War Orphans (33 page)

‘What about next door, love?' asked the policeman. ‘Do you know who lives there?'

‘Joanna and that old cow her dad married,' Mrs Allen answered. She sounded tired out.

The ambulance driver got her to lie down. ‘You have a bit of a rest love. It'll do you good.'

He didn't add that there was little chance her next-door neighbours had survived. Mrs Allen's house, 114, had been badly damaged. But 116 had been totally destroyed except for that single wall and the length of staircase rising above the rubble.

The policeman passed the information on to the rescuers. ‘Apparently a mother and daughter lived in this one.'

The men who'd been clearing debris from where they estimated the bedrooms had been suddenly shouted.

‘Over here!'

A group of rescuers picked their way swiftly over the mounds of brick and roof timbers, shattered doors and furniture. A kitchen tap suspended on its lead pipe dripped water and a gas pipe hissed before a man folded the lead piping over and hammered it flat.

‘It's dark down here,' shouted the air-raid warden as he shone his torch into a black hole amidst the devastation. The beam from his torch picked out a figure.

‘Looks as though she's dead. I reckon the first floor collapsed onto the ground floor. Whoever was in bed up there didn't stand a chance.'

A doctor approached and climbed down into the hole, though not before attaching a rope around his waist.

‘The whole lot's a bit unsafe,' quoted the air-raid warden.

The doctor went down anyway. After making a quick assessment of the situation, he signalled to be pulled back up.

‘Crushed to death I take it,' said the air-raid warden, his face sombre as he heaved the doctor out of the hole.

The doctor shook his head. ‘The man died instantly. The woman was still alive. It looks as though she suffocated. Further examination will confirm that.'

He walked away, his face smeared with dirt, his eyes smarting from the dust that hung in the air. ‘Damn this war,' he muttered to himself.

He wondered how long it would take to get used to this kind of thing. The woman lying in the double bed beside the man had indeed suffocated. Judging by her bleeding hands and broken fingernails, she'd beat and scratched at what imprisoned her until her last breath. A horrible way to go, suffocated and buried in darkness.

The rescuers discussed the information neighbours had given. Nobody knew the identity of the man but there were hints that Mrs Ryan was not stingy in her affections.

‘And the child?'

‘Somebody said she was evacuated, but we don't know for sure.'

‘Hopefully she was. Just a minute while I check.'

Mrs Allen was still sitting in the back of the ambulance being tended by a nurse. The policeman sat down beside her. ‘What about the little girl? Was she in the house?'

Mrs Allen was confused. Her memory had been knocked sideways by the shock but her mind was steadily clearing. ‘Joanna. Mrs Ryan arranged for her to be evacuated a few days ago.'

Breathing a sigh of relief, the policeman thanked her for her help.

‘It seems the little girl's been evacuated,' he said to one of the other rescue workers, a soldier home on leave.

The soldier, a member of the Royal Engineers, straightened and rubbed at the small of his back. ‘Good for her. So we can go ahead and clear the site, though carefully. Everything's going to fall inwards so we all need to stand well back. For a start, that wall there will fall down.'

He pointed to the upper half of a set of stairs still clinging to a single standing wall.

‘You see? Only half the staircase is visible and the fact that the bottom half is buried in rubble is probably the only reason it's still standing. It'll come down all at once, though we'll do our best to get it to fall in on itself rather than outwards. No damage done that way.'

The policeman and air-raid warden both agreed. ‘There is only a coalhouse under the stairs. All these houses were built the same.'

Immersed in a thick fog of dirt and coal dust, Joanna swiped at the stinging in her eyes. Her chest felt tight. She needed air.

Balancing on the heaped coal got her nearer to the gap at the top of the door. Her head tilted back so her mouth was next to the gap, she took deep breaths.

Outside was almost as black as inside the coalhouse. Although there was nothing to see, she could hear people shouting. There were people out there. Perhaps her stepmother was out there too and would tell them where she was.

