Under the Apple Tree (20 page)

‘Why, how long d’you think it could be?’ She glanced

upwards, her anxiety returning. ‘I don’t think anyone’s even

noticed yet!’

A yell sounded from above and they heard the distant

rattle of gates. Chris grinned at her. ‘I think they have now!

But they’ll just think some twerp’s left the gates open on

another floor. It’ll be a while before they realise it’s stuck.’

He moved closer to the gate and shouted up the shaft. ‘Hey!

We’re stuck - the lift’s stuck! Get some help, will you?’

There was a brief silence. The yells from above sounded

again, together with an even more impatient rattling. Chris

renewed his own shouting and eventually a voice sounded

from somewhere closer. ‘Where are you?’

‘Where d’you think we are?’ Chris bellowed. ‘We’re stuck

in the flipping lift!’

‘Yes, but what floor? We can’t tell.’

‘I don’t know.’ He glanced at Judy.

‘I know we went past the fourth floor,’ she said

doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure about the fifth.’

‘Well, we’re pretty high anyway. It’s no use rattling the

gates like that,’ he shouted. ‘Get the maintenance crew,

they’ll know what to do.’

There was some muted conversation from above, as if

several more people had joined the first. Then a new voice

shouted, echoing hollowly in the shaft.

‘We’re sending for the maintenance people. Soon have

you out.’

‘What a good idea,’ Chris said sardonically, and Judy

giggled. ‘I’d never have thought of that.’

‘Who’s in there?’ the new voice called.

‘Chris Barrett, ROC, and Judy Taylor, WVS. You’d

better let our people know.’

‘We’ll let your people know,’ the voice shouted, overriding

Chris’s last words. He rolled his eyes and Judy giggled

again. Her panic seemed to have vanished and the humour

of their situation was beginning to strike her. She followed

his advice and sat down in a corner, wrapping her arms

about her knees. Chris looked down at her, then sat down in

another corner.

‘I think we’re going to be here quite a while. I don’t know

where the maintenance chaps are coming from, but I don’t

think they’re on permanent duty here. Hope you’re not

hungry.’ He gave her a wry look.

‘Not really.’ It was some time since her breakfast of

Shredded Wheat and toast, and thank goodness she had

been to the lavatory when she’d arrived at the hotel. Judy

pushed her fingers through her hair and sighed. ‘Oh, this would happen. Just when we’re so busy. And Mr Williams wanted this file urgently.’ She touched the brown folder.

‘Well, he’ll have to manage without it a bit longer. I don’t

suppose it was that important, anyway. People make a lot of

fuss about things like that, and then it turns out they don’t

matter at all.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Cheer up,

Judy. The worst that can happen is that you’ve got to spend

a couple of hours alone with me. And even that’s not too

bad. I’m quite a gentleman really, you know. I won’t take

advantage” of you.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Not unless you

want me to!’

Judy gave him a cold look. ‘Well, I don’t want you to.’

Then she relented and smiled reluctantly. ‘All right, I won’t

keep moaning. We’re here and we might as well make the

best of it. Tell me some more about what you do up there

on the roof. It sounds quite interesting.’

‘It is.’ His face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘We’re all mad

keen about spotting aircraft, you see. That’s why we

answered the adverts.’

‘I’d have thought you’d have been called up anyway,’ she

said, with a touch of tartness in her voice as she thought

again of Sean and Johnny. ‘Why aren’t you in one of the

Services? Active, I mean.’

‘Because most of us are in reserved occupations. I’m in

the Dockyard. I filled in my papers,’ he said, looking at her

earnestly. ‘I took them in and everything, but the foreman

told me I could forget it - none of us Yardies’ll be called up.

And he was right, I haven’t heard a thing, so when this came

up - well, I wanted to do my bit so I slapped in my

application straight away.’

Judy looked at him and felt ashamed. She said, ‘What sort

of qualifications did you have to have, then?’

‘Just good sight and being able to recognise aircraft.

