The Girls They Left Behind (58 page)

‘It won’t be no help if you pass out yourself. You’ve got to get something hot inside you. You’re out on your feet.’

‘I’m not. I’m all right.’ She grabbed the mug Peggy was holding out and gulped down its contents, hardly knowing whether it was tea, cocoa or cabbage-water, and well beyond caring. ‘There, I’ve drunk it, now can we go?’

Peggy sighed and climbed back into the van. ‘Look, I want to help as much as you do ‘

‘Right, let’s go then.’ They were off once more, tearing through the chaotic streets.

It was worse than ever, she

thought. It wasn’t just tonight’s damage, it was all the houses that had been knocked down in the past weeks, through raid after raid, all the holes in the road, not yet patched up, all the streets you couldn’t go down, all the blackened and burned-out buildings. Even with the Navy and the Army helping too, there hadn’t been time to fence them all off, to make them safe. Something ought to be done, but there wasn’t time, there weren’t the people to do it, not when other jobs had to be done too, not when the city was struggling simply to keep going.

A bitter despair rose inside her. When would there ever be time? Did Hitler know what he was doing, was he keeping up this relentless barrage deliberately so that they would be worn down by the hopelessness of it all, by the impossibility of simply staying awake? She’d seen her father going off to work in the morning, scarcely able to keep his eyes open, and her uncle Frank stumbling down the street half-dead after a hard day’s labouring in the Yard. How long could they keep going?

How long could it last?

I will keep going, she swore to herself as she battled through the streets on the way back from yet another trip to the hospital. I won’t let him beat me.

She braked sharply as a bomb screamed down from the sky and scored a direct hit on a house less than a hundred yards away. She ducked her head and, through the gap in her windscreen, felt the hot, choking blast. The ambulance shuddered as the tremor raced outwards through the earth like ripples on a pond, and Gladys clung to the steering wheel.

‘My God,’ Peggy called out from behind her, ‘that was a big un.’

‘It’s hit a house just down the road.’ Miraculously, the engine was still running. Gladys slammed it into gear and moved forwards. The air was still full of dust but already people were running about near the site of the explosion, and a fire engine had appeared from nowhere. ‘There’ll be injuries. We’ll have to go and see.’

‘But we’re supposed to be going back to the post ‘

‘We can’t. You know we can’t.’ She drove as near to the bombed house as she could get and dragged the van to a halt.

The air was filled with thick, choking dust, but there didn’t appear to be any smoke yet. As soon as the van stopped, she was out, thrusting her way through the little crowd that was already gathering.

‘I’m a First Aid worker. Are there people inside?’

One of the women turned to her. She was enormously fat and wrapped in an old coat. Her grey hair was scraped back from her big, coarse face and her eyes were like buttons. But there was real anxiety in her gravelly voice.

‘It’s Marge Jennings’ house.’ She turned to another woman who had just run across the pavement. ‘Was she inside?’

‘Well, she never goes down the shelter, not since her mum was killed in one. She always gets under the stairs, reckons it’s safer.’

The fat woman looked at Gladys. There was a small cluster of people around them now, mostly women with one or two old men hobbling on sticks.

‘Well, we’d better look for ‘er then, ‘adn’t we? ”I ain’t no good standin’ ‘ere talkin’ about it.’ She glanced around at the neighbours. ‘An’ it’s not much use you lot standin’ ‘ere, makin’ a target for the next one. Get back in yer own shelters.’

She looked impatiently up and down the street. ‘Where’s old Bertie Hicks, he’s supposed to be warden round ‘ere, ain’t ‘e?

Just like coppers, never around when you want ‘em, but you just let a glimmer of light get out round the blackout and ‘e’s on the spot right away…’ Her button eyes came back to Gladys. ‘Well, get on with it, poor old Marge could be dyin’ in there for all you know.’

Gladys was already jamming on her tin helmet and reaching for her First Aid kit. With Peggy beside her, she made for the front door. There was no problem in getting into the house - the door had been blown off its hinges. Every window was blown out, and when they shone their torches inside they could see that the ceilings had collapsed, turning each of the downstairs rooms into a pile of rubble.

‘Think she’s got a chance?’ Peggy muttered.

