The Machine Gunners (6 page)

"Did you shut the front door, love?" she said to his father. "I'm frightened someone'll nip in and steal those insurance policies. And where's Mrs. Spalding and Colin?"

Chug, chug, chug, chug:

"The buggers is coming again!" shouted Mr. McGill.

"Where's the bloody guns, where's the bloody fighters?"

Above the chugging came a kind of rhythmic panting-screeching; and a kind of dragging-hopping, like a kangaroo in its death-throes. It was even more frightening than the chugging, and it came right up to the shelter door. A body fell through. It was Mrs. Spalding.

"Is she dead?" said Mrs. McGill.

"No, but she's got her knickers round her ankles," said Mr. McGill.

"Aah had tey hop aal the way," gasped Mrs. Spalding. "I was on the outside lav and I couldn't finish. The buggers blew the lav door off, and they've hit the Rex Cinema as well. Is there a spot of brandy?"

"Aah pulled the chain, Mam. It flushed all right." It was Colin, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

"You'll get the Victoria Cross for that," said Chas with a wild giggle.

"Shut up, Charles. Have you got no feeling?" Mum turned to Mrs. Spalding, who had crawled onto her bunk and was busy pulling up her knickers. "I'm sorry, love. We got down the shelter so quick I left the brandy and the case behind. I'm worried about the insurance, too. Jack didn't shut the front door. Go back and get them, Jack!"

But the bombs had begun whining down again. Every time he heard one, Chas stared hard at the shelter wall. Mr. McGill had painted it white, and set tiny bits of cork in the wet paint to absorb condensation. Chas would start to count inside his head. When the counting reached twenty, he would either be dead, or he would see little bits of cork fall off the shelter wall with the shock wave, and know he had survived... till the next whistling started. It was a silly pointless game, with no real magic in it, but it stopped you wanting to scream...

His grandpa always said one only hit you if it had your name on it... he'd seen photographs of RAF blokes chalking names on their bombs... did the Germans do that too?... How would they know his name... did they have lists of everyone who lived in England... ? Perhaps the Gestapo had ... he must stop thinking like that, or he would scream... make a fool of himself like Mrs. Spalding... play another game, quick.

Yes, there was another game. He was lying in a trench with Cem and Carrot-juice. The black machine gun was in his hands, leaping, vibrating, spraying out orange fire at the black bombers. And he was hitting them every time. They were blowing up, it was their crews who were screaming now, being blown in half... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven... oh, this was a good game... try as they might, the bombers could not reach him. He got them first, swept them away on the blast of the big black gun, sent them down into Hell to burn...

"Hey, cheer up, son. It might never happen." It was his father's voice, and he was staring at the white, rocky wall again, and for the moment, the bombs had stopped.

At dawn, they climbed out stiffly. They were surprised to see their house still standing; and the rest of the houses in the Square. And the next row, beyond the long jack gardens, quite untouched... except two were simply gone. The ones on either side were windowless, had slates missing. But two were simply gone.

"Ronnie Boyce lives there..." said Chas. He had given Ronnie Boyce a bloody nose two days ago.

"Did
live there," said his father. "It was over quick. They can never have known what hit them..." Fat Ronnie Boyce, with his shiny boots and mum with asthma... where
was
he, now? Up in Heaven? With a harp and a halo to go with his shiny boots? He hoped God wasn't too rough on him. He was a terrible thief, but probably being blown to bits was enough punishment for being a thief...

"Chas, lad," said his father, very quiet, "I'm going to see if Nana and Granda are all right. Most of the stuff that was dropped fell by the river last night. I want you to come with me..."

Chas felt his stomach go heavy, as if he'd swallowed a cannon ball. Not Nana and Granda too! He saw in his mind their neat house in Henry Street, with the white wheel for a gate, and the big white seashells in the garden, and the freshly painted white flagstaff where his granda ran up the Union Jack every morning and saluted it.

"Don't take the bairn, Jack," said his mother, fingering her apron.

"He's going," said his father grimly. "He's fourteen now, and there might be errands to run, and clearing up to do."

"He'd better wear his best suit, then..."

"Don't be daft, woman. It's not a funeral yet. He might get it ruined for nowt. Come on, son."

