The Girl With No Name (11 page)

But it was something else that caught Naomi’s eye, a flash of orange, a flicker of red. Flames. She gave a shriek of panic. ‘The Duke’s on fire!’ she screamed. ‘The Duke’s on fire!’ Smoke began to seep out through a broken window.

‘Where’s Mary and Tom?’ someone called. ‘Are they inside?’

With another bellow of ‘Stand back! Stay back!’ Leon Hardman made a dash for the door of what had once been the public bar. Its glass panel was gone and he peered through the small opening into the room beyond.

He could see Mary lying on the floor, her arm flung out and her face turned away. There were already flames on the stairs to the floor above and smoke was swirling through the room. Leon flung his weight against the door, but it wouldn’t budge, the shifting of the wall had left it wedged.

‘Mary’s inside!’ he yelled. ‘Get an axe! Call the fire brigade! Get some water!’ Again he drove his shoulder against the resistant door. Someone dashed off to the wardens’ post to summon help and to find an axe, but at that moment a man hurtled round the corner, erupting through the crowd and flinging himself towards the door.

‘Where’s Mary?’ he shrieked as he ran. ‘Is Mary inside?’ He thrust Leon aside and flung himself against the unyielding door.

‘It’s jammed,’ yelled Leon. ‘Tom, it’s jammed. They’re getting an axe.’

Tom gave a roar of rage and set off round the building. With a glance up at the overhanging roof, he clambered up and over the rubbled remains of its supporting wall and appeared inside the bar. Smoke was now pouring from the damaged building and the crackle of the burgeoning flames was clearly heard by those outside in the street. Another shower of tiles from the roof caused the watching crowd to step back again. With an anxious upward glance, Leon followed Tom over the ruined wall and together the two men managed to lift the prostrate Mary and drag her towards the door. Outside, two more men were trying to break it down, while other neighbours had organised a bucket chain, but the water thrown through a smashed window hardly reached the fire and the only way out for the two men and the unconscious Mary was back over the remains of the wall.

At that moment an insistent clanging announced the arrival of a fire engine. Firemen leapt from their machine. Immediately taking in the situation and hearing there were folks inside, two of them grabbed axes from the cab and attacked the jammed front door. Moments later the door disintegrated and they were through the billowing smoke and inside the building, grasping Mary and carrying her out into the street. A third man had followed them through the door and now grabbed Tom and Leon, pulling them coughing and gasping from the burning pub.

‘Where’s Mary?’ cried Tom as soon as he could breathe. ‘Where’s my Mary?’ He ran to where the rescuing firemen had laid her on the pavement. One was on his knees beside her, giving her artificial respiration.

Lisa, standing with Naomi in the group across the street, watched in horrified fascination as the man, kneeling beside Mary, frantically pumped her chest. She could see Mary’s face was deathly white, and the tears sprang to Lisa’s eyes. Mary was Naomi’s best friend and had always been particularly kind to Lisa, somehow understanding, where others had not, how lost and lonely she felt being sent away from her family to an alien country, to live with strangers.

‘Mary! Mary!’ Tom was crying as he dropped to his knees beside her still figure. ‘Mary, it’s me, Tom! Speak to me, Mary! Open your eyes. Please open your eyes!’ His voice rose in desperation, but a fireman laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Sorry, mate. There’s nothing we can do. She’s gone.’

Tom gave a bellow of pain and gathered his lifeless wife into his arms, burying his face in her hair, before suddenly raising his head again and looking round him wildly. ‘Fuck you, Hitler!’ he shouted. ‘Fuck all Germans! The only good German’s a dead German!’ His eyes came to rest on Lisa, pale and frightened beside Naomi, and with a look of vicious hatred he said, ‘You fucking Germans killed my Mary,’ he snarled, ‘and you
all
deserve to die. Every fucking one of you!’

Lisa blenched at the hatred blazing at her and Naomi, grabbing her hand, pulled her away. There was a murmur among the assembled crowd as it parted to let them through. Tears streamed down Lisa’s face now and Naomi put her arms around her, holding her close.

‘But I hate Hitler as much as he does,’ Lisa sobbed.

‘I know, pet,’ soothed Naomi, ‘but he’s just lost his wife to the Luftwaffe, and he’s not thinking straight. He doesn’t blame you!’

But Lisa knew he did, and in some way, she did herself.

