A Distant Dream (37 page)

Of course, years of army life and mixing with men of all types had made him realise that sex was less of an emotional commitment for men than it was for women. But he still had his standards and he wanted to keep it that way, despite his bad blood.

He was tempted to write to his mother and ask for the truth, but he knew he would never do that. For one thing it would open old wounds and cause her pain; for another, he wanted her to believe that he and Sheila still looked up to their father’s memory. So he would never speak about it. He would protect her as she had protected him and Sheila all these years. No wonder the poor woman had almost been broken by it.

Turning his mind to the more recent past, he was deeply ashamed of his violent behaviour and very unnerved by it. He could have killed one of his fellow soldiers, a member of his own platoon. It had been as though his actions had been guided by someone else. He’d been a man possessed, and all because of something that had not been the fault of his victim. Until now he’d never considered himself to be a violent man, but the fact that he was scared the hell out of him.

Could his behaviour be a legacy of war? After all, he had seen a lot of action in the Middle East. But he had always believed that military killing was just a job, something done under orders. What he had wanted to do to Bikerley was quite different and there was no excuse for it. He had a son of his own and should know better.

Whatever the truth of the past, he must make things right with Ron Bikerley, who hadn’t deserved that onslaught. He would go and make his peace right away, although he wouldn’t be surprised if the other man didn’t accept his apology. George was deeply ashamed and felt as though he didn’t know who he was any more. He certainly didn’t feel worthy of May’s love. She deserved better than him.

The tension had been building for months, but in early June, when people knew that D-Day was imminent, the air positively buzzed with the feeling that something was going on, increased by intense activity in the skies, which were rarely free of aircraft roaring overhead day and night.

When the news finally came through on the eight o’clock news on the morning of the sixth of June that Allied troops had landed in France, May had already left for work. It was only later, after the switchboard was jammed with calls – practically on fire, she said to the office in general – and she wondered what was going on that Miss Palmer said, ‘It’s because of D-Day, dear, everybody wants to talk about it.’

‘Has it started, then?’

‘Yes, our boys are over there, God bless them,’ she said. ‘The King is doing a special broadcast to the nation about it tonight.’

Everyone seemed excited, but May had mixed feelings. Although she knew the invasion was necessary to end the war, she was also painfully aware that somewhere among the thousands of men risking their lives would be George.

During a brief lull on the switchboard, she cast her mind back to the last time she had seen George. He’d had a brief embarkation leave, which had been a huge disappointment. He had seemed very tense and distant towards her; it was almost as though the marriage proposal hadn’t happened. She’d put it down to nerves about the military task he had to face, but it was hard to take after the euphoria of their last meeting. Joe had been unusually naughty and offhand with his father so the atmosphere for romance had been painfully absent. George had told her he loved her, though, and she believed him. But there had been something horribly ominous about his mood and a sense of doubt about their future together had lingered in her mind.

That evening May, her parents and Connie gathered around the wireless to listen to the King’s broadcast, delivered in his achingly sincere style.

‘Surely none of is too busy, too young or too old to play a part in the nationwide vigil of prayer as the great crusade sets forth.’

The words heartened and warmed May. They broadened her vision and made her feel part of a whole. So what if George had had an off mood when he was last home. There were bigger things at stake than her personal feelings. George’s life for one thing and all those others with him in the dangerous mission to bring this awful war to a conclusion.

‘Oh my Lord, whatever’s that?’ said Flo, staring up at the sky one evening a week or two later as she was taking some washing off the line. What appeared to be a damaged aircraft was hurtling noisily across the sky with flame spurting from its tail.

‘Looks like a German raider on its last legs,’ observed Dick, who was attending to the vegetable patch. ‘Good job too. That’ll be one less of the buggers to drop bombs on us.’

‘Girls, come out here, quickly!’ Flo shouted into the kitchen where May and Connie were washing the dishes. ‘It’s a Jerry bomber in trouble.’

‘Ooh er,’ said May, dashing into the garden with a tea towel in her hand and staring heavenwards. ‘I hope it doesn’t land on anyone’s house.’

