There'll Be Blue Skies (2 page)

Sally knew only too well how tough it was without a man in the house, but she could only imagine how hard it must be for her friend to have to send her children away. She was rescued from having to reply by the arrival of three buses. They pulled to a halt and a large, well-fed woman in a tweed suit and laced-up brogues climbed down from the leading bus. She took in the scene at a glance and clapped her hands before her plummy voice rang out.

‘Mothers, say goodbye to your children, and make sure they have their gas-mask boxes and identification discs, as well as their brown labels firmly attached to their clothing.’ Her stern gaze swept over the tearful, defeated faces. ‘I do hope you’ve managed to pack everything on the list. We can’t expect our host families to provide any more than they already are.’

Sally thought of the long, impossible list she’d been given, and knew she wasn’t the only one here that couldn’t manage to get even half the stuff the government seemed to think was necessary. After all, who could afford spare shoes and two sets of underwear when it was hard enough to put food on the table?

She stood back as the other women gathered up their children, kissing them, holding them tightly until the last possible moment. None of them knew when they would see each other again and, as realisation set in, the older children quietened, their fear and distress almost tangible as the little ones began to cry.

Sally battled with her own tears as she hugged Ruby, kissed the baby and ordered the twins to hold Ernie’s hands. She was aware of the envious glances of the others, and tried not to feel guilty. It wasn’t as if she’d had any choice in the matter.

‘Children,’ the woman called. ‘Form a line here, so I can check your labels.’ She shot a glance at Ernie’s calliper. ‘You must be Ernest Turner,’ she muttered, going through the list pinned to her clipboard. Her gaze travelled over Sally and a thick brow rose in disdain. ‘Are you his mother?’

Sally didn’t like the way the woman made her feel, and she returned her stare. ‘I’m ’is sister,’ she said firmly, ‘and we’re together. I’m also looking after these two,’ she added, indicating the twins who were jostling one another and sniggering.

‘This is most irregular.’ She sniffed her disapproval, took their names and executed large ticks on her list. ‘Go to the back of the first bus, and hurry along. We don’t want to be late, do we?’

Sally felt as if she was five again, and being reprimanded by her headmistress. Her face was burning with embarrassment as she helped Ernie and the twins clamber up, and struggled down the narrow aisle with the suitcase, walking stick, handbag and gas-mask boxes. Settling the boys by the window, she watched the tearful goodbyes on the pavement. The bus was already filling up, the younger children snivelling as they clutched an assortment of brown paper parcels, cardboard cases and gas-mask boxes – the older children more thoughtful, their wistful eyes gazing out of the windows for sight of their mothers as the truth sank in.

There was still no sign of Florrie, and she suddenly felt very young and vulnerable. If it hadn’t been for Ernie, she’d have got off the bus and headed for the factory, where at least she knew the routine and everything was familiar – but Ernie needed her, so she reluctantly stayed put.

The fat woman finally clambered aboard with her clipboard and ordered the driver to get going. As the buses slowly trundled away from the school, the women walked alongside them, touching the windows where their children’s tearful faces were pressed against the glass, calling out last-minute instructions and loving endearments to their little ones.

It was almost a relief to Sally when the buses picked up speed and left them behind. The guilt was growing by the second, and she couldn’t look those women in the eye any more – but the sound of wailing children just emphasised the finality of it all and made her want to cry too.

As their bus made its grinding way through the streets, Sally kept Ernie and the twins occupied by pointing out the preparations for war. There were sandbags piled in front of government buildings and public air-raid shelters; white tape criss-crossed windows, and tank emplacements were strung all along the river. Signs over shop doorways declared support for Chamberlain, exhorting their customers to do their bit for the cause, whilst recruiting stations were busy with long lines of men patiently awaiting their turn. London’s parks had been dug up to provide even more shelters, and every available strip of land was being planted with vegetables. They smiled as they saw men painting out the street signs – that would confuse the enemy and no mistake, for London was a warren of streets and alleyways.

