The Soldier's Daughter (11 page)

Ernie, meanwhile, felt as if he were caught in the grip of a nightmare. Each day, he and his co-pilot took to the skies to fight the enemy, and each night when they returned to base they heard of yet more of their friends whose planes had been shot down and who would never return.

‘I wonder if it isn’t time I shipped you all off to your grandparents’,’ Lois told Briony musingly one day as she read the newspaper. She still had lapses when she was able to get hold of alcohol, but thankfully for most of the time now, Briony would return home to find her sober.

‘No, not yet,’ the girl pleaded. ‘I’d be worried sick if you didn’t come with us, Mum. Why won’t you?’

‘Because I have to stay here and keep the house going for you all for when it’s over,’ Lois answered. ‘And anyway, I couldn’t possibly live under the same roof as my mother again. We’d be at each other’s throats.’

And then one Saturday morning early in August as Briony was scrubbing the front doorstep, the unthinkable happened: a telegram boy pulled into the kerb and, looking directly at her he asked, ‘Are you Mrs Valentine?’

Briony feared she might vomit as bile rose in her throat, but she managed to keep her voice steady as she answered, ‘No. I’m Miss Valentine.’ Her hands were trembling uncontrollably as she gazed at the brown envelope in the boy’s hand.

‘I . . . is that for my mother?’

The boy nodded solemnly, and when she held her hand out for it, he rode away. Briony stood staring down at it as if it might bite her. Leaving the scrubbing brush and the bowl of soapy water where they were, she slowly rose, and after wiping her hands down the front of her apron she walked through the house as if she were in a trance. Lois was in the back room painting her toenails and she smiled as the girl entered the room. But then as she noted her daughter’s white face and the envelope in her hand, the smile vanished.

Briony held the telegram out to her and Lois took it without a word. She read the contents, showing no emotion whatsoever until Briony’s nerves were stretched to breaking point. ‘For God’s sake, Mum,’ she hissed. ‘What does it say?’

‘It says that they regret to inform me that your father is missing . . . presumed dead.’

The next few days passed in a blur of misery as the Valentine family tried to come to terms with the loss of their loved one.

‘It only says he’s
presumed
dead. Yer mustn’t give up hope,’ Mrs Brindley tried to comfort them but there was no conviction in her voice and they all just stared dully back at her.

‘Look at all the German prisoners o’ war that they reckon are goin’ to be held in the grounds of Arbury Hall,’ she pressed on. ‘It could be that your bloke is in sommat similar in their country.’ Lately the townsfolk had watched curiously as row upon row of Nissen huts had been erected within the grounds of the stately home on the outskirts of town. None of them had been too pleased when rumours of what they were being built for had leaked out, but they needn’t have worried. As they later discovered, the German prisoners who were eventually placed there for the duration of the war were classed as low-risk Wehrmacht troops who had formerly been tradesmen, professionals and teachers in their own country. Even so, many local people were nervous at the close proximity of men who were considered to be the enemy.

Mrs Brindley’s optimistic words fell on deaf ears and eventually she went back to her own home and left the family to grieve. She of all people knew just what they were going through and she didn’t wish to intrude.

The month progressed and sometimes Briony felt as if she were staggering through a thick fog. She couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that she might never see her handsome father again, and she began to fear for her mother’s sanity. Lois seemed to be locked in a world of her own where no one could reach her. She would sit in the chair from dawn till dusk, rocking to and fro in her dressing gown staring sightlessly from the window, and had it not been for Briony, Mrs Brindley dreaded to think what might have happened to little Sarah and Alfie. They were bewildered, not truly understanding the finality of death, and every morning they watched for the postman, hoping for a letter from their father. Briony had gently told them that their dad had gone to a wonderful place called heaven where he was living with God. Sarah thought this all sounded very well and good, but one evening as Briony was tucking her into bed she asked, ‘When will God let Daddy come home to see us?’

Briony blinked away the tears that were suddenly stinging the back of her eyes and told her, ‘I’m afraid that once you go to live with God, He doesn’t allow you to come home for visits.’

Sarah’s small hands bunched into fists beneath the blankets. ‘Well, I don’t think that’s fair then,’ she said plaintively. ‘He’s
our
Daddy, not God’s! Why doesn’t God get His own Daddy?’

