Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (52 page)

It was easier to think of the small events of his life. And she had helped herself in this at least by memorizing all his small, habitual mannerisms before he left. When he wrote his letters, he might be in a jungle hut, using an ammo box for a desk, but she knew he would be biting the end of his pen while he searched for a word, and though his tea might be served to him out of a bucket by a char wallah, he would still be blowing the surface absent-mindedly to cool it, whatever its temperature.

One of the hardest things was not having him there to talk to about her father. Of course she’d written and told him, but she would have given anything for one strong hug from Bill, to lay her head against his chest and cry for her poor brave father. But only an echo of her grief would ever reach Bill; it was just another of the precious times together that war had stolen from them.

But by now she had surfeited herself on his seventy-six letters and though the last of them had been dated three months earlier, she was content in the knowledge that at least then he’d been alive and well. So when she received more mail at the end of the week she was surprised. But the letter wasn’t from Bill. It was from his father and he was sorry to tell her they’d been informed that Bill had been listed as missing.

October 1944–March 1945

When Peggy had finally left St Olave’s Hospital she’d felt reborn. There was nothing to harm her. She’d seen death and it had Harry’s face; what was there left to fear? Though her mother begged her to go back to Moreton-in-Marsh, at least until her injuries healed, she refused to be chased out by the doodlebugs. But the truth was, she now had nowhere to live in Bermondsey. Dix’s Place was barely big enough for her grandparents and Southwark Park Road had been left nothing but a roof on a shell. Nell Gilbie came to her rescue. Peggy and Pearl could take over her front room, she said, at least until somewhere more permanent could be found. Together, she and Mrs Gilbie had strained to move the woman’s heavy oak table. Fashionable in the previous decade and her pride and joy, it must have contained more wood in its bulbous legs than an entire utility table. Peggy would sleep on the overstuffed sofa and Pearl had a cot bed from the Sally Army.

She was grateful for the temporary refuge, for it gave her the confidence to refuse George when he made another offer to take her back. She was walking the pram along the Blue, when he dodged out from behind the eel seller’s stall. She took in a breath, shocked not only by his presence but also by his appearance. He stood in front of the eel sink, with its grey, wriggling tangle of bodies, and he seemed to be squirming himself.

‘Hello, Peg.’ His pallid face had a sheen of sweat on it, though it was a cold day.

‘Hello, George.’

She tried to push the pram round him, but the crowd on the pavement prevented her. He stepped aside to let her through and began walking beside her. Wondering what he was up to, she was shocked when he blurted out, ‘I’m sorry about your dad and the house… and, well, I think you should come back to me…’ Peggy stopped the pram and looked at him. He licked his lips and wiped the sweat from his face. He looked worse than she’d ever seen him.

‘Is this Grandad’s idea?’

‘No!’ He smiled nervously and dug his hands deep into his overcoat, which she noticed was greasy around the collar. ‘Why would it be his idea?’

She wasn’t fooled. She’d found out what her grandfather had over him. Somehow he’d acquired George’s book, the one listing dates, names and payments received from all those healthy young men who hadn’t fancied fighting for King and country, the ones that George had stood in for at the draft office. It seemed the prospect of having Peggy back under his roof was far more appealing to George than a charge of treason.

‘I just think we should put the past behind us,’ he went on, ‘and let’s face it, Peg, you ain’t got much going for you, not since that feller of your’n died, have you?’

‘You don’t look well, George,’ she said, quickening her steps. He couldn’t keep up with her. His breath came in painful gasps and she couldn’t help herself; she looked back. He was leaning against a wall, taking in a long whistling breath. He’d been cashing in on his own ill health for so long, doing his deal with the devil, that now it seemed punishment was being exacted. His breath was shorter than ever, but the yellow pallor and trembling hands spoke of more than just lung disease and she remembered what May had said about the empty bottles in his flat.

‘George, you need to take better care of yourself – look at you!’

‘Well, I ain’t got you to look after me any more, have I, princess?’

‘I wasn’t happy, George. I didn’t want to be a princess. I just wanted to be me.’

‘I did love you, princ… Peg, it’s just I was too old for you. Probably come down too hard on you. I’ll do it different.’

