Shrapnel (4 page)

When I got in, Mum said, ‘You've been a long time, Gordon.'

‘Sorry, Mum.'

‘Not been playing in the leaves again, I hope.'

‘No. I was reading a poem actually, coming along. Rupert Brooke.
The Soldier
. Got it for homework.'

‘Ah.' She nodded, rinsing spuds. ‘Learned that when
I
was at school. Still remember bits of it:
If I should die, think only this of me
. . . That's the one, isn't it?'

‘Yes, Mum.'

‘And he
did
die, poor lad.' She smiled sadly, drying her hands on a tea towel. ‘Thank goodness you're only thirteen, love. All over before they call on you.'

‘Yes, Mum.' I hung my blazer on the newel post and went upstairs, hugging my state secret.

‘
LOOK, CHARLIE, IT
isn't the end of the world. In fact it gave me an idea.'

Charlie brushed an imaginary fleck off his lapel. ‘What sort of idea, chum – going to wear the flamin' thing in a fancy holster are you, save the rozzers the trouble of looking for it?' The others laughed.

A train rumbled overhead, shaking the lockup that doubled as HQ and warehouse. The young man waited till train and laughter faded. ‘I told him a story,' he continued. ‘One he believes because he wants it to be true. He'll do anything I say.
I was thinking about Manley's – the diamonds.'

Charlie shook his head. ‘I told you before, mate, we can forget Manley's. Security's tight as a tick's bum – even an inside man's got to leave through the gate and they search 'em. Everyone. You're not going to tell us this kid's the answer, I hope.'

The lad nodded. ‘I think he might be, Charlie. Him and a model aeroplane.'

‘Model . . .?' Charlie gazed at the speaker, shook his head. ‘You're off your flamin' rocker, chum. Green van'll come for you any minute, padded cell waiting.' Some of the others nodded, chuckling.

The lad shrugged. ‘Please yourselves. I could always go solo on this one, keep the dosh myself.'

‘Uh – look, Charlie,' put in one man. ‘You said yourself the lad's bright. It wouldn't hurt to listen to his idea, surely?'

Charlie sighed, looking down at his immaculate, two-tone shoes. ‘All right, chum, let's hear it, and I hope it's a lot better than sticking a shooter up your mum's flamin' chimney.'

MUM HAD JUST
served pudding when the sirens started. It was semolina with prunes, so I didn't care all that much. ‘Here we go again,' growled Dad. ‘Get the gas masks, Gordon.' We each had a job to do before taking shelter. Mine was to fetch the masks from the coat rack.

Our shelter was at the bottom of the garden. We shared it with the ancient couple next door – the Andersons. The type of shelter we had was called an Anderson Shelter, and the old man had this pathetic joke. ‘It's mine, you know,' he'd say,
each time we had to take cover. ‘Named after me, but it's all right – you can use it, sixpence a time, payable after the war.'

His wife would slap him on the arm and say, ‘Ooh, Herbert, you
are
a one,' and we'd all chuckle as if he'd never said it before. As if it was the funniest joke in the world.

The raids themselves were always a disappointment to me. I was mad on aeroplanes, and when we had our first raid I expected to be able to look up and see all the different types: Heinkels, Dorniers, Messerschmitts. I was looking forward to it. In fact you don't see planes at all, just crisscross searchlight beams and blackness. You
hear
'em, but that just makes it worse. You hear the bombs too, but they don't come screaming down like in films. Flat thuds is what you hear, between the banging of anti-aircraft guns. And you never see a plane get hit – some
do
get shot down, but it's always somewhere else. It's the same as when you watch somebody fishing. You know he's going to hook a fish sooner or later, but no matter how long you hang about watching, he'll never do it while you're there.

‘I hope Raymond's taken cover,' murmured Mum as bombs thudded in the distance.

‘He'll be right as rain, Mrs Price,' said old Anderson. He'd served in the Boer War, before there were any such things as aeroplanes. ‘They can't
see
him, you see.' He shook his head. ‘Can't hit a man you can't see.'

‘Silly old fool,' muttered his wife. Herbert was a bit deaf and didn't hear.

I smiled to myself in the soily smelling gloom.
He will be right as rain
, I thought.
He has to be, or who'll make sure we have a secret army to challenge the invader?
I didn't half wish I could tell the Andersons, and Mum and Dad, what Raymond and me were doing.

I was thinking this when the world exploded.

BLAST, THEY CALL
it. A wall of air moving terrifically fast, outward from the centre of an explosion. Its speed makes it act like something solid – like an express train. It's just a mixture of gases but it blows out windows, shifts brick walls, ruptures eardrums. People have been picked up and hurled through the air by blast.

The bomb landed in the middle of our garden, halfway between the house and the shelter. Its blast ripped the shelter door off its hinges and slammed it against the back wall, buckling the
corrugated iron into the packed earth behind it. How that door missed the five of us I'll never know – anybody in its path would have been reduced instantly to pulp.

