Two hours later, at 8.30 p.m., the siren had sounded again, and this time the raid went right through the night and lasted until dawn on Sunday morning. Squadrons of Heinkel and Dornier bombers came in waves to drop high-explosive bombs on an already devastated East End. Fires still smouldering from the previous raid were quickly reignited. It was an unprecedented, catastrophic inferno of noise and flames . . . and Flossy had found herself trapped right in the middle of it.
Dolly had refused to let her go home alone after the afternoon raid and so she, along with Dolly’s mother, Vera, Daisy, Sal and the rest of Tavern Street holed up in a brick street surface shelter built at one end of the road. They had tried to persuade Peggy to join them, but she had insisted on returning to her home to shelter with her mother. Sensing Dolly’s relief at being safely reunited with her own mother, Flossy understood why she had let Peggy go without too much of a fight.
As Flossy stumbled into the dark and narrow shelter, she had the strangest sensation of stepping into her own coffin. Her mind cast back to Dolly’s fateful words when they had paused to rest in one shortly after her arrival: Heaven forbid you have to shelter in here if the worst happens. I don’t reckon it could stand up to a ball, much less a bomb.
How poignant Dolly’s words felt now as the bombs crashed down around them. Unlike the underground shelter they had used earlier near Trout’s, this one was small, and absurdly, or so it seemed to Flossy, above ground! Try as she might, she just couldn’t see how this would protect them should they take a direct hit. She supposed the authorities must know what they were doing when they built them.
Flossy found she could do nothing but squeeze her eyes tightly shut and cling to Dolly in the darkness. When the waves of panic at being enclosed in such a crowded space threatened to engulf her, she used every fibre of her being to cast her mind to another place, to wonder at what Tommy, her dear, sweet sailor pen pal, looked like. She mentally drew a map of his face and vowed that, should she survive this night, she would write him the most perfect of replies to his letter. Could it really be just twenty-four hours since she had sat in Peggy’s parlour before the singing competition and dreamily savoured his letter? Already it felt like a lifetime ago. Time lost all meaning. In so few hours, Flossy had tasted base fear and bewilderment. Now she listened as it turned to anger.
‘How can they think this is a suitable place to shelter?’ raged a deep male voice. ‘We got our pride. This place ain’t fit for a dog, much less human habitation.’
‘Smells like a dog’s been using it an’ all,’ piped up another. ‘Watch what you’re treading in.’
Another voice, dripping with vitriol, speared the darkness. ‘It’s all right for them, the establishment, holed up in their steel-lined dugouts or their country retreats. I’m a labourer by trade; rumour has it these shelters are dodgy. Penny-pinching authorities have substituted sand for concrete. If we cop it, the roof’s gonna come down in one solid piece.’
‘That’s as may be, but it’s obvious why we’re in here, ain’t it?’ rang out a sharp female voice that Flossy thought might have been Sal’s. ‘If a bomb lands on us, it’s easier to dig the dead out of one place than go through the houses individually.’
Flossy felt Dolly bristle in the darkness.
‘Oh, come now,’ she chided. ‘Enough of this defeatist talk: it’s not helping anyone. Let’s try a sing-song, shall we? How about “There’ll Always Be an England”?’
Her words were drowned out by a high-pitched whistling. Flossy buried herself so close into Dolly’s side she felt her ribs, sharp and brittle beneath her skin. The bomb did not have their name on it . . . but the colossal boom seemed to lift the brick walls from their very foundations.
‘Bloody hell, there nearly wasn’t an England here then,’ quavered a voice.
Speechless with fear, Flossy waited before opening her eyes a fraction. Through a crack in the door, she saw the flash and spark of flames, then a sudden movement in the darkness.
‘I’m not sitting in this death trap waiting for half a ton of masonry to come crashing down on my head!’ Vera shrieked. ‘Come on, Daisy, we’re going home. We’ll take our chances under the stairs.’
Her sister’s defiant voice shot back, ‘No chance, Vera. Them houses are centuries old. It’s only the paint holding ’em together. I’m staying put, thank you very much.’
‘Vera, please sit down,’ pleaded Dolly, reaching out through the darkness and gripping her old friend’s waist in both her hands. ‘We’re safer together. United we stand; divided we fall.’
Vera batted her hands away. ‘I . . . I’m sorry, Dolly,’ she wailed. ‘I . . . I just can’t stay in here a moment longer.’
‘I beg of you, as one friend to another, don’t go out there,’ implored Dolly. ‘Don’t . . .’
A sickening silence filled the shelter, followed by the blast of air as Vera opened the door.
‘Look after Daisy for me, Dolly,’ she cried, before the door slammed shut behind her and she vanished into the smoke.
No one said a word, and Flossy felt Dolly’s body sag in defeat next to her. Had Vera sealed her fate, or would she in fact be the only resident of Tavern Street left alive come daybreak? In silence, Flossy reached over and threaded her slim fingers through Dolly’s in the darkness. United they remained.