‘Looks as though it’s about to crash-land somewhere,’ observed Connie.

The aircraft disappeared over the rooftops and a few minutes later they heard an explosion, which they judged from experience to be a few miles away.

‘That’s the end of that, and good riddance too,’ said Dick. ‘Let’s hope it didn’t do any damage.’

It did cause a lot of damage and plenty more of its kind followed, and not just at night but during the day as well. Speculation as to what the aircraft actually were ended a few days later when a member of the government announced that pilotless aircraft were now being used against the British Isles, and that when the engine of the machine was heard to go out an explosion would soon follow.

‘Whatever next,’ lamented Flo, when they heard the news on the wireless. ‘Just when things are going so well for the boys overseas and we were all thinking we’d got Hitler beat, he comes up with this rotten trick.’

‘He’s probably getting desperate and is using every means he’s got,’ said Dick.

‘He’ll soon run out of ideas,’ suggested May.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said her dad.

But the doodlebugs, as the new weapons became generally known, wreaked havoc, and coming at this late stage, when people thought the war was drawing to a conclusion, they were loathed by everyone. Being unmanned, they seemed weird and sinister, but they were lethal and caused extensive damage.

They also caused a new wave of evacuation from London. May arrived at the Bailey home one day to find Dot in tears, packing a small case.

‘I shall have to send Joe away on the school evacuation scheme,’ she wept. ‘I always said I would never let him be evacuated; the poor little thing, having to go and live with strangers. It breaks my heart.’

May wanted to weep with her. She too hated the idea of Joe going away. ‘The doodlebugs are worse in south London than around here, so I’ve heard, Mrs Bailey,’ she mentioned hopefully.

‘Maybe they are,’ said Dot, ‘but we are getting them here as well; all day long the perishing things come rattling over. It’s too dangerous for a child.’

‘But he was here during the Blitz,’ May reminded her.

‘He was too little to be sent away then, and we knew where we were with those raids,’ she said, sniffing into her handkerchief. ‘These wicked things are dropping all day and he has to go to school. I can’t protect him like I did before.’

‘No, I suppose it will be for the best,’ May agreed sadly. ‘It’s what George would want for him, and the government are recommending that people send their children away.’

Dot stopped what she was doing and sat down with her head in her hands. ‘Oh May,’ she sobbed. ‘First his dad goes away, then his mum dies, and now I’ve got to send him away as well; to live with people he doesn’t know in the middle of the country somewhere. It’s enough to damage him for life.’

‘He’ll be all right,’ encouraged May, though she was sick at heart. ‘Kids are tough little things; he’ll soon adapt.’

‘Some of the country people don’t want us Londoners in their villages,’ said Dot. ‘You hear such awful stories. I remember that when the kids came back after the Blitz.’

‘The stories aren’t all bad. It’s only occasionally you hear of an unhappy experience. Some children have a lovely time,’ May pointed out. ‘And it might not be for long.’

Dot seemed suddenly to pull herself together. ‘Yeah, you’re right, dear. I’ve got to be strong for him.’ She blew her nose. ‘I won’t half miss him, though, May.’

‘You and me both,’ said May, wiping the tears from her eyes.

It occurred to May in that moment that it wasn’t only the drama from the battlefields that touched your emotions in this war. It was the little things, like a six-year-old boy being sent away from everything he knew and loved, and a devoted grandmother trying to be strong for him, that broke your heart.

George often found himself fighting alongside or close to Ron Bikerley as they advanced from the beaches towards Caen. They hadn’t become best mates after George’s apology – events of the past still came between them – but neither were they enemies. They existed in a state of indifference which George didn’t like but didn’t know how to change. However, all the men were more interested in staying alive and winning the war than how they got along with individual members of the platoon, as important as mates were in army life, especially in action.

Since the landings it had been a hard and dangerous slog as they trudged on through constant bombardments. The morale of the men remained reasonably high despite heavy losses, probably because at last something was actually happening, and although they were experiencing resistance along the way, there was a definite sense of progress.

