Josie Under Fire (4 page)

“That used to be a block of flats,” said Edith. “A landmine hit it. Loads of people were killed or injured.”

The devastation was not recent; already weeds were growing there. The place had become a playground, and children were swarming over it. It must be out of bounds, Josie realized, but there was no warden to be seen. A gang of small boys was staging a battle, clambering across the piles of broken bricks, aiming stick guns. One wheeled past the girls with arms spread wide, being a plane. Their voices rang shrill. Farther off, some older boys seemed to be demolishing a shed.

Edith began scrambling over the rubble, and Josie followed. She saw that a group of girls had gathered in a makeshift shelter in the ruins. One of them waved: it was Edith’s friend, Clare Barrington.

Edith and Josie made their way towards the group. Pam Denham was there too, and Sylvia Wells. They all looked quite different out of school uniform: less conspicuous, less likely to be well behaved.

However, all they were doing at that moment was squatting in a den built around the remains of someone’s garden wall. Sylvia had discovered an old kettle and was encouraging the others to help her build a fireplace. “See: if we make a ring of bricks, here, and get some bits of wood, we can have a real fire!”

Sylvia and Clare began building the fireplace, while Josie went with Edith to look for wood. Their search took them near the group of older boys. One of them called out, “Hey, Edith! Who’s your friend?”

Edith turned to him with her dimpled smile. “Josie,” she said. “She’s my cousin.”

“Hallo, Josie!”

He grinned at her: tall, fair-haired, scruffy-looking, but self-assured. A show-off, Josie thought. All the same, it was flattering to have been noticed.

“That’s Vic,” said Edith, as they moved on.

“Does he live around here?” She could see that Vic was not the sort of boy Aunty Grace would approve of. Or her own mother, for that matter.

“I think so,” said Edith. “His dad’s a greengrocer.”

Josie noticed that Edith had subtly altered her accent and way of speaking to chime with Vic’s.

There were bits of window frame everywhere, some with shards of glass still attached. They avoided those, and carefully broke a few of the others into manageable pieces and brought them back to lay in the fireplace.

They were all absorbed in this task when a voice spoke behind them. “Playing housey, girls?”

“Clear off, Vic,” said Pam, surprising Josie with a turn of phrase that Miss Hallam would certainly not expect to hear her use.

“Unless you’ve got matches,” said Sylvia.

Of course he had. A boy like Vic would always have matches. He kneeled down next to Josie and lit one, cupping his hand around the flame. But the wood was damp and refused to light. The splintered ends caught, flared briefly, blackened and went out.

“Useless,” said Vic. The remark seemed to encompass the whole arrangement, the girls, the game itself. “We’re breaking up that shed. You’ll see a real fire later on.”

But no sign of it appeared. The boys continued their wrecking, and the girls grew bored with the den and played tag, and then switched to stalking games which involved hanging around near the boys, running and squealing.

Suddenly Josie saw a familiar figure walking along a footpath at the edge of the bomb site.

“There’s Alice Hampton!” she said.

Alice still wore her navy-blue school coat and carried her satchel.

“She’ll be off to her lessons,” said Edith. “She has special coaching twice a week, so that she doesn’t get behind because of the war. I heard her telling Miss Hallam.”

“Special coaching!” Sylvia’s voice rose to a squawk. “She needs to be
less
brainy, that one!”

“Where’s she going, then?” asked Pam.

They took off across the bomb site in pursuit. Josie followed, feeling uneasy, wishing she had not mentioned seeing the girl.

“Hey! Alice! Brainbox!”

They stopped and surrounded her.

“Where are you going, Brainbox?”

Alice’s eyes darted from one to another of them. “Leave me alone.”

“We just want to know where you’re going,” said Pam. Her words were reasonable enough, but she was a hefty girl; intimidating.

“Have you come to play with
us
?” asked Sylvia, giggling at the idea.

“I’m going to a class. I’ll be late.” Alice started forward, but they kept alongside her. She began to run, her satchel bouncing on her back, her plait tossing from side to side.

