Vanessa de Haan - The Restless Sea

Jack cannot remember what it was like not to feel hungry. Food is rationed, there are queues at the shops, and their mother doesn’t have time to wait in them because of her job. Jack has plenty more profitable things to do than wait for a slab of butter, and Betsy refuses to be separated from him. There are rats everywhere. Tommy says they’re as big as terriers down his street. Stoog has been catching them and selling them for meat.

There is a whistle outside the window. Speak of the devil. Jack and Betsy are immediately wide awake and scrambling out into the cool air of the streets. Stoog leers at them in the moonlight. ‘Got a good feeling about tonight,’ he says.

Tommy and Vince are here too, and other faces that Jack and Betsy recognise. They make their way through the park where they used to play cricket and football, now home to the anti-aircraft brigade. They hug the shadow of the tree line. Jack can just make out the pale wall of sandbags and the dark shape of the three-inch gun behind it, the movement of the men of the Royal Artillery, too tense and expectant to notice the youngsters who should be safely tucked up in a shelter.

They move in silence. There is no point in trying to talk above the squealing sirens that send everyone else scurrying under tables and staircases, deep down into the underbelly of the Tube stations. But not them. They know there will be rich pickings about.

They pause at Tower Bridge, lining up one by one to gaze at the river. The moon glitters in oily patches on the surface of the water. There are shapes down there: boats battered and sunk by the previous nights’ raids. Fuel and timber still burn, pale lights flickering among the ripples. Above them, searchlights criss-cross the sky, illuminating the trailing tendrils of the monstrous barrage balloons that float fatly there. Further away, black smoke curls up from the docks, blotting out the moon like a cloud.

They hear the German planes before they see them. They can identify each type as well as any anti-aircraft regiment. No British up there yet. They can just make out the bombers, flying wing tip to wing tip above the river, following the trails of moonlight flashing on the surface, searching for the small fires lit by the incendiary devices that exploded earlier, mythical birds seeking their prey. Betsy’s eyes grow wider. Time stands still. The sound of the engines roars in their ears, rumbles in their chests. Thud thud thud . Like a heartbeat.

The planes are almost on top of them. The rat-a-tat-tat of the anti-aircraft guns starts up. Suddenly the planes swing to the left, to their side of the river, the south side, over the docks again. They catch a glimpse of light in a cockpit. And then … Boom !

The noise slams through them. They are running again, this time in the wake of the planes. The searchlights try to pick out the bombers in their pale beams, but they fail. The drone of more bombers joins the battery from the ground. Shrapnel tinkles like metal rain on the roofs. The fire engines come clanging along the road.

And now the Allied planes come swooping in to try to fight them off. But the boys aren’t interested in dogfights these days. They are running over rubble, and the air is full of dust and bangs and wails – human and inhuman. Fires rage across the city. Boy Scouts run from warden to warden, shouting above the din. But relaying messages won’t fill empty bellies.

Jack and Betsy stay together, but the others fan out, looking for the butchers and the grocers, anywhere for a bargain. ‘You all right, Bets?’ says Jack. She nods. Her teeth shine white among the smudges of dirt on her face.

There is a flash of light to their right. Jack is sure they haven’t been hit, but a split second later they are lifted clean off their feet. They slam back into the wall of a house, whose windows are blown in at the same time. The air is knocked right out of Jack’s chest and it takes a good few seconds for him to realise what has happened. All he can hear is a high-pitched ringing. Betsy is lying next to him. She has hit her head, and for a moment he isn’t sure whether she’s alive or dead. There is a trickle of red on her forehead, but then her eyes flicker open, and relief rushes through him and he leans over to grab her bony body in a hug, her wiry little arms gripping him back.

Around him, the world seems different, as if he is looking through a prism: the objects are crystal clear yet haloed with coloured light. He blinks and shakes his head, trying to clear the outlines that are seeping into a haze. The piercing echo of the blast is beginning to subside in his ears, but the sounds are still distorted. There are groans coming through the blown-out window next to him. He struggles to his feet and squints into the yawning hole. There is glass and splintered furniture and smashed crockery everywhere, dust settling over it like snow. He cannot locate the source of the moaning.

Jack tells Betsy to wait where she is. He takes off his coat and lays it over the windowsill where jagged glass still sticks up from the wooden frame. He climbs carefully into the house. The pictures have been blown clean off the walls, and a large dining table has been thrown on its side, and now he sees there is a man sitting on the floor next to it. Jack stops, unsure whether to climb straight back out. The man is ghostly pale, covered in dust. He appears unharmed, but confused: ‘Have you seen her?’ he keeps saying. ‘Have you seen her?’

There is no sign of anyone else.

Jack stands there for a moment. Behind him the torn curtains flutter and flap in the breeze. It is the perfect opportunity to grab something, before the man comes to his senses. Jack’s eyes flicker across the room. He is quick to recognise the objects of value. He snatches up a bent photograph frame and a twisted silver candlestick.

On the floor, the man is still moaning as he starts to dig into the pile of plaster and brick with his bare hands. Jack knows he could recover at any moment. He starts to back away, towards the window, clutching his loot in one hand. At the sound of glass crunching beneath Jack’s feet, the man suddenly stops digging and stares up at Jack with eyes large as saucers. Jack is ready to run, every muscle tense. But the man doesn’t seem to be able to see anything through the tears that are making dark tracks down his pale cheeks. ‘I know she’s here,’ he says. ‘Have you seen her?’ And he turns back to his scrabbling in the debris.

Jack is almost out of there. He allows himself one last glance around the place, in case he’s missed anything. It is then that he spots the headscarf. It is hidden from the man on the floor by the great broken back of the dining table. The horror hits him like a blow to the chest. The scarf has the same pattern as his mother’s favourite one. He cannot help taking a step forward. His eye picks out the arm, the legs, the body of a woman who, apart from a light dusting of ash, seems untouched, as if sleeping peacefully among the ruins. His gaze is drawn back to the familiar headscarf, the sprinkling of pale flowers on a blue background. It is exactly the same as his mother’s, except the pale flowers of this one are being swallowed up by the dark stain that is spreading, and he knows that the head beneath it is crushed and that this woman will never get up.

The man has noticed the look on Jack’s face. He has stopped digging and is staring at Jack again. ‘She’s here,’ he says. ‘I know she is …’

Jack tries to swallow, to clear his throat, but the words choke with the dust in his mouth. The man turns back, attacking the rubble even more frantically, and Jack wants to reach out to stop him, and he crouches down and puts a hand on the man’s shoulder, but the man carries on scratching, and Jack can see that the rubble is turning black and the man’s fingers are turning black, and Jack realises it is blood: the man’s hands are bleeding as he scrapes and scratches at the rubble. And Jack wants to say sorry, sorry for the body in the rubble, sorry for taking the picture frame and the candlestick, but he just doesn’t know how.