‘Why, how long d’you think it could be?’ She glanced
upwards, her anxiety returning. ‘I don’t think anyone’s even
noticed yet!’
A yell sounded from above and they heard the distant
rattle of gates. Chris grinned at her. ‘I think they have now!
But they’ll just think some twerp’s left the gates open on
another floor. It’ll be a while before they realise it’s stuck.’
He moved closer to the gate and shouted up the shaft. ‘Hey!
We’re stuck - the lift’s stuck! Get some help, will you?’
There was a brief silence. The yells from above sounded
again, together with an even more impatient rattling. Chris
renewed his own shouting and eventually a voice sounded
from somewhere closer. ‘Where are you?’
‘Where d’you think we are?’ Chris bellowed. ‘We’re stuck
in the flipping lift!’
‘Yes, but what floor? We can’t tell.’
‘I don’t know.’ He glanced at Judy.
‘I know we went past the fourth floor,’ she said
doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure about the fifth.’
‘Well, we’re pretty high anyway. It’s no use rattling the
gates like that,’ he shouted. ‘Get the maintenance crew,
they’ll know what to do.’
There was some muted conversation from above, as if
several more people had joined the first. Then a new voice
shouted, echoing hollowly in the shaft.
‘We’re sending for the maintenance people. Soon have
you out.’
‘What a good idea,’ Chris said sardonically, and Judy
giggled. ‘I’d never have thought of that.’
‘Who’s in there?’ the new voice called.
‘Chris Barrett, ROC, and Judy Taylor, WVS. You’d
better let our people know.’
‘We’ll let your people know,’ the voice shouted, overriding
Chris’s last words. He rolled his eyes and Judy giggled
again. Her panic seemed to have vanished and the humour
of their situation was beginning to strike her. She followed
his advice and sat down in a corner, wrapping her arms
about her knees. Chris looked down at her, then sat down in
another corner.
‘I think we’re going to be here quite a while. I don’t know
where the maintenance chaps are coming from, but I don’t
think they’re on permanent duty here. Hope you’re not
hungry.’ He gave her a wry look.
‘Not really.’ It was some time since her breakfast of
Shredded Wheat and toast, and thank goodness she had
been to the lavatory when she’d arrived at the hotel. Judy
pushed her fingers through her hair and sighed. ‘Oh, this would happen. Just when we’re so busy. And Mr Williams wanted this file urgently.’ She touched the brown folder.
‘Well, he’ll have to manage without it a bit longer. I don’t
suppose it was that important, anyway. People make a lot of
fuss about things like that, and then it turns out they don’t
matter at all.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Cheer up,
Judy. The worst that can happen is that you’ve got to spend
a couple of hours alone with me. And even that’s not too
bad. I’m quite a gentleman really, you know. I won’t take
advantage” of you.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Not unless you
want me to!’
Judy gave him a cold look. ‘Well, I don’t want you to.’
Then she relented and smiled reluctantly. ‘All right, I won’t
keep moaning. We’re here and we might as well make the
best of it. Tell me some more about what you do up there
on the roof. It sounds quite interesting.’
‘It is.’ His face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘We’re all mad
keen about spotting aircraft, you see. That’s why we
answered the adverts.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have been called up anyway,’ she
said, with a touch of tartness in her voice as she thought
again of Sean and Johnny. ‘Why aren’t you in one of the
Services? Active, I mean.’
‘Because most of us are in reserved occupations. I’m in
the Dockyard. I filled in my papers,’ he said, looking at her
earnestly. ‘I took them in and everything, but the foreman
told me I could forget it - none of us Yardies’ll be called up.
And he was right, I haven’t heard a thing, so when this came
up - well, I wanted to do my bit so I slapped in my
application straight away.’
Judy looked at him and felt ashamed. She said, ‘What sort
of qualifications did you have to have, then?’
‘Just good sight and being able to recognise aircraft.