The entrance to Victoria Station was surrounded by vast piles of sandbags which were guarded by armed soldiers. As the buses ground to a halt, the fat woman took charge again. ‘You will form up in pairs in a straight line and follow me,’ she boomed. ‘Everyone hold hands with the person next to you and make sure you have everything with you.’ She stepped down and was met by three more women who looked just like her.

Sally and Ernie were the last to leave the bus, and she gripped tightly to his hand as the long, snaking line headed into the gloom of the great station. The twins were nearby; she could hear their loud voices above the almost deafening chatter of hundreds of children pouring off similar buses.

There was little time to look around, but the impression Sally got was of a vast domed ceiling, endless platforms and giant steam engines. The noise and bustle of hurrying men in uniform, of crying women, wailing babies and excited children was overlaid with clouds of smoke and steam and the strong, pungent smell of burning coal. As neither of them had been on a train before, she and Ernie stared in awe at their surroundings and Sally realised they were both experiencing a tingle of expectation for the coming adventure. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Their labels were checked again, and then they were being led down the platform, past the great iron wheels to where porters helped them climb aboard. Sally slid back the door to the empty compartment, placed the gas masks and suitcase in the luggage rack and helped the other children settle in.

Once Ernie was made comfortable by the window, she tugged on the leather sash and leant out, scouring the bustling platform for sight of their mother. Just one glimpse of that peroxide hair was all she needed – just one fleeting sight of that familiar, brightly dressed, energetic figure cutting a swathe through the kitbags and suitcases that littered the platform was all she asked for.

‘She ain’t coming, is she?’

Ernie’s pinched little face revealed his disappointment, and it twisted Sally’s heart. She sat down and clasped his hand. ‘No, luv,’ she said softly beneath the hubbub of a hundred children’s voices and the shouts of the porters. ‘She’s probably too busy at the factory and forgot the time.’

Ernie looked at her solemnly through the tears. ‘I wish you was me mum,’ he sniffed, burying his head into her side.

She put her arm round him and silently cursed Florrie for being so thoughtless. If her Dad had been here things would have been different. And as she sat consoling Ernie, she felt tears welling, and hurriedly blinked them away. She missed her father terribly – was as lost and frightened as her little brother, but it would do no good to let Ernie know that.

The train jolted alarmingly as a great shriek of steam and smoke billowed along the platform. The clank of the huge iron wheels slowly gathered pace and they left the gloom of the station and began to roll with a clickety-clack past the rows of red-brick terraces, the rooftops, spires, bridges and factories of London.

Sally’s fear fluttered in her stomach. For, as the wheels picked up speed and settled into a rhythm, they were taking her away from home and everything she had ever known.

Peggy Reilly was glad Bob and Charlie were at school, and that her husband, Jim, was at the Odeon, where he worked as a projectionist. Her father-in-law, Ron, was making enough fuss as it was, and his lurcher wasn’t helping by getting in the way and trying to cock his leg on everything.

The two men from the council had arrived at Beach View Boarding House an hour ago with the Anderson shelter – a large, ugly sheet of curved corrugated iron which they proceeded to erect over the four-foot-deep hole they’d dug at the bottom of the long back garden.

‘We might have had to pay seven quid for that,’ muttered Ron, ‘but you’ll not be getting me in it. The damp will have me shrapnel on the move again, and I’m a martyr to it already, so I am.’

Ron’s shrapnel was a regular topic of conversation, along with his war stories. Anyone who didn’t know him would have thought Ronan Reilly had won the First World War single-handedly. ‘You’ll be pleased enough of a bit of shelter when the bombs start dropping,’ Peggy replied, her smile soft with affection for the cantankerous old man. His bark was always sharper than his bite, and she was used to hearing his complaints.

Ron pulled a face, grabbed the shaggy-coated Bedlington cross by the scruff and ordered him to sit. ‘They didn’t get me in the last war, and if they manage it in this, then it’ll be in me own bed, so it will. I’ll not be sleeping in that.’

