Doodlebug Summer Read online

  It’s September now, but the autumn days are still lovely. For some weeks, the sky’s been strangely quiet and empty except for birds flying and twittering. The doodlebugs have stopped coming. When Hedge was here on Saturday he said the workers who have to build them in Holland are mucking them up so they don’t work any more.

  I was going to ask how he knew that, but Mum nodded and said, ‘Sabotage. It’s very brave of them, isn’t it. If they were caught doing it, they’d be shot.’

  I’m glad I don’t live in Holland. The war’s no fun here, but at least the Germans haven’t marched into our country and occupied it. It would be awful to have them walking around in those uniforms with swastikas on the sleeves, shooting people who don’t do as they’re told.

  Mum’s not sure the doodlebugs really have stopped. She still won’t let me go out of the house alone, and it’s no use hoping I can go and meet Pauline. I can see how she feels, I suppose. There’s nowhere to shelter on the common. We’d be out in the open if anything happened.

  I wonder if our tree’s all right. Hedge says there’s a big, new crater on the common where a doodlebug blew up three weeks ago, and he’ll know because he lives near there. I’m not going to ask him about the tree, though. He’d never understand, even if I could explain which one I meant. Trees to him are all the same, just things to prune or chop down.

  It was awful when he cut down the poplar trees. Dad asked him to because the neighbours were complaining about them keeping out the light, but I hated it. There was sawdust everywhere, and piles of logs that used to be branches, and a bitter smell of sap, like lemons. It looks bare and empty above the garden fence now, we can see right through to the back of the shops with their ugly fire escapes.

  I said it looked awful, and Hedge said, ‘Time comes when they has to go. There’s plenty more trees.’

  He doesn’t care about things dying. He used to have an old black and white dog called Bess, then he got Kelly as a pup, and Bess wasn’t around any more. Mrs Potter said he shot her because she was getting old and stiff. How could he do that? Dad said it was probably kinder than taking her to the vet, because Bess wouldn’t know what was going to happen. I suppose he’s right, but I know Dad couldn’t do a thing like that.

  Hedge scares me and I hate him, but I’m not going to think about him. It’s a lovely day and the war really is going to end soon, everything is all right. Swing to and fro, lean back, stare up at the blue sky that rocks gently above me—

  CRASH!

  It’s a huge explosion. Leaves are scattering down. I’ve jammed my feet into the ground, I’m off the swing, running towards the house.

  Mum’s at the back door.

  ‘Katie, come in, quickly!’

  She stands back to let me into the kitchen then shuts the door as if it will keep danger out. Ian’s under the kitchen table, pushing a model train about. He seems to think one table is as safe as another. Since the doodlebugs stopped, Mum hasn’t minded where he plays. He doesn’t seem bothered by the huge bang.

  Mum and I both stare through the window. Smoke is rising from behind the shops. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ she mutters. ‘Not another new weapon.’

  ‘I didn’t hear any engine,’ I tell her. ‘But it might have been gliding.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Not that far. We’ve always heard them cut out.’

  She’s right.

  Mrs Potter bursts in through the back door, looking agitated. She’s wearing earth-stained rubber gloves.

  ‘What on earth was that?’ she says. ‘I was weeding the path, and it came from nowhere. Not a sound, just bang, out of the blue.’

  Ian looks up and frowns. ‘What do you mean?’ he asks.

  Nobody answers.

  Mum fills the kettle and sets it on the gas.

  ‘Time for a cup of tea,’ she says. ‘Ian, would you like a biscuit and some milk?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ he says. He’s gone back to pushing his model train about and making shunting noises, so he can’t be too worried about the bang.

  Mum is, though.

  ‘Would you like to play with that in the Morrison?’ she asks. ‘Just for a little while?’ Our kitchen table won’t be much good if there’s a closer explosion.

  ‘It’s too soft in the Morrison,’ Ian says. ‘Blankets and things. It’s no good for trains.’

  ‘There’s more important things than trains,’ says Mrs Potter, although Mum’s giving her a warning glance. ‘You get in there like your mum says.’