That’s all that’s needed. You’ve got to be able to think
pretty quickly too,’ he added. ‘But really, they just wanted
blokes who already knew their stuff.’
‘But there’s a classroom - I’ve seen it. They’re training
people now.’
‘Yes, we still have to train. We’re training all the time.
We’ve got to keep the skills up, and we’ve got to be able to
recognise new aircraft. We have competitions too,’ he
added. ‘Master tests, they’re called. We do them once a
quarter and we compete with spotters from all over the
country.’
‘Competitions? How do they run them? I mean, you can’t
actually use aircraft, can you?’
‘No, they use a flashtrainer - a screen and epidiascope.
You sit in a room looking at a screen, and then the bloke
says, “Blink” and you blink, and they flash a silhouette up
on the screen. It’s only there for a hundredth of a second,
and you have to be able to identify the plane in that time. If
you get ninety per cent right, you get this Spitfire badge,
and if you do that three times in a row you get a red badge,
and then you’re a Master Spotter.’ He paused and then
added modestly, ‘I’ve done it twice so far.’
‘A hundredth of a second?’ Judy stared at him. ‘I didn’t
think they could measure time as small as that. I can’t even
imagine what it is.’
‘It’s just a flash,’ he said. ‘You can barely see it. But if
you’re good, you can recognise a shape in that time.’
‘But aeroplanes - they’re not that different, surely? I
mean, they’ve all got two wings and a tail - how can you
possibly tell what they are in that time?’
‘Oh, there are lots of differences. Tails, rudders, wing
shapes - they’re all a little bit different. That’s why we’ve
got to be able to recognise them instantly, you see. If we see
a plane coming in over the coast we’ve got to know what it is
straight away so that we can phone through to the Ops room
at Winchester. We’ve got to know what direction it’s coming
from, where it’s heading, and we’ve got to plot its position.
Then they can match that up with reports from other
observation posts and see what’s happening in the sky.
There might be just one, you see, or there might be
hundreds. That’s how they know where to send our own
aircraft to intercept them, and whether to sound the air-raid
sirens or not.’
Judy gazed at him, fascinated. She had almost forgotten
that they were stuck in a lift and that Mr Williams was
waiting for his important document. ‘How many of you are
there doing this? At one time, I mean.’
‘Two. One to look at the sky and one to write the log. We
write down what’s happening every minute, and then our
logbook can be compared with all the others so that Ops
know that all aircraft in the vicinity are being observed.’ He
glanced at his watch. ‘They’ll be getting in a flap over me
pretty soon, but I dare say they’ll pull someone out of the
classroom to stand in for me.’
There were sounds from above. Someone was rattling the
lift gates. A voice yelled down, ‘You OK in there?’
‘Oh, we’re fine,’ Chris called back. ‘Having a wonderful
time. Always wanted to be stuck in a lift with a pretty girl!’
‘You behave yourself,’ the voice commanded. ‘If he gives
you any trouble, miss, you just scream. Anyway, you’d
better make up your minds for a bit of a wait. We’ve got to
get someone out from naval barracks to see to the
mechanism. Nobody here seems to know how the bl— blooming thing works.’
‘Well, don’t hurry on my account,’ Chris returned,
winking at Judy. He settled himself more comfortably in his
corner and said, ‘What about you? What d’you do?’ He
glanced at her green uniform. ‘I know you’re WVS but I’m
not sure what that is.’
‘Women’s Voluntary Service,’ Judy said. ‘It’s run by the
Lady Mayoress here in Portsmouth, but there are branches
everywhere. It started in 1938 to help women get involved
in air-raid precautions and then it just expanded. Now, we
do whatever we’re asked to do. We never say no,’ she
finished proudly, and then caught the glint in his eye and
wished she hadn’t.
‘I won’t take you up on that!’ he said with a grin. ‘But I
wouldn’t go around saying that to some of the other oiks
we’ve got - they’re not all as gentlemanly as me. So what
sort of things have you done so far?’
