London Pride (54 page)

‘Present from my Peggy,' Flossie said happily, adjusting the hat on her newly-brushed hair. ‘How do I look?' It was a red hat and her lipstick matched it exactly.

‘Good enough for Buckingham Palace,' Mrs Roderick said, as Baby came flouncing out of the kitchen, blonde locks swinging. ‘Is she coming?'

‘No
she's
not,' Baby said crossly. She'd painted her lips in a scarlet cupid's bow that didn't quite match the true lines of her mouth and as a result she was fixed in a perpetual pout. ‘You know I don't like old pictures.' And she flounced up the stairs.

‘She's in such a mood,' Flossie confided, as she and Mrs Roderick walked out into the cold air of the afternoon. ‘You just don't know how to please her sometimes.'

‘Personally I wouldn't even try,' Mrs Roderick said,
sniffing, partly with derision and partly because the cold was making her nose sting. ‘But there you are, she's your daughter not mine. Quick! Look! There's our tram.'

They hadn't allowed very much time to get to the cinema, so to see a tram approaching right on cue was a piece of luck. But their luck ran out on the journey because there was a hole in the road and some repair work going on, so the tram had to stop before it reached the cinema, and that left them with more than a quarter of a mile to walk. Consequently they arrived when the B picture had already begun.

‘Let's go and have a cup of tea somewhere and go in when the big picture starts,' Flossie suggested. ‘I don't like seeing the end before the beginning.'

But Mrs Roderick wouldn't hear of it. ‘I can't hang about in the cold,' she said. ‘Not at my age. I should catch the rheumatism. Let's go in. At least it's warm inside.'

‘Oh …' Flossie dithered, wondering whether she could plead nerves as a reason for tea. It was very difficult to plead nerves with Mrs Roderick because she was so forceful. In the end she decided to agree. ‘Oh all right then. But I shall keep my eyes closed.'

But of course she couldn't keep them closed for long and certainly not for more than half an hour, the sound of those syrupy voices and all that lovely swirly romantic music was too enticing. Soon she was lost in the romantic world that she needed so much these days and that sustained her so well, war and rationing and bombing all forgotten, as the peerless heroine danced in the strong arms of her suave hero between urns tastefully arranged with the flowers of all seasons under a sky full of summer clouds scudding past in a storm-force wind that wouldn't damage anything. Smashing!

In the interval she and Mrs Roderick treated themselves to a packet of Du Maurier cigarettes.

‘You need a treat now and then to buck you up,' Mrs Roderick said, as she always did.

And Flossie agreed, smoking like a film star, as she always did.

In fact, until the notice came up on the screen to tell them that there was an air raid on, it was a most enjoyable
outing. But at that point it went wrong.

‘Well I'm off home,' Mrs Roderick said. ‘This is where we came in anyway.'

‘Oh don't go yet,' Flossie whispered back, not taking her eyes from the screen. ‘This is the best bit. See it to the end.'

‘I have seen it,' Mrs Roderick said. ‘I told you. This is where we came in.'

People in the rows behind them began to shush her. It was bad enough to have their enjoyment interrupted by the notice without this woman making a noise.

‘I'm off,' Mrs Roderick said. ‘You coming or not?'

‘No, no,' Flossie whispered, still absorbed. ‘Must see this bit.' She was patting her handbag with the pleasure of it.

So Mrs Roderick left her to it. ‘I'll call for you shopping tomorrow,' she said. And went.

Flossie didn't notice her going. The heroine was drifting about the screen in a lovely floating négligé squirting perfume all over herself in a lovely languid way as if she had all the time and money in the world. What a life!

In the wardens' post Peggy and Mr MacFarlane had been playing cards. They'd been on duty at the post since eight o'clock that morning and the time had hung rather heavily once the routine chores were done. But as soon as they were given the red alert everything speeded up. Within minutes a messenger boy arrived on a bicycle to tell them that there were incendiaries at Christies Wharf. They sent two wardens down in case they were needed, and the wardens sent the messenger back almost at once to say that there was nobody to evacuate but that they'd found a serious problem. The wharf was locked up for the weekend, there were no fire watchers on duty there, and the incendiaries had already taken hold. When the AFS arrived the fire was out of control and soon the entire wharf was ablaze, the two hundred telegraph poles it contained going up like a bonfire in a roar of red and yellow flame that could be clearly seen outside the post, with sparks shooting like red stars hundreds of feet into the darkness.

