Daughters of the Mersey (32 page)

‘It should help to speed things up if she’s ready to admit adultery.’

‘It’s going to take a long time, and it will cost him a pretty penny.’

‘Poor old Nick, he doesn’t have much luck with his women.’

‘He was in Liverpool waiting for a train and sounded very down. That’s why I asked him over. He doesn’t want to handle the divorce himself, he’d been to ask William Lomax, his old boss, to take care of it.’

‘I hope she isn’t going to demand maintenance and all that. Come and eat. Our dinner’s getting cold.’

‘It seems Heather’s got another boyfriend. A younger man, the manager of that hotel where she works.’

‘Oh dear, you always said she was too young for him.’

‘Too young and too flighty. Leonie is more his type.’

‘But she wouldn’t leave Steve.’

‘We’ll have to cheer him up over the weekend. What’s this we’re eating?’

‘I thought I’d fry up these few slices of cold pork with the leftover mashed potato and add a few sprouts. A pity it’s gone cold.’

Tom’s fork prodded
it without enthusiasm. ‘What won’t fatten will fill.’

Steve felt more alive than he had done in years. He no longer felt he’d been tossed on the scrap heap. He wore his uniform with pride and was building up a camaraderie with his fellow ARP wardens. He felt useful, part of a group helping the injured and the homeless.

During air raids, on three or four nights each week, he manned the telephones in the ARP post. He answered the calls for help, directed the other wardens to where they were needed and called out the ambulance and fire services as required. It had taken him a time to get on top of the job, but now he always knew where the bombs had fallen and exactly where his fellow wardens were working at any one time. Having only one leg was no disadvantage when it came to doing this.

In order to concentrate on his job he had to ignore the cacophony of noise outside, the explosions, the ambulance sirens and the big guns firing into the sky, and he felt relatively safe surrounded by sandbags in the cellar that was the ARP post. Steve only realised the full horror of what was happening when he listened to the agonised tales the other wardens told and saw the growing devastation, the craters and the rubble in the streets.

December had been a bad month, but they all thought the bombing was easing off in January, and in Birkenhead there were no deaths or serious injuries during February. Although the raids hadn’t stopped, they began to hope that the worst was over. But in the bright moonlit nights of early March they realised how wrong they were. More enemy planes were coming with
larger bomb loads. They were creating mayhem. One Saturday night, Steve had just sat down for supper when the air-raid warning sounded.

‘Oh dear,’ Leonie said. ‘Why did I bother to make toad in the hole? Please eat it, both of you, before you go.’

Steve could see Miles shovelling his helping down as fast as he could. He tried to do the same, but as it would probably give him indigestion he slid what was left between two slices of bread to take with him. They were both still eating when they left home.

Steve knew he couldn’t keep up with Miles, ‘Don’t wait for me,’ he told him.

Miles slowed down though he had further to go. ‘No sign of enemy planes yet,’ he said easily.

‘Don’t get too blasé about it.’

They were approaching the ARP post. ‘Bet you’re the first here,’ his son said and he was right. Steve noticed that Miles broke into a jog as he carried on towards the church.

This time, they had a longer than usual warning of the enemy’s approach but it turned out to be the worst night Steve had ever experienced. One minute the wardens were all sitting around waiting and drinking tea, and in the next, bombs seemed to be exploding in the street outside. Steve found himself ducking involuntarily, his heart pounding like an engine. A string of bombs had fallen very close.

The calls for help came almost immediately and never stopped. Before long, he found himself alone in the cellar, all the wardens had been deployed. The only help he could offer then was to call out other services and give advice.

The wardens dribbled back in ones and twos as they dealt with the problems and
Steve sent them on to another call. The all-clear sounded about one in the morning and, heaving a sigh of relief, he put on the kettle to make tea. He had a moment then to wonder how Miles had fared and whether Leonie had been afraid to be on her own in a raid like that. He’d been really scared, feeling the next explosion could not miss the ARP post.

