Moonlight and Ashes (17 page)

Picking up on her mother’s distress, Lucy began to whimper.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart. Let’s get you home out of the cold, eh?’ Maggie turned the pushchair and with a heavy heart headed back to Swanshill.

Once back at her little terraced house, Maggie let herself in and gazed around the kitchen. The first thing she saw were the pyjamas the twins had worn the night before. It was cold, for in her haste to get the children ready, there had been no time to light the fire. Luckily, Lucy, with her thumb jammed tight in her mouth, had dropped off into a doze, so she covered her with a blanket and then lifted the children’s nightclothes and sniffed them. The scent of them still lingered, and once again tears coursed down her cheeks as she rocked to and fro.

‘I hate this bloody war! I
hate
it,’ she muttered to the empty room, but the only answer was the ticking of the clock, and loneliness, the like of which she had never known before, wrapped itself around her like a shroud.

Once they reached the railway station, Lizzie shrank into Danny’s side and gazed at the huge trains in bewilderment. The platform smelled of engine oil and smoke, and people were rushing about everywhere she looked. The grown-ups who were in charge of the children began to usher them all in different directions, until eventually only a small group was left in the care of Miss Timpson.

‘Come along then, children,’ she smiled encouragingly. ‘Shall we get into the carriage?’

Danny had to almost haul Lizzie aboard but eventually they were seated and Miss Timpson began to lift their small cases on to the overhead luggage racks. She had barely finished when a loud whistle pierced the air. The sound of doors banging was deafening, and then the train suddenly lurched forward, causing Lizzie’s eyes to nearly jump out of her head. The carriage smelled musty and that, combined with the movement of the train, made the blood drain from her pinched face.

‘Danny, . . . I think I’m going to be sick.’

Seeing that her face had paled to the colour of bleached linen, the teacher quickly delved into her seemingly bottomless bag and produced a brown paper bag as if by magic.

‘There you are, Lizzie. Use that if you have to. Once we’ve got properly on the way I’ll take you along to the toilet,’ she told the child kindly, then she promptly produced a big tin of mints and asked, ‘Anyone want one of these? They might help if any of you others are travel sick.’

Lizzie wasn’t sure what travel sick meant. She had never gone further than a short tram-ride through Coventry before with her mother, but she guessed it must be this awful feeling she was experiencing now.

‘Come on, Lizzie. Why don’t you try one? I’m sure it will help.’ As Miss Timpson offered her the sweet, Lizzie’s small stomach rebelled, and bending her head she was violently sick into the bag.

‘Oh dear.’ Miss Timpson’s black curls wagged from side to side. ‘It looks like this isn’t going to be the best of journeys for you, my love. We’ve hardly pulled out of the station yet. I tell you what, why don’t we sing a song to try and take your mind off it, eh?’

She immediately launched into a version of ‘Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside’. Slowly, a chorus of little voices joined in and Lizzie began to feel a bit better, until another train suddenly thundered past them on the opposite track. This, combined with the achey feeling in her tummy, was too much to bear and burying her face on Danny’s shoulder, she began to wail loudly.

Halfway through the journey it started to rain, and her cries dwindled as she watched the fields flash by. Miss Timpson had come to sit beside her and she felt somehow comforted in the warmth of the kindly teacher’s arms. A few of the other children, who’d been up since the early hours of the morning, dropped off to sleep, but Danny was determined not to miss a single thing. He’d never been on a train before, and although his heart was heavy at having to leave his mother, he was also excited at the prospect of seeing the sea.

‘Are we almost there yet, Miss?’ he asked at regular intervals.

‘No, not yet, Danny,’ Miss Timpson would patiently reply and then eventually she suggested, ‘Why don’t we have a game of I Spy? And then when we’ve done that, we’ll unpack our lunches and eat.’

