Far From Home (23 page)

Kate, surveying the hole later, said, ‘I know it's safer, but in a way it brings the war a little closer.'

‘And that's exactly why you needed the shelter,' David said.

A little later, as they sat side by side on the settee, David said, ‘I have something to tell you.'

‘Is it bad news?'

‘No … well, not really,' David said. ‘Some might even consider it good news.'

‘Go on then.'

‘I've been made up to squadron leader, and so has Nick.'

‘Oh, but that's wonderful, isn't it?'

‘In a way, I suppose,' David said. He didn't say that they more or less had to be squadron leaders, because they were two of the few that had survived so far, but his face was very expressive and Kate guessed a lot by what he didn't say. She gave a sudden shudder and David
held her tight. ‘What's going to happen?' she said. ‘Surely, as squadron leaders, you are given more information?'

David shook his head. ‘We are told nothing, my darling, and I have no wish to alarm you, but I feel we are moving into uncharted waters. Things will get much worse before they get better.'

‘Oh, David, I am so frightened about what is to come,' Kate said.

‘Only a fool wouldn't be at the very least nervous,' David said. ‘Our backs are to the wall, no doubt about it. Civilians – men, women and children – will all be at risk, and you most of all, out in the teeth of raids, but I will not ask you to reconsider, because you are doing what you think is right and I am proud of you for that. But soon I may not be able to write much, so don't worry unduly if letters are few and far between.'

‘D'you think I have a little worry button I can turn on and off at will?' Kate said to David. ‘Of course I will worry when I don't hear from you, but I will put up with it the best way I can. I suppose your leaves might be severely cut too.'

David nodded. ‘I'd say so.'

‘Then let's make the most of the limited time we have,' Kate said, getting up and pulling David to stand beside her. Though it was only very early in the evening, she said, ‘Let's go to bed.'

David didn't argue. ‘Yes,' he said simply, and he took hold of Kate's hand and led the way up the stairs.

 

Three days after the men left, the Anderson shelter had been delivered, erected and sunk into the hole. Sally and Kate piled the earth on the top; as they worked,
Sally said, ‘One of the women at work said that if you put enough earth on it you can grow things.'

Kate stared at her. ‘What sort of things?'

Sally shrugged. ‘Anything, I suppose. I mean, she said they grow potatoes. Everyone's into growing stuff now, aren't they, with the ships being sunk and all? I mean, what if there wasn't enough food for everyone? There's little enough now sometimes, but if there was even less we'd really be in the mire.'

‘I suppose we would,' Kate said. ‘I never really thought that we might actually run out of food, but as we are an island it is a real possibility, with those bloody German U-boats attacking our shipping. That's why they have dug up the flowerbeds in the parks and planted vegetables. All right then,' Kate went on. ‘If they can do it, so can we. Let's put our backs into this and put the sandbags around and we can go and see if we can get some seeds. I think Hiron's the flower shop are selling them now.'

‘Yeah,' Sally said with some spirit. ‘Just let Hitler try and starve us out – he won't win that way either.'

‘He won't win it anyway,' Kate said fiercely. ‘Otherwise young men like your Phil will have died in vain.'

But though Kate spoke so bravely and bought and planted the seeds that same evening, she thought most of the country seemed to be waiting. Travelling anywhere was very difficult because street names, sign-posts and railway-station names had been obliterated to confuse German spies or an invading army. Posters were everywhere, proclaiming careless talk costs lives and be like dad and keep mum, and many German people – and Italians, too, now that they had
joined the fray – were rounded up and put into internment camps.

However, the girls' plans to be ARP wardens continued, and the day they were due to start, Kate and Susie discussed it on the tram on their way to work. ‘Was your mother all right about it?'

‘Yeah,' Susie said. ‘I didn't say anything to my parents until Nick went and I told him not to mention it either. I didn't want to risk spoiling his short leave with a scene. It was bad enough talking him round.'

‘I know, David was the same,' Kate said. ‘We had a real fight about it in the end.'

