Leah Fleming - Orphans of War

Sid began to howl, ‘I want my mam!’ Gloria was trying to be brave and Maddy knew just how that felt, not having a mummy to hold on to. There was something in the look on that mother’s face that worried her. Granny Mills would’ve known what to do. She would have to take them back with her first and then get them sorted out.

Maddy sat with Sid on her knee and Gloria snuggled up to her, squashing the soldier almost out of his seat. He was not amused. She counted every stop in her head so that she could tell the teacher just where they had got on. There were no signs on the station to help her.

Why had their mother not come with them? They were awfully small to be on their own but then she herself was not yet ten, and travelling unaccompanied. At St Hilda’s they never went anywhere without a chaperone. School seemed so far away now, another lifetime ago.

The children were neatly dressed in short woolly coats. They had gym shoes on their feet but their hair smelled of dried-up pee and boiled vegetables. Maddy tried not to wrinkle up her nose and hoped it wasn’t long to Leeds.

‘Where’re you going to?’ she asked.

‘Dunno,’ said Gloria. Maddy decided Gloria was a lovely name and she had a mop of glorious red ringlets even curlier than her own. There were freckles on her nose and cheeks and she had the greenest eyes, like a cat. Sid was just the same, only smaller.

‘You’ve got funny glasses,’ said Gloria, pointing at her patch.

‘What’s your other name again?’ Maddy said, ignoring her comment.

‘Burryl.’

‘No, your surname, Beryl what? I’m Madeleine Angela Belfield but you can call me Maddy.’

‘Just Gloria Burryl Conley.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Dunno…’

‘You must have an address. What town…what street?’

‘Elijah Street, by the cut. Dunno owt else,’ Gloria shrugged.

This was hopeless. The stupid girl didn’t even know her address or anything. Perhaps she was simple-minded like Ivy’s cousin, Eddy, who went to a special school.

‘Well, Gloria, when the train stops at Leeds I’ll ask the guard to find your teacher,’ she offered, feeling very grown up.

‘What teacher? I’m not going to school,’ Gloria replied.

‘But you must go to school, everyone does,’ Maddy argued.

‘I don’t. Mam don’t believe in it…I look after our Sid for her,’ she said proudly. Maddy was horrified. ‘What’s your mummy’s name?’

‘Marge.’

‘And your daddy?’

‘Dain’t got none.’ Gloria pierced her with her green eyes. ‘You ask a lot of questions. Where are you going to then?’

Maddy told them at great length her own sad story. Sid had nodded off on her knee but Gloria was taking it all in. Then the train began to slow down and a whisper went through the carriage. ‘Leeds…next station.’

The soldier helped to pull down Maddy’s little brown suitcase from the rack. She roused the sleeping boy and clutched hold of Gloria’s hand. ‘You’d better come with me. Aunt Prunella will know what to do. Where’s your case?’

Gloria shrugged, pointing to a brown parcel tied up with string and her gas mask. ‘Come on, Sid, time to go with her.’

Maddy waited by the carriage door until it was opened for them and lifted Sid out and then Gloria. The platform was packed with soldiers and children milling around. She pushed her way as best she could, with Gloria clinging on to her sleeve, clutching Sid’s hand. How would she find Mrs Belfield in all this throng?

Gregory Byrne eyed the line-up of other kids and the welfare officer waiting to hand them over like parcels on the foyer of Leeds Station. It was not going to be easy. This one knew all the tricks and was watching him like a hawk, making him walk in front. Greg had a reputation to keep up. He wasn’t called ‘Houdini’ for nothing at his last billet; the escape merchant.

Any open window, convenient drainpipe, and he was off on the run, living rough, stealing from market stalls, a proper Artful Dodger, but his last escape had gone wrong and now he wasn’t as quick after doing that stupid dare.

If only the warden hadn’t been such a cow and teased little Alfie about his dirty pants. ‘What’s this stinking mess?’ she accused, shaming him before the gang.

‘He can’t help it, miss,’ Greg had gone to Alfie’s rescue. ‘Maybe if you stopped picking on him so much…’ He squared up to the old dragon. He was growing so fast, he towered over her.

‘You’ll speak when you’re spoken to, Byrne. Any more cheek from you and you’ll be on your way again. How many billets have you gone through? No wonder your mother ditched you in an orphanage as soon as she cast eyes on you. Not much of a specimen to behold, are you?’

She was eyeing him with contempt but he was not going to be bullied like the others.

‘Shut your mouth, you old bag. At least I don’t have to look in the mirror and see that frightening gob looking back at me!’ he shouted, and the others stood back in horror at his cheek. He was for it now but he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring about anything but cars and bikes, years ago.

She’d insulted his mother, who’d died when he was born. How dare the old dragon try it on with him? He was hardened by years of playground abuse. He wasn’t going to take no more stick from the likes of her.

‘Go to your room, Byrne. I’ll not be insulted by a scruff who has the brain of a flea and the brawn of an ox. I am sick of taking in riffraff like you. No one wants you–get out of my sight.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not stopping in this miserable dump!’ he replied. There was no holding him in a place where he was not wanted. He was out of the window and into the fields as fast as his legs could carry him, to join the other evacuees. They were kept outside all day until it was dark so that they didn’t mess up the house. It was a miserable hole but no worse than some of the others he’d been expelled from.

Greg led his gang away from their usual path down to the riverbank, making instead towards the mainline railway line.

‘We’re not supposed to come down here,’ said little Alfie, looking up at him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m off. I’ve had enough of the old cow,’ sneered Greg, his face set with determination. His penknife was tucked in his pocket along with the Saturday spends that he’d been saving up.

‘But you’ve no money.’ Alfie was running after him.

‘You don’t need money; I’ve done it before,’ he said as he made his way to the footbridge, and the others were running to keep up with him. The iron footbridge linked two meadows over the main line going north and south. They were on pain of death not to come train spotting too close to the track.

The others were standing in awe as he prepared for his escape.

‘You’re not going to jump?’ Alfie croaked. ‘They go too fast down here.’

‘Gertcha! I bet he daren’t,’ sneered Arnie, who was growing into a bully himself.

‘You just watch. I’m waiting for a coal wagon or freight, easy peasy. You can watch. I’ve been practising for ages,’ Greg bragged, but that was a lie. He’d only just thought of the idea.

‘Houdini does it again!’ His admirers crowded round.

‘Where’ll you go?’ said the little boy.

‘Dunno…join up and see some action, runaway to sea,’ Greg replied, lifting his legs over the iron railings, dangling them. They were out of sight and half a mile from the hostel. He was hanging ready to drop as soon as the sound of a train came rattling down the track.

‘Anyone coming to join me?’ he laughed, knowing none of them would. ‘One drop onto an open wagon and we can be miles from here by teatime.’

‘Summat’s coming round the bend,’ yelled Alfie, ‘and it’s a slow one.’