‘Billy Norman’s mum told him that his daddy had gone to live with God too,’ Alfie piped up. ‘But Billy knew that she was telling lies ’cos they had what they called a funral or somethin’ like that for him an’ planted him in the ground in a big box. How can he be with God in heaven, Briony, if he’s in the ground? You said that heaven was somewhere in the sky behind the clouds.’

Completely at a loss as to how to answer such innocent questions, Briony merely kissed them both and sneaked out of the room with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She was still managing to go to work, but most evenings she was in such a daze that she couldn’t even remember what she had been doing all day. Thankfully, once he heard what had happened, Mr Trimble was being very understanding, and rather than bellow at her as he normally would if she made a mistake he would simply correct it and leave her well alone.

Ruth had been marvellous too, a true friend. Each evening after her meal she would turn up and pitch in to help Briony do anything that needed doing without a word of complaint. Briony didn’t know how she would have coped without Ruth and Martha Brindley yet she could find no words to thank them, knowing that anything she said would be totally inadequate.

The days slipped one into another until August was drawing to a close.

‘Christ, it’s the twenty-fifth already, where does the time go?’ Mrs Brindley said one evening as she sat at the Valentines’ kitchen table reading the daily newspaper. She had tackled a pile of ironing for Briony and was now enjoying a cup of tea before returning to her own home. The children were fast asleep in bed when suddenly the sound that they had all been dreading echoed through the house.

‘Dear God Almighty!’ Mrs Brindley had paled to the colour of putty. ‘It’s the bloody air-raid siren.’ Then taking control she barked at Briony, ‘Run up and fetch the kids while I get yer mam into the shelter, lass.’

For a moment the girl stood as if she had been turned to stone but then gathering her wits together she raced up the steep staircase as sheer terror pulsed through her veins.

Sarah was already sitting up in bed knuckling the sleep from her eyes as her sister exploded into the room, and she asked sleepily, ‘What’s that funny noise, Briony?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ her sister replied, keeping her voice as calm as she could. ‘But I want you to come with me. We’re going to have a little adventure and go and sit in the shelter for a while.’

‘But it’s dark outside!’

‘I know it is, but we have candles in there so hurry up and put your dressing gown and your slippers on for me, there’s a good girl, while I go and get Alfie.’

The sound of the siren wailing was deafening, but Alfie didn’t wake even when Briony lifted him out of bed and put a blanket around him. She carried him out onto the long narrow landing where Sarah was waiting for her, looking a little fearful now, then quickly led the way downstairs and outside into the shelter. Lois was sitting in one of the chairs that Mrs Brindley had placed in there and Briony placed Alfie in her lap. He roused momentarily to jam his thumb into his mouth but then slept on blissfully oblivious of what was going on. Mrs Brindley was sitting in the other chair and she instantly lifted Sarah onto her lap, telling Briony, ‘Get that door shut sharpish, luvvie.’

Briony did as she was told and they were instantly plunged into inky darkness but then she fumbled about for the candles and the matches that Mrs Brindley had also thought to bring into the shelter and within minutes she had managed to light a couple with shaking fingers.

‘That’s better,’ her neighbour told her with an encouraging grin as she saw that Tigger had shot in there too, to cower beneath one of the chairs. ‘We should be as safe as houses in here, so all we have to do now is sit it out.’

Briony sank cross-legged onto an old rug that her mother had been planning to throw out and shivered. Despite the balmy evening outside, the inside of the shelter felt cold and damp but hopefully the raid would not go on for too long.

Every minute seemed to last an hour as they sat there wondering what was going on outside. Then suddenly they heard the roar of planes overhead and as the noise subsided a little, there was the sound of an explosion in the distance.

‘The bastards have dropped a bomb somewhere,’ Mrs Brindley said with gritted teeth.

Briony wrapped her arms about her knees to try and stop herself shaking.

‘I wonder who’s copped it?’ Mrs Brindley hugged Sarah more tightly to her but thankfully both children slept on. Eventually Briony slipped into an uneasy doze too and it was the sound of the all-clear that brought her eyes springing open.

‘Is it over?’ she whispered fearfully and Mrs Brindley nodded.

