Bomber Overhead

by Graveyard Greg

  Chapter 6

  It was dark and raining heavily by the time Jeffery got home. As he opened the back door that let him into the kitchen, Mrs. Burnett called out, "Don't forget to wipe your feet."

  Jeffery always wiped his feet when he entered, rain or not. He'd not brought this habit from London; the foster parent at his second billet had slapped it into him. That was a place he'd never forget, worst luck.

  Mrs. Burnett had never hit him, but she often beat Gordon with a bamboo cane while she screamed abuse. Whenever this happened, Jeffery felt sympathy for Gordon; he didn't think Mr. Burnett knew about the beatings.

  Now she bustled into the kitchen from the sitting room. She wore a rare smile on a face freshly made up with lipstick and rouge. The smile disappeared when she saw the wet Jeffery. Strangely, she blamed the weather.

  "Oh, Jeffery, you're soaked. I didn't know it was raining so hard. And you're late. Where have you been?" She said none of this in anger, which puzzled Jeffery. He stood motionless inside the door.

  "I went up to the mansion with Arthur to see the foxhounds," he lied.

  "That Arthur will get you into trouble one of these days. He's an arsonist." She shook her head as though Jeffery failed to understand. "Well, don't just stand there. Hang your coat over the drip tray on the hallstand and go put on dry socks. Then come down and meet Mr. Burnett's brother. The poor man's been bombed out."

  Jeffery went out to the hall and hung his coat on the stand, and started upstairs. Mrs. Burnett went back into the sitting room, but poked her head out again. "Rinse those wet socks out and hang them to dry. You only have the two pairs. I don't have the time to do it."

  Jeffery took his time upstairs. He hated meeting new adults. He'd never known Mr. Burnett had a brother, although he didn't find his having a brother strange. Most people had a brother or a sister, or both. Many of them had more than one of each. At last he could no longer put off going downstairs. The sitting room door stood slightly open and he pushed it gently. A fire had been lighted in the grate. In an armchair, one of two positioned either side of the fire place, sat a man who looked like a younger Mr. Burnett. He saw Jeffery and stared straight into his eyes without speaking. A plump, friendly appearing woman occupied the other armchair. Off to one side, closer to the window, a young girl of around six sat on the floor playing with a simple jigsaw puzzle. Facing the fire, Mrs. Burnett sat between the two adults on a dining chair. When she saw the man staring she turned her head.

  "There you are, Jeffery!" she said. "Come in and meet my guests."

  Jeffery entered the room and Mrs. Burnett, without standing waved a hand at the man. "This is Mr. Wilfred Burnett, my husband's younger brother," She flapped the hand more casually to the woman, "and this is his wife. She's Mrs. Burnett, the same as me." Her hand fell to her lap as she nodded her head to the girl. "That's their daughter, Nancy." Then she turned to her guests. "Wilfred, Astrid. This is our evacuee, Jeffery."

  "Hallo!" Jeffery said.

  Wilfred Burnett nodded, and his wife said. "Pleased to meet you, Jeffery." Then the three adults resumed their chatting and Jeffery picked up a book he'd been reading the previous night and retired to a chair in the corner. Soon Mr. Burnett, the householder, came home. He didn't seem too pleased to find his brother there, nor did he enjoy sitting on the dining chair his wife had vacated in order to make dinner.

  "There's not much meat," she said as she left for the kitchen, but there's lots of potatoes and there's bread. We'll make do until I can take your emergency ration cards to the butcher tomorrow." And while she made the meal, Mr. Burnett chatted with his brother and sister-in-law.

  At dinner Jeffery was served with an even smaller piece of fatty meat than usual. He couldn't help noticing that both Mr. Burnetts had nice sized portions of lean, and the visitor got the better piece.

  After dinner, Mr. Burnett, the householder, whose first name was Donald took one of the armchairs next to the fire and his brother sat on the couch. The two women went to the kitchen to clean-up the dinner dishes. Mr. Donald Burnett opened his newspaper, which consisted of one double sheet of paper, while his brother listened to Gang Busters on the BBC.

  "I miss a big newspaper," Donald Burnett said. "But we all suffer little deprivations during wartime. We're lucky here that we're not in a target area the way you were."

