Orphans of War. Leah Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ and toss it on the pavement. They hid in the little alleyway while the passer-by spotted the cigs and pounced only to jump back in horror. They filled blue sugar bags with horse droppings and left them in the middle of the road so the carters stopped, hoping for a present to give their wives, only for the smelly muck to spill out while the gang had to look, duck and vanish like the Local Defence Volunteers down the ginnel.

      Everyone got a telling-off from the constable, and poor Enid was grounded for being the ringleader by Miss Blunt, but she complained they’d all helped so all of them missed the Saturday film show as a punishment except Maddy. Going on her own was not much fun.

      Greg was out cleaning the Daimler and helping Mr Batty, and begging old wheels to make a go-kart from the salvage cart. There was always something happening at the Old Vic even though Miss Blunt was strict and didn’t like mess. They were busy making Christmas presents out of cocoa tins, painting them and putting holes in the lids to pull a ball of string through. String was very precious now. Aunt Plum took her down to the hostel to join in the crafts after school. They were turning dishcloths into pretty dolls and sewing dusters into knickerbockers with frills on to sell at the bazaar for War Comforts. Soon it would be time to make Christmas paper chains and tree decorations.

      The Brooklyn was fine in its own way, but since Gloria and Sid had moved in with the Battys, Maddy felt lonely at night, the draughts whistling round the house like banshees. Aunt Plum and Grandma were always out at committee meetings; the Comforts fund, the WVS, the Women’s Institute and the Church Council, so she sat with the oldies listening to the wireless while they dosed after supper. Uncle Algie let her listen to the Light Programme, and the music that reminded her of Mummy.

      Mummy’s letters were full of interesting places that Maddy dutifully looked up in the atlas with Uncle Algie’s help. They had sung in concerts in the desert under the moon and stars.

      We’re so looking forward to Christmas and to being a proper family once more. We should never have left you behind, but we thought it was for the best. You have had to suffer because of us doing our duty but be strong and brave. Not long now, darling.

      It was a funny war here, nothing much happened at all. There was a gun battery up behind Sowerthwaite, and the Local Defence Volunteers paraded in church. The town was bursting with kids from all over the place but no bombs and no big factories belching smoke were to be seen. It was a relief to wake up each morning to silence and the bleat of sheep but she still felt sad. In her dreams she went back to Chadley, chasing Bertie, singing round the piano with Uncle George, playing with the button tin, making corkscrew coils of knitting with Granny Mills. If only they were here with her for Christmas too.

      Her biggest surprise was that the Yorkshire of her Jane Eyre heroine was so beautiful and wild, with hills and stone walls creeping in all directions, green grass and hundreds of sheep, cows and pigs in makeshift arks, chicken coops and duck ponds, horses ploughing up the fields by the river and gardens crammed full of vegetables and apple trees.

      They were making an allotment behind the Old Vic and Mr Batty was helping the big children plant vegetables. None of them had known a fork from a spade before they started but they did now. Enid and Peggy complained their hands were getting blisters. It was all so peaceful and safe, as if she’d moved to another world, but at what a cost? Why couldn’t they all have come before the war to enjoy the scenery?

      Maddy’s favourite spot was high up in the big beech tree that was planted right at the back of the Old Vic in the corner where the garden became a field. There was a swing rope up to a little wooden den in its branches. The tree was very old.

      From their hide-out they could spy on German planes and hide if the enemy invaded. There was a password to climb up that changed every week.

      Aunt Plum said the tree was planted long ago by subscription after some famous victory. No one could remember which battle it was but it had to be hundreds of years old. It must have been in honour of the men of Sowerthwaite who took part; a bit like Grandma’s line of Lombardy poplars on the lane up to Brooklyn Hall, which Maddy always felt were sad trees. She called them the Avenue of Tears.

      One of those trees was for her Uncle Julian-no wonder Grandma hated anything to do with the war. She did her duty on her committees but her lips were always set in a thin line and she had no smile wrinkles round her eyes like Aunt Plum.

      Maddy lay across a branch of the tree daydreaming, her arms dangling down, hidden by a curtain of rusting leaves. It reminded her of the apple tree near The Feathers, but that made her think of Bertie and Gran and the terrible blitz that haunted her dreams. She hoped her little dog had found a new home.

      Aunt Plum’s dogs were big and bouncy, not the same as her own special friend.

      Everything was so different here, she thought, hiding under the canopy whilst she watched for spies. There had to be spies in the district if there was going to be an invasion soon, she thought. She knew the fire drill by heart. Now she was supposed to be collecting beech mast to feed Horace the pig in the shed.

      It was fun going on salvaging trips down the cobbled alleyways and lanes, staring in through the doors of stone houses with slate rooftops like fish scales. Sowerthwaite was full of secret lanes that opened out onto the wide marketplace. Its shops lined the streets with arched doorways and bow windows straight out of her fairy-tale book. There were banners across the town hall urging the townfolk to buy Savings Bonds, posters in the shop windows warning of ‘Careless Talk’, but no bomb sites or proper air-raid shelters in sight, not like Chadley.

      Peggy, Gloria and she were in Greg’s team, collecting newspapers and jam jars for salvage. Peggy was very round, always puffing, and didn’t like pushing the handcart; Gloria was always sneaking off looking through shop windows, so Maddy and Greg did most of the hard work, dodging dogs, knocking on doors and trying to beat the other gang for the team to collect most. Big Bryan Partridge’s gang cheated by hanging round the back of shops, sneaking cardboard boxes while Mitch Brown and Enid hung round the Three Tuns to cadge bottles, but Miss Blunt liked to have them out of the Vic all day being useful, come rain or shine.

      Maddy loved practising for the school Christmas concert in church, making secret presents for the oldies, and now with Mummy and Daddy coming home it was going to be just perfect. Only one thing was spoiling everything now.

      Last night her dreams were disturbed by bangs and flashes and the flames burning the pub, and she was running to save them but she couldn’t reach them in time and then she woke and her bed was wet again.

      Aunt Plum had put a rubber sheet on her mattress when she first came and told her not to worry, but she woke crying from the dream and crying with shame as she sneaked her sheet and her pyjamas down to the scullery to soak in the sink. She was making extra work and there was a war on and it worried her. Then she’d had to creep back in the dark, feeling up the oak banister rail and curl up with Panda, trying to be brave.

      The silence outside was scary at first but she strained to hear the night sounds, the bleating sheep, the owl hooting, the drone of a night plane or the rattle of the night express in the distance. She was lucky to be safe and warm in this hidy-hole, but until Mummy and Daddy returned it could never be home.

      The old house was friendly in its own way, cluttered with walking sticks and cushions and doggy smells. There were rooms boarded off and shuttered to save on heating. The sun shone through dusty windows, but it gave off little heat now.

      Sometimes she walked up from school, up the Avenue of Tears, wondering if Daddy did the same dawdle with his satchel all those years ago. Why had he never come back here?

      It was something to do with Mummy and the Millses being ordinary and saying ‘bath’ СКАЧАТЬ