Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (8 page)

‘It don’t look good, love. They can’t tell me anything at the incident enquiry point. I think we’ll have to start looking ourselves. Your mother’s in no fit state… will you come with me?’

‘Of course I will, Dad,’ she said, eager to do anything rather than sit at home with her mother and worry. She grabbed her coat and once out in the street suggested they go and speak to Norman. He was having his breakfast. He gave an involuntary grin at the sight of May, but their worried expressions wiped it from his face.

‘Were you with Jack Sunday night?’ her father asked.

‘’Course,’ said Norman, looking puzzled. ‘It was his last night home. Something happened… already?’

‘No, Norman. Well, we don’t know, but it’s not to do with the army.’ She fought to stop her voice from shaking. ‘Jack didn’t come home last night.’

‘Didn’t come home? What, you mean he went straight to catch his train?’

‘No, we checked. They said he never reported in. Well, we know that – his uniform’s still at home.’

‘When did you see him last?’ her father asked.

‘Christ.’ Norman tapped his forehead. ‘I can’t bloody remember. We’d had a skinful… let me think. Oh God, what time did I leave him?’

‘Was it before the raid?’ May interrupted.

Norman screwed up his face as he mined his alcohol-clouded memory of Sunday night.

‘Yes, I remember now, I’d been in about half an hour and the sirens started up.’

May and her father exchanged looks.

‘Then Jack should have been home before the raid. It’s what, a ten minute walk from here?’ her father said.

Norman suddenly looked sheepish.

‘Don’t worry about getting him in trouble, Norman, not now,’ May urged.

‘He was plastered. I should’ve seen him home. I’m sorry.’ He looked at her with such an anguished expression that she had to reassure him.

‘It’s not your fault.’ She put a hand on his arm.

They left with Norman promising to let them know if he remembered any more details of that Sunday night, but May didn’t hold out much hope.

‘Why wouldn’t he come straight home?’ her father said, once outside.

May shook her head. ‘Who knows, Dad. He could’ve fallen down dead drunk somewhere.’

‘Well, if he was in hospital, I think we’d have heard by now. May, I think we should go to the police.’ But at the police station, they had no news of Jack. They directed them to a nearby yard, where rows of bodies, wrapped in tarpaulin, filled the fenced-in space. Bile rose in May’s throat and tears pricked her eyes. Each little mound, a shattered family. She gripped her father’s arm tightly as a WVS helper, with a grey face and tired eyes, listened to Jack’s description. She was as gentle and tactful as she could be in the face of their imminent grief, but the unspoken truth was that, by this stage, if a victim hadn’t been identified, it simply meant that there was very little left of them.

‘We daren’t go back to your mother with no news,’ her father said, his body rigid with anxiety. ‘We’d better go to Guy’s ourselves.’

So, with her arm through his, sometimes feeling the whole of his weight upon her, sometimes having to rely on his strength, they made the long walk to Guy’s Hospital. No buses or cars were running. The unusual quiet added a ghostliness to streets lined with blackened ribs of buildings and roads rippling with torn-up tramlines. At Guy’s they were directed to a basement casualty centre. Here, many of the wounded from John Bull Arch were being cared for. A busy staff nurse took down details, and after consulting a clipboard, went away to check each of the many beds crammed into the white-tiled room. After a short while, she came back with the news that none of the casualties from the arch matched Jack’s description.

‘You could try the other hospitals – it might be he was sent elsewhere. I know St Olave’s took some of the injured.’ Her tone was almost too sympathetic and May felt the nurse was merely applying another dressing, a tourniquet for their fear. She couldn’t blame her; the woman obviously had more than enough live victims to worry about, without having to worry about the dead.

But Jack was not at St Olave’s, and on the way home May said, ‘Dad, do you think someone ought to let Joycie know?’

Her father swallowed hard and nodded. ‘I’ll do it.’

*

But after another night with still no word of Jack, May could see the anxiety was draining the life out of her parents. Desperate to talk, May went to visit her elder sister Peggy. These days Peggy was apt to leave too much to May when it came to family problems, but now she needed help with keeping her parents’ spirits up. It was too easy for Peggy to put her head in the sand, pretend all this wasn’t happening. It irked that Peggy seemed to have abdicated all sense of responsibility to her husband, who, May’s mother said, treated Peggy like a princess.

