Doodlebug Summer (6 page)

‘He was a very good boy,' the nurse says. ‘And your dad's here – they phoned from Reception to say he's on his way up.'

Ian and I both turn to look at the doors at the end of the corridor – and, like magic, they swing open and Dad comes though.

Ian gets off his chair and starts towards him, and Dad picks him up as if he was a toddler again, hoisting him carefully to his shoulder and holding him tight. I go to join them.

Dad gently puts a strand of hair back from my face. ‘Well, Katie,' he says. ‘We're all still here. That's the main thing, isn't it.'

I just nod. It's so good to feel his arm round me.

A year's gone by. Pauline and I are sitting on the grass on the common, eating apples. They're from a tree in our garden that bloomed again this spring. I go back there to look at the garden sometimes, though I didn't at first. The house is getting rebuilt, but it won't be ready for months yet. We're in a bungalow on Park Road for now. It's a bit crowded, but it's good for Mum because there aren't any stairs. She gets around OK, but her hip still hurts sometimes.

It's warm and sunny, but this is the beginning of September. We start school again next week.

‘How's your gran?' I ask.

‘OK,' says Pauline. ‘She likes it in the home. We didn't think she would, but she says she enjoys the company.'

The war is over now. It ended a couple of months ago. Mum and Dad and Ian and I went to London to see the celebrations. Such a lot of light! All the street lamps were on and the shop windows were lit up, and two searchlights made the form of a V for Victory in the sky. It was funny to see them perfectly still like that, not moving about in search of planes. There were masses of fireworks. Ian was scared at first, and Dad didn't like them much, either, but we found a doorway where rocket sticks couldn't fall on our heads, and watched from there. I've never seen such crowds. As we got near Trafalgar Square, I thought I was going to be squashed flat. Ian was all right, he was on Dad's shoulders.

‘We had a letter from Dad yesterday,' Pauline says as if she'd picked up my thoughts. ‘He's got his Demob papers – he'll be coming home next month.'

‘That's terrific.'

‘Great, isn't it.' She's smiling all over her freckled face. ‘Mum asked at the garage, and they said he can have his job back. There'll be a lot more cars about soon, because the factories will start making them again.'

The sun filters through the leaves above us. I lie back, munching the last of my apple. I can't say this to Pauline, but I kind of miss the war. Knowing there's no danger any more makes everything seem a bit flat. The biggest thing in our lives has disappeared, and nothing else has taken its place. Peace hasn't made any real difference yet, except the fighting's stopped. Food is still rationed and the shops are still empty. I don't mean I'm wishing for people to be killed and houses destroyed and little kids hurt – of course not. But there was a kind of dreadful excitement about wartime, and that's gone.

The thought of it makes me feel restless.

‘Shall we go and look at our tree?' I suggest. I don't know if Pauline will agree. We're nearly grown-up now, perhaps we don't climb trees any more. But she's scrambling to her feet.

‘Yeah, let's,' she says.

The tree is standing there, the same as ever. Its leaves are starting to turn yellow in the late summer sunshine, and its trunk is smooth and grey. I look up at the place above me where the big branch grows out sideways, and think of sitting there with my feet dangling in the air.

‘Go on,' says Pauline.

So I pull myself up to the easy place where the trunk divides, and feel the solid strength of the tree under my hands. The climb is the same as ever – I think I could do it blindfold. The bark has its resin-sharp smell, the leaves flicker in the sun. Pauline has settled in her usual place – looking down, I can see her red hair.

There is nothing in the sky above us except the swooping, twittering swallows. They're restless, too. They're always like that at this time of year, starting to think about the long journey ahead of them.

I hope they'll be safe.

Air raid
A form of attack where bombs are dropped from aircraft onto enemy towns.

Anderson shelter
A small arch of corrugated steel designed to be partly buried in people's gardens to act as a shelter during air raids.

Anti-aircraft guns
Guns positioned on the ground used to target enemy aircraft.

Barrage balloons
Huge balloons designed to defend towns, cities and key targets from air attack. The balloons were secured with steel cables and used to deter low-flying enemy planes.

Blackout curtains
Thick, heavy curtains intended to stop house lights from attracting the attention of enemy pilots during an air raid.

Coal hod
A container used to carry coal.

Debris
The remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up.

Demob (Demobilisation)
The release of soldiers from military service.

Doodlebug
A name for the V-1 bomb.

Encampment
A temporary camp built by an army for soldiers to live in.

Foreman
A person who gives orders to workers.

Frontier
The border around a country.

Gabardine
Tightly woven material usually used for outdoor clothing.

Hurricane lamp
An oil lamp with a glass covering to prevent the flame from being blown out.

Iodine
An antiseptic used on a wound to stop bacteria from spreading.

Lino (Linoleum)
A plastic-like floor covering.

