Keep Smiling Through (38 page)

She looked at her watch, stubbed out her cigarette and picked up her case. Her train was pulling into the station, and if she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t get a seat. Her feet were killing her in these silly shoes, and she certainly didn’t have the stamina to stand all the way.

The porter was very kind, finding her a nice seat by the window and stowing her case in the rack above. She settled down, pulling up her coat collar to ward off the draught, and was asleep even before the train pulled out of the station.

There had been some activity this afternoon from the nearby airbase, with Spitfires and Hurricanes sweeping over the town, but as the sirens weren’t sounded and there were no reports of enemy sightings, the firemen and volunteers went on with their duties unperturbed.

‘You did well today, Rita,’ said John Hicks. ‘If we have any call-outs tonight – which I suspect we might, now the weather’s cleared – you’re more than ready to drive one of my engines. I’ll see to it you get some first-aid training as well. It could come in handy.’

Rita grinned with delight as she finished tightening the last nut with a spanner. ‘It was fun,’ she said, cleaning the grease off her hands with a dirty rag. ‘Thanks, John.’

‘How’s the Norton? Fixed the problem?’

She nodded. ‘As I suspected, it was just a faulty connection, nothing serious.’ She’d been going to let Chuck give her a hand fixing the bike, but when it came down to it, she hadn’t been able to resist doing it herself. She put the spanner back with the other tools, eager to put the Norton through its paces before her shift started. It was almost six o’clock. Louise had most of their food in her bag, so there was no point in going back to the billet, and Rita was starving. ‘I’ll just go and see if the chip shop’s open. Does anyone else . . .?’

The telephone rang with that peculiar sense of urgency that always heralded bad news, and everyone stopped what they were doing and looked towards the office.

‘Enemy sighted,’ shouted the volunteer from the top of the stairs moments later. ‘Heavy presence coming in fast. Full alert. Stand by, stand by.’

The volunteer fire-watchers quickly moved towards John to be given their orders and then raced away on an assortment of bicycles, old vans and motorbikes to man their observation posts. The firemen donned their helmets and boots and made final checks to their reels and hoses before the lights were switched off, plunging the vast garage into darkness.

Rita and the other two drivers pulled on their heavy coats and rubber boots, clamped on their helmets and climbed into the cabs. She wasn’t supposed to be on duty for another two hours, but she knew all too well that every pair of hands mattered when Gerry was on the prowl.

The huge folding doors at the front of the station were drawn back just as the sirens began to wail, and above the rooftops of the houses opposite, Rita could see the searchlights flicker into life and slowly build in strength. She no longer felt hungry or tired, for the air was charged with expectation and she was more than ready to do her bit.

Every head was turned towards the distant but growing resonance of many powerful engines approaching their shores. No one spoke or moved as the sirens shrieked, the searchlights split the sky and the rumble of menacing thunder grew.

Rita could feel the air tremble and the sturdy fire engine vibrate around her as the big guns on the seafront began to boom. But the first wave of enemy bombers were above them now, stacked seven or eight deep, hiding the moon and erasing the stars as they headed inexorably inland.

Red tracers stitched through the sky. Pom-poms from the guns up on the hills exploded like giant chrysanthemums as the ack-ack guns rattled and stuttered and the Spitfires and Hurricanes harried and darted, their guns blazing.

But still the Luftwaffe came in wave after terrible wave – as black as scavenging ravens, as menacing and as numerous as all the demons from hell, their thunder filling the air and echoing deep within the very souls of those who watched in awed silence.

Rita’s mouth was dry and her hands were slick on the steering wheel as she stared up at that terrible sight. She had witnessed nothing like this before, and was suddenly made terrifyingly aware of the enormous strength of Hitler’s air force, and his absolute determination to bring England to her knees.

Peggy was woken by the guard shouting and the train coming to a screeching, slithering halt. She couldn’t see where they were because the shutters had been drawn down over the windows, but the illuminated dial on her watch told her it was two in the morning, and in the distance she could hear a deep rumble that was all too familiar.

‘Everyone off the train,’ yelled the guard, blowing his whistle. ‘Air raid. Air raid.’

