Dan had planned to stay only two nights in Feneton, but with the unexpected arrival of his son, he stayed an extra two. Shirley came to visit them at the pub and admire the baby.
‘Looks a bit on the small side,’ she said as she peered down at him sleeping peacefully in his drawer.
‘That’s cos he was early,’ Naomi said. ‘Dr Phelps says he’ll catch up in no time. He’s ever so nice, Dr Phelps.’
Shirley said, ‘Well, that’s good then,’ but she wasn’t really thinking about the baby, she was wondering if Naomi thought she could move back into Cousin Maud’s house. Shirley had been willing enough to share her room with Naomi, but she had no intention of sharing it with a squalling baby. She’d been planning to tell Naomi that she’d have to find somewhere else to live when the baby came, but now it had happened and she’d left it too late. Still, she’d say it anyway, she decided. Dan was here, he could find them somewhere else; after all, they were his responsibility.
‘Maud says she doesn’t think you can come back with the baby,’ Shirley said, pushing the blame for her decision on to the cousin who’d given her refuge. ‘Says she’s sorry, but there isn’t really room for two of you.’
‘No matter,’ Naomi said. She wasn’t surprised; she’d been half expecting it. It had been all right sharing with Shirley, though on occasion her untidiness had nearly driven Naomi mad, but she knew it would be hopeless if there were three of them crammed into the small bedroom. ‘We’ll find somewhere else. Dan might take us back with him tomorrow.’
‘What? Back to the Blitz?’ Shirley was startled. She hadn’t meant them to go back to London, just find somewhere else.
When Dan came in, Naomi told him that she no longer had anywhere to stay. ‘I’m quite glad really,’ she said. ‘We was beginning to get on each other’s nerves, sharing that room. Think we’d better come back to London, with you.’
Dan looked at Nicholas, now at his mother’s breast, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘We ain’t going to risk either of you back there. We’ll find somewhere else round here. There must be families who’ve got a spare room and would like the extra bit of cash. I’ll ask Jenny, she’s sure to know of someone.’ He gave Naomi a reassuring grin. ‘Don’t you fret, girlie, we’ll find you somewhere to stay, you and young Nick.’ He left her feeding Nicholas and went downstairs to find Jenny. When he’d explained the situation Jenny smiled.
‘I did wonder how they was all going to fit in,’ she said, ‘and I talked it over with Jim. We don’t have many visitors staying just now, so we thought Naomi and Nicholas might like to stay here, with us. She can have a couple of rooms, and when she’s on her feet again she can help in the bar. I know she was cooking for the café down the road, so if she wants to help in the kitchen here too, so much the better.’
‘How much rent would you want?’ Dan asked. It seemed a perfect solution, but he thought they’d want more than Maud had been asking.
‘You’re not listening, Dan,’ laughed Jenny. ‘I’m offering board and lodging to Naomi and the baby in return for her help in running the pub. We’re busy in the evenings with the RAF base only five miles away. I could do with another pair of hands. Naomi can work down here in the bar and know that Nicholas is perfectly safe asleep upstairs. And when she has to feed him, she only has to pop upstairs.’ She cocked her head at him. ‘So, what d’you think?’
‘I think it’s a brilliant idea,’ Dan said, ‘and I’m sure Naomi will too.’
‘Good,’ said Jenny. ‘Go up and see what she says.’
It was all agreed. Naomi should keep her room and for the first two weeks, while she was still recovering from the birth, Dan would pay Jenny what they’d been paying Maud. After that Naomi would be earning her keep and the money they’d been paying Maud would be Naomi’s to use for Nicholas.
‘You’ve fallen on your feet all right,’ Shirley said when they told her of their arrangement. ‘Does that mean you won’t be working for Mrs Grant no more?’
‘It’ll depend on when Jenny wants me,’ Naomi replied. ‘If I have spare time I’ll happily bake for the café, but I shan’t know till I see how it all works. I’ll come and see Mrs Grant when I’m back on my feet. Dr Phelps says I got to rest for another week yet.’
With everything settled Dan set off back to London on Sunday morning.
‘Can’t afford not to work any longer,’ he said. ‘Need to be out in the cab.’ He bent over and kissed her long and hard on the mouth. ‘Look after yourself and the boy,’ he said gruffly. ‘I can phone you here, Jenny’s given me the number.’ And with that, he hurried out of the room before the sight of his wife and his sleeping son could unman him.
When he’d gone Naomi gathered Nicholas into her arms and held him as he slept. She knew they’d taken the right decision. It would have been madness for her to take a young baby away from the relative security of a Suffolk village, back into the horror of bomb-blasted London, but she was already missing Dan and he was on his way back into the battleground London had become.
‘Try not to worry about him,’ Jenny said when she came up and sat with Naomi for an hour that afternoon. ‘There hasn’t been a raid since before Christmas. It may be easing off now. P’raps the worst is over, eh?’
