Keep the Home Fires Burning (18 page)

Marion was nearly out of her mind with worry
over Bill, but trying to keep a lid on it for the sake of the children. Her anxiety was, however, shared with Peggy, who’d had a letter from her mother to ask her if she’d heard from Sam for they’d heard nothing from him for some time. Neither had Peggy, and all they could do was wait.

By the time the owners of the registered boats had been asked to assemble at Sheerness on 27 May, they revealed that Operation Dynamo, which was the code name for evacuation of the Allies from the beaches of Dunkirk, had already been going on for five days. Now the veil of secrecy was lifted and as well as private boats, the lifeboats were lifted from liners and the tugs sailed down from the Thames. Even some of the owners of unregistered boats, hearing of the plight of the stranded soldiers, set sail on their own.

The boats were used to ferry the men to Royal Naval ships lying at anchor in deeper water. When the ships were filled to capacity they would head back to Ramsgate to unload the soldiers and return to start again. All the time, bombs would be falling round them and the Stukas dive-bombing the soldiers and rescuers alike.

By the time the operation was disbanded on 4 June it was estimated that over 192, 000 British, and 140, 000 French soldiers had been rescued. It had been an amazing achievement, but lots of equipment and artillery had been lost.

The night the evacuation was stopped, Winston
Churchill gave a speech in the House of Parliament, which was broadcast on the wireless.

‘We shall go on to the end … we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in hills; we shall never surrender …’

It was stirring stuff and just what the British people needed, for nearly all were at least apprehensive and some plain scared: a very small stretch of water separated Britain from France, which was fighting for its very survival.

There was still no news of Bill, though. Then, a week later, a letter dropped through the letterbox. Marion snatched it up from the mat. She knew Bill’s writing well, and if he could write her a letter he couldn’t be dead. Then she was running down the corridor to the kitchen, ripping the envelope open as she did so.

The lodgers and Richard had left for work but the children and Sarah were eating their breakfasts at the table and saw their mother’s face wreathed in a smile the like of which they hadn’t seen for some time.

Sarah looked at her quizzically and Marion, after scanning the letter, burst out breathlessly, ‘Your father is alive and well. He’s hurt his leg and is in hospital in Ramsgate, but he will be all right.’

‘Oh, Mom.’ Tears of relief ran down Sarah’s face as she hugged her mother. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to worry till you had cause?’

Magda looked at Missie and knew she thought the same, about grown-ups crying when they should be happy. Tony took advantage of her mother’s preoccupation to put an extra spoon of sugar on his porridge and Magda opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again, knowing instinctively her mother was in no mood to deal with it, and contented herself with kicking Tony on the shin.

When Paris fell and France formally surrendered on 22 June, everyone in Britain knew that they were staring the threat of invasion in the face. The frantic government advised people to hide maps, and disable cars and bicycles not in use. Signposts were removed and the names of stations blacked out to confuse any invader.

Peggy and Violet worked till seven o’clock most nights, and so did Richard. Much valuable equipment had been left in France and on the borders of Belgium, and replacements had to be made as quickly as possible. Overtime was not seen as merely an option any more. Then the anticipated bombing from the air began as the Luftwaffe pounded the southern coastal towns night after night. People looked at the newspaper pictures of the destruction wreaked on innocent civilians and their homes with dismay and fear.

‘Well,’ Polly said to Marion one day not long after the bombing began, ‘the gloves are well and
truly off now. Five nights running those poor souls have had to suffer it. We know what them German buggers are capable of. The poor little kids evacuated to the South Coast out of the cities because they decided that they were safer there have changed their tune now. They’ll have to find some other place for them. Some of the mothers are taking them back, anyroad. I mean, I know they did that anyway in the beginning when no bombs fell or owt, but more have taken them back now. All them posters are going up everywhere to dissuade them. You know, the one showing kids in the country having a great time, with the sun shining and the sky blue, and “Don’t Do It Mother” written across the top.’

‘Yeah, but it isn’t always like that,’ Marion said. ‘It’s been in the paper that some evacuated kids have had a dreadful time.’