Peggy’s council flat, on the new Purbrook Estate, was small but pristine: George had provided his ‘princess’ with a home like a palace. The curtains and furniture were new, nothing like their own hotch-potch of inherited items. There was running hot water and even a bathroom. Bermondsey Council had been systematically demolishing the old slum streets, but when May’s mother’s chance had come to move into a new flat, nothing would persuade her to leave their old Victorian house. ‘I don’t want to live up in the air,’ she’d protested. ‘That’s for the birds. I’m staying put!’

Now, sitting in her sister’s tidy little kitchen, drinking tea from her good china cups, May explained why she’d come.

‘Peg, you’ve got to come over and help me with Mum. She’s just sitting there, staring into space. And Dad’s wearing himself out. He’s been tramping the streets all hours, going from hospital to hospital. I can’t be with her twenty-four hours a day.’

‘I’ll do what I can, love – none of us can get on with our lives, not till we know what’s happened to him… for definite. I’ll come back with you now, if you like.’

Her sister slipped her coat on and glanced quickly in the mirror. She was an attractive woman, but since marrying George her look had become far more sedate, almost old-fashioned. Once she’d loved to wear make-up and fashionable clothes, but now she looked almost middle-aged and her wardrobe, though of the best quality, was muted and plain. Perhaps that’s what happened when you got married, but May couldn’t help blaming George for the change and she was sad that the glamorous older sister, who she’d always admired, had faded as she settled into domestic life.

It was pointless waiting for a bus – so many roads were impassable because of bomb damage or unexploded bombs. So they walked to Southwark Park Road, taking the back streets and bypassing the bombed arch. On the way they caught sight of George, touting for bets, and he gave them a wave.

‘George says business is booming,’ Peggy said, waving back. ‘Do you know, he told me they’re even betting on who’ll get bombed out next.’

May shook her head. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Some people will bet on anything and George says if he didn’t take the bets, someone else would.’

May was about to voice her disagreement, when they heard a scuffling behind them. They turned to see Flo’s grandson, Terry, dashing up at full pelt.

‘Coppers! Wide’oh’s doin’ a runner!’ he puffed. The local kids acted as lookouts for George, who was forever being hounded down by the local police for his illegal bookmaking.

They whirled round to see a row of front doors all flung open at the same time. A chorus of ‘Wide’oh, in ’ere!’ came from several houses and George disappeared through the nearest one. No sooner had the door slammed behind him than a constable hurtled round the corner, blowing his whistle. Children, most of whom were George’s runners, scattered as he stopped short, looking around for his quarry. Peggy hissed at May, ‘Keep walking!’ They quickened their steps, while May glanced at a worried-looking Peggy.

‘I keep telling him to knock it on the head. He’s in no state to be legging it over the rooftops any more, not with his breathing.’

George, afflicted as he was with a bad wheeze, was sometimes unable to finish a sentence without stopping for a few gasps. It gave him a very odd, clipped way of speaking, as if he resented wasting his breath on unnecessary words. Not being the fittest of men, he usually enlisted plenty of help from the punters. Anyone who heard the policeman’s whistle would fling open their doors, so that George could duck inside and nip over the garden fences, to emerge out of another house at the end of the street. If there were no gardens, he’d use the rooftops. It seemed likely he’d evade the police once more.

When they arrived home, Flo was there keeping Mrs Lloyd company. She met them in the passage. ‘Your mum’s up in the bedroom, been crying all morning. Shall I get her?’

‘Thanks, Flo. Can you tell her Peggy’s here?’

Just then they heard a crash from the backyard and May rushed to the kitchen, in time to see George bursting through the back door. He flopped down on a chair, chest heaving, sweat pouring from his red face. Fanning himself with his brown trilby, he gasped, ‘Too old … this lark.’ A wheezing rattle ended in a coughing fit and May ran to the sink to get him water.

‘For gawd’s sake, George, you’ll kill yourself one day!’ Peggy said, loosening his tie.

‘Don’t fuss! Just need… catch me breath. Ta, darl,’ he said, taking the cup from May. ‘Where’s your mum?’

But the noise of George’s arrival had already reached Mrs Lloyd, who came downstairs, white-faced, with red-rimmed eyes and flattened hair.

