The Clippie Girls (12 page)

The man nodded sympathetically. ‘I understand, miss, but I haven’t come across the driver of
this
vehicle yet, though the fire brigade are still searching the wrecked trams. There’s more than just this one, y’know.’

Rose felt as if the breath had been knocked from her body. ‘Oh my God. He’s not still trapped in there, is he?’

As she plunged away from him, the man called after her, ‘Leave it to the professionals . . .’ But the girl had gone and the constable hadn’t time to chase after her; he had more urgent work to do.

Rose stepped over debris, twisting her ankle but scarcely noticing the pain. ‘Bob – Bob – ’ she was sobbing now – ‘where are you?’

She reached the end of the tram where Bob would have been at the time it was hit. The vehicle was still upright, but there was glass and splintered wood everywhere.

‘Where is he? Where’s the driver?’ she demanded of a fireman who was close by.

He turned and looked at her in surprise. ‘Get away, miss. You shouldn’t be this close. Some of them buildings are going to come down any minute.’

‘But the tram driver? What’s happened to him? Have you seen him?’

The fireman turned and shouted to one of his mates. ‘Pete, you seen the driver of this tram?’

His colleague shook his head. ‘But I heard that the clippie has gone to hospital.’

‘That’s my sister, but she’s not badly hurt. It’s Bob I can’t find.’

‘Your boyfriend, is he?’ the first fireman said.

‘No – no,’ Rose stammered and knew she was blushing. ‘But – but he’s a – a friend of the family.’

‘Maybe he’s gone to hospital already,’ the second fireman volunteered. ‘Alf – we’re wanted to tek over that hose.’

‘He’s not here, love,’ the first one said and added, ‘but please step back. You’re hindering us now.’

‘Sorry,’ Rose said, surprisingly meekly. As she turned away, the fireman called after her. ‘I hope you find him safe.’

‘Thanks.’ Unbidden, tears blinded her. In a daze, she walked back to where she had left Peggy and the soldier, but now there was no one there.

‘You all right, love?’ Jack, the motorman she worked with the most, touched her arm. ‘They’ve taken Peggy to the hospital. I came out to see if there was owt I could do, but I’d best get back to the depot now. They might be needing us for extra duties. This is going to throw poor Mr Bower’s duty boards into chaos. I know you were off tonight, but he might need you an’ all.’

Rose glared at him. ‘I’m going nowhere until I’ve found Bob. You go, if you want to but I’m—’

‘Bob Deeton, you mean?’ Jack was grinning. ‘He’s sitting over there against that wall, large as life and twice as ugly.’

Rose gasped and followed the line of Jack’s pointing finger. And then she was running towards him, her arms outstretched, not caring now who saw her. ‘Bob – oh, Bob.’ She threw herself down beside him, grazing her knees, and flung her arms around him, burying her face against his neck. ‘Oh, thank God. I couldn’t find you. Are you all right?’ She drew back and scanned his face. ‘Are you hurt?’

Bob was staring about him with a glazed look in his eyes. He hardly seemed aware of her.

‘Bob?’ she said again, more tentatively now. Something was wrong. He didn’t have any visible signs of injury and yet he was dazed, not knowing where he was and seeming not to recognize her. Rose scrambled to her feet again and ran towards another ambulance that had just arrived. She pulled open the door of the passenger’s side and almost dragged the man from his seat. ‘Quick, you must come quick.’

‘Steady on, miss. Let’s get a hold on the situation first.’

‘You’re needed. Over here. The driver of one of the trams that was bombed is sitting against that wall and he doesn’t seem to know what day it is or where he is.’

‘Concussion, probably, and shock. Just let me get my bag out the back.’

‘Hurry. Please hurry.’

She waited impatiently until the man retrieved his first-aid kit and then she led him, stumbling over the debris, to where Bob was still sitting, staring about him yet not seeing the devastation in front of him. All around them fires still burned and more explosions could be heard, though they were further away now. And then suddenly another incendiary fell quite close to them, shaking the ground and sending flames shooting into the air.

‘Now, mate, let’s have a look at you,’ the ambulance man said calmly.

Rose knelt beside them and watched as the ambulance man deftly examined Bob.

‘Better get him to hospital as soon as we can. Can you help me get him into the ambulance, miss?’ He glanced back towards where his colleague was already helping another casualty into the rear of the vehicle.