‘They have,’ Polly said. ‘Gladys Kendrick down our yard sent her two lads. We said she was mad to even consider it but anyroad they went. One was nine and one eleven, and when she went to this farm in Wales to see them she was shocked. The farmer was using them in place of his farm hands that had been called up, and had them up at the crack of dawn and hard at work before and after school and all weekend. Gladys said their hands was all cracked and the only place they had to sleep was in a little cubbyhole off the landing. She said they was skin and bone because they weren’t given enough to eat.’

‘That’s dreadful!’

‘I agree,’ Polly said. ‘As you can imagine, Gladys had them out of there straight away. She went to the evacuation centre in the Council House and wiped the floor with them. She said she didn’t want any other child sent there. When she got them home the kids also told her that unless the farmer or his wife was telling them to do summat, they spoke Welsh all the time. They was real unhappy. Anyroad, whatever happens, she’s not sending them away again and she’s promised them that.’

‘I never considered it,’ Marion said. ‘Anyway, there won’t be any place of safety if we are invaded.’

‘You’re right,’ Polly said with an emphatic nod. ‘If invasion does come, I’d want us all to face it together.’

‘I’ll say,’ Marion agreed. ‘And yet it must be awful as well for the people going through these raids. How do they cope with their houses being destroyed like that? I would be heartbroken.’

Polly shrugged. ‘God knows. Good job they moved Bill out, though. Poor sods – to be rescued from Dunkirk only to be bloody bombed to bits once they reached Blighty.’

‘It must have been awful, but at least now he’s here it will be easier for me to get to see him,’ Marion said.

‘Fancy him being moved to the General, just a short tram ride away.’

Marion nodded happily. ‘He said that as the military hospitals are bursting at the seams, ordin ary hospitals are reserving so many wards for servicemen.’

‘And how is he in himself like?’ Polly asked. ‘Did he tell you in the letter?’

‘He’s doing well. The doctors are pleased with him, anyroad, though the move was a bit uncomfortable for him, but whichever way you look at it he was lucky. He’s alive and doing well, and I’m off to see him this weekend. I can’t wait. I can’t take the twins or Tony, though, because they don’t allow children under twelve onto the wards, but in his last letter Bill did say that when the Hospital are finished with him he’ll be having some time at home to convalesce. It cheered the kids up a bit when I told them that. Ooh, Polly,’ Marion said, wrapping her arms around her sister with delight, ‘it will be just smashing to have him home for a few days.’

‘Yeah, I should think so,’ Polly said, smiling. She knew she would have felt the same as Marion if the circumstances had been reversed and Marion knew that the bolster would stay at the back of the wardrobe, where she had put when Bill came home on embarkation leave the last time.

She saw her sister looking at her quizzically and felt her face flush, and to stop Polly asking embarrassing questions she said, ‘Good news about Peggy’s brother Sam too, isn’t it?’

Polly hid her smile because she knew what
Marion was doing, and why. She said, ‘Yes, shot up with shrapnel, wasn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ Marion said. ‘He was transferred to a military hospital in Sutton Coldfield while they dig it all out.’

‘Oh, Sutton Coldfield, where the posh nobs live?’

‘That’s the place Bill should have gone to. They have a barracks up there so I suppose it is a good place to site a military hospital,’ Marion explained. ‘Anyway, Peggy has been to see him and says he’s bearing up well, considering he was peppered with the stuff. Apparently, they thought at one point that he wouldn’t make it, but he’s proved to be a fighter and he reckons he will be out in a week or two. Peggy asked if he could come down to see her then, and of course I said he’d be welcome. If he wants he can stay over and bunk in with the boys. Still first things first, and that is me going to see Bill and trying to keep my excitement in check until then. Magda told me once that when she is excited about something, she fizzes inside like a bottle of pop. I laughed at the time, but now I know just what she means.’

‘Get away with you,’ Polly said with a chuckle, giving her sister a push. ‘It’s two full days more before you can get to see your precious Bill.’

When Marion did eventually get to see Bill the following Sunday afternoon, she was shocked by his appearance. His face was etched with lines that
hasn’t been there before and his skin was the colour of putty. His hair, which had been streaked with grey when he had marched off to war, was now steel grey all over.

