A Sister's Promise (19 page)

Stan, probably thinking to reassure his granddaughter,
told her of the corrugated iron shelters that would be delivered to every house with a garden big enough to take them.

It didn’t make Molly feel any better at all. The thought of her grandfather and her little brother, and possibly Hilda and her husband too, burrowing into the ground like animals, while bombs rained down on them from the sky, horrified her. Her grandfather’s reference to Guernica bought to mind the pictures she had seen of that blitzed town, the buildings reduced to piles of smoking, smouldering rubble, its many dead or dying, others dreadfully injured.

The savagery of it had shocked the world and now that same thing perhaps might be afflicted on them or those belonging to them. God, it didn’t bear thinking about.

The talk of war was everywhere and couldn’t be escaped as the spring rolled into summer. Tom told her, going home from the McEvoys one day, that not all Irishmen felt that the war should affect them or their country at all.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, you see, many feel that this is England’s fight, not theirs, and they should keep well out of it. I think they are remembering England’s promise of Home Rule as thanks for Ireland’s support in the Great War, where our brother Finn lost his life.’

Molly nodded. ‘Mom told me about that and also that the promise wasn’t kept.’

‘That’s right,’ Tom said. ‘And of course that led to years of unease and almost civil war raging through the land. People here don’t want to be dragged in again.’

‘I can see they have a point,’ Molly said. ‘How do you feel?’

‘I think the past should stay in the past,’ Tom said firmly. ‘What’s done is done, and it does no good to be rehashing it all the time. I think if Britain goes to war we could well be dragged into it whether we like it or not. And though I am essentially a man of peace, I could do my bit as well as the next man if I had to.’

‘Yeah, I think that is the best way to look at it really,’ Molly agreed.

‘But I think it would do no harm to get a wireless in,’ Tom said.

‘A wireless! Oh, Uncle Tom!’ Molly hugged herself with delight.

Tom smiled at her. ‘Joe was after advising me to get one; keep abreast of things,’ he said in explanation. ‘Seems a good enough idea to me.’

‘But how will you work it?’ Molly asked. ‘I mean, we had a wireless at home, but it ran on electric.’

‘These have something called an accumulator in the back,’ Tom said. ‘The man in the shop in Buncrana was showing me. He said it has to be charged up every so often and I can do that in Buncrana when I go in on a Saturday. Anyway, he has one on order for me and I am picking it up next Saturday.’

‘Oh, it will be grand to have a wireless,’ Molly said. ‘Ooh, I can’t wait.’

Biddy didn’t think it was grand at all. ‘Waste of more money,’ she growled out as Tom proudly carried it indoors. ‘Boy, money must burn a hole in your pocket.’

‘I am no boy,’ Tom snapped back. ‘And when I ask you to give me something towards anything I buy, then you may
express an opinion. This was bought with my own hard-earned money and we have already established that what I do with that is my own business.’

Molly smiled. For her money, Tom could go for a drink every day of the week because he could always cope better with his mother when he had sunk a few pints of Guinness with Jack and the rest of the men. And anyway, she thought, nothing could take the pleasure away from actually having a wireless in the house again.

England at least was preparing for war. Molly’s grandfather told her of the trenches dug in Birmingham parks and the reinforced brick-built shelters that were going up everywhere. Even the children got involved, and Kevin wrote and told her of the hundreds of bags they had spent ages filling with sand through the hot summer days.

Hilda explained to her about the blackout and the issuing of gas masks.

‘What are these gas attacks like, Uncle Tom?’ Molly asked one day in the cowshed.

‘Well,’ Tom said, ‘I can only talk about the last war when the Germans used mustard gas on the soldiers. It buggers up, I mean, damages the lungs so that a person can’t breathe.’

‘Does it kill?’

‘Aye, I believe it can do,’ Tom said. ‘I suppose all these measures are to protect the civilian population. They are sending the children away too, so Joe said. Did your grandfather tell you that?’

Molly nodded. ‘Doesn’t affect them,’ she said. ‘Erdington obviously isn’t considered a high-risk area.’

‘Tottenham is,’ Tom said. ‘But Joe says that Gloria won’t even consider Ben going anywhere.’

‘I don’t blame her either,’ Molly said. ‘But it is scary, isn’t it?’

‘All war is scary,’ Tom said. ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be scared, and though the raids and all won’t happen here, because Ireland has declared itself neutral, we have loved ones to worry about in England that I am certain will soon be in the thick of it.’

‘I know,’ Molly said, and her heart felt as heavy as lead.

