Shrapnel (8 page)

I don't know what it's like at your school, but mine had kids in it who just
had
to be best at
something
: didn't matter what.

Dicky was best at fighting – he was cock of the school. Somebody else had the hardest conker – a forty-eighter. There was the biggest marble collection, most cigarette cards, highest number of skips without stopping, breath-holding record (Sandra Williams, one minute twenty-two seconds), largest assembly of triangular postage stamps, and so on. But
that
year – 1941 –
shrapnel
was the thing.

Shrapnel is jagged bits of steel. Most of it comes from ack-ack – shells fired by our anti-aircraft guns at enemy bombers. Most of them miss, but they explode in the sky and the fragments rain down all over the place. It's why wardens, firemen and policemen wear tin hats when there's a raid. A piece of shrapnel can kill you if it lands on your head.

And kids collected shrapnel. You could go out the morning after a raid and pick it up off
the street. It landed in parks and gardens, and even sometimes in the school yard. Ordinary bits were common – anybody could gather a big collection of those, but certain pieces were rare. The bronze nose cones of shells were real trophies. And bomb tails. One nose cone equalled fifty ordinary fragments, and a bomb tail equalled a hundred. I had a nose cone. Norman had two bomb tails, and if I'd been able to persuade him to give them to me – Woodhouse Grange boys didn't collect shrapnel – mine would have been the second best shrapnel collection at Foundry Street School.

Not the
best
. Walter Linfoot's was easily the best and could never be equalled and I'll tell you why. Walter's big brother was a driver in the RAF. He drove lorries, ambulances and fire tenders. One day he had to drive a Coles Crane to where a German plane had crashed, load it up and take it away. It was a Heinkel 111. He wasn't supposed to, but he snipped a piece out of its tail with bolt cutters and brought it home as a souvenir. It was the centrepiece of Walter's shrapnel collection, pawed and slavered over by every boy in the school.

And it gave me a truly wizard idea.

IT WAS JUST
after seven when I got to the Robinson residence. Sarah let me in and went off to get Norman. I was gazing at a portrait in a massive gilt frame when he came whizzing down the banister.

‘Hullo, Gordon!' he greeted, dismounting. ‘Wasn't expecting you tonight.' He nodded at the portrait. ‘Colonel Robinson, my grandfather. Made a fortune building cars.'

I nodded. ‘I know, you told me. Aluminium bodywork wasn't it – couldn't rust?'

‘That's right. Light as a feather, no rust.' He
frowned. ‘Beats me why they don't build
all
cars that way.'

‘
I
know why,' I said. ‘Dad told me. A car like that'd last a lifetime. Nobody'd ever need a new one. Not a good idea if your lolly comes from selling cars.'

Norman grinned. ‘Your dad's what they call a cynic, chum.'

I didn't say anything. Couldn't – I don't know what cynic
means
. Chaps who go to Woodhouse Grange pick up all sorts of la-di-da words. I looked at him. ‘Funnily enough, your ancestor's car brought me here tonight.'

He pulled a face. ‘Not possible, old lad – none on the roads nowadays, worse luck.'

I shook my head. ‘I don't mean that. I'm talking about the one your dad's got in his garage.'

‘Tin
Lizzie
?' He laughed. ‘She doesn't go, you twerp. Hasn't even got an engine. Dad only keeps her because his father built her.'

‘Does he look at her much, d'you think?'

Norman shook his head. ‘Never, I shouldn't think. She's sat in that murky corner for as long as I can remember. Why d'you ask?'

I winked. ‘Tell you upstairs – I want to see what sort of job you made of our Stuka.'

It hung from the ceiling in a near-vertical dive, and he'd done a marvellous job as always. His olive drab met my duck-egg blue in a dead-straight line all the way round, and every transfer was exactly where it belonged. Looking at it, you could almost hear the scream of the sirens on its wheel fairings.

I explained about the colonel's car.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON I
was late home on purpose. There was a reason. Tomorrow I'd follow orders and buy the Frog Skymaster at Carter's. Raymond had given me the money last Monday. I'd hidden it inside a wellington boot in the bottom of my wardrobe. This morning I'd smuggled it out in my satchel. Now I had to pretend I'd run into my brother today by accident, and he'd given me the two half-crowns for my birthday, which wasn't until next March. I hadn't been ordered to do any of this, but when you're an agent you're expected to use your initiative when necessary.