Exhaustion overwhelming her, Flossy wasn’t aware she had drifted into a fitful sleep until the wailing of the all-clear pierced the smoky twilight air.
Wiping the grit from her eyes, she looked about her and half wondered if she hadn’t died. Every occupant of the shelter was coated from head to toe with a thick grey dust that gave them a ghostly pallor, and they were slumped, defeated and exhausted, against the freezing, damp wall. But it was Dolly’s appearance that gave her the biggest jolt. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, save for a high shine of purply red on her cheekbones that looked like a streak of blood. Her lips had that strange tinge of blue about them that Flossy had seen before, and her breathing was shallow.
‘Dolly,’ she whispered, clutching her icy hands. ‘Dolly, wake up.’
Dolly started and, wiping her blonde curls back, made a heroic effort to smile. ‘Well, we survived,’ she murmured shakily, hauling herself to her feet and holding on to the wall as her body spasmed into a volley of uncontrollable coughing.
‘I think I must have breathed in half the brick dust in London,’ she wheezed. ‘But no matter. We’re here to see another day. I might be a bit battered and bruised, but once I’ve had a nice hot cup of tea and a wash, I’ll be ready to face the day.’
‘I think we should all go home, and you need to rest,’ ordered Dolly’s mum. The note of warning in her voice did not go unnoticed by Flossy.
‘I’m going to have a cup of tea, and then, Mum, I’m going to go down the WVS and help out at whatever rest centre they point me in the direction of,’ she said with steel in her voice.
‘That’s the spirit, Doll,’ remarked one of her neighbours as he threw open the door to the shelter. ‘The East End stands defiant.’
*
It was Sunday morning, but instead of getting ready to go to church, the inhabitants of Bethnal Green were staggering, shell-shocked and dazed, from their hiding places. Out from cold brick shelters, cramped cupboards, draughty church crypts, damp Andersons, railway arches. Crawling from underneath tables and scrabbling out of muddy trenches in the park. Folk stumbled into the dawn of an uncertain day.
The morning sun tried and failed to break through the dense blanket of smoke, and Dolly knew that unless she tried harder to put on a brave face, she too was in danger of vanishing.
Wearily, she linked arms with Flossy, and in silence they picked their way up Tavern Street, followed closely behind by Daisy and Sal.
Outside number 24, Vera was waiting.
‘Thank God you’re all right,’ Dolly exclaimed on seeing the forelady.
‘A couple of houses at the far end have copped it,’ Vera said. ‘The water’s been cut off, but I’ve found a standpipe in the next street that’s working. I’ve brewed up. Come in for a quick cup; then we had better get going to the WVS. We’ll be needed.’
‘Of course,’ Dolly said. ‘Flossy, you coming?’
‘No, I’m going to go and check that Peggy and her mother are safe. Then we’ll come and join you to help.’
‘Good idea, love,’ Dolly replied.
Once inside the terrace, Vera waited until Daisy and Sal had gone out back to wash off the debris, before turning to Dolly.
‘I’m so scared,’ she whispered.
‘We all are, love,’ Dolly replied. ‘And I have a horrible feeling this is just the beginning. I do wish you’d shelter with us all . . .’
‘No, not about that,’ Vera replied. ‘Last night . . . It never ended. Explosion after explosion. Eight hours solid they were bombing us, so they’re saying, though it felt like an eternity. The bombs . . . It’s like they were blowing God clean out of my head. I called on Him to stop the planes in their tracks and still they kept coming. For the first time in my life—’ Her voice broke off and in alarm Dolly realized her old friend was struggling not to cry. ‘I found myself questioning my faith. I have always been His obedient servant, but how can any God allow this? Without Him, who am I? How can I help keep Daisy on the straight and narrow, help all the girls to fulfil their war duties for that matter?’
‘You can and you will,’ Dolly insisted. ‘Perhaps this is His way of showing us that we have to fight to rid the world of evil and tyranny. This is our part to play, our destiny.’
Vera closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she nodded. ‘You’re right, Dolly. I had never thought of it that way before. Thank you.’
‘Come on,’ Dolly said. ‘What was it you said to Peggy yesterday afternoon in the shelter? “Adversity can bring out extraordinary qualities in us all.” You’re stronger than you might think, Vera.’
The sights that greeted Dolly and Vera as they picked their way through the debris en route to the WVS were beyond all belief.
Exhausted firemen, faces blackened by the fires they had spent all night battling, were slumped on the kerb in a daze, housewives bringing them out hot jugs of cocoa. So many homes were reduced to nothing but a smoking pile of rubble, as if a massive steel fist had reached through the clouds of grit and indiscriminately punched holes in them.
