Shrapnel (11 page)

DO
NOT
CONTINUE
flying
,
do
not
examine plane
. So I didn't. Had to take the wings off, of course, but I did it practically without looking. Strange instruction though,
do
not
examine plane
. Why not? It looked exactly the same as before, but still . . .

I fantasized all the way home.
Here's the fearless agent, risking life and liberty to carry vital messages past unsuspecting foes. He will not fail, the message must get through. He will not crack under torture: the future of his country is at stake
.

Well, it might be true for all I know.

I stowed bike and plane in Gran's shed and went in to lunch. Dad had just got back.

‘Does it fly, son?' he asked as I washed my hands at the sink.

I grinned, nodded. ‘Like a bird, Dad – a golden eagle.'

He smiled. ‘Splendid. Be sure and tell your brother that, if you ever run across him.'

‘Of
course
he'll run across him,' snapped Mum. ‘It's not as if Raymond's gone abroad. He's somewhere in the city, not somewhere in North Africa.'

‘More's the pity,' growled Dad.

Mum looked at him. ‘You don't
mean
that, Frank.'

Dad nodded. ‘Certainly I do. At least in Africa he'd be serving his country – lord
knows
what he's up to in the city. No job, money to burn. Upsets me.'

‘Well,
I
'd be far more upset if he was away – looking out of the window every verse end, dreading to see a telegram boy coming up the path. I hope he stays in the city till the war's over, no matter
what
he's doing.'

I wanted to tell them. Was dying to say:
Raymond's a secret agent, raising an army to resist the Nazis when they occupy this country. You ought to be proud of him
.

But I couldn't, could I?

That night there was a raid, and a tragedy. It was our tragedy as well as other people's, but we didn't find that out for some days.

THE SIRENS WENT
just after nine. I'd been in bed an hour, but I wasn't asleep. I'd been lying there, thinking about the Skymaster in the shed. What had been the point of today's business at Myra Shay? Was the plane different somehow? A message in invisible ink perhaps, scrawled on a wing by the chap in the lean-to? The siren's wavering howl stopped my wondering.

Dad called from the foot of the attic stairs. ‘Shake a leg, son – time to take cover.' I pulled on a jumper over my pyjamas, shoved my feet into slippers and scampered down.

Gran's shelter is just like ours, except she
shares with a mother and baby, not an old couple. The baby was asleep in a clothes basket. At the sound of the first explosion, the mother knelt on the duckboards and bent her body over the basket to shield her baby. I don't suppose it'd have made much difference in the event of a direct hit, but it showed that not all heroes wear uniforms. She stayed like that all night, wouldn't let anybody take over.

It was a very heavy raid, and it went on for hours. Sometimes the ground shook. There were factories in the city where tanks, lorries and aeroplanes were built. The bombers were probably after those, but bombing's never very accurate and we knew lots of houses were being hit as well. I hoped ours wouldn't be among them – repairs had just begun on it.

Our ack-ack was busy, making more racket than the bombs.
Plenty of shrapnel in the morning
, I told myself,
if I'm still here
.

It was nearly dawn when the all clear sounded. The young mother stood up and started knocking dust off her dressing gown. The baby woke and howled.

Gran smiled at it. ‘I don't know why
you're
crying,' she cooed, ‘you missed it all, you lucky girl.'

We went in to breakfast. It had to be a cold meal – a main had fractured somewhere, there was no gas. We had water though, which was something.

It was mid-morning when the rumour reached Trickett Boulevard. In the city a railway arch, used as an unofficial shelter, had received a direct hit. More than a hundred people had died, many of them children. None of the dead had yet been identified.

I'D LOOKED IN
the shed Sunday morning. The plane was exactly where I'd put it, nothing was different. I was starting to wonder if I was the victim of some complicated practical joke. Was my brother pulling my leg, making me believe I was doing something important when in fact the whole business of the Skymaster and Myra Shay was a wild-goose chase?

I did add some good bits to my shrapnel collection, though I didn't mention it in the house. The grown-ups' mood was sombre because of the railway arch – collecting shrapnel
might strike them as callous in the circumstances. After lunch I cycled over to our own house and found it untouched by last night's raid. The roof looked complete. I rode back with the news, which failed to lighten the mood. I felt pretty rotten myself, what with one thing and another.

Tuesday, my world collapsed.
Our
world, I mean. It was tea time. Dad had just got in. We were having knights on a raft – Gran's name for sardines on toast. There was a knock at the door. I jumped up to answer it – I thought it might be the chap from Carter's with fresh orders for me, but it wasn't: it was two policemen with bad news for Dad and Mum. For
all
of us.

