Commercial Road, and the Guildhall, and some of the
ordinary streets as well, and she saw our Clothing Depot,
and the billeting people, and the welfare offices, and then
they went and had lunch on the Victory.’
‘Oh, that must have been lovely,’ Alice broke in. ‘And
nice for the King, too, him having been in the Navy.’
‘Well, I don’t think he was ever on a ship like the Victory,’ Polly said with a grin. ‘And after that, he went to see the Gunnery School and she came on to the hospital and
some of the First-Aid Posts. They were on the go all day.’
She was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘I think she’s
right about dressing up, you know. It wouldn’t have been so
special if they’d come in old clothes - even if they’ve got
any! And it does make you feel better, knowing someone like that’s taken the trouble to look nice for you. It makes you
feel as though you matter to them.’
‘Yes,’ Judy agreed. She was still grieving for Sean, still
thought about him all the time, still felt cheated of all they
might have known and had together. But Polly was right,
she thought. ‘It does make you feel better.’
‘That bit about sunshine coming again,’ Alice said after a
moment. She looked at the two faces, showing the same
sorrow, and her own face softened in sympathy. ‘It’s true,
you know. You can’t go on without letting in a bit of
sunshine now and again. You’ve got to start living again.
You’ve got to.’
The raids continued, although all through January and
February the concentration was on other cities. Bristol, Plymouth and Swansea all came under heavy attack, and all along the south coast the sirens went night after night,
sending people to the shelters to sit listening to the snarl of German bombers overhead, and wonder where they were
making for.
The firewatcher’s post on the hotel roof had been taken
over by the Royal Observers’ Corps. Judy had noticed the
young men in their RAF uniforms coming in and out
several times before she found herself in the lift with one, on her way to the fifth floor with a message. He was tall, with
fair hair and blue eyes and a nice smile, and she smiled back
and asked, ‘What is it you’re doing up there? Looking out
for enemy aircraft?’
‘That’s right,’ he said. He touched the badge on, his arm.
It showed a Spitfire in flight. ‘The RAF advertised for chaps
like me who are keen on spotting aircraft, so I applied and
here I am.’ He grinned. ‘It’s like a dream come true, sitting
up there in the best place in Southsea, looking for
aeroplanes. I used to do it for a pastime and now I’m
helping the war effort as well!’
Judy looked at him, so clean and smart in his uniform,
obviously enjoying himself on the roof of a nice building,
with nothing uncomfortable or difficult to do, and thought
of the pilots who risked their lives every day in the air, and
the sailors like Sean and Johnny, who died horrible deaths at
sea. ‘Nice work if you can get it,’ she said tartly.
‘Well, someone’s got to do it!’ he said jocularly, and then
caught the note in her voice. ‘Look, I know it must seem a
cushy number - and maybe it is, compared with what some
poor blighters have to do - but it’s essential work just the
same. We’re the ones who spot the aircraft first and identify
them so that others can shoot them down and stop them
bombing Pompey. I know a lot still get through, but that
doesn’t mean we’ve just got to sit back and let them all come
in. It’d be even worse if we did that.’
‘Yes, but why does it have to be people like you? Why not
people who can’t go on active service? People who’ve been
injured or can’t serve for one reason or another?’
‘Like poor eyesight?’ he asked quizzically. ‘Well, don’t
ask me. I suppose because we’re the ones who volunteered.
Blokes like me who’ve always been keen on aeroplane
spotting. We’re the ones who’re good at it. And it does take
a bit of skill, you know, to be able to spot an aircraft coming in at twenty thousand feet and be able to recognise what it
is. It’s not all that safe sometimes either,’ he added as if as an afterthought, ‘sitting up on top of an eight-storey
building right on the beach. We’re an easy target.’
‘I suppose so,’ Judy said a little grudgingly. The lift had
arrived at the fifth floor and she got out. The young
Observer went on to the top; here he would climb the steel
ladder to the roof, originally installed as a fire escape. On
her way to one of the offices with her message, Judy passed
a room that the Observer Corps was using as a classroom
and glanced in through the open door. A row of young men
and two or three girls were sitting at desks while an
instructor fixed large sheets of paper covered with the
silhouettes of aircraft on a board.
I suppose it is skilled work, she thought, and I suppose
it’s a bit dangerous being up there like sitting ducks - but all the same, it doesn’t compare with what other people are
doing. It doesn’t compare in the least with what Sean and
Johnny and all those others in action are doing.
Even without the raids, the war news was bad. Malta, its position in the Mediterranean making it a vital possession,
was bombarded day and night while the islanders, with only
three Spitfires to protect them, dug themselves into caves
and catacombs and sat out the raids which all but destroyed
their island and capital city.
Meanwhile, the war had spread. Italy had taken over the
vital supply ports of Tobruk, Somaliland and Libya, as well
as Greece and Albania. Most people in Britain had never
even heard of these places and had to search out old school
atlases to find where they were, and daily newspapers
published large maps of the world which could be pinned on
walls. Even then, it was difficult to make sense of what was
happening.
‘I don’t see why it’s spread so much,’ Cissie said, staring
at the coloured pins Dick had put in to mark the progress of
the different armies - red for Britain, black for Germany,
blue for Italy. ‘It was just Poland and Austria, and places
like that, to begin with. Why does Africa have to get mixed
up in it?’
‘It’s because of Italy coming in on Hitler’s side,’ Dick
explained. ‘They’ve got all these places in Africa, you see,
and so have we, so we’ve got to defend ours against them.’
He paused doubtfully, his chest wheezing a little. It still
didn’t seem to make much sense. ‘Frank Budd was saying
the other day that they’re getting worried about the Japanese
now. They think they might come in.’
