We'll Meet Again (2 page)

‘No.’

‘Then you’d best stay here. He’ll find you here. There are buses coming to take everyone to a place of safety. He’ll be notified where you are. There’s tea and sandwiches, nothing hot, I’m afraid, and a blanket and pillow. Find a spot and try to rest.’

She sat, wrapped in a blanket, with her back to a wall, seeing, in her mind’s eye, what it must have been like for Mum and the little ones with bombs falling all around them. They would have been terrified, huddling together for comfort. They had been poor, but Mum kept a spotless home and she and Pa made sure they
were clothed and well fed. Not until now, when it had all gone, did she appreciate that. The tears started again but this time they were a silent stream making a furrow down her grubby face.

‘I feel so sorry for that poor kid,’ Bob Bennett told his wife, referring to Sheila. He was dog tired but satisfied that he had accounted for every one on his patch, dead or alive, all except Charlie Phipps. ‘It’s bad enough losing her mother and her brothers and sisters, but now I’ve got more bad news for her. She’s stuck in that school all alone.’

‘Poor thing,’ June said.

‘I was thinking, do you think we could have her here for a bit? Would you mind?’

‘No, go and fetch her. I’ll make up a bed in the spare room. I don’t suppose she’s got any night things.’

‘No, only what she’s wearing.’

He finished the bowl of soup he had been drinking, found his tin hat and his gas mask. ‘If the siren goes again while I’m gone, make sure you go into the shelter.’

‘Surely it won’t go again tonight.’

‘You never know.’ He kissed her cheek and went out again.

He was only at the end of the road when the siren sounded again. He hesitated, wondering whether to go back to June, but then carried on, driven by the need to speak to Sheila and, somehow or other, try to comfort her. There were so many tragedies being enacted this night, the wonder of it was how stoical everyone seemed to be. It was shock he supposed, it had numbed their senses, but what of the morrow when reality dawned? All these people bereaved and homeless. And children like Sheila Phipps, who was still a child for all her seventeen years, left orphans. What was to become of them all? The authorities seemed to have
concentrated on the need to deal with the dead, not the survivors.

There was pandemonium in the school as some of the survivors of the first bombing tried to find shelter from the second and others elected to remain where they were. Bob helped to settle everyone down in the corridors away from flying glass and then went in search of Sheila. She was sitting huddled against a wall, a cold cup of tea and a curled-up sandwich on a plate beside her. She didn’t seem to be aware of her surroundings.

He bent to touch her arm. ‘Sheila, I’ve come to fetch you. We’ll give you a bed for the night. Up with you.’ He helped her to her feet.

‘Will Pa find me?’

‘I should think so.’ He said no more as he led her out of the school and into the road, just as the bombers arrived again. They could not see them for the haze of smoke and dust but they could hear them. ‘Let’s hurry,’ he said. ‘We’ve got an Anderson shelter in our garden. June will be in there.’

‘We didn’t have a garden so we couldn’t have one.’

‘I know.’

They could hear bombs whistling down and ducked every time, but they were not close and all they knew of them was the explosion as they hit the ground a little way off and then a wall of dust, smoke and flame added to what was already there. Searchlights were sweeping the sky and ack-ack guns were firing, at what they could not see. They were running now, in too much of a hurry to talk, for which he was glad. The middle of a street in an air raid was not the place to impart bad news. He kept that until they were safely in the Anderson shelter in his garden and his wife was pouring tea from a Thermos for them. Anderson shelters, though only made of curved corrugated iron, were supposed to withstand all but a direct hit. They were damp and airless, and
flying debris – stones, bits of masonry and broken glass – rattling on the roof didn’t help already shattered nerves.

He watched her as she sipped her tea. She was a pretty girl, with thick auburn hair inherited from her mother, hazel eyes and a softly burgeoning figure, although swollen red eyes and the tears drying on her pale cheeks did not enhance her appearance.

‘Sheila,’ he said gently, putting his cup down and leaning forward. ‘I am afraid I have more bad news for you …’

‘Pa?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He was with a bunch of fire-fighters, pumping water onto a burning warehouse, when the wall collapsed on them. There were no survivors. I’m sorry.’

