A man who cried (38 page)

above ! if he had blamed his father before for Alice and the consequences of his association with

Alice, the sight of his mother that day in the court lifted all blame from him. She was a little

hellcat,

a mean-faced little hell-cat. He felt there was no part of her in him and he had actually

prayed to God that when he and Molly married and they had bairns none of them would be a

throw-back to their granny.

She had collared him in the street after the trial. He had avoided her earlier in the court corridors but when she stopped dead in front of him in the street and said, ”Well, we haven’t grown much,

have we?” he was back in the cottage and she was yelling at him: ”Well! where have you been?

Pick this up! Pick that up! Take that!” Every time he thought of it he was made aware of the

slight deafness in his left ear. What she said next had inflamed him: ”Well, he’s got his deserts at last.”

For answer, he had almost shouted at her, ”It’s a pity you didn’t get yours,” on which he had

turned from her and she had yelled after him, ”Like father like son, thankless sods!”

The encounter had been brief, a matter of minutes but he hoped he’d never come face to face

with her again.

He pushed the plate to one side, rose from his chair, and went round the table and, putting his

hands on Hilda’s shoulders, said, ”I want to say something to you I’ve never said before, and it’s

this. I ... I look upon you as me mother. I always have done since I came to live in this house. I’m not going to call you Aunt Hilda any more, from now you’re going to be me mam, because that’s

what you’ve been to me. And I want to thank you for all the care and attention you’ve given me

over the years. . . .”

”Aw Dick! Dick!” Her voice cracked, the tears sprang from her eyes; then, her mouth agape,

there issued forth a long drawn out wail and he pulled her towards him and pressed her face

tightly into his shoulder but crying roughly now, ”Stop it! Don’t start that again. You’re over all

that. Now listen to me, stop it!”

When her crying didn’t ease, he thrust her from him and taking her by the shoulders, actually

shook her, even while he gulped in

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j his own throat. ”Now look,” he said, ”I’ve got a cqBple of hours

before I’m due on duty an’ I want to have a bath an’ get changed, then go and see Molly, but I

won’t be able to do anything if you don’t stop it. Now then ! And that’s another thing I want to

say to you. Molly’s on duty up Primrose Square way, and I’m at the school tonight. Now they’ve

been shorthanded there for a week or more since Mrs Ratcliffe went down with flu, so what

about you coming and taking over the phone, it’ll be better than sitting , here alone ?”

”I... I couldn’t.” She was drying her face now on the tea towel

I that she had grabbed from the rod, and she almost choked as he

pulled her round to him again and said, ”Yes, you could. Look,

I’m worried stiff when you’re left here on your own, you won’t go

^» into the shelter. ... I never know what you’re up to.”

”The raids have slackened, there hasn’t been any for ages, likely won’t be any more. ...”

”Oh, what about the doodle-bugs over the south coast. It could be our turn next. Look, I’m

having no more arguments, you’re coming so that’s that. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll have

me clay cold dinner.” He stared at the table now and demanded, ”Where’s me tea ? And don’t

say I shouldn’t drink tea with meat ’cos I’ve always drunk tea with meat.”

His rough strategy worked. She put the kettle on and began to busy herself around the kitchen,

and as he looked at her his heart felt sore for her. She’d had a rotten deal. She had her faults, but who hadn’t. And she hadn’t deserved what she had got. Of a sudden he thought if it wasn’t for

Florrie his dad would come back here and things would be different for both of them. But Florrie

was set deep in his father’s life, as firm and lasting as the concrete base of a bridge. .• ; ,-•..-•.••

There were only ten minutes to go before he was relieved. He looked towards where Hilda was

sitting in front of the stove. She looked tired. He smiled at her and nodded towards the clock, and

then he looked to where Henry Blythe stood laughing with George Thompson as they pointed out

to each other some of the

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children’s crayon drawings tacked to the partition, and it was just as Henry Blythe said, ”I think

that’s supposed to be a messerschmitt, he’s made it the size of a matchstick, but he’s made the

Lancaster bomber almost a foot long,” that the siren screamed overhead. They all turned and

stared at one another; then almost simultaneously they said the same words : ”Oh no ! it’s six

weeks.” They were scrambling now for their tin hats and overcoats and Henry Blythe, turning to

Hilda, said, ”Do you think you can see to the phone?”