  Ian stands up, clutching his trucks and locomotive. He’s frowning. ‘Why do I have to?’ he asks.

  ‘Just to keep in practice,’ Mum says.

  ‘Because it’s a new sort of doodlebug?’

  ‘Well – it might be.’

  He sighs and goes off to the Morrison.

  ‘Bless him,’ says Mrs Potter.

  ‘Go with him, Katie, there’s a dear,’ says Mum.

  For a moment I feel almost insulted. I’m older than Ian, I want to be here with the grown-ups.

  ‘Please,’ says Mum. ‘Keep him company.’

  So I go and cuddle in beside Ian. His train is parked on the top of the Morrison, and he’s curled up in the shelter with his blanket and Bun. When things are dangerous he’s just plain scared, and that’s quite sensible, really. I don’t know why I’m different, but I am. I’d much rather be out there, wearing a tin hat and doing something useful, being part of it. I can’t wait to be grown-up.

  The rest of the day was a drag. We had another bang this afternoon, then a couple more just after Dad got home. He doesn’t know what this new thing is, but he said he saw new bomb damage from the train, and the site was enormous.

  Mum had promised I could have a bath. The water’s not always hot enough, because we can’t get as much coal for the stove as we really need. I was looking forward to it, so when she didn’t want to let me go upstairs because of these new explosions, I was really fed up. But Dad said we have to trust to luck, so I’m up here, soaking luxuriously in hot water. It’s deep enough so all of me is underneath it except just my toes sticking up beside the plug chain. It’s still daylight and the birds are singing outside.

  I slide my feet under the water, and my knees come up like small islands in a soapy sea. I drape my flannel over them.

  BANG!

  It’s further away than the other one, but heavy and loud.

  Mum’s running up the stairs. She taps at the door.

  ‘Out of there, quickly,’ she says. ‘Get dried and come downstairs.’

  I scramble up from the bath and pull the plug out, grab a towel. That’s the end of my bit of luxury.

  I’m going down to the kitchen, but I look in through the dining-room door. Ian is tucked up in the Morrison and Dad’s sitting on the floor beside him, reading ‘The Great Big Scissor Man’. Dad’s still not taken to the Morrison. He only crawls into it last thing at night when the rest of us are more or less asleep. I remember what Mum told me about the bad time he had in that other war. He never says anything about it, but I know it must have been awful, because when there’s a noisy raid, his hands tremble.

  Mum’s listening to the radio, but as I come in, the announcer says, ‘That’s the end of the news.’ It starts playing a cheerful tune. Mum switches it off.

  ‘They say these things are a kind of rocket,’ she says. ‘They call them the V-2.’

  Somehow, we can’t feel scared all over again. It’s just kind of depressing.

  The doodlebugs were supposed to be the V-1, Victory One, the weapon that would win the war for Germany. Only it didn’t. I suppose they hope this one will.

  I don’t know what we’re going to call them. They come so fast, they can’t be seen. They’re not bugs. They don’t doodle. They’re just rockets.

  ‘Light the blue paper and stand back,’ I say like an idiot, remembering the rockets we used to have on Bonfire Night before the war. I used to get so excited, even though it was usually raining and Dad was always in a bad
temper. He hated fireworks. Perhaps that was because of the other war, too. Whatever the reason, he was useless at managing them. Catherine wheels always fell off the fence and fizzled around at our feet, or else he nailed them on too hard and they wouldn’t turn, just spat and hissed, and rockets were usually a disaster. We stood them in a milk bottle, and Dad would keep striking matches until he got one to stay alight. Then he’d make a very long arm and turn his face away while he gingerly applied the flame to the firework. Sometimes the rocket would go whooshing into the sky and burst into red or green or white stars, and Mum and I cheered – Ian wasn’t born then – but mostly, the whoosh didn’t happen. If our rockets got out of the milk bottle at all, they tended to nose-dive into some very wet part of the garden.

  These V-2 rockets can’t be like that.

  ‘They must be very big,’ I say to Mum. ‘As big as the doodlebugs.’

