Keep the Home Fires Burning (26 page)

‘So much for staying awake while the raid was going on,’ Marion remarked ruefully. ‘And it
serves me right, I know, but I’ve got a terrific crick in my neck.’

‘Me too.’ Peggy got to her feet with difficulty. ‘And it’s not surprising that we fell asleep in the end because it’s almost five o’clock,’ she said, astounded, looking blearily at her watch.

Violet groaned as she pulled herself from under the blankets. ‘I feel as if I’ve hardly been to bed at all,’ she said. ‘Thank God it’s Sunday tomorrow.’

‘Today, you mean,’ Peggy corrected.

‘Yeah,’ Violet said. ‘Well, in my opinion there shouldn’t be a five o’clock on a Sunday morning, and if it is all the same to you, I’m going back to bed when we get in.’

‘I don’t mind in the least,’ Marion said. ‘It’s the most sensible thing to do, but do you want a bite to eat first?’

Violet shook her head. ‘I must be in a bad way,’ she said, ‘because I’m far more tired than I am hungry.’

‘I ain’t,’ Tony burst out. ‘I’m starving, I am, and I bet that Missie and Magda are as well.’

Magda nodded vigorously. ‘You bet I am,’ she said. ‘I was hungry even before I came down the cellar.’

‘All right,’ Marion said decisively ‘After a night like that no one has to go to Communion this morning, so help me fold up these blankets, and then what do you say to dripping toast all round?’

The roar of approval was answer enough and just a little later, when Richard came in the door
grey-faced with exhaustion, she insisted that he sit and eat with them. ‘Then you’re going to bed,’ she said. ‘Have you training today?’

‘No,’ Richard said. ‘After yesterday it was cancelled. But what about Mass?’

‘You leave Mass and Father McIntyre to me,’ Marion said emphatically. ‘God will understand that you need all the rest that you can get at the moment because I don’t think that Hitler has finished with us yet.’

And that was what she told the priest that same morning when she stayed behind after the eleven o’clock Mass, after sending the others home with Sarah. The priest looked at her almost coldly and said, ‘You don’t seem to realise that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass.’

‘Oh, I realise that all right,’ Marion snapped. ‘What you don’t seem to realise is that there is a war on, only I don’t for the life of me see how that has escaped your notice.’

Father McIntyre ignored the sarcasm. ‘War or no war—’ he began.

But he got no further for Marion leaped in, ‘Now look here, Father, I haven’t come to bandy words with you, or ask permission or any rubbish like that. I am telling you how it is going to be and that’s that. My son is not a machine and from now on he will come to Mass as often as he is able to and that is all. And as for mortal sin? Well, we’ll both take our chances with the Almighty.’

Father McIntyre was astounded. He could
maybe understand Polly talking to him in this way, but he would never thought it of Marion, and he snapped out, ‘You are being blasphemous, Marion.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Marion retorted. ‘How can what I said be blasphemous? I mean it. God knows what we are going through, and I imagine that He will be far more sympathetic than you. Anyway,’ she went on with a toss of her head, ‘there is little more to be said.’

‘I advise you to think about what you’re doing.’

‘I have thought about it, Father,’ Marion said firmly. ‘And now I’ll bid you good day.’

All the way home, Marion went over and over the things she had said to the priest, a little embarrassed and yet amazed at her temerity. Before the war she couldn’t have envisaged any occasion when she would have done such a thing, and yet the more she thought of it the more glad she was that she had stood up to the priest at long last.

Many bombs had landed in Aston so that afternoon Marion went round to see if her parents were all right.

‘And why shouldn’t we be all right?’ Clara asked.

‘Well, Mammy, there were houses damaged in Aston last night,’ Marion said. ‘I just think that under the stairs is not very secure. If this house was hit—‘

‘No Hitler will make me leave my house and go scurrying through the night,’ Clara snapped, and Marion suppressed a sigh.

She knew part of her mother’s problem was that she was very envious of her having a cellar that was deemed safe enough to shelter them all, so when Clara spat out, ‘And what if your house was hit and the whole thing was to collapse in on top of you all?’ she answered mildly, ‘It won’t. Bill had the cellar checked and reinforced.’

‘Hmmph,’ Clara snorted. ‘Well, there’s one thing that you’ve never considered.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Gas,’ said Clara, almost triumphantly. ‘You have gas pipes in that cellar. What if one of them was shattered? The whole lot of you would be choked to death.’