The women walked in silence down the cratered streets overlaid with thick coils of hosepipes and the swill of sooty water. Dolly found the silence eerie, the only noise the crunching of glass underfoot and muffled sobs. So many streets were closed off Dolly scarcely recognized the neighbourhood she had grown up in. It had been reduced to rubble, charred timber and debris.
As they turned into the main street, the crowds intensified. Streams of women and children pushing perambulators and handcarts walked past them, exhausted and dazed.
Dolly recognized a woman she used to go to school with, clutching a terrified girl to her chest.
‘Vi!’ she called. ‘Where you going?’
‘Where do yer think, Doll?’ she croaked, her eyes wild with fear. ‘As far away from here as I can. I’ve lost everything. Me home’s gone. Everything I own is in this pram and I ain’t stopping to see them bomb that when they come back. I’m heading to Epping Forest. I’ll walk the whole bleedin’ way there if I have to.’
Without saying another word, she turned and carried on trudging eastwards to the open countryside, along with columns of other bewildered refugees. Dolly could hardly blame them, but she knew the only way she would leave the East End would be in a box.
Dolly and Vera carried on walking in silence, ignoring the desperate cries of ‘Have you seen?’ until they turned a corner, and glancing up, Dolly saw a sight that turned her heart to stone. She stopped in her tracks. The side of a house had been blown clean off, revealing a home perfectly torn in two, the contents on show for the whole world to see. In horrified fascination, she took in the pretty, faded wallpaper, the neat dresser and a child’s wooden toy duck, incongruous with the landslide of rubble covering the other side of the house. ARP, policemen and civilians worked side by side, frantically digging their way through the cumbersome concrete slabs, but without heavy lifting equipment, they were making slow progress.
‘Oh no!’ Dolly cried. For there, like a macabre signpost, a child’s hand emerged rigid from the masonry. ‘Don’t look, Vera,’ she urged, tugging her sleeve and pulling them on their way. She had salvaged the forelady’s faith once already this morning; she didn’t think her belief in God would stand up to seeing such a grisly sight.
Instinctively, her mind drifted to her young Flossy, such an innocent. Please God, protect her and keep her safe from harm.
By the time they neared the WVS centre on Green Street, Dolly had recovered herself and drew strength from the spirit of her neighbours. For despite the carnage, there were sights that caused pride to swell in her chest. Housewives out sweeping up the glass, arranging the debris into piles for the borough workmen to collect, attempting to create order out of chaos. Boy Scouts were gently helping the elderly to the nearest rest centre, while mobile canteens served hot tea and sandwiches to the bombed-out.
The WVS swiftly despatched Dolly and Vera to a nearby school that had been converted into a rest centre, and Dolly was tasked with serving tea to shaken survivors and the freshly homeless. Behind the tea urn, she quickly felt her vigour and gayness return. The people here had lost their homes, and she was determined to put on her brightest front, as usual.
‘Oh, hello, Dor,’ she called out to a woman she recognized from the neighbourhood. ‘See you got your Sunday best on.’ The older woman was caked head to toe in soot, and her clothes were ripped and filthy.
It was gallows humour, but Dolly instinctively knew it was precisely what this woman needed.
Her blue eyes sparkled defiantly as Dolly handed her a hot cup of tea. ‘I tell yer, Doll, that ’itler’s done me a right favour,’ she replied. ‘How many times have I grumbled to you about that hole I lived in? Well, it’s flat as a pancake now and I’m bleedin’ glad. I was sick of the wallpaper.’
Dolly chuckled and patted her arm. ‘That’s the spirit, Dor.’
But as the day wore on, the grim humour gave way to exhaustion and bewilderment. Added to which, Flossy and Peggy still hadn’t turned up. A sense of jagged unease nagged Dolly. Just where were they?
Every other minute, it seemed, the door swung open and another East Ender, homeless and shaken, surged in, in need of tea, food and fresh clothing, not to mention the practicalities of life, like where to get new a ration book and identity card. She, Vera and every other member of the WVS were working their socks off to deal with the casualties, but at times it felt like a losing battle and the queue of homeless families stretched out through the door. Fortunately, Dolly found she had a knack of knowing when someone wanted jocularity or just a sympathetic ear.
Vera was in charge of handing out second-hand clothing from behind a trestle table set up in one corner, and when Dolly took her over a cup of tea, she shook her head in despair.
‘We’re running out of blankets and socks, Dolly,’ she exclaimed. ‘And rumour has it nearby rest centres are filled to the brim. They’re turning people away. There’s so much anger. The Tube is shut, so no one can shelter down there, and I’m not the only one who refuses to go in those street shelters. They’re death traps, I tell you.’
Her shrill voice started to rise. ‘It will be nightfall before we know it, and where are people to go? Folk are up in arms. One woman just told me there’s hundreds of women and children crammed into a school in Canning Town waiting for transport out . . . They’re sitting ducks. We all are . . .’
