Time to Say Goodbye (25 page)

Another enormous crash was accompanied by a flash of light so brilliant that it lit up the room like daylight despite the blackout curtains, and Debby, pushing her feet into her slippers, went over to the window, meaning to peer out. ‘Don’t!’ Rita said sharply. ‘Blast can push that window in straight on to your face. Look what happened to my mum’s hotel when next door was hit. It cost a deal of money to get the windows put back in and the chimney rebuilt. Bloody Luftwaffe! So hurry up and come downstairs. I expect Auntie’s trying to do all the things we were told to do in a bad raid: she’ll be making flasks of tea, cutting sandwiches and getting out the biscuits . . .’

Debby obediently retreated from the window and finished dressing at record speed, heading for the stairs just ahead of the other two. They burst into the kitchen to find Auntie busy as Rita had said and Rufus, mouth open and eyes turned skywards, adding his own particular warning to the one which was doubtless still sounding, though they could hear nothing above the heavy drone of the engines and the crash of the bombs.

Auntie looked up as they entered the room and jerked a thumb at the line of coats and boots beside the back door. ‘Get ’em on,’ she said brusquely. As Rita had surmised she had packed a basket with food and flasks and now she began to don her own outer clothing. ‘I told you the Anderson shelter would come in useful one day, and now we’re going to prove it. But don’t go out until there’s a lull; then run like hell, get down into the shelter, pull the curtain across, and stay there.’

‘What about you?’ Imogen said. She felt cold with fright. ‘Oh, Auntie, what about Jill?’ She pointed to the bright orange glow lighting the sky. ‘They’re bombing Norwich. It’s on fire, and Jill’s there!’

‘She’s in the control centre, and that’s underground; she should be safe enough,’ Auntie said briefly. ‘I’ll bring the basket; you girls grab Rufus in case he tries to run off – dogs do, I’ve been told – and then get into that shelter.’

Rita and Debby rushed over to the back door and thrust it open. Imogen saw that the sky overhead was black with aircraft, cutting out the stars, though the moon still shone down on the Canary and Linnet as though it cared nothing for those below.

They had to wait a moment before a lull came, by which time Auntie and her basket had joined them, and they all charged for the Anderson shelter. They were too frightened to giggle when Auntie, coming last, slipped on the top step and entered the shelter on her bottom, smiling ruefully as the girls helped her to her feet. ‘More haste less speed,’ she quoted. She sat on one of the wooden benches and thumped her basket down beside her, whilst the girls tried to comfort Rufus by pulling him on to their laps – he took up all three laps, for he was a big dog – and assuring him that they were safe and he could stop howling. Rufus, rolling his eyes pathetically, did not appear to believe them and was only persuaded to shut up by a sandwich placed between his paws, which he immediately gobbled. Then he slid off the girls’ knees and went over to the doorway, though he made no attempt to push aside the heavy curtain, clearly believing that he really was safer here than in the kitchen of the Canary and Linnet.

‘I say, Imogen, what were those things that looked like huge candelabras?’ Debby said presently. Her voice trembled a little, but Imogen realised that the question took her mind off their more immediate troubles.

‘I think they’re called flares, and the bombers drop them so that they can see their targets,’ she replied. ‘Haven’t you heard people talking about them?’

‘I think perhaps I have, I’ve just not seen them before,’ Debby said cautiously. ‘I’ve heard them talking about incendiaries as well; they light up the scene too, don’t they?’

‘Oh, Debby, you’re such a baby,’ Rita said, but without the usual edge to her voice. ‘I remember reading that incendiaries are just smaller bombs which are supposed to set fire to buildings. Last year, when Liverpool was attacked, incendiaries landed on a warehouse full of margarine and stuff which went up with a whoosh, and another one might have landed on the
Malakand
, the ship which was full of ammunition. Or that may have been a bomb – they’re not really sure. It was in all the papers, anyway.’

‘Oh yes, I remember,’ Debby said meekly. She turned to Auntie. ‘How long is this going to last?’ she asked. ‘Is it a blitz, like the May blitz in Liverpool last year? That went on for over a week, didn’t it?’

Auntie waited for a lull in the crashes, booms and explosions before she answered. ‘I imagine it’s one of what they’re calling the Baedeker Raids,’ she said, and smiled at her companions. ‘Apparently the word has gone round that Herr Hitler sits in his office with a Baedeker guide – that’s a well-known travel book – spread out before him and simply sends the Luftwaffe to the principal cities it mentions.’

