Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (6 page)

‘Oh, it’s pitiful,’ she said

He seemed to hesitate, then shook his head, without her having to voice her thought. ‘It’s too dangerous, May. It’d be stupid to go in there for a cat!’

Again, an almost accusing cry rose from the ruined building, this time ending in a choking sound. May put her finger to her lips. ‘Shhh… listen! That doesn’t sound like a cat!’

‘You stay here.’

‘No. I’m coming too.’

‘OK, but tread where I tread.’

She followed in his footsteps as he picked his way carefully over the pile of tumbled bricks, which had fallen from the front wall, leaving an opening into the ground floor of the house. They peered over the rubble and a cry forced itself from May’s lips. Bill reached back to steady her, clutching her hand as they inched forward. But May’s foot slipped and they froze as the whole rubble pile shifted. They gripped each other’s hands till it had settled, and they were able to look again through the opening.

It was a scene of domestic serenity. A woman sat in a rocking chair, holding an infant in her arms. Her face was full of a calm contentment but she was obviously dead. Yet with all the determined strength of a baby’s will, the screaming child was demonstrating that it was still very much alive.

For an instant May stiffened, an irrational sense of the woman’s privacy holding her back. This was her home – how could they just walk into her home, uninvited. Maybe it was because the mother looked as if she were sleeping, had just nodded off by the fire after nursing her baby, perhaps waiting for her husband to come home. But the bombs had already invaded her home and there was no privacy in death.

‘We’ll have to go in… for the baby, Bill.’ Her voice shook and Bill squeezed her hand more tightly. Then, letting go, he inched carefully down the rubble mound and into the woman’s front room. May followed cautiously, but stumbled to her knees, setting the whole scree moving, tumbling her into the front room of the house.

Bill froze. ‘Careful, May! Are you all right?’

‘Yes, don’t worry about me!’ She gingerly got to her feet and stood watching as he gently prised the woman’s arms away. She heard him say ‘Sorry’ softly as he lifted her baby and handed the child to May. A current of trembling life shot through her as soon as the child was in her arms. Its cries sent a shudder through her own body, its insistent blue lips parting to let out screams of rage and fear.

‘Quick, Bill, we need to get it warm. It could’ve been there all night. Poor little thing.’

But as they began the precarious climb back out of the ruined house an agonized groaning came from the old timbers holding up the roof. She scrabbled for a foothold and, with the baby held in the crook of one arm, scrambled to the top of the pile of rubble. Bill clambered up behind her and grabbing her round the waist shouted, ‘Jump!’

September–December 1940

They launched themselves from the top of the mound. Staggering forward with the momentum of their leap, it was a minute before she looked back, to see the old house, which had resisted centuries of neglect and decay, now succumb. It met its end with a slow crash and a long sigh, almost like the exhalation of a last breath. All May could think of was the poor young mother, whose home had become her tomb.

She held the child as tightly as she dared, trying to give it her own warmth, but the baby, sensing she was not its mother, could not be comforted. She looked around for help. There was no one in sight. They stood listening to shouts and bells clanging further down Shad Thames.

‘The rescue teams must have moved on,’ Bill said. ‘Wait, let’s think. Tower Bridge nick’s near here. We should take the baby there.’

He began walking rapidly and May hurried to keep up with him.

‘Hang on a minute, Bill. This is the wrong way. You’re going towards the river.’

Bill looked doubtful, but she knew she was right. Her father called it her homing-pigeon instinct.

They began half-running back the other way. Bill gave her his coat to wrap around the child, and looking back at the remains of the old narrow house, she called out a promise to the dead woman. ‘We’ll look after your baby.’

She felt warmth returning to the child in her arms. ‘Oh, Bill, that poor woman, and she looked so peaceful. How could she be dead, when she didn’t have a scratch on her?’

‘Probably the shock of the blast, but her body must have shielded the baby.’

