Far From Home (16 page)

She hurried indoors, the two young women following closely as she made a swift check on the basement before running up the stone steps to the kitchen. Everything was as she’d left it, although there seemed to be a lot of dust about. She was about to turn the taps to see if there was any water when she heard Polly calling her.

‘Peggy. You’d better come and look at this.’

She experienced a sharp, icy jab of fear as she forced one foot in front of the other and went into the hall. With a gasp of distress, she realised Beach View had not escaped the bombardment.

The front door had been blown off its hinges and now lay in a shattered, splintered wreck amongst the glass that littered the hall floor and the stair carpet. The door knocker sat in solitary splendour on the overturned hall chair. ‘Go up and see what the damage is on the other floors,’ she said through a throat tight with tears.

She was hardly aware of their pounding footsteps on the stairs as she carefully made her way across the glass and splintered wood to the dining room. The window had suffered the same fate, the glass glistening on the rug and in jagged icicles from what was left of the frames and the white tape.

She felt the tears well as she saw how her lovely curtains had been ripped to filthy shreds and, as she slowly took in the rest of the room, she realised there had been a prodigious fall of soot from the chimney, and everything was covered in its black dust. It would take a month of Sundays to clean up, and right this minute she didn’t have the energy to think, let alone roll up her sleeves and get on with it.

Wandering back into the hall she met Polly coming down the stairs. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’

Polly took her hand. ‘Nothing so bad it can’t be mended or swept up,’ she said with a wan smile. ‘Our window and the one above us has been smashed, and it’s very dusty up there, but the other rooms seem to have escaped any damage.’ She gave Peggy’s fingers a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll help clean up as best I can before I have to be at the hospital.’

Peggy swallowed her tears and carefully negotiated the debris in the hall before slowly making her way down the front steps to the pavement.

Beach View Terrace had survived, but the lovely old houses were looking the worse for wear in the hazy light made ochre by distant fires. Curtains hung limply in shattered windows, front doors bore the scars of shrapnel and flying debris, garden walls had crumbled in places, the flints and mortar strewn across the cracked and uneven pavements.

As Peggy slowly walked to the end of the street and looked down towards the sea, she understood why the ruinous blast had touched them all. For halfway down the hill was a vast, smoking crater where there had once been a road lined with boarding houses, private apartments and small hotels. She stilled and stared in dumb disbelief. The buildings that had stood at the end of their side streets for decades had been blown to smithereens.

‘Dear God,’ she whispered as she covered her mouth with trembling fingers. ‘No one could have survived that.’

‘Come away, Peggy. Let the firemen and wardens do their job.’

But Peggy resisted Polly’s gentle tug on her arm, for she couldn’t take her eyes from the knots of shell-shocked people who stood about in helpless confusion as the warden took a roll-call against his long list of residents, the firemen hosed down the smoking rubble, and a team of men risked their lives to search the still smouldering wreckage for survivors. Were Jim and Ron amongst them? Or were they doing the same thing on the other side of town?

She looked down Camden Road, which seemed to be reasonably unscathed, but noted the clouds of smoke coming from the far end which was closer to the town centre, and the unmistakeable glow of a distant fire. The town had taken a beating and they’d been lucky to come out of it alive. But where was Cissy – where were the three young nurses, and Ron and Jim? Had they escaped?

Her pulse raced as a sturdy figure in a filthy khaki uniform appeared through the smoke, a large dog at his side. She would have recognised them anywhere, and she began to breathe more easily, determined to believe that everyone from Beach View had got through the raid unhurt.

With thudding heart and dry mouth, she watched Ron order Harvey to begin his search. Harvey was clearly relishing his work, for his tail was wagging like a metronome as he kept his nose close to the rubble and traced and retraced his steps until he came to a halt with a bark. He began to dig frantically, and in an instant many willing hands helped him.

A shout went up, and more frantic digging ensued until someone was lifted out and gently placed on the ground. Eight more people were slowly and painstakingly brought up from the cellar of the shattered house as Harvey continued to wag his tail and bark his approval.