‘I hope Joan's all right,' Peggy said. ‘And the kids. I
don't like it when they start on the warehouses. There's a lot a' warehouses round her way.'

‘Och they'll be away under cover,' Mr MacFarlane said, wiping his eyes because the smoke was making them water. ‘Your sister's a sensible girl.'

Actually Joan and the children were being well looked after. When the raid began they were in the house next door with Mr and Mrs Rudney. And as soon as Mr Rudney heard the noise of the bombers, he decided that this was going to be ‘a big one' and took them all down to the cellar.

‘They're after something special tonight,' he said. ‘You mark my words.'

‘Just so long as it ain't us,' his wife said, following him down the wooden stairs into the coal-damp darkness under the house. ‘You got the torches?'

What they were after was the City of London, left empty and unattended, like Christies warehouse, because it was a Sunday and the Sunday after Christmas what's more. And they were after it at a particularly vulnerable time, when there was plenty of cloud to give them cover, and when the tide on the Thames was exceptionally low. Within the first hour of the raid they dropped over three thousand incendiary bombs on the heart of the City and because there was no one to give the alarm, the fires took hold secretly and then spread and raged. By seven o'clock there were so many fires out of control that the sky was blood red with reflected light and outside the wardens' post it was so bright that Peggy and Mr MacFarlane could read notices and newspapers as if it were daytime.

The wardens who'd gone down to Christies Wharf had seen it all. They came back full of awed excitement.

‘There's fires everywhere you look. It's even worse than the docks was that time. Look at that sky!'

They looked at the awesome red of the sky for a very long time, feeling helpless and angry and yet acknowledging a shameful crawling excitement at the drama of what they were witnessing. This was no longer a series of fires, it was one enormous blaze and it stretched as far as they could see, the flames growing higher and denser as they watched. It was as if the whole of the city was on fire.
As if Hell itself had come to their city.

Other wardens arrived to report back at the post, and the stories they brought with them were horrific. Every building in London was on fire on both sides of the Thames all the way from Moorgate and the Barbican right down to the South Bank. St Paul's was ringed with flame, the cobbles in the streets were burning, the tram rails were melting, and as a final heart-stopping horror, the firemen had run out of water, and the fire-boats on the Thames couldn't get near enough to the riverbank to help because the tide was so low.

By now the light from the inferno was so very bright it was like being on a stage under red floodlights.

‘We're off duty in ten minutes,' Mr MacFarlane said to Peggy. ‘Should we stay on a wee bitty longer, d'ye think?'

But she never got a chance to answer him because at that moment their messenger came cycling back to the post, his face gilded by the firelight, his eyes bulging, breathless with the news that there'd been a terrible incident in Blackwall Lane.

‘Parachute mine hit them big flats at the corner a' the Woolwich Road,' he gasped. ‘You know the ones. Them big four storey ones. Knocked flat. There's dead bodies everywhere. Blew out all the winders in the hospital, St Alphege's, you know. An' there's about ten shops gone. An' the cinema.'

Peggy felt her blood running cold in her veins. ‘The Granada?' she asked.

‘Yeh! That's the one. There's dead bodies all over the place.'

‘What's up, lassie?' Mr MacFarlane asked, his earnest face all concern.

‘My mum was up the Granada this afternoon.'

‘When did it happen?' Mr MacFarlane asked the boy.

‘Quarter ter seven.'

‘Would she still be there at that time?'

‘She might be.'

‘Then you must go straight there and see,' Mr MacFarlane decided. ‘Leave the post to me. The night team will all be along shortly. No, no, not a word. Off you go.'