‘That will do, Clara,’ said Eddie, who had watched the colour suddenly drain from Marion’s face.

‘I’m only saying what could easily happen.’

‘I don’t think it needed to be said,’ Eddie chided.

‘No it didn’t,’ Marion said angrily. She remembered her tussle with the priest that morning and she felt her backbone stiffen as she faced her mother. ‘And particularly as it was said for no purpose other than to frighten me. You can sit out the raids wherever you like, Mammy, because I don’t want you in our cellar like some sort of prophet of doom and gloom scaring the children rigid.’

‘Well, I like that, I must say,’ Clara said, affronted. ‘If I were you, I would ask the doctor about a bottle of something for those nerves of yours.’

‘There was nothing wrong with my nerves until I came here,’ Marion said through gritted teeth.
And she snatched up her handbag as she said, ‘And if I stay much longer, I will say things I may regret and so I’d better leave.’

‘Wait,’ Eddie said, as Marion wrenched open the door. ‘I’ll walk a little way with you.’

‘You will not,’ Clara said.

‘Oh, but I will, Clara,’ Eddie said. ‘I didn’t think that I needed permission to do that, and anyway, I have to call in at the allotment later.’

Marion was surprised at her father’s response. For years he had taken the line of least resistance and that usually meant giving in to his wife all the time, so as they walked side by side she said, ‘Daddy what has come over you?’

‘Maybe common sense at long last,’ Eddie said ruefully. ‘Clara has wallowed in self-pity long enough. Other people have suffered as much and get over it. In this war all of us are at risk and Birmingham will not be spared, with all the war-related factories in this area.’

‘Do the Germans know that, though?’

‘They will have ways of finding out,’ Eddie said. ‘Believe me.’

‘I feel almost as if we are sort of balanced on a knife edge and all we can do is wait,’ Marion said.

‘That’s all,’ her father agreed. ‘Because we cannot let that madman win.’

That night the bombers returned as Marion was getting ready for bed. The younger children were already asleep and Sarah roused the twins and
Richard, his younger brother, and they helped them get ready and sort out blankets. Marion made drinks for them all and, mindful of the twins’ hunger the previous night, also added a loaf, a knife and pot of dripping. By then they were all ready, Richard had already gone, and the noise of many planes was in the air.

Marion sat and listened to the drone of the Luftwaffe, realising there were more than ever before. Suddenly she knew that this was no short skirmish. The first blasts were so close to them, she felt icy fingers of fear run down her spine. Her mother’s words came back to haunt her. For the sake of the others, especially the children, she fought the panic threatening to engulf her as the raid gained in intensity all around them.

She saw the twins’ eyes widen in fear as the hours passed, with no let-up, and in the end she lay on the mattress so that she could put her arms around them both, with Tony right beside them. Even underground they heard the scream of the descending bombs and the terrifying crump and crash as they hit the buildings around. She felt the children shuddering as one explosion followed another, and no one begrudged them the odd yelp of fear because they were all scared.

Sarah quite envied her sisters and brother. She would have liked her mother’s arms comforting her too and her thoughts were also with Richard, out there somewhere in the thick of it.

The twins and Tony, filled up with bread and
dripping, eventually slept cuddled against their mother, though they were constantly being jerked semi awake by the explosions. Marion prayed for God to keep them all safe. She even dozed off a time or two, despite the noise, but it wasn’t any sort of deep refreshing sleep, more the odd snatches of the totally exhausted.

Eventually, the nightmare was over and they looked around at one another, hardly able to believe the all clear was blasting out through the early morning. ‘God, I can’t ever remember being so tired,’ Violet said, slowly, getting up from the mattress.

‘Nor me,’ said Peggy. ‘But we might be able to grab a couple of hours’ sleep before the alarm if we’re quick.’

‘Have the morning off,’ Marion said. ‘You look so tired, both of you.’

Peggy said, ‘But every worker at the factory will be feeling like us, or worse, and production of vital stuff to win this damned war can’t be halted because we’re all a bit tired.’

‘I agree with Peggy,’ Violet said. ‘I wish I didn’t, but I do. Just now, though, I am almost too weary to think straight.’

