Octavia's War (7 page)

‘You'll see her again in a day or two,' she promised. ‘You've got your postcard, haven't you? Well then. You just send that off the minute you know where you're going to be staying and I bet your mum'll be down to see you on the next train.'

‘Will she?' Iris said, still weeping.

‘'Course she will,' Mrs O'Connor reassured. ‘Like a shot. You got a hanky, have you? Good. Dry your little eyes and have a good blow of your nose. That's the ticket.' She looked round at all the serious faces in the carriage, disentangled her right arm from Sarah and pulled a paper bag out of her handbag. ‘Would any of you like a humbug?'

The little sweets cheered them all. That's what I should have thought of, Lizzie told herself. I'll know next time. There's an art in being responsible for people and part of it's working out what you're going to need before you need it.

It was an art her headmistress had been exercising at full stretch over the last few crowded days. At that moment she was driving her little black Ford down Melrose Avenue, heading
for Wimbledon and the next stage of the journey, with Maggie Henry in the passenger seat beside her and young Janet in the back seat with her shopping basket and Maggie's typewriter.

‘That went quite smoothly, all things considered,' she said to Maggie as she drove past Wimbledon Park Station and another long crocodile of trudging schoolchildren. ‘At least we didn't leave anyone behind. And the staff know where we're going. You did give them all their letters, didn't you, Maggie?' She'd sat up late as soon as she knew the evacuation was imminent and written a personal letter to all her staff telling them where they were going and giving them the address and phone number of the house she'd rented in Woking so that they would know where to find her.
I hope we will all be able to meet there at ten o'clock tomorrow morning
, she'd written, and had added.
Good luck to us all
.

‘Of course,' Maggie said. She'd handed them out as they walked through the foyer. ‘Everything's under control.'

Octavia smiled at that. It was so typical of Maggie Henry. The sky could fall and she would still be well organised.

They were approaching Wimbledon station. ‘We shall have to look lively,' she said, ‘or the train will be here ahead of us.'

It came in as she and Maggie were walking onto the platform. She'd only just had time to find a porter and was asking him which platform they needed for their next train, when it steamed in, hissing and creaking. ‘Stay where you are,' she said as her pupils emerged from every open door. She walked along the platform telling them group by group. ‘You don't need to change platforms. Stay where you are.'

It was another long wait but they accepted it patiently, standing together, still in their groups with their luggage at their feet. When their train moved out Octavia could see that every platform on the station was full of waiting children.
There must be millions of us, she thought, all on the move. It's a major undertaking. She watched as other trains pulled in, were loaded and left, and more children arrived.

‘I don't think much of this for organisation,' Maggie grumbled. ‘I hope they haven't forgotten us. It's nearly midday.'

‘Then we're at war,' Octavia said, remembering. ‘Mr Chamberlain was going to make a statement at eleven o'clock this morning.'

‘Damned Hitler,' Maggie said. ‘He ought to be shot. All this fuss. Ah, here it comes. And about time too.'

This time it was easier to get all their charges on board, although there were tears when the helpers said goodbye and every window was a white flutter of waving hands and handkerchiefs as the train drew out. Even Lizzie was
swimmy-eyed
because her mother had walked the length of the platform to say goodbye to her.

‘Look after yourself, my darling,' she said, reaching up to the window to hold her daughter's hand, ‘and don't forget your postcard.'

‘As if I would,' Lizzie said, trying to be flippant. But it didn't work and the train was moving. Oh God! The train was moving.

‘I'll see you soon,' Elizabeth promised, walking along beside it. ‘Take care of yourself.' Oh my dear, darling girl. I do love you so much. Take care of yourself.

‘Now for Woking,' Octavia said to Maggie Henry. ‘Gird your loins, Miss Henry. It's going to be a long day.'

‘I've had 'em girded since I got up,' Maggie said and was glad when Octavia laughed.