On Friday, 1 September, the day many children from England’s cities were travelling to unknown destinations, Germany invaded Poland. Molly’s eyes met those of her uncle as the voice on the wireless told them what this meant. Everyone with a grain of common sense knew already.

Molly was glad the following Sunday that her grandmother wasn’t the kind to linger after nine o’clock Mass. There was going to be an address by the British Prime Minister, just after eleven, and Molly wanted to have the opportunity to listen to it, although she knew what it was going to say.

She wasn’t disappointed either. By 11.15 a.m. on Sunday 3 September 1939, she heard that Britain was at war with Germany, and she felt suddenly numbed with fear.

Everyone, both in Ireland and Britain, expected raids from the air once war between Britain and Germany was official, but it didn’t happen. In fact, nothing did. There were battles at sea and ships sunk which were often reported in the Irish papers. Though Molly could feel sorry about the sailors who had lost their lives, that didn’t adversely affect her loved ones at all.

In fact, what seemed to affect them most was the blackout. As Hilda put it,

Her granddad hated it as much as anyone else, but he was also dreading the rationing that was being introduced in the new year.

Molly could understand her granddad’s concern and was glad too that he was having the Anderson shelter delivered at last. She might not be that ecstatic about the two of them burrowing inside a tin shack buried in the garden but she had to admit that if the raids came, it had to be a safer place to bide than out in the open with no protection at all.

Spring came early in 1940, and, even though she longed to go back to Birmingham, by May Molly thought the countryside had never looked better. The sunshine lent a glow to everything, and many of the trees were heavy with fragrant blossom. Added to this, all the crops were ripening very satisfactorily in the fields. The war seemed a million miles away.

And yet just the previous evening she had heard a man on the wireless tell them of the bombing of Rotterdam that left nine hundred people dead. Molly felt sick, for she knew that this was Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, which the Germans had promised was coming and she also knew what had been done in Rotterdam could be achieved just as well in Birmingham, London or anywhere else they chose.

No one was surprised when Belgium and Holland surrendered, and then towards the end of the month they heard of the defeat of France, the Allied troops trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk and the frantic efforts to rescue them.

‘Don’t the people in Birmingham tell you any of this?’ Tom asked Molly one day in early June as they did the milking together.

‘If they try, like they did in the beginning, then the censor cuts it out,’ Molly said. ‘Now they stick to general things like how hard it is to make the rations stretch and how they have food programmes on the wireless every day and between films in the cinema, and there are hints and tips in the newspapers and magazines. Granddad has taken on an allotment with Hilda’s husband, Alf, though he says he now has a fine crop of potatoes growing in the earth he piled on top of the Anderson shelter.’

‘Which they haven’t had any occasion to use yet.’

‘No, thank God,’ Molly said fervently. ‘It is bound to come, though. The government have recommended putting tape crisscrossing the windows to prevent flying glass in the event of an attack, and the blackout is as stringent as ever, though they are now allowing shielded torches and shielded light on cars and other vehicles.’

‘That must help.’

‘Yeah,’ Molly said with a wry smile. ‘It would, I think, if the batteries for the torches were easier to get hold of. Granddad said he reckons that he could get hold of the crown jewels with less bother. I mean,’ she added, ‘there isn’t much light to be had from the stars and the moon in the smoky Birmingham skies.’

‘And that might be just as well, when all is said and done,’ Tom said.

Molly looked at Tom, but didn’t say anything. She was no fool and knew exactly what he was meaning, for a full moon shining brightly in the sky, as she had often seen it in Ireland, would surely light the way for any enemy planes determined to empty their load over Britain.

Tom saw the look on her face and wished he had kept his big mouth shut.

In mid-July, platoons of soldiers from the Irish Army arrived in Buncrana. It was strange to see soldiers thronging the streets, filling the marketplace and a fair few drinking at the
hotel where Molly would meet up with her uncle on Saturday before walking back into the town.

‘Do you know what they are doing here?’ she asked Tom as they set off the first day.

‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘Me and Jack had a fine chat with them. Apparently, they are here to guard Ireland’s neutrality.’

Molly stared at Tom open-mouthed. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘That’s what they said.’

‘Yes, but, Uncle Tom, Hitler’s armies have goose-stepped throughout half of the world and emerged victorious. What earthly chance have a few soldiers got against such an army?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Better than doing nothing, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it is even more important now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the navy has commandeered Derry and that’s awfully close. They say Lough Foyle is filling up with naval craft, and the docks at Derry are now known as HMS
Ferret
. The soldier we spoke to said the British are building new airfields all over the six counties.’