They walked side by side down the road. Chas felt proud that his father needed him. It was a solemn occasion, a family occasion, an adult occasion. But his hands wouldn't stop shaking. He wondered how it would be. There might be Nana putting on the kettle, and Granda getting his morning coughing over. Everyone would tell bomb stories.

Or there might only be a hole in the ground, like Ronnie Boyce's house. The whole world seemed broken in half. Nearly, the same old streets, women gossipping at doors, kids peering over walls. But above the familiar rooftops billowed more smoke than he had ever seen: oily black smoke rolling over itself, trailing east to cover the rising run, so that they walked from sunshine to shadow every minute. It looked like a photo Chas had seen of Dunkirk. In a way he liked the smoke clouds; they were exciting. But Nana's house making that smoke?

They turned into Church Lane. Blocked. Big red notices saying
Access Prohibited
and
Danger.
Policemen controlling traffic. Men pulling crowbars off the backs of lorries. A wriggling mass of white hosepipes, connected to hydrants that peed streams of water into the gutters like naughty boys.

At the far end of the street the red brick spire of Holy Savior's was burning. Flames licked from every window from top to bottom, joining into a smoke column that blew away easy. Even the Germans across the North Sea would be smelling the burning this morning. And laughing.

His father was asking a policeman which streets to the lower town were open. The policeman was shaking his head. Chas watched the church. God lived there. If even God wasn't safe from Hitler, who was? Why didn't God
get
Hitler for what he was doing? Why didn't he send a thunderbolt on Berchtesgarten? Wasn't Hitler afraid to do such things to God? Chas had once spat on a church pew for a laugh, and walked in fear and trembling for a week afterward. Where
was
God?

As he watched, the spire seemed to shimmer in the heat. It was shimmering more and more. It was twisting, like an outlaw shot in a Western—all that great brick height. It made Chas feel dizzy. Even a hundred yards away, he wanted to run. Great chunks of brickwork fell inward into the church spire, like a jigsaw breaking up. The gilded weathercock on top tilted. Firemen were running in all directions. And then slowly, ever so slowly,

the spire pounced downward at the firemen, like a leaping red lion. It landed in the street and leaped forward again, with a mane of red brick-dust, grasping for those running legs.

One man fell as it touched him. Two of his comrades picked him up and ran dragging him, without stopping, while the red lion still pursued.

And then it stopped, and Chas became aware of the rumbling and roaring and shouting. A group gathered round the fallen fireman, lifting him so his blackened face stared at the heavens. They forced some stuff from a little brown bottle down his throat. He began to walk about, doubled up, coughing.

"He's all right," said Mr. McGill. "By God, he was lucky. He'll never be luckier. C'mon." They walked to the next street.

"I watched Holy Savior's being built, as a kid," said Mr. McGill.

"Will they build it again?"

"God knows." But
did
God know?

The next street was empty, normal. Except for one policeman, and a notice saying
Unexploded Bomb.
There was a little hole halfway down the street, surrounded by the kind of red and white barriers workmen use when they lay drainpipes. A cat was sniffing at the little hole. Chas would have been worried about the cat, if he hadn't already been worried about Nana.

"It'll have to take its chance, that cat," said Mr. McGill.

"I expect Saville Street will be open," said Chas. It was the most important street in the town with no less than three toyshops.

But Saville Street no longer existed. It was just piles of bricks: the shops were piles of brick and the roadway was piles of brick. There was a green lorry at the near end, marked
Heavy Rescue.
A grimy man in a white tin hat marked R was sitting on the tailboard with a mug of tea. The mug was white and shiny, but it had black fingermarks all over it.

"How do, Geordie," said his father, in a familiar sort of way. Heavens, the man was Uncle George, Cousin Gordon's father. Uncle George grimaced, showing perfect false teeth.

"By God," he said, "I thought I'd seen it all in the trenches in the Last Lot, but I've seen nowt like this morning. There's bits of bairns under that. We'll be three days before we get the last of them out."

"How many dead?"

"Twenty-seven so far, and three out alive. We had to use our bare hands, brick by brick, we were that frightened the whole lot would come down on top of us." He pulled a sandwich out of a screw of greaseproof paper with those same bare hands and began to eat it. How could he be so heartless?

"Your family all right, George?"