‘I’d better go and see if I can do anything,’ said Polly.

‘I will come with you.’ Danuta had changed into her drab brown dress, ready for work, and Polly would have protested if it hadn’t been for the determined glint in the other girl’s eyes.

Peggy watched them hurry down the hill. There was no sign of an ambulance yet – no doubt they were busy somewhere else – and it looked as if the voluntary services were stretched to the limit. The rescue team had moved to the other side of the crater now, and Harvey was once again trawling the rubble with his delicate nose.

Knowing she could do little to actually help, but still fretting over Cissy and the others, she hurried back to Beach View Terrace. After gently waking Mrs Finch and getting her installed buttering bread at the kitchen table, she went to check on her neighbours.

Most of the houses had suffered similar damage, but some of the women were finding it harder to cope than others, so she rounded them up and brought them back to her kitchen to help prepare tea and sandwiches for the rescue teams.

There was comfort in doing ordinary, everyday things, she realised, even if the downstairs was covered in soot and there wasn’t a window left to speak of. People would still want tea and something to eat, and it helped to focus the mind on something other than one’s own fears and misfortune.

* * *

Polly quickly assessed the injuries. There was a man with a head wound that looked worse than it was, a young woman with what could turn out to be a broken wrist, and an elderly woman who seemed unscathed but was shaking with shock. She was about to ask the warden for his first aid box when Danuta beat her to it.

‘You have medical box?’ Danuta demanded.

The man nodded but hesitated before handing it over. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ he asked.

‘I will need all boxes,’ she commanded, snatching it from him. ‘And water to clean wounds. If you have tea in that flask, give it to that woman. She is in shock.’

Polly smiled. Danuta certainly didn’t stand any nonsense. She turned her attention back to the elderly woman, who couldn’t seem to stop crying. Having gratefully accepted a cup of the warden’s tea for her, she carefully guided her over the rubble and sat her down on the remnants of a low wall, some distance from the still-smoking crater.

She glanced across at Danuta, who was swiftly and expertly cleaning the man’s head wound and bandaging it before moving on to the young woman with the suspected fractured wrist. As Polly watched, Danuta gently examined the wrist and swiftly made a sling for it before checking over the cuts and bruises the girl had sustained. It was clear Danuta knew what she was doing, and Polly could fully understand how frustrated the girl must be to have to work in the laundry when her undoubted skills were so sorely needed elsewhere.

There were surprisingly few injuries considering they’d been buried under a four-storey house, and even after Harvey had found another few survivors, it was clear that most of them wouldn’t need an ambulance. These lost souls stood about clinging to their loved ones as they stared in disbelief at the ruins of their homes and wondered what was to become of them now they’d lost everything.

Danuta was applying plasters and ointment to cuts and scrapes, so Polly remained with the elderly woman who was still trembling in her arms despite the hot, sweet tea. The lady flinched as she felt a damp nudge on her arm and looked down.

‘Hello,’ she said, and grinned as she ruffled his head. The furry face seemed to grin back at her, the brown eyes gleaming with intelligence and fun below the shaggy brows as he licked the old woman’s outstretched hand. ‘Who’s a clever boy, then? Quite the hero of the hour, aren’t you?’

‘His name’s Harvey, sure it is. And indeed he is a hero.’

Polly looked up at the square-built, sturdy man whose Home Guard uniform was covered in dust, soot and grime. ‘You must be Mr Reilly,’ she said. ‘Peggy told me about you and Harvey.’

‘Did she now?’ His blue eyes twinkled in the weather-beaten face as he straightened his tin helmet. ‘And who might you be, young lady?’

‘Polly Brown.’ She shook his filthy hand.

‘You decided to turn up then,’ he said round the stem of his pipe. ‘How are ye enjoying your stay at the seaside?’

‘It’s been eventful,’ replied Polly dryly. A sudden movement caught her eye, and she looked across the crater to what remained of the pavement on the other side.