‘For what, exactly?’

‘Well, I think it is all hush-hush,’ Tom said. ‘These soldiers weren’t told it chapter and verse or anything, but these things get about. One fella says they will be doing convoy duty, trying to protect the merchant ships that will sail up to meet them. Good thing too, I’d say, especially as the southern ports are having a time of it just now.’

They were too. Night after night they heard on the wireless of the blitzing of those coastal towns. Molly felt sorry for the families suffering from such a battering, and Hitler massing his troops just across the channel.

Churchill claimed ‘the Battle of Britain’ was about to begin, which he said would be fought mainly in the air. He warned those in Britain to brace themselves for he was certain the whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon them. Molly knew that was right, for
though the threat of invasion seemed less, almost every night Hitler’s bombers began attacking London and other areas.

‘Birmingham isn’t mentioned,’ Tom said one night as he turned the wireless set off. ‘It just mentions a Midland town and that could be anywhere.’

‘I am pretty certain that it is Birmingham,’ Molly said. ‘Remember the raid last month that the newscaster said took the roof off the Market Hall in the Bull Ring in the city centre, and the later one that did damage to the church there, St Martin’s? Well, Birmingham’s Bull Ring has both places and it would be too much of a coincidence for another Midland town to have exactly the same buildings, I would have thought. Believe me, Uncle Tom, Birmingham is getting its share too.’

The nightly raids seemed to increase through October, and then the letters from Stan and Hilda ceased. At first, Molly wasn’t that bothered. Nellie told her that the shifting of letters might not be a priority for a country in the grip of war and to have patience. October gave way to November and Molly’s letters to those in Birmingham had a frantic edge to them. Deep anxiety dogged her from morning till night and invaded her dreams while she slept.

‘I don’t care what Granddad said,’ Molly declared as she walked home with Tom one Sunday in early November after telling him of the lack of the letters she so relied on. ‘I must go and see if they are all right. It’s the not knowing that gets to you after a while.’

‘It’s not a country I would be choosing to visit just now.’

‘Nor I, by choice.’

‘How will you manage it?’

‘The same as everyone else, I suppose.’

‘I mean …’

‘I have money, Tom, if that’s what you are worrying about,’ Molly said, and she told him about the fund set up by Paul Simmons. ‘Apart from the paper, stamps and
envelopes, which I often saved your sixpences for, the money has been untouched for years.’

Tom’s face was one beam of relief. ‘You don’t know how good that makes me feel that you will have a bit of money behind you. It is one less thing to worry about.’

‘Next Saturday in Buncrana I will buy the tickets and make preparations,’ Molly said. ‘All I ask of you is that you cover for me on the morning I leave.’

‘I will help you in any way I can, you know that.’

However, before Saturday they heard of the massive raid on Coventry on 14 November, which began just after seven. Coventry had been attacked before but that night it was, according to the wireless, the fiercest yet.

Biddy gave a grim humourless laugh and said to Molly with gloating satisfaction, ‘Hah, there will be none of your precious country standing when the Germans have finished.’

‘Do you know,’ Molly said, ‘I think you are seriously unhinged. Why d’you think the Germans so wonderful? What d’you think would have happened to us all if the Germans had invaded? I tell you this much, they would have made short shrift of you. And don’t even think about that,’ she warned as she saw her grandmother’s fist raised. ‘You touch me and you’ll get twice as much back.’

Biddy was incensed, but saw that Molly meant what she had said. She had once told her grandmother that she could get away with hitting her only because she was bigger and stronger and said that it wouldn’t always be that way. Now, while Molly hadn’t grown terribly tall, she was hardened through the work on the farm, while the years had aged her grandmother, who had developed a slight stoop. Because of the indolent life Biddy had adopted when she had Molly to skivvy for her, she had become quite plump.

Biddy knew she was no match for Molly now and she lowered her clenched fist and contented herself with snarling, ‘I bet they’ll be none belonging to you left alive in that
godforsaken place after this little lot is over. They will be burned to a crisp like those in Coventry.’

Molly didn’t even bother replying to this, knowing there was little point, and the following evening she found out the true extent of the damage to Coventry. In a raid that had gone on for over nine hours, the city was pounded by 500 bombers that destroyed over four thousand houses, three-quarters of the factories and annihilated the tram system, leaving nearly six hundred dead and countless others injured. The euphoric German papers were claiming to have invented a new word,
Koventrieren
, which was to signify the razing to the ground of a place. Molly knew with a dread certainty that Birmingham would be in line for some of the same.