The Girl With No Name (16 page)

‘Going to the wife’s sister for a few days, till we can find somewhere else,’ Jeremiah Goldman said. ‘Her son’s coming round to fetch this lot. We’ll put it in her garage.’ Dan helped them load the cart and then watched as they trailed off down the street, following their nephew to the illusory safety of another house.

A little later that day there was a knock at the door and when Dan opened it he found Shirley Newman from the other damaged house along the street.

‘Hallo, Mrs N,’ he said. ‘Anything we can do for you?’ He glanced out over her shoulder at the remains of her home and knew there was little. ‘Come on in. Naomi’s in the kitchen. We was just going to have a cuppa.’

Mrs Newman followed him into the kitchen and Naomi, who had just sat down for the first time since she’d started to clean the house, jumped to her feet again.

‘Shirley!’ she cried. ‘So sorry. So very sorry.’ She didn’t know what else to say and her neighbour simply shook her head and said, ‘I got my life. I was in the shelter.’

‘What you going to do now?’ Naomi asked.

Shirley shrugged. ‘Dunno, do I? Nowhere to go ’cept the rescue centre, but they ain’t got much room, not today after all that last night.’

‘You can stay here the night,’ Naomi said impulsively. ‘We don’t mind, do we, Dan?’

‘No, course not,’ Dan said, though less than enthusiastically. If you once let a neighbour into your house, even for a night, who knew how long they would stay or how you were going to get rid of them later on?

‘I got to go to the fire post in a while,’ he added. ‘If you’re sleeping here, Mrs N, you two can keep each other company while I’m out. And if there’s a raid, you both go down in that cellar and don’t you dare come out again till the all-clear goes. Right?’

They promised and with a feeling of relief Dan left them together in the house. He had been wondering how he was going to be able to leave Naomi after such a dreadful thirty-six hours. As he walked along he thought about poor Lisa. She’d come here to be safe and now she’d been killed in a raid. Hitler’s long arm had taken her here in London where he’d failed at home in Germany. The irony of it made Dan’s heart ache. Poor, brave little Lisa. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was no good Naomi blaming herself for it, though she would for some time to come, he knew that.

It’s no more Naomi’s fault than the man in the moon’s, Dan thought, but convincing her of that is going to be a very difficult job. Perhaps if I’d been here it might have been different. P’raps I’d’ve gone and fetched Lisa home.

But Dan knew his place wasn’t staying safe at home when raids were at their height and so he wasn’t going to blame himself for what might have been; but he knew he would long mourn the refugee child they’d taken in, the brave girl who’d become their own.

The siren went as he reached his post and from then on he had no time for further thoughts, indeed no time to think about anything but fires and putting them out. The Luftwaffe were back and it was, literally, all hands to the pump.

Harry had still been in the West End that Saturday afternoon when the raiders struck. He had been to Soho Square to meet a man called Dave Dickett, who was doing business with Harry’s boss, Mikey Sharp.

‘Tell him I’ll take any fags he can get,’ Mikey had said. ‘Tell ’im to bring ’em down the lock-up, Tuesday.’ Mikey was more than ready to take a consignment of cigarettes that had been stolen from a lorry earlier in the week, but he was far too fly to be seen meeting with a known thief. Let the lad do the talking. No one would take any notice of a scruffy lad up west on a Saturday afternoon.

Harry had just left the meet when the sirens began to sound. Bloody Moaning Minnie’s off again, he thought as he looked up. The sky above was clear and blue, the sun still warm, but already he could hear the sound of ack-ack and the ever-increasing thunder of hundreds of planes. Then they were there, a swarm of locusts, flying in formation, filling the sky so that it darkened with their number.

‘Off the street, lad,’ shouted a warden as he hurried to clear his sector. ‘Into the shelter with you!’ He pointed back into the square.

Harry didn’t need telling twice. He ran back to the square, thrusting through the people who were crowding in off the streets, flooding out of shops, pubs and clubs, pushing their way down into the shelter. The underground area was soon packed, people jostling and shoving, trying to find somewhere to sit.