She was wrong. The worst wasn’t over. Dan got back to a cold house in Kemble Street late in the afternoon and, having made himself a sandwich to take with him, went straight out again to join his fire-watching team at the paint warehouse. As darkness fell and he walked through the chilly streets, he thought of Naomi and Nicholas back in their warm room at the Feneton Arms and smiled. They were safe.
He reported in to John Anderson and then joined Arthur.
‘Peaceful here over Christmas,’ Arthur remarked as they climbed the iron fire escape to the warehouse roof. ‘Your missus all right, is she? Only we was expecting you back two days ago.’
‘She certainly is,’ Dan said. ‘We’ve got a son! Born on Christmas morning, he was.’
‘But she weren’t due yet,’ Arthur said.
‘No,’ Dan agreed with a grin. ‘But young Nicholas made his own mind up!’
‘Nicholas. That’s a nice name. Congratulations, Dan, boy, you must be a very proud dad. Staying up there, are they?’
‘Yes.’ Dan was about to explain how everything had been settled when the sirens began to wail. They hurried the last two flights and emerging out on to the roof saw the starburst of anti-aircraft shells further south and east and heard the steady drone of incoming aircraft, a swarm of loud and angry wasps invading the sky. Bombs began to fall, pounding the city with high explosive, but even more devastating, incendiaries in their hundreds began pouring downward out of the night. In the darkness of the streets below them, Dan and Arthur could see fires erupting in every direction, flickering flames taking hold faster than the firefighters could smother them.
A second wave of bombers came over, the air filled with the roar of their engines. As they passed overhead one of the incendiary bombs swirled down and landed with a brilliant flash on the warehouse roof. For a moment, both Arthur and Dan ducked away from it, but then training took hold and they rushed forward to where the bomb fizzed, dazzling white, beginning its lethal work. The two men grabbed sandbags from the stack kept ready on the roof and rushed forward with them. Arthur, slashing the bags with his knife, tipped their contents on to the infant fire. Dan grabbed a spade and began to shovel the loose sand, heaping it on to the simmering flames. Arthur went back for more bags and as the fire, now starved of the oxygen it needed, began to subside, they piled yet more sand on top until they were quite sure that it had been put out and rendered harmless. Even as they finished dealing with this first incendiary, another dropped on the other side of the roof and a third almost on top of the first.
‘Christ,’ yelled Arthur, ‘you take that one, Dan, I’ll do this.’
Dan dashed to the further bomb, dragging a sandbag with him. The bomb was already fizzing, the heat intense, burning the leaded roof of the warehouse. Dan heaped the sand on to the fire and went back for more. It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t smother it fast enough and it was now burning furiously. Rushing back for more sand, he caught a glimpse of Arthur, spade in hand, furiously shovelling sand on to his bomb. Dan grabbed another bag and turned back to the third, but despite his efforts he knew there was no way he could extinguish the fire.
‘Arthur,’ he bellowed, desperately trying to make himself heard over the continuous throb of aero engines, ‘Arthur, help!’
Arthur had managed to subdue his fire, the heaped sand doing its work, but even the two of them couldn’t put out the third fire, and even as they made one more valiant attempt, another bomb dropped down, past them and into the street below.
‘Time to go down,’ Arthur cried. ‘Come on, can’t do more here.’ He grabbed Dan by the arm and pulled him towards the fire escape. Dan held back for a moment, staring at the raging fire on the far side of the roof. They’d failed. The roof was aflame and probably the whole warehouse would go up.
‘Dan! Come on!’ shrieked Arthur as he ran for the iron ladder and disappeared over the parapet. With one final backward glance at the inferno now burning out of control, Dan followed, his cheeks scarlet from the increasing heat, his lungs bursting with the hot smoke.
They scrambled down the escape, and reached the ground to find the whole unit battling fires and more bursting out in every direction.
‘Fire on the warehouse roof,’ they reported to John Anderson. ‘Three bombs at once.’
‘Too big for us,’ John shouted, reaching for the phone. ‘I’ll call the brigade, see if we can save it. You get out into the street. There’s fires everywhere.’
Dan and Arthur left the post and headed back out into the night. The sky was no longer dark, it blazed red and orange. The bombers still came, wave after wave of them, flying up the river to target docks and city alike. It was Sunday night and the buildings in the commercial area were mostly empty, few had their regular fire-watchers in position. The two men joined with another team and tackled fire after fire, sometimes dealing with a bomb that had yet to explode into flame, at others pumping water on those which had already taken hold, heaving sandbags, shovelling sand. Fireboats on the Thames pumped the river over to the city in a desperate attempt to provide more water to quench the flames, but the tide was low and lack of water reaching the shore hampered the continuing and increasingly desperate attempts to save the city from this blistering firestorm.
When at last the all-clear went the whole of London seemed to be ablaze. There was no respite for the firefighters, as they fought to save homes, wharfs, warehouses, factories and some of London’s beautiful historic buildings. Hundreds of firefighters risked their lives in their efforts to bring the inferno under control and, working with them, Dan felt exhausted beyond exhaustion. By the time John Anderson sent them home, he and Arthur were gritty-eyed, their lungs full of the smoke which still billowed across the sky, their legs hardly able to carry them.