When she tried to shout, she found she couldn't. Thanks to the dust her throat was dry so her voice was small and squeaky. Worse still, when she did manage to emit a slightly louder sound, the jangling bell of an ambulance drowned her out. Everybody outside was shouting. Nobody could hear her.

By the time Seb, Sally and the dog arrived at 116 The Vale, a bulldozer had been brought in to help clear the site and make it
safe. Roof timbers were piled to the back of the house, mainly where they had fallen.

‘I think our next task is to get them stairs down before they fall down. We can't clear anything else from the site until they're out of the way. Start clearing a path through to it if you can,' the engineer ordered the driver of the machine.

Black smoke rose from the bulldozer's exhaust pipe as it shuffled forward, its shovel biting into the piles of brick, plaster and wood. With each load it turned round to load it onto a lorry that would take it to be dumped, possibly into the crater made by the bomb that had fallen in the park.

‘Keep going like this and the stairs will fall in on themselves,' said the sapper. He looked as though he couldn't wait for it to happen. There was something very satisfying about demolishing buildings. If the bombing increased there was bound to be a call for that sort of work. He was seriously considering making a business of it once the war was over.

Joanna was terrified. The sound of the machine rumbled through the air. Dust cascaded over her, blocking her nostrils and sending her into a choking cough. There seemed now to be more dust in her chest than there was air.

‘Help!' Her voice was still no more than a squeak and she hammered on the door until her knuckles were sore.

‘Help.'

Sensing her efforts were useless, she slumped onto the coal, hot tears running down her dirty face.

Despair was replaced by resignation. She was only a child. There was nothing else she could do.

A brawny arm shot out across Seb and Sally's path as they closed on the site.

‘This is a restricted area. Demolition in progress.'

Sally caught her breath. Dawn was breaking. A quick survey of the sight confirmed the very worst. She exchanged a knowing look with her father. ‘It's Joanna's house!'

One of the rescuers heard her. ‘Did you know the people in there,' asked the man.

‘Yes. We did. I was her teacher,' Sally explained.

The man's attitude softened a fraction. ‘We found a dead woman and a man, but no child. We were told by the neighbours she's been evacuated.'

Sally shook her head. ‘No. She ran away. We were at the police station earlier. We know she ran away and was taken home by her stepmother yesterday.'

The man's tired eyes weighed up their resilience as he prepared to say what had to be said.

‘The whole house came down. The man and woman were in bed. It stands to reason that the little girl was in her bed too. I'm sorry . . .'

Seb felt a tug on his arm. He looked down to see the dog straining on his four strong legs, nose quivering and eyes fixed on a point in the middle of the site where a single wall still stood.

Harry began to whine.

The man was about to walk away when Seb grabbed his arm. ‘The little girl wasn't in bed. She'd put her stepmother to
a lot of trouble and she was the sort to make her suffer for her disobedience.'

The man frowned.

‘I'm telling you now. The little girl never went to bed. She's probably in there somewhere.'

‘What's that machine doing?' Sally asked, her voice quivering.

‘We're aiming to pull down that set of stairs and the wall before it falls down.

‘You can't do that,' Sally shouted and lunged forward.

The man grabbed her. ‘Oh no you don't!'

‘Listen, you big oaf,' scolded Sally. ‘The stepmother was in the habit of locking the little girl in the coalhouse under the stairs as punishment. The stairs are still standing. If you disturb them you'll likely kill a child!'

The man looked perplexed. He had a family of his own and found it hard to believe that anyone could do that. A spanking now and again was one thing, and only when thoroughly deserved. But locking a kid in the darkness under the stairs? That took some believing.

‘Wait here. I'll see what the bloke in charge has to say.'

Harry was straining against his lead. His ears were raised as high as floppy ears could be. His eyes were fixed on what remained of the house and his wet nose quivered, a sure sign that he was dissecting all the different smells and had found one that interested him the most.

The bulldozer, its shovel full of rubble, was heading back to where the lorry waited.

