made homeless. That Christmas, the second of the war, was shadowed by deepening austerities and worsening dangers facing the country at home and abroad. Listeners heard about the terrible night of the twenty-ninth of December, when incendiary bombs had rained down on London, creating an inferno that lit up the sky with fiery light that could be seen thirty miles away; people in North Camp stood on their doorsteps and watched in awe; it was being called by newsreaders the Second Great Fire of London, three hundred years after the first.
Abroad, trouble was brewing in North Africa, where British and Commonwealth troops were guarding Egypt and the Sudan from imminent invasion from the Italian army, which greatly outnumbered them. Paul Storey wrote to report that the food parcels from home had arrived, and Valerie Pearson received a postcard from John Richardson with a photograph of the Great Sphinx, telling her of the discomforts of life in the Western Desert, all itchy heat and flies. She sighed over it,
reminding herself that he was thousands of miles away, not knowing when he would return, if ever. She also remembered her embarrassment when he’d taken her to see Gone with the Wind, and what had followed. Gone were the illusions she’d cherished that one day he would truly return her love, and sweetly enfold her in his arms, whispering of marriage and sharing a home together. Going with two friends from The Limes to see the film of Rebecca had been far more enjoyable – here again was Laurence Olivier with looks to dream about – imagining tender love-scenes, safely remote from overheated, heavily breathing intimacy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1941
Daffodils were fluttering in the cold, blustery wind of an early April day, and Rebecca Neville, county representative of the Women’s Land Army, thanked heaven that spring had come round again. The winter had seemed interminable, miserably cold indoors as well as out, food was becoming scarcer, and there was the constant worry about the men in the armed services, now being shipped abroad to North Africa in larger numbers; every day brought the fear of a telegram with the worst news. Seated at her desk at the Everham office, Rebecca had five applicants to interview; their numbers had been increasing since the recent compulsory registration of women over the age of twenty. She had to be careful to give them fair warning of the hardships as well as the good points of life on the land, especially in winter, and to help them consider the other auxiliary forces: the ATS in which Dora Goddard had discovered a new and exciting life, or the WAAFS who supported the men who were defending the country from invasion from the air, and increasingly going on raids over Berlin and Hamburg, giving the Germans a taste of the bombing; or the WRNS, the women who supported the navy, beset by the dreaded U-boats, the German submarines which sank so many ships of the merchant navy carrying food supplies, and their Royal Navy escorts.
Rebecca considered the applications of the five girls to be interviewed today. Two of them were from rural areas in Hampshire and Berkshire, so could be sent straight to farms, if possible to places of their choice, but firstly to where the need was greatest. Three town girls with little or no knowledge of rural life might benefit from a course of instruction at one of the WLA courses like the Cannington Farm Institute in Somerset; she hoped that its Nissen huts with concrete floors, hard beds and a slow combustion boiler to heat water would not put them off.
Having dealt with the new recruits, Rebecca got down to paperwork. She had to visit and inspect every farm in her area at least once a week, and prepare reports for the regional offices. There were usually complaints from the land girls or the farmers or both. The girls protested that the farmers’ wives expected them to work indoors, especially in winter, after they had fed and cared for the livestock – the cows, sheep and pigs – while in summer they had to work up to twelve hours a day at haymaking and harvesting time. Rebecca usually found that a little give and take on both sides was needed, and in winter it was fair to give some help in the farmhouse, but that it should be limited to preparing food and washing-up, cleaning of pots and pans that had been used; there was to be no house cleaning, and certainly no emptying of chamber pots. ‘We don’t mind mucking-out the cow sheds or the pig sties, but we draw the line at mucking-out the pots,’ one girl had complained. Some of them were homesick, especially those who came from stable family backgrounds, while others were only too pleased to get away from the demands of home life. Rebecca found it worthwhile to sit down and have a talk with unhappy girls, and sometimes she was able to transfer them to another farm or bring another land girl to share the placement.
Home life. Rebecca sighed, for they had their problems at Hassett Manor, which was no longer the haven of peace that it had once been. Their evacuees, a girl of seven and a boy of five, had dirty language and dirty habits. Sally Tanner had to bear the brunt of the chaos they caused, and Rebecca braced herself for another tirade of disapproval when she arrived at the Manor this afternoon. She boarded the train waiting on the North Camp spur line, and stepped into a carriage where two people were already seated.
‘Miss Neville!’ cried Philip Saville and Valerie Pearson in unison.
‘Oh, what a nice surprise,’ she said, putting on a smile, for she usually found conversation rather hard work when faced with either of these neighbours.
‘How’s life at The Limes, Valerie?’ she enquired, and was surprised at how the girl’s face lit up.
‘It’s very rewarding, Miss Neville,’ came the reply. ‘Some of the children are so sweet, so – so in need of care and attention. I shall always be grateful to your mother for digging me out of the rut I was in!’
Philip smiled. ‘Yes, Miss Pearson, Lady Neville is a remarkable, er, lady. She has visited my aunt to check on our evacuee, Nick. He’s ten years old, very silent and solemn at first, but now he’s coming out of his shell, and we talk about what he’s learnt at school, and all sorts of things.’
