The Girls They Left Behind (5 page)

Frank stared at it, his mouth moving in silent expostulation. Some of the walls were still partially standing, the rooms inside chaotically exposed, children’s drawings and maps of Europe still pinned to the walls along with posters giving instructions about the war and diagrams of bandages and

slings. Tables, desks and chairs were tossed and jumbled amongst the wreckage of collapsed ceilings and partitions. First-aid boxes and equipment, stacked ready for the first emergency, were broken and torn, smothered with dust, half buried under wooden laths and plaster. Sandbags, piled outside as an extra protection, had been torn and split open, their contents blown in all directions to add to the gritty cloud of filth.

And amongst it all, bewildered and dazed, staggered the survivors and less badly injured of the people who had

manned the post and been there when the sound of the siren

first ruptured the air.

‘My God,’ Frank said in a whisper. And then, more loudly, ‘My God. Oh, my God … ‘

‘It’s bad, innit, mister,’ the boy beside him said in a frightened voice.

‘It is. It’s bad.’ Frank glanced down at him. The seeping of blood seemed to have stopped and where it had run down his

face and neck it was now darkening against the grimy skin. ‘Look, you’d better get off home. It don’t look as if there’ll be any bandages for you here. D’you reckon you can make it by yourself? I’ll have to stop here now.’

The boy shook his head a little and flinched as if it still hurt. But his eyes were on the devastation before them. ‘I can stop and help too, mister. I ain’t hurt that bad.’

Frank hesitated. It didn’t seem right, a nipper like this seeing the sights he felt sure they would see. But if there were people buried under that rubble, they’d need all the help they could get. And the kid was looking better, though the shock of seeing the bombed school had turned him a shade or two paler under all the dirt.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘But you get off home the minute you want to, see? Your mum’ll be half out of her mind worrying about you.’ Half an hour ago, he would have given that priority, just as he’d been first anxious to see the old lady into safety and then determined to get home to Jess. But now it was different. There were people here who needed help this minute, if they were to be saved, and they had to be put first. Old ladies who were frightened and mothers worrying about kids — even Jess, his own wife, came second.

He ran across the road towards the school. Other people were flocking round too, appalled, staring at the ruin of the buildings they knew so well. The playground, where children had run and shouted and laughed, was a mass of rubble, the little row of lavatories knocked almost flat. And from the wreckage came a sound that chilled the hearts of all those who heard it — the first, wailing cry for help.

It rose from the broken earth where the bomb had struck. And it seemed to Frank Budd that it was the cry, not of one

person, not of one man or woman or child, but a cry that expressed the anguish of all those who were to be a part of the

war that was now storming its way over the world.

The war that had begun for Portsmouth on this warm and

sunny evening in July 1940.

Jess did not wait for the Raiders Passed signal. As soon as the thunder of the explosions and the roar of the aircraft began to

fade, she was at the door of the shelter, gazing out at the sky. She stared in dismay at the dark smoke billowing overhead, and turned to her neighbour.

‘God knows what they’ve done, Peg! The whole place is alight. I’ve got to find the boys!’

Peggy came to crouch beside her. Together, they watched as the smoke was slashed by orange flame. She twisted her head to look at the row of terraced houses, dreading what she might see.

‘Well, they haven’t hit April Grove,’ she said with relief. ‘That’s something to be thankful for. We’ve still got homes to go to.’

‘The children…’ Jess said again. ‘I’ve got to go and look for them.’ She turned her eyes up to the blackened sky. ‘I can’t hear any planes now. They’ve gone.’

‘We’re supposed to wait,’ Peggy began doubtfully, but she knew that Jess would not be able to rest until she had her

family safe at home again. ‘Well, I daresay it’s all right to go out now. I’ll keep Maureen with me.’

‘Thanks, Peg.’ Jess scrambled out of the shelter and ran up the path. The house stood just as she had left it, all the doors wide open, and she went straight through to the front and out into April Grove. As she came out on to the pavement, the siren sounded again and she gasped, then realised that it meant safety. The raiders really had passed.

Granny Kinch and her daughter Nancy emerged from

number 10, Granny Kinch swathed as usual in a grubby flowered pinafore with her grey hair tightly bound in metal

curlers. They looked up at the smoke-filled sky.

‘Somewhere’s caught it, look. I bet that’s Rudmore. It’ll go up like a torch any minute, see if it doesn’t.’