  Then Jeffery got wrapped up listening to the radio drama. Gordon did the same when he arrived home from visiting a friend. Gang Busters was a popular show from America and they both tried never to miss an episode.

  A few minutes before the program was to end, Mrs. Burnett came in from the kitchen. "All right, Jeffery, time for bed."

  He opened his mouth to plead to be allowed to hear the the end of the show, but he wasn't permitted to speak. "No arguments. You can manage to change under the stairs."

  "I don't think they'll be over tonight," Donald Burnett said. "Too much cloud cover."

  As he spoke the sirens wailed. As always, Jeffery shivered as he heard the shrill sound as it undulated up and down eerily. He remembered the first time he'd heard a siren. It had been a test in London. For some reason he'd been alone in the playground late one afternoon after school when sound screamed from the siren mounted on a nearby police station. It shattered the relative quiet. Scared, he'd jumped and rushed home believing the war had started. The reason he thought that was that just two weeks previous an army lorry had driven down his home street and soldiers had given everybody a gas mask. After they had their masks, the adults acted in a hushed and strange manner as though they were afraid.

  Both of the Mr. Burnetts exclaimed surprise at the sirens. Soon the women joined in and the room became noisy. By the time it all quietened down the play had ended, and he'd missed the outcome. He couldn't do anything about that, so he went under the stairs and changed into the hand-me-down pyjamas the ladies from the Woman's Institute had given him. They were kind local women who helped clothe evacuees from the poverty stricken parts of London.

  The Burnetts and their guests and Gordon made a lot of noise and chatter outside the cupboard as they moved furniture around. Wilfred Burnett and family were to sleep in the dining room, so the fold out couch was moved in there. The dining table went into the sitting room. He heard Wilfred Burnett say, "I hope we can rent a place of our own soon."

  Yes, Jeffery said to himself. And if I can somehow get sent to the hostel up at the manor you can rent this hole under the stairs. He got nicely settled in and prepared for Gordon to come to bed. Then the long single note of the All-clear siren went and he heard Mrs. Burnett tell Gordon he could sleep upstairs. Then she poked her head in the cupboard door. "You stay here," she said to Jeffery.

  Suits me, he thought. I'm comfortable. Maybe I'll be able to get a good night's sleep without all that snoring.

  But for some reason he couldn't sleep. The kitten locked-up alone in the chicken house bothered him. We're a pair, he thought, you and me, both lost and lonely strays.

  Then his mind strayed to Felix, the cat his family had kept in London. He couldn't remember a time when they didn't have it. He had no idea what might have happened to Felix. His Mum and new sister no longer lived in London. The last he'd heard the flat they'd all lived in had been bombed out and his Mum and new sister were somewhere in the eastern part of the country. Letters were few and far between and Felix was never mentioned. And as he wondered about Felix, his memory wandered to the last morning in London.

  They'd all risen early and Jeffery and his sister had eaten some bread and dripping, and then they'd put the few bits and pieces they were to take with them into brown paper carrier bags. This done they slipped the string of their gas mask boxes over their heads and onto their shoulders. His two older brothers had left earlier as their schools were further away. Then he and his sister walked down to the corner with Mum where they boarded the red Double-Decker bus that took them to school. Many children had already arrived at the school with their mums.

  They left the pare
nts outside as they went into their classrooms. Some children were missing, but that didn't seem to bother the teacher when she called the roll from a special list.

  After roll call they waited until it was time to go to the Underground Railway Station. There they boarded an already crowded train and the journey began. Jeffrey was surprised as the train passed slowly through an eerie, grimy abandoned station where a few bare light bulbs showed everything covered in dirt. Then the deserted platforms and tunnels slipped away into darkness. At last the train rushed up from underground to pass rapidly though another station before travelling through the countryside. Jeffery was thrilled because the train rushed through areas he'd never seen before.

  Indeed probably few, if any, of the evacuees had ever been this far from home before. They crowded to the windows and stared in wonder at the scenery. There were large fields golden with ripening wheat, and lush green meadows spotted with cows. All flashed by. Soon the clouds disappeared and a bright sun shone. Along the way, in towns and villages, people stood in back gardens or small groups on street corners watching the trains full of children go by on their journey to what were thought to be places of safety. All this Jeffrey remembered as he lay in the cupboard under the stairs, and then he fell asleep.