The Blitz Read online

  I’d just said to Tom, “Come on then. We’d better go. . .” when a couple of people pointed up into the eastern sky over Eltham.

  Glinting in the sun was a V-formation of silver crosses. There must have been twenty planes flying steadily over London.

  “Where’s the blinking RAF when you need them?” shouted someone.

  People were running for cover now, and the market traders began to shove plates and pans into boxes and suitcases, then ripping the metal poles of the stands apart and throwing them on to the ground with a clatter.

  We ran all the way back to Summerfield Road, and even before we reached number 47, we could faintly hear the distant sound of the first explosions. Mum was waiting at the door to scold us down the garden and into the Anderson, where for the next hour and a half we worried about Dad and Shirley.

  At half past six, the all-clear sounded and we crawled outside, rubbing our eyes against the light.

  Across the gardens beside the railway, the land lies fairly flat to the River Thames between Blackheath on one side and Lewisham Hill on the other. Rising into the sky from the direction of the river was a huge tower of evil, sinister, billowing smoke, slowly rolling over on itself, black at the bottom and turning grey at its height.

  “Oh my word,” Mum exclaimed. “It’s the docks! Must be.” And then, as if personally he could have done something about the massive fire, she said crossly, “Wherever’s your dad got to? Blow the blooming cricket. . .”

  In fact, as we trooped into the house one way, he was coming in at the front door, red-faced and breathing heavily, throwing off his cricket whites as he came.

  “Better . . . go into . . . work. . .” he said between gulps of air. “They’re going to need . . . all hands . . . on deck.”

  But even before he’d got out of the front door, the siren was screaming at us again and, carrying books, crossword puzzles, toys and blankets, we scurried back down to the Anderson.

  We were there until five o’clock in the morning, more or less, and not a moment’s sleep. There was a break in the middle of the evening just after it had got dark. Shirl had joined us by then, having scampered out of the public shelter down by Chiesman’s.

  “It don’t half pong in there,” she said, shaking the smell out of her hair, her nose shrivelling up in disgust. “I don’t think half of Lewisham ever has a wash.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Would you just look at that!”

  We were standing in the garden, looking towards the river again. The evening was still now, and though we could hear the occasional car and the bells of fire engines ringing their way across to Deptford, it was quiet enough to hear an animal rustle through the bushes on the railway embankment to our left. You get foxes up there sometimes.

  But now where the smoke had been, the whole sky was an angry wound of red. We might be three or four miles away from the flames but with the amount of light they were making I could have easily read the paper Mum held.

  “It’s like the end of the world,” Mum said slowly.

  “Poor beggars,” said Shirl.

  “Is Dad over there?” asked Tom in a small voice.

  “Him and every fireman in London, I shouldn’t wonder,” Mum answered, giving Tom a reassuring cuddle. “But then the whole city might be up in flames, for all we know. What a waste!”

  Later in the evening, when Mum had gone off on duty, we could hear the drone of planes overhead more or less all the time. It’s horrible. You feel the butterflies building up in your stomach till it almost becomes painful. I could see Shirl’s fingers. The nails were bitten back hard, and her two hands were gripped together, the fingers sliding backwards and forwards over each other. It was about three o’clock when a stick of three bombs dropped closer than we’d ever heard before. They came through the air with a sound like the tearing of a curtain, and the explosions shook the ground. Chamberlain was beside himself with fear, past barking now, just trembling uncontrollably and whining pitifully.

  We were all still white and shaking at breakfast. Mum wouldn’t talk about the previous night. She fidgeted about the house, making a stew, dusting things that didn’t need dusting, worrying about Dad.

  Outside it was weird. If you looked down the street one way, it was a normal sunny Sunday morning, except everyone was more talkative than usual, leaning over fences and gates. Just over the road I could see Mrs Maclennan and Mrs Nott chatting to each other like they were old friends. This was strange, because everyone knew they hadn’t got on for years. If you glanced the other way the pall of smoke hanging over the river reminded you of the nightmare you’d just been through.

