Backstreet Child (41 page)

Nellie put her handkerchief to her mouth. ‘Gawd ’elp us all,’ she said in almost a whisper.

It had started as a normal summer Saturday and became a day that would never be forgotten by the folk in the riverside backstreets of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.

Chapter Twenty-Five

After the bombers had left, the people of Page Street stood on their front doorsteps gazing up at the blood-red sky. Vast fires were still raging out of control at the Surrey Docks and more and more fire tenders were being brought in to fight the conflagration. Now and then someone came into the little turning with more information about the air raid, and the news was quickly passed along from one small group to another.

‘The downtown bridges are smashed and there’s fousands waitin’ ter get away,’ the lamplighter said as he pedalled his bicycle into the street gripping a small ladder and steering with one hand.

Old Mrs Haggerty was hard of hearing and she knocked on her neighbour’s front door. ‘ ’Ave yer ’eard the news?’ she said. ‘There’s fousands trapped downtown. Somefink ter do wiv the bridges.’

Mrs Watson hurried to tell her friend who lived a few doors away. ‘There’s tens o’ fousands trapped downtown,’ she told her breathlessly. ‘It’s the bridges.’

Ida Green was prone to exaggeration. ‘There’s ’undreds o’ fousands killed downtown,’ she told her next-door neighbour. ‘On the bridges, by all accounts.’

Thousands of Rotherhithe folk were in fact waiting calmly and patiently to be evacuated from a devastated area around the Surrey Docks which was cut off from the rest of Rotherhithe by a navigable waterway linking the Russia and Greenland Docks to the Surrey Basin. The road bridges over the water had been damaged, and for the time being only fire tenders were allowed to cross. The downtowners, as they were called, had suffered badly and many of their riverside homes had been destroyed, but their plight was being magnified to such a degree that many folk in the dockland backstreets of Bermondsey were convinced that most of their downtown cousins had perished, and that they too were going to be wiped out in the next air raid aimed at the dock area.

People waited anxiously all evening for the all-clear siren to sound, but instead, when the hour grew late and darkness drew in, the drone of aircraft filled the angry sky: the second air armada that day was being guided to its targets by the red glow over London.

Bombs started to fall once more and the shelter in Page Street was soon filled to capacity. Babies cried incessantly and young children sat huddled against their mothers as the din of battle reached a crescendo. Outside the twin caverns, men stood around together in the scant safety of the concrete canopy and worried for their families and for their little homes that were sited in the shadow of the docks and wharves.

Billy Sullivan sat with the rest of the heavy rescue squad in a reinforced garage in Abbey Street, where phone lines were linked to a central control. The men waited for their first call, having been hastily assembled with little or no time for training. When it came, it concerned a tannery that had been hit in Bermondsey; there were shelterers trapped in the basement. The heavy lorry roared from the garage through burning streets and two minutes later they arrived at the factory.

The rescue workers, wearing blue overalls and steel helmets with the letters HR on the front, set to work immediately shoring up the entrance of the basement shelter with heavy timbers pulled from the debris. The squad leader Jim Davis took control and barked his orders to the team, joining in as the men struggled with the timbers. Jim Davis was a stocky individual with grey hair, pale blue eyes and a massive pair of hands. He was a site foreman for a large building company, and his knowledge of the building trade and ability to handle men made him a natural squad leader.

‘I can ’ear voices,’ one of the men shouted to him as they laboured among the ruins.

‘Oi, you lot, shut yer noise a minute, will yer,’ Jim barked out as he lowered his head to the ground.

The faint sounds of singing carried up through the rubble and the rescue team redoubled their efforts to force a way through the huge pile of debris, only too aware that the whole building was threatening to collapse on them at any minute.

‘’Ere’s the door,’ a worker shouted as he strove to move a huge block of concrete to one side.

Billy Sullivan lent his muscle to the task and finally the door was prised open. Jim Davis shone his torch down the flight of stone stairs and saw white faces staring up at him.

‘Fank Gawd!’ one shouted as they climbed up and were quickly led to safety, their spirits having been kept high during their ordeal by a large woman with bright ginger hair who had conducted the community singing and now led the way out.