‘Well, all told, Mom wasn't bad at all,' Susie said. ‘I mean, she made the usual noises, you know, but I reminded her about the boys and so then she shut up, especially when Dad came down on my side. Anyway, she's getting a job herself and she dropped that bomb-shell at the dinner table last night.'

‘Golly, that is a surprise,' Kate exclaimed. ‘Your mother working, fancy that. Where's the job?'

‘You'll never guess,' Susie said, but without giving Kate time to answer, she said, ‘It's in the jewellery quarter.'

‘Crikey!'

‘Apparently, a woman was talking about it after Mass last week and arranged an interview for Mom that she never told anyone about,' Susie said. ‘She got it and starts next week and they are not making jewellery any more, she told us, but building radar instead.'

‘Are they?' Kate said in surprise. ‘But then I suppose it makes sense. They would probably have all the machines for fine work. Mind you, anyone who does
work like that would have to be fairly dexterous, I'd say. I'd probably be all fingers and thumbs, but your Mom is so good with her hands I think that sort of work will suit her very well.'

‘Well, she's excited enough,' Susie said. ‘She says it will be good to have her own money in her pocket that she can spend as she likes. She has never had that; it was expected in those days that the women would stay at home after marriage.'

‘And do what exactly?' Kate said. ‘Thank goodness the war has knocked such outdated notions on the head.'

‘Yeah, I agree,' Susie said. ‘Did your Mom have an opinion about this ARP business?'

‘She doesn't know what it entails really,' Kate said. ‘She just repeated what she has said since war was declared – that if the bombs start falling, I am to go home to Ireland.'

‘And will you?'

‘Not likely,' Kate said. ‘I'm not running away. Birmingham is where I've made my home and I will fight for it if I have to. Anyway, what about Sally? Mammy would never welcome her back home.'

‘I really can't understand her being so hard-hearted about Sally,' Susie said. ‘She was kindness itself to me when I was a child. Even though I knew that she hated me going on about Birmingham at first, I was always made welcome in your home. Not knowing about this great non-romance with you and Tim Munroe, you could have knocked me down with a feather when she began not only positively encouraging me to talk about the delights of Birmingham, but asking if I could find you a job and place to live over here.'

‘I know,' Kate said, smiling at the memory. ‘Your face was a picture.'

‘Yeah, I bet,' Susie said. ‘But I never would have said she was a cold woman.'

‘Nor would I,' Kate said. ‘It must be because my parents particularly made so much of Sally when she was little and incredibly sweet; maybe because they spoilt her, she had farther to fall.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Well, what did she actually do wrong?' Kate said. ‘She ran away from home, but she only did that after she had overheard Mammy telling a neighbour that she would not let Sally come over here, not even on a holiday, and that she wanted her to find a local man to marry when the time came. Sally told me she thought of all the men and boys she knew and none of them inspired her, so the thought of marrying one of them and being buried in the country filled her with gloom.'

‘Oh, I can well understand that,' Susie said. ‘I mean, it is a beautiful place, but a bit of a dead-and-alive hole for a young girl.'

‘Yeah, well, Sally decided to take matters into her own hands,' Kate said. ‘But she had no money of her own, so she took Mammy's egg money. But if she'd been given a wage for the work she did, she would have had no need to do that. I'm not saying that what she did wasn't wrong,' Kate said. ‘But I can understand that desperation, that need to flee and no money to do it, and the temptation of the egg money just lying there.'

‘Oh, so can I.'

‘Anyway, she knows she did wrong and she has apologized for it over and over and paid every penny
back, and still she is not forgiven,' Kate said. ‘And yet I married a man in a registry office, and sent Father Patterson away with a flea in his ear. Mammy was angry and upset, as I expected she would be, but she didn't actually disown me. I find the whole thing hard to understand.'

‘And I would,' Susie said, getting up. ‘Come on, this is our stop. What are the arrangements for tonight anyway?'

‘All the volunteers have been told to assemble outside the council house at seven o'clock, so try not to hang about after work.'

‘Don't worry,' Susie said. ‘I will be out of there like a shot as soon as the buzzer goes.'