The group enthusiastically launched into the game, which passed a pleasant half-hour. During this time the train pulled into a station and lots of soldiers in smart khaki uniforms climbed aboard. They waved cheerfully at the children through the window of the carriage as they passed along the aisle that ran the whole length of the train. Some of them winked at Miss Timpson, and this, Danny was amused to note, had her blushing furiously. And then they were on their way again and Miss Timpson lifted their cases down one at a time for them and allowed them to take out the lunches that their mothers had packed for them.

By the time they’d finished eating, the fields had given way to mountains and marshland, and a bubble of excitement formed in Danny’s stomach. They were almost there - he could feel it.

The journey seemed to be taking forever and he asked, ‘Will we be there before it gets dark, Miss?’

The teacher smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, I should think so, Danny.’

‘Where will we be staying when we get there?’

‘I don’t know, dear,’ she answered truthfully. ‘There will be billeting officers waiting for us when we get to Pwllheli. They will decide who you’re all going to stay with.’

‘Won’t
you
be staying with us?’ His voice faltered for the first time.

‘No, I’m afraid not. I shall be catching a train back later this evening. But I shall make quite sure that all of you are all right first, of course.’

At that moment, another little girl, not much bigger than Lizzie, on the opposite side of the carriage, burst into noisy sobs.

‘I don’t want you to leave us, Miss Timpson,’ she wailed. ‘I want to come home with you to me mammy.’

Miss Timpson had appeared as her last link with her family, and the thought of the kindly teacher abandoning them in a strange place was the final straw.

The child’s outburst silenced Danny’s questions as Miss Timpson rushed across to soothe her, and for some time the carriage was silent as the other children looked on, each of them painfully reminded of the family they had left behind.

After what seemed like an eternity, the train finally began to slow and Miss Timpson told them, ‘I think we’re almost there, children.’

Everything was suddenly hustle and bustle as they all hurried to get into their coats and gather their meagre little pieces of luggage together. When the train came to a shuddering halt they all gazed fearfully out of the window. A large sign on the station wall said
PWLLHELI
.

Miss Timpson alighted first then handed them all down onto the platform one by one. As she was doing so, a small wizened-up woman with her grey hair pulled tightly into a bun on the back of her head descended on her.

‘
Wythnos pawb
. (Greetings everybody.) And would this be the party of evacuees from Coventry then?’

Danny and Lizzie exchanged a glance at her strange accent, and for the first time since they had left home a glimmer of a smile flitted across Lizzie’s face.

Turning to her, Miss Timpson nodded and held out her hand, which the little woman pumped energetically up and down until Lizzie was sure she would shake it right off.

‘Ah, it’s glad I am that you’ve all arrived present and correct, so it is. Now follow me if you please,
blant
(children). I have a bus outside ready and waiting for all of youse.’

Another woman, who was as large as the first woman was small, came to stand beside her and they began to gabble away in a language that none of the children had ever heard before.

‘They’re talking in Welsh, which is their language,’ Miss Timpson whispered as she saw the looks of bewilderment that flitted across the children’s faces. ‘But don’t worry. They won’t expect you to understand it.’

Danny was relieved to hear it, for he was sure he would never be able to understand a word they said. The unlikely pair herded them into a long row then began to shepherd them towards the station exit. It was a relief to find themselves in the fresh air after the smoky atmosphere of the tiny station and the musty smell of the carriage, and the children looked around with interest. Their first glimpse of Wales was disappointing, to say the least. Danny had always imagined the seaside to be a place of brilliant sunshine, but the lashing rain had slowed to a drizzle and the cobbled streets of stone cottages looked dull and uninviting. They had no time to study their surroundings, however, for the little woman was now leading them towards a bus with the precision of a Sergeant Major.

‘Come along now,
blant
,’ she commanded briskly. ‘There is no time to be standing about now, there is still much to be done. I shall be taking you to the Sarn-Bach village hall where they will have tea ready for you, and then the people you will all be staying with will be coming to fetch you, so they will. Come along, come along now.’

The children obediently piled onto the rusty yellow bus and soon they were off yet again. The bus passed though the town and once the cottages were behind them they found themselves travelling through green fields, past mountains whose peaks were lost in the clouds. And then suddenly they rounded a bend and there it was, laid out before them. Their first glimpse of the sea. Many of the children cried out with delight, one of them Danny.

