Ellie (16 page)

It was only when he reached daylight that he saw the flash of red again. Now free of the confines of the bridge he struck out in a desperate crawl towards her, forcing his frozen body to obey him. With one almighty lunge he reached her, clutching at the red material. With his last vestiges of strength, he jerked her up.

Somehow he managed to turn her on to her back, treading water like mad to keep himself afloat. Their combined weight was sweeping them along even faster, and he was sure she was already dead because her head fell lifelessly back on his shoulder.

‘Hold on, son,’ Alec’s gruff voice boomed out. Only then was Jack able to turn his head far enough to see the man running along the bank holding a long boat-hook in one hand, a lifebelt in the other. ‘Try and catch the belt. I’ll grab you as you pass.’

Alec tossed in the white ring so that it landed just behind them. Jack let go of Bonny with one hand and hooked his arm through it.

‘Good lad,’ Alec shouted as Jack managed to get a firmer grip again on Bonny. ‘Now try and get closer to the bank.’

The security of the ring tucked beneath his arm gave Jack the impetus he needed and he managed a few frog-like movements with his legs towards the hook held out in front of him.

‘That’s it, lad,’ Alec yelled, catching his hook around the rope on the lifebelt. ‘I’ll haul thee in.’

Jack’s strength left him just at the point when he felt Alec taking over. He felt himself being dragged along, and then a bump as the belt hit the bank.

‘Brave lad.’ Alec’s gruff voice sounded distant, but Jack knew the hand grasping his shirt collar belonged to him. ‘I’ve got thee now, never fear.’

Jack was aware of other hands, felt himself slither up the muddy bank and land like a huge gasping fish on the grass of the meadow.

‘Have ye called the doctor?’ he dimly heard Alec say as someone wrapped a blanket round him. There were other voices too, familiar ones, yet he was too numb to recognise faces.

‘Get the lad into the warm.’ Alec spoke again and Jack felt arms lifting him.

Then he saw Bonny. She was lying on the grass, Alec astride her small back, pressing, then lifting her shoulders. Her face was chalk-white and her eyes were closed.

‘Is shshshe dead?’ Jack asked, his teeth clattering like castanets.

Jack didn’t know if there was a reply to his question. He just heard a ringing sound in his ears as he felt his knees go from under him.

*

Alec pumped away at the girl. All he knew of her was that she was an evacuee. He was certain she was already too far gone to resuscitate, but still he kept on.

Alec had lived in Amberley his entire fifty-five years, except for his time in the Army during the First War. He owned the garage, but aside from mending cars and farm machinery, he could turn his hand to anything from bricklaying to first aid.

This little girl wasn’t the first he’d hauled out of the river – during July and August there was always someone falling out of a boat. But now the river was still icy from the long bitter winter, and she’d been in there quite some time. He didn’t think he could pull her round.

A small crowd had gathered, watching silently as spurts of water came out of Bonny’s slack mouth. Someone yelled that the doctor was on his way and then, just as he felt he could do no more, Alec heard a gurgle.

‘That’s it, little ’un, breathe.’ Alec’s broad, weather-beaten face broke into a smile. ‘Come on, m’ little darlin’, breathe for old Alec.’

‘Oh Beryl, what am I to do now?’ Lydia sobbed against Mrs Baker’s plump shoulder. ‘Should I send her mother a telegram? Should I go up to London and tell them?’

‘Now, now,’ Beryl said comfortingly, smoothing Lydia’s hair back as if she were another of her charges. ‘They’s all right now, you just calm down and drink that sherry.’

Both Jack and Bonny had been brought to the stationhouse, warmed up in a steaming hot bath and tucked into bed with two stone hot-water bottles apiece. Alec had gone up to the village to get Lydia, but it had taken some time to find her as she was out looking for Bonny.

It was almost nine now. Tom was sharing Michael’s bed as Bonny was in his, and Mr Baker was out in the station, waiting for the London train. Lydia had spoken to both Bonny and Jack and pieced the entire story together, but now she was in a state of shock, trembling as she realised how close Bonny had come to death.

Dr Noakes was of the opinion that it was little short of a miracle Alec had managed to resuscitate Bonny, and he was still concerned both children might develop a fever, or other complications.

‘What if Jack hadn’t been so quick-witted?’ Lydia said, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’

‘He was a brave lad and no mistake,’ Beryl smiled. ‘He’s a good kid, best day’s work I ever done taking him in. But you mustn’t go tormenting yerself with might-have-beens, Miss Wynter. The good Lord saved her today for some reason and she won’t be going near no water again in a hurry.’

