The Girls They Left Behind (50 page)

She could hear voices. The man from above, encouraging her, urging her on. Her mother, asking anxiously if she were all right. And another voice. That of a small child, a girl probably, calling for help, calling for her mummy.

‘It’s all right, love,’ she said, watching her hands as they scraped busily away at the debris. They didn’t seem to care about getting hurt, about being grazed or tearing the fingernails Gladys had been so proud of. ‘It’s all right, I’m coming, I’ll get you out.’

‘Mummy,’ the child said. ‘Where’s Mummy?’

‘She’s all right.’ Gladys could see further into the cellar now. There was a bench along one wall, with three people sitting on it, unmoving. ‘She’ll be here soon.’ Her hands went on scrabbling, lifting out bricks, scraping at the thick dust.

The ground was shaking with the unceasing roar of explosions as bombs continued to fall. With every one, a shuddering rumble went through the foundations of the houses and the walls shook. Part of the cellar roof fell in and a shower of brick dust pervaded the air, filling Gladys’s lungs and prickling in her eyes. She coughed and retched, and her eyes streamed. She wanted to rub them but could not bend her arms back to do so and the irritation grew worse. I’m not going to get out of here, she thought. I’m going to die here, choked with brick dust, buried in muck and dirt.

But if she died, so would the little girl. And she’d done even less than Gladys. She hadn’t even had a chance to grow up.

‘What’s your name, love? Tell me what your name is.’

There was silence. The three figures were still motionless.

She tried again, her voice shaking. ‘What do they call you?’

‘Ruth.’

Thank God. ‘Ruth. That’s a nice name. I’ve never known anyone called Ruth before.’ The walls shook again and she heard a rumble as something heavy fell not far away. Very carefully, afraid that it might bring everything crashing about her ears, she pulled out a brick and dropped it into the cellar, then knew a different fear. “That didn’t hit you, did it? You’re not sitting just underneath?’

‘No. I’m in the corner. I can’t get out.’ A querulous note entered the voice. ‘Why doesn’t Mummy come and get me out?’

‘I expect she’s got caught somewhere else. She’ll come as soon as she can.’ Gladys pulled out another brick. The hole was getting wider. ‘I’ll come and get you, Ruth, and then we can find Mummy.’

‘But I can see her. She’s sitting there, just looking at me.’

The voice began to rise in fear. ‘Why doesn’t she say something? Why doesn’t she come}’

Gladys looked at the three on the bench. She could see them more clearly now. They were slumped against the wall, their bodies toppled together.

Don’t let them be dead, she prayed. Oh God, please don’t let them be dead …

‘How’re you doing, love?’ She became aware of voices calling down the tunnel. For a moment or two, she had been conscious of nothing but the cellar, nobody but herself and Ruth and the three silent bodies. She answered briefly, almost irritably.

‘I’m all right. I’m getting into the cellar now.’ She had made the hole wide enough to scramble through. She pushed her head and shoulders into it and found herself about two feet above the cellar floor. She squirmed a little further, reached down with both hands and took the weight of her body, pushing with her feet, clawing with her hands. I’m going to bring the whole lot down with me, she thought, hearing the creaks and crashes, feeling the shudder of each new explosion. I’m going to bring down the whole bloody lot.

The edge of the tunnel gave way and she fell forwards on to the floor. It was littered with debris, and she lay still for a moment, her whole body shrieking in protest. But there was no time for pain. Within less than a minute, she was pulling herself together, looking around for the little girl.

‘Oh, Ruth…’

The child was about eight or nine years old, and she was almost completely covered in dust, plaster, coal and bricks.

From her shoulders down, she had been buried as the corner of the cellar had collapsed. Her face was scratched and smeared with blood, her eyes wide and frightened. She stared at Gladys and her mouth trembled.

‘It’s all right, love,’ Gladys said quickly. ‘We’ll have you out of there in no time.’ She looked round at the other three occupants of the cellar, still huddled together as if fast asleep.

‘I can’t breathe properly,’ the little girl said. ‘There’s all bricks and stuff on me.’

‘I know. I’ll get it off.’

‘Mummy…’

Gladys hesitated. The girl was frightened, in pain and might be hurt. The debris that had fallen on top of her was crushing her. She had to be released. But the others might need help even more badly. They might be unconscious, bleeding to death. There were pools of dark liquid at their feet. It was impossible to tell whether it was water or blood.

