7 SEPTEMBER 1940
The next day was a Saturday, and by late-afternoon tea break, still all anyone could talk about was Peggy’s triumph the previous evening.
‘You should have seen their faces when the compère handed you the prize money. That Babs had the right hump!’ crowed Pat, slinging an arm round Peggy’s shoulders.
‘Yeah. Why didn’t you tell us you had such a good voice, love?’ said Ivy. ‘You’re so good I reckon you could sing up at one of Tate & Lyle’s factory socials.’
‘I should say,’ agreed Daisy. ‘Or even the Hackney Empire.’
‘I don’t think I’m that good,’ said Peggy. ‘Besides, I didn’t exactly try very hard with you when I started.’
‘Never mind all that,’ blustered Dolly, filling up her mug. ‘You’re one of the girls now.’
‘That’s right – you’re one of us, you little dark horse,’ said Pat.
‘Isn’t she just?’ interrupted Lily coldly, folding her arms. ‘A dark horse, that is.’
An uneasy silence fell over the room.
‘Am I the only one who is still intrigued by why you suddenly washed up in the East End?’ she spat. ‘A nice fine lady like you from such a lah-di-dah background.’
‘Lily,’ warned Vera. ‘Watch your mouth.’
‘No, I won’t,’ she blazed suddenly, her green eyes flashing dangerously. ‘She didn’t want a bar of us when she first started, looked down her nose at all of us, not to mention how she walked all over poor Lucky. I, for one, think she’s nothing but a little hussy. A hussy with a German lover . . .’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Lily,’ Peggy muttered.
‘Wanna bet?’ Lily crowed. ‘This lot might be taken in by your little Miss Perfect act, but I saw your reaction when Pat started talking about German spies.’ With that, she reached out and pushed a goading finger hard in the middle of Peggy’s pinafore. ‘But I got your number, see? I know you’re bedding a Boche.’
Everyone stood stock-still, waiting for Peggy’s response, but she never got the chance to reply. A deep, wailing drone rose up and filled the factory floor.
Archie walked out of his office, rubbing the crown of his bald head with one hand and holding a half-eaten garibaldi in the other.
‘All right, folks. Probably a false alarm, but after last week’s bombings, let’s not take the chance, eh? Let’s get down the shelter quick smart. Just when I thought I might actually be able to leave on time and catch the end of the West Ham game.’
A heavy groan of resignation rang out.
‘I know, I know. Bloody ’itler. Come on, girls, Moaning Minnie’s telling yer to shift your backsides.’
‘What’s Moaning Minnie?’ Flossy blurted, regretting her words before they were even out of her mouth.
‘Wotcha think it is?’ Archie exclaimed despairingly. ‘An invitation to do the conga? It’s the bleedin’ siren, of course!’
A cold finger of fear drew up Flossy’s spine. She had dreaded this moment above all else. It was time to go underground.
*
Shakily, Peggy gathered up her belongings and followed the slipstream of workers clattering down the stairwell, but when she reached the door to the factory, she realized she had left behind her wristwatch. She always took it off before she started work in case she scratched it, and left it by the side of her machine. It was the last thing her father gave her before . . .
By the time she had retrieved it and turned back, Peggy realized with a start that she was the last machinist left on the floor. Lucky was standing by the door, his hand on the light switch.
‘Come on, Peggy, don’t dilly-dally,’ he urged, placing a hand on the small of her back. ‘Archie’s just shutting down the machines; then we have to get out of here.’
Peggy paused, aware of his touch burning into her skin. A voice whispered in her head, Do it. Tell him everything . . . Months of heartache and loneliness crystallized together into a bolt of pure emotion. The realization was startling. She was in love with Lucky.
‘L-Lucky,’ she stammered, over the relentless wail of the siren. ‘I haven’t been straight with you. Last night, when I was singing . . . it was you I was singing those words to. I saw you by the door, watching.’
His face fell as he quickly turned away. ‘I don’t wanna hear it, Peggy.’
But Peggy knew. It was too late to turn back now.
‘I beg of you, Lucky, don’t avoid me any longer. I know you’re with Lily now, and I don’t wish to do anything to hurt either of you, but I owe you an explanation for my behaviour.’
The words spilt from her lips. ‘I’ll tell you everything, the real reason why I’m here. Please meet me later.’
‘I thought I was born on the wrong doorstep for you?’ he mumbled.
‘Oh, Lucky, I’ve been a total fool and I’m not ashamed to admit it,’ she cried.