"Aye, Rosie's gone to her mother's and young Gordon to his girlfriend's at Monkseaton."

"Heard anything about Henry Street?"

"They had it bad. Taking the young 'un down, are you?" He gave Chas a look. "Tek care!"

He finished off his sandwich and licked his fingers. "Rudyerd Street's just about open now."

Rudyerd Street was no worse than what Chas was used to. Slates off, ceiling down, windows gone. Every second house carried that silly notice
Business as usual.
The photographer from the
Garmouth Evening Gazette
was busy.

The nearer they approached the corner of Henry Street, the more Chas's heart sank. Mr. McGill walked faster and faster, like a man going to have a fight. His steel heelcaps rang louder and louder. Chas found it harder and harder to breathe.

They turned the corner. The wheel gate, the seashells, the flagpole were untouched. The Union Jack still flew. But the roof was a wooden, slateless skeleton, and sky showed through the bedroom windows.

"We'll knock at the front door," said his dad. "Stand beside me, and if I say shut your eyes, you bloody shut them quick. Understand?" Chas gulped and nodded. Mr. McGill knocked.

Nana opened the door in her flowered pinafore.

"I knew you'd come. And the bairn! D'you see what Hilter and his bloody Jarmans have done!" Her blue eyes were snapping with fury, her brawny arms folded on her large bosom. She always called Hitler "Hilter" and spoke about him as if he was a personal enemy, a bloody-minded neighbour who did sneaky things like tipping refuse over your garden fence. "If I could get hold of that bloody man I'd strangle him. He should've been strangled at birth. Snotty-nosed gyet. He's really done for your granda, y'know. He was going to brew some tea when it happened. It blew him all the way down the yard and split the back of his topcoat from top to bottom. The buggers couldn't kill him at Caparetto in 1918, but they've nigh done for him this time. It's a bloody shame he's past it; twenty years ago he'd have seen the buggers off. Riffraff. What's Hilter more than a house-painter, when all's said and done?"

All the time she was talking, Chas had the absurd fancy that Hilter and the Jarmans were sitting down to breakfast about two streets away, and that one attack by Nana and her famous rolling pin would settle the war once and for all.

"Come in, if you can get," said Nana.

Granda was sitting in his armchair, warming his hands on a mug of tea. He was wearing furry brown slippers, striped pyjamas, the split overcoat and a black beret with two highly polished brass badges on it. One was his old regimental badge, a lamb carrying a flag. The other was a German army badge, with the worn figure of a charging infantryman, and lettering no one could read. Granda pointed to that badge now.

"I knew I'd cop it last night. I dreamed
he
came back for his badge."

He
was an Austrian soldier whom Granda had killed in a bayonet fight at Caparetto. Granda had taken the badge as a trophy; and ever since had dreams that the dead man came back and mutely asked for his possession. Granda had lived in terror of that man for twenty-five years, yet he could never be persuaded to throw the badge away.

There was a fire in the hearth, and the huge black kettle on it as usual. It began to boil now, and the lid began to rattle. Granda's teeth began to chatter and Nana took the kettle off quickly.

"That lid always reminds him of the machine guns."

But it was too late. Granda was lost in his old nightmare. His hands did strange things, pulled invisible levers, settled together in front of his chest as if he grasped the handles of some weapon. The index finger of his right hand tightened slowly on an invisible trigger, as his left eye closed, and his right squinted tight.

"Range? Three-seven-five. Gun cocked. Two hundred rounds expended. Three boxes of ammo in reserve. Barrel cold, topped up with water. Spare barrel in reserve, half worn-out. Sir."

The family watched. Suddenly he braced himself, shuffling his feet as if groping for a hold. His body tensed, like a dog when it sees a rabbit, and then he began to shake all over, as if the invisible gun was leaping almost beyond control.

"He's badly," said Nana. "He hasn't done that for ten years. He thinks they're coming for him."

"Bleeding Christ!" screamed Granda. "Sodding thing's jammed.
Recock, discharge, recock."
His hands moved frantically.

"I'll mix one of his powders," said Nana. "Come and give me a hand, Chas."

They were kept busy at Nana's for the rest of the day. There was no hope for the house; the walls were cracked; even if the roof could have been put back on, the walls would have collapsed under the weight.