‘There’s two still down there an’ they won’t come out yet,’ she shouted to Jim Davis above the din of explosions and gunfire.

‘What d’yer mean, yet?’ Davis shouted back.

‘See fer yerself,’ she told him.

The squad leader beckoned for Billy to follow him and the two descended the stone stairs, treading carefully over the scattered debris. In the dim light of an oil lamp hanging from a rafter they saw two elderly men seated on empty boxes with playing cards spread out in front of them on a larger box they were using as a table.

‘Oi, you two!’ Jim shouted. ‘Get yourselves up them stairs.’

‘’Ang on a minute, mate,’ the smaller of the two called out. ‘There’s a few bob runnin’ on this ’and.’

‘Listen, yer dopey pair,’ Jim growled at them. ‘This buildin’ is in danger o’ fallin’ down on top of us. Sod the money. Get up them stairs while yer still can.’

The smaller man gathered up the pile of silver and coppers and the two hobbled up to the surface.

‘Don’t put that sprasy in yer pocket, Titch. That’s stake money,’ his opponent growled.

‘I ain’t gonna do no such fing,’ Titch replied. ‘’Ere, you mind it,’ he said to the big squad leader.

Jim Davis gave the little man a blinding look. ‘Piss orf an’ find yerself anuvver shelter, Titch,’ he said angrily. ‘We’ve got work ter do.’

All night the bombs rained down and through the long hours people sat in stuffy shelters, mothers with children asleep on their laps and babies cuddled in their protective arms, and others caring for their aged parents.

Granny Massey sat between her two daughters Brenda and Rose and feigned sleep, her sharp ears alert for anything that might be said about her. Brenda sat staring up at the concrete roof and winced every time a gun roared or an explosion rocked the shelter. The bombs were getting nearer and occasionally dust fell from the roof as loud blasts seemed to lift the solid concrete structure. Earlier one or two of the Page Street folk had attempted a sing-song with their neighbours but now they all sat quietly, wondering if they would survive the night.

Granny Massey opened her eyes and looked around her. ‘Me feet are cold,’ she groaned.

Brenda adjusted the blanket Granny had round her but to no avail.

‘I’m goin’ back ter me bed,’ she announced.

‘Don’t be silly, Mum,’ Rose said sharply. ‘The bombs are still fallin’.’

‘I ain’t worried about bloody bombs,’ the old lady replied. ‘When yer gotta go, yer gotta go.’

‘Well, you ain’t goin’ nowhere, so shut up an’ sit still,’ Brenda told her.

Granny Massey dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Nobody loves yer when yer old,’ she moaned.

Brenda sighed in resignation and turned her thoughts to Maurice Salter. He had been on night shift for the past two weeks and their meetings had been very brief. He had managed to mollify her mother somewhat, and now the old lady merely ignored him, much to Brenda’s dismay. Maurice was a very nice man, she felt, with a heart of gold, but sadly a head full of ridiculous ideas for making money.

‘I’m not sittin’ ’ere all night,’ Granny said suddenly. ‘Soon as it gets a bit quiet I’m orf ’ome.’

Brenda and Rose exchanged exasperated looks and pretended they had not heard, which irritated Granny madly. ‘That’s it,’ she announced, standing up. ‘I’m goin’.’

‘Look, Mum, yer can’t go outside,’ Brenda implored her along with Rose, trying to coax the old lady back on the bench.

‘Leave me alone. I know what I’m doin’,’ she croaked.

Brenda was getting embarrassed at her mother’s behaviour and she looked appealingly at Sadie Sullivan and Maisie Dougall who were sitting opposite. ‘Tell ’er,’ she urged them. ‘Tell ’er ’ow dangerous it is outside. She don’t understand.’

‘Oh yes I do,’ Granny said.

‘Sit down, yer scatty ole mare, yer showin’ yerself up,’ Sadie scowled at her.

‘Who you callin’ a scatty ole mare?’ Granny Massey shouted at Sadie.

‘You, that’s who,’ Sadie shouted back.