May gave the child her thumb knuckle to chew on. It worked for a time; the poor thing thought it was getting sustenance. But soon the aching hunger returned, and by the time they were mounting the steps of the police station its screams were piercing and the sergeant looked up sharply as Bill approached the desk, quickly explaining what had happened. Either the sergeant was a father himself or he had nerves of steel, for he was able to ignore the baby’s ear-splitting cries while he went through the official procedure of taking down Bill’s name and address and the location of the bombed house. May paced in front of the desk, rocking the baby, changing its position in her arms, in a futile attempt to stop it crying.

‘I’ll get the Auxiliary Ambulance depot on the blower. They’ll have someone nearby can deal with the little mite... and its poor mother too.’

The sergeant picked up the telephone and when Bill returned to her side, she said,‘Bill do you mind if we stay, just until we know the baby’s safe?’

He nodded, looking down at the screaming bundle in her arms, and she continued rocking it while sitting beside him on a hard wooden bench.

But finally the child came to the end of its strength. The screams turned to deeply inhaled sobs, as its lower lip trembled and its eyes closed. The silence, after such turmoil, seemed so deep. May rested her hand on its little chest, feeling with relief the regular rise and fall as sleep claimed it.

They sat waiting while the wounded and lost, the innocent and guilty filed past them, all docketed and ticketed regardless of circumstance by the efficient desk sergeant.

‘I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl?’ May whispered.

‘Check.’

May looked. ‘A boy,’ she said, patting the sopping nappy. ‘I wish we could do more for him.’

Bill covered her hand with his own and said gently, ‘We’ve done a lot, May. We saved his life.’

It wasn’t long before a woman ambulance driver pushed through the swing doors. She came to them and looked down at the baby in May’s arms. May cradled him more tightly, reluctant now to let him go. No doubt the ambulance driver had seen it all before. She gently removed Bill’s jacket and produced a soft white blanket. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t he be better off in this?

May nodded, tasting salt from tears she’d been unaware of. ‘We promised his mother we’d look after him, didn’t we, Bill?’

And the woman nodded. ‘You have done. We’ll do the rest, dear, and find his father if we can.’ She put out her arms. ‘Here, let me take him. I expect he’s hungry?’

Once out of the station, May was surprised to see the sun still shining. She had no idea of the time; it was as if the drama had played out in slow motion. It must have been late afternoon and only now did she realize she was hungry. With an unspoken understanding, they turned towards the river; it didn’t seem right to May, just to go home. They came to a café in the shadow of Tower Bridge.

‘Shall we go in for a drink, and a bite to eat?’ Bill asked, and she agreed, not realizing how tired she was until they sat with drinks and a plate of sandwiches between them.

Although they’d worked together for over a year, and she’d seen him most weeks at the Red Cow, there was still much that she didn’t know about him. He told her that he lived with his parents and two younger brothers in Grange House flats, near the tannery. His father drove a horse and cart, working out of the local railway depot, and his mother worked part time, cleaning the offices at Pearce Duff’s custard factory.

She told him about her own family and he asked if her brother was serving.

‘Jack’s in the army. I do miss him – even though he used to torment the life out of me!’ she confessed, smiling at the memory. ‘But it’s worse on Mum. I dread to think what it’ll do to her if he gets posted overseas. And it’s terrible for Joycie, his fiancée… they’d not been engaged long when he got called up.’

Bill nodded. ‘It’s hard for the people left behind; not that I’ve got a sweetheart to worry about now.’

Dolly had often tried to find out if Bill was ‘taken’. Eventually she’d concluded he was single, more because it suited her than for any other reason. May wasn’t convinced, but she would never have asked – now it seemed impolite not to.

‘Now? Did you have one before?’

There was a moment’s silence, and then came the wry smile.

‘Once, yes. Her name was Iris. But it didn’t work out, probably both too young.’

‘I’m sorry, Bill.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s for the best. War’s so much harder when you have to leave someone you love behind.’

He fixed her with his sea-blue eyes and for an impossible moment she thought she saw herself reflected in their depths.

‘And you, May? Is there anyone?’

The question flustered her and she broke off from his gaze.

‘Me? No, no one special,’ she said, and squirmed inwardly. No one special! As if she were juggling a dozen fellers.

When she looked up again, he was smiling.

‘So,’ she said, trying to cover her embarrassment, ‘have you thought what service you’ll go into?’

