Authors: Lilian Harry
‘I know. It’s looking bad.’ Tommy chewed for a minute or two and then said, ‘Blimey, what do they do to this stuff, Free? It’s more like cottonwool than cod. No disrespect to your cooking, mind.’
‘It’s got to be soaked for about three days to get the salt out, so Mr Perkins up the fish shop says. He says he’s got a sinkful of it.’
‘Well, it might get the salt out, but the blooming flavour goes with it. Still, if it’s all there is …’ He chewed again. ‘How’s that boy getting on? Young Sammy next door.’
Freda sighed and helped him to more cabbage and mashed potato. ‘Have a bit more veg, love, there’s plenty left for bubble and squeak tomorrow. I don’t know what to
do about the poor kiddy and that’s the truth. D’you know, I went in yesterday and found him trying to fry an egg. Whole – in its
shell
! There was nearly an explosion.’
‘He ought to be out in the country,’ Tommy said. ‘All on his own all day in that house, in the state it’s in. It’s not right.’
‘I know, but what can we do? You can’t interfere with a father’s rights,’ Freda said. She looked at the piled plates and sighed. ‘I wonder what they’re having for their tea.’
‘God knows. Half a pound of nothing on toast, I expect. Can’t you slip the nipper a bit of dinner now and then, Free?’
‘I do. I think he’d starve if I didn’t. I mean, Mr Hodges isn’t even
there
half the time – he’s off on ships for three or four days on the trot, leaving the kiddy to fend for himself. I mean, a little chap like Sammy can’t manage, it stands to reason. He’ll set fire to the place one of these days, that’s what he’ll do.’
They sat eating silently for a few minutes, thinking over the events of the past few weeks. Since Nora’s death, things next door had gone steadily downhill. Dan had withdrawn into himself completely, curtly refusing all offers of help. He’d bitten Jess Budd’s head off when she suggested that Sammy should be evacuated, and Frank Budd had come storming up the street and demanded an apology, which Dan had refused. Since then, Frank had forbidden his wife to have anything further to do with the man, even though they’d been friends of a sort before.
Sammy crept about like a shadow, his cat either at his heels or clutched in his arms. He’d been grubby enough before, but now he looked as if he never washed at all and his clothes were little more than tatters. He looked half scared and half starved, and the air raids terrified him almost out of his wits.
‘I take him down the shelter with me and I give him a bit of dinner every day,’ Freda said. ‘But it’s not enough,
Tom. The poor little chap’s missing his mum, and Mr Hodges don’t look after him at all. It breaks my heart.’
‘Well, I think we ought to do something about it,’ Tommy said decidedly. ‘With winter coming on he’ll either die of cold and starvation or set the place on fire like you said. Either way, it’s up to us to see that something’s done.’ He pushed away his empty plate. ‘I’ll go down the billeting office, see if they can’t talk Dan Hodges round. I know what you said about not interfering, Free, but we’d never be able to forgive ourselves if something happened to the nipper.’
‘I know,’ she said, taking the plates out to the scullery and coming back with a fruit tart. ‘And he’s not a bad little chap, you know. Not like that brother of his. I’ve never had a minute’s worry he might pinch something when he’s been in here, and I reckon if he was given a good wash and some decent clothes to wear he’d look quite nice.’
‘Well, we’ll see what we can do. I’m fed up with Dan Hodges jumping down my throat whenever we offers a hand. That nipper needs help and if his own father won’t give it then it’s up to us.’ Tommy gave her a firm nod and looked at the dish she’d brought in. ‘Blimey, Free, what the flipping heck’s that?’
‘It’s bird’s nest pudding,’ she said. ‘It’s apples and blackberry jam and tapioca, baked in the oven. I got it off Gert and Daisy on the wireless.’
‘Bird’s nest pudding!’ Tommy said. ‘Well, we had bird’s nest soup once when I was out in Hong Kong, but even they never made a pudding out of it! Never mind, we’ll have a go at it. Give us a good plateful, but mind you don’t put any birds in with it. I never could abide feathers in me throat!’ He spooned up the pudding and looked pleased. ‘Here, that’s a bit of all right, that is! Better’n that salt cod, anyway.’ He nodded again. ‘That’s what I’ll do, Free. I’ll go down the office first thing in the morning. I’ll get that
kid out in the country, away from the bombs, if it’s the last thing I do.’