  Dad arrived home at noon, exhausted. He shook his head in despair. “I ain’t ever seen anything remotely like it, Beattie,” he said clasping a cup of tea in his hands. “It’s a regular blinking inferno. All that oil, you see. I don’t think we’ll ever put it out.”

  Thursday, 12th September

  It’s the same every night now. Bombs and more bombs, and they’re getting closer. A house got hit in Sandringham Road last night. That’s one over from Summerfield. Sometimes I feel frightened and sometimes it makes me angry. The Germans don’t seem to care who they might kill. What’s going through the minds of the pilots when they drop their bombs? Haven’t they got wives and families? So how can they try to kill other people’s children?

  I mean, I understand why they might want to bomb a factory that’s making guns. I can even understand why they might try to hit a power station. But what difference does it make to the war if they kill Mum, or Tom? Or me?

  Eventually they did put out most of the fire in the docks, despite what Dad said, but it took them a few days. According to Dad, it pretty much had to burn itself out.

  Life’s gone a bit funny. Sort of upside down. The best time to sleep is in the early morning, and because Mum and Dad both have to be out quite often at night, they try to catch a bit of kip during the daytime. So I seem to end up doing even more dishes and tidying up than normal. And most of the shopping too! Even Tom lends a hand from time to time. Mum says it’s our bit towards the war effort, and put that way we can’t grumble, can we?

  Monday, 16th September

  Mum came in on Friday night looking shaken up, eyes red as if she’d been crying. They’d been a bit short of wardens over at New Cross so she’d cycled up there to help out. There’d been a raid in the early evening, and a row of terraced houses had been hit – blasted to bits, Mum said.

  “Sit down, Mum. I’ll make you a cup of something,” I said helplessly. As she took the cup of tea, her hands had a life of their own. They couldn’t keep still.

  “I think I’m a bit shocked, that’s all love,” she said. “Thanks for the tea, though. You’re a good girl.” And she burst into tears.

  I just sat and watched. Mum wasn’t ever like this. She got cross, but she never cried. When they went to the pictures together, it was the family’s standing joke that Dad was more likely to cry than Mum.

  After a minute or two she said, “I shouldn’t be telling you, Edie, but I’ve got to talk to someone or I’ll burst.” She swallowed hard. “It was kids, you see. They were pulling kids out of the houses.”

  Now I understood. It was as if it could have been Tom or me.

  “Poor things. I hope to God they never knew what hit them.” She was crying again now. “We could hear a baby crying inside the rubble where a door had been. There was still a hole to get through but the blokes were too big. They said they couldn’t ask me, but I knew what they wanted. I squeezed in all right, but she died in my arms. Poor little mite.”

  “Oh, Mum,” I said and cuddled her. I didn’t know what else to do. After a while she came to and asked, “Where’s Tom?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. He went out to play with Jim Simmonds about an hour ago.

  Mum went spare. “Why don’t you know?” she shouted. “What do you think you
’re here for? You’re old enough to take some responsibility. You can’t just let him wander off on his own. Anyone would think you were born stupid. Go and find him. And if he’s not back in a quarter of an hour you’ll both have your dad to answer to.”

  I didn’t argue. Mum and I both knew what was going on. She’d been through a lot that day and she was taking some of it out on me, and that was all right this once. Tom was in the alley where I thought he’d be, kicking a ball around with Jim. He looked a bit surprised to see me, though – almost guilty – and Jim stuffed something deeper into his pocket so I couldn’t see.

  Something’s going on between those two. Jim isn’t a good influence on Tom.

  Thursday, 19th September

  Mum’s been pretty quiet since the weekend, not saying a word more than she has to. But then the lack of sleep’s getting us all down, lying in the shelter each night wondering whether it’ll be “our turn”. That’s the way people are starting to talk, like it’s inevitable we’ll all catch it in the long run.