She shook her head and began walking back towards St James’s Road. ‘You can’t be any different. I know you, George. I appreciate the offer, but I’ve already got somewhere to live.’ She pointed vaguely towards the Gilbie house.

‘I’ll be straight, Peggy. Your granddad
did
suggest it, but it’s not the reason I’m asking you to come back.’

George wasn’t giving up and a familiar panic began to take hold of her. She felt her heart beating, like a butterfly in a web. She was after all virtually homeless, with no income and a child to bring up on her own. But at that moment Pearl woke up and looked at Peggy with Harry’s eyes. It was as if Peggy had woken up herself.

‘Thanks for the offer, George, but it wouldn’t be the best for me or Pearl. But I wish you well, I really do.’

She walked away, feeling the tight band around her heart release. She filled her lungs and took in a deep breath, then leaned forward to tuck Pearl in. ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we, darling?’ she said as her daughter smiled at her, revealing tiny pearls of teeth. She had almost reached the Gilbie house when the klaxon sounded. The spotters on Pearce Duff’s roof had obviously seen a doodlebug. She looked up. Not fifty feet above her and losing height was the terrifying finned shape, shooting flame and roaring. She stopped dead and watched as it passed over, fearing nothing.

*

When the doodlebugs were joined by rockets later that year, Peggy’s fatalism seemed to become universal. People took again to the shelters at night, but during the day the V-2s could not be evaded. There was no prayer or charm that could protect you. Everyone said it either had your name on or it didn’t. Even her sister May admitted that there was no warning system against them, unless the ATS spotters along the coast happened to catch the puff of smoke when they were launched from the French sites. Once the rockets were on their way, heading towards Tower Bridge at thousands of miles per hour, there was not much anybody could do.

After two explosions ripped apart the ill-fated John Bull Arch within a matter of days, everyone agreed it was too much of a coincidence to be put down to gas mains. One after another the two V-2s had ploughed down through the railway line, crushing the old John Bull pub and flattening buildings all along the Blue, and now the government was forced to admit that they were under attack from a new and terrible Vengeance weapon.

The day after the second V-2 destroyed the John Bull Arch, Peggy and Mrs Gilbie stood on the corner of Blue Anchor Lane, looking down the rain-slick street towards the collapsed railway line. The temporary bridge that had been hastily erected after the first attack ten days earlier had been blown clean away.

‘The train tracks look a bit like the roller coaster at Margate, don’t they?’ Peggy said. The whole centre section of the arch had fallen in upon itself, leaving the rails unsupported. They were bent down into a massive twisted loop, almost touching the road. The usual cranes and rescue vehicles were packed into the street, and though men in white tin hats still swarmed over a mound of bricks and timber, the clean-up operation was well under way.

Peggy shivered, thinking of those who’d lost their lives or their homes, and remembered the first bombing of the arch in those early days of the Blitz.

‘That was where your brother Jack died, wasn’t it?’ Mrs Gilbie asked, while she gently jogged four-year-old Jack as he slumbered in the pushchair.

‘He wasn’t sheltering under it. They found him not far away. He used to ignore the warnings all the time. We think it was shrapnel or debris got him. The worst thing was that we didn’t find him for days…’

‘Makes you wonder why some places get hit over and over,’ the woman said.

‘My Granny Byron would tell you it’s fate.’

‘Well, she might be right, love, but it’s my opinion if we’d had a few more proper shelters ready in nineteen-forty, we wouldn’t have been under the arches in the first place, would we? Sometimes you can help out fate a bit, you know.’

‘I’d like to put you and Granny Byron in a room one day, see who comes out on top!’ Peggy smiled, leaning over the big pram to pull up the hood against the rain. Peggy loved Nell Gilbie for her practicality. And she’d had reason to be grateful for it in the past couple of months, during which the Gilbies had made her and Pearl part of their family.

Since these latest attacks, Peggy really could count herself without a home, for their old shell of a house in Southwark Park Road had finally resolved itself into nothing but dust and ashes. The blast from the V-2s that had smashed into the John Bull Arch had brought every unstable building in the area crashing down, and their home had finally succumbed. She doubted that she could even find its position now, not that she wanted to see the sad remains. But she knew she couldn’t impose on the Gilbies’ generosity forever. She would have to find a place, and an income, of her own.