He tied a length of string to the dog’s collar, patted the pockets of his voluminous poacher’s coat and stuck his unlit pipe in his mouth. ‘Harvey and me are goin’ off to find a bit of peace and quiet,’ he announced. ‘We’ll be back for our tea.’

Peggy took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. Ron was a widower and, at sixty-two, a law unto himself, with strong opinions and set ways. It wasn’t that he was impossible to live with – just difficult. And yet he had a lot of good points, for he was masterful at telling stories, a knowledgeable countryman, skilled hunter and forager, who loved nothing more than taking his grandsons with him when he roamed the nearby hills that he knew so intimately. She just wished he wouldn’t keep his ferrets in the scullery and let Harvey sleep on his bed. It was most unhygienic.

‘That’s it, missus. Thanks for the tea.’ The foreman broke into her thoughts and handed her back the mugs. The men tipped their caps and hurried through the back gate. They had another eight shelters to erect before it got dark.

Peggy eyed the Anderson shelter with deep suspicion, and realised she agreed with Ron. It didn’t look a terribly welcoming place to spend the night, and she rather hoped they would never have to. She took a few hesitant steps towards it, noting the rough wooden door they’d put on the front, and the sods of grass they’d placed over the roof. It looked as if it had grown out of the ground like a giant and rather menacing molehill.

She moved closer and gingerly followed the muddy steps down to the door. There was a dank pool beneath her feet, and the back wall and tin roof were already coldly damp to the touch. As she tried to imagine what it would be like to sit in here for possibly hours during an air raid, the door swung shut behind her, plunging her into earthy, smothering blackness. It was like being buried alive.

With rising panic, she fumbled her way out and took deep breaths of the clean salty air that blew off the sea. If she was going to persuade anyone to spend time in there, she would have to get Jim to make it more habitable. Though getting her rogue of a husband to do anything practical around the place was something she hadn’t yet managed in their twenty-three years of marriage. Jim was always far too busy getting into mischief, and she suspected he was rather looking forward to the prospect of doing even more shady deals now war had been declared.

Peggy firmly dismissed her suspicions. She’d known he was a scallywag when she’d married him, and had long since learnt to turn a blind eye to his nefarious ways. As long as it didn’t affect her family, or her marriage, she was prepared to accept he would never change, for she still loved her dark-eyed handsome husband whose smile could make her feel fifteen again.

She pulled her meandering thoughts into order and made a mental note that the steps and floor would have to be concreted, a bench fixed to the wall so they had somewhere to sit, and a hook placed on the roof to hold a lantern. She could bring down the old oil heater to chase away the damp and chill, and put together some blankets and pillows which they could take in with them when needed. It would be a terrible squash, though, with so many people in the house – for, apart from her own family of seven, she had two lodgers, with an evacuee due to arrive later today.

With that thought, she glanced at her watch. The day was half gone, and there was a lot to do before she had to be at the station. She walked down the path that ran through Ron’s vegetable garden, and hurried past the outside lav, concrete coal bunker and ramshackle shed until she reached the double doors that led into the two-bedroom basement flat, which Ron shared with twelve-year-old Bob and eight-year-old Charlie.

On passing, she shot a glance into the bedrooms, noting they were untidy as usual, and that the ferrets were absent from their cage beneath the scullery sink. Ron must have them in the pocket of his poacher’s coat.

She quickly made the beds, tidied up and scrubbed the stone sink in the scullery before climbing the concrete steps that led into her kitchen on the first floor.

Beach View Boarding House had been in her family for three generations; when Peggy’s parents retired to a bungalow in Margate, she and Jim had moved to Cliffehaven and taken it over. Peggy had run it as a successful bed-and-breakfast establishment until the news came from Europe. The impending declaration of war had put an end to holidaymakers coming to the seaside.

Money was tight and now only two of her five guest rooms were occupied. The Polish airman whose name she could never pronounce was in one, and dear little Mrs Finch was in the other. The evacuee from London would go in the smallest of the three rooms in the attic, next to that shared by her two daughters.