Till the Sun Shines Through (34 page)

‘I am speaking to you from the cabinet room of 10 Downing Street. This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now, no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.'

Bridie could hear the keening of women all around her and she felt her own throat tighten and tears sting her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall. She knew it was harder for the older ones, who remembered the carnage of the last war, but if they were to prevail, the women had to be as brave as their husbands, many of whom would be facing the enemy before too long. There was no time for giving way to emotion like that.

She caught Tom's eye and reached for his hand, but they'd barely touched when someone shouted, ‘Look!' They were pointing at the window and Bridie crossed to the door as people spilled into the street. Against the backdrop of a beautiful early autumn day where the sun, like a golden orb, shone down from a Wedgwood blue sky, steel grey barrage balloons were suspended, swaying gently from side to side.

They looked ugly and out of place and struck a chill into many a person's heart. Maybe they were meant to be reassuring, a deterrent to enemy aircraft, but in reality they looked menacing. ‘Oh Tom!' Bridie cried plaintively, her resolve to keep control evaporating immediately.

‘I know, love,' Tom said. ‘But now it's official, Eddie and I will be seeing about enlisting straightaway.'

Bridie always knew what he'd do when war was declared, so why did her body shake and feel as if it were comprised of ice? She wanted to plead with Tom, implore him to think of his family, beg him to wait until he was called up and not to volunteer today. She did neither of these things, for she knew Tom was doing what he felt he must. She drew on all the reserves of courage she had, willed her voice not to shake, and even forced her reluctant lips in the semblance of a smile as she said, ‘Yes, Tom, I know.'

Tom was filled with admiration for Bridie's stoicism and he held her close for a moment, despite all those looking on, and said, ‘You're a grand girl, Bridie Cassidy, that's what you are, a grand girl.'

‘Are you going to be a soldier, Daddy?' Katie asked two mornings later, as she watched Tom pack his clothes into a suitcase.

‘Aye,' Tom said. ‘Uncle Eddie too, if they'll have us both. Will you like me being a soldier, Katie?'

‘I don't know,' Katie said. ‘What does a soldier do?'

‘Well, many things,' Tom explained. ‘I'll have a nice smart uniform that you'll probably like, but what I really have to go and do is try and stop a nasty man doing bad things and that means I'll probably have to go away.'

Katie looked hard at her daddy's kind face with the deep, brown eyes that often sparkled with laughter, and then her eyes moved to the sad face of her mother. She knew she didn't want her daddy to go away and leave them all, not even for a short time, so she told him, ‘I don't want you to be a soldier, Daddy. I want you to stay here with us.'

‘I'd like that too, pet,' Tom said. ‘But I have to go.'

‘Is it to do with those horrible curtains Mammy has on the windows?' Katie said, glaring at them. ‘Mammy said she had to put them up.'

‘Aye, my darling girl,' Tom admitted. ‘It's all to do with this war everyone's talking about.'

‘Then I hate war!' Katie declared.

‘So do most sane thinking people, pet,' Tom said, getting to his feet. ‘But now I must be away for your Uncle Eddie,' and he kissed Katie on the top of her head, then Liam, and lastly he took Bridie in his arms. She willed herself not to cry for the children's sake, but she wanted to hold back time, to keep this moment in Tom's arms, their children beside them, for ever. ‘I'll be back before you know it,' Tom reassured her. ‘I'll only be in training at Cannock Chase.'

But what was he training for, Bridie thought. To kill people and to avoid getting killed. Oh God, if anything should happen to her Tom … But she said none of this and instead gave a brief nod of her head. ‘I know,' she said, her voice husky with the effort of not crying.

‘I have to be away,' Tom said, glancing at the door. ‘They're picking me up at Thorpe Street Barracks at eight.'

‘Go on then,' Bridie said, pulling herself reluctantly out of his embrace. ‘Wouldn't do to be late your first day in the army and I have to get Katie ready for school.'