The girls nodded their understanding, and as soon as the thunder of the heavy bombers returning began to pass overhead they would have left the shelter to see how much damage had been done – if any – in the village and surrounding countryside, but Auntie would not allow it. ‘It’s still not daylight, though it won’t be long before the sky starts to lighten and the stars disappear,’ she said. ‘You’ve been patient for six hours, so being patient for another couple shouldn’t strain you unduly. And as soon as it’s light enough – and the all clear has sounded – we’ll go and cook a sustaining breakfast and then check up on the damage.’

‘I hope Pandora’s all right,’ Imogen said when the two hours were up, the all clear had sounded, and they were crossing the yard towards the kitchen. ‘I expect the telephone wires might be down so we shan’t be able to get in touch with Jill. I wonder if Laurie’s station was raided last night – he’s quite near Lincoln, isn’t he?’

‘I shouldn’t think so; I believe the Luftwaffe attack one city at a time,’ Auntie said as she pushed open the back door and ushered the girls inside. ‘But there’s no knowing how long the blitz on Norwich will last. I imagine it depends both on the weather and on the amount of damage they think they have inflicted. But I’m pretty sure the air force will have kept up communications between stations; even if the phones are out they’ll be the first ones to be reinstated, and until then they’ll use messengers. I don’t think you need to go to school today – no one will be able to concentrate after having so little sleep – so when you’ve had your breakfast and checked the animals and hens you can hold the fort for me here whilst I go into the village and try to telephone. If I can’t I’ll take a bus into the city, get in touch with Jill somehow and make sure she’s all right. Either way I’ll be back well before dark. Can you manage by yourselves? One of you must run down to Jacky’s cottage and ask him to open the bar at lunch time, though I don’t know whether we’ll have any customers. Still, licensing laws aren’t meant to be flouted, so we’ll have to be open at noon, blitz or no blitz.’

The girls assured her that they could manage easily and began to make porridge, tea and toast, and as soon as the meal was finished Debby started to wash up, whilst Imogen wiped and put away. Rita pulled on her coat and boots and set off for Jacky’s cottage, and Auntie left for the village.

‘I wonder whether the ack-ack batteries round the city downed any of the German aircraft,’ Imogen said idly as she and Debby began to lay the table for lunch. ‘I didn’t hear a plane crash, but then how could we possibly have done so? And I dare say one gun sounds very like another in all that noise blazing away.’

‘We’ll find out when Auntie gets back,’ Debby said. She peered into the pantry. ‘There’s not a lot of food in here, so I reckon we’re in for a cold lunch. There’s a bit of bacon, but I don’t think we ought to use that, so I fear it’ll be jam sandwiches and an apple or two for afters. Are there still some left?

Rita, having returned from her errand with the information that Jacky would be along well before noon, nodded. ‘Bound to be,’ she said with easy optimism. She was fond of apples and had, with her companions, harvested a great many from the Pilgrims’ orchards, carried them up to the loft above the stable and laid them with tender care on beds of new-mown hay. Mrs Pilgrim had impressed upon them the importance of leaving at least an inch around each fruit. ‘You’ve heared the saying one bad apple spoils the barrel,’ she said. ‘Well, that applies just the same to fruit kept in the apple loft, so be good kids and treat them with kid gloves, because a bruise can ruin an apple in a matter of minutes.’

Mrs Pilgrim had, of course, been referring to her own produce, for the Pilgrims had three acres of fruit, but the girls realised that her advice would hold good for Auntie’s apples as well. Her five trees were old but productive, and the children had gathered pounds and pounds of fruit and stowed them away in the small room next to their bedroom as though they were, in truth, as delicate as the strawberries they had picked the previous year.

Now, they went up to the attic and brought down a dozen fine Bramleys which, Imogen said, she would make into a pie. ‘And we’ll make some custard, so it will be better than only jam sandwiches,’ she added. She smiled at Debby. ‘Won’t Auntie be delighted to find we’ve used our initiative? She’s always telling us we ought.’

The three girls, proud of the trust that had been placed in them, worked hard all morning, and when the boys appeared, having also been kept home from school, told them flatly that they did not intend to leave the Canary and Linnet that day.