‘I don’t know. I’ll see if I can get through. If she’s under the stairs, she might be all right.’ Gladys peered through the darkness. It was never easy to know exactly where the stairs were in a house. Even in two-up, two-down terraces, there were half a dozen different designs. Sometimes the stairs went straight up from the front door, sometimes they led from the scullery, right at the back of the house, sometimes from one of the rooms. And when a bomb had hit the house and virtually demolished it, it was almost impossible to tell. She stared at the piles of debris. Could anyone have survived a hit like that?

‘Mrs Jennings?’ she called. ‘Marge? Are you there?’

There was no answer. Her heart sank. It didn’t look as if she’d survived. Or maybe she’d gone to the shelter after all.

‘She might be unconscious,’ Peggy said. ‘She might be buried.’

‘I know. I’ll have to go in, Mum.’

Peggy looked at her. ‘Glad, you’ve been working all night.

You’re just about done in. Why don’t you let the warden or someone do it?’

‘The warden’s not here, is he. Or anyone else. Only a few women and a couple of old men. And the only one who seems to have any sense is that fat one, can you see her crawling through this lot? I’ll have to do it.’

‘But -‘ They heard the fat woman’s voice again. Peggy went back and then returned to Gladys’s side. ‘Someone’s looked in her shelter. She’s not there. And - they told me summat else.’ She looked miserably at Gladys. ‘There’s a baby. Six months old. Her hubby’s in the Navy and she lives here by herself.’

‘Well, that settles it. I’ll have to go in. You stop here, Mum, and be ready if I shout.’ Gladys settled her tin helmet more firmly on her head and stepped gingerly on a broken plank. It tilted. She waited a moment, then edged her way along it, supporting herself with her hands on the wall.

Somewhere else in the house she heard a rumble and then a crash. Something had given way. There was still no sound of people. Was Marge Jennings alive or dead? And what about her baby?

Something wet dropped on her cheek and she wiped it away. A waterpipe burst, probably. Or maybe a bottle broken, or a teapot smashed. Or the upstairs lav cracked …

I hate this, she thought, I just want to go away somewhere, somewhere nice and peaceful where there’s no war and the sun shines and people can do what they want with their lives. I don’t want to be crawling through a bombed house, with more bombs falling all over the place, looking for a woman and her baby who are probably dead. I don’t want to find them. Why do / have to be the one? I never asked to do this.

She flashed her torch. She could get an idea of the layout of the house now. It must have three bedrooms, and there was a long passage from the front door to the stairs. To get to the space underneath it, you had to go through both downstairs rooms to the little kitchen at the back. There’d be a door there, leading to the cupboard that had been made in the space, but when she edged gingerly through she found that the kitchen had collapsed entirely under the weight of the bedroom above, and the door was blocked by piles of masonry and broken furniture.

I can’t move all that, Gladys thought, gazing at it in despair.

I can’t possibly move all that.

She shifted what she could, tearing nails and skin as she wrenched at splintered wood and jagged bricks. A piece of broken glass cut a thin line down her arm but she scarcely noticed it. She propped her torch up on a shelf that was hanging precariously from one wall, and worked on, heaving and pulling, trying to make a way through to the cupboard door.

‘Here, love. Let me do that.’

There was a man beside her, a burly man who also wore a tin helmet. He had big hands with big, strong fingers, and he pushed Gladys out of the way and shifted a beam with which she had been struggling. He was wearing a dark blue uniform.

A warden, she thought dully, they’re never about when you want one. But there was one here now, and they worked together, heaving the rubbish away, staggering as they pulled at beams which were wedged under piles of smashed bricks and mortar, coughing as fresh clouds of dust rose around them.

There were other people too. She was aware of them as a dimly lit crowd, moving in the shadows. Bodies, voices, faces, hands. They came and went before her vision, blurred and reeling. She was grateful for their help. But it was her task really…

They seemed to understand this, and when the door was at last free, they drew back, letting her set her hand to the knob, letting her be the one to turn it.

She opened the door and looked inside. Nothing.

‘They’re not here,’ she said, and her voice rose and wavered. ‘There’s nobody here.’

For a few seconds, there was complete silence. It was as if even the bombs had ceased to fall. From somewhere in the shattered house, she could hear a dripping sound, slow and measured. And then there was a crash from somewhere else in the city and, as if it had touched a button to set them moving again, the rest of the neighbours gathered round, staring into the dusty space.