Sarah felt the same way and Richard too was determined to go into work, though it was an hour after the all clear when he came in, white-faced with exhaustion, and his eyes wide with horror. Sarah guessed that he had seen things that night that would stay burned in his mind for ever, but she didn’t quiz him.

Richard was glad of that. The devastation and human tragedy that he’d witnessed that night had shocked him to the core and he wanted to close his eyes and try to forget it. But when he eventually sank down in the bed beside his slumbering brother, he found that he was only able to doze fitfully as the memories kept leaping back into his consciousness.

Much later that day Polly popped in to see Marion to discuss the raid.

‘The point is,’ Polly said, ‘though bombs did fall here last night, it was the city centre that took a real pounding. Pat and the lads were drafted there to fight the fires. They said the Bull Ring caught it bad. The Market Hall’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Well, the walls are just about standing but the roof’s gone, and that clock that Magda and Missie set such store by was burned to a crisp.’

‘Ah, that’s a shame.’

‘I’ll say. Part of St Martin’s was damaged too, and all them shops down the slope from High Street are mainly reduced to rubble now.’

‘Good job it was Sunday,’ Marion said. ‘There would be few people about at that time.’

‘Yeah,’ Polly agreed. ‘There was the night watchman. Name of Levington, Pat said. He was speaking to him afterwards and he told him that when it was obvious the planes were heading his way, he released all the animals from their
cages in the Market Hall before taking cover himself.’

‘The animals, of course!’ Marion cried. ‘I never gave them a thought.’

‘Good job someone did,’ Polly said. ‘They may not survive, of course. The puppies and kittens might, but the rabbits will probably end up as someone’s dinner, and I shouldn’t think our garden birds will take kindly to an influx of budgies and canaries.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Marion, ‘but anything surely is better than being burned alive. He must be a brave man.’

‘Must be,’ Polly agreed. ‘Tell you what gets me, though: twenty-five people were killed, countless more injured, fires started all over the place and buildings destroyed. All this was said on the wireless this morning only they didn’t even mention Birmingham by name, but just said it was a Midlands town.’

‘Why was that?’

Polly shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Can’t understand it. But even if they don’t say it was Birmingham that was attacked, us lot that live here know full well that it was.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Marion said. ‘We don’t half.’

Everyone was cheered when the RAF routed the Luftwaffe in a decisive battle on 15 September. That caused Hitler to abandon Operation Sealion, the code name for his plans to invade Britain. The invasion threat might be over, but the raids went on. The Whittakers eventually got used to disturbed nights though Marion couldn’t ever remember feeling so tired, and Richard was sometimes like a walking zombie. So when the Germans began their daylight raids it seemed like the last straw, especially as the bombers were often followed by Stukas, which strafed civilians indiscriminately.

The girls gave up their weekly trip to the cinema because they didn’t feel confident walking the streets any more. Marion, concerned for their safety was glad of that. ‘D’you know where you’ll go if the planes come when you’re at school?’ she asked the children one night when a couple of daylight raids had been reported.

‘Yes, we have to go in the crypt in the church,’
Tony told her reassuringly. ‘They took us down to show us.’

Marion was relieved. ‘At least that will be underground.’

‘I think it’s creepy,’ Magda said. ‘I hope we never have to go down there.’

‘We all have to do things we don’t want to do these days, my girl,’ Marion said sharply.

‘Yes,’ Peggy added with a smile, ‘don’t you know there’s a war on?’

‘Is there?’ said Sarah sarcastically. ‘What gave you that idea?’

‘It’s all right joking about it,’ Marion said, ‘but some of it is no joking matter. It’s obvious the Germans are a monstrous race.’

No one contradicted this.

A few days later there was quite an extensive daylight raid and the children were full of it when they came home.

Later, when they sat around the table for the evening meal Magda said, ‘It was just as creepy down in that flipping crypt as I thought it would be.’

‘Yeah, and it smelled horrid,’ Missie agreed.

‘What did it smell of?’ Violet asked.

‘Dead bodies,’ Magda said ominously.

She was annoyed when everyone burst out laughing, and Tony said scornfully, ‘No it dain’t, Magda. You’re stupid, you are. And how d’you know what a dead body smells like, anyroad?’ Without giving Magda time to think up a reply, he went on, ‘It’s all right, and better than arithmetic
any day of the week. We can’t hear much down there, and it’s a bit of a laugh ? or it would be, anyroad only we have to wear our flipping gas masks all the time.’