Goodnight Sweetheart. Annie Groves

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СКАЧАТЬ been crying and looking every bit as upset as the little girl she had just tried to comfort. But it was all being done for the children’s own good – to keep them safe if the cities were bombed.

      Molly tried to remind herself that she was here to do a job and that she must not let herself give in to her emotions. It wasn’t easy, though, especially when one poor mother handed over her little girl wearing a heavy metal calliper on a badly twisted leg, and begged Molly, ‘She has to have her leg rubbed every night with warm olive oil. I’ve written it down on her label, look. You’ll mek sure that whoever she goes to knows that, won’t you, miss?’

      ‘I’ll do my best,’ Molly promised her gently.

      Every child had been given a block of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and a bottle of Edmondson’s lemonade for the journey, but some of the children hadn’t been able to wait and had already consumed the whole lot.

      She had lost count already of the number of times a small hand had tugged urgently on her skirt and a small voice had piped up shrilly, ‘Please, miss, I want the lav,’ or, ‘Please, miss, me bruvver’s peed his pants,’ or, ‘Please, miss, our kid’s bin sick.’ It made Molly think again of her mother – all the tiny, thankless tasks she’d done for her and June, and how they had fallen to her father after her death.

      She had been thinking of her mother such a lot since they had found her wedding dress. How would she have felt if she were alive? She would have been worrying about the war like they all were. Would she have been proud of Molly for joining the WVS; might she have even joined with her and persuaded June to do the same? Molly sensed that their mother’s presence in their lives would have had a softening effect on June’s sometimes determined nature. She would certainly have shared in June’s pride that Frank was doing his duty. Their mother would have liked Frank – Molly knew that instinctively. But what would she have thought of Johnny? Would she have understood how confused Molly felt, or would she have taken June’s side and told Molly that she was being silly? Molly liked to think that she would have understood.

      The day seemed to be passing in an unending toing and froing, but eventually the supervisors came round to collect the lists and to announce that they would shortly be leaving for Lime Street.

      ‘There seem to be a lot of gaps on my list,’ Molly apologised.

      ‘I’m afraid that rather a lot of the mothers have changed their minds at the last minute,’ the supervisor told her, as the children were marshalled into a crocodile, ready, along with their teachers and helpers like Molly, to walk to Lime Street station to wait there for the train that would take them to North Wales.

      Molly was just about to leave the school when she caught sight of Sally Walker. She looked pale and unwell, one hand pressed into her lower back as though to ease away an ache.

      Hurrying over to her, she exclaimed, ‘Sally, aren’t you coming?’

      Women who were pregnant, or who had babies and very young children, had been offered the opportunity to be evacuated. The more well-to-do could afford to rent houses for themselves, but for most people evacuation meant having to live under someone else’s roof, and very few women were keen to do that, especially when it meant moving away from their own homes and their families.

      Sally shook her head. ‘No. I want to stay here just in case my Ronnie gets leave unexpected, like. Besides, I don’t fancy having to live alongside strangers, and having to ask every time I wanted to mek meself a brew and all that. I like ’aving me own home and me own things around me.’ Her eyes were swollen and she had obviously been crying. ‘I came down with me neighbour. She’s sending her kiddies off. Bloody awful it is, an’ all, poor little mites.’

      ‘It’s the best thing for them, Sally,’ Molly tried to comfort her.

      ‘What would you know?’ Sally demanded sharply. ‘You haven’t got any kiddies.’ She winced as she spoke and Molly asked her worriedly if she was all right.

      ‘Stop goin’ on, will yer, Molly, and leave us alone,’ Sally snapped.

      The walk down to Lime Street seemed to take for ever, and some of the younger children had already started to flag. In an attempt to cheer them up and spur them on, their teacher started to sing loudly ‘Sing As We Go’, urging the children to join in. One little girl, too exhausted to walk any further, suddenly dropped down on her bottom, sobbing. Molly bent down and picked her up. She was wet through and crying, and Molly comforted her as best she could, wondering how she would be feeling if she did have children.

      Had it really only been a week ago that she had been dancing and laughing at Grafton Dance Hall? Now, watching Liverpool’s children wrenched away from their homes and their mothers, she couldn’t believe she would ever laugh again.

      ‘Miss, will they have pictures where we’re going?’ one little boy asked her. ‘Only I ain’t going if’n I can’t see Flash Gordon of a Saturday no more.’

      ‘I’m sure there will be a cinema,’ Molly reassured him, treating his concern seriously. ‘And there’ll be lots of places for you to play as well, nice green fields, and fresh air.’

      ‘Fields?’ one sharp-faced boy asked her warily. ‘What’s them, then?’

      These were city children – some of them slum children, Molly reminded herself as she struggled to find the right words to calm their fears.

      ‘Fields are where farmers grow things for us to eat,’ she told them. ‘I dare say that those of you who get billeted with farmers will be able to collect your own eggs from the farmer’s wife’s hens. My auntie has a farm and she used to let me do that when I was your age.’

      ‘Will there be ponies for us to ride?’ one little girl asked eagerly.

      ‘Maybe …’ Molly answered her cautiously, adding firmly, ‘I expect you’ll all make lots of new friends at your new schools.’

      Although some of the children accepted her words happily, she could see that others were not so easily convinced or appeased, and she could hardly blame them.

      Once they reached Lime Street station, the combined noise of so many people packed into one place was such that Molly was tempted to put her hands over her ears. She had never seen so many children. They were everywhere – crying, sobbing, shouting, throwing tantrums, or else completely silent, as if they had been struck dumb by the trauma they were enduring, whilst mothers wept, and harassed officials did their best to make some sort of order out of the chaos. The trains that were to take the children away stood silently beside the platforms, their doors firmly closed. No one would be allowed to board until they were queuing up in the right order, their names ticked off the appropriate list. So much careful planning had gone into this operation to protect the country’s young, but right now all Molly could think of was its emotional cost to the families involved.

      A small boy tugged on her sleeve, and demanded, ‘Did all these kids get a bar o’ chocolate, miss?’

      ‘I expect so,’ she murmured. She knew that from now on the smell of Dairy Milk was always going to remind her of this heart-rending scene.

      Behind the barriers, mothers were standing ten deep, calling out their children’s names, and as Molly watched, one young woman reached over and grabbed her child, refusing to give her back.

      ‘This is so awful,’ Molly whispered to Anne, who had just materialised at her side.

      ‘It’s СКАЧАТЬ