No wonder Lisa don’t like going into these places, Harry thought as he forced himself through to a place against the wall. He hoped she’d got to safety somewhere. She might even have got as far as Hilda’s and be safe in their shelter. There was a hubbub of noise within the shelter, but it couldn’t drown the thunder of the raid outside. Someone started singing; others joined in and for a while there was a feeling of camaraderie. Everyone in the shelter was in the same boat, and together they’d see it through. When at last, some two hours later, the all-clear sounded, the push to escape from the crush and the foetid smell of the shelter into the fresh air was almost as great as the push to take cover had been. Camaraderie forgotten, they flooded back into the square.

Once outside, Harry looked about him. He could see little damage in the immediate area, but smoke filled the air and the sky burned orange. Everywhere people were exclaiming their relief at being safely through the raid, many returning to the buildings they had left, others hurrying away to discover the fate of their own homes elsewhere. Harry set off to walk back to the hostel. It was a long walk, but there seemed to be no buses and he was loath to take the Tube, even if he found one running. He’d had enough of being underground for the time being.

He reached the hostel just as the second warning began to sound. He had passed through areas where there had been considerable damage and he spared another thought for Lisa travelling by herself on the bus.

She’ll be all right, he told himself. She’ll have sheltered somewhere and be on her way back home now. I’ll go round the school on Monday, he thought, see how she’s doing.

The warden at the hostel was hurrying its inmates into the nearby shelter and Harry, pressed in among them, had to spend the rest of the night cheek by jowl with the other boys who lived with him.

Next morning he set out to find Mikey Sharp to report back on his meeting with Dave Dickett. As he headed towards Petticoat Lane he was shocked by the amount of damage he saw. Buildings destroyed or burned out. Fires still burning. The East End of London had been badly bombed as the raiders aimed for the docks, warehouses and any shipping lying in the port of London. When he’d been crushed in the shelter near the hostel he’d told himself ‘never again’. He’d risk being above ground, take his chances with the bombs, but now, as he hurried through the streets and saw the havoc they’d caused, he wasn’t so sure.

He found his boss with two of his henchmen in a back room at the Black Bull just off Middlesex Street. Harry waited nervously for Mikey to notice him. The other two men left the room and Mikey finally gave his attention to Harry.

‘Well, kid, did Dickett turn up?’

‘Oh, yes, Mr Sharp,’ Harry said. ‘He coming Tuesday like you said bringing—’

‘The merchandise,’ interrupted Mikey.

‘Right and say he might have something else you like to see.’

Mikey raised an eyebrow. ‘Did he now? And what was that?’

Harry looked round to be sure he wasn’t being overheard and said, ‘Whisky. Had some crates he’d “lib... librated” or somethink.’

‘I see. So what’s he going to do about that?’

‘I tell him to bring on Tuesday,’ Harry said.

‘Did you now?’ Mikey gave a brief smile. ‘Aren’t you the bright lad?’ He pulled a roll of notes from his pocket and peeled off a pound. ‘Here you go,’ he said, handing it to Harry. ‘Shove off now. Be back at the lock-up Tuesday. I’ll need you to unload.’

That evening the Luftwaffe were back, bombing the docks and the surrounding area. The raiders seemed to come from all directions, guided by some of the still smouldering fires, but this time they certainly didn’t have it all their own way and fewer than the previous day got past the south coast defences. But come they did, flinging themselves against the barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Their bombs hurtled, whining, to earth, exploding into lethal fragments as they obliterated warehouses, stores, homes, people.

Searchlights directed their powerful beams up through the darkness, criss-crossing the sky as they attempted to pin marauding planes in their beams, targets for the anti-aircraft gunners below. Shells exploded in the night sky, bursting round the enemy planes, brilliant flashes of orange and white, driving them away. Several bombers were shot down in flames, spiralling downward with a shriek of destruction before, still carrying their lethal load, they exploded in a display of pyrotechnics, fireballs that lit the sky for miles round as they hit the ground below.

Dan and his team scrambled from place to place, dousing small fires, calling the regular firemen to the big ones. Around them buildings crumbled and fell, showers of bricks from collapsing walls thundered down into the streets below. The noise was deafening and they had to bellow at each other to make themselves heard. There was no respite and the volunteers laboured as hard and as long as the men in the regular services. Everyone knew that it was up to each man to give his utmost to help save the city.

Naomi and Shirley crouched together in the cellar of number sixty-five. They could hear the crashes, booms and bangs, some distant, some frighteningly close.