She looked up at the mouth of the tunnel. I can’t do this on my own, she thought. I need help.

Another crash shook the little cellar and she dropped her torch. It went out and the hole was plunged into darkness.

The little girl screamed and Gladys gasped with fright and groped frantically for the torch. If the house came down on top of them now … But the walls held and after a moment her fingers found the torch and pressed the switch. The beam of light shone out again and she sighed with relief.

‘Stay still, Ruthie.’ As if the poor little mite could do anything else! ‘I’m just going to look at the others. Is - is this your mummy?’

The child nodded. Her eyes were enormous. Gladys crawled across the floor, the thin liquid mud like ice about her legs. She peered at the three huddled bodies. An old man Ruth’s grandfather? - and two women. Their eyes were open, fixed and staring.

Without any hope, she felt the limp wrists and touched the lolling necks. No pulses. No sign of breathing. No heartbeat.

She crawled back to the child. Voices were calling down the narrow shaft and she shouted back. ‘The little girl’s half buried. I’m going to try to get her out. The others …’ Her voice trembled and failed. How could you yell the news that a child’s family were dead, when she was listening and watching you with those huge, terrified eyes?

‘It’s all right, Ruthie.’ How could she sound so calm?

Inside, her heart was like thunder and her nerves were jumping like jags of lightning. Every few moments there was another crash, sometimes at a distance, sometimes almost overhead. The earth trembled and the walls of the cellar shook.

‘It’s all right,’ she said again, and she lifted one hand to the child’s head and stroked the matted hair. ‘It’s all right. We’ll have you out of here soon. You’ll be safe …’

Over the Hill, Betty and Dennis heard the noise and looked from the farmhouse windows to see the glow. Yvonne had gone home for the weekend and Erica was in bed with a heavy cold, but Mr and Mrs Spencer joined them, staring out at the red and orange sky. They could hear the planes roaming overhead, see the web of the searchlights, the flash of ackack.

They could hear the dull thud-thud-thud of the explosions, their eyes were scorched by the searing blaze of the fires.

‘The whole bloody city’s in flames,’ Jack Spencer said, his voice thick and slow with horror. ‘The whole bloody city’s going up in smoke…’

Betty covered her face with her hands, and Dennis put his arms around her. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she whispered. ‘Dad …

What’s happening to them? And our Livy, she’s going to have a baby. Oh God, what’s happening to them?’

‘Ssh, Dennis said, holding her close. ‘They’ll be all right. They’ve got a shelter, haven’t they? They’ll have gone into that. They’ll be safe.’

‘They might not. They might be out somewhere. Dad could be at work, on the ferry. Livy might - Mum might ‘

She shook her head, staring at the flame-lit sky. Dennis hugged her close and looked helplessly at Mrs Spencer.

‘Come on downstairs, love,’ the farmer’s wife said briskly, though her own voice was trembling too. ‘We’ll make some cocoa. It don’t do no good, standing here watching it. There’s nothing we can do. Come with me.’

Betty shook her head, her eyes fixed in terrible fascination on the glowing sky. Gently, Dennis urged her towards the stairs. ‘Go on, darling. Mrs Spencer’s right. We can’t do anything to help by standing here on the landing getting cold.’

Again Betty shook her head, but this time she allowed them to shepherd her down the stairs. In the kitchen, she sat at the big table in one of the settles while Mrs Spencer moved the kettle on to the hottest part of the range to bring it to the boil, and busied herself spooning cocoa into large cups. She mixed it with sugar and a little milk, then filled the cups with boiling water and set one in front of Betty.

‘There. That’ll warm you up. You’re shivering, girl, come a bit nearer the fire. I’ll take one up to Erica too, she never got warm all day.’

Betty shook her head. ‘I’m not cold.’

‘It’s shock,’ Mrs Spencer said to Dennis. ‘Look at her shivering there. And no wonder, poor duck, seeing that out there and thinking of her mum and dad.’

Dennis pushed Betty’s cup a little nearer to her. ‘Drink your cocoa, sweetheart. It’ll do you good.’

‘Drop of brandy in it’ll do her more good,’ Mr Spencer said suddenly and went to the cupboard in the corner. He brought over the bottle, kept for ‘medicinal purposes’ and poured a generous measure into Betty’s cup. ‘Do us all good,’ he added, treating each cup the same.

Dennis lifted Betty’s cup to her lips. ‘Come on, darling. It’ll warm you up.’

