Authors: Ellie Dean
‘Daisy’s all right,’ shouted Cordelia over the drone of the enemy bombers. ‘I didn’t drop her – she’s not hurt.’
Peggy sank to the floor beside her and grabbed Daisy, holding her to her heart as she kissed the tear-stained little face and reassured herself that her baby hadn’t been injured. But Cordelia was ashen, and Peggy could feel her trembling as she put her arm gently around the narrow shoulders and drew her close. ‘What happened, Cordelia? Are you hurt?’
‘I think I might have done something to my wrist,’ she replied. ‘I can’t seem to move it.’ She eyed Peggy tearfully. ‘I’m so sorry, Peggy, but I slipped on the last step, and to protect Daisy I sort of rolled over so she didn’t hit the floor and banged my arm on the blasted mangle. But I’m more concerned about you. Are you still bleeding?’
Peggy shifted so her back was also against the wall, Daisy’s weight resting in her lap, her arm still around Cordelia’s shoulders. ‘I’m having a miscarriage,’ she replied, the tears streaming down her face as the shock and fear began to take their toll.
‘Oh, my dear,’ murmured Cordelia. ‘Can I do anything to help?’
‘I think it’s too late to do anything now.’ Peggy battled the debilitating weariness that had suddenly overtaken her.
‘It might not be,’ said Cordelia as she nursed her painful wrist. ‘I seem to remember from a first-aid class I once had that in circumstances like this you should lie down and put your feet higher than your head.’
Peggy placed Daisy back on Cordelia’s lap and slowly eased down the wall until she was lying on the cellar floor with her feet halfway up the concrete steps. Then she reached for the still-squalling Daisy and held her to her chest. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a bottle to give her?’ she asked hopefully.
Cordelia reached into her dressing-gown pocket and smiled in triumph. ‘I remembered to pick it up as I went through the kitchen, but it won’t be warm.’
‘You’re a star, Cordelia,’ sighed Peggy as she took the bottle and coaxed Daisy to drink.
‘I’m nothing but a liability,’ replied Cordelia crossly. ‘I can’t even get down those blessed steps without going head over heels, and now look at us.’
Peggy held tightly to the now silent Daisy and reached out her free hand to Cordelia. ‘We’ll be fine,’ she said as the enemy planes thundered overhead and the house shook with their vibration. ‘And you have never been, or ever will be, a liability, Cordelia – for without you, I would never have managed to get Daisy even this far.’
They held hands as Daisy finished the bottle and went to sleep on Peggy’s chest. The bombers were flying very low now, and through the cracks in the ill-fitting back door they could see the wavering searchlights and the bright bursts of the anti-aircraft guns that had opened up all along the hills. They both knew there would be no help until the raid was over, but they had each other, and that was a great comfort.
As time went on and the cold of the concrete floor began to seep into their bones, Cordelia managed to get to her feet and grab the blankets off Ron’s bed. They smelled a bit of Harvey and ferret, but they were warm, and both women huddled into them, the sleeping baby still on Peggy’s chest.
They could now distinguish the distant booms and thuds of bombs exploding at the airfield and along the coast where there was a naval dockyard. They heard the Spitfires and Hurricanes engaged in dogfights with the German fighter planes that always escorted the bombers, and the terrible screams of planes in their death throes as they spiralled out of control and exploded on impact.
And then they heard the erratic throb of the bombers coming back, and the thunder of the Bofors guns along the hills interspersed with the rat-a-tat-tat of the smaller guns which shot tracer bullets like red darts into the black swarm of the marauders. The enemy bombers had completed their onslaught and were on their way back across the Channel with their escort of fighter planes which were still being harried by the RAF boys.
Peggy was feeling very sleepy despite the hard concrete beneath her and the ache in her arm as she held onto Daisy with one hand and gripped Cordelia’s fingers with the other. The house was vibrating with the rumble of the enemy planes overhead, and echoed with every boom of the big guns and rattle of the ack-ack. But the need to sleep was overwhelming, and she eased Daisy from her chest onto the floor and the loose folds of the two blankets and then curled round her. The waiting was almost over, and soon, soon they would hear the all-clear and be able to get help.
The explosion came with no warning. It shook the ground beneath them, shuddered in the walls, blasted the glass in the windows and blew the back door in. There was no time to react, no chance to escape as the wreckage of bricks, mortar, wood and glass flew in and buried them.
