Leah Fleming - Orphans of War

Well, he wasn’t stupid. He could read and write as well as anyone else, but he just didn’t hold with school any more. If only he was fourteen and could leave. He wanted to be where there was danger and bullets and excitement, not to be sent on an errand like some ‘trusty’.

As he walked out of sight, the ‘trust’ word hung heavy. Mrs Belfield had picked him out and chosen him specially. Perhaps it would do no harm to fetch the kid and then bunk off, as these were orders, not punishment for a change.

Then he saw her, the kid in the white school hat with glasses, looking lost and trying to be brave. It was a look he knew so well. Blast it, he couldn’t leave her standing there–even if she wasn’t on her own.

Maddy stood clutching her charges, feeling suddenly abandoned. There was nobody waiting to meet her on the platform. She had checked this was Leeds Station and she daren’t move. Sometimes they made announcements over the Tannoy but no one called her name. She stood frozen to the spot.

Where were the teachers who should’ve gathered up Gloria and her brother? Now she was stuck with them too and it was cold, damp and sooty, the trains like smoking black dragons on huge iron wheels.

Maddy had her ticket but did they have theirs? What if the guard didn’t let them through the barrier? How horrid was Aunt Prunella to abandon her like this?

Then she saw a boy limping down the platform, a big string bean of a boy who looked her up and down.

‘Are you Madlin? Mrs Belfield sent me. She’s on the other platform with me mates,’ he smiled, pointing across the platforms.

‘And who’re you?’ Maddy eyed him with suspicion. He wore shorts to his knees, and plimsolls, his socks were dirty and his straw-coloured hair stuck up at the back.

‘Greg Byrne. Who are these two?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were here on your own?’

‘Gloria and her brother…they got lost. I have to find someone to take them.’

‘Bring them along then. Her in charge seems to be on top of the job, she’ll sort ’em out. Did they chuck you out of your hostel?’

‘I was bombed out. I’ve got to go to my granny’s.’

‘You’re not one of us then?’ he said. ‘These two look like a right pair of book ends. Where did you find them?’

Maddy tried to explain to him as he shepherded them back towards another platform.

‘Hurry up or we’ll miss the train. Wait till you see her hat, the missus they sent…looks like a dartboard.’ Greg was racing them down the platform and Sid was half carried between them.

Gloria said nothing but gazed up at him as if he was a creature from another planet. ‘Where you taking us? Don’t leave us, will you?’

‘There’s a picnic on the train. Just get them on the train and say nowt. It’ll be all right. I think her in charge’s a toff,’ Greg explained.

‘Mrs Belfield is my granny,’ Maddy announced proudly to put him in his place.

‘Blimey! She’s the youngest gran I’ve ever seen then.’

There was this pretty woman in a big hat standing outside the carriage, waving to her. She rushed up and held out her hand. ‘Madeleine, at last…I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet you but I had to collect a few others and I was late, but I knew Gregory would find you.’

‘Are you Aunt Prunella?’ Maddy asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the smiling face, those dark blue eyes and that amazing hat with the net hanging down.

‘Call me Plum, dear, Aunt Plum. I hate Prunella–it sounds more like a box of dried fruit.’ She laughed and her eyes creased into a grin. ‘Thank you, Gregory.’

Gregory had sneaked into the carriage behind Aunt Plum’s back with Gloria and Sid.

‘Oh, I was so sorry to hear your bad news. Your daddy has rung but the line was terrible. They’ll be on their way home, darling, but it’s going to take an age. What a rotten time you’ve had, but you’ll have a home with us for as long as you like. Come on, we’ve grabbed a whole carriage to ourselves and you can meet the other evacuees. They’re going to live in a hostel in the village. Won’t it be fun!’

Plum was so relieved to have them all safely gathered in as the train chugged out of the station. It was getting dark and the covered lamps flickered; all she could see were legs tangled up. There was a plump boy in shorts with a grimy bandage half hanging off his knee, full of grit and raw skin. He smelled of Germolene.

Then came Gregory, his strong calves covered in yellowing bruises, wearing plimsolls with holes in the sides and carrying the overwhelming stench of sweaty socks. The next set of knees were bony like door knobs, with raised weals, looking as if they’d been leathered with a strap. Across the seat were Enid’s long thin legs in grubby ankle socks, and she wore a pair of patent ankle-strapped shoes that looked two sizes too small.

The next pair of plimsolls were very small indeed. There was a small girl huddled in the corner with another little boy. Their knees looked scrubbed clean but they smelled of wet knickers. Then Plum glanced over at her niece in her brogue shoes and woollen stockings, her school uniform two sizes too large for her and those awful round glasses that hid her big grey eyes.

Why did she think of a tin of broken biscuits when she looked at her charges? They were a bunch of misshapes indeed. Broken biscuits were sold by the pound and thrown together in bags, they got crushed and splintered but they tasted just as good once you sorted them out: Abernethy, Nice, Bourbons, Custard Creams and Garibaldis.

But these were children, not broken biscuits, tired, lost, wretched-looking children. Even Madeleine looked haunted and exhausted.

These were not first-timers, full of excitement at being evacuated to the countryside. No, this lot knew the score. Each had a story to tell and had been labelled as a delinquent, a runaway. A quick flip through their files would yield a catalogue of misdemeanours and black marks.

This was their last chance to settle down and behave. There should be six evacuees and her niece, but when she counted them Plum realised to her horror that there were two extras huddled behind Gregory.

‘Who are those?’ she asked, her heart pounding at the implication. ‘Gregory?’

‘Dunno, miss. The girl brought them with her off the train. We couldn’t leave them,’ he said.

‘Madeleine, who are they?’ Plum was trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

‘Their mother put them on the train and told me to look after them. I couldn’t find their teacher. No one came to collect them so we brought them to you,’ she said, and Plum could hear the others giggling at her refined accent.

‘’Er don’t half talk posh, miss,’ said Enid.

‘No, I don’t,’ the girl snapped. ‘Did I do wrong, Aunt Plum?’

More guffaws as they heard her nickname.

‘Shush! Have you found out their names?’

‘The lady called them Glory and Sidney, but she says she’s Gloria Conley and they don’t go to school, and it was six stops before Leeds when they got on…Manchester, I think. I’m sorry but I didn’t know what to do,’ whispered her niece. ‘Oh, the lady said there was a letter in her pocket and “she don’t read”.’

‘Well done, darling, you did what any of us would’ve done. Just check her pocket but don’t wake her yet,’ Plum whispered.

‘Shall I pull the cord and stop the train?’ offered Peggy.

‘No!’ Plum snapped, the panic rising within her. What if someone was searching the station for them? What if worried relatives had called out the police? Oh, why had Miss Blunt not come with her?

‘Here, miss, in her pocket, a letter…’ Gregory leaned over and shoved a paper into Plum’s hand. The note was written in pencil on the back half of a torn envelope.