The Girls They Left Behind (51 page)

In all too many cases, there was nothing to find but a few bloody fragments. But in others, there were people, injured but alive, waiting to be released and some of them were even able to joke with their rescuers.

‘I’m really sorry about this,’ one young man, buried almost to his neck, whispered faintly to Gladys. ‘I bet you were going out with your boyfriend tonight, weren’t you?’

‘Haven’t got one,’ she said cheerfully, scraping mud away from his mouth. It would be a nice smile when he got himself cleaned up a bit. ‘So I wasn’t going anywhere, see?

Glad to have something to do.’

‘No boyfriend? A pretty girl like you?’ His voice was slurred, almost as if he were drunk, but Gladys knew that it was really the effect of the morphia injection the young woman doctor had just given him. ‘Well, why don’t we make a date? A night at the flicks, how would that suit you?’ His voice faded, as though speaking was becoming too much of an effort, as if he needed all his energy just to keep breathing.

‘It’d do me fine.’ She looked at him with pity. A few moments ago, before the injection, his face had been contorted with agony, his voice a thin scream. Goodness only knew what injuries he had sustained when the building had crashed about him. They would find out soon enough, but the doctor had shaken her head. Some of them die as soon as the weight’s taken off them, she’d said, and Gladys knew that she half expected it to happen to this boy.

‘You can take me out the first day you get out of hospital,’

she said. ‘And don’t think you can get out of it, I’m the one who’ll be driving you there, so I’ll know just what ward you’re in and everything.’ That’s if you ever get that far, she thought, and felt the tears come to her eyes.

No time for crying. Casualties were being loaded into her ambulance all the time and she must leave this boy for others to dig out, and drive to the hospital again. By now, the Royal had been bombed and the Eye and Ear, their own patients being rescued by the nurses and doctors. That meant a long drive through the streets and over Portsbridge to the Queen Alexandra, right out at Cosham and on the flanks of Portsdown Hill. And suppose the bridge got bombed? Apart from the railway line, it was Portsmouth’s only link with the mainland.

Once at the hospital Gladys saw nurses, some of them hardly any older than her sister Diane, dealing frantically with one patient after another. Staunching blood, cleaning off the incredible dirt that flying dust and grit had poured into every wound, bandaging, splinting broken limbs … And all by the light of hurricane lamps, emergency lighting or the red glare of fire which permeated every street in the city that night and would burn for ever in the memories of its people.

After two hours of consistent bombing, the sky fell silent and the bombers seemed to depart. People who had spent the time cowering in their shelters crept out and gazed on the destruction of their homes.

‘Stay down in the shelter, Jess,’ Frank ordered. ‘The All Clear’s not gone yet.’

Frank and Ted had arrived home half an hour after the raid had begun. Running along the streets, ignoring the harried bellows of wardens who were as scared as the rest of the populace, they had dived into their shelters to comfort their wives, and to reassure themselves that their families were safe, and then had strapped on their helmets and taken up their own firewatching duties. And firewatching was the right word for it tonight, Frank thought, standing up on top of his own Anderson, staring at the blazing sky. There was nothing to watch but fire. God knew what was burning down there, it might be easier to say what wasn’t burning. And although most of it couldn’t be nearer than Commercial Road, you could smell it from here, that all too familiar stench of burning dust, of oil and soot, of metal and stone - could stone burn? - of bricks and mortar and roasting flesh. The smell of death.

‘The whole place is going up,’ he said in awe. ‘There’s not going to be anything left…’

Along the street, Ted was saying much the same to Annie and Olive. But Olive had ignored his injunction to stay under cover. She scrambled out and stood beside him, a tin helmet jammed over her head, gazing in horror at the billowing clouds of black smoke, their swirling bellies lit with orange flame. Unconsciously, her hands moved over her stomach in the age-old gesture of a pregnant mother protecting her unborn young, and the movement reminded her of Kathy Simmons.