The station at Woking was a sizeable place and well used to crowds but they'd never had to accommodate quite so many people as they did on those three hot days in September. On that particular morning evacuees had been streaming out of the open doors into the station approach since nine o'clock, so the buses that had been hired to carry them to various halls and gathering places had been hard at work for nearly four hours before Roehampton Secondary School arrived. By that time the drivers were more than ready for their lunch break and in no mood to wait until various school friends could find one another. The girls were simply bundled into the nearest waiting vehicle as they emerged from the station and were driven away as soon as the bus was full and the statutory number of teachers was aboard. In the muddled rush of their arrival, Lizzie and Mary O'Connor were separated from their group before they had a chance to check where they all were.

Lizzie was most upset. ‘How can I look after them if they whip them away from us like this?' she said to Mary. ‘It's ridiculous splitting us up. Where's Miss Fennimore?'

But there was no sign of that lady and no sign of Miss Smith either, and the next bus was drawing up beside the station entrance. ‘All aboard the Skylark!' the conductor called. ‘Mind the step.'

There was nothing for it but to do as they were told, although Lizzie grumbled about it all the way to wherever they were going. ‘How are my first-formers going to get along with no one to look after them?' she said. ‘This is a shambles.'

She was even more aggrieved when they arrived at their destination because it turned out to be a golf club in the middle of nowhere, and although there was a lady in the green uniform of the WVS waiting on the step to welcome them, there was no sign of her group.

‘That's right,' the lady said, as they stepped gingerly out of the bus. ‘Come right in, dears. I expect you'd like a drink after your journey. This way.'

‘Are you bringing us all here?' Lizzie asked

‘Us?' the lady asked.

‘Roehampton Secondary School.'

‘Oh, I shouldn't think so, dear,' the lady told her. ‘You're a big school, aren't you. We're using dispersal centres all over the place. Don't worry. We'll look after you, wherever you are. Go in and have your drink. You must be ready for it.'

The club house was crowded with children, some standing in a queue, some sitting at trestle tables, and most of them from a junior school and looking decidedly scruffy after their journey. She couldn't see anybody from her group at all, although after a while she caught sight of Miss Bertram standing by one of the tables and went across at once to see if she could tell her anything.

‘Not much, I'm afraid,' Miss Bertram confessed. ‘Apparently you're going to be fed and watered and the nurse is going to take a look at you, and then they're going to take you to your billets – as they call them.'

‘Nurse?' Mary said. ‘What nurse?'

Lizzie had seen her, sitting at a table at one end of one of the queues, small-tooth comb in hand. ‘It's a Nitty Nora,' she said in disgust. ‘That's all we need. What sort of children do they think we are?'

‘Well, I don't know about you,' Mary said, pulling a paper bag out of her case, ‘but I'm going to have my lunch. I'm starving.'

‘Very sensible,' Miss Bertram said. ‘I'll tell the others. Your friend Poppy's over there, Lizzie.'

Oh, what a relief to find one of her friends. ‘Poppy!' she
called. ‘Have you still got your group?'

Only half of them apparently, but among them was one of Mary's friends so there was a double reunion.

‘Stick together,' Poppy said. ‘They're taking us to our billets in a minute.'

‘Have you seen the Nitty Nora?' Mary asked

‘Yes, I have and she tugs! I say, you haven't got any spare sandwiches, have you? I had a pie and it got squashed and I'm absolutely starving.'

Lizzie opened her packet of sandwiches and held it out to her friend. She did it casually and without thinking about it, the way she'd done so many times in the school hall – but then suddenly and with a palpable tug at her innards, she remembered her mother wrapping it up for her. She could see her standing in the kitchen folding the greaseproof paper, saying, ‘
There you are, sweetheart, that should keep you going
,' and she yearned to see her again, to be with her in their nice, wide, clean kitchen instead of being cooped up in this foul club house waiting to be seen by some ghastly Nitty Nora. I didn't even kiss her goodbye, she thought, and she had to blink to stop herself crying. ‘I hate being evacuated,' she said.