So she went, cycling through the deserted streets with
the sky glowing red as nightmare above her and the roar of the fire throbbing like the terror of her own heart. But being Peggy she tried to be sensible. She'd go home first. After all Mum could have gone home long before the mine fell. She could be sitting in the kitchen at that very moment as right as rain, and wouldn't they laugh about it then.

But number six was unlit and empty, and her mother wasn't in the shelter either, although Mrs Roderick was, and she was very surprised to hear that Flossie hadn't come home.

‘I knew she'd get caught in the raid,' she said. ‘Would stop to see the end of the picture, you see. I hope she's all right.'

‘So do I,' Peggy said, grimly. But she went on being sensible, taking the time to write a note to Baby and Mrs Geary, to tell them that she'd ‘gone to an incident in the Woolwich Road' and propping it against the clock on the mantelpiece where they'd certainly see it in that awful bright light. Then she set off on her journey again, worrying and arguing with herself all the way.

The boy could have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It might be just an ordinary HE not a parachute mine. And even if it was, Mum could be taking shelter somewhere nearby. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. But no matter what she tried to tell herself, fear and anxiety howled in her mind all the way, and when she got to the Woolwich Road she knew at once that they were both justified.

The junction was full of debris. A whole row of shops seemed to have crumbled to pieces and fallen into the road, and where the flats had been there was a pile of rubble as high as a house. The rescue teams were still working in the ruins, there were several covered corpses lying where the pavements should have been and the whole scene was stained by the awful light from the fire, as if everything and everybody there was covered in blood. Oh dear God, Peggy thought, dear dear God!

She got off her bicycle and stood where she was until her heart was beating more normally and her stomach had stopped shaking. Most of the people she could see were
rescue workers or wardens, and after a few seconds she realized that the warden standing on the broken steps of the cinema was a man she knew, so she propped her bicycle against a wall that was still standing and went across to ask him if he knew anything about the casualties.

‘Very bad,' he said. ‘We've had ten dead and ever so many injured.'

‘Any names?'

‘Someone you know, is it?' he asked, sensing the anxiety she was holding in check.

‘My mum.'

‘I'd cut across to St Alphege's if I was you,' he advised, turning his head towards the hospital behind him. ‘That's where they was all taken, being it's so near. Though mind you they've took a pasting an' all tonight.'

So Peggy climbed over the wreckage and walked towards the hospital. In the lurid light she could see that most of the windows in the front of the building had been blown out and when she got through the gate and into casualty she found that none of the electric lights were working. But there was a nurse on duty at reception with a candle and a list of admissions, and to Peggy's relief her mother's name wasn't among them.

‘But I'd check the ward if I was you,' the nurse advised. ‘We've had quite a few brought in unconscious.'

‘Yes,' Peggy said, swallowing back her distress. ‘I will. Thank you.'

‘I've got some clothing here you might like to see,' the nurse said. ‘Not very much I'm afraid. A hat, shoes, gloves, handbags, that sort of thing. One of the wardens brought it over. It might help.'

‘Yes,' Peggy said again, her mouth dry.

‘Come through into the office,' the nurse said, picking up her candle.

The collection was spread out over a bench, lost and pathetic, like items in a jumble sale. And her mother's new red hat was right in the middle.

‘Then she must be here,' the nurse said, after reading the label on the hat. ‘It was found on the cinema steps. I am sorry. Can you find your own way to the wards? They're all in surgical.'

It seemed such a long walk to the wards, down corridors flickering with red light and echoing to the shouts and crashes from the continuing rescue. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. Lord, give us strength to endure that which has to be endured. Please God don't let her be dead.

The first ward she came to was still shuttered and very dark. There were nurses moving among the beds, candles in hand, and somebody was groaning in that low, terrible, instinctive way that Peggy now knew meant a pain beyond endurance.

‘Yes,' the Sister said, appearing beside her, angel-faced in the candle-light.

‘I'm looking for my mother.'

‘Of course. Would you care to follow me.'

They walked slowly from bed to bed, carrying their little blue edged light before them. Flossie was in the fourth bed.