The Bomber Dog (13 page)

Tiger had been out on an early-morning prowl
of the neighbourhood when the government truck had arrived and the men from it had rung
the doorbell of every house along the North London terraced street. Each homeowner had
been given six curved sheets of metal, two steel plates and some bolts for fixing it all
together.

‘There you go.'

‘Shouldn't take you more than a
few hours.'

‘Got hundreds more of these to
deliver.'

Four of the workmen helped those who
couldn't manage to put up their own Anderson Shelters, but everyone else was
expected to dig a large hole in their back garden, deep enough so that only two feet of
the six-foot-high bomb shelter could be seen above the ground.

Buster, Robert and Michael had set to work
as soon as they'd been given theirs, with Mr Edwards supervising.

‘Is the hole big enough yet,
Dad?' Robert asked his father. They'd been digging for ages.

Mr Edwards peered at the government
instruction leaflet and shook his head. ‘It needs to be four foot
deep in the soil. And we'll need to dig steps down to the door.'

Tiger surveyed the goings-on through
half-closed eyes from his favourite sunspot on the patio. He was content to watch as
Buster wore himself out and got covered in mud. It was much too hot a day to do anything
as energetic as digging.

In the kitchen, Rose was getting in the way
as usual.

‘Let me past, Rose,' said Lucy
and Robert's mother, Mrs Edwards, turning away from the window.

Rose took a step or two backwards, but she
was still in the way. The Edwardses' kitchen was small, but they'd managed
to cram a wooden dresser as well as two wooden shelves and a cupboard into it. It
didn't have a refrigerator.

‘What were you all doing out
there?' Mrs Edwards asked Lucy.

Lucy thought it best not to mention that
Buster had dug up Dad's old slipper. It was from Dad's favourite pair and
Mum had turned the house upside-down searching for it.

‘Just playing,' she said.

Lucy began squeezing six lemon halves into a
brown earthenware jug while her mother made sugar syrup by adding a cup of water and a
cup of sugar to a saucepan and bringing it to the boil on the coal gas stove. Wearing a
full-length apron over
her button-down dress, Mrs Edwards stirred
continuously so as not to scorch the syrup or the pan.

The letterbox rattled and Lucy went to see
what it was. Another government leaflet lay on the mat. They seemed to be getting them
almost every day now. This one had ‘Sand to the Rescue' written in big
letters and gave instructions on how to place sandbags so that they shielded the
windows, and how to dispose of incendiary bombs using a sand-bucket and scoop.

Lucy put the leaflet on the dresser with the
others and went to check on her cakes. She didn't want them to burn, especially
not with Michael visiting.

Two hours later Mr Edwards declared,
‘That should be enough.'

Robert and Michael stopped digging and
admired their work. Buster, however, wasn't ready to stop yet. He wanted them to
dig a second, even bigger hole, and he knew exactly where that hole should be. His
little paws got busy digging in the new place.

‘No, Buster, no more!' Robert
said firmly.

Buster stopped and sat down. He watched as
Robert, Michael and Mr Edwards assembled the Anderson Shelter from the six corrugated
iron sheets and end plates, which they bolted together at the top.

‘Right, that's it, easy does
it,' Mr Edwards told the boys. The Anderson Shelter was up and in place.

For the first time Tiger became interested.
The
shelter looked like a new choice sunspot – especially when the sun
glinted on its corrugated iron top. He uncurled himself and sauntered over to it.

‘Hello, Tiger. Come to have a
look?' Michael asked him. Tiger ignored the question, jumped on to the top of the
shelter and curled up on the roof.

Robert and Michael laughed. ‘He must
be the laziest cat in the world,' Robert said. ‘All he does is eat and sleep
and then sleep again.'

Tiger's sunbathing was cut short.

‘You can't sleep there,
Tiger,' Mr Edwards said. ‘And we can't have the roof glinting in the
sunshine like that. Go on – scat, cat.'

Tiger ran a few feet away and then stopped
and watched as Mr Edwards and the boys now shovelled the freshly dug soil pile
they'd made back on top of the roof of the bomb shelter, with Buster trying to
help by digging at the pile – which wasn't really any help at all.

Mr Edwards wiped his brow as he stopped to
look at the instruction leaflet again. ‘It says it needs to be covered with at
least fifteen inches of soil above the roof,' he told Robert and Michael.

The three of them kept on shovelling until
the shelter was completely hidden by the newly dug soil.

Lucy and Mrs Edwards came out, carrying
freshly made lemonade and fairy cakes.

‘Good, we've earned this,'
Robert said when he saw them.

‘Those look very
appetizing, Lucy love,' Mr Edwards said when Lucy held out the plate of cakes.

‘Do you like it?' Lucy asked
Michael, as he bit into his cake. Her eyes were shining.

‘Delicious,' Michael smiled, and
took another bite.

Buster was desperate to taste one of
Lucy's cakes too. He looked at her meaningfully, mouth open, tail wagging
winningly. When that didn't work he tried sitting down and lifting his paws in the
air in a begging position.

Lucy furtively nudged one of the cakes off
the plate on to the ground.

‘Oops!'

Buster was on it and the cake was gone in
one giant gulp. He looked up hopefully for more.

Mr Edwards took a long swig of his lemonade
and put his beaker back on the tray. ‘So, what do you think?' he asked his
wife.

Mrs Edwards's flower garden was
ruined. ‘It's going to make it very awkward to hang out the weekly
washing.'