Ron had been busy all evening, but he’d kept a close eye on Rita and the young American. Ron had known her father, Jack Smith, for years, and he knew Jack would want him to look out for his motherless young daughter while he was away at war. It was not a responsibility he begrudged, for he’d always liked little Rita, and had come to think of her as one of his own now she was living with the family.
When the sirens had gone off he and the two middle-aged barmaids had swiftly got everyone down into the cellar. Ron had cleared it after he’d taken over the pub from Rosie’s crook of a brother, and had kitted it out with benches and tables and a makeshift bar so the customers didn’t have to run all the way to the public shelter on the other side of town, and could continue their drinking while the raids were going on overhead.
Harvey hated the sound of the sirens and set up his usual howling until they’d quietened. Now he was lying peacefully at Ron’s feet while Brenda and Pearl dispensed bottles of beer, cigarettes, matches and even cups of tea. The little primus stove had been a good idea, he thought, as he watched Pearl make yet another large pot of tea, for not everyone wanted to drink alcohol during a raid and some preferred the comfort of a good cuppa.
Rita and her American had joined in with the others as they sang along to the records playing on the wind-up gramophone that Brenda had suggested they bring down here to help pass the time and lighten the mood. It was certainly a good idea, for singers got thirsty, and the takings had shot up over the past few weeks.
The enormous boom of a nearby explosion rocked the pub on its ancient foundations and brought a fine mist of dust, cobwebs and plaster raining down. The music was forgotten, the song unfinished as everyone froze and listened.
‘That was very close, Uncle Ron,’ said Rita as she edged to his side. ‘I wonder what took the hit?’
‘Difficult to tell down here,’ he replied with a consoling hand on her shoulder.
She nodded. ‘Wherever it was, I’m going to have to go on duty the minute the all-clear sounds. That was a big explosion and there are bound to be fires.’
Ron fiddled with his pipe so she couldn’t see his anxiety. It had sounded as if the explosion was no further than a few streets away, and he could only pray that Peggy, Cordelia and the baby were safe in the Anderson shelter – and that the other girls were sheltering beneath the theatre or in the dug-out behind the church hall. But he could do nothing until the all-clear sounded.
As the minutes ticked away there was a general restlessness amongst the people in the cellar, and when the all-clear finally sounded there was a rush towards the steps. Ron herded them all out of the side door of the pub – it was way past closing time and he didn’t want them straying back into the bar.
He caught hold of Rita as she passed with the American close behind her. ‘You come straight home after you’ve finished at the fire station,’ he ordered gruffly. ‘I don’t want to be coming looking for you in the wee small hours.’
Rita grinned at him. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ she promised. ‘Paul has to go back to the estate anyway.’
Ron nodded and was about to go back down to the cellar to thank Brenda and Pearl for all their hard work when he saw Harvey freeze by the side door. His legs were stiff, ears pricked, head cocked to one side. ‘What can you hear?’
Harvey gave a sharp bark, then shot out of the door and along the narrow alleyway into Camden Road.
Ron raced after him, his heart thudding like a drum as the dog reached the end of Camden Road, tore up the hill, and down the twitten that ran behind Beach View. He could now see the fires devouring the row of terraced houses in the street behind the boarding house, the flames’ orange glow bringing a false dawn as the first of the fire engines roared past him, the bell clanging with urgency.
Ron kept running up the hill and into the twitten. The swirling smoke and ash stung his eyes and filled his dry throat as the dread of what he might find squeezed his heart.
‘Help! Please help! We’re in here.’
Harvey followed Cordelia’s cry, leaped over the remains of the flint wall and bounded across the debris of a shattered shed and outside lav to the place where there had once been a door and a scullery wall. He barked again and began to scrabble furiously at the wreckage which blocked the doorway.
Ron’s fear was copper in his mouth as he grabbed Harvey’s collar and stopped him from digging. This part of the back wall formed an essential load-bearing section of the house. With the door gone and the beam over the entranceway collapsed, there was a very real danger that if they moved too much of the debris the whole back of the house would come tumbling down. ‘Where are you?’ he shouted.
‘Here. Over here,’ called Cordelia from the depths of the rubble.
Ron tightened his hold on Harvey, who was whining and dancing on his toes in his desperation to get to those he loved. ‘Are Peggy and Daisy with you?’