‘My mum’s not a scatty ole mare,’ Brenda told Sadie sharply.

‘Well, yer could ’ave fooled me.’ Sadie growled under her breath.

‘Why don’t yer try ter get some sleep, luv,’ Maisie urged the old lady. ‘It’ll do yer good.’

‘Sleep? What wiv all that racket goin’ on outside?’ Granny replied. ‘’Ow can anybody sleep?’

‘You’ll sleep in a minute if yer don’t shut yer bleedin’ noise up,’ Sadie muttered.

‘What did you say?’ Brenda asked quickly.

‘Sadie said yer muvver’ll be able ter sleep if that noise shuts up,’ Maisie cut in, trying to avoid further nastiness.

Granny Massey closed her eyes again and this time she went off into a deep sleep. Meanwhile Rose sat discussing her evacuated children with Brenda, while Sadie and Maisie stared at their feet and occasionally shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench. The air was very stuffy and it was made even more close by the heavy gas blanket draped over the shelter door. The smell of carbolic drifted out from the makeshift toilet at the end of the cavern and the two suspended kerosene lamps gave off smoke fumes that hung in the air and stung the back of the throat. Still the bombs fell, some a muffled rumble, others louder and more frightening as the shelter shook. People tried to remain calm, but there were screams and shouts of terror whenever an explosion made the refuge lift and shudder, and the shelterers wondered whether the whole place might be torn apart with them buried beneath it. Occasionally some of the men came in to see how their families were faring and they were asked how bad it was. Their shocked faces said it all as they shook their heads.

All through the first night of the blitz Carrie sat with Joe, Rachel and Nellie in the cellar of their house, fearing that at any moment the whole place was going to collapse over them. Joe tried to make light of their danger with small talk but even he lapsed into silence as the bombs got nearer. Rachel was holding onto her mother’s arm, while Nellie sat in the armchair Joe had brought down and tried to get on with her needlework.

‘ ’Ow will yer get back ter camp if the railways are damaged?’ Carrie asked her daughter.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’ll just report ter the RT office on the station. They’ll sort it out,’ she replied.

‘P’raps they’ll send yer back ’ome fer a few more days,’ Nellie said without looking up from her sewing.

‘I wouldn’t fink they’d do that, Gran,’ she laughed. ‘They’ll lay on buses or lorries ter take us back.’

After a while there seemed to be a lull in the bombing and Joe ventured up into the scullery to make a pot of tea. Rachel sat quietly thinking that it was likely to be less dangerous at camp than in Bermondsey from now on, and she knew she would be very worried about her family’s wellbeing once back in West Marden. At least at the camp there was a job to do, and it was a vital one. She had friends at camp, and there were the occasional dances or social evenings to liven things up. She thought about Tony and where he might be at that particular moment. Would he be on guard duty and getting the news of the bombing of London? Was he thinking of her and wishing that they could be together? Thoughts hurried across her mind and Rachel sighed to herself. Tony had captured her heart and the very thought of him sent little shivers of pleasure running through her body. The regular letters she received from him were tender and romantic and she replied in the same vein. It had become a courtship by mail and she knew for certain that she desired him, needed him to put his arms round her and keep her safe. How wonderful it would be if he had been able to sit with her on this terrifying night and wrap her in his arms, she sighed.

Carrie had been quietly observing her daughter and sensed that she had her soldier boy friend on her mind. She had spoken to Joe about the sudden change in Rachel and Joe said that he had noticed the difference too. The old sparkle had returned to her eyes and she seemed more vital, more alive. Carrie had been delighted to see it but she knew that it could all end so suddenly. Derek had been cruelly taken from her at the time when she was happiest. Tony had given her back her old zest for life, but he too was a serviceman, and he could be taken from her just as swiftly.

‘’Ave you ’eard from yer young man lately?’ Carrie asked, already guessing the answer.

‘I get a letter almost every day,’ Rachel replied, smiling.

‘I don’t know what yer find ter write about,’ Nellie butted in.

‘There’s lots ter write about, Gran,’ she told her.

‘I ’ope yer not gettin’ too serious, the way fings are,’ Nellie retorted.