Seb surmised that one more trip, one more attempt to dig around the stairs and the wobbly wall and staircase would all come tumbling down.

Harry barked, looked up at Seb and wagged his tail.

Seb understood. If nobody else was going to act in time, then it was up to him. He unclipped the lead from Harry's collar.

‘Find Joanna!'

There were raised protests as Harry ran across the bombsite, avoiding the danger spots, his instinct sensing they were there.

Brawny arms reached out to grab him, but with his four legs he was far too quick for them. With a resounding crash, he leapt at the top half of the coalhouse door, yapping and scratching excitedly.

‘What's that bloody dog doing there?'

The engineer was miffed. He liked being in charge of this and resented interruption.

The policeman who had helped Mrs Allen, plus a few other men, ignored him and dashed for where the dog was going crazy, yapping and springing on his hind legs so his nose was level with a thin gap showed at the top of the door.

While everyone was in uproar, Seb sprinted across the bombsite although it strained his joints and made him breathless. It had been many a long year since he'd moved so fast.

Once there he grabbed Harry's collar. ‘Quiet now, boy. You've done your job. She's probably heard you, but we can't hear her. Joanna!' he shouted. ‘Joanna! Are you in there?'

The rumble of the bulldozer's engine drifted across to the bombsite, drowning out any response.

‘Shut that bloody thing off a minute,' shouted the policeman.

The engineer looked disinclined to comply, but was overruled. Everyone wanted to see if there really was somebody alive amid all this devastation.

The whole site fell to silence.

The men gathered around the upper half of the door placed their ears as close to the door as they could.

A man with brawny arms banged on it with his fist. Harry barked.

Suddenly they heard a sound, a small barely audible voice. ‘Harry! Harry!'

Men with shovels were called for. Seb grabbed one and began to dig. The bulldozer was left standing still as an army of men
carefully dug around the door until finally they could bust the hinges and break the panels of wood apart with their bare hands.

At first sight it seemed to be just a bundle of dirty rags lying on black coal in a black hole. Seb sucked in his breath as he took in the poor child's surroundings. How could anyone treat a child so badly?

‘Joanna! Joanna! Can you hear me?'

The policeman gently pushed him back. ‘Leave her to me, sir.'

Empowered with youthful strength, the policeman reached in to get her out, but Harry got there first.

Straining against Seb's hold on his collar, he dived in, his whole body wagging with excitement, squealing and yapping until he was standing over Joanna. Once he was there, legs squarely fixed on either side of her body he began to lick her face.

‘Harry,' she whispered as she reached for him. ‘Harry.'

Despite all that she'd gone through she smiled up at him, her face striped thanks to Harry's tongue leaving white tracks over her black face.

Sally held Joanna's hand, stroking it and telling her everything was going to be all right.

‘Only cuts and bruises,' the doctor told her, ‘though we are inclined to keep her in hospital for a night or two just to check there are no head injuries.'

‘But she'll be all right?'

‘She'll be fine.'

A question loitered in his eyes. ‘You're not her mother are you?'

She shook her head. ‘No.'

‘I didn't think you were. You look too young.' Sally could tell he was genuinely interested, and not just in Joanna.

‘I teach Joanna in junior school. She's an orphan. Her mother died some years back, her father just a few months ago.' Her jaw tightened. ‘Her stepmother died last night – not that she gave a jot what happened to the girl.'

‘Ah!' The doctor scribbled something in his notes. ‘I'll contact someone with regard to her future. Leave it with me.'

Once she'd reassured Joanna that she would be back in to see her and that Harry was being taken care of, she made her way to the hospital exit.

Outside the ward she spotted the doctor talking to a rotund woman wearing dark green tweeds and a plain mustard hat. The doctor glanced at her then said something to the woman. Both looked in her direction so she knew immediately that this was something to do with Joanna. The doctor glanced down at his notes to check the name she had given before calling out to her.

‘Miss Hadley.'

The round woman raised her gloved hand at the doctor, as though saying to him that she would handle whatever had to be done.