‘I haven’t had my call-up papers yet, but I’ll try for the RAF, if they’ll have me. It’s going to be up to us young ones,’ Bill said. ‘We might as well get stuck in and get this war over with as soon as we can, so we can all get back to living.’

Those eyes, bright with anticipation, seemed to be looking into a future as unpredictable as the baby’s they’d just saved, and as he settled back into his seat she wondered if his fearlessness, like hers had once been, was founded on ignorance of all that the future might hold.

A purple dusk had settled over the Thames as they left the café and decided to walk across Tower Bridge towards the north side. They stood on the gap between the two arms of the bridge, and May felt as though she had one foot in the past and one in the future. It was no good wishing for the world to be as it once was. Looking downriver towards Surrey Docks, she could see the pall of smoke that hung above the smouldering timber yards, and isolated flashes of flame shooting high into the air as firemen struggled to save the still blazing docks. Barges were in flames on the river, and they spotted one, loose of its moorings, floating mid-stream and staining the river red. But it wasn’t until the true sunset enamelled the western sky upriver, with turquoise and pink and gold, that they finally turned for home.

*

The following day, May went to see if the factory had opened in spite of the bomb damage. She found workmen shoring up damaged walls and the front gate cordoned off. Uncertain what to do, she glanced over at Grange House, the block of flats where Bill Gilbie lived, and quickly scanned the windows, wondering which was his and whether he would turn up for work today. Instead, the familiar figure of Eddie Barber, the young foreman, came into view. But his normally jovial face was strained and his eyes were firmly fixed on the dust-strewn ground in front of the factory gate.

‘Eddie!’ she called.

He jerked his head up, and lifted a hand in greeting.

‘Hello, May, you’re a good ’un, turning up for work,’ he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, eyes still fixed on the rubble at his feet.

‘Well, I thought some of it might be open.’

‘Nah,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Too dangerous. But God knows what I’ll do when it does.’

‘Surely there’s nothing that can’t be fixed and we can get back to work?’

‘I should think so, but that’s not what I’m worried about. I’ve lost the bleedin’ dye book,’ he said, anxiety creasing his forehead. ‘All the dye formulas… gone. I should’ve taken it home with me. Daresay I’m for the high jump when the managers find out.’ As he spoke he rubbed grit from his eyes. The repair crew’s bashing and hammering had raised a thick cloud of brick dust.

‘Oh gawd, I forgot!’ May said, and diving into her bag, she produced a small, black leather book, pages a little singed, but still intact and crammed with various handwritings. In all the excitement of rescuing the baby, she had forgotten the other thing she’d managed to pluck from the ruined streets.

‘I found it yesterday, right up near Tower Bridge – the blast must’ve blown it all the way to the river!’

‘The dye book! You’re an angel! Here, give us a kiss!’

She didn’t feel she had any choice in the matter and found herself squashed in Eddie’s unwanted embrace – just as Bill Gilbie strode into view.

‘What’s going on here then?’ Bill smiled, she thought a little awkwardly, as she extracted herself.

‘I was just saying she’s an angel, Bill. Look what she found – thought I’d lost it for good!’

Bill nodded, understanding dawning. ‘She’s an angel all right; somebody else’s angel yesterday,’ he said softly, a tender expression on his face.

*

He walked with her to the end of The Grange, but was hurrying to the ARP station to report for more fire-watching duties, and she stood watching him as he disappeared round the corner into Grange Road. She decided to go to Dix’s Place, to let her friend know there’d be no work at Garner’s today. And Emmy insisted on enjoying a day off, with Dolly joining them. May had to admit she was glad of a rest from hanging the stinking hides. But with the factory still closed for repairs, they were told to report to the Labour Exchange and spent the subsequent days going from factory to factory, accompanied by Dolly, looking for temporary work. It was on the way back from a day at Atkinson’s cosmetic factory that Emmy pointed to the poster urging young women to volunteer for the ATS.

‘We should join up!’ she suggested suddenly.

‘I’d rather die,’ May said. She hated any hint of conflict, it was the reason she always tried to be the peacemaker in their family. The last thing she could imagine herself as was an army girl.