But Bridie watched Tom through the window until he was out of sight. Already his step was firmer, his back straighter, and she knew he'd make a fine soldier.

Bridie missed Tom more than she ever thought and she wondered how she'd manage weeks and weeks, months and months, before he'd come home again. She was grateful for the photographs Ellen had taken of Tom and Eddie in their uniform because she was afraid Liam would forget his daddy altogether. Each night she propped the photograph up as she helped the children say their prayers and when she wrote to him, as she did every week, she'd tell him about the children, little snippets she'd remembered that they'd done or said. She'd help Liam write kisses on the bottom of the letter, though Katie could do hers unaided. They'd await his reply eagerly – Tom always included a little note for them and asked for a photograph of them, which Ellen and Bridie sent.

He told Bridie the training in Cannock Chase was gruelling and his muscles ached in places he didn't know he even had them. He hadn't realised he was so unfit. Mind, he'd said, army issue boots were not made for running in, not made for much else but crippling the feet, and might be Hitler's secret weapon.

While he was quite keen on the training and the practise with weapons, as he felt it had some purpose, he was bored rigid with constant drill and the emphasis on neatness and presentation. He complained about it to Bridie:

You'd be very impressed if you could see the way I can make a bed now, square corners and so spick and span. I'd be the envy of many a nurse, I bet. It's amazing what you can do when the threat of a boot up your arse hangs before you
.

And your boots and buttons must shine so that the bullying, sadistic Sergeant in charge of us can see his face in them. And what a face, Bridie! God, there's me, a devout Christian man, and yet I have never wanted to punch a man's face as I have that man's
.

If I could see the point of it all, I'd feel better, but I can't. I mean, are the Germans supposed to be terrified of our bed-making skills, or maybe dazzled by our buttons, or awed by our marching hour upon hour, hoisting guns upon shoulders, and never firing a shot? I hardly think so
.

I'm glad I have Eddie beside me. At least we can laugh it all off together. The men here are a grand bunch and we get along with them fine, and we'll make a good team when the time comes
.

Bridie hoped Tom was right about the good team. She imagined if she'd been in the same position she'd value someone she could trust beside her. But despite that, she hoped Tom had weeks, maybe months, of training ahead of him before he would be considered capable to face the German forces who'd so far conquered all before them.

In late October, a mere seven weeks after Tom had left, he came home on a week's leave. He thought it was embarkation leave; he'd heard the rumours flying about the camp and been told by the old hands that the army always gave you leave before sending you overseas. He didn't tell Bridie this initially. She was so pleased to see him, she was almost speechless and he had no wish to take that look from her eyes when it would serve no purpose.

Liam had passed his third birthday and was as enormously proud of his soldier father as Katie was. She, though, was less dazzled by the uniform than her brother and wanted her daddy home again. ‘Have you finished all the war now, Daddy?' she asked.

Tom laughed. ‘I've barely started, pet.'

‘Then what have you been doing?'

‘Training?'

‘Oh.' Katie wasn't sure what training was, but it sounded important and anyway she didn't want to spoil her daddy's leave, so she didn't say any more about him coming home.

Tom treasured every moment of that leave. He knew he would soon be facing the enemy and all the training he had, basic though it was, would come into play. He wondered if he'd ever have the nerve to kill another human being, or the courage to face danger and possibly death.

He shared these doubts with nobody and to anyone watching, he appeared not to have a care in the world. He devoted his time to his family, taking Katie to school and Liam for walks or to one of the local parks, swinging the little boy up on his shoulders when his legs were tired.

He gave himself up to the children until they went to bed: playing games, reading books, telling stories and tossing them about effortlessly until they squealed with laughter.