She was silent for a minute digesting this, then she said flatly, ‘He’s gone too. I hope there’s a heaven, I hope somewhere, up there, he and Mum and all the others are together.’

‘I’m sure they are.’

‘And Charlie?’

‘I don’t know what happened to him. According to the people I spoke to from his office, Mr Phipps sent the boy home when the siren went, telling him to look after his mother and brothers and sisters. The last they saw of him he was cycling up the road hell for leather.’

‘He wasn’t in our house?’

‘No. He may have gone into a shelter somewhere and will turn up later. Of course, he could have been injured and sent to hospital. We’ll find out in the morning.’ He knew that there were bodies and bits of bodies that would never be identified, but he kept silent on that score.

It was dawn before the bombing stopped, the sound of aircraft faded, the guns went silent and the All Clear sounded. They straightened stiffened limbs and left their shelter. Apart from the
crackle of fires, the heat of which they could feel half a mile away, everywhere was eerily silent. Bob’s house was undamaged, apart from one broken window, and they lost no time going indoors.

‘I’ll make some breakfast,’ June said. ‘Then we can go to bed and try and get some sleep.’

‘I’ll have to go out again,’ Bob said. ‘I might be needed.’

‘Needed or not you’ll stay and have something to eat before you go,’ June said. ‘I’ve got a bit of bacon and I can fry some bread.’

‘I must go and look for Charlie,’ Sheila said.

‘Not until you’ve had some rest,’ June told her. ‘You’re all in. Then you can decide what you’re going to do.’ She put the frying pan on the gas stove and turned the tap. ‘Drat it, there’s no gas.’

‘I’ll get the primus stove.’ Bob fetched it from the Anderson shelter and set about pumping and lighting it. He put the kettle on it, glad that they had taken the precaution of filling it before the raid; there was no water coming out of the tap. ‘Tea first,’ he said. ‘Then food.’

Half an hour later, having consumed a slice of fried bread, a rasher of bacon and some reconstituted egg, washed down with the inevitable cup of tea, he reached for his tin hat again. ‘I’ll make enquiries about your brother, if I get the chance,’ he told Sheila as he left.

June piled the dirty plates and cups into the sink to wait for the water to be reconnected and conducted Sheila upstairs where she showed her into a small bedroom. On the bed was a nightdress, a toothbrush, a flannel and towel. ‘Make yourself at home,’ she said. ‘The bathroom is the door opposite. There might just be enough water in the tank for a quick wash. I’ll wait until you’re done.’

Afraid to use the water, Sheila put a dribble into the basin to get the worst of the dirt off her hands and face, then returned to the bedroom, stripped off her clothes and put on the nightdress.
As she did so and climbed into bed, it came to her that those few items of clothing were all she possessed. Her week’s pay packet lay unopened in her handbag. She usually gave it to her mother every Saturday evening and was given half a crown back to spend on herself. It made her feel guilty that now she had it all to herself and could perhaps buy a few necessities. That was not the only guilt she felt. Why had she survived when everyone else was gone? She was no better person than the others, no more deserving to live than they did. What sense did it make?

She did not think she would sleep, but she did, only to be woken by nightmares which frightened her so much she dare not go to sleep again. At noon she rose, put on her dirty clothes and went downstairs to the kitchen. June was listening to the wireless while she washed up. The water and gas were back on. Sheila picked up a tea towel to help.

‘Some damage has been caused to docks, residential areas and industrial premises,’ they heard the newsreader saying. ‘So far as is known at present, three churches and two hospitals, including a children’s nursing home, have been damaged. Some people were made homeless but they have been removed from the danger area and steps taken to provide them with food and shelter.’

‘Good God! Where did they get that from?’ June said. ‘You’ve only got to use your eyes and ears and nose to know there was a lot more to it than that.’

‘They wouldn’t want the Germans to know that, would they?’ Sheila said. ‘They’d have to tone it down a bit.’

‘No s’pose not. We’ll get a Sunday paper later, if there are such things, that is.’

‘Has Mr Bennett been back?’

‘No.’

‘I think I’ll go to the rest centre and see if Charlie’s turned up
there.’ It was something positive to do, something to concentrate on, to stop herself thinking too much about Ma and Pa and the others and a bleak future without them. If she let her thoughts wander in that direction she would collapse in a heap. Surely someone had survived?

