The Girls They Left Behind (59 page)

‘Come on!’ Micky shouted. ‘Let’s get over to the den. No one’ll take any notice of us in all this, an’ if they see us with the bomb they’ll think we’re heroes!’

Fired by this new idea, they scurried through the streets.

Some were empty as their inhabitants sheltered, others were a noisy confusion of people and vehicles. The fire engines were already out, followed by the vans and old buses that were being used as ambulances. Buildings were already in flames, their walls tottering and collapsing. The boys slid like shadows amongst it all, caught up in the excitement, only half aware that it was real.

‘It’s better’n the pictures,’ Micky breathed as he slunk along a wall, watching a house opposite suddenly burst into flames as the roof was torn away by the inferno within. ‘It’s like being in the pictures…’

He was totally enraptured. Like the others, he had never been out in a night raid, and this was the best yet. He felt like a film star, running unscathed through streets that rained with bombs. Anything might happen, but nothing could touch him. He waved his shovel at the sky, yelling at the Germans, sneering and challenging. He was invincible.

They were in Powerscourt Road, climbing through the back fence. The house still stood in ruins, jagged walls in spectral silhouette against the flaming sky. The hole was a black shadow against the wall.

Cyril switched on his torch and climbed down the broken steps.

‘It’s still here.’

‘What d’you expect?’ Micky jeered. ‘Think it might’ve walked away by itself?’ He scrambled down to stand beside Cyril, gazing at the bomb. The rotting wall in which it was embedded shook with each explosion. Jimmy retreated.

‘It could go off any minute.’

‘Go on, it’s a dud. It must be.’ Micky set the paraffin lamp on a pile of bricks. ‘Let’s get it out.’ He looked at Cyril. ‘You start.’

Cyril hesitated. He glanced at his shovel, then at the bomb.

It looked bigger in the flickering light, more menacing. There was quite a lot of rust along its side.

‘You can if you like.’

‘It’s your bomb,’ Micky said with a shrug, and leant his own shovel against the wall. Cyril looked at him again and bit his lip. He advanced slowly upon the bomb.

‘I thought you said it was only his if he got it out,’ Jimmy said craftily, and Micky scowled. He saw his leadership slipping again.

‘All right, then, I’ll do it if you’re scared.’ He pushed Cyril aside and approached the bomb himself. There was another explosion close by, and a few stones and some earth were dislodged around it. They rattled down the wall and the boys jumped back.

‘Bombs don’t have to be duds just because they haven’t gone off Jimmy said. ‘There was one down Fratton the other day, bin there weeks, suddenly exploded.’

Micky scraped some more rubble away, exposing the bomb’s smooth, rounded sides. ‘It won’t take much more before we can lift it out.’ He scraped again.

There was another explosion outside, even nearer. The blast shook the little cellar, bringing down a shower of bricks and plaster over the entrance. The bomb seemed to shiver and Micky leapt back.

‘I’m getting out of here!‘Jimmy’s voice rose in panic. ‘We’ll get buried alive. Or blown to bits.’ He scrabbled at the mound of broken bricks and earth on the steps. ‘I can’t get out…’

The bomb was forgotten. Gripped by sudden terror, the three boys clawed at the debris blocking their exit. Behind them, the paraffin lamp guttered and flared. Outside, through the narrow gap, they could still see a glimmer of fiery light.

Desperate now to reach it, to be away from the hole, they pushed and shoved each other aside, each intent only on his own survival.

Another explosion. The ground shook. More debris collapsed above them. Cyril cried out, a gargling scream that sounded as if he were being sick. Micky and Jimmy tore at the bricks and earth, forcing their bodies up the steps. Hair, eyes and mouths were filled with dust and they choked and retched.

Another explosion. There was a roar from above as the entire house began to collapse. Floorboards shattered and plaster rained down into the basement. There was nothing in Micky’s mind now but the sheer desperate need to breathe.

Jimmy, Cyril, the bomb, all were forgotten in the frantic necessity to fill his choked lungs with air instead of dust, to relieve the intolerable pressure, to silence the roaring of blood in his ears and the terrified screaming of his mind.

He thrust his way through a pile of splintered laths, fell over a heap of bricks, knew without feeling it that he had sliced his arm across a jagged shard of glass. He half rose to his feet, tried to force his trembling legs to run, could manage no more than a crawl. Behind him, the house was toppling; all around, the sky was glaring red, and fire lit the wrecked garden with its angry flicker.

