Act of Will (36 page)

Audra frowned. ‘She’ll join us in the bomb shelter at the bottom of the garden, Mr Trotter. My father-in-law built it for us and Christina and I have made it relatively comfortable and—’

‘Oh but she won’t
go
into the air-raid shelter, Mrs Crowther,’ Jim Trotter exclaimed, interrupting her. ‘I’ve just had a word with Miss Dobbs about that and I got a real flea in me ear for me trouble, I can tell you.’

‘Oh,’ Audra said, giving him a baffled look.

‘You’ll never believe what she said to me,’ Mr Trotter went on, staring hard at Audra.

‘No, I don’t suppose I will,’ she said. ‘What did Miss Dobbs say?’

‘Well, she sort of looked at me funny like, as if I’d landed from another planet, and shouted, “Go and sit in that hole, yonder down the garden, sit
under
the ground. Not likely, lad. I’m going to be in the ground a long time when I’m dead, so I’ll be staying up here as long as I’m alive, and if I get hit by a bomb I get hit by a bomb.” Them’s her exact words, Mrs Crowther.’

Audra tried hard, but there was no way she could keep her face straight. Her mouth twitched and she burst out laughing. Christina and Laurette also began to laugh.

Jim Trotter looked at them all askance, then addressed Audra. ‘It’s no laughing matter, Mrs Crowther,’ he said indignantly.

‘No, I know it’s not,’ Audra gasped, striving unsuccessfully to swallow her laughter. ‘She is a strange old lady and I can just hear her saying that to you… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to treat this lightly, but one does have to keep a sense of humour, Mr Trotter. And in a way I sort of share her sentiments—about sitting in a hole under the ground.’

‘I sincerely hope you don’t, Mrs Crowther!’ There was sudden alarm on Jim Trotter’s face and he shook his head in dismay. ‘I’d be very upset indeed if I had two of you in this yard being
difficult
.’

Audra nodded, biting her lip, unable to speak. She was finding it difficult to suppress her laughter.

Trotter went on, ‘What am I going to do about Miss Dobbs? I mean, I’m responsible for everyone in these houses in Pot Lane.’

Understanding, all of a sudden, why he had come,
Audra said as soberly as she could, ‘I’ll do my best to get Miss Dobbs to come into the shelter with us when there’s a raid, Mr Trotter. But I can only try, I can’t force someone against their will.’

‘Thank you very much, Mrs Crowther, I’m grateful for your co-operation. Good evening.’ The warden took his leave quickly.

As his footsteps faded away down the path Audra let out a great guffaw, unable to restrain herself any longer. Laurette and Christina also rocked with laughter, for they too had been hard pressed to control themselves during Mr Trotter’s visit.

Eventually Audra managed to compose herself and she shook her head slowly, remarked to Laurette. ‘Poor Mr Trotter… he always seemed to like me, but I don’t think he’s going to feel quite the same way about me ever again. Oh dear…’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Laurette said. ‘Anyway, he does take himself a bit seriously. And you were right when you said we had to keep a sense of humour in these awful times. If we didn’t, I think we’d all go mad.’

***

The English had mobilized for war and then nothing very much had happened on the home front.

In fact, there was such inactivity in the air and on the land that this period soon became known as the ‘twilight war’ or the ‘phony war’.

At sea, though, war had started almost at once in September; in October the
Royal Oak
was torpedoed as she lay in Scapa Flow, supposedly in safe harbour and secure from German attack. And by the middle of November something like 60,000 tons of British shipping had been sunk by the dreaded and deadly magnetic mines.

Every time Audra picked up a paper or listened to the wireless, her heart filled with fear. The news of the war at sea was never anything but disastrous; not unnaturally, she worried about Vincent all the time now that he had been assigned to a destroyer and was somewhere out there at sea. Every letter she received from him brought a sigh of relief, as did his letters to his mother.

Although he did not get leave for Christmas of 1939, he did come home in January of 1940 on a seventy-two-hour pass from Hull, where his ship was docked after a stretch patrolling the North Sea.

Audra had asked for time off from the hospital, so that she could be with him for his entire stay, and Matron Fox had been happy to give it to her. And so she was waiting for him at the cottage on that cold and drizzly Thursday afternoon, wearing the delphinium-blue blouse he liked so much and a dark grey skirt.