At the same time, something seemed to suck all the air out of my lungs. For a few seconds I was completely empty, and when I gasped there was nothing to breathe. I was sure I'd die. Then the air filled with dust which I sucked into my throat, starting to choke. I fell down. Somebody nearby was screaming.

‘Gordon!' Mum slid her arm under my neck and raised my head. ‘Can you hear me – are you all right?'

I nodded. My throat felt clogged. I gipped, puked on her cardigan and croaked, ‘Think so, yes. What was it?' The screaming went on.

‘A bomb, your dad says. In the garden. He thinks the house is still there.'

‘Who's screaming?'

‘It's Florrie, love. Mrs Anderson. She's all right – bit of shock, I expect.'

I was breathing more easily. I sat up, screwed up my eyes and shook my head. ‘Wow, that was horrible. Can we get out?'

Mum shook her head. ‘Raid's still on. Listen for the
all clear
, love.'

Old Florrie stopped screaming and was sobbing in her husband's arms.

Dad turned from looking out and gave Mum a hug. ‘That was the one with our name on it, love,' he told her. ‘Closest old Adolf'll come to getting us.'

‘I hope you're right.' She shivered.

The bangs had stopped. Another few minutes and the siren sounded the
all clear
. Dad climbed the three-rung ladder to ground level, leaned in and helped Mum and the old couple out of the shelter. I came last.

It was dark, but something was on fire a few doors away, and the flickering orange light revealed the state of the garden. Most of it had gone. A great hole yawned between us and the house. The fence which had divided the Andersons' garden from ours lay flattened among ragged remains of lupins and delphiniums. The houses themselves appeared intact, but weren't. Only when we'd edged our way round the crater did we notice there was no glass in any of the windows. None in ours, none in the Andersons'.

‘Maybe the fronts'll be all right,' said Dad, but when he and I had picked our way along the side path through a litter of smashed roof tiles, we found that the blast had blown out every pane there too, and the old couple's front door was hanging from a single hinge.

From that night on, I was going to feel completely different about air raids.

THEY TOOK US
to a rest centre. They do when you're bombed out. It was a church hall a couple of streets away. Mattresses on the floor, bundles of people's belongings, a few hard chairs. Volunteers showed us where to put our stuff, brought beakers of tea.

Some people spent days and weeks in places like this. The Andersons would. We were lucky. Just the one night, or what was left of it, trying to get to sleep with people mumbling and crying all round, then we were off to my gran's.

Gran was Mum's mum. She lived across town,
on her own. My grandad had died of flu in 1919. ‘I'll be glad of the company,' she said.

There were only two proper bedrooms, so I had a camp bed in the attic. It was a Wednesday, but I was allowed to miss school. ‘You've hardly slept, love,' said Mum. ‘And anyway we'll have to investigate buses, it's too far to walk from here.'

I wasn't grumbling, but I was worried.
What if one of Raymond's people tries to contact me and I'm not there? And then there's the revolver. The blast could easily have knocked it out of the chimney, and there'll be workmen all over the house soon. One of them's bound to notice a package in the hearth, then what?

‘Mum?'

‘Yes, love?'

‘Would it be all right if I went to the park for a bit? There's a balloon crew there, and I know one of the men.' I played in the park whenever we were at Gran's. A barrage balloon was sited there, and I'd chatted to one of the airmen.

‘I suppose so, Gordon, but you mustn't get in the men's way, you know – they have their duties to perform.'

‘I know, Mum, I won't be a nuisance.'

‘And watch the time – your gran serves lunch at twelve sharp.'

‘I'll be here, Mum.'

I don't usually lie to my parents, but I had no choice. I wasn't going to the park. I was off back to our house to check on the gun. Then I had to find my brother, tell him where I was staying. When you're on secret work for the government you have to lie sometimes, and you don't go playing in the park.

The house looked bad in daylight. The roof had lost half its tiles, and some of the window frames had been pushed out. One of Raymond's blackout boards lay cracked in a clump of Michaelmas daisies. And we'd been lucky: the Barkers' house three doors along was nothing but a burned-out shell. Some men were at work there, bracing a dangerous wall with stout timbers.

Nothing was happening at our house, which was good. If the gun had fallen out of the chimney, it should still be on the hearth. I started up the path.

‘
Oi!
' One of the workmen was glaring at me across two front gardens. ‘Where d'you think
you're
going?'

I stopped, flapped a hand at the house. ‘I live here. I need to get something.'

‘You need to get right away from there,' he shouted, ‘that's all
you
need to get. Don't you
know
it's dangerous to play around bombed houses – don't they teach you
anything
at school? And anyway' – he scowled – ‘how do I know you're not one of them
looters
, eh?' Looters were people who went into bombed-out houses and pinched valuables.