Home Front Girls (27 page)

In the distance a great pall of smoke was rising into the sky like some ugly great giant, but thankfully, the area around them appeared to be untouched.

People began to drift away, intent on getting home in case the Germans should return. Dotty stood for a time silently staring at the smoke in the distance and then she too set off, her shaking legs barely able to take her weight. She headed for the bus station, relieved to see that this, too, was untouched, and soon after she boarded the bus.

When her home came into sight, Dotty rushed towards it and as she climbed the stairs Mrs Cousins came out to meet her on the landing.

‘Oh love, I’m so pleased to see yer,’ she babbled. ‘It says on the wireless that the bastards ’ave bombed Ansty Aerodrome, but no one’s said if anyone was hurt yet.’

‘I can’t see how there couldn’t have been any casualties,’ Dotty answered sombrely. ‘I got dragged into the shelter up by the station, but even from there we all clearly heard five explosions. Are the children all right?’

‘They’re all fine. Thankfully the oldest two were fast asleep an’ the little ’un is too young to understand what was happenin’.’

‘But didn’t you get them all down into the cellar?’ Dotty asked.

Mrs Cousins shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. If I’d woken ’em up they’d ’ave been terrified so I decided to risk it an’ stay where we were.’

‘But you wouldn’t have stood a chance up here,’ Dotty pointed out and Mrs Cousins shrugged.

‘At least we’d ’ave all gone together,’ she muttered. ‘The older two won’t be around fer much longer anyway. I’ve agreed they can go wi’ the next lot of evacuees, then I’ll only ’ave the little ’un to worry about.’

‘It might be wise,’ Dotty agreed, but she felt so sad for the woman. She’d already lost her husband and soon she would be losing two of her children too, for a time at least.

She had been at home for less than an hour when she heard someone clattering up the stairs and Miss Timms burst into the room without knocking. Dotty had been so shaken up that she had forgotten to lock the door.

‘Oh thank God you’re all right,’ the woman croaked breathlessly when she saw Dotty. ‘I was so worried that something might have happened to you. I’ve left Mother with a neighbour while I came to check.’

The woman was red in the face and breathless and Dotty led her to a chair before fetching her a drink of water. She was deeply touched that Miss Timms had been so concerned about her.

‘I’m fine, as you can see,’ she assured her, ‘although I have to say when the siren went off it nearly scared me to death. I’d just seen Robert off at the railway station and started for home when it happened, but some man dragged me into a shelter and I stayed there until the all-clear sounded.’

Miss Timms gulped at the water and nodded, then was instantly on her feet again. ‘Well, I can’t stay, dear. The sirens shook Mother up too and I don’t want to leave her alone for too long. But promise me that if this happens again, you’ll take shelter.’

‘Of course I will.’ Dotty saw her to the door where she kissed her on the cheek, deciding she would give it another couple of hours and then she would walk to the phone box and ring Robert just to make sure that he had arrived home safely. The day had been perfect until the sirens sounded – which just went to show that you never knew what life had in store for you.

*

‘I went into Mrs P’s Anderson shelter,’ Lucy told them the next morning at work.

‘And Mother and I went down into the cellar.’ Annabelle shuddered at the thought of it. She had been so confident that the raids would never reach them, but she wasn’t so cocky now. ‘It was horrible,’ she groaned. ‘And so
cold.
It was lucky that Mother had remembered to take blankets down there. You don’t think it will happen again, do you?’

‘I think we should prepare ourselves just in case,’ Lucy said quietly. Just over an hour ago the staff had been called together and told by the manager that should the sirens go off during work hours, they were all to make their way down into the basement in an orderly manner. ‘No running or panicking the customers, mind,’ he had warned them.

‘As if we
wouldn’t
panic,’ Lucy had scoffed behind her hand to the other two. ‘I reckon there’d be a right scramble, customers and staff alike.’

Mr Bradley had posted signs around the shop telling customers where to go in case of a raid.

‘I don’t mind admitting I nearly wet myself when the siren went off,’ Lucy told the others. ‘I thought it was a false alarm at first until I heard the planes overhead and then I was off around to Mrs P’s like a shot from a gun.’

Suddenly what they had all dreaded was a reality and there was no getting away from it any more.

‘It wouldn’t do us much good down in the basement anyway,’ Annabelle grumbled. ‘Not if the store took a direct hit. There’d be mountains of rubbish on top of us and they’d never dig us out.’

‘It’s amazing that no one was killed at the aerodrome,’ Dotty agreed. ‘But I do think that now they’ve been once, the German planes will come again. It said on the wireless this morning that they think they’ll target the factories next.’ They all looked at each other glumly knowing there was nothing at all anyone could do to stop it now. The Phoney War had become all too real.

The next raid happened the following evening.

Lucy and Dotty had accepted Annabelle’s invitation to go to tea, but they had barely set foot in the door after a long day at work when the sirens screamed into life.

‘Each of you grab some food off the table and follow me down to the cellar,’ Miranda told them as calmly as she could, and the girls quickly did as they were told. Dotty picked up a large bowl of salad and a plate of bread scraped with margarine, whilst Lucy lifted up the tray with the tea things on it and Annabelle picked up a plate of thinly sliced brawn and pickled beetroot.

Miranda threw open the door at the far end of the kitchen and one by one they climbed down the steps into the dark cellar. The walls were damp and the place was dismal despite Miranda’s best efforts to make it comfortable.

‘There are only two chairs down here,’ she shouted above the screech of the sirens. ‘But there are some crates over there we can sit on. Come on, we may as well eat. There’s nothing else we can do.’

And then they heard it, the slow buzz of the enemy aircraft approaching followed by the sound of the ack-ack guns firing into life. They all glanced up at the ceiling fearfully as the buzz became a drone and then a snarl.