‘This isn’t the time . . .’ he said, nervously scanning the cloudless skies outside the high windows.
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘This evening. Say you’ll meet me.’
‘Very well, Peggy,’ he sighed, shaking his head. ‘But right now, I want to get you safely underground.’
‘Where will you be going, Lucky?’ she asked.
‘I’m heading down to the ARP headquarters on Lyte Street. Archie is staying here on fire-watching duty. But I can’t leave until I see you to safety. Now hurry, there’s not a moment to lose.’
Below ground, Peggy felt terrified, relieved and excited all at once. She had never been in a public shelter as big as this one. It was housed in the basement of a neighbouring factory – now requisitioned by the authorities as a public shelter – and every worker within a square-mile radius seemed to be crammed in here, seated on the narrow wooden slatted benches that lined the damp brick walls. The basement was dark, hurricane lamps threw out dim lighting, and Peggy could only just make out an Elsan chemical closet partially screened off by a canvas door in the furthest corner. Frantically, she scanned the benches for a face she recognized.
‘Over here, Peggy,’ called out Flossy. ‘I’ve saved you a place next to me.’
The Trout’s girls were all sitting huddled together; many had grabbed their knitting bags on the way out and were already starting to work on their knitting.
‘Is this it?’ Peggy asked, as she took her place next to Flossy.
‘What were you expecting? The Ritz?’ sneered Lily, who, despite the interruption, clearly hadn’t forgotten her earlier outburst.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ smiled Dolly, sitting opposite. ‘I shouldn’t think we’ll be down here long.’
‘Wanna bet?’ said Pat darkly. ‘We’ve had it coming a long while.’
‘That’s enough, Pat,’ snapped Vera. ‘No one knows how long we’ll be down here, so we need to stay collected.’
Her breezy words spoke of a determination to stay calm, but through the gloom, Peggy could see she was wringing the hem of her skirt feverishly with her fingertips.
‘I hope Mr Gladstone remembered to switch off the machines,’ she muttered, agitated.
Without saying a word, Peggy noticed Dolly slip a comforting arm round Vera’s shoulders.
Suddenly, her thoughts strayed to her mother and her whereabouts.
‘I do hope my mother is safe,’ she said to Flossy. ‘The City firm she works for usually closes early on a Saturday, so she may be on her way home from work already.’
She felt Flossy’s slight hand reach through the darkness and her tiny fingers thread through hers.
‘I’m sure your mother will be quite safe in the City. I hear there’s plenty of shelters there.’
Flossy’s words were reassuring, but the quake in her voice didn’t go unnoticed by Peggy.
‘Flossy,’ she whispered, so the rest couldn’t hear, ‘are you all right? Your knees . . . They’re rattling like a door knocker.’
Flossy stifled a sob. ‘I don’t like confined spaces. I never have done, ever since the home put me in a tiny isolation room when I suffered from measles. But please, don’t tell anyone. I shall just have to be brave.’
Peggy said nothing, just squeezed her friend’s hand reassuringly in the darkness.
‘Might as well have a natter about the sewing circle while we’re down here, eh?’ said Dolly, her bright voice cutting through Peggy’s thoughts. ‘Though we may have to change our name to the Underground Sewing Circle.’
‘Give over,’ cackled Ivy. ‘That makes us sound like we’re a black-market sewing bee.’
‘Do you mind? I ain’t no bloody spiv,’ shot back Sal, standing up and doing her best impression of a ducking-and-diving dealer.
A chorus of raucous laughter rang out through the dingy basement, and Peggy felt Flossy’s stiff little shoulder start to relax.
‘You sound like the unruly top deck of a works-outing charabanc,’ snapped the forelady. ‘We’re in a public-authority shelter – show some decorum.’
But the relief of laughter was infectious and soon not a single occupant of the shelter could contain their helpless giggles at Sal’s little skit. For a while, their laughter was so loud it drowned out the background noise, but gradually the droning grew louder. The forelady was the first to hear it.
‘Hush,’ she ordered, gripping Dolly’s hand. ‘What’s that noise?’
The laughter stopped abruptly and the basement fell eerily silent. Peggy listened in the strangled silence. At first, all she could hear was the sound of dripping water, but then from the very bowels of the earth rose an unholy roaring and the benches began to shake and vibrate beneath their skirts.