The moment he walked through the door she saw how proud he was to be in the Royal Navy, to be wearing the uniform. He held himself very straight, with his shoulders thrown back, and looked taller than ever, and there was a new air of assurance about him, a confident look in his bright green eyes.

Audra flew across the floor to him, and he hugged her tightly, held her away, looked deeply into her eyes and then gave her a long and loving kiss on the mouth.

‘It’s nice to be home, love,’ he said, finally releasing her.

‘And it’s nice to have you back! I’ve missed you,
we’ve
missed you.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean. It’s been the same for me.’

‘The kettle’s hot… would you like a cup of tea, or something else?’

‘Tea’ll be fine, love,’ he said, joining her by the fire, taking a chair, lighting a Woodbine.

A few minutes later, as they sat drinking their cups of tea, Audra gave him all the news about the Crowther clan and his brothers and Maggie, who were away in the service. Then in a soft voice she told him how worried she had been for months on end.

‘All I read about are naval disasters, Vincent. Aren’t we ever going to have a victory?’

‘We did have one, in December, Audra!’ he exclaimed fiercely. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten that three British cruisers scuttled the German battleship
Graf Spee
during the Battle of the River Plate?’

‘No, I haven’t, but I was thinking of something closer to home—’

‘The
Graf Spee
had eluded the British Navy for months, and sinking her was a tremendous feather in our caps… don’t think it hasn’t had a demoralizing effect on the Jerries, because it has.’ Vincent’s face glowed. ‘Winston’s right pleased, I can tell you that.’

Audra smiled indulgently. ‘Don’t tell me you’re on a first name basis with the First Lord of the Admiralty,’ she teased. ‘Does Mr Churchill
know
that you are?’

Vincent grinned. ‘We all call him Winston, behind his back, of course. We all love him—that’s why.’ He leaned forward with a certain eagerness. ‘Do you know how the Admiralty announced his return last September? I mean, announced it to the entire British Fleet.’

Audra shook her head. ‘How could I?’

After taking a long draw on his cigarette, he said, ‘In a way, you might think it was just a signal that the Admiralty sent, just the words
Winston is back
! But it was a hell of a bloody compliment to him… a joyful salute. Aye, he’s a great man, Churchill is, lass. He ought to be
Prime Minister. He probably will be too,
everybody’
s dissatisfied with Chamberlain.’

‘Wouldn’t you be upset to lose…
Winston
as First Sea Lord?’

‘Yes, but I’d rather have him at the helm of this country than anybody else, I bloody would—’ Vincent broke off, glanced around as he heard the door open.

‘Daddy!’ Christina dropped her satchel and sped across to him without taking off her coat and hat. She flung herself into his outstretched arms. They hugged and hugged each other and then Vincent pulled away and asked, ‘How’s my little poppet?’

Christina stared up into his familiar, much-loved face, and burst into tears.

‘Now then, what’s all this, love?’ Vincent asked, pulling her back into his enfolding arms, smoothing his hand over her hair gently.

Christina’s shoulders shook and she gasped for breath as she clung to him. ‘I—I—thought I’d never—never—see you again,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve been so worried, Daddy, I thought your ship would get sunk.’

‘Aren’t you the silly duck egg!’ Vincent laughed and chucked her under the chin. ‘Nothing’s ever going to happen to me, Little Miss Muffet. Come on, take your coat off and let’s go to the table and have the nice tea your mam’s made. Then later we’ll walk down to see your grandma.’ He leaned into her, his eyes twinkling, and said in a half-whisper, ‘And tomorrow I’m taking you and Mam to the pictures in Leeds. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

Christina nodded her head, her eyes shining.

Audra smiled as she watched the two of them together. He had always been a loving father to Christina; she could never take that away from him.

***

Vincent’s leave came to an end all too quickly.

Audra got up at five o’clock on Sunday morning, to make breakfast for him whilst he shaved and dressed.

Eggs were a precious commodity, very scarce, but Audra had managed to get hold of two. She had cooked one for Christina’s tea the day before, and now she fried the second for Vincent, along with a tomato and a small piece of bacon which Eliza had given her.

When Vincent saw the egg on his plate he was upset. ‘Oh you shouldn’t have,’ he said, frowning at her. ‘You should have kept it for yourself. Come on, take half of it to eat with your toast.’