‘Where've you
been
, Gordon?' asked Mum. ‘I
do
wish you'd come straight home from school – especially since Dad told us about the boy who was shot. I worry all the time.'

‘Sorry, Mum,' I apologized. ‘I bumped into Raymond outside school. He gave me five bob.'

‘Five
shillings
?' squeaked Gran. ‘What's he doing nowadays – running the Royal Mint?'

‘How
is
he, love?' asked Mum. ‘Did that envelope reach him?'

I shook my head. ‘I don't know, Mum, he didn't mention it.'

‘Why did he give you money, Gordon – so
much
money, I mean?'

‘For my birthday, in case he doesn't see me again.'

Mum frowned. ‘Doesn't
see
you? Why shouldn't he see you – he's not going overseas, is he?'

I shrugged. ‘I dunno, Mum, he didn't say, but he's not in uniform.'

‘So what does he
do
– where's his money coming from? Shillings don't grow on trees.'

I pulled a face. ‘I don't know
any
of his business, Mum. He's found a good job, I suppose. He looks well, I'm sure you needn't worry.'

‘Easy for you to say,' she grunted. ‘Mothers do worry, can't help it.'

‘What will you
do
with your fortune, sweetheart?' asked Gran. ‘Save it till March?'

I grinned, shook my head. ‘No fear, Gran. There's a wizard flying model in Carter's window – a Frog Skymaster. They're asking exactly five bob for it. I'm off there tomorrow morning, early, before someone else bags it.'

‘Someone
else
?' cried Gran. ‘There's nobody else in Hastley with five shillings to fritter on toy aeroplanes, young man.'

The Frog Skymaster isn't a
toy
– it's a
model
– but I didn't say anything. Just smiled. I reckoned I'd pulled off my bit of deception really well. Professional performance in fact. Raymond would be proud of me. Him, and the chaps behind him who don't mess around.

I just wished I knew what I was buying the model
for
.

THE BOX WAS
nearly three feet long. I'd come on the bike. I had a heck of a job getting plane, bike and self home without suffering the most colossal prang. Talk about the wibbly wobbly way.

There was no table in Gran's attic – just a washstand and basin for the maids who'd slept there in the old days. I had to shove my camp bed right into a corner and lay out the plans on the floor. It was bare boards, so pinning down parts while the glue dried would be no problem.

I started straight away. Well, I hadn't a clue
how soon the powers-that-be wanted it finished.
You'll be contacted
, Raymond had said. Didn't say when.

You can't build a flying model in a day. The frame alone consists of more than a hundred strips of balsa. They're held together with glue, which has to dry before you can continue. Everything has to be done in the right order. First the fuselage with the rubber-band engine inside, anchored to the tail at one end and the propeller at the other. Then the undercarriage. Then the wings. The wings are designed to detach for ease of transportation: you can lay them parallel with the fuselage to make a less unwieldy package.

And that's just the frame. After that, the whole thing's got to be covered with tissue-paper, painted with special dope that stretches it taut over the frame and adds toughness, so it won't tear every time the plane hits something, which happens all the time. The dope's transparent, and most modellers add coats of colour for further strength, and to make their models look authentic. I intended doing mine in grey-green camouflage.

I'd only built one wall of the fuselage when Gran called me down for lunch. ‘Is it done, love?' she asked.

I shook my head. ‘Nowhere near, Gran.'

‘Well, you should frame yourself,' she told me. ‘They're building
real
ones at the rate of one a day down Avro's.'

‘How d'you know?' I asked.

She winked. ‘A little bird told me.'

‘Little birds should keep their beaks shut,' I rejoined. ‘Walls have ears.'

‘And boys have hands,' put in Mum. ‘Which they ought to wash before eating.'

Aren't grown-ups the giddy limit?

EVERY SUNDAY MORNING
Gran went to church. She went poshed up, with a fur stole and everything. The stole was the pelt of a real fox complete with head, tail and paws. It had glass eyes and a dry, leathery nose. When I was little I liked stroking it, but it made me sad now.

As she looked at herself in the mirror I said, ‘Gran?'

‘What is it, love?' She was touching up her face with a powder puff.

‘Do Germans go to church?'

‘I expect so, Gordon. They have lots of pretty churches, I've seen them on postcards.'

‘Oh. And will they be asking God to – you know – protect them from bombs, help them win the war?'