‘What’s happening?’ whimpered Flossy, gripping Peggy’s hand so tightly she could feel her nails digging into the flesh on her palms. Peggy scrambled for words, but the noise was so deafening she felt her skull might just split in two. The faces of her fellow workers seemed frozen, a ghostly white tableau of fear against the dirty brick wall.
The noise rose and fell in sickening waves that drew Peggy out by the roots, a sickening pulsing that seemed to punch at the solar plexus with each throb.
Wave after wave of enemy aircraft droned relentlessly overhead, blackening the cloudless blue skies.
‘What is it?’ sobbed Flossy hysterically. ‘I can’t stand it. What is it?’
‘It’s them, ain’t it,’ said Pat gravely. ‘They’ve come.’
With exquisite timing, the Luftwaffe chose that moment to drop their deadly cargo. An enormous boom rocked the underground shelter, followed a second later by another.
In all her days, Peggy had never heard anything like it.
Explosion followed explosion, a twisted orchestra of noise playing out in the basement. A high-pitched whistling, followed by an ominous silence, then an almighty juddering whoosh that made Peggy feel as if her eyeballs might just be sucked clean out of their sockets. The pressure from the explosions was immense, causing a vacuum in the basement that left her ears ringing. It was a queer sensation, like someone tuning a wireless in and out. One moment, she was deafened; the next, her hearing came flooding back, more acute than ever and she could make out the heavy crack of shrapnel dancing off the cobbles overhead.
With each blast, the heavy metal door to the shelter seemed to ripple from the force of the compression and every woman sat rigid with fear, staring in horror at the door as if imagining what fresh hell lay the other side.
Sal broke the screaming silence first.
‘They’re bombing the docks, aren’t they? Stands to reason. They want to cut off our supplies of food and fuel. Force us to surrender.’
Just then, a bomb crashed so loudly the hurricane lamps jumped off the floor.
‘You sure it’s just the docks?’ Kathy gasped, her eyes out on stalks. ‘Sounds like Jerry’s having a ball right over our heads.’
No one said a word or moved a muscle, as if by doing so, they might just alert the planes to their presence. Only the forelady moved, compulsively making the sign of the cross, over and over, as she fervently murmured the Lord’s Prayer under her breath. Vera’s face was so grey with terror it was almost the same colour as her hair.
The tomb of darkness was filled with the sickening crump of buildings collapsing overhead, and all the while Vera muttered her prayers, her desperate voice filling the blackness between them.
She paused. ‘Who’ll join me in prayer? There is no safety unless one abides in His presence.’ No one uttered a word, but the forelady was not to be deterred. ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven . . .’
Flossy was the first to crack.
‘I can’t stand it any longer. We’re finished,’ she whimpered, her fearful voice echoing around the basement. ‘Please make it stop, Dolly. That terrible throbbing, it sounds as if they’re saying, “For you . . . for you . . . for you . . .”’
A distant voice rang out from the far side of the room. ‘Will someone shut ’er up? It only takes one to lose their nerve and we’re all done for.’
‘Listen, darlin’, you’ve gotta take hold of yerself,’ said Pat bluntly. ‘If there’s a bomb with your name on it, there ain’t nuffin’ you can do about it. Besides which, if we go, at least we all go together.’
‘Not everyone is as stoic as you, Pat,’ scolded Dolly crossly. ‘She’s hysterical and in shock.’ The timbre of Dolly’s voice commanded attention and Pat muttered a hasty apology.
‘Wrap her in this,’ Dolly ordered, quickly handing Peggy the scarf she had nearly finished knitting.
With trembling hands, Peggy did as she was told, gently winding the scarf round Flossy’s rigid neck.
‘We are going to be just fine, Flossy,’ Peggy whispered, taking her pale little face in both hands. Flossy stared back at her in the gloom, her cheeks icy cold and her pupils dilated with fear.
‘I promise you, Flossy, you’re not alone,’ she urged, rubbing her cheeks gently. ‘Nod yes if you can hear me.’
Flossy gave a tiny little nod.
‘That’s my girl,’ Peggy smiled. ‘If it makes you feel better, I’m perfectly terrified. My legs are shaking.’
‘What do you know about suffering?’ goaded Lily, her voice dripping poison from the bench opposite. ‘I bet you’ve never felt a moment’s fear in all your life.’
‘Oh, give it a rest, would yer, Lily?’ Dolly snapped, at the same time placing a firm but gentle hand over Vera’s to prevent her fevered recitation. ‘We’re all in this together.’