  ‘Or even bigger,’ she says. And she sighs. ‘This is the beginning of a new kind of war. From now on, we’ll be firing these long-distance rockets. Frontiers and defences will be useless.’

  Dad comes in from reading to Ian and hears this. He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what it’s coming to,’ he says. ‘Decent wars should be fought by young men on horses. Using swords. And only if they want to.’

  Mum smiles at him, but she looks sad. She takes the kettle from the stove and turns to fill it at the sink. Making tea is like the chorus of a song – it’s something we all join in with, after the latest verse about whatever’s happened.

  ‘I’ll have a cup later,’ Dad says.

  He turns away to the door, humming a bit, and I know he’s going to play the piano, which is in the front room. In the winter, there’s always an argument about whether we have a fire in there and sit with Dad and his piano, or in the back room where the radio is. If there’s no fire in the piano room, he plays just the same, but with his coat on, and his scarf and fingerless mittens. Sometimes people stop in the street and listen, but he doesn’t know about that.

  CRASH!

  The windows rattle, and there’s a scrape and clatter as a couple of tiles fall off the roof and land on the concrete path outside.

  ‘Come on,’ Mum says wearily. ‘We’d better get inside the Morrison.’

  Dad has taken no notice of the explosion. From the front room, we can hear him playing the steady notes of Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’. His hands never tremble when he’s playing the piano.

  5

  Terror

  I’m letting the train window down on its leather strap, leaning out to look for Pauline as we come into her station. We get in the No Smoking compartment at the end of the third carriage if we can – all the others are Smoking, and they’re really stinky. But this morning I only just caught the train, and I’m not so far along.

  There she is, she’s seen me, she’s running along the platform. The guard’s blowing his whistle, but I’ve got the door open for her. She’s scrambling in, flopping down with her satchel and a pie dish because she made apple crumble in Domestic Science yesterday. They have to bring their own margarine and sugar because it’s on ration, but there are lots of apples at the moment, so the school provides those. The DS people get to take their stuff home to eat, lucky things. I’m in the Latin group, so I don’t do practical things like cooking.

  Pauline must have been late like me this morning, she’s out of breath and her face is bright pink. She’s got orange freckles, so it looks totally hectic. Her school beret has come off as usual. She wears it skewered to her red hair with a hatpin, flat as a navy-blue pancake, but it falls off when she runs. Her mac is unbuttoned and her tie is all over the place – she’s always getting into trouble for being untidy, but she doesn’t care. She’s not much bothered about school really. She’s so busy at home, with the little ones to look after, it’s a wonder she turns up at all, but she always does.

  ‘My gran’s ill,’ she says. ‘Someone came to tell Mum this morning. I said I’d go and see her after school – will you come? She likes a bit of company, it cheers her up.’

  ‘As long as it’s not for too long,’ I say. ‘I don’t want Mum to worry.’

  ‘No, we’ll just pop in. She lives near Elmer’s End station. We can get off the train there, do a quick visit and be back in time for the next one.’

  ‘OK.’

  I get the later train if there’s something after school like choir rehearsal, or if I miss the one that goes at ten-past four. Mum won’t panic if I’m only half an hour late.

  ‘What’s the matter with your gran?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s her chest,’ says Pauline.

  I nod, trying to look as if I understand – but trouble with your chest can be anything from a bit of a cold to pneumonia. Pauline’s gran has always wheezed, but I thought it was just the smoking. She loves her cigarettes.

  Pauline’s gran is in bed in the small downstairs room, wheezing and coughing. She got the bed moved down when the raids started, and it’s crammed in between the other furniture. She never throws anything away, and every surface is crowded with clothes, ornaments, rugs, shawls, books, old photographs and dirty teacups. The fire is out and the cold hearth is a mess of ash and cinders.

  Pauline dumps her school bag on the floor and kisses the old lady, who smiles at the sight of her then goes into a fit of coughing. Her teeth are in a glass by the bed. She reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze, still coughing, and manages to say, ‘Nice to see you, pet.’