‘I’m a failure,’ Lydia said in a broken voice. ‘I didn’t keep a close enough watch on her. I didn’t even ask her who she was going to play with.’

Beryl Baker’s heart was as big as she was. She’d raised five boys of her own and she had enough love to spare for twenty more. She excelled in emergencies; she didn’t flap, or sit in judgement. Lydia Wynter was hysterical and right now she needed mothering too.

‘You can’t watch them every minute of the day. I knows that,’ Beryl said soothingly. ‘Your Bonny’s a little monkey and twice as crafty. But maybe when she wakes up tomorrow and don’t feel so good, she’ll understand why we tell ’em the things we do.’

By Lydia’s third large glass of sherry her shaking stopped. Beryl had lit the fire in the parlour and she was insisting Lydia stayed the night too. Bert Baker had looked in for a moment, but then gone out again, down to the Bridge Inn for a pint.

‘I should send a telegram,’ Lydia said, staring into her empty glass.

Bonny had come round enough before being put to bed to relate in detail how drowning felt. She’d said that she felt she was being sucked into a black hole and however she struggled she couldn’t get out.

‘I saw Mum and Dad holding out their hands to me,’ she said, her eyes huge and terrified. ‘I couldn’t reach them.’

‘I reckon this is one thing you should keep quiet about.’ Beryl shrugged her shoulders. ‘I mean what good’s it gonna do telling ’em? They’ll get all worked up, rush down here and take ’er home. Then the way the war’s going she might have to be shipped off somewhere else again, and the worry’ll kill ’em.’

‘But I can’t disregard parental rights like that.’ Lydia looked horrified.

Beryl half smiled. ‘D’you think I worry about what the boys’ ma would say each time I clout them? I know Mrs Easton don’t give a tinker’s cuss about ’em and Bonny’s folks think she’s the sun, moon and stars. But when they handed over their kids to us, I reckon that gave us the right to make decisions for ourselves.’

‘Well, I can’t do anything tonight,’ Lydia sighed. ‘I’ll see how things are in the morning.’

‘Are you awake, Jack?’ Bonny whispered.

She was in Tom’s bed, Jack a couple of feet away in his own.

‘Sort of,’ he replied, his voice heavy with sleep. ‘What’s up?’

Bonny had been awake for some time. She’d heard Mr and Mrs Baker’s bedsprings creaking as they got into bed and she’d just lain thinking about things.

The stationhouse reminded her a bit of her home in Becontree, with square small rooms and none of the luxury she’d grown used to at Briar Bank. But although Mrs Baker’s home was shabby, Bonny sensed something here that she’d never encountered before. A kind of cosiness, a sense that nothing bad could happen, a house where people didn’t pretend about things or worry about what others thought of them. For some reason it had made her feel guilty.

‘I don’t ever want to go in water again,’ she whispered. ‘It was so horrible. I lied to you when I said I could swim.’

‘That don’t matter,’ Jack said. Bonny could see no more of him than a dark shape but she was glad he was close. ‘We all tell fibs sometimes. Can you really speak German?’

‘No,’ she admitted, explaining those were just odd words Lydia had taught her.

Jack sniggered. ‘Fat lot of good it would do saying it to a German prisoner then. He’d think we was gonna bring him some grub.’

Bonny giggled, her fear subsiding. ‘Tell me about your mum?’ she asked.

‘Ain’t much to tell really,’ he whispered. ‘She ain’t like yours for a start.’

Bonny listened as he told her about about the basement flat in Braganza Street, Kennington. About his two older brothers who’d left home because of his mother’s drinking. The picture he painted, of being left alone to fend for the two younger boys all the time, the lack of food and clothes, made Bonny want to cry.

‘I thought I was in ’eaven when I got ’ere,’ Jack said. ‘Mrs Baker picked us three out because nobody else wanted us. Michael had messed his pants and we all had ’oles in our shoes. I love ’er, Bonny. I wish she was our real ma. I don’t ever want to go back to London.’

Bonny found herself admitting that she didn’t either. She spoke of her embarrassment when her parents came to visit.

‘Mummy’s so dreadful sometimes,’ she said. ‘She pretends she’s posh and she goes on to Aunt Lydia about having me and stuff all the time. She thinks I’m a baby and she won’t let me out of her sight. Daddy’s okay, but sometimes I feel like I’m being suffocated by Mummy.’