‘I’m not cold. I’m not cold. It’s Mum who’s cold, down there in that shelter. And Dad, on the ferry. And Yvonne, at Rudmore. Oh, what’s happening to them?’ She lifted her head, looking at them with desperate eyes. ‘The whole of Pompey’s burning, you can see it. They’re being burnt alive, all of them, and me not there. I ought to be there, with them. I shouldn’t never have come out here to the farm. Dad never wanted me to.’ The words poured from her in a torrent, as the tears streamed down her cheeks. ‘He always said I ought to stay at home. Graham did too. None of them wanted me to come out here, and now they’re all getting bombed and burnt and killed and I’m - I’m safe. And I shouldn’t be!’

‘Betty, Betty. You’re talking crazy. D’you think they’d want you to be bombed?’ Dennis shook her shoulders gently.

‘They must be thankful you’re safe. They must be glad you came here. They didn’t want you to stay at home just so you could be in danger, you know they didn’t.’

‘Dennis is right,’ Mrs Spencer said, coming back down the stairs. ‘Why, your mum’s probably thanking God on her bended knees at this very moment, knowing no harm’s going to come to you. And none’s coming to them either,’ she added staunchly. ‘They’ll have got into their shelters at the first peep of the warning, and there they’ll stop till the All-Clear. And as soon as one of them can get out to the phone box, they’ll be ringing us up to let you know they’re all all right, you see if they don’t.’

Betty sniffed and nodded. She sipped her cocoa and choked a little. Mrs Spencer did the same and wiped her eyes, looking at her husband.

‘You put enough brandy in there to get a regiment drunk!

Now, let’s get the cards out and have a game of something. It’s not a bit of use sitting here worrying ourselves silly, but I can see none of us is going to get any sleep till it’s over. And we’re not going to sit up all night waiting for a phone call either.

There’s cows to be seen to in the morning, they won’t stop making milk just because Hitler decides to call.’

‘Cards!’ Betty exclaimed with a flash of hysteria. ‘It’s always cards. Whenever something happens that shouldn’t, we get out the cards. Your boy wants to make love to you, the Germans send their bombers over and set fire to everyone you love, and what do we do? We play cards!’

She turned again into Dennis’s arms and buried her face against his chest. He held her close, his hands moving slowly over her shoulders, his voice murmuring in her ear, and after a while her sobs diminished and she lifted her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said shakily. ‘I know you’re right. Crying doesn’t help anyone. Maybe a game of cards would be the best thing.’

She thought of the great historical figures she had been told about at school - Drake, playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe as the Spanish Armada sailed up the Channel. Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.

Perhaps it wasn’t so very different, playing cards.

‘Why doesn’t Mummy speak to me?’ The little girl’s eyes were fixed on the huddled bodies on the other side of the cellar, only a few feet away. ‘Why won’t she wake up?’

‘She’s been hurt, love.’ Gladys worked steadily, pulling the rubbish away from the little body. There was no point in hiding the truth. The child would have to know, and sooner rather than later. But Gladys could not quite bring herself to break it so baldly. ‘We’ll get her to hospital as soon as we’ve got you out. She won’t mind waiting.’ She would never mind waiting again. ‘Don’t worry, Ruthie. Everything’s going to be all right.’

She heard her own words with a bitter cynicism. Everything was not going to be all right. It would never again be ‘all right’ for this little scrap for, no matter what her life might become, she would never be able to escape from the memory of this dreadful night, and the knowledge that her mother had been killed before her eyes. She would never lose the picture of that staring face with the blood congealing to a black scab on the white skin. If she lived to be a hundred, it would still be with her. She would take it with her to her own death.

Everything was very far from ‘all right’.

There was no time for grief. No time for pain. As one casualty was freed from the smoking, dust-clouded ruins, so a hundred more were in desperate need. As one fire was doused, so another ten broke out.

And the water was never in the right place. Fractured water mains gushed uselessly in the roads and the fire brigade could do nothing but simply let the fires burn until the mains could be hastily repaired and water pumped through.

Sometimes the flames were put out by local firewatchers and neighbours. As soon as the bombs began to fall, people rushed out of their shelters and on to the streets, ready at the risk of their lives to give whatever help might be needed. With buckets of earth and sand, with pumps attached to their own kitchen taps, with blankets and old mats, heedless of shrapnel raining about them, they donned tin hats and battled together to save their city. As buildings crumbled and fell, they fought to tear away the rubble and release those who had been buried.