”Yes, but I ... I won’t be here by myself though, will I?” He looked at her somewhat in surprise,

then said, ”No, no; someone ’11 be along of you, although he might have to dash off for a while.

It all depends on . . .”

Dick interrupted him, saying to Hilda, ”It’s all right, don’t worry. Just sit down there” - he led

her round the desk - ”and if any calls come in write them down. One of us must be here to run the

errands.” He smiled at her.

George Thompson now said, ”I’ll go round the building, Mary and Ronnie Biggs are on the north

side but Hannah Farrow is by herself on the road.” He buttoned up his coat, adjusted his tin

helmet, then went out.

”Well, I might as well make another pot of tea.” Henry Blythe took up the teapot and walked

towards the kitchen, and as he did so the sound of the pop-pop of the anti-aircraft guns came to

them. Looking towards Hilda, Dick said, ”Don’t worry. Don’t worry. They’re at the far side of

the town; in fact, I think they’re beyond it. It could be Gateshead or Newcastle.”

When Dick next heard the sound of the anti-aircraft guns he knew they weren’t at a distance but

inside the town now, Bog’s End way, which meant the docks, but as yet there was no sound of

any explosion.

Minutes passed. Henry Blythe returned with the enamel teapot full of tea and proceeded to fill

three mugs. It was just as he handed one across the wooden table to Hilda that the whole school

building shook. By the time the next explosion rocked them the three of them were crouched

under the Morrison shelter that was placed against the wall of the classroom. The building

shuddered again with a third explosion, then a fourth.

There followed a silence, and in it they crawled from the shelter and stood up.

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When the phone rang it was Henry Blythe who learjf over the table and picked it up, and he

nodded three or four times before ’ putting it down. Turning to Dick, he saiid, ”Bottom of

Brampton

Hill got it bad. They must have got wind of the factory but they missed that. It seems a number of

the big houses are levelled. They want help, all they can get. I’ll go down and take the others

with me. You’ll be all right here, Dick, you’ll carry on. . . .”

”Mr Blythe, if ... if you don’t mind I’d rather go. You see ... well” - he glanced towards Hilda and found her staring wide-eyed at him - ”I ... I have an aunt down there, lives in No. 46, I’d ... I’d

just like to make sure, if it’s all right with you.”

”Oh, it’s all right with me, get yourself off. Only tell the others.”

ijfW’l’» . . . Long before he came to the top of the hill he was running

I in the glow of flames, and when he came to the brow and looked

1 downwards his stomach seemed to turn over inside its casing.

; They had said the bottom of Brampton Hill. It might be towards

V ’ the bottom but the houses that were bkzing were just past the

! middle and 46 was just past the middle.

jj| Further down the hill he had to threap his way around fire eni’i

gines, over hose pipes and through millin» men; and then he came

to where the gate had been, and he lookec towards the blaze at one il end of the house, then to the

enormou: heap of tangled wood,

brick and mortar at the other. He now ran to where they were ji guiding people into ambulances

and hisroice sounded high and

cracked as he asked one uniformed man a:ter another: ”Forty-six.

Are these out of forty-six? and got such answers as, ”Where’s

forty-six? There’s about six of them do\»n.”

Pushing, he now made his way up wh;t had been the drive. In

the glow from the fire he could see thatone end wall of the big

house was still standing and, as if floatag in the air, a part of

the third storey. It had likely been the .ttic and was held by a

section of roof, which in turn was beinj held by the remaining i! wall.

The noise and confusion, the smell c burning, the mingled

cries of people who were still able to cjr, whirled around him,

making him sick and dizzy.