‘Of course. Tell me what to do.’

Together, they lifted Bob bodily from the ground. ‘We’ll have to carry him. He’s not making any effort to help himself. Put his arm round your shoulders and your arm round his waist. We might manage him that way, otherwise I’ll have to fetch the stretcher.’

‘We’ll manage,’ Rose said stoutly and followed the man’s instructions.

How they managed it, Rose didn’t know. Maybe her feelings for Bob gave her extra strength for he was a dead weight between them, but somehow they got him into the ambulance.

‘Can I come with him?’

‘Sorry, love, but unless you’re hurt—’

‘No, no, I’m not. I wasn’t involved, but my sister was his clippie.’ She nodded towards Bob, now lying on the stretcher. There were two other people already in the vehicle, one with an injured arm, the other with a rough bandage round a head wound that was bleeding profusely.

The ambulance man closed the back doors. ‘We’d best get these folks to hospital.’

As the vehicle drew carefully away, Rose stood watching it and suddenly she was shaking from head to foot.

‘Rose?’ The soldier was pushing his way towards her. ‘Hey, Rose.’ He reached her side and put his arm around her. ‘Did you find him? The bloke you were looking for.’

She nodded as tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘Yes,’ she whispered huskily. ‘They’ve just taken him away. He – he was dazed. He didn’t know me.’

‘And now you’re the one in shock. Come on, let’s get you another cup of tea and then we’ll both go to the hospital.’

Fourteen

Terry couldn’t believe his luck. When he’d got on the tram and the clippie had taken his fare, he’d noticed her soft brown eyes, her genuinely warm smile and the way her shoulder-length brown hair curled around her cap. What soldier worth his salt wouldn’t notice such a pretty girl? And what was the saying his mother was always fond of quoting? It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Well, he’d not have wished the tram on which they were travelling to be caught in a bomb blast, far from it, but now that it had happened he could see that it had given him the chance to get to know the pretty clippie. And now, with an even bigger stroke of luck, he’d found her sister, who was obviously in need of a bit of company and support.

‘We’ll go to that cafe where I got the tea before,’ he said purposefully.

Rose made no protest; she was feeling decidedly wobbly, so she allowed him to lead her across the street away from the tram.

‘Mind the glass,’ he said, still holding her arm. ‘Here we are.’ He pushed open the door and stepped into the cafe, which was, sadly, not the warm and comforting haven it normally was. The window had been blown out despite the criss-cross tape that had been plastered across it and glass lay all around. A jovial, balding man in a long white apron was sweeping the floor.

‘Come in, come in. They’ve tried to get me to leave, but I’m not going nowhere. Tek more ’n Hitler to get me to leave me cafe. What can I get you? T’ kitchen’s not damaged, thank goodness. Mind where you sit though, love. Here, let me clean these two chairs for you in this corner.’

They sat down and ordered strong, sweet tea. ‘Anything to eat?’ Terry asked, but Rose shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. I just want to get to the hospital to see how Bob is. And Peggy,’ she added, almost as an afterthought. She looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say your name is?’

‘Terry Price. And yours is Rose and your sister’s Peggy and your boyfriend’s Bob. Am I right?’

Rose smiled weakly. ‘Nearly. Only Bob isn’t
my
boyfriend.’ She pulled in a deep breath. ‘He’s – he’s Peggy’s.’

Terry felt as if his heart had dropped into his size ten army boots. ‘Oh. I got it wrong then.’ He looked across the table at her. She was a pretty girl too, but there was something about Peggy that had already captured his heart. This wasn’t the sister he wanted, nice though she was. And if he wasn’t mistaken, there’d been reluctance in her tone when she’d said that the young man she’d been searching for with such desperation in her eyes when she couldn’t find him was, in fact, her sister’s boyfriend. Of course, she’d’ve been concerned. Wouldn’t any sister? But there’d been more to it than just that, he was sure. She’d been desperate to find him on her own account.

Casually, he asked, ‘Serious, is it? Between them?’

‘I expect so.’

‘Don’t you know? I mean, are they engaged or anything?’

‘No – no. But they’ve worked together for some time now and they’ve been walking out together since just before the war started.’

Terry took a gamble. He laughed as he said, ‘He’s a bit slow on the uptake then. If she was my girl, I’d have a ring on her finger pretty smartish.’

