and her mother were left alone.
‘She’s taking this very hard,’ Alice said, shaking her head.
‘Not that you can blame her. That’s three good men we’ve
lost at sea in this family. Three good men! Where’s it going
to end, Poll?’
Polly shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Mum. But I tell you
what - I think we’d better get our Judy back home, don’t
you? It’s the only thing that’ll help Cis through this, having
her back. It’s a shame, because I think it’s doing her good to
be out in the country, but I reckon it’s the best thing to do.’
‘You’re right,’ Alice said. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if
she turns up tomorrow without even being sent for. I bet
she’s packing her bags at this very minute.’
Chapter Twenty-One It was not Judy who arrived next day, however. It was
somebody else who turned up, quite unexpectedly, on the
doorstep of number nine.
After all her crying, Cissie had fallen into a deep sleep
and woke late, heavy-eyed and feeling as if she’d been crying
even in her dreams. Dick had slept badly, tossing and
turning as his mind filled again with the horrific memories
of his own war experiences. He was pale and shaky when he
stumbled downstairs to find Polly making tea and Alice
sitting at the table, looking shrunken and grey in an old
dressing-gown.
‘Dick, you look like death warmed up,’ Polly said, and
then closed her eyes. ‘Oh, I’m sorry - I could bite my
tongue off sometimes. Have a cup of tea, and take one up for
Cis. Is she awake yet?’
‘Just stirring.’ He rested against the door to the staircase.
‘Tell you the truth, Poll, I don’t feel too good at all. Don’t
tell Cis, though. She’s got enough to upset her.’
‘Don’t feel too good?’ Polly stopped with the teapot
raised and looked at him closely. ‘What is it? One of your
attacks?’
‘No, it’s not like that. Just sort of tingly, and I’ve got a
sort of ache—’ He stopped as they heard movements from
above, and opened the staircase door to call up: ‘You stop in
bed a bit longer, Cis. I’m just bringing you a cuppa.’ To
Polly, he said, ‘I don’t suppose it’s anything much. Shock,
probably, and I didn’t sleep too well.’
‘I don’t suppose any of us did.’ Polly handed him a cup
and went through to her mother. ‘Here you are, Mum.
Drink that down. It’s hot, if nothing else. We’re nearly out
of tea again. I’ll go up the street in a minute, see if there’s anything in the papers.’
She looked through the cupboards to see what they could
have for breakfast. There was half a packet of cornflakes, the
end of a loaf that was going stale, some dried egg and some
margarine and the pot of jam they’d started yesterday.
Normally they wouldn’t dream of having jam for breakfast,
but this was her mother’s own blackberry and apple, made
last autumn with blackberries from Hilsea Lines, and Cissie
was especially fond of it. It wasn’t that a slice of bread and
jam would make up for losing Terry, Polly thought, that
would be daft, but a little treat at a time like this couldn’t do any harm. She lit the grill to make toast and put some
cornflakes in a bowl. Cissie could have breakfast in bed.
Dick came treading down the stairs again. He looked as
grey as Alice, and was breathing heavily. Polly glanced at
him and wondered if he could after all be heading for an
asthma attack. It wasn’t all that long since his pneumonia,
and shock could bring it on. It looks as if I’m going to have
to look after the lot of them, she thought, glancing from
Dick’s ashen face to her mother’s. While I’m up the street
getting the papers, I’d better ring up and let the office know I won’t be able to go in today.
She went to the telephone box first, searching for pennies
for the call, and then walked along to the newsagent’s. Alice
Brunner’s daughter Joy was there, sorting the papers. Polly
looked at the headlines: sink the bismarck.
She read the report beneath. It was the Bismarck which
had presented such a serious threat to Allied shipping that a
flotilla of ships had set off from Scapa Flow in pursuit of HMS Hood, Prince of Wales, King George V, Victorious and a number of others. It was the Bismarck which, with just one
shell, had sunk the Hood, penetrating the weak armour of its
sides and striking the store of ammunition within to cause
the huge and devastating explosion that had destroyed the ship and killed almost fifteen hundred men. Few, if any,
could have been saved.
