Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (50 page)

‘That’s my house!’ she screamed at him. ‘Have you got anyone out yet?’

He took her by the shoulders, pulling her away from the pile of rubble where two more of the rescue crew were tossing brick after brick over their shoulders in an attempt to uncover what was beneath.

‘Not yet, love, but you’re best to leave us to it…’

‘No!’ She shoved him away and ran to the side that would have been Flo’s house, if it had still been standing. It was breakfast time and Dad and Peggy would have been in the back kitchen.

She called to the crew standing on the mound of debris. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place! Here, here’s where they’ll be!’

And getting on her hands and knees, she tore at bricks and hauled out bits of a splintered window frame. Coming across her mother’s pewter soup ladle, tossing aside a saucepan, and digging her hands into a packet of flour, she was dimly aware of the crew joining her and she heard one man say, ‘Leave her be, she knows where they are. Get the crane over here.’

She tore fingertips and fingernails, throwing the broken remnants of their home behind her like some tunnelling mole, until finally her fingers touched warmth, soft flesh instead of hard brick. She felt along the yielding shape, an arm, a shoulder. Then gently brushing away a thick covering of ashes, she revealed a face. Lashes, powdered with white dust, flickered and eyelids opened. Cloudy eyes searched her face and bloody lips parted.

‘Who’s that? I can’t see you.’ The voice was cracked and each word pronounced with great effort.

‘It’s me, Dad, May.’

He attempted a smile. ‘Is it my May? I never expected you home…’

And cupping his battered face in her torn hands, she said, ‘Where else would I be, Dad? What sort of bird am I?’

June–October 1944

The sound was annoying, a persistent drip, drip, drip. Dad really should have got round to fixing that blasted tap by now. It had been dripping like that ever since the awful Christmas in 1941. He didn’t need a bloody repair crew for a tap, that was for sure. She’d better get up, but she was so tired. Some people complained about treble shifts, but she preferred it – night times were the worst. What was the point of staying awake all night tormenting herself, thinking about Harry? So she’d volunteered for another all-nighter at the factory. Thank God for Nell Gilbie, but the poor woman needed a respite. She ought to collect the baby, but oh, she was tired. Just another five minutes. No, sod it, she couldn’t lie in this bed a moment longer. She tried to open her eyes, but they were stuck fast, heavy as lead. She pulled her slumbering consciousness to the surface, only to have it sink back again. The bed was so warm, so wet… Don’t be stupid, Peggy. Now with a monumental effort, as though she were lifting a ton weight, she opened her eyes. Blackness surrounded her, not a chink of light sneaking in through the blackout curtains. That’s having an ARP for a dad. She blinked and went to throw off the covers, but they were wet. The dripping of the tap resolved itself into a pulse. How strange, it was dripping in time with her heartbeat, and she could even feel her heart, throbbing against the eiderdown. But the cover was heavy, pushing down on her chest, compelling a sleep she never wanted to leave. She clenched and then unclenched her fist, feeling it wet and sticky, and from her fingertips came a steady drip, drip in time with the tap. And only now did she understand. It wasn’t water at all, it was her own lifeblood, drop by drop, draining away. And it wasn’t her quilt cover pressing against her heart, but a wooden board. The table? Yes, she hadn’t been in bed at all, she’d been sitting at the kitchen table, pouring tea for Dad.

Had she left the gas on? It smelled like it. She’d better get up and check, but she couldn’t move, not a muscle. And then she remembered what had happened and a scream ripped from Peggy’s throat.

*

It was a muffled, strangulated cry, rising in strength and pitch, till it tore through May’s heart.

‘Over here!’ she called to the nearest crewmember. ‘I’ve found my dad!’

She stood up, and while two of the crew set about uncovering her father she scrambled to the place where she’d heard the scream. It was a small mountain. Almost the whole side wall had tumbled into a cone on top of where the kitchen had been. She pulled aside another crewman. ‘I think my sister’s under this lot.’

The man wiped grit from his eyes and rubbed his blackened face. He pointed to Flo’s old cast-iron fire surround, which was perched on top of the mound, and then the great beams which had been acting as props to keep the side wall up. ‘This lot’ll take some shifting. Hang on, love. Swing that crane over here!’ he shouted, then scrambled back over the brick and stone-strewn ruin to direct the driver.

