Shrapnel (6 page)

‘
I
know what it is,' growled Dad. ‘It's his call-up papers.'

‘But he's in a reserved occupation.'

‘He
was
, Ethel,' Dad corrected. ‘He chucked his job, now they want him in uniform. I
told
him, but he wouldn't listen.'

‘Well – what do we
do
with it, Frank? I mean, I don't want him called up – couldn't we just throw it away, pretend we never got it?'

Dad shook his head. ‘Certainly not, Ethel. I'll write
Not at this address
on it, and post it again.'

I stared into my porridge and said nothing. It couldn't be my brother's call-up papers – he was serving already, but I wasn't free to tell them that. I watched Dad write on the envelope. He slid it across to me. ‘Pop down to the pillar box with this
please, Gordon. When you've finished, I mean.'

I could've taken it to Farmer Giles, left it with the woman if Raymond wasn't there, but what I
really
wanted to do was open it. OHMS stands for On His Majesty's Service. It was probably orders, top secret. I didn't open it – it's an offence to interfere with somebody else's mail and besides, I might be putting Mum and Dad in danger. So I posted it, promising myself I'd mention it to my brother next time I saw him.

Nothing much happened that weekend. Saturday I went to the park, said hello to my balloon crew. There are five of them, all from different parts of Britain, but none from around here. When I mentioned this, Davy from Swansea laughed. ‘It's what they do in the Forces, see? They ask where you're from, and post you as far away from home as possible.'

‘Aye,' nodded Bristol Pete, ‘it's the same with trades. If you was a cook in civvy street they makes you a mechanic, and if you was a mechanic they puts you in the cookhouse.' He winked. ‘They found out us five was all scared of balloons when we was kids, so they puts us in charge of a giant one.'

I told them we'd been bombed out, and asked if they'd bring their balloon to fly over our house once it was repaired. It was a joke, of course – they can't choose where to go. ‘Our orders are to stay by yer,' grinned Davy. ‘Keep Jerry off your gran.'

Sunday morning I biked over to look at our house. I'd polished the Raleigh till it shone, knowing I'd be passing the Myers' place. I'd like to think they saw me pass and approved, but I didn't see anybody and of course you can't stare.

The house hadn't been touched, as far as I could see. It being Sunday there were no workmen about, so I decided I'd risk a quick dekko inside. Dad was borrowing a van and driver from Beresford's in a day or two, to move some of our stuff into storage. I wanted to make sure he wouldn't find my brother's revolver.

It gave me the creeps, going upstairs.
Blast damage doesn't always show
, the man had said last Wednesday, but nothing happened.

There was lots of soot in the hearth – but no package. No gun. To make sure I knelt and felt, and it wasn't there. Somebody'd been here before me.

I went to wash my hands in the scullery, but the water was off. There was no electricity either, or gas. Everything else seemed normal – no sign of looting. I wiped my hands on a floor cloth and left, taking the bike past the Myers' house again.

LIVING AT GRAN'S
was absolutely wizard. So was sleeping in the attic and biking to school. The only bind was being a long way from the chum I mentioned before, Norman Robinson.

Norman didn't care that my dad hadn't served in the trenches, or that my brother wasn't in uniform. All that mattered to him was that I was as mad on aeroplanes as he was. He was thirteen, same as me, but he didn't go to my school. His dad was a doctor, and Norman attended Woodhouse Grange.
Woodlouse Range
, the Foundry Street kids called it. Your parents had to
pay for you to go there. It was probably worth it though – there were no girls, and it had its own rugger pitch and swimming bath.

Woodhouse Grange boys were supposed to be snobs, but Norman wasn't, and neither were his parents: they wouldn't have let him play with
me
if they had been. What we did was buy kits to make balsa aero models. Not the flying ones some chaps made, which never look like the real thing. Ours were perfect little replicas you painted with actual aero dope, then in authentic camouflage and hung on threads from your bedroom ceiling. Mine were in our empty house. Eleven of them: some British, some German. I couldn't rescue them without my parents knowing I'd been inside. I was hoping Dad might collect them when he went with the van.

We usually worked on our models together, Norman and me, in his playroom at the top of their house, which was like a mansion. They even had a
maid
, for Pete's sake.

Anyway, that Sunday afternoon I decided to call at Norman's. I wanted to show him my bike, and tell him where we'd gone. He might not even know we'd been bombed out.

I rode the same route I'd taken that morning. It was a cool, damp day. At the Robinsons' I left my bike at the gate, crunched up the gravel path and rang the bell.

‘Oh hello, Gordon.' The maid smiled. ‘Norman's been looking for you. Step inside and I'll tell him you're here.'

I nodded. ‘Thanks, Sarah.' She hurried away and I gazed around, as I always did. I was standing on a chequered floor of black and white marble, in an entrance hall you could fit our entire house into. There were gilded mirrors, pictures in heavy frames, little antique tables polished to a glow. On one of these stood an ivory telephone. It was like a millionaire's house in a film. You kept expecting George Sanders to appear at the turn of the grand staircase, or Flora Robson. Norman came instead, sliding down the banister with his shirt-tail fluttering. It wasn't the same somehow.