Now the hunt was on in earnest for the killer ship. The
order had gone out - she was to be sunk at all costs. And
that meant more men killed, Polly thought, trudging back
down October Street with an armful of newspapers and a
heavy heart. More young men like Terry and Johnny and
Sean. And it wouldn’t bring even one of them back. Not
one.
Nobody had been able to eat much breakfast. Cissie had
come downstairs, saying she couldn’t stop in bed, and after
they’d washed up, feeling as if nothing was really worthwhile
doing but not knowing what else to do, she and Dick
set off to see Jean Foster, who had been Terry’s sweetheart
since they’d been at school. Jean had worked in the
Landport Drapery Bazaar, in Guildhall Square, but since
the bombing the shop had re-opened in several different
places in town, and now she was in Lake Road. Since they
would pass it on the way to her home, they called in there
first to see if she had come to work.
Jean was serving a customer. She looked a little plumper
than when they had last seen her, during Terry’s Christmas
leave, but her clear skin was glowing, her brown hair
springing with natural curls and her pretty face smiling as
she talked to the customer. Cissie and Dick looked at each
other in dismay.
‘She doesn’t know,’ Cissie mouthed. ‘Oh Dick, we’ve got
to tell her ourselves.’ Her lips trembled. ‘I don’t think I
can.’
‘I dunno what else we can do, love.’ Dick half turned
awkwardly, as if to slip out again, but at that moment Jean
glanced up and saw them. She hesitated, looking embarrassed, and then finished giving the customer her change and came over.
‘Mrs Taylor! Mr Taylor - I didn’t expect to see you
here.’ She looked flushed and embarrassed and they gazed at her silently, taken aback by her manner. ‘I don’t know who’s
told you,’ she went on quickly, ‘but I haven’t done anything
wrong. We’d been going steady for a long time, and what
with Christmas and Terry going away, and us never
knowing when we’d see each other again, well…‘she tilted her chin a little defiantly ‘… it just happened, that’s all, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it now, I’ve written to
tell Terry and—’
Dick interrupted her. ‘We don’t know what you’re talking
about, Jean. We just came to see if you’d heard the news. It
was on last night. Haven’t you heard?’
The girl stared at them. She seemed to notice their
swollen eyes for the first time and her colour faded.
Nervously, she said, ‘News? What news? I haven’t heard no
news.’
‘The Hood,’ Cissie said in a dry, aching voice. ‘She’s been
sunk. D’you mean to say you hadn’t heard? It’s all over the
papers.’
Jean turned white. ‘The Hood? Sunk? But - oh, no.’ She
reached out a hand and laid it against the wall, swaying a
little. ‘But - Terry - isn’t he all right? Wasn’t he saved?’
‘We don’t know,’ Dick said quietly. ‘We don’t think he
could have been. The ship went down in four minutes.’
‘Four minutes?’ The ashen white turned to a sickly green
and Dick stepped forwards quickly to catch the girl as she
crumpled. He staggered beneath her weight and the shop
supervisor noticed what was happening and came quickly
across to help. Between them, they got Jean on to the chair
put beside the counter for customers. Cissie pressed her
head down to her knees while Dick steadied her and the
supervisor hurried off for a cup of water.
‘Drink this.’ She held the cup beneath Jean’s lips. ‘Just a
sip or two. It’ll make you feel better.’ They all watched
anxiously as Jean sipped and took a couple of shuddering
breaths. The supervisor looked at Dick and Cissie. ‘Has she had bad news?’
Cissie nodded. ‘We all have.’ Her eyes filled with tears
again. ‘The Hood,’ she said, chokingly. ‘On the news last
night.’
The woman nodded. ‘I heard it. It’s in the papers this
morning. Terrible.’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘You mean,
someone was on it? Someone Jean knew - was fond of?’
