Authors: Lizzie Lane
War Baby
Contents
Read on for some recipes used by the Sweet sisters...
The war has had a devastating effect on the Sweet Family.
Still there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon in the form of Mary Sweet's upcoming wedding to her Canadian beau. But even that has failed to rouse their father from his grief.
But in London a baby has been found in a bombed out house, sheltered in the arms of his dead mother. A child to make life worth living again...
Lizzie Lane was born and brought up in one of the toughest areas of Bristol, the eldest of three siblings who were all born before her parents got round to marrying. Her mother, who had endured both the Depression and war years, was a natural-born story teller, and it's from her telling of actual experiences of the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century that Lizzie gets her inspiration.
Lizzie put both city and rat race behind her in 2012 and moved on to a boat, preferring to lead the simple life where she can write and watch the sun go down without interruption.
Wartime Brides
Coronation Wives
A Christmas Wish
The Soldier's Valentine
(digital short)
A Wartime Wife
A Wartime Family
Home for Christmas
Wartime Sweethearts
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ON THE EVENING
before the bombers came it had been an ordinary street in the East End of London, where little girls played hopscotch and boys rolled marbles in the gutter. But by the early hours of the next morning twisted gas pipes hissed and great clouds of smoke and steam arose from blackened buildings.
Thousands of gallons of water had been poured on to the burning buildings, but the heat was still intense enough to scorch the faces of the firefighters if they got too close.
Dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky to the east, but for the firemen, air-raid wardens and the civilians from all walks of life lending a hand the job was not yet over. Fires blazed where Victorian terraced houses once stood, and some of those who had lived in them still had to be accounted for. A few had made it to the air-raid shelter or the Underground where the rattle of trains was preferable to the sound of explosions. Others had refused to leave their homes because of their fear of looters or simply because they were sound asleep and hadn't heard the siren. The volunteers who were to sift through the bombed-out buildings were under no illusion of what to expect.
Harry Norton, a stevedore on a Thames barge by day, was standing by, waiting for the go ahead from the firemen to begin looking for survivors.
âLooks like hell!' he shouted to his friend Clancy Cowell, a man of few words but who had more muscles than a fairground strongman.
They had to shout to hear each other above the hissing of steam, gas and water jetting from the ends of fire hoses.
âIt is hell,' Clancy shouted back to him.
Harry blinked. Clancy was right. The incendiary raid had started an inferno, some of which might not burn out for days. He sighed. If there were any survivors buried under this little lot, it would be nothing short of a miracle, but both he and the other voluntary firefighters tried to remain hopeful.
âFor this lot here, take these houses from here to here. Just give us a minute.'
He went back to the line of men heaving on hoses, stinking of sweat and smoke. Deep down inside all of them was the feeling of sickness that comes with the prospect that, for all their good intent, the army of volunteers would be digging nothing but corpses from the ruins.
The hissing stopped when the gas was turned off at the mains. Steam still rose from the smouldering buildings, but the sound of surging water also ceased as the hoses were turned off.
Once the noise lessened, the order to move in and begin the search was given.
Harry pulled on a pair of asbestos gloves. The fire in this particular street had been put out, but the bricks and other debris would still be hot. Even the ground beneath their feet was scorching. Like most of the men there, he was wearing his steel-capped work boots. The thick soles would protect him from the heat and, at one time, he thought the toe caps would too, but there had been times when it had felt as though the devil was toasting his toes. Not that discomfort would deter him from doing his job. If there were people to be rescued, then it was all hands to the pump, sorting through the smoking debris, and stopping every so often to listen for the slightest sound of somebody still alive.
Clancy worked beside him, methodically pulling at huge pieces of brickwork, ceiling joists and concrete. He tackled the real heavy items that usually took two men to lift.
Harry just missed being hit by a window frame. Up until then it had been held in place along the sill and up one side. It fell in slow motion, its movement almost indiscernible. Somebody shouted. Harry reacted instantly, leaping over a pile of broken bricks and a smashed-up fireplace.