She grabbed her suitcase from the rack, hitched her gas mask box and handbag straps over her shoulder and slowly shuffled with the rest of the passengers into the corridor, where they were filtered towards the doors and down the step to the grassy embankment. She could just make out a platform and a huddle of buildings ahead and felt a little relieved. At least they weren’t in the middle of nowhere, without cover or shelter.

There was no sign to tell her where they were – they’d been removed long ago – but she suspected they were in one of London’s western suburbs. Yet it was strange how light it was considering the late hour. Small and slight, she was hemmed in on all sides, unable to see where she was going as she was carried along by the tide of people. The distant thunder of enemy planes and the answering booms of the guns continued, but the lack of true darkness worried her. It felt wrong, it looked wrong, and was eerie enough to make her skin crawl.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one to feel it, for the crowd began to slow, and she could hear people muttering.

And then a woman close to her cried out. ‘Oh, my God. Look at that.’

Peggy clambered onto a nearby bench to see – and froze. Everyone was still now and no one spoke as all eyes turned to the horrifying source of that strange and frightening light.

The sky was glowing on the horizon, reflecting the furnace heat of the flames which rampaged beneath it. Smoke billowed and boiled in grey clouds tinged with orange and pink and yellow as the colossal hunting pack of enemy planes circled like carrion crows and unleashed their lethal cargos. The distant boom of the guns, the probing fingers of searchlights waving back and forth in a desperate bid to pinpoint the enemy, were accompanied by the zip of tracers and the bright yellow bursts of the pom-poms.

It seemed that hundreds of incendiaries exploded even as she watched, and new tongues of flame shot into the broiling mass of smoke as they feasted and spread and added to the turbulence.

To Peggy it was the apocalypse of the book of Revelation – for the great and ancient city of London was being consumed in hellfire – and her sister Doreen was right in the middle of it.

There was hardly any lull between the enemy’s arrival and departure. The numberless swarm had still been coming from across the Channel when the first wave returned from their attack. But it seemed they had little interest in Cliffehaven, and swept over the seaside town without dropping a single bomb.

It was now five in the morning and still the demonic noise continued. There had been a couple of distant booms and several bombs had exploded harmlessly into the sea – but there were no fires reported from the watchers up in the hills.

‘They must be reloading on the other side of the Channel and coming in for a second and third go at poor old London,’ muttered John. ‘The Luftwaffe doesn’t have that many bombers – or at least I hope to God they don’t.’

Rita’s ears rang with the continuous roar overhead, and her nerves were shredded. She was thankful Cliffehaven seemed to have escaped this particular raid, but the tension over the past eleven hours had been almost unbearable.

There was a deep boom to the west, swiftly followed by another. That sounded close, too close, and Rita shivered.

‘Fires reported. Fires reported.’ They all listened as the man on watch gave precise coordinates over the two-way radio.

‘It’s the old asylum,’ shouted John, scrabbling for the appropriate clipboard which held the list of residents. ‘You’ll need this,’ he said, passing it to Rita. ‘One and two engine, go, go, go.’

Rita’s mouth was dry and her heart hammered as the three firemen leaped aboard. She started the engine of number two and swiftly followed her colleagues in number one. The enemy planes were still overhead, but she couldn’t hear them as the fireman beside her yanked enthusiastically on the bell. Louise would be in the shelter beneath the clothing factory, but there were over thirty women billeted at the asylum, some of them with babies and toddlers. She just had to hope they were all right.

The fire engines raced through Havelock Gardens and began to climb the steep, winding road up the hill. Rita could already see a red glow in the sky and yellow tongues of flame licking at the roof and the turrets, reaching for the trees that crowded in behind the old building.

She brought the engine to a screeching halt and jumped down, ready to help in any way she could. But the firemen were well trained and they moved in unison to release the hoses and aim the jets of water from their big emergency tanks onto the flames. The heat was tremendous, their faces aglow with it, their shadows distorted by the flickering light as black smoke billowed from the inferno.