Dolly gripped Vera firmly by the arm. ‘Now you listen to me – it’s important that we stay positive,’ she said. ‘We might share their anger, but we can’t show it. We have to keep a cool head, however desperate things might look.’
‘Dolly’s right, Vera,’ cut in a deep male voice.
‘Archie, thank God,’ smiled Dolly, whirling round to look into the face of the foreman.
‘We can and we will take it,’ he went on. ‘We have to keep going. We’ve got no other choice. I’ve managed to get my hands on some blankets, and Lucky’s on his way here to help out. I warn you, though, he’s had a hell of a night. He’ll be in need of one of your strong brews, Doll.’
‘Course, Arch,’ Dolly winked, feeling her spirits rise.
As she walked back to her urn, the door opened and Flossy, Peggy and Peggy’s mother, May, wearily trudged in.
‘Oh, there you are, girls,’ Dolly called, relieved. ‘I was starting to worry.’
All three looked shaken to their core.
‘Have you seen the sights out there?’ said Flossy.
‘We have. It’s carnage all right,’ Dolly replied.
‘There but for the grace of God,’ said May. ‘But we’re here to help. Now, what can we do, Dolly? I’m a trained first-aider, and I’ve brought what medical supplies I could get my hands on.’
Within no time, May was helping to tend to the injured, assisted by Flossy and Peggy. As the afternoon wore on, Dolly kept sneaking little glances over at the girls and felt moved to see them both working so calmly and diligently together – just eighteen, the pair of them, but not a flicker of fear or complaint. They were a credit to Trout’s.
Peggy in particular seemed to be keeping her wits about her splendidly and didn’t flinch as her mother helped to dress an elderly woman’s badly burned feet. The woman’s howls of pain were ear-splitting, but Peggy gently held her hand and gave her sips of water. When her mother finished bandaging her feet, Peggy slid an arm round the shaken woman’s shoulder. ‘There, all better. See, I told you your dancing days weren’t over yet.’ She winked at the woman, before rushing to the door to help a mother struggling with three wailing children.
It was funny what war did to women. Dolly had a hunch that since her confession in the basement yesterday afternoon, they were finally starting to get a glimpse of the real Peggy Piper.
*
By late afternoon, Peggy was starting to flag. Her eyes felt filled with grit, and she had seen so much suffering and anguish she wondered at how much the human spirit could endure.
Her mother touched her lightly on the shoulder. ‘I’ve just heard word that the authorities are sending a coach here to transport women, children and injured out of London,’ she said wearily. ‘There’s every likelihood the bombers will return tonight. The hospitals are apparently already at capacity, and, well . . . I promised your father I’d keep you safe. I think you should go too.’
Peggy jutted out her chin. ‘I will do no such thing! I promised Father I would look after you, so I’m staying right here by your side. The East End is my home now. I’m not abandoning it, or you.’
May smiled and touched her daughter’s cheek softly. ‘Your father would be very proud.’
Just then a movement by the door caught Peggy’s eye. A lump rose in her throat. Lucky walked in, plainly exhausted and with a face as black as coal. The last time she had seen him had been when he had ushered her down to the shelter, just before the bombers had arrived. So much had happened since then, yet her feelings for him remained the same.
‘Lucky,’ she murmured. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.’
‘I’ve been working for the Civil Defence, delivering messages on my bike to the emergency services where they can’t get larger vehicles through. Though, there were a few occasions when I thought I wouldn’t get through, mind.
‘I got blown off my bike twice, my wheels caught fire, and a burning girder missed me by a cat’s whisker, but I’m the lucky one . . .’ His voice, oddly flat, trailed off.
‘What is it, Lucky?’ she urged. ‘Tell me.’
‘It’s Lily,’ he said shakily. ‘She’s . . . she’s dead.’
Peggy’s hand leaped to her mouth. ‘Oh, Lucky. W-what happened?’
‘It was last night. She was in a large public shelter under Columbia Market with hundreds of others; they thought they was safe underground. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? There was even a wedding party going on.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Peggy frowned, realizing a small crowd had gathered to listen.
‘Yes, lad, go on,’ urged Archie gently.
‘It must be a million-to-one chance, but a fifty-kilogram bomb entered the ventilation shaft. It only measured three feet by one and whistled straight down underground into the basement and exploded. People nearest didn’t have a hope.’
He stumbled on, his voice cracking. ‘Lily . . . Lily, her mother and sister were asleep next to the shaft, apparently. I was despatched to help. By the time I’d got there . . . Oh God, no . . .’ Lucky broke down and covered his face, his huge shoulders shaking under the weight of his sobs, and Peggy, along with everyone else, listened stricken. ‘She was being carried out on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. I knew she was dead the moment I set eyes on her. Her face . . . oh, her beautiful face . . .’ Lucky squeezed his eyes shut and moaned. ‘It was slashed to ribbons, bits of brick embedded in her cheeks. I knew she would have hated to be seen like that, so I covered her with a sheet. My Lily deserved dignity in death. God knows no one deserves to die like that.’