‘In a few weeks' time even
I'd have trouble spotting it from the air,' Mr Edwards said. He was a
reconnaissance pilot and was used to navigating from landmarks on the ground.
‘It'll be covered in weeds and grass and I bet we could even grow flowers or
tomato plants on it if we wanted to.'

Lucy grinned. ‘But
you'd still know we were nearby and wave to us from your plane, wouldn't
you, Dad?'

‘I would,' smiled Mr Edwards.
‘With Alexandra Palace just round the corner, our street is hard to miss. But
Jerry flying over with his bombs won't have a clue the Anderson Shelter's
down here with you hidden inside it – and that's the main thing.'

Lucy shivered. ‘Will there really be
another war, Dad?' It was a question everyone was asking.

‘I hope not. I really do,' Mr
Edwards said, putting his arm round his wife. ‘They called the last one the Great
War and told us it was the war to end all wars. But now that looks doubtful.'

Michael helped himself to another of
Lucy's cakes and smiled at her.

Lucy was beaming as she went back inside,
with Rose following her.

As Lucy filled Buster's bowl with
fresh water and took it back outside, Rose padded behind her like a shadow. She chose
different people, and occasionally Buster or Tiger, to follow on different days. But she
chose Lucy most of all. She'd tried to herd Buster and Tiger once or twice, as she
used to do with the sheep, but so far this hadn't been very successful, due to
Buster and Tiger's lack of cooperation.

‘Here, Buster, you must be thirsty too
after all that digging,' Lucy said, putting his water bowl down on the patio close
to Tiger, who stretched out his legs
and flexed his sharp claws. Lucy
stroked him and Tiger purred.

Buster lapped at the water with his little
pink tongue.

‘Buster deserves a bone for all that
digging,' Robert said. ‘Or at least a biscuit or two.'

Buster looked up at him and wagged his
tail.

‘Go on then,' Mrs Edwards
said.

Robert went inside and came back with
Buster's tin of dog biscuits. Buster wagged his tail even more enthusiastically at
the sight of the tin, and wolfed down the biscuit Robert gave him. Bones or biscuits –
food was food.

‘Here, Rose, want a biscuit?'
Robert asked her.

Rose accepted one and then went to lie down
beside the bench on which Lucy was sitting. She preferred it when everyone was together
in the same place; only then could she really settle.

Just a few months ago Rose had been living
in Devon and working as a sheepdog. But things had changed when the elderly farmer
didn't come out one morning, or the next. Rose waited for the farmer at the back
door from dawn to dusk and then went back to the barn where she slept. But the farmer
never came.

Some days the farmer's wife brought a
plate of food for her. Some days she forgot and Rose went to sleep hungry.

Then the farmer's daughter, Mrs
Edwards, came to the farm, dressed in black, and the next day she
took
Rose back to London with her on the train. Rose never saw the farmer again.

Rose whined and Lucy bent and stroked her
head.

‘Feeling sad?' she asked
her.

Sometimes Rose had a faraway look in her
eyes that made Lucy wonder just what Rose was thinking. Did she miss Devon? It must be
strange for Rose only having a small garden to run about in when she was used to herding
sheep with her grandfather on the moor.

‘Do you miss Grandad?'

Rose licked Lucy's hand.

‘I miss him too,' Lucy said.

When they all went back indoors, Tiger
stayed in the garden. He took a step closer to the Anderson Shelter and then another
step and another. Tiger was a very curious sort of cat, and being shooed away had only
made him more curious. He ran down the earth steps and peered into the new
construction.

Inside it was dark, but felt cool and
slightly damp after the heat of the sun.

‘Tiger!' Lucy called, coming
back out. ‘Tiger, where are you?'

Lucy came down the garden and found him.

‘There you are. Why didn't you
come when I called you?' She picked Tiger up like a baby, with his paws waving in
the air, and carried him out of the shelter and back up to the house. It wasn't
the
most comfortable or dignified way of travelling, but Tiger put up
with it because it was Lucy. Ever since Tiger had arrived at the Edwardses' house
as a tiny mewling kitten, he and Lucy had had a special bond.

They stopped at the living room where Robert
was showing Michael Buster's latest trick.

‘Slippers, Buster,' Robert
said.

Buster raced to the shoe rack by the front
door, found Robert's blue leather slippers and raced back with one of them in his
mouth. He dropped the slipper beside Robert.

Robert put his foot in it and said,
‘Slippers,' again. Buster raced off and came back with the other one.

Robert gave him a dog biscuit.

Michael grinned. ‘He's so
smart.'

‘He can identify Dad and Mum and
Lucy's slippers too,' Robert told Michael. He'd decided not to risk
Dad's new slippers with Buster today. ‘You're one clever dog,
aren't you, Buster?'

Buster wagged his tail like mad and then
raced round and round, chasing it.

‘Tiger and Rose can do tricks
too,' Lucy said, putting Tiger down in an armchair. ‘And Rose doesn't
need to be bribed with food to do them. Look – down, Rose.'

Rose obediently lay down.

Lucy moved across the room and Rose started
to stand up to follow her.

‘Stay, Rose.'

Rose lay back down
again.

‘Good girl.'

‘So what tricks can Tiger do?'
Michael asked Lucy.

Lucy pulled a strand of wool from her
mum's knitting basket and waggled it in front of Tiger like a snake wriggling
around the carpet. Tiger jumped off the armchair, stalked the wool and captured it with
his paw.

Tail held high, he went over to Robert and
then to Michael to allow them the honour of stroking him.

Tiger didn't need tricks to be
admired.