Leah Fleming - Orphans of War

They never talked much about Daddy’s family, the Belfields, and never visited them. They lived in Yorkshire somewhere. There were no cards or presents exchanged at Christmas either.

Daddy met Mummy when he was recovering after the Great War and she was a singer and dancer in a troupe. He was musical too and spent hours playing the piano in the hospital. They’d fallen in love when Mummy went to sing to them. It was all very romantic.

Maddy’s first memories were of singing and laughter and dancing when they visited Granny and Grandpa’s pub near Preston. She’d stayed with them when the Bellaires were on tour. Grandpa died and Granny came to work with George when Auntie Kath ran away with the cellar man.

Now everything was changed because of this war and everyone was on the move here and there. She just wanted to sit in the tree with Bertie, the cocker spaniel, sitting guard at the base. He was her best friend and keeper of all her secrets.

When it was getting dusk it was time to do her evening chores, closing curtains and making sure that Bertie and the hens got fed for the evening. Now that she’d been expelled, Maddy wasn’t so sure about going to a new school after all. What if it was worse than St Hilda’s?

‘Go and get us some fish and chips,’ yelled Granny from the doorway. ‘I’m too whacked to make tea tonight. The books are making my eyes ache. Here’s my purse. The one in Entwistle Street will be open tonight. And no vinegar on mine…’

Maddy jumped down and shot off for her mac. There was no time to call Bertie in from the field. Fish and chips were always a treat. St Hilda’s would call them ‘common’ but she didn’t care.

She heard Moaning Minnie, the siren, cranking up the air-raid warning as the queue for fish and chips shuffled slowly through the door. Maddy looked up at the night sky, leaning on the gleaming chrome and black and green façade of the fish bar.

Outside, little torches flickered in an arc of light on the pavements as people scurried by.

‘Looks as if Manchester is getting another pasting tonight!’ sighed an old man as he sprinkled salt all over his battered fish.

‘Go easy with that, Stan. There’s a war on,’ shouted the fish fryer.

Maddy could feel her stomach rumbling. The smell of the batter, salt and pea broth was tempting. This was a rare treat as Gran liked to cook her own dishes. If only the sirens would stop screaming.

Chadley was getting off lightly in the recent air raids as there was nothing but a few mills and shops and an aviation supply factory. The Jerries preferred the docks. As she looked up into the sky she saw dark droning shapes and knew she’d have to find shelter–but not before she got their supper wrapped in newspaper. There was something brave about queuing in an air raid.

Gran would be getting herself down to ‘The Pit’, and Uncle George would be sorting out all the air-raid precautions before he went down to the cellar.

When she was fed up Maddy liked to hide with Bertie in the Anderson shelter away from everyone, and sulk. She knew four big swear words: Bugger, Blast, Damnation and Shit, and could say them all out loud there and not get told off. There was another she’d heard but not even dared speak it aloud in case it brought doom on her head.

The whistle was blasting in her ears as she clutched her parcel, making for home, when an arm pulled her roughly into a doorway.

‘Madeleine Belfield, get yourself under cover. Can’t you see the bombs are dropping!’ shouted Mr Pye, the Air-Raid Warden as he dragged her down the steps to a makeshift communal shelter in a basement. She could just make out a clutch of women and children crouching down, clutching cats and budgies in cages, and she wished she’d brought Bertie on his lead. The planes were getting closer and closer to the airfield. This was a real raid, not a pretend one.

Last year it was quiet, nothing much had happened, but since the summer, night after night the raiders came. Her school, once thought far enough out to be safe, was now in the firing line, which was why the pupils were being rushed away to a house in the deepest country.

Perhaps she ought to go and apologise to Miss Connaught and promise to be well behaved…perhaps not. The thought of sharing a dorm with Sandra Bowles and her pinching cronies filled her with horror.

Oh Bertie…Where was her bloody dog! Now she’d thought about the terrible word.

It seemed ages sitting, waiting, the smell of damp and cigarette smoke up her nose. She wished she was down in the cellar with Uncle George.

Uncle George always smiled and said, ‘At least we won’t die of thirst down there, folks,’ coming out with his usual joke before he went into the night-time routine of turning off gas and water taps, evacuating the first few thirsty customers outside, across the bowling green to the official Anderson shelter they called ‘The Pit’. He would be checking that the stirrup pumps were ready for any incendiaries. They all had the drill off pat by now. Everyone had a job.

Now the sirens were screaming, distracting Maddy.

‘They’re early tonight,’ said old Mr Godber, sitting across on the bench with a miserable face. He was one of the regulars who usually came early to The Feathers for his cup of tea and a two penny ‘nip’, but now he was tucking into his chips with relish. There was old Lily who came in for jugs of stout and who once whispered that she’d been stolen by gypsies in the night but Maddy didn’t believe her. There was Mrs Cooper from the bakery, and her three little children trailing blankets and teddies, one of them was plugged into a rubber dummy. He kept staring at Maddy’s eye patch and her bag of chips with longing. There was the wife of the fish-and-chip man, and two old men Maddy didn’t know, who filled the small place with tobacco from their pipes. It was such a smelly crush in the shelter.

‘Where’s yer little dog?’ said Lily. The racket was getting louder. ‘If she’s got any sense she’ll’ve run a mile away from this hellhole. Dogs can sense danger…Don’t fret, love, she’ll be safe.’

‘But he doesn’t like Moaning Minnie.’ Maddy wanted to cry, and clutched the warm newspaper to her, looking anxious. She hoped Gran had taken her hat box down there. It contained her jewellery, their documents, her insurance certificates and the licences, and their identity papers, and it was Maddy’s job to make sure it got put in a safe place. Tonight the box would have to stay under the bed and take its chance.

The sky was still humming with droning black insects hovering ahead. There was a harvest moon tonight, torching the bombers’ path through the dark sky, just the night for Liverpool to be the target. There were planks on the basement floor but it was still claggy and damp, smelling of must.

‘Maddy! Thank goodness you’re here! Good girl, to stay put in the High Street shelter.’ Down the steps came Ivy Sangster, all of a do. ‘Yer Gran was worried so she sent me out to look for you. I said I’d keep you company down here,’ said the barmaid, who helped them on busy nights. ‘I’m glad I found you,’ she said, plonking herself down with a flask. ‘You’d better eat your chips before they go cold.’

‘Did they bring in Bertie? Is he in the cellar?’

‘Not sure, love. Your uncle George’s gone down as usual. You know he can’t stand small spaces…not since the trench collapsed on him,’ whispered Ivy, who was very fond of her boss and blushed every time he spoke to her. ‘Yer gran says it hurts her back bending in the Anderson. They’ll be fine down in the cellar.’

They all squatted on benches either side, waiting for the all clear, but the racket outside just got worse. Maddy was trembling at the noise but clung on to her chips. Ivy ferreted for her mouth organ to pass the time. They always had a singsong to drown out the bangs.