‘I’m sure it would have been a quick end, lad,’ said Archie softly. ‘Did you go with her in the ambulance?’
Lucky sighed and shook his head. ‘I wanted to, believe me, Arch, but there was no time. I knew it was too late for Lily and her family, but there was time left for the living, so I set to work. It was utter chaos . . . Smoke and screams. Those cries will haunt me to my dying day.’ Lucky ran a filthy, trembling hand through his hair, and suddenly Peggy felt very afraid. ‘Perambulators and corrugated iron all twisted together. It was a bloody mess. I started to dig through the rubble, trying to see if anyone had survived. I felt a tiny body in the darkness and I pulled it out.’ His voice broke off and a solitary tear coursed down his soot-blackened cheek. His eyes stared past the crowd, to some unknown place of horror in his head.
‘It was a baby . . . So help me God, it was nothing but a little baby. The body fell apart in my arms. I don’t even know where the poor mite’s mother was. I spent hours there trying to dig people out, but in the end, they sealed the site off.’
Fresh tears flooded his face and his fists bunched in frustration. ‘You have to believe me, I tried . . . I really tried! I was still there this morning when the authorities arrived. I looked up at this fella inspecting the site. Pale as a ghost he was. It was the King. His Majesty himself, in full field marshal’s uniform. I don’t know who looked more shocked to be there, me or ’im.’
No one uttered a word as they listened in horrified fascination.
‘I still remember listening to his speech last Christmas. “Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown,” he said. I remember thinking, What the heck does that mean? Well, I think I know now . . .’
‘You’re exhausted! Come and have a cup of tea, lad, and rest a while,’ Archie said, attempting to guide him to a chair, but Lucky shrugged him off.
‘No! I don’t want to drink tea, Arch,’ he replied angrily. ‘I wanna know what kind of war this is where innocent civilians are bombed in their homes, where they should be safe. I can’t get rid of the image of Lily’s face, and that poor little baby . . .’ Lucky scrubbed despairingly at his face. ‘Just a baby, for goodness’ sake. It was too dark to tell if it was a boy or a girl, but it had the softest hair, the body – or what was left of it – so tiny. Later on, we found the mother, bleeding from a head wound and screaming blue murder for her baby. She was that hysterical when she found out that a doctor had to sedate her. I bet she wishes she died along with her baby.
‘Can someone please tell me what Nazi did they ever hurt?’ Lucky stared around the group, but no one could summon the right words to respond.
‘I’m sorry,’ he choked, crumpling into his grief. ‘I need some air.’ He wheeled round and rushed from the school hall.
Peggy went to follow, but felt a hand pull her back.
‘Leave him,’ counselled Dolly. ‘He’ll need some space. He’s seen sights no man should ever have to witness.’
‘But he needs comfort,’ Peggy wept angrily. Her tears weren’t just for Lucky, but for Lily, Lily’s family, the baby’s mother and all those other poor souls who perished. How was that poor mother to continue living without her baby? And Lily! Vivacious, vital Lily. How could she be dead? How?
Peggy hadn’t always seen eye to eye with the young seamstress, but she felt the grief of her passing, in every corner of her being. Lily was a beautiful young lady with so much to offer the world. And now she was gone.
‘I don’t think anything you could say can ease his suffering, do you, love?’ Dolly whispered, suddenly looking as afraid as Peggy felt.
‘Dolly’s right,’ said May. ‘That poor man will be haunted by that memory, and by his loss.’
‘If decent folk aren’t safe in huge public shelters like that, then where exactly are they safe?’ Vera muttered angrily. ‘Why aren’t the Tubes open to shelterers? Where are the deep shelters? The East End has been hung out to dry. Lily and her family never did anyone no harm.’
‘I just can’t believe Lily is dead,’ murmured Flossy.
‘The first and, please God, the last of Trout’s casualties,’ said Archie.
An ominous silence swept over the group.
‘Peggy and Flossy,’ said Dolly at last. ‘Would you both go and fetch the bundle of blankets we made for our boys from the Tin Lizzie parked outside Trout’s? Me and Lucky loaded them up to deliver Friday night, but obviously we never got the chance. Vera tells me we’re nearly out, and hopefully they’re still there. I don’t mean to sound callous, but our concern now rests with the living.’
‘Of course, but aren’t they for HMS Avenge?’ queried Flossy.
Dolly swept a despairing hand around the packed school hall, filled with the bombed-out homeless getting ready to bed down for the night on the hard floor.
‘I reckon our boys won’t mind if we bring them down here instead,’ reasoned Dolly. ‘I think these poor souls’ need is greater. At times like this, the East End lives collectively, not individually. We look out for our own, Flossy, and we owe it to Lily to keep going.’