But when the children were in bed, it was time for him and Bridie. Though he loved Ellen and Sam and Mary, and would see them in the day, those precious hours in the evening belonged to him and Bridie alone. He wanted to hold her close as he'd longed to do many a night lying alone on an army bunk. He wanted to take her to bed and tell her and show her how much he loved her. And he wanted to commit every detail of his children and his beautiful, wonderful wife to memory. That last evening, he'd wished he could stop time, and when Bridie, seeing something was troubling Tom, enquired, he told her why.

‘Overseas,' she repeated in a horrified whisper. ‘So soon?'

‘Sooner the better,' Tom said almost flippantly to hide his own anxiety. ‘Hitler waits for no one.'

‘Where?'

‘I don't know,' Tom said. ‘I don't even know if it's definite – we're not told until we go, you see. It's just a feeling, the hint of a rumour, no more than that.'

But Bridie knew with a dread certainty that Tom would soon be among the fighting ranks on foreign soil and later, as he slept, she wept in abject fear, muffling her tears into her pillow, lest she awake Tom.

Letters from Tom came regularly, but of course they said little. Bridie understood and in the same way did not moan about the blackout, although she could have done. It was universally hated and it was unnerving to go out in such complete and utter blackness. It reminded her of walking home from the socials with Rosalyn so very long ago. Sometimes they'd walked home in intense darkness, but often stars would twinkle in the sky and a helpful moon would light the way for them.

In the smoky Birmingham skies, where factory chimneys belched fumes and smoke into the air, few stars were visible and even the moon didn't seem so bright. In time, the residents of Birmingham would learn to fear clear moonlit nights, but no one knew that then. The blackout was dangerous too. In fact, before Christmas 1939, so many people had been killed and injured because of it, that vehicles were allowed shaded headlamps and people could carry shielded torches.

Christmas 1939 was a dreary enough time. There was no point in going into a city centre with no Christmas lights strung across the streets and no bright displays in the shop windows. Not that there was much in the shops to be bought: nothing in the way of gifts, no toys at all and even food, which was in increasingly short supply. If you complained at all, the shopkeeper would remind you that there was a war on, as if you needed reminding.

One thing that hadn't materialised though was the bombing that everyone had been prophesying would start straight after war was declared. Bridie was able to reassure Tom that they hadn't even had a hint of an air raid and were as safe as houses. Most of the children evacuated to ‘a place of safety' had come back. In fact, so safe was it that people were dubbing it ‘The Bore War.'

In January, another restriction came into force: rationing. Four ounces of butter or lard, twelve ounces of sugar, four ounces of raw bacon, three and a half ounces of cooked bacon or ham and two eggs a week were the staple rations. The egg allowance was a joke: because so many hens had been slaughtered to save on feeding them, eggs were in very short supply and you didn't necessarily get them.

But people struggled through and though they were often worried how to feed their families, most were fairly good-humoured about it. ‘At least rationing is fairer than first come, first serve, or those who have the money stocking up and causing shortages, which was what happened in the Great War,' Ellen said as meat and tea were added to the ration list in March.

What wasn't fair for Bridie was the demands Peggy McKenna was still making on her. Tom wasn't earning the same money as he did on munitions, Bridie had told Peggy that, but it didn't move the woman a jot. Tom sent Bridie as much as he could and always told her to put so much in the post office each week to set aside for a rainy day.

It seldom reached the post office, though, for with Peggy's ten shillings to take out, there was very little left. If ever Tom had examined the book he'd have been alarmed at how little was in it and she trembled at the thought of him ever finding out.

She viewed the future with little optimism and it was hard to write cheerful letters to Tom feeling this way, though she tried. At least, she told herself, she was able to tell him with the utmost sincerity that she loved him and missed him.

And then, in late May, just six months after the men had left, Bridie read of the breaching of the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line stretching across France and of the British soldiers in retreat. She and Mary took themselves off to Ellen's, feeling the need to be together, for both their men were ‘Somewhere in France'.

‘You don't know they're involved,' Ellen said briskly to Mary and Bridie. ‘No good looking on the black side. No news is good news, they say.'