A bolt of rage seared through Peggy’s heart. Enough. Perhaps the bombs had dislodged something deep within her, or maybe the fear of impending death was driving her to confess, but the need to be truthful was exploding in every nerve ending.
‘It’s all right, Dolly,’ she said. ‘Actually, Lily, you don’t have the monopoly on suffering here in Bethnal Green. I don’t know much about your life, but you know even less about mine.’
Lily glared back at her from the other side of the shelter, eyes as cold as flint.
‘I don’t have a German lover, Lily,’ Peggy went on. ‘But I do have a German father.’
Peggy almost laughed as she gazed upon the stunned faces of Trout’s machinists. She might as well have tossed a live grenade into the shelter.
Pat’s eyes snapped open, and Vera’s muttered recital of the Lord’s Prayer abruptly tailed off.
‘You what?’ Ivy gaped.
Lily’s voice lashed at her. ‘It’s as bad as, if you ask me. Where is he?’ She jerked a thumb angrily up at the ceiling. ‘Up there with the rest of those bastards bombing the hell out of us?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Peggy replied. ‘Right about now, I’d say he’s probably midway across the Atlantic, either above or below the water.’
‘Is he, well, in the German Navy?’ ventured Flossy. Peggy’s confession seemed to have brought her friend to her senses and she was blinking at Peggy now in confusion.
‘No, Flossy, he’s not,’ Peggy replied. ‘He would sooner die of shame than wear the uniform of the Third Reich. My father is a peaceful and respectable businessman. He has lived in London for decades, running his own successful manufacturing business. My mother worked for the firm too. They fell in love and married.’
Above ground, the sound of hundreds of tons of high-explosive bombs roared through the skies, but inside, at that precise moment, you could have heard a pin drop in the gloomy basement.
‘Over time, he came to regard himself as British,’ she went on. ‘He gave so much to this country, contributing regularly to the Children’s Fresh Air Mission and other charitable institutions in the East End, where my mother comes from. He wanted to give something back to the land he had grown to love.’
‘So what happened?’ asked Ivy, dismayed.
‘The war happened, Ivy,’ she said with a brittle little laugh. ‘Very early one morning in May, not long before I started at Trout’s, there was a knock at the door of our old home in North London. Mother answered it to find two British military policemen standing there. The country was gripped by spy fever at the time. I even read of one Lincolnshire vicar arrested for transmitting wireless messages from his vicarage.’
Peggy snorted. ‘What hope did my father have, a German running his own manufacturing business? They explained he was to be taken straight to Holloway Prison, where he would be held until he was called before a special tribunal. The last we saw of my father, he was being bundled into the back of a Black Maria.’
‘How awful for you and your mother,’ Flossy said, unable to hide her shock. ‘No wonder you were so uptight when you started at Trout’s!’
‘It has been pretty wretched,’ Peggy nodded. ‘Our lives were thrown into chaos. His business was forced to close, I had to leave my job, and we had to sell our home and find lodgings in Bethnal Green. The fear was that he would be sympathetic to the Nazis in the event of an invasion. What a joke! My father loathes Adolf Hitler and all that he stands for.’
‘Is that why you were so convinced the war would all be over in a matter of months?’ asked Sal.
‘It’s what I hoped, Sal. I just kept praying it would all end so my father would be released,’ Peggy agreed. ‘But I was being naive. About a week after I started at Trout’s – I remember it well, actually: it was the day you sent me home, Mrs Shadwell, after I ran the needle through my finger – we received a telegram. My father managed to get word to us that, along with thousands of other internees, he was to be shipped to Canada. The pain of driving that needle into my thumb paled in comparison to the agony of realizing that I may never see my father again.’
‘But why ever not?’ asked Vera. ‘Surely he will be allowed to return once the war is over?’
‘In July, the Arandora Star left Liverpool bound for Canada carrying German and Italian internees. It was torpedoed and sunk . . .’ Peggy’s hand trembled as she picked at a stray thread on the frayed hem of her skirt. ‘Eight hundred people drowned, or so they said on the wireless.’
‘What are you saying, Peggy?’ asked Kathy.
‘We don’t yet know whether my father was on that boat, Kathy,’ she replied. ‘If he is still alive, it doesn’t look good. They seem determined to ship internees as far away as possible, to camps in Australia and Canada.’
Her beautiful face crumpled in anguish. ‘There was an outcry about it in Parliament recently, and now they are starting to release internees, but we haven’t received a single word from my father. I fear it may be too late for him.’