‘Gordon, you old rotter – I thought you were
dead
!' He pounded my back, grinning like an idiot. ‘I went to your house, it was in ruins. Nobody knew where you'd gone. Did you see the bomber – was it a Dornier?'

I bent under his delighted blows, laughing like a loon. ‘Of
course
I didn't see it, you ass, I was in the shelter. We're at my gran's in Hastley. I got a bike.'

‘A
bike
?' Norman looked at me. ‘Come down with the bomb, did it?'

‘No, you moron. My gran bought it from a neighbour so I could get to school. Come and look.'

We capered round each other, throwing dummy punches, kicking up gravel, down to the gate.

‘Oh, I say!' He gazed at the sleek machine. ‘It's a beauty, Gordon. A Raleigh. Looks new too.' He smiled. ‘Lucky you.'

He was being kind, of course. His bike
was
new, the latest model, with a three-speed gear and everything, but Norman wasn't a show-off. It was one of the things I admired about him.

Walking back to the house, he said, ‘I got a new kit the other day. Junkers 87. Haven't started it yet.'

I grinned. ‘A
Stuka
! I've always wanted a Stuka. They look so . . . evil somehow, with those cranked wings and bow-legs: like iron vultures.'

‘I say!' He looked at me. ‘Never had you down as a blessed
poet
, Gordon.
Iron vultures
. Mind if I pinch that line, old chap? Go down well at school – might even get it in the mag.'

I shrugged. ‘Be my guest.'

‘Fair's fair then,' he smiled, ‘you can lend a hand with my Stuka. There's a rumour Sarah's liberated a packet of chocolate biscuits from somewhere, needs help disposing of them. Come on.'

I SANDED DOWN
the fuselage while Norman worked on the wings. Kits came with paper plans, showing cross sections of the fuselage at various points. This was so you could shape the thing correctly from the rough block of balsa provided. If you followed the plans carefully you ended up with a model, one seventy-sixth full size, that looked pretty authentic.

‘So,' said Norman, squinting along the wing section he was shaping, ‘what're you up to when you're not being bombed out, Gordon?'

I shook my head. ‘Nothing special, chum.
School, snakes and ladders, prunes and custard.' I'd love to have told him what my brother was doing, but of course I couldn't. ‘What about you?'

He blew balsa dust off the wing, grinned. ‘Three things mostly – homework, homework and homework. Oh – and there's also homework.' We laughed at our boring lives.

The maid came tapping up the uncarpeted stairs. She carried in a silver tray with a jug of home-made lemonade, two glasses and a plate of chocolate biscuits.

‘Thanks, Sarah,' said Norman. ‘Where'd you find the
gorgeous
biscuits?'

The girl smiled. ‘Ah, now that'd be telling.'

‘
Tell
, then.'

‘Telling might mean no more chocolate biscuits.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Because' – Sarah rubbed the side of her nose – ‘when somebody finds chocolate biscuits in wartime, somebody else has probably lost them.'

‘You mean they're stolen?'

‘Not
stolen
, Norman. Relocated, I suppose you could say.'

‘
Relocated?
' Norman laughed. ‘I think you've
been a naughty girl, Sarah.' He offered the plate. ‘Here, take one for yourself, and go on being naughty till this bally war is over.'

By tea time the Junkers was assembled, but nude. They're always black in photos; this one looked strange in blond wood – like the
ghost
of a Stuka. We gazed at it.

‘Come round tomorrow evening if your people will let you,' said Norman. ‘We'll paint it and stick the transfers on.' He grinned. ‘With any luck, Sarah might have more goodies squirreled away.' He came out with me and waved as I wobbled off.

‘Where have you been, Gordon?' asked Gran when I got in. I'd
three
people quizzing me now, instead of two.

‘At Norman's, Gran. We're building a model plane.' I looked at Dad. ‘Talking of model planes, Dad, d'you think you could collect mine from the house when you go with the van?'

‘Hmmm.' He was filling his pipe. ‘Depends.'

‘On what?'

‘On how much time we have, the condition of the staircase, the state of your room.' He tamped down tobacco with a forefinger. ‘Blast might've
blown 'em right off the ceiling, y'know – smashed 'em to smithereens.'

‘No, they're—' I stopped myself in the nick of time. ‘They were pinned quite securely, Dad, I'm sure they'll have survived.'

‘Well then.' He struck a match, sucked the flame into the bowl of his pipe. ‘We'll see.'

I hate that, don't you?
We'll see
. Leaves you none the wiser.

It was powdered eggs for tea, scrambled, on toast. They come out watery grey, like something the cat brought up. I forced them down though, foiling Hitler's invasion plans once more.