Another explosion. And this time it was the bomb itself, the bomb they had thought to be a dud, the bomb that had lain unexploded for months, awaiting its time. Its rusted sides gave way, the unstable contents stirred into life and it tore a hole in the collapsing house, sending bricks and wood and plaster flying into the sky. The blast shook every house left standing, shattering several more windows and bringing down a hundred or more slates. Like all bomb blasts, its effects were strangely erratic. A plaster gnome in a nearby garden was unaffected. A chimney-pot two streets distant toppled and fell.

It cleared the steps of their debris and blew it away in a fine dust, which became a part of the heavy, choking cloud that shifted and hung over the shattered houses.

There was no movement from the boys. They lay quite still, Micky on top of a pile of bricks and plaster, Jimmy half buried. Of Cyril, there was no sign at all.

Ted Chapman leaned against the low wall of the turret, his hands clutching the rough stone. His body shook with each blast as a bomb whistled down from the sky and burst into a shower of flame somewhere in Portsmouth. He stared at the orange glow that lit up the sky, at the white pencil beams of searchlights. He heard the rattle of anti-aircraft fire, the wild clanging of firebells, the shouts of wardens in the streets, and it was as if he could hear every cry, every scream, that sounded in the city of Portsmouth that night. They shrilled in his ears and battered at his skull; they stabbed into his body, and his head whirled and sickened with the sheer terrible force of it.

He sank to his knees. He had been at Dunkirk and had seen the men standing neck-deep in the water, waiting for rescue. Thousands of them had died there on the beaches before he and the other boats could get them away.

Thousands were dying now, in Portsmouth, in London, in every major city, in towns and villages, at sea and in the sky.

The screams echoed in his head.

By dawn, Gladys was moving in a daze. She scarcely knew what patients were being loaded into her van, scarcely registered the journeys along the chaotic streets. It was as if the ambulance knew its own way, as if something outside her own mind directed the functioning of her body. Down this street, along that - no, you can’t, it’s blocked. Try the next one - fire engines - well then, the next - yes, this one’s clear no, there’s a crater at the end, reverse, watch out for that old woman - this way’s OK - which way is the hospital now down that way - no - yes, there it is at last, drive to the door, stop, get but, see the casualties in, get back in the van, start again…

‘You ought to give it up,’ Peggy said. ‘You’re done in. We both are.’ But she knew they could not give up. As long as the bombs kept falling, as long as there were people to get out of shattered buildings, so the ambulances must keep going, and so their drivers and their attendants. People like Gladys and Peggy, all equally worn out, all forcing themselves to keep going, operating in a dream.

They’ll win, Gladys thought, driving to yet another bombed building. If they keep this up, they’ll win. We just can’t go on for ever.

She pulled up and looked hopelessly at the familiar sight, the cloud of dust, the smoke and flames, the firemen with their hoses, the people huddled on the pavement. Another family homeless.

‘Gladdie!’

She turned, her heart leaping. Only one person had ever called her that. She saw his face, smeared with dirt but grinning the same as always, his ginger hair almost black with soot under the cap that was still somehow perched at a rakish angle.

‘Graham! Oh, Graham …’

‘So this is where you’ve got to,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I thought we had a date tonight.’ He looked at her with concern. ‘Here, are you all right?’

‘Me? Yes, I’m all right. I’m always all right.’ Gladys frowned slightly, then swayed a little and Graham caught her in his arms. ‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all, a bit fed-up. All these planes coming over all the time, all the bombs … I just wish they’d stop, don’t you?’

‘We all do.’ Graham held her up and looked closely into her face. ‘You’re all in, Gladdie. You ought to have a rest.’

‘Can’t,’ she mumbled. ‘Can’t rest, got to drive the van, keep going. Too many people, too many bombs …’ Her knees buckled and Graham tightened his arms and looked round for help.

‘Here, what’s up with our Glad?’ Peggy was at his side, staring anxiously at Gladys’s white face. ‘Passed out, has she?

I’m not surprised, bin driving that van like a mad thing tonight, I told her time and time again she oughter have a rest.