They let her go, and drifted back to the bomb site.

“What’s the time?” asked Clare.

No one had a watch. They ran into the street where a church clock said a quarter past three.

“We’d better get home,” said Edith.

The group split up, to Josie’s relief. She’d enjoyed the games, but not the baiting of Alice Hampton; that reminded her too much of the way she’d been picked on at her own school in Greenwich.

She and Edith hurried home and hung up their coats.

“Quick,” said Edith. “The books.”

She opened her satchel and took out books, a pencil, a rubber, and laid them on the dining table. Josie did the same. Twenty minutes later, when her aunt came in, they were both doing their homework.

“Hallo, girls!” she said, putting her head around the door. “Busy? I see Miss Hallam has given you homework already, Josie!”

Josie blushed and looked down at her work. She felt ashamed at deceiving her aunt like this.

A few minutes later they heard Aunt Grace’s voice from the far end of the hall, at the back door. “Oh, Biddy! Poor puss! Didn’t Edith let you in? Hasn’t she fed you?”

“Damn,” said Edith softly.

Her mother appeared in the doorway with the neglected cat in noisy attendance.

“Has Biddy been outside all this time?” she asked. “You don’t seem to have fed her.”

“I forgot,” said Edith. “We were talking – and things. She can’t have miaowed much.”

“She was miaowing when
I
came in, poor puss,” said Aunty Grace.

Biddy had the offended air of a cat who has miaowed long and hard and been ignored. Now she kept close to Aunty Grace, following her eagerly as she went into the kitchen.

Edith grinned, and said in a low voice, “Remind me about Biddy next time.”

She clearly had no remorse, but Josie felt bad about the cat, about the deceit, about everything. When it began to get dark, she got up and offered to draw the blackout curtains around the flat.

“Oh, that would be a help, Josie,” said her aunt. “The bathroom one is a bit awkward; it’s a board that has to be hung on pegs. Edith will show you. I must get on with the dinner…”

She made shepherd’s pie for dinner, but there was hardly any meat in it. Josie didn’t like the mixture of turnips, carrots and beans, and Edith pulled a face when her mother wasn’t looking; but they all ate it – they were too hungry to be fussy.

Aunty Grace made a pot of tea – weak, to save the ration. As they cleared away the dishes she said, “Shall we have some music? Have a look at the gramophone records, Josie, and choose something you like.”

But at that moment an unearthly sound penetrated the house: the rising wail of the air-raid siren.

Chapter Five

Air Raid

“Bother!” said Aunty Grace. It was a strong word for her.

If she felt fear she didn’t show it. “Go down, girls. I’ll follow with the tea.” She began pouring the three cups of tea into a thermos flask.

Josie wanted to run. She always felt panic when she heard that sinister rising and falling wail. At home it meant a dash to the back door, where her mother kept a bag of nightclothes and other essentials ready packed, and then out into the cold dark garden.

But here there was no Anderson shelter.

“Down these steps.” Edith had seized Biddy before the startled cat could protest, and now she opened a door in the hall and switched on a torch. In the pale circle of light Josie saw steps curving down, and at the same time she heard the throb of approaching bombers. Edith went first with the cat, and Josie followed, turning right at the bottom into a large room full of shadowy objects.

Behind her came her aunt with the thermos of tea and what looked like a biscuit tin. When they were all assembled, Aunty Grace lit a paraffin lamp; and as the strong bright light intensified Josie was able to see around. The room was furnished with a folding table and chairs, and three camp beds made up with blankets and pillows. There was an old kitchen cupboard with the doors open, full of books and games. There were shelves of food: dried milk, orange juice, tins of baked beans, Spam and corned beef. And a basket of knitting, buckets of sand and water, a toolbox, a first-aid kit, candle holders, towels, a bowl to wash in… Aunty Grace was very thorough, Josie thought. She’d seen such rooms illustrated in her mother’s magazines, but Mummy had said no one would really
do
all those things.