His eyes were the same, though, and they brightened when he saw Marion. ‘Ain’t you got kiss for me then?’

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘How could a kiss hurt me?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Marion said. ‘What’s the bulge in the bed?’

‘Oh, that’s a cage thing protecting my leg, that’s all,’ Bill said. ‘Come on, you’ve got to welcome a returning hero properly. Let’s have a big smacker.’

Marion leaned over gingerly, but when their lips touched she was staggered by the shaft of desire that shot through her.

Bill was surprised and very pleased by the kiss. He smelled again the lily of the valley perfume Marion had always worn and when they eventually broke away, he sighed in contentment as he said, ‘Oh, Marion, you’re a sight for sore eyes. I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.’

‘I feel the same,’ Marion told him, and her eyes were shining. ‘It looks like you haven’t been looked after properly. You never carried much weight, but now you are positively skinny and you have big bags under your eyes.’

‘I’m all right,’ Bill protested. ‘I have little appetite because I’m not doing much, and the bags are probably because I’m not sleeping that well.’

Marion was immediately solicitous. ‘Ah, Bill! Is your leg giving you much pain?’

Bill didn’t tell Marion that it wasn’t his leg keeping him awake as much as the memories stored in his head. He just said that it was getting better so the pain was easing.

‘How’s the kids?’ he asked, changing the subject.

‘Fine.’

‘Tony behaving himself?’

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Marion said. ‘He seems either a bit more responsible or better at not getting caught. He hasn’t been brought home by a policeman or the priest this long time, anyroad.’

Bill grinned. ‘And Richard?’

‘Can’t wait to join up,’ Marion said. ‘He’s your son, Bill, and like you, once he has decided a thing then that is that. He knows what we are up against as well as anyone, and if those pleasure cruisers and the like could cross the Channel, so could Hitler’s invasion force, which people say are massed on the other side.’

‘I heard that the Germans have got to smash the RAF before an invasion takes place.’

‘Well, they’re having a good go at that,’ Marion said. ‘I watched a dogfight myself the other day. We all stood in the street and cheered the pilot on like mad and when the German plane turned for home, the Spitfire pursued him and, so we heard, shot him down over the allotments. Tony and Jack went to see but the wardens wouldn’t let them near and then the police came and shooed
them away. I heard the German pilot was killed, and I suppose they didn’t want young boys seeing a sight like that.’

‘No,’ Bill agreed. ‘They will see death and destruction soon enough as it is.’

‘You think there will be bombing here?’

‘Almost certain to be. Birmingham makes so much for the war effort.’ He looked at Marion steadily and went on, ‘I think that we have got to brace ourselves for the worst. Thank God you’ve all got the cellar to shelter in.’

‘Yes …’ Marion said. And then because she didn’t want to talk about the threat of bombing any more she said, ‘Do you want to speak to Richard and Sarah?’

‘Are they here?’

‘Yes. They are desperate to see you but I left them in the visitors’ room because only two are allowed around the bed at a time.’

‘Then send them in,’ Bill said.

Unlike Marion, Sarah and Richard wanted to know all about the rescue from the beaches of Dunkirk. Bill missed out the gory bits, but he did say that the Stukas and bombers were overhead all the time. The soldiers had hastily erected field guns and were trying to shoot them down, and the RAF planes were fighting the German ones, and the noise was incredible.

‘Were you manning the guns, Dad?’ Richard asked.

‘No, I was helping construct makeshift piers,’
Bill told his son, ‘using anything we could find littering the beaches so it was easier for the smaller boats to come alongside and not be stuck on the sand, see?’

‘That’s what it said in the papers,’ Richard said. ‘And it showed pictures of them boats taking the soldiers to the warships.’

‘Yeah they did,’ Bill said.

‘What did you come on?’ Sarah asked.

‘A fishing smack,’ Bill said, and added with a smile, ‘I stunk to high heaven. See, I was on the pier waiting and the Stukas came in from nowhere. I tried to hide but it wasn’t easy, and they got my leg and I fell in the water. This fishing smack was just setting off going back and he hauled me out of the drink and brought me along too.’