  Dad’s trying to keep us all cheerful, but you can see in his eyes he’s just so tired from working shift after shift. He’s always kept himself fit and strong, but now he’s so stiff and sore from all the work, he can scarcely lever himself out of his chair in the mornings.

  In his time Dad must have seen some awful things. I shouldn’t think you can avoid it if your job’s putting out fires. He’s never talked about it, and I shouldn’t think he’s going to now, but I wonder how much more even he can take.

  Shirl isn’t helping. She got in well after midnight on Wednesday evening. A party with friends from Chiesman’s, she said. One particular friend, I reckon. It’s that Alec, isn’t it?

  Dad gave her what for the next morning and told her not to do that again while she was living under his roof.

  Shirl was very off-hand. “We might all be dead tomorrow,” she said. “Eat, drink and be merry, I say. What’s the problem as long as no one gets hurt?”

  “There’s lots of ways of getting hurt, girl,” Dad said abruptly. “You’re old enough to know that.”

  Saturday, 21st September

  Right from the word go Mum was different this morning. She was back to her old self, brisk and organizing, as if this was a bright shiny new day, rather than the wet and windy one we’d actually got.

  “Life must go on,” she said. “It’s what Hitler’s after, isn’t it – to have us moping around and thinking we can’t cope. We’ve got to cope! ‘Don’t let the beggars grind you down.’ That’s my motto for the week.”

  And she took herself and the Mansion House polish outside to do the front step in the drizzle. Shirl, who has a late start at Chiesman’s most Saturdays, raised a pencilled eyebrow at me.

  There was a letter on the mantelpiece, tucked behind Mum’s favourite china dog.

  Shirl flicked it with a fingernail as she passed. “It’s from Uncle Fred,” she muttered. “Not good news, I shouldn’t think.”

  But if it isn’t, how come Mum’s pulled herself together?

  Tuesday, 24th September

  Today Mum got me organized helping serve lunch down at the church hall to people who’ve been bombed out. The WVS (that stands for Women’s Voluntary Service, in case you didn’t know) are in charge, and don’t they let you know it! They’re a right bunch of old battle-axes, but I suppose their hearts are in the right place.

  A lot of the people there have only got left what they’re stood up in. No more house, no more furniture, no more clothes. Everything smashed and burnt. You’d think they’d be miserable, but they were yakking away over their dumplings like nobody’s business. They get bread and jam in the mornings and evenings and a hot meal at midday. All free. When they’ve finished eating in the evenings, they stretch out on camp beds to try and get some sleep in between the raids.

  In a spare moment, I sidled up to Mum and asked her about the letter on the mantelpiece. Her face fell for just a moment, and then she said quickly, “Shirl saw me open it, didn’t she? Doesn’t miss anything, that girl.” She paused. “I won’t kid you, Edie. It is bad news. Your Auntie Mavis died last Thursday. She went very quickly in the end.”

  “That’s very sad,” I gulped. “Are you all right?”

  “I knew it was coming,” Mum answered. “I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, what with everything else. Then when the letter came I thought, Well we’ve got to get on with things while we can, haven’t we? It made me cheer up, in a funny sort of way. Do you understand?”

  I told her I thought I did.

  Thursday, 26th September

  When Shirl arrived for work at Chiesman’s yesterday morning, she found one corner of the store missing, blown away the previous night by a bomb. All the windows were out and there was broken glass where you wouldn’t think glass could get. Chiesman’s weren’t going to sell any china today or any ladies’ hats and shoes, because they didn’t have any, at least not in one piece.

  “What did you do?” we asked Shirl.

  “It’s like you said, Mum. Don’t let the beggars grind you down,” she grinned. “We cleaned up the best we could. They told us the building wouldn’t come down round our ears, but we shouldn’t let the customers in yet. So while the chippies put up wooden partitions, me and the other girls carried some tables on to the pavement. Then we wrote a big sign saying, ‘CHIESMAN’S: EVEN MORE OPEN THAN USUAL.’ It got a few laughs, I can tell you! And we took a few quid, too!”