‘Our son was one of the crew,’ Dick said hoarsely. ‘And
Jean and him - well, they’ve been going steady ever since
they left school. He was hoping they’d get engaged, the next
time he got leave.’ He looked down at the girl’s bent head.
‘We’d have been pleased. We’re fond of Jean - we’d have
been proud to have her as a daughter-in-law.’
The supervisor’s eyes softened. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s
dreadful. But Jean never said. She’s been just the same as
usual this morning, a bit quiet, but then she has been just
lately. Missing her sweetheart, naturally. I’d no idea.’
‘I don’t think she knew,’ Cissie said. ‘That’s why it was
such a shock to her when we told her just now.’
‘The poor girl. And you as well.’ The woman hesitated,
then glanced down at the bent head. ‘Jean,’ she said kindly,
‘when you feel well enough, I think you’d better go home
for the rest of the day. We can manage without you. Take
the rest of the week off and come back on Monday, when
you’ve had time to get over the shock. I know just how you
must be feeling.’ She said quietly, ‘I lost my brother a few
months ago, so I do understand.’
Jean looked up at last. Her face was like parchment, her
eyes like bruises against the yellowish-green tinge of he
normally rosy cheeks. She looked at them all with a dull,
hopeless stare and said in a flat voice that seemed to have
been drained of all feeling, ‘You don’t understand, Miss
Browning. Nobody does.’ Her eyes went to Dick’s face and
then to Cissie’s. ‘It’s not just Terry, you see. I’m in trouble anyway. Bad trouble.’ She took a deep breath, as if gathering
courage, and then said in a rush, ‘I’m expecting. I’m in the family way. And now Terry’s never coming back, I don’t
know what to do.’ Her voice wavered and cracked, and she
broke into a storm of crying. ‘I just don’t know what I’m
going to do!’
Locked behind her wall of silence, Judy had no idea what
had happened.
She had gone to bed early the night before, just as the
family was sitting down to listen to the nine o’clock news. It
was one of the most frustrating times for her, watching their
faces and wondering what was going on in the world. They
would tell her, of course, Mrs Sutton either mouthing the
words carefully or writing them down on a scrap of paper but
she was sure they didn’t tell her everything they heard.
It was too laborious, too much trouble. She had formed the
habit of going outside to sit under the apple tree, watching
the sky deepen from soft blue to deep purple, streaked and
patterned with glowing crimson as the sun dipped below the
wooded hill. Tomorrow, she would read the newspaper to
find out what had happened; tonight she would sleep in
peace.
On this night, however, it was dull and there was a drizzle
in the air. Judy had been making scrim almost all day and
had come home tired and dirty. While the family were
listening to the wireless, she shut herself in the scullery for a good wash, and then went straight up to bed, calling her
goodnight through the half-open door. She tiptoed into the
room she shared with Sylvie, checked that her niece was
asleep and properly covered, and then slipped into bed.
She had been here for a fortnight now, and it seemed like
home. Although she missed her family, the Suttons had
been so kind that she felt almost as if she had found a second
family, and the cottage and the countryside around were like
a balm to her unhappy soul. It was a balm she had needed
desperately. The loss of first her brother-in-law and then
her fiance had struck at her heart, the bombing of her home had left her feeling lost and disoriented, and her deafness
had been a final cruel blow. Over and over again she told
herself how lucky she was - she still had her parents, her
sister, her little niece and her grandmother, her brother
Terry was serving on one of Britain’s greatest ships, she had
been able to come to this peaceful village and stay with these
kind people - yet she could not rid herself of the deep,
searing loneliness of her silent world. If only I could hear
again, she thought. If only …
It was strange that the one person with whom she felt
completely at ease was Ben Hazelwood, the boy who seemed
so much older than seventeen, who had taken her down to
the river and shown her a kingfisher and told her she would
hear again. She had seen him again several times over the
next few days. He had come to the farm and sat with her