She felt safer now. People said a cellar wasn’t as safe as an Anderson, that you could be buried alive if the house collapsed, but it
felt
strong. And she knew there were sandbags all around the walls and the doors were reinforced. Best of all, it looked comfortable.

“It’s like a whole separate house!” she said. “Our Anderson is horrible – all spidery and damp, and nowhere to move.”

“There’s another room too,” said Edith. She showed Josie. “This used to be the laundry in the olden days, when they had servants.”

She flashed the torch around and showed Josie a room full of junk: old bicycles, a pram, a decayed wicker chair, flowerpots. There was also a shallow stone sink and a fireplace and a big old tub that Edith said was once used for washing clothes.

“Switch that torch off, Edith,” her mother said. “Come and drink your tea.”

They sat down, and to Josie’s delight Biddy jumped onto her lap. She stroked the cat. “Don’t worry, Biddy. Hitler can’t get you here.”

As if to prove her wrong, there came the crump of a distant bomb, followed by a series of loud bangs that caused Biddy to leap off Josie’s lap and vanish under a bed.

They heard voices close by. Josie looked up, startled.

“That’s the upstairs tenants,” her aunt said. She nodded towards a closed door on the other side of the stairs. “We’ve agreed to share the basement for the duration. They come down the outside steps into their half.”

She stood up as someone knocked on the connecting door and a woman’s voice called, “Are you there, Mrs. Felgate?”

Josie’s aunt opened the door. A woman came in: tall, with neatly rolled fair hair and a look of natural authority about her. She wore an air-raid warden’s uniform and was holding her tin hat.

“Everything under control?” she asked. “No problems? Cat safe?”

“We’re quite all right, Miss Rutherford, thank you. I didn’t think you were on duty tonight?”

“I’m not, officially, but I phoned HQ to ask if they could do with any help. Seems Bertie Melford’s away, so I said I’d go in. I’m just off to do a check of the street.” Her glance took in Josie. “This must be your niece?”

“Yes, this is Josie – Josephine Bishop.”

Miss Rutherford shook Josie’s hand; she had a firm grip. “Pleased to meet you. Nice for Edith to have company.”

She put on her tin hat and went back through the doorway.

Then the other people came in: an elderly couple, the old man walking with the aid of a stick. There were more introductions.

“You remember Mr. and Mrs. Prescott, don’t you, Josie?”

Embarrassed by all this adult attention, Josie looked around for Edith, but her cousin was half under a bed, trying to persuade Biddy to come out.

The Prescotts and Felgates were evidently in the habit of spending air raids together. Mrs. Prescott fetched her knitting and a thermos and the two women settled down to talk while Mr. Prescott read a newspaper.

Mrs. Prescott turned to Josie. “I seem to recall that you had an elder brother, Josie?”

Josie took a breath. “Yes,” she said – and braced herself.

But before she could be asked any more, Edith erupted from under the bed. She grabbed at the cat, which leaped out of her arms, landed on the table, and skidded off, knocking over a cup of tea before disappearing under another bed.

Both girls collapsed in giggles. Mrs. Prescott dabbed at the spilled tea with a handkerchief, while Edith, still laughing, tried to entice the cat out again.

“Edith!” her mother remonstrated. “Leave Biddy where she is.”

“That cat doesn’t like me,” said Edith.

“I’m not surprised. You only bother with her when she doesn’t want you – and you forget to feed her. Why don’t you and Josie find a quiet game to play?”

Yes, thought Josie. Something that will keep us away from the grown-ups. Aunty Grace obviously hadn’t told her neighbours about Ted, but now, when they could all be here together for several hours, the two women would be sure to talk about their families. Mrs. Prescott might ask about Ted, and Josie knew that Aunty Grace would not tell a lie.

But at first, as Edith rummaged among the games, the adults talked about Miss Rutherford.

“I do admire her,” said Josie’s aunt. “She works so hard. She’s in that office in Whitehall all day; then she takes on the warden’s post in the evening.”