Keep the Home Fires Burning (28 page)

‘And they weren’t?’

‘Daddy was a bit,’ Polly said. ‘But Mammy wasn’t upset in the slightest. She was just bloody angry and letting everyone know about it as well. Daddy said she didn’t want to leave the house and they had to carry her out.’

‘I didn’t want to leave my house,’ Marion said. ‘Most people would feel the same, but you have to be sensible about these things.’

‘Yeah,’ Polly said, ‘and I suppose even Mammy
will settle down eventually. Till then I should leave her well alone.’

‘Yeah,’ Marion wearily. ‘I’m not up to Mammy’s temper at the moment. I’m fair jiggered, to tell you the truth, and the children must be worse, and there ain’t even anywhere to sit down.’

‘Well, it’s a brewery cellar, ain’t it?’ Polly pointed out reasonably. ‘They’re not geared up for people. But we can use the blanket.’ She spread out the one that she had carried from the shelter as she spoke. ‘We can sit on that.’

‘And we’ll do the same,’ Marion said, ‘and do our best to cheer ourselves up.’

After that they made the most of their time in Atkinson’s Brewery cellar, pooling their food and drink. Then when someone began a singsong they sang any song they knew.

When the all clear sounded Marion wakened from a doze, though she couldn’t remember falling asleep, to find Sarah gently tapping her arm.

‘The bomb has been detonated safely, Mom,’ she said. ‘We can go back home.’ Marion gave a brief nod before stumbling stiff-legged to her feet.

There was a gaping hole in the middle of the road just in front of the Whittakers’ house. Inside, the whole place was covered in fine grey dust. Marion knew that they had been more than lucky to have a house to come back to. Some of her neighbours hadn’t fared so well and houses either side of the street just a little further on were just smouldering piles of rubbish.

‘Where will those poor sods sleep tonight?’ Peggy said, indicating the desolate people looking askance at what had once been their homes.

‘Who knows?’ Marion said with a sigh. ‘Maybe they’ll go back to the cellar.’

‘Not that much of the night left, anyway,’ Violet said. ‘And I’m away to my bed to sleep till the alarm goes off.’

Marion, though, waited for Richard, knowing she wouldn’t settle till she knew he was in and safe.

The next day on the early news on the wireless, the Whittakers learned of the three hundred and fifty bombers that had attacked a ‘Midlands town’ the previous night causing widespread devastation. Many people were dead or badly injured.

‘I’m not surprised at the damage,’ Peggy said decidedly. ‘We’ve never had a raid so fierce.’

‘They didn’t get the clock at Aston Cross, though,’ Richard said. ‘It was still there, sort of surrounded by a sea of rubble, and this bloke said to me it was like a beacon of defiance to Hitler.’

‘Would have been a shame if they had destroyed it,’ Marion said. ‘It’s been there as long as I remember.’

‘Yeah,’ Richard agreed. ‘But even worse is the sad and helpless look on people’s faces when they come out the shelters and find their houses gone. Some of them were crying, and not just kids but grown-ups as well, and others just stand there, like they can’t really believe it, or start searching
the rubble of where their houses had once stood for anything they can salvage. And often the numbers of people dead or injured brings tears to my eyes.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Marion said. ‘But aren’t you ever frightened for yourself?’

Richard shook his head. ‘Not at the time. There are so many needing help that I’m too busy to be scared. Afterwards it sometimes comes back to haunt me. Anyroad,’ he went on, getting to his feet, ‘I shall have to be off soon. They’ll be no trams running along Albert Road today because as well as the great pit left by the unexploded bomb, the heat was so fierce it melted the tar and that, of course, buggered up the tramlines.

‘I wonder when they will get them fixed.’

‘Ages, I should say. Shouldn’t think they’ll see Albert Road as high priority. I think it’s shanks’s pony for me for a bit.’

‘Maybe they’ll be some trams running along the Lichfield Road?’ Marion said.

Richard shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Aston generally took one hell of a pasting after you went into Atkinson’s cellar, and Lichfield Road didn’t get away scot-free either.’

‘We heard it,’ Sarah said. ‘Only it wasn’t as scary because it was muffled.’