”Look, catch hold of this !” The end of large timber was thrust

into his arms and without any protest he licked with it while two I other men pulled it gently

from a pile of rbble. When it had been

j

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laid on the ground he hurried forward and said, ”The . . . the garden flat.”

”What?” The man turned a face to him that looked as if it had been freshly powdered.

”The garden flat. There was a garden flat.” r

”Everything’s flat, chum, you can see for yersel’.”

”The people, the people inside.”

”Look” - the man rounded on him - ”we don’t know who was inside or how many; we’ll be lucky

if we find out by mornin’. Now if you want to make yourself useful get at them stones and move

them gently.”

He didn’t do as he was bidden and start moving the stones, but he scrambled over the strewn

debris and round what he thought was the corner of the house and to where the garden flat had

been. There was no sign of it, at least above ground. What was here was a huge hole. There were

men round it. Pulling at the sleeve of one, he stammered, ”Ha ... ha ... have you got anybody

out ?”

”Not yet. There was a shelter underneath, there was bound to be somebody in it.”

”There . . . there was someone in the flat above an’ all, my aunt and her child and . . . and her

father.”

”Oh!” The man was shouting now. ”There were two adults and a bairn here, this is a relative.”

The man turned to him again. ”You sure they were in?”

”They . . . they were bound to be, the baby’s young. She . . . she doesn’t go out at nights.”

”Well, all I can say, lad, it’s a pity she didn’t go out this night in particular; can’t see anybody standing a chance down there. Still, we’ll have a go now we’ve got something sure to go on.”

When the man started giving directions Dick said, ”I’ll. . . I’ll help. I must see -” He couldn’t

finish and say, ”if they’re dead or alive”; as the man said there was little hope.

”Well, gently does it. Straddle that beam if you can.” He swung an arc light from a standing

support towards the hole. ”You’re about the lightest of us, ease yourself along it. Go careful

because it’s at a steep angle, but once you feel it give, stop.”

Dick threw his leg over the beam, then cautiously hitched himself forward. The sweat was

raining from his face as he glanced downwards into the tangled debris of wood, brick, and, what

now made him want to retch, recognizable pieces of Florrie’s furniture.

M7

She had loved her furniture. Oh Florrie ! Florrie ! Oh
D$& I
Dad !

He was brought sharply from his moaning thought by the man shouting, ”It’s steady then?” and

after a moment he called back, ”Yes, quite steady. It ... it seems fixed tight.” He pointed to where the beam disappeared into a mass of stones.

The man’s voice came to him again, shouting, ”Well and good, we’ll take it from there.”

And so they took it from there. He became lost in time. He was aware, yet unaware, that his back

was breaking, his arms were snapping, his throat was choked with dust, his clothes were Tom

and covered with lime. For how long he and the other members of the team were in the hole at a

stretch he had no idea. He only knew that they lifted blocks of stone that would in ordinary times

have defied any combined human effort; that they passed pieces of furniture from one to the

other, those pieces that couldn’t be pulled up were put in a sling, or were roped.

It was some time in the early dawn when a fresh set of men took over and he was hauled up from

the hole, which was now much deeper than when he had first dropped into it. It was as he sat on

a pile of rubble that he became aware of Hilda and Molly. Molly was carrying mugs of tea from a

Salvation Army canteen trolley, but whatever Hilda had been doing she had stopped and was

now standing staring at him, and he, because of his exhaustion, said no word to her but drooped

his head into his hands.

It was Molly who brought his head up as she pressed a mug of tea into his hand. He had just

finished drinking it when a shout came from the hole: ”Someone here.”

He pulled himself quickly to his feet; then the three of them moved forward. He could not see

what was happening down below until the men on the rim of the hole moved aside and a form

was laid gently on the rubble. It was that of a woman, but not the one that was in their minds.

”There’s a number here in the corner, some alive I think.”

They were now pushed back, and all they could do was to wait.

As each figure was hauled up from the shelter they looked down on it. A few were groaning, the