‘Cor, just
look
at that.’ He was unable to contain his excitement. ‘It just goes on forever an’ ever.’

Even Lizzie was wide-eyed with wonder now as she watched the frothy waves crashing onto the shore. She had seen pictures of the sea in books and at the cinema, but nothing could have prepared her for this vast expanse of water.

‘I thought the sea were supposed to be blue!’ one of the other boys exclaimed. ‘That there sea is brown.’

‘That’s because the weather is inclement and it’s late afternoon,’ the little birdlike lady explained. ‘As soon as the sun comes out tomorrow it will be blue, so it will,
bach
.’

The small boy had no idea what inclement meant and had no intention of showing his ignorance so he merely sniffed his disappointment as the bus trundled around yet another twist in the road. And then the sea was gone from sight as the vehicle began to wend its way up the side of a steep hill. Quaint stone cottages were dotted here and there on the hillside, with smoke spiralling into the drizzly sky from their chimneys. They passed fields full of sheep and cows that were huddled in the hedgerows as they tried to shelter from the rain, and a silence settled again as the children watched with interest.

Once the bus had reached the crest of the hill they saw a tiny village laid out in a valley below them, and even as they looked, lights began to appear in the windows of the dwellings, for the late afternoon had darkened. The old bus had laboured up the hill, but now on its downward journey it picked up speed and the village hurtled towards them. They passed a small harbour where fishing boats bobbed on the water beside a hotel that looked very grand.

‘Very popular with tourists, that is,’ they heard the little woman say; she had now introduced herself as Miss Williams. On they trundled, past grey cottages that all looked the same and a blacksmith’s. Then they crossed a bridge and the bus drew to a halt in front of a small building with
Sarn-Bach Village Hall
painted above the door.

The hall was built in the same grey stone as the cottages, and lights burned brightly from its bare windows.

‘Don’t they have to use black-out curtains here?’ Lizzie whispered to Danny.

He pursed his lips. ‘Don’t look like it,’ he whispered back, but there was no time for further comment, for as soon as the driver turned off the bus engine, Miss Williams leaped to her feet and clapped her hands.

‘Now then, children, I want you all to collect your luggage together and follow me in an orderly line.’

Once more the children found themselves lined up on the car park as Miss Williams ticked their names off on her clipboard. When she was content that they were all present and correct, she marched them towards the hall with Miss Timpson following behind. Just once, Lizzie dared to glance back at her and Miss Timpson gave her a reassuring wink. By now the children looked a sorry sight, not at all like the smart little individuals their mothers had waved off only that morning. Many of them had come from the heart of the city and were pale and thin. Added to this, they were all tired from the long journey, so they made a pitiful sight as they trooped into the hall with their gas masks slung across their shoulders, clutching their rucksacks and suitcases.

The babble of foreign-sounding voices died away as the children trailed into the hall. They blinked as their eyes adjusted to the harsh, bare electric light bulbs strung at intervals along the ceiling. A trestle table was set with dishes and cutlery.

‘Leave your luggage by the door now,’ Miss Williams ordered. ‘And then kindly take a seat at the table, children.’

At the end of the table was a huge tureen that was emitting delicious odours, and as Danny and Lizzie sat down they realised that they were very hungry. Three women, who the children later learned came from the village, were rushing back and forth, filling glasses with milk and ladling a thick stew onto plates as the newcomers were seated.

After tasting hers, Lizzie whispered to Danny, ‘What
is
this?’ It was certainly like no other stew she had ever tasted.

Before Danny could answer her, one of the women, who had overheard her question, grinned at her and replied, ‘Why, it’s a good old Welsh rabbit stew,
bach
.’

Lizzie almost dropped her spoon as her stomach rebelled at the thought. She and Danny had once owned a pet rabbit called Flopsy, who had lived in a hutch in their back yard, and the thought of eating one of his cousins was more than she could cope with.