But she couldn’t wait. She heaved at the fire surround. It moved an inch. ‘Hang on, Peggy, I’m coming!’ she screamed at the ruined stones of what had once been her home. ‘Stay with me, Peggy! I’m here!’

Tears were blinding her as she strained at the black lead grate, then bracing her feet against the massive beam, she inched the fireplace down the slope, pausing only to brush the stinging tears away. With the grate out of the way, she began scrabbling at the hundreds of red bricks, shoving and tossing them till she had the beginnings of a tunnel. She was aware of more crewmen surrounding her and the crane being lowered, hooked around the beam, lifted up. But as the beam rose into the air, a pile of bricks trickled down like sand in a giant hourglass and another scream tore up from beneath her feet. May darted forward.

‘No! Come away, love, you can’t do any more here and your dad needs you,’ the crewman said. ‘Let the crane do the work here, eh?’

*

A light was making its way through the blackout curtains. ‘Put that light out!’ her dad would have said. They weren’t curtains, Peggy knew that. But she had no words to describe them, hard, cold, crushing. Curtains of stone, brick and cement, they were letting in chinks of light. The dark was better. In the dark, she could cease to struggle. It was almost soothing to listen to the steady dripping of her lifeblood. There was no breaking out of this cocoon anyway; she had tried before. George had kept her bound and straitjacketed, just like this, and she’d thought to escape once, but no, it was useless. She closed her eyes and drifted back into the darkness.

‘Peggy, stay with me! I’m here!’ A voice woke her; she knew that voice.

‘Harry!’ She opened her eyes to the light and it blossomed out like a flower, petal by petal of radiance, and gazing from its luminous centre, a pair of bright eyes. Startling blue, just like Harry’s. Then he was walking towards her, looking healthy and bronzed from the African sun, smiling, laughing, as if surprised to see her. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be at home, with our Pearl and Jack?’

‘I know, I just wanted to see you before I go and fetch them. Will you be here when I get back?’ she asked, and he took her by the shoulders, kissing her tenderly. ‘I’m always here, Peggy.’

*

May stumbled to one side, her hands clasped in unconscious prayer, looking round to see the two crewmen easing her father out and lowering him on to the stretcher. She ran to him and grasped his hand. ‘You’ll be all right now, Dad.’ And she felt a feeble squeeze from him in response. His eyes fluttered open. ‘Peggy – is she all right?’

‘Yes… she’s fine, Dad.’

‘Thank God. And what about me roof, is me new roof all right?’

‘Yes, Dad, the roof’s fine.’

‘That’s all right then. So long as you’ve all got a roof over your heads.’

Speaking seemed to exhaust him and he fell back on the stretcher. But as he was being put into the ambulance, he lifted his head again.

‘I’m so proud of you, my little homing pigeon… the further you fly…’

But the driver had slammed the ambulance door and she never heard the rest.

‘We’ll take him to St Olave’s, love,’ the driver said, before speeding off.

She watched the ambulance weave its way, siren blaring, towards Jamaica Road and then she turned back to the house. She hadn’t lied. The roof was miraculously intact. It was just everything else that was ruined. The crane lifted beams and copings, the kitchen stove, as with agonizing slowness, each heavy obstacle came swinging overhead and the men formed a chain of grim efficiency, excavating, brick by brick, the tunnel to Peggy which May had begun.

‘Gas!’ a crewman shouted. ‘Get all those people out of it!’

A Pioneer brigade sergeant plucked at her arm, pulling her further away from the house. It was only then that she noticed her grandparents. Babs must have got them through as well. Her grandfather looked ancient, and shrivelled somehow. But Granny Byron stood ramrod straight, two hands clutching her outsized handbag, holding it in front of her like Britannia’s shield. Her feathered hat and black coat were dusted with ash. May went to stand between her grandparents.

‘All right, love?’ her grandmother asked.

‘I don’t know if they can reach her, Nan. She sounded so far away.’

‘They’ll get her out. She’s got no choice but come back.’ The old lady’s stare was unwavering. ‘It’s not her time.’

May prayed her grandmother was right and silently followed every move of the repair crew, trying to interpret each shout or command.

‘D’ye get away from camp all right? Did they give you compassionate?’ Her grandfather’s voice broke her focus.