‘I’ll just pop over and see if she’s all right,’ she said, turning swiftly. Her father grabbed for her arm, but caught only her sleeve and Olive darted up the garden path. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘Livy! Come back, the All-Clear’s not gone, they could be back any minute, they could be up there now.’ There was too much noise from the city to be able to tell if the planes were still above. The crump of explosions was still going on, if not bombs, it could be gas-mains, oil tanks, anything. Cars could explode, buses, lorries, anything with oil or petrol, anything with pressure, could go off. Smoke itself made a noise as it billowed about, carrying with it the crackle of flames, the rush of air in a storm of its own making. In such conditions, fire could spread from one end of the city to the other in a matter of minutes, it wasn’t safe anywhere. ‘Livy!’ he shouted again.

‘Livy! Come back, for God’s sake, come back!’

But she was gone, running away from him down the bright-lit street, and he could only stare helplessly after her.

It took Olive no more than two minutes to reach Kathy Simmons’ back garden and dive into the damp little shelter.

She found her friend as she had expected, huddled in the dark on a flimsy camp bed, cradling her baby against her, with a little girl crouching against her on either side.

‘Kathy! Kath, are you all right? I came as soon as I could ‘

‘Olive? Oh, Olive, is that you?’ The young mother reached out a hand. ‘Oh God, I’ve been so frightened. What’s been happening out there? It sounds as though the whole of Portsmouth’s going sky high.’

‘It looks like it too,’ Olive said soberly. ‘Look.’ She held back the old curtain Kathy used as a door. ‘Never mind the lamp. That little bit of light won’t show anyone the way in this lot.’

Kathy stared out at the crimson sky. ‘What is it?’

‘What d’you think? Fire. Fires all over Pompey.’ Olive’s voice shook and she let the curtain fall again. ‘They’ve been dropping flares, bombs, incendiaries, God knows what, and Dad reckons they’ve not stopped yet. Just gone home for another lot, he says. The All-Clear’s not gone and he don’t reckon it will. I just slipped over while there’s a lull.’ She turned the lamp up and studied her friend’s face. ‘You look done in, Kath. Have you got anything to eat or drink down here?’

Kathy shook her head. ‘I had a flask, but the girls needed some cocoa. And I have to save some water for Thomas. Poor little mite, he’s slept through it all, can you believe that?’ They looked down at the peacefully slumbering baby. One fist was curled like a bud under his chin, and his lashes lay like dark fans on his creamy cheeks. Olive touched him gently with the tip of her finger and again laid her other hand over her stomach. Soon, her own baby would quicken and she would feel its tiny feet pressing against the walls of her womb. A boy like Derek, or a girl like herself? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it should be born safe and kept safe, away from bombs, away from war and terror.

‘I wish I’d brought you something,’ she said. ‘We’ve got two or three flasks, we could’ve spared you one. Or you could come over to us.’ Her voice brightened. ‘Why don’t you do that, Kath? Come over to us and stop the rest of the night. It’d be better for you to be with company, and better for the girls too. We could have a singsong like they do in the big shelters.’

Kathy hesitated, then shook her head. ‘There’s not enough room. It’s cramped enough as it is.’

‘Don’t be daft. There’s only Mum and me, and Dad when he pops in for a few minutes off firewatching. We’ll keep each other warm.’ The spatter of ack-ack fire broke into her words ‘It looks as if they might be coming again. Come on, Kath.’

Kathy bit her lip and looked at the girls. They were pale and frightened. Olive watched her, seeing the thoughts chase each other across her face. Perhaps it would be best. Better for the children. And better for me. She saw Kathy make up her mind, as clearly as if a light had been switched on, and gripped her hand.

‘You are coming, aren’t you? Only I think we ought to be quick.’

‘Yes. I’m coming. Only - will you take the girls first? I just want to pop indoors and boil a kettle to fill up the flask again.

It won’t take more’n a minute. I’ll come across straightaway then.’

Olive looked at her doubtfully. ‘D’you think you ought to?

Go indoors, I mean? Suppose they come back …?’

‘I’ll be quick as a flash,’ Kathy promised. She drew back the curtain and looked out. ‘It’s quiet enough now, look. And they’ve never dropped anything round these streets yet…’

They never had. And Kathy had been bombed once, and ought to have been immune from further disaster. After all, they said lightning never struck twice in the same place, didn’t they?

But Kathy wasn’t in the same place. And the Luftwaffe did not follow the rules laid down for lightning. The bomb fell in the gardens of October Street, close to the shelter where she had been taking cover. It fractured the gas main at the moment when Kathy had just lit a match in the kitchen to boil her kettle. The gas gushed out and exploded, throwing her and the baby son she had wanted so much clear through the shattering wall.