 

There was a motley group of them collected together that summer's evening at the foot of the marble steps leading up to the council house in Birmingham, and though most were women of varying ages, there were two older men. As Kate surveyed them, she wondered if any of them would be any good at the tasks that they might soon have to deal with, for they looked a very raggle-taggle group.

Even while she was thinking this, however, a woman came determinedly out of the building and stood on the second step to address them. Just by her stance, it was clear she was obviously a no-nonsense sort of woman, and that was before you looked at her resolute face. She had the sort of eyes that missed nothing and she scanned them all and gave a small nod. Kate knew that if anyone could lick them into any sort of shape, then she could. The woman thanked them for coming
and introduced herself as Mrs Camfrey. ‘Now, if you would like to follow me,' she said, and led the group up the steps and into the reception hall, where they were told that all the ARP activities – as well as various other organizations helping Birmingham prepare for possible air raids – were supervised by an Emergency Powers Committee.

‘Sounds very grand,' Kate whispered to Sally and Susie out of the corner of her mouth.

‘They work from a fortified gas-proofed basement,' Mrs Camfrey told them. ‘And that is where I'm taking you now.'

Kate followed the others down the steps. Now she was actually here she had butterflies in her stomach, especially when she thought of the piles of concrete over her head. Noises from the city were effectively cut off in the bunker, but she knew that, above her, life was still going on.

The bunker too seemed a hive of activity. Mrs Camfrey led them along a corridor; in the rooms leading off on either side, people were busy working. Eventually, she stopped at a small room and ushered them inside. The chairs were in rows and they took their places while she stood behind the desk. Kate glanced around and saw most of the others, including Sally and Susie, looked as nervous as she was. ‘What sort of hours will we be working, like?' one of the men asked. ‘I mean, I want to do my bit and all that, but since Dunkirk I've been working a minimum of fifty hours a week.'

‘Haven't we all, granddad?' a young, heavily made-up girl snapped out rudely. ‘What you doing here if you're not prepared to do owt?'

‘You are impudent, miss,' the man said, outraged. ‘I never said I wasn't willing to help. Let me tell you, I was in the last little lot and I should have retired last year but offered to stay on. I am no slacker, I'll have you know.'

The girl shrugged and another older woman said, ‘Anyway, it's a reasonable request,' and she glared at the younger woman.

‘And I suppose I'm entitled to an opinion, same as anyone else?' the girl snapped back. Kate could see even the girl she was with looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, crikey, Sylv,' she cried, ‘put a sock in it, do.'

‘Yes,' put in another women. ‘Makes me wonder who the enemy is. Thought we were fighting Jerry, not each other.'

‘And so we are,' Mrs Camfrey said. ‘And if you stop arguing amongst yourselves, I will tell you all you will need to know. Before I do, let me remind you that, in the event of a raid, you might easily have to depend on each other. Personal issues have no place here and neither do disrespectful remarks.' She glanced reprovingly at the young girl as she spoke. Kate could see, even under her make-up, that she had coloured up, though she still looked incredibly sulky as Mrs Camfrey continued: ‘Account is taken of the fact that a great many of those here will have full- or part-time jobs of one kind or another, and so the hours of duty will be split into day and night shifts, and you will work the hours that you are able to within that shift.'

There was a little sigh of relief and then the other, younger man asked, ‘And what will our duties be?'

‘At the moment you will have to patrol the streets
making sure people are sticking to the blackout restrictions,' Mrs Camfrey said. ‘You will also be trained in identifying a gas attack, given a whistle and a rattle to sound the alarm, and taught what to do in the event of a raid, assisting and directing people to shelters, reporting when necessary to emergency services and assisting in rescue afterwards. You will also learn the correct way to douse incendiary bombs and other fires and you will learn basic first aid.'

‘My friend has been a warden for a while and said we have to practise all these things,' said another younger woman.

‘You certainly do,' Mrs Camfrey said. ‘It is really important – maybe to people's survival – that you are proficient at these things. It is no good us just telling you: you must actually do it.'