That’s all that’s needed. You’ve got to be able to think

pretty quickly too,’ he added. ‘But really, they just wanted

blokes who already knew their stuff.’

‘But there’s a classroom - I’ve seen it. They’re training

people now.’

‘Yes, we still have to train. We’re training all the time.

We’ve got to keep the skills up, and we’ve got to be able to

recognise new aircraft. We have competitions too,’ he

added. ‘Master tests, they’re called. We do them once a

quarter and we compete with spotters from all over the

country.’

‘Competitions? How do they run them? I mean, you can’t

actually use aircraft, can you?’

‘No, they use a flashtrainer - a screen and epidiascope.

You sit in a room looking at a screen, and then the bloke

says, “Blink” and you blink, and they flash a silhouette up

on the screen. It’s only there for a hundredth of a second,

and you have to be able to identify the plane in that time. If

you get ninety per cent right, you get this Spitfire badge,

and if you do that three times in a row you get a red badge,

and then you’re a Master Spotter.’ He paused and then

added modestly, ‘I’ve done it twice so far.’

‘A hundredth of a second?’ Judy stared at him. ‘I didn’t

think they could measure time as small as that. I can’t even

imagine what it is.’

‘It’s just a flash,’ he said. ‘You can barely see it. But if

you’re good, you can recognise a shape in that time.’

‘But aeroplanes - they’re not that different, surely? I

mean, they’ve all got two wings and a tail - how can you

possibly tell what they are in that time?’

‘Oh, there are lots of differences. Tails, rudders, wing

shapes - they’re all a little bit different. That’s why we’ve

got to be able to recognise them instantly, you see. If we see

a plane coming in over the coast we’ve got to know what it is

straight away so that we can phone through to the Ops room

at Winchester. We’ve got to know what direction it’s coming

from, where it’s heading, and we’ve got to plot its position.

Then they can match that up with reports from other

observation posts and see what’s happening in the sky.

There might be just one, you see, or there might be

hundreds. That’s how they know where to send our own

aircraft to intercept them, and whether to sound the air-raid

sirens or not.’

Judy gazed at him, fascinated. She had almost forgotten

that they were stuck in a lift and that Mr Williams was

waiting for his important document. ‘How many of you are

there doing this? At one time, I mean.’

‘Two. One to look at the sky and one to write the log. We

write down what’s happening every minute, and then our

logbook can be compared with all the others so that Ops

know that all aircraft in the vicinity are being observed.’ He

glanced at his watch. ‘They’ll be getting in a flap over me

pretty soon, but I dare say they’ll pull someone out of the

classroom to stand in for me.’

There were sounds from above. Someone was rattling the

lift gates. A voice yelled down, ‘You OK in there?’

‘Oh, we’re fine,’ Chris called back. ‘Having a wonderful

time. Always wanted to be stuck in a lift with a pretty girl!’

‘You behave yourself,’ the voice commanded. ‘If he gives

you any trouble, miss, you just scream. Anyway, you’d

better make up your minds for a bit of a wait. We’ve got to

get someone out from naval barracks to see to the

mechanism. Nobody here seems to know how the bl— blooming thing works.’

‘Well, don’t hurry on my account,’ Chris returned,

winking at Judy. He settled himself more comfortably in his

corner and said, ‘What about you? What d’you do?’ He

glanced at her green uniform. ‘I know you’re WVS but I’m

not sure what that is.’

‘Women’s Voluntary Service,’ Judy said. ‘It’s run by the

Lady Mayoress here in Portsmouth, but there are branches

everywhere. It started in 1938 to help women get involved

in air-raid precautions and then it just expanded. Now, we

do whatever we’re asked to do. We never say no,’ she

finished proudly, and then caught the glint in his eye and

wished she hadn’t.

‘I won’t take you up on that!’ he said with a grin. ‘But I

wouldn’t go around saying that to some of the other oiks

we’ve got - they’re not all as gentlemanly as me. So what

sort of things have you done so far?’