Judy shrugged. ‘Anything and everything. We set up
Enquiry Centres when a raid starts, for people to come to if
they’re worried about members of their family, and we open
Emergency Centres’ for people who’ve been bombed out.
We take hot drinks and sandwiches round to the air-raid
shelters. We go into bombed areas and do whatever we can we
build fireplaces with bricks from the rubble and brew up
tea, or we take warm clothes out to people who’ve been
bombed out in their nightclothes. All sorts of things. And
we have a car pool, to drive people wherever they need to
go. My auntie’s learned to drive ‘specially - she’s driven all
sorts of important people — and she drives an ambulance in
the raids too.’
‘That’s pretty good,’ he said admiringly. ‘And all this
without getting paid?’
‘Yes, everyone’s a volunteer. Well, I get paid,’ she added
honestly, ‘because I’m “borrowed” from the Council. But I
do a lot of voluntary work as well. I don’t just work office
hours.’
‘Well, I think that’s smashing,’ Chris said. He hesitated
and then said, ‘I think you’re pretty smashing, too, Judy.’
There was an awkward pause. Judy looked down at the
ring on her finger, wondering if Chris had noticed it. For
the first time since Sean had died, she wished that she had
not been wearing it, and guilt immediately washed over her
at the thought. She could feel Chris’s eyes on her and she
wanted to say something about Sean, to tell him what had
happened, but before she could speak they heard another
rattling from above. A voice shouted down, a voice they
hadn’t heard before. This one was firm and positive, as if it
belonged to someone who knew what he was doing.
‘The cavalry’s arrived,’ Chris said ironically.
‘You OK?’ the voice shouted. Judy imagined a naval
mechanic, big and brawny, with a ‘full set’ of beard and
moustache. ‘Hold on, we’ll have you out soon. Have to go
up on the roof to sort out the motor. Don’t worry if the
whole caboodle shakes about a bit. We won’t let you drop.’
‘You’d better not, mate,’ Chris called back. ‘We’re just
getting to know each other in here.’ He winked at Judy and
settled back. ‘Won’t be long now.’ There was a short pause,
then he asked, ‘Whereabouts do you live?’
The moment for telling him about Sean had passed. ‘I
used to live in Portchester Road but we were bombed out.
We’re with my gran now, in April Grove.’
‘April Grove? Is that up Copnor Road?’
Judy nodded. ‘That’s right, just off September Street.
Well, at the end of March Street and October Street, really.
It runs along the bottom, by the allotments.’ She was
gabbling, she knew, thankful to be relieved of the necessity
of talking about Sean. ‘They’re just two-up, two-down
houses so it’s a bit of a squash, but we were lucky to have
somewhere to go. And since Sylvie’s out in the country—’
‘Sylvie?’
‘My niece. Her mum’s my Aunt Polly, but I never call
her that because she’s only twelve years older than me. She
- she lost her husband early in the war. At sea.’ I could tell
him now, she thought, but the words were hard to find and
she added instead, ‘So there’s just the five of us - me and
Polly, Mum and Dad, and Gran. It’s all right.’
Chris nodded. ‘Like you say, we’re lucky to have
somewhere to live these days. There’s a hell of a lot of
people been bombed out. Far more than anyone expected.’
‘The Council’s had a lot of complaints about that,’ Judy
said. ‘People criticising because we weren’t properly prepared.
But you don’t know what’s going to happen in a war,
do you? They thought there’d be thousands killed, and
instead of that they’ve been made homeless. It must mean
that the shelters are working, yet people don’t think how
lucky they are to survive, they just moan because they’ve got
nowhere to live. Well, it is awful, I know,’ she added. ‘It’s
horrible, not having a home. But we’re doing our best people are being rehoused, somehow or other. And they are still alive. That’s the main thing.’
The lift shook and rattled, and Judy put her hand on the
floor to steady herself. It trembled beneath her and she felt
suddenly scared. Suppose something went wrong. Suppose
the lift suddenly plunged to the bottom of the shaft somewhere