Rita felt helpless as one of the men raced to the water main, swiftly unlatched it and plugged in the largest hose. It took three of them to hold it steady as the pressure forced them to counter it with their own weight.

She looked towards the deep trench that had been dug on the far side of the grounds. It was the only air-raid shelter for the evacuees in the asylum, and was protected, not with a sturdy roof, but with high surrounding walls of sandbags. Had everyone got out of the building? Did anyone know if all the residents had been accounted for?

Rita was about to run over and check when there was a piercing scream. She looked up, her pulse racing wildly. A woman was leaning out of the bay window in the turret – Rita’s room – the fire glowing behind her as flames licked across the roof.

Rita froze in horror.

‘Bring the engine closer so we can use the ladder,’ yelled one of the men on the giant hose.

Galvanised into action, Rita ran to the fire engine and swiftly drove it as close as she could to the inferno. Pressing the correct button, she heard the hydraulics whining as the fifty-foot ladder slowly rose from the back and locked into place.

When the fireman shouted it was correctly placed, she switched off the engine and clambered out. The heat scorched her face, then the freezing jets of water played over the wall and the roof surrounding the window, soaking her to the skin.

Her eyes were stinging from the acrid smoke as she watched the fireman race up the rungs towards the window. It was a long way up and the ladder rocked alarmingly. She could feel the heat searing her exposed face and hands as the flames defied the jets of water, but her whole attention was on the woman above her. Had Louise left the factory early? Was that her up there, trapped and in terrible danger?

Rita could hear the woman’s terrified screaming through the hungry crackle and roar of the fire – could see amid the swirling clouds of smoke that her arms were outstretched towards the fireman. But in the shifting shadows she still couldn’t tell who it was.

She craned her neck, watching as the fireman clambered through the window, grabbed the hysterical woman unceremoniously and slung her over his shoulder. As he swung his leg over the windowsill and grasped the ladder with his free hand, the turret roof collapsed in a shower of ash and sparks and made him lose his balance.

Rita held her breath as he hung from one hand, the woman over his shoulder, his feet scrabbling for purchase. ‘Right foot to your right,’ she yelled above the roar of the inferno. ‘Down, down. Right a fraction more.’

He found the rung, steadied himself and began the slow, steady descent back down to the ground. ‘Thanks, love,’ he rasped. ‘Now get the engine away from here before it blows up.’ With the woman still slumped over his shoulder like a rag doll, he raced away from the building.

Rita’s eyes stung so badly she could hardly see, and the metal was hot as she opened the door and climbed into the cab. Not bothering to bring the ladder down first, she reversed the engine out of harm’s way.

With the ladder back in place, she ran to the woman who was now sitting on the grass wrapped in a blanket. ‘Louise?’ she cried fearfully.

Aggie Rawlings shifted the blanket a little nearer her face, her gaze sliding away. ‘I wasn’t stealing nothing,’ she muttered. ‘It just happened to be the only room not on fire.’

Rita eyed her coldly and turned away. Aggie’s room was on the ground floor, and she had no business being upstairs, or even in the house while everyone else was in the air-raid trench. Rita had a very clear idea of what she’d been up to.

The firemen had almost extinguished the flames now, and she needed to make sure that everyone had been accounted for. She told one of the men what she was going to do and he nodded, still busy with dampening down. Grabbing the clipboard from the cab, she ran across the large expanse of neglected garden, startled to realise that there were still bombers overhead. In all the excitement, she hadn’t even heard them.

They were huddled in the deepest part of the trench, wearily clutching their small children, their few possessions, and each other. ‘Is anyone hurt?’ Rita shouted above the din of a low-flying Spitfire.

‘We’re all fine,’ said one of the younger women, ‘but Aggie’s missing.’

‘We found Aggie. She’s all right,’ Rita said shortly. ‘Anyone else?’

‘We don’t think so.’ She reeled off the names of the women who were at work, or known to be somewhere in the town, and Rita ticked them off her list. ‘I did check all the rooms before I left the house last night,’ the woman assured her. ‘There’s no one in there.’

‘How bad is it, Rita?’ asked one of the other women, clutching her baby close.