Masonry
Building materials made from stone, brick or concrete.

Morrison shelter
An air-raid shelter made up of a metal table with wire mesh sides designed to be used indoors.

Munitions
Military equipment and supplies.

Rationing
Limiting the amount of food given to people when food is scarce.

Scullery
A small room next to the kitchen where pots and pans are scrubbed and stored.

Shrapnel
Fragments of metal that fly off a bomb when it explodes.

Spar
An iron or wooden pole or rod.

Swastika
The shape used as the symbol of Nazi Germany.

Timber
Wood cut and prepared for use as building material.

V-1
A bomb invented by the Germans in World War II that had wings and flew on its own: used especially to attack London.

V-2
A rocket-powered missile invented by the Germans in World War II: used especially to attack London.

Between September 1940 and May 1941, London and the surrounding areas experienced almost nightly bomb raids from German planes. This was known as the ‘Blitz' – short for the German word
Blitzkrieg
, meaning ‘lightning war'. During these nine months over a million houses were damaged or destroyed and one in six Londoners were made homeless. People's daily routines and ways of life were changed completely, although in a sense they were replaced by another routine; one of blackouts, fire watching, air-raid sirens and nights spent in shelters.

The government provided households with Anderson shelters to dig into their gardens. These were made from an arch of corrugated steel, which was then covered in a thick layer of earth for protection. People would often plant vegetables on top, as food was rationed. Although Londoners were supposed to sleep in the shelters every night,
some people preferred to risk staying in their homes. The shelters were cold, cramped and dark, and they often flooded.

After a particularly devastating raid on London on the night of 10th May 1941 there was a lull from the nightly drone of the bombers. For nearly three years there was almost no bombing at all. To some degree, life went back to normal, and people could return to sleeping in their homes at night. However, this wasn't to last.

In the summer of 1944 a new kind of bomb started hitting the capital. The V-1 was the first of Hitler's secret weapons that he promised would win Germany the war. The V stood for
Vergeltungswaffe
, the German word for ‘revenge weapon'. However Londoners soon came up with a name of their own: the ‘buzz bomb' or ‘doodlebug', after the characteristic insect-like buzzing sound of its engine.

The V-1 was like nothing that had come before and was capable of bombing targets at very long distances. It was basically a small, pilotless aircraft, with no navigational system. The doodlebug was
simply launched in the direction of its target from a makeshift ramp. It would fly until its engine ran out of fuel; then come crashing down to earth, exploding as it hit the ground. Although the noise of the doodlebugs flying overhead was bad enough, what people dreaded most was the noise of an engine cutting out. When this happened you knew you were in trouble. All you could do was dive for cover and hope the rocket would glide for a bit before it fell.

As the V-1s were launched in the daytime, when many people were on the streets, they caused large numbers of casualties. Around 100 of the bombs were launched towards London every day from sites on the French and the Dutch coasts. Around half of these reached Greater London, whilst others fell over the south east of England.

There were ways of stopping the bombs, but any action had to be taken before the V-1s reached London and away from populated areas. Fighter pilots learned new tricks to destroy the bombs; they found that they could fly alongside the weapon and tip over one of its wings so that it was knocked
off course. A combination of RAF aircraft, barrage balloons and anti-aircraft guns succeeded in bringing down nearly two-fifths of V-1s. However London was soon to face an even more terrifying weapon – one that came without warning and could not be defended against.

When the first V-2 rocket made its attack on September 8 1944, the explosion could be heard throughout London. The strange new explosions continued over the weeks to follow. At first no one really knew what had caused the blasts and officials told the public that the incidents were gas mains explosions.

It gradually became apparent that this was a new secret weapon. A rocket that flew faster than the speed of sound and was pretty much invisible after it had been fired. The first people on the ground knew of the V-2 was when it exploded. Because of this, the V-2 inspired even more terror than previous weapons. At least with the doodlebug people had a chance to take shelter under a table or in a doorway. Many Londoners confessed they were much more
scared of the V-2 attacks than they had been when bombs were raining down on them during the Blitz.

The destruction of central London was so severe that the government decided to use false information to get the Germans to change their target. The government made the Germans think that it had moved its headquarters to the south east of London to escape the V-2 attacks. This tactic had some success; the Germans started to concentrate their attacks on this new area and central London received far fewer hits.

The V-2 attacks only came to an end as the Allies advanced across western Europe and took over the launch sites. Although the V-2 rocket did not win the war for Hitler, it was the most sophisticated weapon of World War II and is the forerunner of modern-day missiles.

The year is 1938 and the world is poised on the brink of war…

Germany is a dangerous place for Jews. Clara and her little brother, Maxi, must leave behind everything they know and go to England to live with a family they have never met.

ISBN 0-7136-7454-7    £4.99