‘The Japanese!’ Cissie stared at him. ‘Why? Whatever’s it
got to do with them?’
‘Well, nothing, but apparently they don’t like America
being in the South Pacific. They’ve got places in Hawaii-naval bases - so they’re quite close to Japan really.’ He
looked at the map again. ‘You can see it better on a globe.
They look far apart on a map, but if you imagine it sort of
bent round the back, then you can see how close they are.’
‘But America’s not even in the war,’ Cissie said. ‘What’s the point of Japan butting in?’
‘They think the Americans want their oil. And they’d like
to take over China as well, and maybe even go up into
Russia, and this would be a good chance, while we’re all
busy defending everywhere else.’ Dick began to cough. His
chest was getting worse again and he’d had two mild asthma
attacks in the past week or so. ‘I don’t understand it any
more than you do, Cis, but that’s what I’ve heard.’
Cissie shook her head. ‘I can’t make it out at all. Seems to
me they’ve all gone mad. The whole world’s going to be
fighting each other at this rate, and what’s the good of that?
What’s going to be left when they finish? What’s the point
of it all?’
Judy, who had been sitting quietly mending her stockings,
looked up and said, ‘Freedom, Mum. That’s what it’s
all about. We couldn’t let Hitler march all over Europe and
take away everyone’s freedom like he did to the Jews and all
those other poor people. We had to stop him.’
‘Yes, but all these others - Africa and Japan and Russia he
wasn’t marching into their countries. It’s like boys
fighting in the street. One or two start scrapping and then
the rest all pile in just for the sake of it, and in the end no one knows what it was all about. It was the same in the
Fourteen-Eighteen War - someone shot that man in
Yugoslavia and before we knew where we were, all our men
were being marched off to fight. Millions were killed, and
thousands like your dad, messed up for the rest of their
lives. It’s like a disease.’ She stopped and stared at them all.
‘Like a horrible, mad disease.’
Mike Simmons turned up on Jess Budd’s doorstep one day
and, after some discussion, agreed that the two little girls
should go out to Bridge End and be billeted at the vicarage.
‘I wanted them to be evacuated right at the beginning,’ he
said sadly, ‘but Kathy wouldn’t hear of them going without
her, and she wouldn’t go herself because she wanted to stay in Pompey for when I got home. We went over it again and
again, but all she would say was that the Queen wouldn’t let
her girls go to Canada without her, and she wouldn’t go
because she wanted to be with the King, and it was the same
for her. I stopped trying to talk her round in the end. I
didn’t want to spend all my time arguing.’ He shook his
head. ‘Perhaps I ought to have put my foot down - said
she’d got to go. But how could I make her, Mrs Budd?’ He
lifted his head and looked at Jess. ‘How could I?’
‘Well, it’s the same with me,’ Jess said a little uncomfortably.
‘I feel the same about leaving my Frank, and so of
course the baby has to be here, too. And Rose went to start
with, but she wanted to come home … But I do think your
little ones’d be better off out there now, Mr Simmons.’
Polly was given the task of taking Stella and Muriel out to
Bridge End on the train. So far, she’d not had any specific
job to do in the WVS but had just helped wherever she was
needed, but since the Blitz, more and more children who
had returned to Portsmouth for Christmas and stayed there
- or perhaps not been evacuated at all - were going back,
and they all needed escorts. Polly had accompanied several
already, and enjoyed the task, though the children varied
greatly.
‘You should have seen the boys I took last week,’ she told
Laura when she was in the office collecting the documents
that would have to go with the two girls. ‘I thought I knew
Pompey pretty well, but I’ve never seen anything like the
home they came from. It was no better than a hovel. And
their clothes! Well, I’ve seen better on a scarecrow — toes
poking out of their boots, hardly any backside to their
trousers — I felt ashamed, I did really, to be taking them to
strangers in that state.’
‘Weren’t there any clothes in the Store they could have
had?’ Laura asked, shuffling the papers together.
‘Yes, there were as it happens, and I got them fitted out
with nice flannel shorts and a jacket and shirt each, and a pair of Wellington boots — there weren’t any other shoes
that would fit them. But that was only one outfit. I just hope
they can put something together in the country.’ Polly
shook her head. ‘But it’s not just that, Laura. It’s the boys
themselves. They were sick on the train, all three of them I
don’t know why it is that boys are always sick, the girls
don’t seem to suffer like it - and they’d obviously never seen
a hanky before in their lives, their noses never stopped
running. And their language! I tell you, I didn’t know half
the swear words they came out with!’
‘How did you know they were swear words then?’ Laura
asked with a grin and Judy, who was putting some papers
away in a” filing cabinet in the corner, chuckled.
Polly smiled too, pleased to hear her niece laugh. ‘It was
the way they said them. And the way they looked at me, too,
as if they wanted to see what I’d say — I knew they were
swearing all right. I don’t suppose they knew what they
really meant, though, any more than I did. And I’m not
going to repeat them now,’ she added firmly as Laura’s
mouth opened. ‘Goodness knows what I might be saying!’
She collected the railway tickets and other papers and
went out. She was to deliver the children next day, and went
down to Jess Budd’s early in the morning to find the two
girls waiting for her, neatly dressed in clothes that Jess had
found for them amongst her own daughter’s old things, with
their faces shining and hair brushed.
‘Well, you do look smart,’ Polly said, gazing at them. ‘I
should think anyone would be pleased to have two nice little
girls like you billeted with them.’ The little one, Muriel, was nearly eight, just the same age as her Sylvie, and Stella was
ten and old enough to be sensible. They looked back at her
and then turned to Mrs Budd.
‘Do we have to go, Auntie?’ Muriel asked, her bottom lip