‘They must be directly above us now,’ Miranda whispered as she made the sign of the cross on her chest. The sound slowly subsided, followed by the bang of the first explosion and they all jumped. Then there was another and another, and Annabelle panicked and clasped her hands over her ears to try and shut out the noise.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ her mother comforted her as she pressed her close. ‘We’ll be quite safe in here.’

Within minutes they all realised that this was far worse than the first raid. The explosions seemed to go on forever and they sounded so close that the four women had no idea where the bombs might be falling. The food lay on an upturned crate untouched; everyone seemed to have lost their appetites although Miranda did manage to pour them all some tea and urged them to drink it. ‘It will warm you up,’ she told them and they each did as she asked.

‘What time do you think it is?’ Annabelle asked in a small voice after what felt like an eternity. The sounds of the enemy planes flying over them were so loud that they were sure they would crash into the roof of the house.

‘I don’t know, but I’ve got some candles somewhere.’ Miranda stood and began to rummage about until she found them. She quickly lit one with a box of matches she had ready beside them. A flicker of light illuminated their pale faces as the wick began to burn and Miranda gave them all a wobbly smile.

‘There. That’s better, isn’t it?’ But they could barely hear her for the planes growling overhead.

The candle slowly burned down and soon they had lost all sense of time as they crouched there wondering what they were going to come out of the cellar to –
if
they ever came out, that was. Dotty dropped into an exhausted doze and Miranda rose to find another candle. It was as she was lighting it that the tumult outside began to quieten down and she said hopefully, ‘Listen . . . I think they’ve gone.’

But they sat on until at last they heard the all-clear.

Dotty woke and one by one they climbed the steep cellar steps. It was dark when they entered the kitchen and Miranda hurried to the window and closed the blackout curtains before switching the light on.

‘Let’s see if there’s anything on the wireless,’ she suggested as she twiddled the knob. It crackled into life and soon the announcer’s grave voice reached them.

‘The Hillfields area of Coventry was heavily bombed tonight, but as yet no one can say how many fatalities there have been. The Army are digging people from the rubble of what were their homes, and it is feared that many lives have been lost. Meantime, those whose homes have been damaged are asked to report to their nearest church hall where they will be provided with food and temporary shelter.’

Dotty clapped her hand over her mouth as they looked towards her and without a word being said they were all thinking the same thing. Would her home still be standing?

Miranda snapped to attention at the sound of ambulance bells and fire engines clanging past the end of the drive.

‘I must go,’ she said, reaching for her coat. ‘I’m off to Hillfields. The WVS will need all the help they can get, but I want you all to promise me that you will stay here. I don’t want you two girls trying to get home tonight, and if the siren goes off again you are to head straight back down into the cellar. Will you promise me that you’ll do that?’

‘But how will you get there?’ Annabelle asked. ‘I doubt there will be any buses running.’

‘In the car, of course. I’ve saved some cans of petrol in the garage so I have some at hand for emergencies.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ Dotty stated with determination.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, love,’ Miranda told the distraught girl. ‘Why don’t you let me go first and see how bad things are? I can check that your house is still intact. You’ll be quite safe here.’

‘You don’t
understand!’
Dotty said urgently as she grabbed her coat. ‘I don’t care about the house – that’s just bricks and mortar – but what about Mrs Cousins and her children? They’re my neighbours and I have to know that they’re all right.’

‘In that case we’ll come too,’ Lucy piped up. ‘Won’t we, Annabelle? There might be something we can do to help as well.’

Miranda looked decidedly unhappy about the suggestion but it was three against one and she saw no point in arguing.

‘Very well then,’ she reluctantly agreed and the girls followed her out to the garage.

As they approached Hillfields they felt as if they were driving into a nightmare. Thick black smoke and flames were belching into the sky from what only hours before had been people’s homes, and the police had set up road-blocks to prevent traffic from entering the bombed area.

‘We shall have to park here and walk the rest of the way,’ Miranda told them as she pulled into the side of the road. ‘The WVS will have set up food and shelter for those that need it in the church hall in the next street. I’m sure they’ll be glad of as much help as they can get.’

They all clambered out of the car and made their way on foot into the chaos. Army lorries were parked higgledy-piggledy, and they could see the men digging frantically in the rubble for survivors.

‘Over here, I thought I heard something!’ one young private shouted, and the other men raced towards him to help.

Appalled, Dotty stared at the pile of bricks, certain that no one could survive if that lot had toppled on them, but the men worked furiously, determined to get to anyone who might still be alive.

They walked on a little further and Lucy’s eyes filled with tears as she saw a bloodstained teddy bear lying in the middle of the road next to yet another bombed house.

‘My God, it must have been blown out through a window when the bombs struck,’ she wept. ‘Some poor child must have been holding it.’ She couldn’t help thinking about her little Mary. In fact, not a second passed when she didn’t think about her. Lucy broke down and dropped to her knees, sobbing as her small frame rocked in distress. Annabelle reached for her and held her, rubbing her back in comfort. And then at last Lucy managed to pull herself together enough to proceed and they moved on.

When the church hall came into sight they pelted towards it, but the sight that met their eyes when they opened the door made them all stop in their tracks. Injured people were lying on the floor on blankets everywhere they looked, as the women from the WVS darted between them trying to do what they could. And then Dotty’s eyes settled on a tiny figure and she gasped. An ambulance man was leaning over it but she knew instantly that this was Mrs Cousins’s baby. She would have recognised her anywhere.

‘I know this child,’ she told the man breathlessly. ‘But where are her mother and her brother and sister?’

‘I don’t know, love,’ he breathed sadly. ‘But I do know it’s too late for this poor little mite.’ Even as he spoke he gently closed the baby’s eyes and Dotty began to cry.