They told us Raymond was dead. He'd been one of the people taking shelter under the railway arch. Most of the victims had been stripped of their ration books, identity cards, rings and watches by thieves, before the authorities arrived. This often happened. It made the job of identifying the dead extremely difficult. However, a few bodies had not been robbed, and on one they'd found Raymond's papers.

Mum fell howling to the floor. Gran started
trying to lift her, calling to me to help. Together we got her on her feet and up to her room. When I came down, Dad was shouting at the policemen, saying it must be a terrible mistake – how could anybody be sure who was who in all that carnage?

That was when one of the officers pulled a wristwatch out of his pocket. I'd have recognized it anywhere, and so would Dad.

There'd been no mistake. My brother was dead.

‘
WHAT ABOUT TAKING
cover, Natty?' croaked a boy with long, greasy hair.

Natty looked at him. ‘Why, got the wind up, have you, Gloria?'

‘'Course not, Natty, only . . .' He screwed up his eyes as a detonation shook the lockup. ‘They're a bit close tonight, I don't fancy—'

‘I don't care what you fancy, Gloria. You heard Eric – there's papers galore, everything we need, just lying there. With the Army after half of us and the rozzers one step behind, we need to disappear and this is our chance.' He smirked. ‘Just fink, Gloria – you'll be somebody else tomorrer – we all will. Come on.'

MUM WASN'T AT
breakfast on Wednesday morning. Gran told Dad he ought not to go to Beresford's. He said hundreds of families lost somebody every day – if they all stayed off work, who'd keep the country going?

Then she suggested keeping me off school, but I wanted to go. Till yesterday I'd never seen grown-ups cry, and I didn't think I could face any more of it. Also, I didn't know what to say about Raymond. Now that he was dead, would it be all right to tell Mum and Dad what he'd been doing? I needed them to know he was a hero, but
somebody else would take his place and the whole thing was still hush-hush, wasn't it? Keeping my brother's secret was probably the one thing I could do for him now.

We were still doing about wheat with old Contour. Gran had sent a note so the teachers knew I'd lost my brother. In the middle of the lesson, while everybody was drawing a convoy carrying grain across the Atlantic, Mr Lines laid a hand on my shoulder and murmured, ‘He was doing his bit, lad, you can be sure about that.' He couldn't know about the secret army, of course, but he'd taught Raymond and must have thought he was a decent lad. Anyway, it was kind.

At lunch time I walked on the playing field by myself. I needed to think. What about
my
work, with the Skymaster? Did it go on, whatever it was, or had Raymond's death ended it?
I suppose
, I told myself,
that if no more instructions come I'll know it's over. Aborted
. I decided all I could do was leave the plane in the shed and wait.

The funeral was on Friday. Dad wouldn't let me go, but I was kept off school so the mourners could see me afterwards at Gran's. She'd opened a tin of ham she'd been hoarding, for sandwiches.
There was tea, and an eggless cake. The parlour was full of relatives, friends and people unknown to me, some in uniform. I was treated to watery smiles and pats on the head.

As soon as I could, I slipped away to the shed. Raymond wasn't
there
either, of course, but his present was. I sat on the floor with the plane in my arms, and cried.

I STARTED FEELING
sorry for Dicky Deadman. Yes, I know how that sounds, and I can't explain. Maybe when you're hurting, you feel other people's hurt. Anyway, I noticed how he was always by himself, and that he avoided people. Some were after him for their money back, of course. He'd even sold bits of Robinson Roadster to his three chums, and they seemed to have stopped going round with him. Alone, he couldn't sustain his role as cock of the school and he knew it. I suppose what I'm saying is, my plan had worked too well.

November arrived. Usually we'd have great heaps of wood collected by now, ready for Guy Fawkes Night. This year there would
be
no Guy Fawkes Night. There were several reasons for this. One, it's no use having blackout regulations, then lighting up the whole country for Jerry on November 5th. Two, all the fireworks factories had switched to munitions – you couldn't have got a firework for a barrowful of gold. And three, sugar rationing meant nobody's mum would be making bonfire toffee or gingerbread pigs this year. So if you think the war made our lives exciting, you're dead wrong. And if you think it made us all pull together and help one another out, you're wrong again. Every time the sirens sent people hurrying to the shelters, certain other people would creep out under cover of darkness and flit from house to empty house, nicking valuables. They'd even strip the dead, like they did at the railway arch. There
were
good neighbours, of course, but there were these rat-like citizens as well. In fact, it got so bad that people were frightened to leave their properties, and the Home Guard received orders to shoot looters on sight.