Tommy was as good as his word and next morning he took the opportunity to slip into the council offices. Tommy’s job with the council took him all over Portsmouth, checking street lights (a job he didn’t need to do now there was a blackout), repainting street signs and generally helping to keep the city tidy. Since the bombing had started, he said to Freda one day, there was a hell of a lot more tidying up to do. But he liked the work. He was out of doors a lot of the time and he was more or less his own boss. It also gave him plenty of opportunities to chat to passers-by and keep his finger on the pulse of the city. There wasn’t much that went on in Pompey that Tommy Vickers didn’t know about.
It was easy enough to find a reason to visit the offices and he found the tiny room that had been allocated to the evacuation authorities. He knocked on the door and went inside.
‘Yes?’ The woman at the desk was one of those volunteer women by the look of her – the wrong side of fifty, a bit stout, wearing a dark green jumper and cardigan, what they called a twinset, with a string of pearls round her neck. But she looked friendly enough, if a bit harassed by the pile of papers on the desk in front of her. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Well, it’s not me that needs help, as a matter of fact.’ Tommy gave her his saucy grin. ‘Not that you wouldn’t be the first person I’d come to if I did, mind! But it’s the nipper next door I’ve come about.’
‘If he’s causing trouble, it’s the school authorities you should speak to. Unless it’s serious enough to warrant the police—’
‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. Poor little blighter, he don’t need no more trouble. It’s just that me and the missus – well, we wondered if you couldn’t do something about
getting him evacuated. He’s all on his own, you see. Dad away half the time and don’t hardly look after himself properly, let alone the kid. My missus, she slips him a bit of dinner most days or he’d get nothing at all, but you know what it’s like, our rationing don’t hardly stretch to feeding another mouth. Specially a growing boy. Not that he
is
growing much – what with his whooping cough and then his ma going the way she did, he seems to have stopped where he was the past year or two. Not that we knew him before that, being as the family—’
‘Stop!’ The woman raised her hand like a traffic policeman calling a halt to the cars around Piccadilly on
In Town Tonight
. ‘Let’s take it a bit more slowly, shall we? Now, what exactly is the problem with this little boy?’
Tommy stared at her. ‘Well, I just told you. He needs to be evacuated.’
‘All the children need to be evacuated,’ the woman said wearily. ‘And thank heaven most of them are. But there are still a few around the town and mostly it’s because their parents don’t want them to go, or perhaps because they already have been and their billets have proved unsatisfactory. Tell me about this little boy. What relation is he to you?’
‘Well, he’s no relation. He just lives next door.’
The woman put down her pen. ‘I can’t do anything about evacuation simply on the word of a next-door neighbour.’
‘No, but you could go and see his dad and talk him round,’ Tommy said, beginning to feel exasperated. ‘I tell you, it’s not right, a nipper living the way he is. He’s not looked after. He’s half starved, he’s filthy dirty, he’s left on his own for days at a time … He’s going to have an accident one of these days. Set fire to the house, or gas himself.’
‘I see.’ She picked up her pen again. ‘Well, I’ll take some details and see what we can do. Now, what name is it …?’
*
It was a different billeting officer who came to see Dan Hodges that evening. Neither Tommy nor Freda saw him, but they heard the voices through the wall and knew it was someone upper-crust. They also knew that Dan was angry about the visit.
‘I dunno who been sticking their noses into my business,’ Dan said in an aggrieved tone when Captain Whiting had come through to the living room and stated his business. ‘I know it ain’t what you’re used to, the way we’re living, but me and Sammy’s all right, ain’t we, Sam?’
He dragged Sammy to him, holding him against his side, while Sammy stared at the visitor with anxious blue eyes.
The captain looked thoughtfully at them, then sat down on one of the wooden chairs that stood by the old kitchen table. He had a briefcase with him, with papers inside. Dan glanced at it uneasily and sat down opposite him. He glowered at his son. ‘You ain’t been getting into trouble, have you? You know what happened to your brother.’
‘Sammy’s not in any trouble,’ the captain said quickly. ‘And what did happen to his brother? I understood there was just the one boy here.’
‘Sent to approved school,’ Dan said sullenly. ‘You can look it all up in the records. It was nothing to do with Sam.’