  She looks very ill, but Pauline goes on being cheerful. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ she says. ‘You’d like one, wouldn’t you, Gran?’

  Between coughs, her gran says, ‘Lovely.’

  The scullery is piled with dirty dishes, and the sink is half full of scummy water.

  ‘Poor Gran!’ Pauline says. ‘I don’t suppose she could get any coal in. I’ll light the fire, we’ll need some hot water. Stick the kettle on, Katie.’

  She grabs the coal hod and hauls the back door open. I find some matches and light the gas. It’s selfish of me to feel dismayed, but I do. I can’t stay and help with all this.

  Pauline lugs the full coal hod through, with sticks and newspaper tucked under the other arm. When the back boiler behind the fire has heated the water enough, she’ll wash the dishes and get the place cleared up. That’s fine, I can see her gran really needs help, but Mum will be frantic if I stay any later. If only I could let her know – I go back into the room where Pauline is raking out the ash and cinders.

  ‘There isn’t a phone, is there?’ I ask quietly, but she shakes her head, as I expected. Pauline’s house doesn’t have a phone, either. Not many people do. We’re lucky – the bank said my dad had to have one so they could get in touch if they needed to.

  Gran hands me a cold hot-water bottle draped in a pink vest and says, ‘Could you fill that for me, dear?’

  I find a saucepan under the sink and set that on the gas as well. There’s a tray beside the cooker, so I wipe it and put out cups. Just two, I don’t want to stay for tea. There’s no bottled milk in the cupboard, just a rather sticky tin of the evaporated sort with two triangular holes punched in the top. It smells sweetish, as usual. I expect it’s all right – this stuff never seems to go off. The sugar bowl is almost empty, but there’s no more in the cupboard. Probably she’s used up her ration.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ Gran says when I take the tray in. She’s trying to sit up.

  Pauline comes to help her, thumping the pillows into a better shape. The bed smells frowsty. ‘You got any clean sheets, Gran?’ she asks.

  ‘Bathroom cupboard,’ says Gran with more wheezing. ‘I can’t manage the stairs, dear, not just now.’

  ‘Course you can’t. That’s all right, I’ll find them.’

  The clock that’s half buried under the clutter on the mantelpiece says ten to five. Pauline catches my glance at it.

  ‘If you want to go, that’s fine,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind, honest.’

  ‘If you�
��re sure. It’s just that—’

  ‘I know, you said.’ She clears a space on the table for me to put the tray down. ‘Thanks a lot for helping.’

  I’ve hardly helped at all, really.

  ‘Go on,’ says Pauline, shooing me like a chicken. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Houses and their back gardens are slipping past the train window in the autumn sunshine. I’m sorry for Pauline’s gran, she’s old and ill and she can’t cope, but I’m glad to be out of that cramped, stuffy house. I realise how lucky I am. I think of our kitchen that’s big enough for the four of us to sit round a table and the garden with fruit trees and a swing, and feel a fresh rush of love for my home. Our dining room looks a bit of a mess just now because of the Morrison in it, but we’ve still got the front room with the sofa and chairs and the fawncoloured carpet and Dad’s piano.

  The train slides into my station. I pull the catch of the door back – and gasp. The glass has been blown out of the roof. It’s lying in jagged heaps on the platform, together with the twisted and broken remains of the bars that held it up. There’s been a rocket, terribly near.

  I can’t run on the sliding layers of broken glass, but I’m hurrying on wobbly legs towards the barrier where the ticket man is standing. I show him my season ticket and ask, ‘Where did it fall?’

  He jerks his thumb. ‘Round the corner past the garage. Half-way up the lane.’

  That’s where we live.

  I’m running now, out of the station entrance and down the road. People are outside their shops, sweeping up glass. It gets worse towards the corner; there’s debris scattered everywhere. A bus is driving through it, very slowly. I’m out of breath, my school bag is heavy with books, but I keep running. The garage on the corner is just about standing, but it’s a roofless wreck. A van is lying on its side in what used to be the workshop.