‘Yeah, and there was a lot of noise in the cellar as well,’ Peggy put in. ‘But when we did come out there were so many fires it was like daylight and there was a bright orange glow all over the sky.’

‘Yes,’ said Richard quietly. ‘That was Birmingham burning.’

There was a small silence as this fact was digested. Marion felt suddenly very depressed and she sighed as she said, ‘I sometimes wonder if Birmingham will ever be the same again.’

‘We’ll get a paper on the way home, if you like,’ Peggy said, ‘and just see what damage has been done.’ She added to Richard, ‘We may as well walk along with you as far as Rocky Lane, anyroad.’

‘Come on then, or I’ll be late,’ Richard said. ‘At least you’ll not need your torches today. You’ll be able to save your batteries.’

Richard was right, for the red and orange glow in the sky lit their way. Peggy and Violet took time to wrap their scarves around their faces before they set out because there was still sour stinking smoke billowing in the air.

They came home with the
Evening Mail
and the
Despatch.

‘We thought we’d buy two papers and maybe get more detail than we heard on the wireless this morning,’ Peggy said.

‘I’m as anxious as you are to read about that,’ Marion said, ‘but have your wash first and I’ll get the meal on the table as quickly as possible in case Jerry is going to pay us another visit tonight.’

They passed the papers over to Sarah and Richard. They both read of the destruction of many homes and businesses, factories and shops, and the
estimated six hundred and fifteen dead and many hundreds more seriously injured. The dispossessed and the homeless had bedded down any place they could get. Those not lucky enough to have friends or relatives able to take them in slept in the cellars they had just emerged from, or halls belonging to churches or schools, and the WVS were doing a sterling job keeping them all fed and trying to find clothes and blankets.

‘That news report only gave us the tip of the iceberg this morning,’ Sarah said to her mother. ‘But reading about it is heartbreaking.’

‘New Street was hit again,’ Richard said. ‘I heard about that last night. New Street station copped it as well, and it says here just one naval mine destroyed the Prudential Insurance building in Colmore Row and badly damaged Boots, the Great Western Arcade, the Bank of England in Temple Row and Grey’s in Bull Street.’

‘What’s a naval mine?’ Magda asked.

Richard knew full well what a naval mine was: a powerful bomb that was carried by parachute and programmed to explode near the ground to maximise damage, but he didn’t think he should share that with an eight-year-old and so he said, ‘It’s just another name for that type of bomb.’

‘Anyroad,’ Sarah said, ‘it don’t matter what they call them, does it? They all do the same job.’

‘Yeah,’ Richard said. ‘Sorry as I am for the people, it’s the loss of the factories and equipment
that’s a worry because it’s all war-related stuff and all needed.’

‘Like Kinloch’s and the BSA.’

Richard nodded. ‘The biggest factory attacked last night was the BSA. We should never underestimate the Germans; they are intelligent, and the bombing at the BSA just proved that. It was an odious thing to do and appallingly cruel, but still clever.’

Sarah had little time for saying anything positive about a race she considered barbaric and so she snapped out, ‘What did they do that was so clever?’

‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘it says in the paper that though the BSA had been bombed before, work was able to continue elsewhere almost immediately. That must have really annoyed the Germans ‘cos apparently, yesterday early on, a German plane dropped a ring of smoke over the BSA and our planes couldn’t get rid of it and all that damage was done by one bomber who came in low and dropped three highly explosive bombs through that ring.’

‘God,’ Marion said, ‘they must have known just where to drop them to do the most damage.’

‘Look at it now,’ said Richard, opening the paper up so that they all could see the mangled mess of bricks and masonry still burning fiercely, with twisted, buckled girders sticking up out of it.

‘The fires must have been terrible,’ Sarah said. ‘In the paper I read it said that they drained the
canals and still didn’t have enough water to put out the fires.’

‘From what I heard you would have had to drain the sea to douse them,’ Richard said.

‘Was any of the workers hurt?’ Violet said, coming into the room. ‘I gather they had a big strong cellar underneath the factory.’

‘Not strong enough, I think,’ Marion said, and she picked up the paper and read the account aloud.

