She walked for miles, or so it seemed, till her feet were hot and tired and her shins bruised from tripping over the rubble that littered the streets. At length her eyes grew used to the darkness, aided by the moon as it sailed out from behind a bank of clouds and she walked with greater ease. But since she didn’t know Exeter, any landmarks which did stand out against the lighter sky, were useless to her. Thankful for the warmth of her WTC greatcoat, Gracie felt quite alone in the world, the hollow echo of her heels on the damp pavements the only sound in the darkness. There was an eerie stillness in the air, every door shut fast, the occupants no doubt huddled within the erroneous safety of four walls. Almost as if they were holding their breath, waiting for something to happen.
The next second she knew what it was. It began with the whine of the air-raid siren, quickly followed by that stomach-churning drone of enemy aircraft above. Within seconds, doors were flung open and where there had been emptiness and solitude now came a heaving mass of people, their arms loaded with precious belongings, children clinging to their mother’s skirts, all silent and businesslike, all hurrying in one direction, all with one single thought in mind. To survive.
The Baedeker raids, named after the famous German guidebooks had begun earlier in the year, Exeter suffering the first attack in this series of raids in April. Bath had come next, killing hundreds of people in just two consecutive raids. York, Norwich, Canterbury had all taken a battering in the weeks following, along with other historic cities. And now, months later, the residents had grown used to leaving the city night after night to sleep in the open countryside, in tents or barns, or even under hedges. But with the coming of the colder nights and more sporadic raids, many had grown careless or over optimistic, believing they would be safe. Now they knew different.
As they hurried through the night, Gracie ran with them. If there was to be salvation in the form of a shelter nearby, they would know where to find it.
Even as the thought formed in her stunned brain, she saw that it was already too late. First came the flares, lighting the skies with a deadly radiance. Then the incendiary bombs, followed by the high explosives which dropped with frightening swiftness out of the dark heavens. Explosion after explosion rent the air like a cataclysm, flattening buildings, bursting gas and water mains, pitting the road upon which she ran with smoking holes in the broken stone. She felt that the whole world must be on fire, falling apart before her very eyes.
Gracie saw walls crumple like paper, whole houses collapse like a row of dominoes, burying everyone within; the light of the explosions starkly brightening the grim little streets into a glorious Technicolor of death and destruction. In one breath, hundreds of lives were blown away on clouds of stinging, suffocating smoke. It made her eyes stream, caught at her throat, making her cough and choke, stumble and fall to her knees. Then it seemed as if the earth split in two, as if the very jaws of hell had opened and Gracie was looking down at a mass of screaming people buried in its dark red belly. Dozens fell into the pit and all she could see was a writhing mass of helpless bodies.
Her last conscious thought was that if she survived this night, it would be a blessed miracle
‘Are you all right dear? Need a stretcher or are you walking wounded?’
Her head felt as if a thousand axes were splitting her skull. Lights cascaded and danced behind her eyes then finally swam together, settled and formed themselves into a kindly face topped by a tin helmet. ‘I’m OK. I can walk, I think.’
The ARP warden helped Gracie to her feet, dusted her off, checked her briefly before turning away to the next victim. She called after him. ‘I can help. I’m in the WTC.’
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’
‘The Timber Corps but we’ve had air raid training.’
‘Right. Get on with it then. We need all the help we can get here.’
How long the raid had lasted she never discovered, minutes had seemed like hours, and the remaining hours of that long, horrific night dragged by in the length of a lifetime.
Gracie had witnessed the worst that man could do, now she observed the best. She saw firemen, Red Cross and auxiliary workers, bleary-eyed and filthy, some cut and bleeding themselves, exhausted yet resolutely determined to stay on their feet and do the job they’d been trained to do. Some plunged into burning houses to carry out lifeless or half dead bodies, placing them on stretchers to be driven away in an endless stream of ambulances. One man, having gone inside, never returned as he too became trapped by the fires. The devastation was total, yet not for a moment did anyone lose the will to salvage what they could.
Gracie held the blue waterproof bags as they slipped in severed body parts. She helped a WVS woman deliver a baby as its mother went into sudden, urgent labour, and carried away its tiny, half formed body in a flour sack. She watched in awe as family members found each other and wept or stared, dry-eyed, at the heap of rubble where their loved one had last been seen before methodically and calmly starting to remove it, piece by piece, endlessly searching, never giving up hope. Others sat in shocked, silent groups, uncertain what to do next or where to go, all the possessions they had once owned now gone, perhaps their entire family with it; yet their dignity and resolve not to weaken remained firmly intact.
When it seemed that the worst of the raid was over, the mass exodus began. As of one mind, the people got to their feet, gathering together whatever possessions they could find, and began to walk from the city.
Gracie did not go with them. She picked her way gingerly through the rubble and detritus which had once represented the homes and lives of these people. She listened intently for the slightest sound as she had been taught to do, the narrow beam of her torch invaluable as she searched for any sign of life. With every step she feared masonry might fall upon her, that she too might be burned alive or blown to bits by a landmine or unexploded bomb which could choose this precise moment to go off.
She saw a heap of rags, lifted the edge of it and looked into the staring eyes of a child. Head gaping open, blonde plaits matted with blood, one handless arm flung out. For a moment Gracie thought that the girl was dead, even so she quickly probed with her fingers and found the flicker of a pulse, just below her ear. ‘Help! Stretcher here. Quickly!’ In an instant the child had been bundled into a blanket and borne away to either live or die as a result of her horrific injuries, but at least she would have a chance now.
If she thought this was bad, minutes later Gracie found a baby, its tiny puckered mouth still clinging to its mother nipple, but were there any milk left to draw, this baby would suckle no more. She drew a blanket over the pair and walked away, too traumatised even to weep.