Trouble is, there’s no one else can drive the bloody thing, they’ve all got their own jobs to do and / can’t drive it.’ She chewed her lip. ‘There’s a bloke here hurt bad, we oughter be getting him to hospital. I dunno what to do.’

‘I do,’ Graham said firmly. ‘Get him in the back, Mrs Shaw, and I’ll see to Gladys. She can ride with you for a change. I’ll drive the van.’

‘You?’ Peggy stared at him and felt suddenly reassured. He looked tall and capable in his matelot’s uniform. She wondered irrelevantly whether Jess Budd had sewn that square collar… ‘Can you drive?’

‘Well enough. I’ve been learning anyway.’

Gladys moaned and struggled a little in Graham’s arms.

She put her hand to her head. ‘What’s happening? The ambulance - I’ve got to drive the ambulance ‘

‘You’re not driving anywhere,’ Peggy said firmly. ‘You’re coming in the back with me. Graham’s going to drive.’

Gladys stared at him. ‘You? Ginger? But you can’t - it’s my job’

‘That’s all right,’ Graham said. ‘You just get in the back with your mum.’

‘But’

The local warden appeared beside them, his arm supporting a man who was hobbling and clutching an obviously broken arm. There was blood oozing from a jagged cut on his head. His clothes were badly torn and there were dark wet stains, as if he was bleeding in several places. His face was grey under its coating of dust.

‘This bloke needs to get to the hospital. What’s going on here? What’s up with her? She’s the driver, ain’t she?’

‘She’s not fit to drive,’ Peggy said. ‘This sailor’s taking over. We’ll get him there.’

‘There’s another coupla women ought to go too.’ The warden stared at them doubtfully. ‘Think you can manage?

Perhaps I oughter ‘

‘It’s all right. I know him,’ Peggy said, omitting to mention that she had known Graham Philpotts best when he was eight years old, a mischievous small boy who knocked on respectable folk’s doors and then ran away … ‘He’ll get us there.’

Another bomb shrieked to a crash a street or two away and the warden looked harassed. ‘All right, then. Take ‘em, and then come back, we’ll have a few more for you by the looks of it. I’ve gotta go -‘ He turned and hurried off along the street, shouting for help as he went.

Gladys was standing now, still looking dazed. She turned and made for the ambulance, pulling open the driver’s door.

‘We’ve got to get these people to hospital ‘

‘In the back.’ Graham grabbed her arm and led her to the back door, where Peggy was already helping the injured man inside. Two women were leaning against a broken lamp post, one crying weakly. ‘You get in too. Come on, Gladdie. You’re going to ride in style this time.’

He slammed the back doors and clambered into the driver’s seat. In fact, he had never driven anything other than his boss’s old van, just up the street and back when the old man wasn’t looking. And there was an old car someone had abandoned once on a bit of waste ground in Gosport. He and a few other boys had got hold of a can of petrol and managed to get it going. It had accomplished a few hundred yards in kangaroo hops before finally spluttering to a halt, and that had been that.

But there wasn’t really anything to driving, if you knew the principles and after a couple of false starts and a startled leap or two the van set off up the road with Graham holding tightly to the steering wheel. All right so far, he thought, now let’s try turning the corner …

Fortunately, the street was only half a mile from the Royal Hospital and by the time they reached the building Graham was feeling more confident. The ambulance lurched up to the casualty entrance and came to a juddering halt.

‘I thought you said you could drive!’ Peggy was out of the van at once. The sky was still roaring with the sound of bombers and night-fighters, the anti-aircraft fire was rattling on all sides and as Graham looked up he saw the red flares of parachute mines dropping steadily through the darkness. It looked too near for comfort … He ran to the back of the van and shouted urgently.

‘Get ‘em out, Gladdie. There’s something big coming. Get ‘em out and into shelter, for God’s sake!’

Gladys dragged her thoughts together. She was feeling slightly better now and aware that the people in the ambulance with her had all been injured. I’m not hurt at all, she thought. I’m just making a lot of fuss over nothing. Tired}.

How can I say I’m tired, when there’s people getting killed …

‘Out, quick,’ she said, and together she and Peggy helped the man out. He looked bad. He ought to have been on a stretcher, she thought, and helped him as gently as she could.

‘I can’t…’ the man said, and began to crumple. Instantly, Graham was at his side. He swung the man’s good arm over his shoulders and gripped him about the waist.