Jess paused. ‘Have you seen my boys? They’re not with you, are they?’

Nancy Baxter shook her head. ‘No, love, they’re not here. Nor’s our Micky, come to that. Didn’t they go off up the street somewhere?’

‘I don’t know where they are.’ Jess stared at the two women. ‘You mean your Micky’s out somewhere too?’

Nancy shrugged. ‘Went out straight after tea. I saw him with that Nash boy and little Martin Baker. Playing cowboys’n’Indians, they were.’

‘But they must have been scared to death!’

‘Our Micky?’ Nancy laughed. ‘He’ll be all right, he’ll have found somewhere to hide, and your two with him. Takes a lot to frighten our Micky.’

‘They could have been killed,’ Jess said. ‘I’ve been half out of my mind —’ She gazed desperately up October Street. People were beginning to come out now, looking up at the sky and turning to each other, needing the reassurance of contact.

Jess’s sister Annie appeared, hurrying down from the house at the top of April Grove. She too had an apron on; though it was a good deal cleaner than Granny Kinch’s, and her face was anxious.

‘Jess! Are you all right? I had to leave the supper half-cooked; ruined it is, and where we’re supposed to get more when everything’s on ration, I don’t —’

‘I’ve lost the boys!’ Jess burst out, and saw Annie’s face whiten. ‘They went out to play and never came back. I don’t know where they are.’

‘Oh, my goodness.’ Annie leaned against the wall, her hand over her heart. ‘I thought for a minute … You mean they were out in all that lot?’

Jess nodded miserably. ‘I’ve got to find them, Annie. If anything’s happened to them— and Frank’s not home yet either—’

‘I’ll come with you.’ The two sisters set off up October Street, asking everyone they met if they had seen Tim and Keith. But nobody had, and everybody wanted to talk about the raid. Fred and Ada Brown stopped them as they hurried past. They were both trembling with agitation.

‘I thought the bombs were coming right through our

ceiling,’ Fred Brown said, his old voice quavering. ‘Me and our Ada, we got under the stairs, and the whole house was shaking round us.’

‘I bet there’s hundreds dead. Thousands.’ Ada Brown shuddered and stared at Jess. ‘You mean your two were out in it? That’s terrible.’

‘Someone must have seen them,’ Jess said. ‘There was five or six of them, playing cowboys and Indians. They must be somewhere.’

Her voice was ragged and jerky. Annie gave her a quick look and took her arm. ‘Come on. We’ll try September Street.’

‘They’re not supposed to go on the main road.’

‘What boys are supposed to do and what they do are two

different things,’ Annie said. ‘What about Rose? Is she all right?

‘She went up to see Joy Brunner.’ Jess’s steps quickened. ‘Peg said she’d have gone in their shelter.’

‘Well, that’s what she did, then. Maybe the boys are there too.’ They turned the corner of September Street. There were one or two cars and vans parked near the shops, and a bus was coming over the level crossing. You’d hardly know there’d been a raid on, except for the acrid smoke overhead and the people standing about in knots talking.

‘Oh, my God, look at that.’ Mr Hines, the butcher was out in front of his shop. ‘Looks like they were trying for the Dockyard.’

‘And looks like they missed,’ old Mr Clogg said sourly. He ran a tiny hardware shop over the road. He had no shelter and had shuffled over to the Hines’s when the warning sounded, still wearing the old carpet slippers he always wore in the shop. ‘That fire’s not in the Yard.’

‘It’s not just one fire. I reckon half the city’s going up in flames.’

‘I thought we were going to as well,’ Mrs Hines said. ‘Those bombs sounded right overhead. I didn’t think we’d see a thing left standing . . 2 She shook her head. Her lips trembling, her face white.

‘I don’t suppose they’re all that interested in Copnor,’ Mrs Marsh from the dairy said. ‘There’s nothing here they’d want to bomb.’ But no one looked convinced.

Mr Hines was first to make a move. He shrugged his shoulders, glanced at his wife and said, ‘Well, we’d better carry on, I suppose. I was halfway through chopping up some ox-liver. I hope you turned the gas off, Freda.’

`So do I,’ Mrs Hines said, with an attempt at a smile. ‘Else we’ll have burnt potatoes for supper.’ She looked at the sky again, at the smoke and the flames, and her mouth quivered. ‘It’s horrible,’ she whispered, and Jess saw the tears in her eyes. ‘Horrible …’ She turned and almost ran into the house.