‘Yes. But Peggy’s in a bad way and needs a doctor. You have to hurry, Ron. She’s unconscious and feels very cold.’
‘Dear Lord, save us,’ he exclaimed. He kept a tight hold on the anxious Harvey, pulled out his ARP whistle and gave six sharp blasts on it to alert anyone nearby that he needed urgent help. ‘Stay absolutely still, Cordelia,’ he ordered as he knelt down to peer into the darkness beyond the rubble. One false move on his part could kill them all.
‘I can’t move anyway,’ she said, her voice much fainter now. ‘I seem to have something heavy pinning me to the wall.’
Ron knelt and took Harvey’s large head in his hands and looked directly into those trusting amber eyes. ‘Find help, Harvey. Go fetch help.’
The dog whined and skittered, clearly torn between his need to obey Ron, and the urgent yearning to find his loved ones beneath the rubble.
Ron held him firm, his voice commanding. ‘Fetch, Harvey. Go for help.’
Harvey yanked his head from Ron’s hands and sped back across the ruined garden, over the wall and was gone.
‘I’m going to need help to get you out,’ Ron called into the cellar. ‘Can you hear me, Cordelia?’ He had to strain to hear her reply, for her voice was very weak. ‘How are Peggy and Daisy?’
‘Daisy’s too quiet and I’m worried about Peggy. I can’t seem to wake her. Hurry, Ron. Please hurry.’
‘I’m doing the best I can,’ he called back as he began to tentatively pluck some of the rubble out of the way. The stone sink lay on top, broken into two, the mangle still firmly bolted to one half. ‘Keep talking to me, Cordelia. Don’t fall asleep.’
Cordelia muttered something, but his attention had been drawn to the sound of running water and the dribble of it seeping beneath the rubble. The pipes had been broken when the sink had been ripped away, so he dug about in the remains of the shed, found the large metal tool he needed, slotted it into the mains stopcock and twisted it off.
Cordelia had fallen silent again. ‘I can’t hear you, Cordelia,’ he shouted. ‘Turn your blasted hearing aid on, woman.’
‘There’s no call for rudeness, Ronan Reilly,’ she retorted faintly.
‘That’s better,’ he said, his anxious gaze searching for some sign that help was coming. ‘Shout at me all you like. I need you to stay awake, Cordelia.’
The welcome sight of Harvey bounding over the wall, closely followed by a fire crew and several soldiers, made him grin. He patted the dog and ruffled his ears as he explained the situation to John Hicks, the fire chief.
John listened carefully and started giving orders to his men and women. ‘You were wise to follow your instincts and not start to clear the debris,’ he said as his crew helped the army boys shore up the hole with the steel scaffolding poles they always carried in their trucks now. ‘Without that supported, the whole house could have come down on top of all of you.’
Ron waited with an equally anxious and impatient Harvey as the wall was made secure. ‘Cordelia, are you still awake?’ he shouted.
There was no reply and he looked fearfully at John. ‘We’ve got to hurry,’ he said. ‘Both women need medical help and God alone knows what’s happened to the baby, because I haven’t heard her crying since I got here.’
John nodded and tersely ordered the men to get on with the job so they could start clearing the wreckage. Within minutes the wall was made secure and everyone was frantically grabbing at the rubble, tossing it aside in the desperate need to get to the women and baby trapped beneath it. Harvey scrabbled and dug, the soft whine in his throat revealing his own sense of urgency.
Ron was sweating as he heaved bits of concrete and brick out of the way. ‘Cordelia,’ he called. ‘We’re coming. Hang on, old girl. We’re nearly there.’
‘Less of the old, you rude heathen rogue,’ she said weakly.
‘Aye, that I am. And you’re as deaf as a post and as daft as a sack of frogs.’
He kept digging, Harvey working furiously by his side. And then he tossed aside a large section of the back door and saw Peggy lying curled around a silent and ominously still Daisy. Cordelia was beside them, her frail body pinned against the cellar wall by a pile of rubble. ‘I need the medics over here!’ he shouted as Harvey whined and sniffed at Daisy and Peggy.
The fire crews and soldiers pulled away the last of the debris and the ambulance medics clambered in to check on all three of them and hand Harvey over to John Hicks so he was kept out of their way.