‘What was all the commotion?’ she asked, after Flo had said her goodbyes.

‘Just my husband, flinging himself over the garden wall!’

Mrs Lloyd frowned. ‘You ought to be more careful, George, they’ll catch you one o’ these days!’

‘Can’t afford… get caught, your daughter, costs me… fortune!’ he wheezed, banging his chest. ‘Listen, had an idea about Jack, got on to a mate o’ mine. Tracked this down.’ George drew breath and dug into his inside pocket. Along with a number of crumpled betting slips, and a dog-eared black accounts book in which he meticulously recorded all his shady profits, he brought out an identity card. ‘Someone was tryin’ to flog it.’

May took the identity card. ‘It’s Jack’s!’

Her mother let out a small cry and took the card, staring at it as though she could extract Jack’s whereabouts from its mere presence in her hand.

‘But this is good news, Mum! He might be lying unconscious in hospital somewhere, and they wouldn’t know who he was.’ May felt hope surging through her, but her mother’s face didn’t show any relief.

‘He’d have to be in a terrible state not to be able to tell ’em his own name,’ was all Mrs Lloyd said.

After George had got his breath back a little, he explained that his mate had ‘persuaded’ the black marketeer to reveal that the card came from a ring targeting bombed-out houses and bomb victims. This particular card, he said, had been stolen, along with a wallet, from the body of a young man found lying in a street not far from John Bull Arch.

George looked at the silent white-faced women surrounding him in the kitchen, a puzzled look on his face.

‘Bastard, I know... don’t worry about him. My mate said he give ’im a right pasting.’

May was the one to voice the unasked question on all their lips. ‘But, George, did he tell you if Jack was still alive?’

‘Didn’t I say? ’Course alive!’

May stifled a cry and grabbed hold of Peggy.

‘Alive! Thank God!’

‘You could’ve told us that in the first place, George!’ Peggy said.

Mrs Lloyd slumped forward, gripping the identity card even tighter. ‘Oh Jesus, me poor boy’s alive.’ And covering her face with her hand, she let fall tears of relief.

‘Well, alive
then
,’ George said, silencing Peggy with a glare. ‘I’ve put the feelers out, got people looking Kent way,’ he added, looking vaguely aware that his revelation was not getting him the praise he felt it deserved.

George’s ‘contacts’ were many and there wasn’t an institution in the South-east without some sort of under-the-counter trading going on that he wasn’t involved in, even hospitals. If anyone could track down Jack, May was sure it would be George. He gave a self-satisfied smile as he was rewarded with a kiss from Peggy and a cup of tea from her mother, who was even cheered enough to use the family’s butter and sugar ration to set about making George some fairy cakes, which, an hour later, he generously shared with them.

*

On the third day, May kneeled beside her bed in the early morning light. Her Catholic upbringing, with its straitjacket of confessions and its burdens of guilt had so often felt like an inconvenience, but now May groped for her faith, calling on God and all his angels and every saint that she could remember, promising that if Jack would only return to them alive, she would go and do her bit. Whatever it was, she didn’t care. Even if it meant facing her own worst nightmare – leaving her home. She would do whatever was asked of her, if it would help end the insanity, where young men were blown up on their way home from a party and babies left wailing in their dead mother’s arms. But as she rose from her knees, peering through the sash window at a pale, frostbitten dawn, a feeling – half dread, half excitement – stirred in her, as she strained to see where that vow might lead her. Just at that moment she spotted George. He was bundled up against the cold in a camel coat and scarf, hustling along Southwark Park Road like a chugging steam train, breath pluming behind him. If he was coming at this hour he had news, and May’s heart expanded with the certainty that her prayers had been answered, that it would be good news. She flung on her dressing gown and ran downstairs to let George in.

His lips were blue and ice cold on her cheek as he kissed her. He took off his hat and May looked at him expectantly.

‘Where’s Mum and Dad?’ he asked.

‘Still in bed. I’ll get them.’

May crept into her parents’ room and saw her mother lying awake, a handkerchief screwed into a tight ball in her hand.

May crossed the lino, cold to her bare feet, and leaned over to shake her father. He sat up with a start. ‘George’s here,’ she said softly. ‘I think he’s got news.’