‘No, Granddad, they wouldn’t give me leave.’

‘You done a runner?’

She gave a brief nod and her grandfather gave a low whistle. ‘Chip off the old block,’ he said, putting his arm round her shoulders.

Just then a shout came from one of the rescue crew. ‘Got her!’

The others gathered round, bending low, some on their knees, hands reaching out to support Peggy as she emerged, soft and vulnerable, from her chrysalis of stone.

*

Babs got them transport to St Olave’s Hospital, where May tried to find news of her father, and after an hour’s wait they were able to get the attention of a harassed-looking nurse. ‘I’ll take you to see him,’ she said, after checking their names. The injured had been brought to a makeshift basement ward, where beds were packed together in rows of three. The nurse led them to a screened-off bed at the end of the ward, and as she pulled aside the curtain, May saw her father, lying quite still.

‘I’m terribly sorry, my dear,’ the nurse said.

‘Oh no! Has he gone?’

‘His injuries were too great, I’m afraid. He died on the way here. I’ll leave you with him.’

May could feel Granny Byron holding her tightly, keeping her upright, leading her towards the bed.

‘I’m sorry, Dad, I should’ve stayed home with you. You never wanted me to go away, did you?’ She fell on to his chest, longing for one last word from him, wishing she had been at home with him and finding no comfort in her grandmother’s words.

‘You couldn’t have done nothing if you’d been here, love. You’d have just been under the rubble with the two of them. He’s at peace now,’ Granny Byron said, and May wanted to shout that there was no peace for either the dead or the living, not while this war dragged on year after year, robbing them of all that was dear, all that made life worth living.

Eventually her grandparents took her arms and between the two of them half-dragged her from the ward.

Peggy had not woken up, they said. The doctor wouldn’t let them see her; they would have to give it time.

As they were returning to her grandparents’ flat, it struck May that her mother didn’t know.

‘What about Mum?’ she asked her grandmother.

‘Grandad’ll telephone the major. You’re not to worry.’

They turned the corner into Dix’s Place and May saw the backs of two MPs disappearing towards the end of the buildings. May was so tired she could barely walk, let alone even think about running.

But her grandfather seemed unfazed. ‘Ne’ mind about them, gel. Your grandmother can deal with the police.’

‘I’ve certainly done it often enough for you, you old villain.’ She kissed May on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry you can’t stay with me tonight, darlin’. But you be brave and I’ll see you tomorrow. He’ll look after you.’

Her grandfather seemed suddenly energized. ‘I might not be much of a grandad, but one thing I’m good at is keeping ten steps ahead of the Old Bill.’

‘You’ve always been good at running and I’ve always been good at hiding, so we should do all right between us, eh, Grandad?’

He rubbed his thin-skinned hands together and said, ‘We’ll have them chasing after their arses for a few days at least. Come on.’

He steered her towards the Harris’s flat. Emmy’s mother took one look at them and swung the door wide open. Once inside, May let her grandfather explain.

‘’Course you can stay here, sweetheart. I’m so sorry to hear about your dad and Peggy. The bloody army, run you ragged and can’t even give you a day off compassionate. I told you and my Emmy not to join up, didn’t I?’

May didn’t have the energy to argue. Her father’s pale, statue-like face was all that she could see, her only consolation his last words, that he had been proud of her.

Before her grandfather left, she asked him to make sure Mrs Gilbie knew what had happened. ‘And ask her if she wouldn’t mind keeping Pearl, just till we know about Peggy. And do you think Mum will come home?’

‘Don’t you get yourself in a two and eight, me and your nan’ll sort all that out. You just get yerself some kip.’

She hadn’t been aware till now of her own injuries, but Mrs Harris insisted on cleaning up her ripped hands. She must have kneeled in glass, for her khaki stockings were caked with blood. Once her wounds were cleaned and bandaged, the woman put her in Emmy’s bed, which she shared with Emmy’s sister. In the night May woke briefly to the comfort of another body close by, though the girl snored worse than her father, making the thin walls tremble, with a noise like a coughing motorcycle – the sound of a doodlebug. As May drifted back to sleep, she heard the four-finned bomb tearing past the bed, a flash of flame spurting from its rear, and she wasn’t sure if she were dreaming or if she’d simply woken to the nightmare of another day of Vengeance weapons.