‘Not here?’

‘Where is she, then? Where’s Marge?’

‘She never said she was goin’ away. I saw her yest’day and she never said.’

‘They must be there.’

Peggy was at Gladys’s side.

‘Come on, Glad. There’s nothing more we can do here. If there’s no one hurt we ought to be getting back to the post ‘

‘No.’ Gladys shook her head. She could not believe it.

Marge Jennings should have been here with her baby, Gladys should have found them. It was her job. It was what she was supposed to do. ‘They’ve got to be here.’

‘Glad, you can see they’re not. Come on. There’s other people ‘

‘Listen!’

‘Glad’

‘Listen.’ Gladys turned to her mother and shook her arm, she turned to the others and blazed at them. ‘Can’t you hear it? Listen. It’s the baby!’ She dived forwards into the deepest recess of the cupboard, the part where the stairs came right down to the floor. ‘Give us a torch, quick.’

She could hear it clearly now, a muffled whimpering, no louder than the mew of a newborn kitten. She scrabbled with her hand, finding the usual kind of rubbish - few old boxes, a rag-bag, a broom … A rag-bag! Was that really what it was?

She felt Peggy thrust the torch into her hands and shone it on the soft pile under her hands. It cried again and she flashed the light and saw the face screw up, the eyes closing in protest at the sudden brightness.

‘I’ve got it! The baby-it’s here!’ Cradling it in one arm, she scrambled backwards through the space, hearing the exclamations.

‘Look, it’s safe, it’s alive, it’s the baby.’ She was out now, in the place that had once been the kitchen. ‘I’ve got the baby, I’ve got the baby.’

‘Oh, Glad’

‘The baby! She’s got the baby. But where’s Marge?’ The neighbours passed the word back into the street and Gladys could hear the cheer that went up. But the warden was beside her, urging her out. ‘It’s not safe in here, love. The whole place could come crashing down round our ears. Get out of it, quick.’

Gladys stumbled out into the street, the baby still held in her arms. It was yelling with rage and fear. She stopped and looked at it more carefully. There seemed to be no injury at all. No blood on its little face, none seeping through its clothing. It had survived unhurt. But where was its mother?

Gladys looked around. She saw the warden go back into the house. She saw the other neighbours gather round, waiting until he came out, and she saw the look on his face when he emerged again at last.

He came over to where she stood, still holding the baby, and touched the little cheek with a dirty forefinger.

‘Poor little bugger. Poor little sod.’

‘Have - have you found her?’

His mouth twisted and he looked away. ‘There wasn’t much left to find. Just enough - enough to know it was her.’

He drew in a ragged breath. ‘She musta put the baby in the cupboard before the raid ever started - did it every night, most like. And she was upstairs. The bomb blew everything apart. Everything.’ His whole body shuddered with the memory of what he had seen. ‘We’ll ‘ave to go in and get ‘er out, but not tonight. Not tonight.’

Gladys thought of the dripping sound she had heard. She remembered the drop of wetness that had touched her cheek.

She put her hand up to her face and saw the stain on her fingers.

She looked at the baby in her arms. He had stopped screaming and was gazing peacefully at the reddened sky. She wondered how soon he would begin to miss his mother.

Burdened with shovels, spades and paraffin lamp, the three boys were halfway down Powerscourt Road when the siren sounded. They stopped and looked at each other.

‘I’ll have to go back,’ Cyril said. ‘I’m not supposed to be out.’

‘What’s the point? They’ll know by now. You can’t pretend you was in the lav all the time.’

Cyril considered. If he stayed out and went on with their plan, his father would take the strap to him when he got home.

But he’d do that anyway, so Micky was right, there was no point in going back now. Besides, he had never been out in a night raid.

The planes were already overhead. The boys watched the shifting white beams of the searchlights crisscrossing the sky and stared at the bursting orange flowers. The sudden riot of noise and colour was like a gigantic firework display. They jumped and capered whenever a bomb exploded somewhere in Portsmouth, looking like demons from hell as they waved their shovels in the gory light, their yells drowned in the shattering blast of bombs and the rattle of gunfire.