Rebecca was pleased at both of these reactions. The war had brought sorrow and suffering to so many families, but had proved to be not such a bad thing for these two; they positively bloomed.
‘You’ve made a difference to Charlie and Joe Perrin, Philip,’ she said. ‘They’re excellent young pianists! What about this little boy Nick – would he like to come over and meet the Perrin twins?’
‘I’m sure he’d love to, Miss Neville,’ Philip replied with a smile and a nod. ‘I’ve given him a basic knowledge of the keyboard, but we haven’t attempted any lessons as yet. The boy’s had more than enough new impressions to take in, but yes, it’s a very good idea, and most kind. Shall I bring him over to Hassett Manor when the next lesson’s due?’
‘Certainly, Philip – but be on your guard against the two tearaways we’ve got!’
‘You mean the Perrin lads?’
‘No, no, they’re positively angelic compared to our evacuees,’ she said wryly. ‘Jimmy’s five and Lily’s seven, and so far we haven’t made much progress with them. Heaven only knows how they were brought up!’
‘Oh, how awful for poor Lady Neville!’ said Philip in real dismay. ‘She leads such a busy life with her voluntary service work – not to mention the anxiety over Paul—’
‘Not to mention it,’ said Rebecca firmly, as if to stop further talk on the subject.
There was a short silence, broken by Valerie. ‘Is anybody going to see this film Pinocchio on at the Embassy all next week?’ she asked. ‘It’s a full-length cartoon film, like Snow White, just right for children.’
The silence continued while Rebecca and Philip took this in, and then they both spoke at once.
‘I could take Nick and the Perrin boys,’ said Philip, just as Rebecca said, ‘I could take Lily and Jimmy – we could go to a matinee on the Saturday.’
‘Or on the Wednesday, when the children are off school,’ said Philip. But Rebecca reminded him of the Ladies’ Circle.
‘Make it the Saturday, then,’ she said, ‘and what a very nice thought, Valerie! Would you like to come with us? We’ll need your skills at child management, as you’ll see when you meet Lily and Jimmy!’
And so it was settled – an outing to the cinema as a treat for the evacuees.
On her arrival home, Rebecca was faced with a highly indignant Sally Tanner, both her parents being out. Sally’s biggest complaint was of the thieving from the kitchen as soon as her back was turned, and utter disregard for the trouble they caused.
‘It’s very difficult for you, I know, Sally – you get the worst of them, with my parents so often out,’ Rebecca said placatingly. ‘They’ve been brought up in a rough area, and don’t know any better.’
‘Rough area be blowed, they’re just pig-ignorant!’ stormed Sally. ‘Them two, they do their business in corners of rooms, so no wonder the whole house smells to heaven. And their talk is so disgusting, I don’t care to repeat it to you. They don’t show any respect, they went upstairs into my bedroom, opened drawers, took out my underwear and wee’d on it, then put it back. They’re always shouting and hollering – they’re no b
etter than animals, dirty little tykes!’
‘Oh, that’s awful, and I shall have to speak to them very firmly,’ said Rebecca in dismay. ‘Try not to upset yourself, Sally—’
But Sally was not to be soothed. ‘I tell you what, Becky, if it wasn’t for your poor mother, I wouldn’t stand for it – I’d sling me hook and go back to Bethnal Green, bombs or no bombs!’
Seeing angry tears in Sally’s eyes, Rebecca shook her head helplessly. Her mother had worries enough with Paul out in North Africa, and spent most of her time with the Women’s Voluntary Service; Sir Cedric was also taken up with the training of the Territorials, in addition to his position as a Justice of the Peace and running the Manor Hassett estate with a depleted staff. Even so, Sally deserved to be treated better than this, and something would have to be done. Rebecca decided to have a serious talk with her mother.
While many families waited in dread for news from abroad, the atmosphere at 47 Rectory Road had lightened, for which Tom Munday was thankful, for it made Grace easier to live with. Her weekly visits with Rob to the Queen Victoria Hospital had raised her spirits, seeing Jack’s slow but steady improvement, the success of the second attempt at a skin graft to his face, and the new eyelids which did not quite close, but allowed him at least to see a blurred vision of his surroundings. His face was recognisable to his mother and father, and he was able to acknowledge them. McIndoe had removed two blackened, stiffened fingers from his right hand, and he still had his thumbs, so was able to grip objects, to hold a knife and fork, a pencil, a cigarette – and to talk, not only to Rob and Grace, but to McIndoe and his surgical team, the nurses and the other patients in Ward Three, to whom he introduced his parents, quoting Smithy’s words that there was always somebody worse off. He made an effort to cooperate with McIndoe as the reconstruction of his face and hands proceeded. Rob Nuttall was immensely proud of his son, and both he and Grace looked forward to the day when Jack would be able to come home, and Grace would be able to devote all her time to his comfort. And she need never again dread news of planes shot down or reported missing.
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