No one else seemed to have been killed or injured in the raid. The Duke continued to burn, but once the firemen got a hose attached to a nearby hydrant, a powerful jet of water began to bring it under control. The sour smell from the sodden, blackened pub filled the air as the firemen continued to damp it down and check that the surrounding buildings were not smouldering, about to erupt into flame.

Mary’s body was removed on a stretcher, followed by a white-faced Tom, and now that the drama was over, the crowd of onlookers began to drift away to assess the damage to their own homes.

*

Daniel had been out in his cab when the sirens wailed their warnings. He was taking an RAF officer to the Air Ministry.

‘Drop me off as planned, please, cabby,’ the officer said calmly. ‘They won’t be here yet and there’s a shelter just round the corner.’

Dan did as he was asked, knowing the squadron leader was right. The sirens sounded as soon as enemy aircraft were detected, sometimes, as in a daylight raid like this, well before they reached the coast. He decided not to abandon his cab and take shelter. No, Dan decided, he would park the taxi in its usual place beneath the railway arch and then go to the fire station where he was a volunteer fireman. Naomi had hated him being out on the streets during a raid, but Dan was determined.

‘I can’t just sit in our cellar all the time when I could be out there watching for fires and helping to put them out. They’ll be dropping more and more incendiaries and unless we all do our bit, London will burn to the ground.’ He’d smiled across at her. ‘Don’t worry, girlie, I’ll look after myself. You look after you and Lisa, eh?’

Gradually, over the months since they had collected Lisa from Liverpool Street, Dan had become very fond of his foster daughter. Like Naomi he wished they had children, and he’d been happy enough to give a refugee child a home, but it had surprised him how quickly, despite her early difficulties, Lisa had become an integral part of their lives. He admired the spunk she’d shown when going to her new school when she spoke no English, and the way she always stood up for herself, facing down the bullies. She had an independent streak which was sometimes difficult to live with, but she also showed a dependence on him, asking him questions, paying attention to his answers, which he found endearing.

The siren continued its lament and the streets were crowded with people, hurriedly making for the shelter of the Underground. As he drove the two miles to his garage, he watched them pouring into the Tube stations and he gave a grim smile. Hitler won’t get any of these this time, he thought.

He parked the cab and then hurried to the fire station.

‘Need a spotter on that warehouse roof,’ the chief, John Anderson, told him briskly. ‘Get yourself up there and keep your eyes peeled.’

‘Right-ho, chief! On my way.’

Someone was always sent up to the roof of the nearby warehouse. Filled with paint, it would burn like an inferno if a fire took hold. Spotters were needed to deal with the fire before it could spread and alert the fire brigade if necessary.

Dan puffed his way up the metal staircase, his lungs bursting by the time he got to the top. The fifteen months he’d spent in the trenches of Flanders had taken their toll and any real exertion left him gasping painfully. But fire-watching was something he could do. He couldn’t fight again, that was for younger men, and how young they all looked to Dan these days, scarcely more than boys, but he could still do his bit to defend his home.

When he reached the roof he could see the jumble of streets laid out below him. The river shimmered in the late-afternoon sun, a gleaming trail for the incoming aircraft, leading them to the docks, the factories and the warehouses of London. All prime targets for the Luftwaffe.

His mate, Arthur, was already in position, binoculars in hand, scanning the sky to the south-east.

‘Here they come,’ Arthur said, the quietness of his voice belying his fear. ‘And our boys, too.’

Black dots, far away against the blue of the sky, grew bigger, an angry swarm of lethal machines, hell-bent on destruction. But the invaders certainly weren’t having it all their own way. RAF Fighter Command were up there too, diving in among the enemy bombers, machine guns blazing, harrying them, coming out of the sun to swoop and kill. Some of the Germans forced their way through the defending planes, unloading their bombs on the docks and the surrounding areas, before high-tailing it back the way they had come.

Anti-aircraft batteries strafed the sky, and they saw one bomber spiralling down, a plume of smoke streaming behind it as it spun to the ground, out of control, and exploded above the river in a ball of fire.

‘Got ’im!’ said Arthur with bitter satisfaction. ‘That’s one bugger that won’t be coming back!’

Many of the bombs were incendiaries, and the two men could see flame flowering in every direction.