The glass panes, having survived bomb damage, smashed into jagged pieces either side of a heavy roof truss, which now lay flat among bricks and bits of wood.
There was a strange silence following the sound of breaking glass and broken timbers, not a real silence, just a contrast with the noise that had gone before.
In that silent moment he heard something. At first it sounded like the mewing of a cat. They'd found plenty of trapped animals following an air raid. Plenty of dead ones too.
âIf there are any pets, they'll be roasted,' somebody close by muttered.
He tilted his head to one side.
âHear that, Clancy?'
Clancy did the same as Harry, tilting his head to one side in an effort to hear better.
A door left swinging at an angle on one hinge creaked and fell.
Harry looked around him and shook his head. âBlimey. This place is still falling down.'
It was also still steaming and although the firemen had done sterling work, Harry kept his eyes peeled for any flare up of the fire ignited by the incendiary bomb. He rubbed at his chest. It felt tight. He knew he'd inhaled his fair share of black smoke and brick dust. All the same he could do with a bit of light relief.
âI badly need a smoke, funny that, what with all this â¦'
His face was black with sweat and soot, his eyes streaming and sore on account of the steam and the smoke.
There was that noise again. He cupped his ear the same way he'd seen his old father do when he couldn't catch what was being said. âHear anything, Clancy?'
He looked at his friend, a hulking figure among the ruins. Clancy raised his hand and pointed to a spot beneath what was left of the stairs.
Harry listened. There it was again. A mewing sound? That wasn't a mewing sound! It was crying. A baby! It sounded like a baby!
âI hear something!' he shouted out to the men behind him.
Clancy heard it too, but being a big man with chunky limbs he was clumsy and his movements slow. Harry got to the sound first.
Bits of brick, tile and plaster began to slide under his feet as he dug desperately and carefully, his bare hands less likely to do damage than any shovel or crowbar.
George Poster, the civil defence volunteer in charge of the job, climbed carefully over the rubble that lay between a bathtub and a broken lavatory pan, aware that disturbing anything too much might cause the whole lot to slide or fall into a hidden cellar. A lot of the houses round here had cellars. Rather than go to the air-raid shelter and chance their houses being looted, some people went down there. It was because of those cellars that some survived, trapped in air pockets beneath the destruction.
The intensity of the men listening was suddenly interrupted by the loud clanging of a bell, which preceded the arrival of an ambulance. There were one or two injured people to take to hospital. Quite a few dead ones too.
George stood up and flung a stone at the culprit. âStop that bloody racket! Can't you see we're trying to listen 'ere?'
The bell stopped, the driver hurriedly getting out of her ambulance, sliding on the slick of mud and water, her tin hat toppled to one side. She whispered sorry, but nobody was really interested. All eyes returned to what was happening among the ruins.
Harry got down on his hands and knees so he could hear better, turning his head so his ear was close to the glass shards and other bits and pieces that had once been part of a house, that had once been a family home.
âHere,' he shouted. âBeneath this. I'm sure of it!'
It was a slow process, but gradually the piled muck was shifted, slid sideways and behind them on to other piles, the rescuers forming a human chain.
âThere's a door,' shouted Harry. âIt's coming from beneath this door.'
The door was pinned flat beneath a roof truss, one of the many A-frames whose ends had scorched in the walls before falling to earth when the walls supporting them had fallen down. Six men, including Clancy and Harry, three one side and three the other, heaved up the massive piece of wood.
âJust enough so we can move it off the door,' ordered George.
Sweat streaked their dirty faces as every muscle in their body strained and shook.
âWe need it held up in the middle,' shouted Harry. âIf we could jam something underneath it, I reckon two of us could pull that door out.'
Eyes sore from smoke and lack of sleep searched the seared bombsite. There was not one piece of material suitable for jacking up the piece of wood, nothing that wouldn't disintegrate into cinders when it took the weight.
âLet me try.'
Clancy crouched down as low as he could, feet apart, knees bent. Hands the size of shovels clasped the massive piece of wood and slowly, very slowly, he began to rise.