Woody pulled a face. ‘We thought we’d go up to the Lookout and see what we could see from there,’ he said discontentedly. ‘I wanted to go into the city but as it happens we’re a bit short of cash for the bus fare, so that’s a non-starter. Are you serious when you say you won’t leave the pub? I don’t see why you shouldn’t come with us once your chores are done.’ His voice, which had started to break some months before, suddenly soared on the last few words into falsetto, in the unreliable way the voice of a boy in his teens often does. Imogen smiled to herself as he looked hopefully at Rita, knowing, Imogen thought, that she was the one likeliest to say she would go to the Lookout with them. Imogen herself had never altogether conquered her dislike of heights, though she tried to hide it from Woody, fearing he might despise her.

But to her relief Rita also shook her head. ‘Not today, Woody,’ she said firmly. ‘Auntie’s gone to find out how Jill got on last night so we all want to be here when she returns. And then there’s Laurie. If he’s been flying he rings Jill at her Mess to reassure her that he’s okay. So you go off to the Lookout and come back later. I expect Auntie will be back by about five or six.’

‘And you know what Mrs P is like about high tea; we’ll miss out if we wait for Auntie to come back,’ Josh said. He turned to Woody. ‘I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go up to the Lookout by yourself, so why not stay here with me and give the girls a hand? I dare say they’ll feed us.’

This was agreed, and when Auntie had still not returned by five o’clock the boys left and the three girls, having done all that they could towards an evening meal, decided to walk into the village and meet the six o’clock bus. ‘I’ll be glad to get out of the house for once,’ Debby admitted, making the other two smile, for as a rule she was the most domesticated of the three, always eager to help Auntie and Jill indoors. She saw the smiles and giggled. ‘Bet you never thought you’d hear me say that,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s a glorious day and we’ve finished all the housework, so a walk to the village would be fun.’ She looked from Rita’s face to Imogen’s, began to speak, hesitated, and then looked rather anxiously at her companions. ‘Has it occurred to you that if there was nothing the matter, Auntie would probably have caught the next bus home?’

Imogen felt the blood drain from her face, and clapped a hand to her mouth, speaking between her fingers. ‘Of course!’ She turned to Rita. ‘Why didn’t
we
think of that? And we can’t contact her because we don’t really know where she’s gone. Let’s hope she found Jill okay and the two of them are doing what they can to help. But we’ll go into the village anyway, because if Auntie isn’t on the six o’clock bus there’s only one more, the one that brings people back from the city when they’ve been over there to see a flick or go to a dance or something.’

The three girls duly met the six o’clock bus, but Auntie was not on it, though others were; old Mrs Jackson who helped out at the general shop when they were busy, two girls who worked in one of the munitions factories in the city whom they remembered from the village school, though they were a couple of years older, and the bus driver himself. He remembered taking Auntie into the city that morning but said she had not been amongst the queues of people eager to get out of the city as evening deepened.

He was an elderly man with kindly blue eyes and now he sensed the girls’ anxiety and jerked a thumb at old Mrs Jackson. ‘I saw Miss Marcy go off with the old ’un; why not ask her if she knows where your auntie’s gone,’ he said, and Imogen thanked him and was about to approach the old lady just climbing down from the bus when a car drew up with a screech of brakes, the passenger door shot open and Auntie clambered out.

‘Oh, girls, I knew you’d worry so I set out to thumb a lift,’ she said breathlessly. She indicated the driver of the car, an elderly farmer whom the girls knew slightly, since the previous year they had helped him to harvest a field of peas and another of carrots. ‘Mr Carter there saw me before I’d gone more than a hundred yards, realised I’d missed the bus and made room for me . . .’ she chuckled, ‘though I had to share the seat with a bag of pig meal. But at least it got me home, or would have done if I’d not seen you lot hovering by the bus stop and got him to drop me off.’ She rapped smartly on the driver’s window and raised her voice to a shout. ‘Mr Carter, you’re a prince! Thanks ever so much; next time you come into the Linnet you can have a pint of the best on me.’

The old man mouthed something through the glass, presumably an acknowledgement, and drove off, starting with a series of kangaroo-like bounds before the old car settled into its stride and carried him out of sight. Only then did Auntie turn to the girls. ‘Jill’s in hospital,’ she said quietly. ‘She was making her way from her billet to the control centre right at the beginning of the raid, and she said the dive bombers – those awful Stukas which scream as they descend – must have seen her and her fellow workers racing across the airfield and tumbling down the steps. They were strafing anything that moved and poor Jill got three bullets across her shoulder and upper arm. Others weren’t so lucky. But no use to be angry, because war is war . . . only one of the girls, Lucy, had her eighteenth birthday today and they’d planned a party for her.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘So young – not even quite eighteen.’