The emotion caught up with her and, finally, Peggy surrendered to her pain. Hot tears splashed down her cheeks, dripping onto her pinafore lap.
Flossy wrapped her arms round Peggy, while Dolly dug out a hanky from her bag.
‘He’s no more a Nazi than you, Pat,’ Peggy wept, gratefully taking the hanky from Dolly and attempting to mop up her tears. ‘He was making plans to join the Home Guard the day before the military police turned up. He’s just a civilian who happens to come from Germany, and now I don’t know if I’ll ever see my dad again.’
‘But that’s shocking,’ Ivy exclaimed. ‘How can they do that to innocent men?’
‘We’re on the brink of invasion: they can do what they like,’ Peggy snorted. ‘Besides, you know how people feel at the moment. The only good German is a dead German. You said it yourself, Ivy.’
‘Did I?’ she mumbled.
‘Blimey,’ said Kathy. ‘Makes you sorta see things in a different way, don’t it?’
‘I should say,’ agreed Daisy. ‘And I thought it was only our boys suffering.’
‘It’s war!’ Sal’s voice chimed in the gloom. ‘It’s always the innocent who suffer.’
‘Well, I for one think Peggy is very brave to have shared that with us,’ said Dolly. ‘I think this is a lesson to us all not to be so quick to judge.’ She glanced pointedly over to where Lily was sitting, studying the floor of the shelter intently.
Lily raised her gaze. ‘I owe you an apology, Peggy. I should never have said them terrible things about you.’
Peggy blew her nose and managed a weak smile back at Lily. ‘Thank you, Lily. Apology accepted. But I have to remind myself that my predicament is no different to any other woman in here who has a loved one serving. Everyone’s fate is uncertain.’ She shrugged. ‘I have no other choice but to keep going and hope that one day my father returns home to London . . . where he belongs.’
‘Well said, Peggy,’ Vera remarked, nodding approvingly. ‘I shall pray for your father.’ With that, the forelady glanced over to where her headstrong younger sister was sitting. ‘Adversity can bring out extraordinary qualities in us all.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right, Mrs Shadwell,’ Peggy smiled sadly. ‘One thing’s for certain: seeing another side of life, well, it’s opened my eyes.’
The girls fell silent in contemplation. It was Kathy who broke it.
‘Listen!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s the all-clear.’
Wearily, the girls rose and started to make their way back up the concrete steps, blinking into the light, fearful at the scenes that awaited them.
As Peggy pulled on her coat, it suddenly occurred to her that her tears of earlier had not just been for her father, but for the other man in her life she had lost. Lucky.
*
Dolly stepped onto the street from the underground shelter and instantly retched into the gutter. The air was thick with acidic yellow smoke, which roiled into the horizon, and the acrid smell of sulphur. Instinctively, she reached for her hanky and clamped it over her mouth to prevent the toxic fumes seeping into her lungs. She hadn’t been able to think straight in that godforsaken shelter; the bombs, Vera’s muttered prayers and then Peggy’s confession all jumbled into a blur, dulling her senses. But right now, every instinct in her body burst into life and cold, hard fear clamped her heart. The scenes were unlike anything she had ever witnessed before.
Screams of disbelief punctured the air and mingled with the clanging of bells from the streams of fire engines racing past them in the direction of the docks. She had gone down into that basement on a gloriously sunny afternoon and emerged into pandemonium. Now it felt impossible to tell day from night. Dolly’s eyes stretched upwards and followed the searchlights crossing and swooping through the skies, cutting great silver swathes through the darkness.
The movement disorientated her, and for a moment, Dolly felt faint, stumbling from the pavement into the gutter.
A heavy hand wrenched her back onto the safety of the pavement, just before a fire engine loomed up out of the smog and roared past her in an angry flash of red.
‘Dolly!’ gasped Vera. ‘Watch yourself.’
Dolly went to respond and found she couldn’t. Her breath was so ragged she started to wheeze and then cough, struggling for every last breath in her lungs.
‘Quick,’ urged Vera, taking her hand and dragging her after the rest of the workers, the sound of crunching glass splintering underfoot. ‘Let’s get inside. It’s not safe out here.’
Inside, the factory floor was just the same, except everything was coated in a thick layer of grey brick dust. Every window was shattered beneath the brown sticky tape, and a couple of heavy green enamelled pendant lights had crashed down, smashing onto the sewing machines beneath.
Slowly, Dolly started to feel her breathing steady and she looked about the place in disbelief.