‘Yes, it is. Now come on, help me get these children tucked back into bed – that’s if it ain’t time to get up. Lord knows how long we’ve been in here.’

They crept from the shelter into a misty dawn and once inside the kitchen, Lois and Briony carried the children upstairs while Mrs Brindley threw some coal onto the dying fire.

Later that morning, they discovered that an incendiary bomb had been dropped in the Gypsy Lane, Coventry Road area, but no one seemed to know as yet what damage had been done or whether anyone had been hurt. Briony had chosen not to go into work but she got the children up at their usual time and walked them both to school, feeling that it would be better to keep them in their normal routine. Even so, she fretted all day.

‘What if the sirens go off and there’s a raid during the day?’ she asked Mrs Brindley. There were huge dark circles beneath her eyes and the kindly woman patted her hand reassuringly.

‘Don’t get worrying about that. They’d get all the children down into the cellars,’ she assured her.

‘But if they do that and the school gets bombed, then the children would be buried under tons of rubble.’

Mrs Brindley scowled at her and yawned. The sleepless night was catching up with her now and she was keen to get back to her own home and her own bed.

‘You’re just lookin’ fer problems now,’ she scolded, although the same thought had crossed her own mind. ‘Now I’m goin’ to go and grab a bit o’ shut-eye, so I’ll see yer both later. Oh, an’ by the way, Betty Arkwright just told me there were no one hurt in the raid last night, so that’s sommat to be thankful for at least, ain’t it?’

She crossed the yard and disappeared into her kitchen as Briony looked at Tigger the cat, who had crept back in and was already fast asleep in the fireside chair.

The raid had deeply unnerved them all, for although they had known it could happen, when it actually had, it had been a different matter entirely.

Seeing her mother’s strained face, Briony tried to force some brightness into her voice as she told her, ‘I think Mrs Brindley was more upset about having to go without her cup of tea all night than anything else. Everything happened so fast she forgot to fill her flask.’

Lois nodded absently as Briony began to tidy the room.

*

They were all nervous as evening approached, but thankfully it passed without incident and they began to hope that the raid had been a one-off. Briony returned to work the next day, and on the way home Ruth remarked, ‘It were nice to have a peaceful night, weren’t it?’

Briony couldn’t help but smile. Ruth was talking as if the raids had been a nightly occurrence rather than the first one. But she didn’t say as much, instead she simply nodded.

‘Yes, it was – and let’s pray we have another peaceful time tonight.’

Her prayers went unanswered when shortly after she had retired to bed the sirens sounded. Grabbing her dressing gown, she yanked it on and carried Sarah down the stairs whilst her mother followed with Alfie in her arms. They met Mrs Brindley in the yard with her hair full of metal curlers and clad in a voluminous candlewick dressing gown.

She pointed to the flask beneath her arm as she ushered them all in the direction of the shelter, saying, ‘I put some cups in the shelter earlier on so at least we’ll be able to have a hot drink tonight.’

Tea was the very last thing on Briony’s mind at that moment but she was too polite to say so. Now that August was drawing to a close the nights had become colder and soon Briony wished that she had thought to put her coat on over her dressing gown, but at least the children were warmly wrapped in the blankets that their neighbour had provided; once again, they slept through it all.

‘The jerries are droppin’ a fair few tonight,’ Mrs Brindley muttered at one stage. The candles were flickering, making the walls of the shelter seem as if they were moving and Briony was absolutely terrified.

That night the raid seemed to go on for much longer and they all sat fearfully listening to the explosions and the roar of the ack-ack guns as they tried to shoot the enemy planes from the skies.

The next day, they learned that nine high-explosive bombs and twenty incendiary bombs had been dropped in Weddington Lane and in Caldecote Lane opposite the school, but miraculously once again no one was hurt and the school had remained intact.

‘Them Jerries are bleedin’ lunatics, the lot of ’em,’ Martha Brindley ranted, and Lois and Briony could only nod in agreement.

Then on the following night came the worst raid to date. It began shortly after dark and seemed to go on all night. This time Weddington Road, Hill Farm and Boon’s quarry in Tuttle Hill were the targets – and they were appalled to hear on the wireless the following day that this time, three people had lost their lives, and a further nine people had been injured.