Danuta was on her knees, swiftly rolling a man on to his side and checking his airway. He was in the throes of a fit, his legs and arms thrashing in the rubble as his back arched and his neck stretched.

Polly half-rose from the low wall, ready to assist, for this was a most unusual way to treat someone having a fit, and she was concerned the man might choke. But it was clear they did things differently in Poland, and Danuta seemed to have everything under control. Polly watched thoughtfully as the Polish girl grabbed a wooden tongue depressor from the medical box and wedged it firmly in his mouth before shouting for a blanket. She was holding tightly to the man in an attempt to stop him doing more injury to himself, and when the blanket was handed to her, she quickly wrapped him tightly in it and continued to hold him close, and on his side.

‘She’s a clever wee lass, that one,’ muttered Ron as he sucked on his smoking pipe. ‘Sure, and ’tis a shame she can’t do her proper job.’

‘Yes,’ Polly muttered, her thoughts whirling. ‘But perhaps Matron will change her mind once she realises just how good she is.’

‘’Tis no easy matter,’ murmured Ron. ‘The wee girl has no papers to prove she can do the job, and that Matron’s not for bending, so she’s not.’

Peggy arrived with three other women, each laden with tin trays of tea and sandwiches. ‘Have you seen Jim?’ she asked Ron.

‘Aye. He’s in the town, helping to clear the road. Barclays Bank took a direct hit and brought down the last of the Woolworths building with it. It’s chaos down there, with burst water mains and gas pipes. I’ll be drinking this and going to help. They need every pair of hands they can get.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Cissy, or any of the other girls?’

He shook his head, drained his tea and stuck his pipe back into his mouth. ‘They’ll turn up,’ he said, patting her shoulder.

‘I’m sure they will, but …’

‘Now, Peggy,’ he said gruffly, ‘don’t you be fretting, girl. For all the noise and hullabaloo the damage was minimal, and I know for a fact that the Apollo Theatre is still standing. They’ll be fine, so they will.’ He put the empty mug back on the tray and took a fish paste sandwich from the plate which he fed to Harvey. ‘I think you’ve earned that, you old so-and-so. Come on. We’ve no time to be sitting on our laurels, there’s work to do yet.’

‘Oh dear,’ sighed Peggy. ‘And to think we all tried to persuade Ron to have Harvey put down at the beginning of the war because we thought it would be kinder than letting him suffer.’

‘He doesn’t look as if he’s suffering at all,’ laughed Polly. ‘In fact, I think the pair of them are lapping up all the attention.’

Peggy laughed and was about to reply when she was interrupted by the sound of an approaching ambulance. It came to a halt at the end of the street, and the driver and his assistant clambered down. Peggy and Polly could hear the brief conversation between Danuta and the driver.

‘This man have epileptic fit. Is over now, but will need to be seen by doctor to make sure no wound to the head.’ She helped roll the inert figure on to a stretcher, and watched as he was loaded on board the ambulance before beckoning to her two other patients. ‘You will also take man with head injury, and woman with fractured wrist.’

‘We ain’t got no room for no more,’ the driver said sullenly.

‘You have plenty room.’ Danuta moved to the front of the ambulance, arms folded, expression stony. ‘I not move until you agree.’

‘We ain’t allowed to take more’n one patient at a time. It’s the rules,’ he said obdurately. ‘You can stand there all day, but I ain’t breaking the rules.’

‘Then it’s time the rules are changed,’ she retorted. ‘Get into ambulance,’ she ordered the man and woman who were hovering uncertainly by the back doors.

‘’Ere, you ain’t got no cause to be ordering us about,’ protested the assistant.

‘I am nurse. You will do as I say in the interest of my patients.’

The two bandaged casualties looked from her to the driver and his assistant, and then back to each other. Wordlessly, they climbed into the back and sat on the floor.

Danuta pushed past the driver, slammed the doors and turned to glare at him, arm outstretched, finger pointing towards Camden Road and the hospital. ‘Go,’ she said in a tone that brooked no argument.