Mr Hines looked embarrassed and gave Jess and Annie a

twisted half-grin. ‘Freda gets upset,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘She was in London during the last lot, y’see.’ He shrugged helplessly and followed his wife into the shop, and Mr Clogg shuffled back across the road.

Jess heard a sound on the other side and turned to see Alice

Brunner and her daughter Joy emerging from their shelter. Rose was close behind them. She saw her mother and ran her, burying her face against Jess’s breast.

‘Thank goodness you’re all right,’ Jess said, her voice choked. She held Rose close against her. ‘I’ve been worried stilt D’you know where the boys are?’

Rose shook her head. ‘Oh, Mum, it was awful . .

‘I know, love, I know.’ Jess stroked the dark hair but her eyes were searching the street. ‘But it’s over now. It’s the boys I’m worried about.’ She looked at Alice Brunner. Did you see them before it started? Were they up this way?’

Alice was white-faced and Joy’s eyes huge with fear. Like everyone else, they looked around them and then stared at the smoke. Alice began to cry.

‘They’ll be all right,’ Mrs Marsh said. ‘It doesn’t seem to have hit anything round here.’

‘And you think that’s all right?’ Alice’s voice was high and shrill. Ever since the war began, she had been living on her nerves. The arrest of her German-born husband Heinrich had brought her close to breaking-point, and since news had

come last week of the torpedoing of the Arandora Star she had been trembling on the brink of collapse. ‘People are being killed, and you think it’s all right?’

‘No, of course I don’t.’ Jess saw Mrs Marsh bite her lip. ‘None of it’s all right, Alice. But we’ve got to carry on, haven’t we? We can’t just go to pieces. That’s the only way we’ll win this war — by carrying on, by not letting them beat us.’ She turned to go indoors. ‘I was just going to clean out my big fridge when it started, and that’s what I’m going to do now, Germans or no Germans. If Hitler is going to invade, I’m not having him say I keep a dirty dairy! And if I were you, Alice Brunner, I’d do the same. Keep your shop tidy and everything as it should be. Your husband would have wanted you to do that, wouldn’t he?’

Alice nodded. Her mousy hair was hanging loose about her pale face. ‘There wasn’t a neater, man in Pompey than my Heinrich.’

‘Well, then. What’d he say if he walked in and found it in a mess, and you looking like that?’

Joy took her mother’s arm. ‘Come on in, Minn. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

Jess was still holding Rose. In her imagination, she saw Tim and Keith lying dead in some alleyway, their toy pistols still clutched in their hands.

‘I’ll never forgive myself if anything’s happened to those

two,’ she said, beginning to run again. ‘Frank said they should never have come back, he said there’d be bad raids, but I would have them home and now — oh, those Germans, those wicked, wicked Germans!’

‘They’ll be all right.’ Annie and Rose kept pace with her, Rose still hiccuping. ‘Mrs Marsh was right, you can see there’s been no bombing round here. They’ve just taken shelter somewhere, that’s all, and — look!’ She quickened her steps further. ‘That’s them now! Just coming over the railway.’

Jess felt as if her legs were stuck in treacle. They wouldn’t move fast enough. She saw Tim and Keith hurtling towards her, their faces wreathed in grins, and she felt the sobs rise in her throat.

The smiles were of embarrassment, appeasement and a half awareness of relief at having survived the bombing. But to Jess they were an affront. Her fear turned to anger, and her relief, so enormous that it demanded instant expression, merged with her anger. A moment ago, her fury had been directed against the Germans; now it was focused for a few moments upon her sons.

‘You naughty, naughty boys!’ she exclaimed, catching them roughly by the shoulders. ‘Whatever do you think you’ve been doing, staying out in the streets in that lot? Where have you been? I looked for you everywhere when the sirens sounded. Don’t you realise you could have been killed? D’you think it’s something to laugh at, worrying me like that?’

Tim and Keith stared at her, shocked by her outburst. Jess rarely shouted at them. She could tell them off, and frequently did, and they were well aware of the limits they had better not cross, but she hardly ever shook them like this, with rough hands, and raised her voice. And she was crying. Their grins faded and they glanced sideways at each other and ducked their heads.

‘We only went over to Carlisle Crescent,’ Tim said, trying to sound aggrieved. ‘We were playing cowboys and Indians ‘