Judy shrugged. ‘Anything and everything. We set up

Enquiry Centres when a raid starts, for people to come to if

they’re worried about members of their family, and we open

Emergency Centres’ for people who’ve been bombed out.

We take hot drinks and sandwiches round to the air-raid

shelters. We go into bombed areas and do whatever we can we

build fireplaces with bricks from the rubble and brew up

tea, or we take warm clothes out to people who’ve been

bombed out in their nightclothes. All sorts of things. And

we have a car pool, to drive people wherever they need to

go. My auntie’s learned to drive ‘specially - she’s driven all

sorts of important people — and she drives an ambulance in

the raids too.’

‘That’s pretty good,’ he said admiringly. ‘And all this

without getting paid?’

‘Yes, everyone’s a volunteer. Well, I get paid,’ she added

honestly, ‘because I’m “borrowed” from the Council. But I

do a lot of voluntary work as well. I don’t just work office

hours.’

‘Well, I think that’s smashing,’ Chris said. He hesitated

and then said, ‘I think you’re pretty smashing, too, Judy.’

There was an awkward pause. Judy looked down at the

ring on her finger, wondering if Chris had noticed it. For

the first time since Sean had died, she wished that she had

not been wearing it, and guilt immediately washed over her

at the thought. She could feel Chris’s eyes on her and she

wanted to say something about Sean, to tell him what had

happened, but before she could speak they heard another

rattling from above. A voice shouted down, a voice they

hadn’t heard before. This one was firm and positive, as if it

belonged to someone who knew what he was doing.

‘The cavalry’s arrived,’ Chris said ironically.

‘You OK?’ the voice shouted. Judy imagined a naval

mechanic, big and brawny, with a ‘full set’ of beard and

moustache. ‘Hold on, we’ll have you out soon. Have to go

up on the roof to sort out the motor. Don’t worry if the

whole caboodle shakes about a bit. We won’t let you drop.’

‘You’d better not, mate,’ Chris called back. ‘We’re just

getting to know each other in here.’ He winked at Judy and

settled back. ‘Won’t be long now.’ There was a short pause,

then he asked, ‘Whereabouts do you live?’

The moment for telling him about Sean had passed. ‘I

used to live in Portchester Road but we were bombed out.

We’re with my gran now, in April Grove.’

‘April Grove? Is that up Copnor Road?’

Judy nodded. ‘That’s right, just off September Street.

Well, at the end of March Street and October Street, really.

It runs along the bottom, by the allotments.’ She was

gabbling, she knew, thankful to be relieved of the necessity

of talking about Sean. ‘They’re just two-up, two-down

houses so it’s a bit of a squash, but we were lucky to have

somewhere to go. And since Sylvie’s out in the country—’

‘Sylvie?’

‘My niece. Her mum’s my Aunt Polly, but I never call

her that because she’s only twelve years older than me. She

- she lost her husband early in the war. At sea.’ I could tell

him now, she thought, but the words were hard to find and

she added instead, ‘So there’s just the five of us - me and

Polly, Mum and Dad, and Gran. It’s all right.’

Chris nodded. ‘Like you say, we’re lucky to have

somewhere to live these days. There’s a hell of a lot of

people been bombed out. Far more than anyone expected.’

‘The Council’s had a lot of complaints about that,’ Judy

said. ‘People criticising because we weren’t properly prepared.

But you don’t know what’s going to happen in a war,

do you? They thought there’d be thousands killed, and

instead of that they’ve been made homeless. It must mean

that the shelters are working, yet people don’t think how

lucky they are to survive, they just moan because they’ve got

nowhere to live. Well, it is awful, I know,’ she added. ‘It’s

horrible, not having a home. But we’re doing our best people are being rehoused, somehow or other. And they are still alive. That’s the main thing.’

The lift shook and rattled, and Judy put her hand on the

floor to steady herself. It trembled beneath her and she felt

suddenly scared. Suppose something went wrong. Suppose

the lift suddenly plunged to the bottom of the shaft somewhere