‘You do that, dear. If you don’t find him, come back here. Bob might know something.’

The refugees in the school were still stoically waiting for the buses to take them away from the horror. Charlie was not there and her enquiries drew a blank. There were other rest centres in the area and she went round them all. There was no sign of her brother. She decided to trace the route he would have taken to come home from the Commercial docks where he worked, but the nearer she got to the river the worse was the devastation. Some of the fires had been put out, but some still raged. She could feel the heat and smell the sickening mixture of burning tar, rum, oil, sugar and death. It made her gulp for air. How could anything be alive in that? But there were people, wandering aimlessly about like lost souls, picking up bits of debris and dropping them again. But there was no sign of Charlie.

She was stopped by a warden. ‘You can’t go any further, miss. It’s not safe.’

‘I’m looking for my brother. He didn’t come home last night.’

‘He most likely went into a shelter.’

‘But he’d have come home when the All Clear sounded, wouldn’t he?’

‘Tell me his name. I’ll keep an eye out for him.’

‘Charlie Phipps. He worked with my father at the Commercial dock.’

‘I know Mr Phipps.’

‘He died.’

‘Yes, I know. Brave man he was, didn’t think of his own safety at all.’

‘But you didn’t see Charlie?’

‘No. Go on home, I’ll let you know if I learn anything. Where d’you live?’

‘We were bombed out. Everyone’s gone except me. I stayed with Mr and Mrs Bennett last night. They told me to go back if I didn’t find Charlie, but I don’t like imposing on them. I ought to go back to the rest centre but they are sending everyone away and I don’t want to leave without finding my brother.’ It was the longest speech she had managed since it happened.

‘Go back to your friends. You need friends at a time like this. They’ll look after you.’

Her feet dragged as she went back to the Bennett’s home. Guilt overwhelmed her. She had no right to be alive. The feeling stayed with her all day, a day of anxiety and misery, of no appetite and endless cups of tea. She hardly paid attention to Bob and June when they asked her, over the evening meal, if she had any other relatives, grandparents, uncles, aunts, people who ought to be informed of the tragedy, who would want to attend the joint funeral, people who might give her a home. Their questions finally penetrated her numbed brain. ‘I think my mother had a sister. I believe there was some trouble, I don’t know what. They didn’t keep in touch.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Name? Who?’

‘Your aunt. We ought to let her know.’

‘Oh, Connie, I think. Mum’s maiden name was Robins. Don’t know if her sister married.’

‘Do you know where she lives?’

‘Can’t say I do.’

‘Look, dear, do make an effort,’ June said. ‘We are trying to help you. I know it’s hard, but try and think.’

‘I’m sorry. She didn’t live in London, I’m sure. I think it was somewhere beginning with a B. Bl … something.’

‘Blackpool?’

‘No. Bletchley, that’s it. Bletchley. Just before the war began, I remember Mum saying something about Connie and Bletchley being safer than London, being in the country.’

‘Perhaps she was thinking of evacuating the children there,’ Bob said. ‘She couldn’t have fallen out with her sister so badly if she was considering that.’

‘No, but she said Connie wouldn’t want to know and we should all stay together and Pa agreed. She was nearly right, wasn’t she, about everyone dying together? Except me. Why not me too? I should be dead.’

‘We’ll get the Red Cross onto it,’ he went on as if she had not spoken. ‘They’ll find her.’

‘I don’t want to be a nuisance to you. I think I should go back to South Hallsville school and be sent away with all the others.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ June said. ‘You’ll stay with us until we can find your aunt.’

‘And Charlie.’

‘And Charlie,’ June repeated, looking at Bob, but he simply shook his head without speaking. ‘I’ve been through my wardrobe and found a few clothes that might fit you,’ she went on. ‘I think when you’re bombed out, the WVS provide you with some clothes. You’ll need to go to the school for those. And you’ll need a new ration book. The council offices will provide that. You can do that tomorrow. Have you got any money?’

‘I’ve got this week’s pay packet in my bag.’

‘Good, but that won’t go far. You might get a handout too.’

‘I don’t want handouts. Mum never did that, however hard up we were.’ She was indignant. ‘I’m not going to start now. I’ve got a job. I can work.’