They talked of their plans for when they were grown up. Jack said he wanted to be Alec’s apprentice at the garage, and one day he’d have his own one. Bonny said she was going to be a film star, and Jack didn’t laugh.

‘Thank you for saving me,’ Bonny said as her eyelids began to droop.

‘It weren’t nothin’,’ Jack replied a little gruffly. ‘That’s what friends is for.’

‘Am I your friend?’ she whispered.

Jack had made a reputation for himself by being tough. Back in Kennington he would lie, cheat and steal to get what was needed for him and his brothers. But living with Mr and Mrs Baker had altered things: now he saw that the best things came to those who worked hard for them. It was better to be liked than feared. He’d even torn Tom off a strip today for stealing the chocolate. Bonny was like him in an odd sort of way, full of all that bravado and cockiness, but underneath the spoilt brat there was something kind of sweet and nice.

‘Course I’m yer friend,’ he said gruffly.

‘For ever?’ she asked, aware now that she’d never had a real friend.

‘For ever,’ he agreed. ‘Now go to sleep.’

Chapter Six

‘Share the joke with me!’ Amos Gilbert looked up from sawing a length of timber as Ellie laughed aloud.

They were in the workshop. Ellie had brought Amos a mug of tea on her return from school. Now she was sitting in a patch of sunshine just inside the door on an upturned box, reading her letter.

It was Thursday afternoon in late September. Although it was still warm for the time of year, long shadows and the reddening leaves of the Virginia creeper on the workshop walls suggested autumn was almost here.

‘It’s another one of Mum’s funny stories,’ she replied, looking up, her dark eyes full of laughter. ‘Max Miller was just ready to leave the dressing-room when she noticed he had a little split in the seam of his trousers. Shall I read it to you?’

‘Go on then.’ Amos wiped his brow with the back of his hand, perched on a trestle and took his pipe out of his pocket.

This was the time of day Amos liked most – funerals over for the day, Grace out and Ellie sharing tea and chatter with him before she went into the house to prepare the evening meal.

Ellie looked very pretty, he thought, in her candy-striped school dress, her plaits coming loose and wisps of dark hair framing her sun-tanned face.

Since the spring, when Amos was forced to take his sister in hand about Ellie, a great deal had changed, both in his home and the progress of the war.

The ‘Phoney War’ had come to an end with the evacuation of Dunkirk in June. Paris was captured and occupied by the Germans a couple of weeks later. There had been the Battle of Britain, the first daylight bombing of London, in July, and then the start of the London Blitz in August.

Although the residents of Bury St Edmunds hadn’t faced any bombing on their town yet, it had come dangerously close. Back in June, visitors were banned along twenty miles of the East coast, and the beaches were mined and small boats immobilised for fear of invasion. In July, a German Junker caught fire in midair in the middle of the night and crashed down in Bury St Edmunds, causing consternation but also great excitement, particularly amongst the small boys who rushed next morning to see it. Norwich had more than its fair share of suffering, with two raids in July and more in August when some two dozen people were killed.

Spectacular air battles fought overhead in August, as the Germans made a massive synchronised assault on all the East Anglian airbases, brought danger even closer. Martleham, where raiders aimed about thirty bombs, was hit first. A Fairey Battle on the ground caught fire and the bombs on board exploded with such violence that two aircraft hangars were destroyed and the watch-tower demolished.

These assaults on airfields had gone on day after day until mid-September, but now, aside from the odd stray bomber coming inland, the Germans appeared to be concentrating their efforts more on London and the south.

To someone arriving from London, Bury St Edmunds might seem an oasis of calm and serenity: there were no smoking ruins or roofless, windowless houses. But the town had its share of problems. Resources, already stretched by evacuees, at times nearly reached breaking-point as still more strangers flooded in.

Exhausted, battered families turned up almost daily from London: desperate people who could no longer stand the lack of sleep, noise and confusion, some with injuries from shrapnel, burns and broken limbs. Small children with white, strained faces clutched their mothers’ skirts, wide, frightened eyes reflecting the horrors they’d witnessed.

Wives and girlfriends arrived in the hope of snatching a few hours with their men at Fighter Command in Duxford, Debden and Coltishall, always afraid it might be their last chance to be together. Many old ladies who before the war wouldn’t have dreamed of letting a room to a couple without seeing proof of marriage now let the spirit of romance sweep them along, often wiping tears from their eyes as young lovers parted on their doorsteps.