Marion thought of the panic and terror and pain that those poor trapped people would go through as they burned to death in the cellar meant to protect them, and she felt sick. ‘It must have been terrible, truly terrible. Those poor, poor people.’

The words were barely out of her mouth when the sirens went again. There was a collective groan and Marion turned to Richard, ‘I suppose it’s no
good asking you to have a night off duty? You look all in.’

‘I’d love to say yes because I’ve never felt so tired in my life,’ Richard confessed. ‘Every man who worked with me yesterday will feel the same way, and yet they’ll be there tonight as well, and that’s where I must be too.’

Marion didn’t bother arguing with Richard, knowing he was right. So with a sigh she turned off the gas under the meal she had been cooking and threw the makings for sandwiches in the shelter bag, which she began to prepare with a dread that seemed to touch her very soul.

In the cellar, as the screams of the siren died down, the first crashes were heard and the drone of the planes grew louder, she fed the children. Magda and Missie thought that if you could forget the noise of the raid, which so far was not as terrifying as the previous night, and ignore the smell of the paraffin stove, it was quite cozy wrapped up in the blankets on the mattress with a jam piece to eat and a mug of milk to drink.

It didn’t really help the tiredness, though, and when Marion suggested they all lie down on the mattress even Tony was willing. They soon dropped off to sleep against the backdrop of the descending bombs, and when the planes drew nearer the children barely stirred, though the women in the cellar were well aware of it.

Suddenly, from among the isolated crashes, there was one concentrated and very loud boom that
caused the cellar walls to shake. It threw the women into a state of alarm and eventually roused the children.

What’s up?’ Tony asked as he struggled to sit up, rubbing his eyes in confusion. ‘I was asleep.’

‘Sounds like the explosion was to the side of the park,’ Violet said.

‘Yeah,’ Peggy said. ‘Let’s hope the people were taking shelter.’

‘What if they drop one of them bombs on our house?’ Missie asked in a frightened little voice.

‘They tried that last night,’ Tony said, with a fit of bravado he was far from feeling. ‘Only it never went off.’

‘You’re daft, you are, Tony Whittaker,’ Magda said. ‘That don’t mean that they won’t try again, does it, Mom?’

‘No,’ Marion had to admit. ‘But listen, the planes are much further away now. I bet soon the all clear will go and we’ll be able to get back up to the house.’

But it wasn’t soon – it was ages – though none of the children could sleep again, and they all sighed with relief when it was all over. When Richard came home he told his mother that the large explosion had been a naval mine that had landed on nearby Queens Road and destroyed the entire street.

There was no raid the following night, yet it did the family little good for all evening they listened
for the sound of the sirens. When nothing happened Marion made for bed, but despite her weariness sleep was a long time coming and then she slept lightly, expecting any moment to hear the sirens blare out.

When Richard came in from work that night he said to his mother as she sorted out the water for his wash, ‘I think that we are due for a repeat of Tuesday’s raid tonight. It may even be worse than Tuesday.’

Marion face blanched and she felt her insides turn over. ‘How on earth do you know?’

‘This chap at work was listening to Lord Haw-Haw last night, “Germany Calling”, you know?’

‘Yes I know, and I never listen to it. I think it’s unpatriotic,’ Marion said. ‘Nor would I give any credence to anything he said. That man’s a traitor.’

‘I know that, but listen, this chap Haw-Haw said owing to favourable weather conditions, all sorts of raids could be carried out in Birmingham tonight,’ Richard told her. ‘And he also said that though they will be concentrating their efforts on armaments targets not yet hit by German bombs, they expected smaller factories and whole streets to be destroyed.’ He caught sight of his mother’s appalled face and went on, ‘Really, Mom, I know it’s hateful, but it is best to be prepared.’

‘All right, but it’s not necessarily helpful for the others to know, especially the children,’ Marion said. ‘Lord Haw-Haw might be spouting rubbish
and I don’t want to frighten them to death. I know, and that’s good enough for now.’

However, in case Richard was right about Haw-Haw’s accuracy, by the time the siren sounded just after seven o’clock Marion was ready. She had already lit the oil stove, filled the hot-water bottles and wrapped them in blankets she had taken down from the boys’ bedroom, and she’d filled the shelter bag with care.