He knew his fellow wardens would not be back until they’d freed the last of those trapped by falling masonry, until the last of the injured were despatched to hospital and the last of those made homeless were found temporary shelter. He sat back to wait for them and sipped his tea, feeling he’d earned a rest.

Twenty minutes later, he was horrified to hear the warning wailing out again and within minutes it sounded as though all hell had broken loose. The phone never stopped ringing and people came banging on his door seeking help and first aid for others. Before long, he lost the electricity supply, but that was not uncommon. He lit the hurricane lamp and carried on handing out their store of spades, stretchers and other equipment. The phone went dead half an hour later but still the bombs rained down.

It was almost five o’clock when the all-clear sounded again and Steve was exhausted. He knew by then that just a hundred or so yards away on the border of Rock Ferry, the corner of Jubilee Street and Nelson Street had received a string of bombs early in the night.

The damage was extensive and there had been a considerable number of injuries as well as loss of life. Nelson Street had a row of suburban shops, the sort where the owner lived in the flat above. Jubilee Street jutted
at right angles from it and consisted of two facing terraces of moderately sized Victorian parlour houses. All had cellars beneath them that were being used as air-raid shelters.

Steve had redirected exhausted civil defence workers to go there. He’d repeatedly heard ambulance sirens zoning in on it. Now he perfunctorily cleared up the ARP post and went to see the area for himself on his way home.

Milo had spent that same night feeling half paralysed with horror on the top of the church tower. It was a cold, frosty, moonlit night and he could see the parish laid out below almost as clearly as in daylight. Even worse, the Mersey glittered in the silver light, confirming to the Luftwaffe navigators that they were on target.

Above him, Milo could hear the throbbing engines of enemy planes; the sound was quite different from their own. He shivered, it was scary to think of being so close with nothing but a few barrage balloons in between. He could pick out the roof of his own home.

The Germans would be able to see the church and its tower; perhaps they could even see him. Having grown up in this area he didn’t need to consult the street maps laid out below in the bell room.

When the bombs started to rain down, the deafening noise made him jerk with shock, and the huge flashes of light when they hit the ground and exploded half blinded him. He was frightened for the Jenkins family who he knew lived close by. The bombs had fallen close together which increased the danger of a fire. He half crouched behind the stone coping, trying to see in every
direction, afraid he might miss a fire if he lifted his gaze from the ground. It was his job to watch for an outbreak and alert the local fire station, so they could reach it as soon as possible. The problem was the night was alive with explosions and flashes of light. He could hear masonry crashing to the ground but could see no fire.

Then, in the Birkenhead docks, he saw flames. A warehouse perhaps? He was reaching for the fixed line that connected him to the fire station when he saw a shower of incendiary bombs descending into the flames. An instant later an incandescent fireball burst into the sky, but he was already talking to a fire officer at the station. The docks were a raging inferno in minutes. Horrified, he watched a barrage balloon catch fire and drift lower over the town. He had to concentrate hard to decide where it would come down, and there were other fires taking hold.

Milo was kept on his toes until the all-clear came at one o’clock. He stayed for ten more minutes, reporting on where the flames appeared brightest and still growing and where fires he’d reported earlier were dying back.

There was still plenty of activity down at ground level. The church hall was open and being used as a temporary shelter for those made homeless. A WVS van was stationed outside providing hot tea and sandwiches for both workers and victims.

Milo warmed his hands on a welcome mug of tea and felt an overpowering sense of relief that it was all over for the time being. He felt very tired, but too tense and strung up to think of sleep. He was worried about his friends, for all he knew, Floris Jenkins could have been alone in the house when those bombs had fallen close by. He set off to see if she
needed help, when suddenly the air-raid siren was once again blaring its warning through the streets.

M
ILO SWORE UNDER HIS BREATH
, but there was nothing else he could do but turn and run back
to the church. Before he’d reached the top of the tower the bombs were falling again. This time the bombardment went on hour after hour until he was totally exhausted and his eyes were smarting. By the time somebody came to relieve him, there was a pall of black smoke over the docks and it was drifting across the streets.