In the end, it was Harry who’d given her the way. One morning, during the same week they’d learned Bill was missing, the Gilbies received another letter. Nell came into the kitchen, holding it almost at arm’s length. Peggy took one glance at the official-looking document and knew what Mrs Gilbie was thinking. It could only be more bad news. Peggy was holding Pearl, and with a tacit understanding the two women had exchanged their burdens. Nell took Pearl into her arms and Peggy took the letter. She’d had enough experience of receiving bad news, but she hadn’t learned how to give it, and her fingers had fumbled opening the envelope. When a cry escaped her lips, Mrs Gilbie had lowered her head, drawing Pearl more tightly into her arms.

‘Our Bill?’ she’d asked in a small voice.

‘No.’ Peggy had shaken her head. ‘It’s about Harry.’

The letter was from a solicitor’s in the City. And Mrs Gilbie had made her read it aloud twice. Did they know the whereabouts of a Mrs Margaret Flint, last known address the Purbrook Estate? They were trying to settle the estate of a Mr Harry Steadman. Letters addressed to Mrs Flint had been returned, not known at this address. But Mr Steadman had made provision for his son, John, known as Jack, and for the Gilbies and Mrs Flint. This was a shock, for Peggy had always assumed Harry wasn’t a wealthy man. Army uniform could be a great leveller. And in fact, it turned out she’d been right, for Harry had very little to leave them – when he’d died. But after death, it seemed, he had saved one final gift for her.

Harry might not have been prosperous, but apparently his family was, and had owned property all over South London. Now, with the death of his remaining uncle, the estate had passed to Harry’s children and to Peggy. She found herself the owner of properties in Dulwich and Camberwell, as well as in Bermondsey.

Over the past weeks the solicitor had helped her sell some, and others she planned to rent out. But on this particular morning she and Mrs Gilbie were going to see the house in Fort Road. It looked the best prospect for what she had in mind but she needed Mrs Gilbie with her, for the plan would involve both of them.

Turning away from the remains of the John Bull Arch, they made their way towards Thorburn Square, cutting through it as the rain came on again, slanting across the churchyard, which looked bare and exposed without its palisade of iron railings. But the lofty old London plane trees still stood like temple columns round its four sides, shielding the church in the centre. Broad red and gold leaves fell wetly about them, sticking to the pram wheels as they approached Fort Road. This part of the street had largely escaped bomb damage and soon they came to the empty terraced house that the solicitor had described. She fished out the key. It seemed strange to be a woman of property and, though undeserved, she intended to make the most of it.

They manoeuvred the prams inside and, with both children fast asleep, were free to explore the place. At the end of a long narrow passage was a kitchen scullery, where a side door led into the garden. Off the passage were two large rooms; the first, with its tall sash window, faced the street. Peggy paced out the floor and looked inside two cupboards built into alcoves on either side of the fireplace.

‘It’s plenty big enough. We could store toys and games in here. What do you think, toddlers in this room?’

Mrs Gilbie nodded. ‘Babies in the back room – it’ll be quieter.’

Peggy’s plan was to use the house not only for her home, but as a nursery for women in war work. The government was still crying out for married women to return to work, but lack of childcare was a major drawback. Most mothers that Peggy knew of would be only too glad of a factory job to supplement their soldier husband’s allowances, but nursery places were scarce. Peggy had spoken to the WVS childcare officer and had been accepted on their register, but she would need help, and Nell Gilbie was ideal. After all she had been taking waifs and strays into her home since she was a young woman.

The smaller back room looked out on to the backyard and had the advantage of being nearer the kitchen.

‘It’s a bit dull in here today with the rain, but on a sunny day it’ll be a nice bright room, I think.’ Peggy stroked the old-fashioned wallpaper with its dark red background and gold curlicues. ‘We could put up some prettier wallpaper and repaint the doors. Why did they always paint everything dark brown and green? Uggh.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘What are you looking at?’ she asked.