had been like a madman until Peggy was able at least to send news that she was safe and in the General Hospital, nothing then would do, but he had to go up there. ‘I’ve put in enough hours overtime,’ he’d said to Maureen. ‘They can do without me for once.’
‘But son, she says she’s not badly injured, and thank God for it.’
‘I have to see for myself, Mammy,’ Gerry said, looking at his mother bleakly. ‘My life’s nothing without her. I thought you knew that.’
‘I guessed, lad,’ Maureen said. ‘And I should tell the girl if I were you and put her out of her misery. I’d have done the same for my own man. Go on and satisfy yourself.’
And then, not half an hour after he left, she opened the door to her granddaughter who was being helped by a woman she’d never seen before.
‘What in God’s name is the matter with you?’ Maureen cried, putting her arm around Jenny and drawing her inside, where the girl sat on the settee sobbing with her head in her hands. ‘What is it?’ Maureen asked Beattie, but Beattie didn’t answer. It wasn’t her tale to tell.
‘I have to be off,’ she said.
‘Will you not stop a while?’ Maureen said.
‘No, ta all the same,’ Beattie said. ‘I have things to do, and you two need to be alone.’
When Beattie had gone, Maureen went into the kitchen and came back with a cup of tea that she pressed into Jenny’s hands. ‘Drink that,’ she said, ‘and then for God’s sake, tell me what it is.’ And then she sat very still and said, ‘It’s no one else is it child? You haven’t had another telegram?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘None of the family,’ she said. ‘It isn’t that. It’s just that last night was a terrible raid and I saw some awful sights.’ She looked at her gran and said, ‘Beattie, the woman who brought me here, had her house destroyed and her neighbour, a young woman with three children, was killed and her two young sons with her. The daughter is still missing; she’s only twelve years old.’ Jenny’s hands shook so much she was in danger of spilling the tea.
‘I know pet. It’s this awful war.’ Maureen said, and put her arm around Jenny’s shoulder.
‘Yesterday, I told myself that Anthony had a sort of choice,’ Jenny said. ‘I mean, he chose to be a pilot, but he’d never choose to die, he loved life too much for that. This morning, I suddenly realised I’d never see my brother again. I’ll never see him smile or hear his laugh or have a joke and argue with him. Oh Gran, I don’t think I can bear it.’
‘You’ll bear it, cutie,’ Maureen said sadly. ‘You’ll never forget Anthony like you’ve never forgotten your daddy, but you’ll learn to live without him.’
Jenny knew her grandmother was right, she’d have to learn to live without Anthony, however hard it was.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Maureen said, ‘you need a good feed and a sleep. Then you’ll feel better able to cope.’
‘Oh no, Gran.’
‘Oh yes Gran,’ Maureen said. ‘Sit you down and drink that tea before it goes cold. I’ll just be a minute.’
After a bowl of stew and another cup of tea Jenny did feel better, but she was still very tired and her gran lifted her legs onto the settee and covered her with a blanket.
She slept deeply and didn’t wake, not even when Gerry came back and said he was away to see the priest because when Peggy came out of that place they were to be married as soon as was humanly possible, and no one was going to stop him.
Then Beattie came to see how Jenny was. ‘Tell her we’re searching the bomb site,’ she said. ‘It’ll be for a body, I dare say, for if the child’s under it she doesn’t stand much chance.’
‘There’s always a chance,’ Maureen said.
Beattie thought she could only say that because she hadn’t seen the mountain of rubble, but she didn’t disagree with the older woman.
Linda had given up the chance of being rescued. She seemed to have been inside her black tomb for ever and was in so much pain. She’d screamed in agony when she’d woken up and had shouted and yelled, but no one had heard. There was no one there. It was like everyone in the whole world had disappeared. She didn’t know how long she’d lain there, but it seemed a long time. When she’d first woken up and opened her eyes she’d shut them quickly, because such intense dark frightened her. She would have said she wasn’t afraid of the dark, like George was, but this dark was different.
She shivered with cold and fear, her legs were throbbing and she cried out with pain. God, she’d never felt pain like this and she wasn’t sure she could stand it. She was soaked because she’d had to wet her knickers, she couldn’t ever remember doing that before. She lay on her back and let the tears trickle out of her eyes and run unchecked down her cheeks.
Phil Rogers looked mournfully at the mountain of debris and said, ‘You sure there’s someone in there?’
‘Course I ain’t sure,’ Beattie said. ‘But if she ain’t in there, where the hell else is she? All I know is, if you’d checked the bloody list last night, you’d have known she was missing, at least.’
Phil looked at Beattie and remembered the previous evening. Pockets of incendiary fires had lit up the sky and bombs had been raining down as they tried to evacuate people from the area of an unexploded bomb in Paget Road School playground just yards from houses. He knew it would have been easy to miss one young girl in that nightmare. They daren’t use heavy lifting gear whilst there was even the remotest chance of someone being alive inside it. He knew how impossible a feat it was going to be to clear the area by hand, but Beattie had begun to shift the bricks already. ‘Come on you daft ’aporth and put your bleeding back into it,’ she cried.
When Jenny woke, she was determined to go and help after hearing Beattie’s news. She impatiently swallowed the sandwich and drank the scalding hot tea that Maureen insisted on before she’d let her leave the house. She gave little mind to her mother and grandmother. They can look after themselves for once, she thought, and maybe it will do the pair of them good.
She hadn’t quite reached the bombed site, when she saw Beattie detach herself from a group moving debris, and run down the road to Jenny. ‘You’ll never believe it,’ she said, ‘but we’ve heard her. Or at least, we heard a scream from somewhere, so she’s still alive, but we don’t know exactly where she is.’
Jenny wondered how the child had survived so long. The bomb that had killed her mother and brothers and landed on the house fell at about seven o’clock. She’d been incarcerated for nearly twenty-four hours.
Doctor Sanders was there on standby. He was very worried, because since the one petrified scream an hour or so ago there had been nothing, though they’d knocked and called repeatedly.
Suddenly one of the rescuers said, ‘I reckon there’s only one place she can be.’
‘Where’s that then?’
‘In the pantry,’ the man said. ‘It’s well known. You’re as safe there as in a shelter, built under the stairs as it is. That’s where she’d have made for if she’d got any sense, I’d say.’
Nearly