Along with his comrades, George was marching along a country lane with bayonet fixed, trucks coming up in the rear. Suddenly something moved out of the corner of his eye, and looking up he saw the barrel of a gun poking out through the branches aimed slightly ahead of him.

Instinctively he flung himself forward, pushing the man in front to the ground just as the bullet passed over where he had been standing.

‘Blimey,’ said Bikerley, scrambling to his feet. ‘That one was meant for me, I reckon. Thanks.’

‘Instinct, mate,’ said George modestly. ‘You’d have done the same for me.’

‘Thanks anyway.’

This was no time for fancy speeches, just bullets and bombs to be dodged. George was certain he would have acted in the same way whoever the man ahead of him had been. But he was very glad it had happened to be Bikerley, because he now realised that the other man had been through the same pain as himself, losing his father at a young age.

Proof of his own instinct to save life was a huge relief to him, as the tendency to violence he had discovered in himself still worried him. He thought his action had probably gone some way towards having Ron as a pal in the future, if there was one. Oh well, here we go again, he thought, as a grenade exploded nearby.

May called in to see how Dot was getting along without her beloved grandson, expecting to find her in pieces.

‘I miss him something awful,’ Dot said, ‘and he’s only been gone a few days.’

‘That’s only natural,’ said May, though the other woman seemed calmer than she had expected.

‘Anyway, I won’t have time to brood too much, because I’ve got myself a job,’ she announced.

‘Oh, really!’

‘You can put your eyes back into their sockets,’ said Dot drily as May stared at her in astonishment. ‘They’re employing women of all ages these days, even old codgers like me. Now that I don’t have Joe to look after, there’s no reason for me to stay at home, not when they need people to go out to work to keep the country going.’

‘Good for you,’ approved May. ‘What sort of job is it?’

‘On the buses; a conductress, or clippie as they call them these days,’ she replied.

‘Ooh, that will be fun, but a bit tiring for you, up and down those stairs collecting the fares.’

‘It’ll be better than sitting at home moping,’ she said.

‘It certainly will,’ agreed May, knowing that the other woman was fretting terribly over Joe.

‘I hope I don’t make a mess of it,’ said Dot, looking worried. ‘Still, you can only do your best, can’t you?’

‘Of course you won’t make a mess of it.’ May knew that Dot hadn’t been out to work for years so would naturally be feeling nervous, but she was doing it with a willing heart and once again showing that she had mettle. ‘You’ll be a smashing clippie, Mrs Bailey! One of the best in London!’

Although bombs were still raining down on London at all hours, hopes were high that the war would end in the autumn. News from abroad of the breakout from the Normandy beachhead and then later the liberation of Paris created huge optimism at home, especially as there were also rumours about some of the blackout restrictions being lifted.

‘At least there are signs that normality is on its way back,’ said May to Connie one Saturday morning in Oxford Street. They both had the morning off and were shopping with what was left of their clothing coupons.

‘The blackout makes no difference to the doodlebugs as they are robots, so the government might as well get rid of it altogether,’ remarked Connie.

‘They must be confident that there won’t be any more proper piloted bombers to have mentioned lifting some of it in September,’ said May.

They stood looking in a dress-shop window, rather wistfully as neither had many coupons left.

‘I don’t actually mind the utility clothes,’ mentioned Connie. Utility garments were manufactured under restrictions as to the minimum amount of material that was used and the price was strictly controlled to make them affordable. ‘I quite like wearing simple things.’

‘I don’t dislike them either,’ said May. ‘But it will be nice after the war when rationing finishes and we can buy what we like again; pretty, stylish things.’

‘Oh I’ll say,’ agreed Connie. ‘I don’t think anyone can wait for that.’

They walked on, stopping to look in every dress-shop window. The siren went, but very few people took any notice. Even when the doodlebug clattered into sight, with its distinct grating roar, most people just glanced up and then went on their way.

‘We are all getting a bit too casual about the darned things now,’ Connie remarked.