‘Sleep,’ John ordered. ‘Come back when you’ve had some shut-eye. We’ll still be at it. We ain’t done yet; the bastards ain’t going to win.’
Dan dragged himself home. Everywhere showed the devastation of the raid. Ruined buildings, some collapsed, some standing, blackened shells, silhouetted against the burning sky, testified to its ferocity. Offices, factories, churches, homes all targeted to instil fear and misery, to destroy the morale of the Londoners who suffered the attack.
When Dan turned into Kemble Street he stopped in his tracks. The whole of one side of the street, his side of the street, had virtually been destroyed. The houses, though not flattened, had been taken by the fire. Blackened walls, jagged roof trees, the spike of a chimney breast, crumbling masonry, all that was left of the five houses in the terrace; fire had swept through them all. Few people were about; most, surely, would have spent the night in the Hope Street shelter. When they emerged they’d find their homes gone.
With leaden feet Dan walked down the road until he came to the remains of his own house. Thank God, he thought as he surveyed the blackened shell, thank God he’d refused to let Naomi come home. He stared at the remains of the house he’d been born in. The fire must have swept through it at great speed. The roof had gone, the window frames stood, empty of glass, on blackened walls. The inside was gutted and even as he watched smoke drifted up into the early-morning sky, smoke to join the smoke of the second Great Fire of London. Everything Dan owned had been in that house; he had the clothes he stood up in, the money actually in his pocket and his taxi, still garaged under the railway arches. Unless, he thought miserably, they’ve collapsed on top of it, or taken a direct hit. What’s left? Firefighters had done their job and moved on. The fire was out, but they had saved little.
Dan was so tired that he could hardly take in what he was looking at; all he could think was that Naomi and Nicholas were safe. He had no home left, but he did have a family. The thought gave him a sudden spurt of energy and he did something that he would have castigated anyone else for and broke all the rules. With a quick glance to see if anyone was looking at him, he walked up to what had, until last night, been his front door. There was no door now, just a gaping hole into the ruin of his home. Carefully he stepped across the threshold – inside, the smell was damp and acrid. He edged his way down the hall to the kitchen at the back. Wet ash covered the floor, black and clinging as his feet disturbed it. In the kitchen, now little more than a shell, were the remnants of the few pieces of furniture it had contained. In the far corner was the cellar door. It, too, was burned black, but the firemen must have got to the blaze before that, too, was consumed by the flames. Dan put his hand on the handle and pulled. The door fell towards him, knocking him sideways and clattering to the floor, exploding a cloud of ash around him. Coughing, but determined, Dan stood at the top of the cellar steps and peered down into the dark. By the little light which filtered down from the kitchen he could see that the fire hadn’t reached the shelter he’d made to protect his family. Edging down the steps, he peered into the gloom. He could just make out the mattress, still on the floor, the old armchair tucked into the corner. Dan had nowhere else to go, at least for now and so, almost dead on his feet, he went down the last few steps and lay down on the mattress. He was asleep within seconds and it was only when the sound of voices shouting in the street above woke him, that he crawled out of his subterranean lair to face the day.
He staggered out into the street to find a crowd of men working their way along the street, looking into every house and marking what had to be done.
‘Hey, mate,’ called one who had a clipboard and seemed to be in charge. ‘What the hell were you doing in there?’
‘It’s my home,’ replied Dan.
‘But what’re you doing in it now? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? For Christ’s sake it’s people like you who put people like us in danger. You go into an unsafe building and we have to crawl in and pull you out.’ He shook his head in fury. ‘Where were you last night anyways?’
‘Out fighting bloody fires,’ snapped Dan. ‘Pity some bugger didn’t put this one out!’
‘Well, you can’t stay here. Better get along to the rescue centre and see if they can find you somewhere to doss down,’ said the man. ‘Reckon they’ll be along to flatten this lot soon. Too dangerous to leave.’ Unaware of the look of horror on Dan’s face, he studied his clipboard and made a note. Looking up again he said, ‘Don’t go back inside, right? Too dangerous.’ And with this warning he and his men continued along the road. Dan watched them until they were round the corner and out of sight and then turned back into the house. Burned-out shell it might be, but it was still his home. He didn’t risk trying to get upstairs; the stairs were gone and the odd protruding struts were burned and brittle. He looked into what had been the front room. Nothing to retrieve from there, either. In the kitchen he found the savings tin that had been kept in a hollowed hidey-hole under the cooker and pulled it out. He looked inside and found a small roll of notes, carefully saved and hidden by Naomi; neither of them trusted banks. Now at least he had a little money to tide him over. He returned to the shelter of the cellar, which had escaped almost unscathed, and looked about him. He wouldn’t go to the rescue centre, not yet. There was no reason that Dan could see why he shouldn’t sleep here until he found somewhere better. There was no way of securing it, but even if someone did get in there was nothing worth stealing.
Stuffing the cash into his pocket, Dan set out to find a telephone box that worked. Much as he dreaded the call, he had to tell Naomi what had happened to their home.