‘I see.’ The captain looked at him thoughtfully. He was about sixty, had retired from the Army several years ago, and had taken on this work as part of his voluntary service. He also helped with the Home Guard and had a number of other small jobs he didn’t talk about. He wore his uniform, the ribbons on it showing that he had seen distinguished action in the Great War. ‘I understand you lost your wife recently, Mr Hodges.’
Dan flushed a dark red and looked down at the table. There was a deep groove in it, which Gordon had cut once, meaning to carve his initials until Dan had come in and sent him flying with a cuff on the head. ‘What’s that to you?’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause you any distress. But it
does mean that Sammy is here on his own for a lot of the time, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, and what about it? He’s all right. Looked after his mum when she was poorly and if he could do that I reckon he can look after himself now. I always leave him some food, make sure he’s all right.’
‘But don’t you work at Vosper’s? You’re away at sea sometimes, for two or three days at a time.’
‘Here, how d’you know that?’ Dan let go of Sammy and half rose to his feet. ‘You been sniffin’ round Vosper’s? Look, I work hard down Camber, I do me job, I don’t want no busybodies ferreting about getting me into trouble—’
‘There’s no question of getting you into trouble, Mr Hodges. It was just a matter of confirming certain pieces of information—’
‘Yeah, and that’s another thing. Who’s been telling you things about me? Who’s been sticking their nose in where it’s not wanted? It was that nosy Annie Chapman, I’ll lay. Or that bitch Ethel Glaister what can’t bear to walk the same side of the street as me. Or Tommy Vickers, next door, him and his missus are always on about Sammy not getting enough to eat. Well, whoever it was, you can tell ’em where they can put their long noses. Me and Sam’s all right.’ He glared belligerently at the captain and looked round for Sammy, who had crept into his mother’s old armchair in the corner.
‘Are you sure?’ Captain Whiting asked quietly. ‘When you’re at work and Sammy’s here on his own, and there’s an air raid? Are you sure your little boy’s all right then, Mr Hodges?’
Dan flushed and looked down again. ‘He knows what to do. We got a shelter.’
‘But he’s only a little boy, Mr Hodges. Eight years old. He can’t be left alone in these circumstances. Suppose something happened to him – suppose he
didn’t
go down to the shelter and the house were bombed. How would you
feel, knowing that you’d left him alone? Don’t you worry about him at all? Don’t you wonder, when there’s a raid and you’re not here, don’t you even
wonder
if he’s safe?’
Dan sat down again. He didn’t look up. ‘His mum didn’t want him to go,’ he muttered. ‘The other kids in the street, they went –’cept for the Baxter boy. But Nora – well, Sammy was all she had, see, they was always close, proper mummy’s boy he was – and she didn’t want him to go. So he never went. He stopped here and looked after her.’
‘But she’s not here now, is she?’ the captain said gently. ‘There really isn’t any reason why he can’t go now.’
Dan looked up at him and the captain was shocked by the dark misery in his eyes. ‘He was all she had,’ he repeated, as if it were a lesson he had learnt by heart. ‘She used to say that – her Sam was all she had. She used to say this rhyme, see – “Sam, Sam, shine a light, ain’t you playing out tonight?” And after our Gordon went away—’
‘Yes, I understand,’ Captain Whiting said quietly. ‘But Sammy’s alone in the house now. He doesn’t have his mother for company. And it’s dangerous for him. He really would be much better off in the country.’ He glanced over at Sammy. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be in the countryside, Sammy, with the other children?’
There was a long silence. Sammy, curled up in the chair, stared at the two men. He understood what was happening, but he had no idea what he wanted. He did not know how miserable he was. He was used to being at home and he couldn’t imagine what it would be like in the countryside. From what the other children had told him on their occasional visits home, it sounded a fearsome place, full of huge animals with horns roaming vast empty fields and dark, dangerous forests.
‘
He
don’t know what he wants,’ Dan said. ‘It’s no good asking him.’
‘He’d be much safer,’ the captain said. ‘And I think he would be happier.’
‘How d’you know that?’ Dan demanded. ‘Look at the way some of them country people treats our kids. Look at that Baker kid, washed down with a hosepipe when he was bad with appendicitis – he could have died! And those two nippers from the greengrocer’s shop up the road, shut in a cupboard. How d’you know my Sam wouldn’t go the same way?’
Captain Whiting bit his lip. The treatment some of the city children had received was a subject of considerable distress to him. He felt responsible for the problems that had been encountered and determined to see that they didn’t happen again.