  We laughed along with Shirl, but it’s not so funny when you think about it.

  Tuesday, 1st October

  It was Auntie Mavis’s funeral yesterday, but only Mum made the trip down to Tonbridge. I wanted to go too, but Mum said with Dad working someone had to look after Tom. So that was me, wasn’t it!

  There’d been a heavy raid on Sunday night. The big bombs are bad enough, but the incendiaries are almost worse. They look like thin tin cans about eighteen inches long and they don’t cause damage simply by blowing up, although I shouldn’t think it’d do you much good if one landed on you from 10,000 feet. They just start fires everywhere, and the Fire Service can’t keep up, Dad says. On bad nights, they don’t know where to start. The Germans drop hundreds at a time.

  There are delayed-action bombs too. They’re really nasty, because they cause a mess when they land and then when people come to inspect the damage, the bomb goes off properly, taking anybody close-by with it. Every time Mum or Dad goes out I panic they’re not going to come back.

  When Mum had gone off to the station, looking sad and beautiful in her black dress, Tom hung around the house for a while, bored out of his skin, not helping with the cleaning. Then, about eleven o’clock, Jim Simmonds knocked on the door for Tom to go out and play. The two of them said they’d be up the alley as usual, pretending to be Charlton Athletic versus the Arsenal. I told Tom he should be back for lunchtime, and no messing about. If there was a siren, he was to come home at once.

  Well, at 12.30 there wasn’t a sign of them and after last time I started to worry.

  Mum wasn’t going to be back for hours, but if she ever knew Tom had been absent without leave she’d go off her rocker. At me as much as him!

  I put Chamberlain on his lead and we walked up to the alley. It was empty.

  “Tom, you little varmint,” I said to myself. “Why am I always getting you out of trouble?”

  They could have gone anywhere. I counted off Tom’s favourite nooks and crannies in my head. The trouble was, the bombs were changing the geography of Lewisham every day. The Germans kept making new and exciting places for boys like Tom to be. It even interested me the way that if you dodged the officials you could see familiar things from different angles.

  It was a risk either way. If Tom arrived at number 47 now, and found it deserted, he might panic. On the other hand I couldn’t not search for them, could I?

  I half-walked, half-ran dow
n towards Catford Bridge, across the main road and along the edge of the slight hill on the far side. They weren’t at the recreation ground, or behind the church. I cut through an alley where you could slip into the overgrown garden of a boarded-up house. There were trees there we all liked to climb. No Tom or Jim! It was one o’clock now and reluctantly I thought I’d better make for home.

  We crossed the dirty old stream at the bottom of Mount Pleasant Road, where some sheds along the bank had been laid flat by a blast. Wood and rubble were strewn everywhere. From the far side, out of sight, I heard a shout that sounded suspiciously like Tom. Chamberlain’s ears pricked and he woofed in the direction of the shout. I climbed down carefully and picked my way across. Everywhere smelled horrible. Drains, with a whiff of gas thrown in! The remains of a wall blocked my view. I pulled myself up on the crumbling bricks to see, and sure enough there were Tom and Jim. On the ground in front of them was a crumpled metal canister like a large tin-can. They looked like they might be about to use it as a football.

  I bawled at the two boys, “Get away from that! Now! It might be a bomb, you stupid little blighters!”

  Tom looked startled out of his wits, and the horrified look on my face must have convinced them. They backed off from the canister at a rate of knots.

  I told Jim he could come back and have some chips and rice pudding with us, and that kept them quiet for half an hour or so, before they were running up and down the back garden path again, pretending to be Hurricanes and Spitfires shooting down German aircraft over Kent. I didn’t let on to Mum about what had happened. It didn’t seem fair.