When Octavia arrived at the station with her two helpers, the dispersal was well under way. She saw at once that the drivers were in a rush and that her comfortably organised groups were being split up and parted from one another, but there was nothing she could do about it, annoying though it was. They obviously had their system, even if it wasn't a very good one, and if she tried to change things she would only be getting in the way. She stopped to talk to the girls who were climbing aboard the first of the two buses in the square, so at least she knew where they were going and could follow them there, and
while she was wishing them luck, she saw Miss Fennimore still standing guard with her pole.

‘Can't help you much, I'm afraid,' Miss Fennimore said. ‘It's all being done so quickly. They're going to a golf club somewhere, that I do know, and a village hall, but apart from that I'm afraid I don't know where they are. I've told the staff to keep a note of the girls' new addresses, if they can manage to do it.'

‘Don't worry,' Octavia said. ‘This is a start and you've all got my phone number so you know where I am if you need me. I'll see you all at ten o'clock tomorrow morning.' Then she set off, determined to find as many of her girls as she could and knowing that it might be a job.

‘I'll take you to the house first, Janet,' she said, as she drove away.

‘Yes please, mum,' Janet said, ‘if you doan' mind. I got a list a' things I got to do there as long as me arm. Mrs Thompson give it to me this mornin'. An' the supper to get, which'll be a little ham salad if that's agreeable, bein' it's so hot, like, an' I doan't know when you're likely to be hoame.' She patted her basket. ‘I got me things.'

It felt most peculiar to Octavia to be turning in at the drive of an unfamiliar empty house. When she'd decided to rent it she'd thought it was quite a pleasant place, built in the Edwardian style with a wide bow window to light the drawing room on the ground floor and a good-sized kitchen and four bedrooms, one with its own dressing room. There were also two extra rooms in the attic both completely empty, so they would have plenty of space. But now, as she put the key into the lock and smelt the dank, unwelcoming odour of dust and emptiness, she felt homesick and irritable, recognising in that instant that she didn't want to be there,
that she dreaded this war that none of them had wanted, that she needed the familiar smell and order of her own home. She shook the thoughts from her head at once. This was no time to get maudlin. There was work to be done, a challenge to face, children to be cared for.

‘Let's have the windows open,' she said to Janet, walking into the dining room. ‘This place needs an airing. And then we'll get the luggage in.'

So windows were opened all over the house and they carried in the cases and boxes between them and left them in the hall for Janet to sort.

‘What a difference a bit of fresh air
does
make,' Octavia said. ‘Now we must get on with our treasure hunt, Maggie, and see how many of our pupils we can find.'

They drove about the town for the next four hours, visiting the dispersal centres they knew about, discovering others, praising the girls who were still there for being sensible and waiting so patiently, and questioning every WVS worker they found to try to discover who would have a full list of all the billets their pupils had been sent to. Eventually, when they were finally given a name and told that the lady in question would be outside the station at half past eight the next morning, Octavia decided that enough was enough.

‘Let's go home and have supper,' she said to Maggie. ‘I don't know about you but I'm starving. Then, I really must phone my cousin and let her know we've arrived and find out how her grandchildren have got on. They could have gone today too. And then we must see about getting you a place to stay.'

‘I've got one,' Maggie told her with some pride. And when Octavia looked surprised, ‘I did it when we first arrived, while you were talking to the girls. It's just round the corner. I told
the lady I was your secretary and I had to be near the Ridgeway and she said that was the nearest.'

‘Well, if that's the case, we'll get straight back for our supper,' Octavia said. And she drove them to Horsell and her house in the road called Ridgeway, pleased that she already knew her way there. This time as she turned in at the drive and saw the open windows and Janet busy in the dining room setting the table, the place felt more like home. It was a warm peaceful summer evening, and somewhere in a nearby garden a chaffinch was singing. ‘What a day it's been!' she said.