Olive and the girls were halfway back to the turret house at the end of March Street when it happened. They too were knocked over by the blast, and when Ted Chapman came racing across to help them, found to their dismay that every stitch of clothing was ripped from their bodies. The girls scrambled up, crying and terrified, shuddering with the sudden rush of cold air on their skin. But Olive lay still, racked with sudden agony, and the blood spread in a pool around her body.

There was not a bruise on her body. The blast had torn away her clothes as cleanly as if she had taken them off herself, yet she was quite unhurt.

But there would be no baby for her in July. No baby son who resembled Derek, no daughter who looked like her.

And for Kathy Simmons, no babies ever again. Nothing, ever again.

Twice on that terrible night, the raiders returned. For seven hours they bombarded Portsmouth without relief, until it seemed that the city must have been totally destroyed by their frenzy. And when daylight finally came, to show what could not be seen even by the light of the flames which had consumed so much, so greedily, during the hours of darkness, it revealed just what havoc had been wrought.

The main shopping centres - Palmerston Road, which Gladys had never reached, Commercial Road and King’s Road - lay in ruins. At Southsea, Handley’s and Knight Lee’s, two of the grandest department stores in the city, were burned, and other buildings dynamited to prevent the flames from spreading. In Commercial Road, the Landport Drapery Bazaar, which was not a bazaar at all but another large department store, was burned down and Woolworths, which had only just been rebuilt after the previous year’s fire, C & A and the Royal Sailor’s Rest destroyed. At Fratton the big Co-op was little more than a crater.

Six churches and the Salvation Army Citadel had been destroyed. The Eye and Ear Hospital had gone, so had part of the Royal. Clarence Pier, at Southsea, had been reduced to rubble. Gone too were three more cinemas, and the Hippodrome, where Annie and Ted had gone to laugh at Elsie and Doris Waters, was in tatters.

Houses had been smashed by the street, craters left gaping in roadways, roofs torn off and walls blasted away. In one front bedroom, the passer-by could see nothing but destruction, yet still hear the tick of an alarm clock balanced precariously on the remains of a mantelpiece. In another, the ceiling had collapsed on a double bed, killing the occupants who had refused to go to the shelter, but leaving the cot containing their baby son unscathed. In a third, there was no damage at all, only a wall removed as neatly as if it were the front of a doll’s house, lifted away for display.

But worst of all for the city and its pride, was the destruction of the Guildhall, that great and gracious building so dear and familiar to them all. Standing at the edge of its square at the end of Commercial Road, it had symbolised the heart of Portsmouth; the deep tones of its bell, ringing out the hours before it was silenced by war, had echoed in the breast of every man and woman who had lived with its sound. And now the bell tower was ablaze, burning like a great torch as if in defiance of the enemy, with flames surging into the sky like crimson plumage. The copper plates of the cupola shimmered in the heat and fell away, the flames spread through the interior and the great hall where only two days earlier a thousand children had eaten jelly and marched to the tune of There’ll Always Be an England was destroyed for ever. The organ would never play again.

‘I don’t want to see anything like that again, ever,’ Peggy Shaw said to Jess next afternoon. She and Gladys had arrived home late in the morning, filthy and dog-tired. They had had a quick wash and then, weary as she was, Gladys had gone off to Commercial Road to report for work at the ruined shop.

Diane too had come back exhausted, her brief exhilaration crushed by a night at the First Aid post. But she had not given way, Mrs Jenkins had remarked to Peggy as they left. She’d been a real help and would be welcome any time to give a hand.

‘Our Glad’s been a real heroine,’ Peggy went on. ‘Took her an hour to get that kiddy out from the cellar, and there was bombs falling round our heads all the time. But she never give way. The little un wouldn’t hardly let her go when they brought her up. Broken leg, she had, poor little mite, scratched and grazed all over, and her mum killed in front of her eyes. We put her straight in the ambulance and Glad drove round to the Royal. I didn’t think she ought to, she was shaking like a leaf when she come up, but she wouldn’t hear of letting someone else take the van. That’s my ambulance, she said, and I’m responsible for it. So they had to let her do it.’