‘How long can they keep this up?’ cried Naomi as another blast shook the house.

‘How long can we put up with it?’ said Shirley unsteadily. ‘There ain’t going to be nothing left of London soon.’

‘That’s what Hitler wants,’ said Naomi. ‘Dan says he’s trying to terrify us so’s we sue for peace.’

‘He’s took my home,’ said Shirley, sounding braver than she felt, ‘but we ain’t going to let him march in here.’

‘He’s taken my Lisa,’ Naomi said, and so saying, her iron grip on her emotions crumbled and she burst into tears.

‘Tell me,’ Shirley said, reaching for her hands. ‘Tell me what’s happened to her.’

So, sitting in the torch-lit cellar, Naomi told Shirley all about Lisa, where she’d come from, how difficult it had been to start with and finally what had happened to her the previous night.

Shirley had known that the Federmans were fostering a child, but though she’d seen Lisa about, she hadn’t got to know her. Hearing about her now, she wished she had made more effort to be friendly.

‘You don’t know she’s dead,’ she said when Naomi had finished. ‘You don’t know she was in that house when it was hit.’

‘They found bodies,’ Naomi said, adding with a gulp, ‘bits of bodies. Adults and children.’

‘Still might not be Lisa,’ said Shirley. ‘You said there was children living there anyway. Could be them.’

‘I’m sure it was them as well,’ Naomi said bitterly. ‘But Lisa must’ve been there, where else can she be?’

‘Have you checked all the rescue centres? The hospitals? Talked to all the local air raid wardens?’

‘No, we haven’t,’ sighed Naomi. ‘There’s no point. She was in that house and the warden round there said it was a direct hit. Everyone was killed, there was almost nothing left to find.’

‘Well,’ said Shirley, ‘if it was my kid, I’d be round all the hospitals and centres before I’d be sure I’d lost her. If she’s been injured or sommat, they may not know who she is.’

The idea gave Naomi a flicker of hope. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’ll do first thing in the morning. Oh, Shirley, I’m so glad you’re here with me. Last night I was here all by myself and I was so frightened.’

‘I was in the Hope Street, ’ Shirley said, ‘and it was scary enough in there, too. I feel safer here.’

Naomi poured them some cocoa from her flask and they drank it as they listened to the war going on in the world outside. It was still scary, but at least they had each other for company, to talk to.

Shirley spoke about her husband, Derek, who was in the merchant navy. ‘Trouble is,’ she said, ‘they’re as much a target as the warships and they don’t have no guns. He wrote to me last time he was in Liverpool, but that was ten days ago. He could be anywhere now.’

Naomi talked about Dan, pouring out her worries about him being above ground during these dreadful raids, and before she knew it she had confided their secret, that she was expecting.

‘Oh, Naomi, that’s so exciting,’ Shirley enthused. ‘But that means you have to be extra careful now.’

‘Yeah, I know. But what sort of a world am I bringing a baby into? Poor little mite’ll being bombed from the moment it’s born.’

‘Not if you get out of London,’ said Shirley. ‘That’s what I’d do if I had a kid on the way. Can’t risk it being killed before it’s born, can you? What does your Dan say?’

‘I don’t know,’ Naomi said, ‘we haven’t talked about it.’

‘Well, you should,’ said Shirley in her forthright way. ‘Specially now these raids is getting worse. You need to get out into the country somewhere Hitler don’t know about.’

When the all-clear sounded the two women went back upstairs. As before, they peered out into the street, but could see no activity that suggested there was any more destruction nearby. There was smoke in the air and the sky was still on fire, but Kemble Street seemed to have escaped any further damage.

‘Come on,’ Naomi said. ‘Better try and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.’

‘What about your Dan?’

‘He’ll be home soon as he can,’ Naomi replied. ‘’Spect he’s still going flat out with them fires out there.’ She longed to hear him opening the front door, but now she had re-established control of her emotions she wasn’t going to let go again. She would go upstairs to bed and wait for him there.

She found blankets and a pillow for Shirley and when she’d made her comfortable on the old couch in the front room, Naomi went upstairs. She looked into Lisa’s room. She could have offered Shirley Lisa’s bed, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Until she had done everything she could to find Lisa, until she knew for certain that she wasn’t coming back, she didn’t want anyone else sleeping there.