‘Of course,’ said Flossy. ‘Come on, Peggy, let’s go.’
‘Wait. Take this torch,’ Dolly said. As she passed it over, her small fingers gripped hard on to Flossy’s hand and for a moment she wondered if she would let go. ‘Stay safe, love,’ Dolly said in a curious voice.
Outside on the streets, Peggy felt Flossy’s arm slip through hers as they walked in the direction of the factory.
‘I just can’t believe Lily’s dead,’ Peggy whispered, still thunderstruck at the news. ‘We were sat opposite her just yesterday afternoon. Please God Archie’s right and she felt no pain.’
‘I know. Poor, poor Lucky,’ said Flossy. ‘I always admired Lily. You know, somehow she felt invincible to me.’ Flossy turned suddenly to Peggy, her lips bitten white against the pale of her face. ‘What will happen now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Peggy replied, honestly. ‘I suppose it’s like Dolly said – we keep going. For Lily.’
‘I’m really worried about Dolly too,’ Flossy continued. ‘Have you noticed how pale and exhausted she is? She’s got a rattling cough, and her ankles have swollen up like barrage balloons too.’
‘Dolly?’ said Peggy, surprised. ‘I’d say she’s the last person we should worry about. Strong as an ox, she is. Besides, who isn’t exhausted after the night we had last night? My lungs are filled with brick dust. I can feel it in every crevice of my body.’
‘I can’t put my finger on what it is, but something’s not right,’ Flossy insisted. ‘She was out of sorts at the singing competition too.’
Flossy’s voice blurred away as Peggy spotted something that made her stop dead in her tracks.
‘Look, Flossy,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s a mulberry tree, growing at the far end of that school playground.’
‘Oh yes, what of it?’ Flossy asked, confused.
A bomb blast had stripped the tree clean of its leaves, and its splintered branches rose stark against the grey skies, as if winter had arrived early. Peggy felt a painful twist of sorrow slice through her.
‘Lucky loves mulberry trees. They remind him of his mother,’ she murmured.
They fell into a contemplative silence as they walked, but soon the chaos and turbulence of the bombed streets consumed them. The crowds of people intensified, and as they turned onto a main thoroughfare in Spitalfields, panic slammed Peggy’s heart. A huge crowd surged up the road, sucking them in and carrying them along with the throng.
‘Flossy, I don’t want to lose you. Take my hand,’ Peggy ordered over the clamour. Flossy gripped her hand and laced their fingers tightly together.
Down the cobbled streets, faces were twisted with anger, and tempers were reaching flashpoint as people struggled to free themselves from the tightly packed and fast-moving crowd.
‘What’s going on?’ Flossy asked the man nearest them.
‘We’ve all just come from Liverpool Street Station,’ he replied. ‘We was trying to get down the Underground to shelter, but there was policemen barring the entrance. It’s flamin’ madness. I’m going to head up West. Apparently Dickins & Jones have got a huge shelter.’
‘You’re joking, ain’cha?’ commented a woman next to them. ‘I was up there earlier. There’s hundreds queuing round the block to get down there. They can’t let any more in.’
‘Have you heard the rumour about the big bomb?’ yelled a hysterical voice over the crowd. ‘It can take out the whole of London. We gotta get underground.’
‘Wotcha think we’re trying to do, mate?’ a man next to him snapped.
‘Oh, shut up, will yer?’ shouted another.
The terrible realization dawned on Peggy that they were trapped. Her epiphany was as dark as it was sudden. Moans and wild cries filled the darkening skies. The anger of the crowd was raw, visceral even. The race for human survival was stripped to its most primal form.
‘Flossy, let’s wait,’ she panted. Using every last ounce of her strength, she pulled them back and they managed to flatten themselves into a slender brick doorway until the crowd had passed.
‘Oh, Peggy, whatever are we to do?’ trembled Flossy, staring bewildered at the retreating crowd, a seething mass of impotent rage.
‘Let me think,’ said Peggy, her heart banging inside her chest. But there was no time, for the skies were suddenly filled with the wail of the siren. A bilious dread rose sharply in her throat.
‘Oh no,’ Flossy cried, panicked. ‘They’re back already.’
‘Stay calm and move quick,’ Peggy urged. ‘I think we passed a street shelter a few turnings ago. Turn the torch on to help us.’
Flossy did as she was told, and clasping each other’s hands, the pair started to run, glass cracking sharply underfoot, the torchlight bouncing off the cobbles.
‘Turn that torch off and take cover,’ boomed an ARP warden striding down the street towards them. ‘Take cover now.’
Hustling them to the nearest street shelter, he wrenched the door open and ushered them into the darkness. The steel door slammed shut behind them.