‘It was a nursery school, love,’ said a kindly voice in her ear. ‘Took a direct hit. There were thirty-six children in there, plus nursery nurses and mothers.’
Gracie looked about her with closer attention and saw that she was in a school playground. Eerily, a swing creaked as it moved to and fro in the night breeze but there were no children left to play upon it. They would never play anywhere again for they lay buried beneath a heap of black stones that had once comprised the walls of their school, or were scattered in pieces across the cracked playground, respectfully draped in old sacking. There came the sound of soft weeping, while other women screamed as the remains of their children were gathered up and removed. More poignantly, here and there stood a lone figure, silently grieving.
Gracie had a natural distrust of emotion, having seen too much of it in both her parents. But not revealing her feelings didn’t mean that she didn’t have any. She cared deeply. Sharing the devastation with these people she felt that their tears were her tears; their sorrow, her sorrow. She desperately longed to do something to help. Yet there was nothing she could do.
‘Oh dear God. Why kill babies? Why?’
‘There’s no answer to that one, dearie.’ Firm hands attempted to draw her away but Gracie refused to go.
‘No. There must be some still alive. I need to look. I must find them.’
‘There’s nothing left. I reckon they’re all goners.’
She searched for hours, painstakingly examining every broken body, assisting the auxiliaries as best she could but the woman’s guess proved to be correct. Not a living soul remained. It couldn’t be right, she thought, fierce in her anger, sticky with sweat and desperation and sickened by the waste of it all. The stink of cordite seared her nostrils. War shouldn’t be like this. War was an adventure, a lark. It should be something that took place
elsewhere
, many miles away in the skies, on the seas, between huge armies, trained fighting men. Not in their own back yards. Not on school playgrounds.
Only later did she feel the fear: a paralysing, physical terror which erupted as bile from the pit of her stomach. Shivering as the hot sweat of her vomiting cooled on her rain-soaked skin, she remained where she’d fallen on her knees for some long moments, unable to think or move. She felt as if a part of her too had died, as if this night would remain with her forever. Gracie wiped the contaminating filth from her face and drew in a steadying breath, determined to carry on. Her attitude clearly stated that you simply had to get on with things, to deal with whatever life threw at you.
Yet suddenly there seemed nothing more to be done.
Her foot caught in a spar of wood and she stooped to pick it up. It was the remains of a poster which had once read:
Save coal. Keep your eye on your fuel target!’
Ironically, all around her was any amount of broken lumber which would serve in place of coal, assuming one had a fireplace in which to burn it.
‘Leave it for the bull dozers now, dearie.’ The woman’s voice again, coming out of the gloom. ‘Come and ‘ave a cuppa. Your hands need tending to.’
And so, along with everyone else, the walking wounded, the refugees and auxiliaries alike, Gracie was shepherded into a nearby school where the WVS were pouring tea and hot soup. Although, she hoped, not too much sympathy, or that would have her weeping which was a pointless exercise. The cut on her head was cleaned and dressed; the blisters on her hands, caused by desperately trying to dowse the fires were bandaged and would, in time, recover. Those more seriously injured or who had lost loved ones, might never do so. Her own problems, of being put on report for being absent without leave, of offending her father and upsetting her mother, now seemed small by comparison.
There was the very same ARP warden who had dug her out of the ruins, still wearing his tin hat and whistle. He came straight over the moment he spotted Gracie. ‘You did a good job, girl. Well done! Name’s Ted by the way. Here y’are. Get that down ye.’ He handed her a steaming mug of tea which Gracie accepted with gratitude. It was hot and strong and black, soothed her parched throat for all it could not wash away the taste of death.
‘What next?’ she asked, when the tea had done its work and she could speak again.
‘Oh, we’ll have to stop the looting, I expect, and start the job of sorting out a place for everyone to sleep, matching lost children to their families, if we’re lucky. Not pleasant, but nothing is in this business. What about you, where were you off to when the bombs hit? You’re not from round here, eh? Where exactly are you supposed to be?’
Gracie told him. Wasting no words, hiding nothing, she quickly put him in the picture. He shook his head perplexed but, to his credit, asked no prying questions, simply told her to hang on a minute and he’d see what he could do.
He found her a convoy of army vehicles which were heading west as far as Dartmoor. ‘After that, you’re on your own.’
She accepted with alacrity and swallowed the rest of her tea in one. She was on her way.
Their last Sunday of training was drawing to a close and the squad were sitting down to a supper of sausage and mash when Gracie walked in, looking as if she’d just gone five rounds with Tommy Farr, the ex-miner turned champion boxer.
It had taken the entire day for her to get back to camp, travelling in a convoy of army trucks. She’d certainly been well protected by a lively bunch of soldiers but progress was slow. They dropped her near Tavistock, with much back-slapping and jokes about how they’d like to meet up with her again some day, preferably in the woods next time. After that she’d managed to hitch several lifts which included a bread van, a vicar’s old Ford which insisted on breaking down every five hundred yards or so and the back of a farm truck carrying a load of pigs. Consequently she stank of a rather odd combination of antiseptic, scorched cloth, fresh bread and pig manure.
In addition there were the burns, cuts and bruises, the tears to her uniform. Blood mingled with the dust in her filthy hair and her eyes were red rimmed and sunken, still staring into horror.
Lou sat stunned, lost for words at sight of her.
Jeannie said simply, ‘Crikey!’
Gracie barely had time to utter a hasty, ‘I’ll explain later,’ before Matron loomed and promptly marched her off.
Neither Gracie’s appearance, nor the briefly told tale of her harrowing night were enough to save her. Several hours later, the squad were informed that, in view of disciplinary offences, their request to stay in Cornwall had been refused.