Rose’s head snapped up and two bright spots of colour burned in her cheeks. ‘He’s not slow. He’s a lovely man. It’s not him – it’s our Peggy. She doesn’t know when she’s got someone – someone . . .’ As if realizing she was giving herself away to this stranger, she dropped her gaze and concentrated on stirring her tea.

But it was too late. Terry had seen and heard all he needed to know. This Bob might think he’d got a girlfriend in Peggy, but it sounded very much to him as if the girl herself wasn’t all that sure.

Terry smiled and said gently, ‘Drink your tea and then I’ll take you to the hospital and we’ll see how they both are.’

If Rose hadn’t been in such a dazed state, suffering from shock and lost in a haze of dreadful anxiety over both her sister and Bob, she might have heard the distant sound of warning bells and refused the soldier’s well-meaning offer there and then.

And over the years Rose was to wonder if what followed hadn’t all been her fault.

The hospital seemed to be functioning in organized chaos. Bombs had fallen very close to it and Terry and Rose had to take a circuitous route to reach the building. The staff, calm, unruffled and completely professional, were nevertheless going about their duties with an added sense of urgency. Wartime tragedies like this were sadly nothing new for them, though this was the worst they had experienced to date. They had all been trained to deal with such sudden and devastating emergencies and they also knew how to deal kindly, but firmly, with hysterical family members.

The staff nurse eyed Rose and Terry and decided that they could be trusted not to cause disruption. A soldier still in uniform and a girl who said she was a clippie even though she wasn’t in uniform. Their training would have prepared them for just this sort of situation. ‘Your sister is ready to go home. She’s a bit shaky and she shouldn’t go back to work for a few days. She’ll also need to come in tomorrow to have her wound redressed. It took a couple of stitches, but we’re keeping the young man in. We suspect he’s concussed or he’s in deep shock. One or the other – maybe both. The doctor’s with him now. I’ll know more tomorrow – oh, no, it’s today now, isn’t it? Come back later.’

Rose nodded. ‘Thank you, I will.’ She was calmer now that she realized Bob was in the best place and being taken care of.

‘Like I say, your sister can go, but you’d better all wait here until the All Clear sounds,’ the nurse added and then showed them where Peggy was sitting on a row of seats waiting to be taken home by ‘someone responsible’, as she had been instructed.

‘Rose, am I glad to see you!’ Her eyes widened as she realized who was with her sister. ‘Oh! It’s you.’

Terry grinned. ‘Yes, it’s me. Turning up like a bad penny.’

Peggy smiled tremulously. She was still feeling shaky and very close to tears. They sat together, but it wasn’t long before Terry was helping to move trolleys, lending a supporting arm and comforting a crying child who couldn’t find her parents in the confusion as more and more casualties arrived at the hospital.

When the All Clear sounded at about four-thirty in the morning, Terry said, ‘Come on, I’ll take you both home.’

He made a conscious effort to be circumspect, treating them both with the same kindly concern and trying not to show that his interest was in Peggy. Working in the city’s public transport system, the girls knew the bus routes almost as well as their own tram routes and soon they were seated on a bus that should have taken them to the end of their street. But the devastation of their city in the pale morning light shocked them and, after only a short distance, the driver said, ‘Can’t get you folks any further. Sorry.’

‘You can’t
walk
all the way home, Peg,’ Rose said worriedly.

‘It’s not far now,’ Peggy said, ‘only about half a mile.’ But her voice shook and she put her hand to her head as if she was still feeling decidedly woozy.

Without another word, Terry picked her up in his arms.

‘Oh!’ Peggy was startled. ‘You can’t carry me all that way.’

Terry chuckled. ‘Oh yes I can. We have to march miles with full kit. I’m stronger than I look.’

They passed piles of smouldering rubble, stepped over bricks and firemen’s hoses, and carefully skirted craters. People were climbing over the debris, searching for their belongings. A child sat alone, staring into space, and an old man was weeping openly. They moved on, passing houses that had been reduced to a heap of wood and bricks in one night. Rose shuddered, imagining people still trapped beneath the collapsed buildings. She would have loved to stop and help the emergency services, who were already searching for survivors, but she couldn’t linger.

A woman was sitting in an armchair perched precariously on top of a pile of wreckage, quiet and calm, just as if she were sitting at her own fireside.