An awful thought occurred to her. ‘Where’s Archie?’
Vera’s face drained of colour. ‘He was fire-watching . . . on the roof.’
Vera turned and pelted towards the door to the rickety iron staircase that led up onto the flat roof of Trout’s, and Dolly stumbled after her, clutching her chest. Frantic with fear, the forelady took the stairs two at a time, her heavy black skirts sending up clouds of dust into Dolly’s face.
Once outside, they spotted Archie instantly. He was standing at the far end of the roof, with his back to them, silhouetted by an ominous red glow. He didn’t move a muscle, and for a terrible moment, Dolly feared he might be dead, until he picked up the spade next to him and dug it defiantly down into a bucket of sand.
Dolly placed a gentle arm on his shoulder. ‘You had us worried sick, you daft beggar,’ she smiled. ‘Got yerself a ringside seat up here, didn’t you?’
Archie’s shirt was drenched with sweat, and a thick crust of soot was welded to his cheeks. The grime was pitted with tiny slivers of glass from the blown-out windows on the factory floor. He stared without blinking in the direction of the docks. A fierce crimson glow bathed the skies blood red.
‘I ain’t never seen anything like it in all my days, Dolly,’ he breathed, gesturing to the horizon. ‘The planes filled the skies, wave after wave of ’em; they just kept coming. Thank God I had Lucky clear out the loft and bring buckets of sand up here.’
‘How many did we catch?’ asked Dolly fearfully.
‘Must have been ten incendiaries landed on the roof, maybe more. I managed to put most of ’em out with that before they took hold,’ he replied, gesturing to the bucket of sand and a small stirrup pump. He jutted his chin out defiantly. ‘No one sets fire to my factory!’
‘Mr Gladstone!’ exclaimed Vera. ‘Your arm.’ A thick red gash on his forearm oozed blood.
Archie looked at it as if it was the first time he’d seen it. ‘Just caught a bit of shrapnel. It’ll be fine.’
‘Hellfire,’ murmured Sal, who, along with the rest of the girls, had joined them on the roof and was gazing with horrified fascination at the strangely enthralling spectacle. ‘You could read a paper by the light of those fires.’
Dolly followed the beacon of flames and, in mounting horror, realized they stretched in a perfect arc round the East End, encircling them, in places almost white with the heat from the conflagration. Fear stopped her breath. The immediate London landscape as she knew it was changed beyond recognition. Broken glass, debris, flattened houses and, the sight that curiously disturbed her the most, giant rats streaming from a bombed warehouse nearby, leaping over the jumble of fire hoses that snaked up the cratered streets.
Peering over the railing, she recognized the corner shop at the end of the street where she and the girls got their sweets on a Friday dinnertime. It was now a smoking hole. A great pall of greasy black smoke mushroomed over the whole diabolical scene.
It was just too nightmarish to comprehend. Somewhere out there was her mum, probably scared witless. Please God let her have gone straight to the brick shelter on Tavern Street when the sirens sounded, just like Dolly had shown her. She had prayed that if the worst happened, she would be able to make it back from Trout’s to Tavern Street in order to look after her, but there had simply been no time.
Now the worst had happened! As for Lucky, last seen heading to the ARP headquarters, he would be out there in the thick of this chaos.
Dolly could smell and taste death in the air and pulled out her soot-stained hanky to smother the scream that was threatening to burst from her mouth.
‘London’s burning,’ rasped Archie, finally wrapping his handkerchief round the cut on his arm to stem the bleeding. ‘We’re standing in hell’s kitchen.’
Hot tears stung Dolly’s eyelids as she gazed out over the second great fire of London and the decimation of the place she loved the most.
How could the East End survive this? How would she ever survive it? Perhaps her mother had been right: maybe she should have left London for her own good. She banished the thought before it took hold. No. Bethnal Green was her home, and running away from it would be nothing short of cowardly.
An equally strong burst of hatred clawed at her chest. What kind of vile perpetrator could inflict such suffering on innocent civilians? But just as quickly she suppressed that too. Fear and loathing would not serve her East End. She was a working-class woman. She had survived the suffering inflicted on her childhood, and so too would she survive this.
Slowly, she drew back her handkerchief.
‘Will they be back, Archie?’ she asked.
He nodded sadly. ‘They will, as sure as day follows night, Doll. Especially now they have the fires to light their way.’
‘God help us,’ sobbed Ivy, the outline of the fires reflected in her pale rheumy eyes. ‘God help us all.’