Flattening herself against the shelter wall, it took a few moments for Peggy’s eyes to adjust to the gloom, and when she did, she was dismayed. Scared faces peered out of the dusty darkness, clutching candles and lanterns, waiting breathlessly for the second night’s instalment. A strange, damp, bitter smell pervaded the air. Not a solitary toilet or light in sight. You could taste the fear in the shelter.
Peggy was desperate to run, to escape this sticky, dark hole. Only the relentlessly wailing siren overhead forced her to stay put, reminding her that whatever was about to erupt outside was infinitely worse than being trapped in here.
‘Is this like the one you sheltered in last night?’ she gasped.
Flossy nodded wordlessly and squeezed her hand.
‘We managed to get into the crypt of St John Church. We may have been sheltering with the dead, but it was a darn sight better than this,’ Peggy whispered.
There was no time for a response, for the crack of the ack-ack guns filled the air, drowning out all rational thought.
‘That’s it, boys – give ’em some back,’ urged a lone voice.
Flossy whimpered and huddled into Peggy’s side like a child might its mother. The anti-aircraft guns were swiftly followed by the steady throb of enemy aircraft droning overhead. The whine and crash of bombs sounded like an out-of-control brass band. How much louder the enemy sounded when you weren’t underground.
Peggy listened.
The whine was soft to begin with; then it grew louder. And louder still. The shelter collectively held its breath. Instead of dying away, the screaming whistle reached a fever pitch in Peggy’s head, and in that instant, she knew. This bomb had their name on it. In that moment, she was aware of nothing, not herself, not the blood-curdling screams of the other people in the shelter, just the all-pervading instinct to protect Flossy, the girl with no mother, the girl with no home to call her own . . .
The world seemed to go into slow motion as the sky fell in on them.
‘Get down,’ Peggy cried above the roar. With a crash, she pulled Flossy to the floor and flung herself over her body like a blanket.
‘You’re safe, Flossy,’ she said, with an unnatural calmness. It was the last thing she remembered saying. A second later, the ceiling came down in one solid sheet.
*
Was she dead or alive?
‘What happened?’ mumbled Flossy, but found for some reason the words were muffled. She spat and mouthfuls of debris and saliva spooled from her mouth.
She was alive, but the roaring of blood in her ears was so loud Flossy wondered for a moment if she was deaf; then suddenly everything came flooding into focus with dizzying force. The blast, and oh God . . .
‘Peggy!’ she cried in the darkness. ‘Where are you?’
Her shaking hand crept out over the mound of bodies . . . but all she could feel was damp fabric and cold skin. The soft moans of the mortally injured pierced the evening air. Remembering the torch, which by some miracle was still clamped rigid in her fist, she flicked it on and cast it around the tomb of trapped bodies. Forcing down great waves of nausea, she swung the beam around, but every face she settled on, waxy and blood-soaked, did not belong to Peggy.
Shattered masonry was piled high, an odd tangled limb protruding here and there from the debris. The sights were unimaginable. Grisly fragments of bodies lay strewn everywhere.
A middle-aged woman, plainly in shock, her intestines ruptured and spilling from her, chattered hysterically as she gripped her handbag for dear life.
It would be so easy to close her eyes against such horrors. Flossy felt so weak, so weak and cold. Then an image of Peggy’s mother flashed through her mind. No, she owed it to May to fight for her daughter’s life.
With a colossal effort, and ignoring the stabbing pain in her ribs, Flossy pulled herself up onto one arm. As she did so, the torch swung and settled on a mound of rubble nearby. Something gleamed in the torchlight. Tentatively, Flossy brushed it to reveal a familiar watch face. The watch was attached to a pale and slender arm.
‘Oh, Peggy,’ she sobbed. Relief coursed through her as she flung aside the rubble and bricks covering her body. Peggy was lying on one side. Her breathing was dangerously shallow, but she was alive. Though her upper body was free, her lower body was a different story. A huge slab of concrete and debris had her legs pinned fast to the floor of the shelter. Flossy pushed against it, but the vast weight of it was immovable.
‘Peggy? Peggy, can you hear me?’ she sobbed, brushing her chestnut hair from her face. Peggy’s eyelids flickered at the sound of Flossy’s voice, and her dry lips opened slightly.
‘Wake up, Peggy. I’m going to get you out. You hear me? I’m going to get you out.’
She took Peggy’s pale, dusty fingertips in hers and pressed them individually, pad by pad, hoping to elicit some response.
Just then, an enormous crash nearby caused the rubble to bounce, sending up clouds of brick dust. In mounting disbelief, Flossy’s eyes were drawn to the gaping exposed hole in the ceiling of the shelter. It was as if someone had lifted the lid of hell.
Overhead, a stream of dark planes circled like predators, sticks of bombs falling from their undercarriage one by one and exploding onto the rooftops below. Spectacular flashes lit up the gloom, and the searchlights prowled the darkness. In any other situation, the dramatic skies would be thrilling. Except this was war.