Milo almost felt his way down the steep stairs and as he stumbled outside, the all-clear went again. The crowd round the church had grown, the church hall was almost full to capacity and there were others busy dealing with the problems.

He felt he couldn’t cope with much more, he needed sleep above everything else, but he decided to deviate from his route home to see if the Jenkins family was all right.

He’d been giving Henry Jenkins’ advice about choosing a job a good deal of thought and he’d decided he would like to work in the drawing office at Laird’s, and if possible learn to be a ship’s architect.

He was relieved to find the Jenkins’ house in Connaught Street in total darkness and so far as he could see in the blackout it was undamaged. He assumed the family had not been harmed
though the noise at the top of the road would have kept them awake in their cellar. He could hear it now.

He was appalled when he turned the corner into Nelson Street. Rescue work was being carried out with dimmed hurricane lamps and torches. It was still too dark to see clearly but the sky was getting lighter in the east, and reaching up against it were outlined bare black spars of roof timbers. Of the row of eight shops along Nelson Street stretching from Connaught Street to Jubilee Street, six had been reduced to a bank of rubble. The two nearest him had walls still standing but had lost most of their roofs and windows.

Numerous civil defence workers were gathered here, as well as police officers and a lot of civilians who were desperately digging in the rubble, some using their bare hands. He felt so sorry for the people who’d lived here, they had lost both their homes and their businesses.

‘Round here we all use our cellars as air-raid shelters,’ an old man standing next to him volunteered. ‘They’ve got ten people out alive so far, but also fourteen dead.’

Milo recoiled with horror. ‘There could be more?’

‘Probably will be. They’re working along the row, trying to be methodical, but they had to stop because they came across an unexploded bomb and had to wait for the bomb disposal team to come and make it safe. You should see Jubilee Street, a lot of houses have gone there but they’ve got everybody out now.’

An ambulance was standing by and a WVS van was dispensing hot drinks. A mug was put into Milo’s hand. It was a comfort to sip hot tea.

‘Here, have some chocolate to go with that.’ The old man picked up
a twopenny bar with its wrapper soiled but still complete. ‘They won’t be able to sell it now, will they?’ There was broken glass and sweets strewn everywhere, and those that were wrapped were being picked up and eaten. Milo knew the end shop had been a newsagent and tobacconist’s and the one next to it a greengrocers. He was crunching potatoes and carrots under his feet.

Milo had seen the notice many times,
If found guilty, the penalty for looting is death
. It seemed very harsh, particularly now when it was beginning to rain and if these scarce sweets were soaked they’d be wasted. Milo bit into the chocolate bar, he was hungry.

The old man next to him was doing the same. ‘They tell us that a cellar is the safest place, but are they right? The residents here won’t believe that in future, not now they’ve had their whole building collapse on top of them.’ A few more slates slid to the ground and shattered. ‘It’s not safe now.’

Milo suddenly remembered that his mother had spent the night alone in their cellar, unless Pa had been relieved and sent home earlier. ‘I’ll have to go . . .’

A small cheer went up from the crowd digging into the greengrocer’s cellar on the other side of the road. ‘Good, they’ve found somebody else alive,’ the old man said.

An ambulance man was running back to his vehicle to bring out a stretcher but there was a cry of warning from the diggers as one wall of the cellar began to collapse and they had to leap out of the way.

‘Nothing’s safe here,’ Milo gasped. His eye was caught by a couple of police officers cordoning off the sweet and tobacconist’s shop on the corner, and he found himself staring at his father.

It had to be Pa. Even in this
half-light he’d recognise his uneven gait. He was leaning on his walking stick and listening to a woman nursing a baby on one arm. She was imploring Pa to do something and struggling to control a toddler with her free hand. Milo crossed the road, pushing through the crowd towards him.

‘You can’t go inside,’ the police officer was telling Pa when he reached him. ‘This building is likely to collapse at any moment.’

The woman screamed, ‘My lads are inside.’