Audra prevented him from dividing the egg by taking hold of his arm firmly, restraining him. ‘Thanks, but I’m not very hungry. Please eat it, Vincent, you won’t get anything else for hours and hours. You told me the troop trains are running slowly, and you’ve no idea what time you’ll get back to Hull today.’

‘That’s true.’ Nevertheless, he ate the egg reluctantly, and he wished she had kept it for Christina, if she did not want it for herself.

Neither of them said much during breakfast. They were both aware that he was going back to fight a war, and they had no idea when they would see each other again. It could be months on end, maybe years.

As the clock struck six, Vincent stood up. ‘I’d better be going. My train’s at seven.’

‘Yes.’

As he put on his regulation navy topcoat, picked up his sailor hat and brought his kit bag to the door, he said, ‘I kissed Christie before I came down for breakfast… I don’t want to go upstairs again, I might wake her. Say goodbye to her for me.’

Audra nodded, too choked to speak. She came to him
in the doorway, stood on tiptoe to kiss him. He kissed her in return, held her tightly for a moment longer.

‘Please be careful, Vincent,’ she managed to say in a tight voice.

‘I will, don’t fret, love. I’ll write…’

A second later he was gone.

Suddenly she was standing alone in the kitchen.

She ran to the window, parted the curtains, watched him hurrying down the path in the cold, remote light of the January dawn.

Instinctively her hand came up to her heart, fearing for him, fearing for his safety. Come back to me, she whispered in the silence of the empty room. And Audra stood there for a long time after he had disappeared from sight, facing an irrefutable fact. Her love for Vincent Crowther was undiminished, despite all of their troubles and problems over the years. It existed, therefore it had to be.

The spring came, bringing with it an end to the ‘phony war’.

Audra sat glued to her wireless in the evening, whilst Christina did her homework or sketched and painted. And the more Audra heard, the more she became alarmed for her husband and the rest of the family, and friends, who were fighting the enemy.

Events were moving so rapidly she could scarcely keep track of them. On 9 April Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. Denmark fell at once, but the valiant Norwegians fought back heroically, and appealed to Britain for help. Immediately naval and military forces were dispatched.

For the next three weeks Audra walked around like a sleepwalker, doing everything automatically, as if by rote. She was worried that Vincent’s destroyer might be amongst those ships which had sailed to assist the Norwegians. She was frozen with fear and for once her optimism seemed to desert her completely.

The news grew more grim by the day; and every time she picked up a newspaper her heart lurched.

The Luftwaffe all but demolished the British forces as they tried in vain to help the Norwegians, but by the end of the month most of the British had been evacuated. Vincent’s ship finally limped back into British territorial
waters; miraculously he was safe. The losses to the forces were enormous and it soon became clear to Audra, and the rest of the country, that the failure to heed Winston Churchill’s warnings in the past had been disastrous.

‘Thank God he’s finally been made Prime Minister,’ Audra said to Laurette as they sat close to the wireless on the evening of 13 May. That morning, three days after accepting the premiership from the King on 10 May, Churchill had given his first speech as Prime Minister to the House of Commons. In a few minutes he was to address the nation.

‘Vincent has always said that Churchill is the only man to lead us out of this mess and I know he’s right,’ Audra said.

Laurette nodded. ‘I agree, but even so, I think we’re in for a long siege.’

‘Still, we have a
real
leader now—’ Audra stopped, tapped Christina on her shoulder and motioned to the radio, then brought her finger to her lips.

The three of them sat perfectly still, straining to hear every word, mesmerized by the extraordinary voice and rhetoric of Winston Churchill bringing hope and courage and inspiration to the English people.

Audra and Laurette were buoyed up that evening, but as the days passed Audra knew that her sister-in-law had been correct. They
were
in for a siege and it would be both long and deadly.

First there was the hell of Dunkirk.

Thousands upon thousands of British and Allied troops were stranded on the beaches of France, cruelly caught between the sea and the advancing German army. England held its breath. And then only through acts of desperate heroism were they rescued by a motley armada of British destroyers and cruisers, pleasure launches,
rowing boats, fishing trawlers, yachts and even barges. Civilians had answered Winston Churchill’s plea for everyone who had a vessel to pitch in and help the Royal Navy get the boys off the beaches. In doing so they saved lives by the hundreds of thousands—and gripped the imagination of the whole of England and her allies with their extraordinary valour.