It was hopeless. More bombs screamed into the furnace, and the earth spewed blood and bones. Flossy’s eyes flickered to the end of the street. One side of the road was a solid wall of flame. The deafening roar of water filled the air as a fireman battled to bring an inferno under control.
Flossy gasped and jumped as a pigeon with its wings on fire swooped low, fluttering past her face before landing with a thud against a pile of bricks.
‘I don’t want to die!’ screamed a woman trapped near Peggy.
The screams roused Peggy and her eyes opened a fraction.
‘Flossy . . . go . . .’ she croaked, over the low groans of the dying.
Settling down on her haunches, Flossy took out her hanky from her pocket and, gently wiping the dust from Peggy’s eyelids, shook her head. ‘I should never live with myself if I left you here.’
And so there they remained, silhouetted against the raging fires as death rained from the skies, two friends from across the divide but united in their desire to stay alive.
Flossy talked and talked until the breath in her lungs nearly ran dry, anything to keep Peggy conscious.
‘Come on, Peggy, stay with me,’ she urged. ‘Together we can thread this needle. We will work a way out of here, but you must keep your eyes open.’
‘What an absolute fop you must think me,’ Peggy smiled weakly.
‘You saved my life, Peggy,’ Flossy replied incredulously. ‘And when we get out of here, I’m going to tell everyone.’
It could have been ten minutes, it could have been hours, but finally Flossy saw figures in tin helmets and a white vehicle with a cross on the front bumping up the pitted road.
‘Thank God,’ she cried, springing to her feet and waving her arms wildly. ‘We need help over here.’
An ARP man pushed his helmet back and squatted down beside them. ‘Hello, love,’ he said to Peggy. ‘We got ourselves in a bit of a pickle here, ain’t we?’
‘I don’t think she’s lost any blood,’ Flossy babbled. ‘We just need to move this slab off her legs.’
The man frowned as he ran his torch over the masonry that was pinning Peggy fast. ‘That’s a job for heavy lifting.’
He pulled some smelling salts from his bag. ‘This will help keep her round until they get here.’
Flossy felt her body tense with frustration. What use were smelling salts?
The voice cutting through the darkness was familiar and for a moment Flossy felt completely disorientated.
‘Flossy? Peggy, can you hear me?’
In a heartbeat, Flossy was on her feet and waving her torch about. ‘Lucky! Lucky, we’re over here!’
The plucky messenger hove into sight, scrambling through the wreckage of the crater and leaping over the buckled steel door.
It could have been the smelling salts, but Flossy rather fancied it was the sound of Lucky’s deep voice that brought Peggy round.
‘Hello, angel,’ he said, half smiling, half sobbing as he dropped to his knees and gently pulled her body in towards his. ‘I went back to the rest centre after the siren sounded and Dolly told me you’d headed this way. I’ve searched half the shelters in Bethnal Green. Now, we’re going to have you outta here in a jiffy.’
Peggy looked up at him groggily, managed a weak smile of recognition and promptly fell unconscious.
‘You’re going to be right as rain, you hear me,’ Lucky urged, his voice cracking. ‘You hear me . . .’
‘But how?’ cried the ARP man. ‘We ain’t got no lifting equipment.’
‘I already lost one of the girls from my factory; I ain’t losing another,’ Lucky said through gritted teeth. ‘“No guts, no glory” is the Repton’s motto. It’s never failed me yet.’
Lucky delved into his satchel, and pulling out a jemmy and an axe, he set to work. An ambulance woman arrived on the scene and started to administer morphia to Peggy, while Lucky worked. Flossy stumbled back and closed her eyes, scarcely able to look. But when she opened them again, Peggy was free. Using sheer brute strength, Lucky had removed the concrete slab in no time at all.
As Peggy was carefully transferred onto a stretcher, she reached her hand towards Lucky to hold. Her skin was so pale it was translucent, and her eyes lurched dangerously in her head.
‘What is it, Peggy?’ Lucky cried. ‘Remember, before all this madness broke out, you wanted to tell me something.’
‘I . . . I never deserved you,’ Peggy said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Then she was gone, as the ambulance door slammed shut, the vehicle going as fast as it dared up the cratered street. Her fate was now in the hands of the medics.
Lucky watched the ambulance until it was out of sight, before his face crumpled and he broke down in Flossy’s arms, helpless with sobs. Tears washed runnels in the dirt on his face.
‘I know it’s just the morphia talking,’ he whispered. ‘She probably don’t mean it, but please don’t let her die. I love her so much, you see. Please God, I feel so guilty for saying it, after Lily, but I couldn’t stand to lose her.’
The all-clear droned out over a landscape of desolation and Flossy drew back.
‘Come on, let’s go and find the others.’
There was nothing more that either of them could do now but pray.