Overhead, the German planes having unleashed devastation on the city below, beat a hasty retreat, chased all the way to the coast by the valiant fighter planes. Smoke and dust filled the air, a pall of grey hanging over the streets. Fires blossomed angry red below, but miraculously the warehouse had not been hit. The all-clear sounded and Dan and Arthur made one final sweep with the binoculars and having noted fires below in the next street hurried down to direct the firefighters to those and to join in their fight.

It was some time before the fires in their area were under control. Dan and Arthur and other volunteer firemen dealt with small fires which had broken out in the narrow streets and on waste ground, leaving the more serious fires to the regular and auxiliary fire services.

‘Hear that Kemble Street took a hit,’ one man said as he shovelled sand on to a patch of burning weeds. He looked across at Dan. ‘You live that way, don’t you?’

Dan had gone pale. ‘Kemble Street? You sure?’

‘Called in from the ARP post earlier. Pub on fire.’

Arthur looked up. ‘Better go straight home, Dan,’ he said, ‘we can cope here now!’

Dan hesitated for a moment, then with a quick word of thanks darted off along the street, heading for home.

Lisa and Naomi had just got back when he appeared round the corner, his face red from running, his breath ragged. When he saw them he stopped, flopping forward to ease the pain in his chest.

‘Thank God you’re all right!’ he gasped as he pulled Naomi to him. ‘They said the street was hit.’

Naomi returned his hug, holding him close, her arms tight around him.

‘We’re all right,’ she said, and reached out to include Lisa in her embrace, ‘both of us. It’s the Duke what’s been hit.’ Her voice trembled as she said, ‘Mary was inside. She’s dead.’

‘Mary?’ echoed Dan. ‘Does Tom know?’

‘Yes, he was there when they got her out. As you can imagine, he’s in a dreadful state.’ She didn’t mention Tom’s reaction when he’d seen Lisa in the crowd, she’d tell him later when Lisa wasn’t there. ‘They took her away on a stretcher. Tom went too.’

Dan looked shaken at the news. He tried to imagine what Tom must be going through, but he couldn’t... If it had been his Naomi... He turned towards the house and saw the blast-damaged door, hanging on its single hinge. It had been close for her, too.

‘Much damage inside?’ he asked, trying to sound normal.

Naomi shook her head. ‘Some broken glass, that’s all, I think. We was lucky. We heard the explosion, me and Lisa, in the cellar. It must have been the blast from the Duke what...’ Her voice trailed off.

She led the way back into the house and between them they set about clearing up the mess. Sweeping up the broken glass, tears brimmed her eyes as she had a sudden vision of poor Mary, lying pale and broken in the road; killed in her own home. They had been friends since their school days and for as long as Naomi could remember, Mary had been part of her life. She couldn’t yet believe that Mary would never again wander in through the front door with a cheerful call of, ‘Kettle on, Naomi?’ Dear Mary, who despite Tom’s antipathy, had taken the trouble to get to know Lisa, showing her great kindness.

‘You finish peeling them spuds,’ Naomi said to Lisa now, knowing that she, too, was upset and needed to be doing something, however mundane.

Without a word, Lisa turned to the sink and picking up the kitchen knife lying on the draining board, began peeling the potatoes Naomi had left when the siren had sounded. How long ago? It seemed to Lisa that it was a lifetime, a time when Mary was still alive.

‘Did you look upstairs?’ Dan asked when he had nailed a blanket over the gaping front door.

‘No,’ answered Naomi. ‘We went straight out into the street.’

‘I’ll have a look.’

He went through the little house, checking for more damage. The window of the tiny front parlour wasn’t broken though there was a crack right across one corner, but a bedroom window upstairs lay in pieces on the floor.

When the kitchen had been set to rights, glass swept away, the broken windows boarded up, Naomi made a pot of tea and they all flopped down round the kitchen table.

‘We’ll have to check the blackout again,’ Dan said. ‘May not fit closely with the window blown in. You can help me, Lisa. I’ll put it up, you can go outside and see if there’s any light getting out.’

Later, when Lisa had gone to bed, Dan and Naomi sat in the kitchen together.

‘I just can’t believe she’s gone,’ sobbed Naomi, at last giving way to her grief. She had held herself together for Lisa’s sake. The child had lost another person she was fond of and Naomi had known that she must be strong for her. ‘And I had such good news to tell her,’ Naomi said on a sob.