Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ soon, there won’t be the people left to fight Hitler off if he does try to take a pop at us.

      Her granddad hated it as much as anyone else, but he was also dreading the rationing that was being introduced in the new year.

      I know, though, it will be a fairer system and much better than the last war when the rich bought all before them, so that in some places there was little left in the shops for the rest of us. Anyway, I suppose I must put up with it like everyone else. If you utter a word in complaint about any damned thing these days you are reminded there is a war on. I mean, as if you are likely to forget.

      I’ve had word that we are having our Anderson shelter delivered next week. We have the pit already dug and once the shelter is up I will make it as snug as I can for the two of us. Then Hitler can do his worst and we’ll be as safe as houses.

      Now, Molly, I want you to listen to me. I never wanted you to go to Ireland in the first place and I know that you would be well aware of that. And you also know that in the normal way of things I would welcome you back tomorrow, but you are safer where you are and I want you to stay put until this little lot is over. Me and Kevin are all right, but you would be put to work in a munitions factory or something like that, and those are the places that will be right in the firing range if any attacks come. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to either of you children.

      Molly could understand her granddad’s concern and was glad too that he was having the Anderson shelter delivered at last. She might not be that ecstatic about the two of them burrowing inside a tin shack buried in the garden but she had to admit that if the raids came, it had to be a safer place to bide than out in the open with no protection at all.

      Spring came early in 1940, and, even though she longed to go back to Birmingham, by May Molly thought the countryside had never looked better. The sunshine lent a glow to everything, and many of the trees were heavy with fragrant blossom. Added to this, all the crops were ripening very satisfactorily in the fields. The war seemed a million miles away.

      And yet just the previous evening she had heard a man on the wireless tell them of the bombing of Rotterdam that left nine hundred people dead. Molly felt sick, for she knew that this was Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, which the Germans had promised was coming and she also knew what had been done in Rotterdam could be achieved just as well in Birmingham, London or anywhere else they chose.

      No one was surprised when Belgium and Holland surrendered, and then towards the end of the month they heard of the defeat of France, the Allied troops trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk and the frantic efforts to rescue them.

      ‘Don’t the people in Birmingham tell you any of this?’ Tom asked Molly one day in early June as they did the milking together.

      ‘If they try, like they did in the beginning, then the censor cuts it out,’ Molly said. ‘Now they stick to general things like how hard it is to make the rations stretch and how they have food programmes on the wireless every day and between films in the cinema, and there are hints and tips in the newspapers and magazines. Granddad has taken on an allotment with Hilda’s husband, Alf, though he says he now has a fine crop of potatoes growing in the earth he piled on top of the Anderson shelter.’

      ‘Which they haven’t had any occasion to use yet.’

      ‘No, thank God,’ Molly said fervently. ‘It is bound to come, though. The government have recommended putting tape crisscrossing the windows to prevent flying glass in the event of an attack, and the blackout is as stringent as ever, though they are now allowing shielded torches and shielded light on cars and other vehicles.’

      ‘That must help.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Molly said with a wry smile. ‘It would, I think, if the batteries for the torches were easier to get hold of. Granddad said he reckons that he could get hold of the crown jewels with less bother. I mean,’ she added, ‘there isn’t much light to be had from the stars and the moon in the smoky Birmingham skies.’

      ‘And that might be just as well, when all is said and done,’ Tom said.

      Molly looked at Tom, but didn’t say anything. She was no fool and knew exactly what he was meaning, for a full moon shining brightly in the sky, as she had often seen it in Ireland, would surely light the way for any enemy planes determined to empty their load over Britain.

      Tom saw the look on her face and wished he had kept his big mouth shut.

      In mid-July, platoons of soldiers from the Irish Army arrived in Buncrana. It was strange to see soldiers thronging the streets, filling the marketplace and a fair few drinking at the hotel where Molly would meet up with her uncle on Saturday before walking back into the town.

      ‘Do you know what they are doing here?’ she asked Tom as they set off the first day.

      ‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘Me and Jack had a fine chat with them. Apparently, they are here to guard Ireland’s neutrality.’

      Molly stared at Tom open-mouthed. ‘You can’t be serious?’

      ‘That’s what they said.’

      ‘Yes, but, Uncle Tom, Hitler’s armies have goose-stepped throughout half of the world and emerged victorious. What earthly chance have a few soldiers got against such an army?’

      Tom shrugged. ‘Better than doing nothing, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it is even more important now.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because the navy has commandeered Derry and that’s awfully close. They say Lough Foyle is filling up with naval craft, and the docks at Derry are now known as HMS Ferret. The soldier we spoke to said the British are building new airfields all over the six counties.’

      ‘For what, exactly?’

      ‘Well, I think it is all hush-hush,’ Tom said. ‘These soldiers weren’t told it chapter and verse or anything, but these things get about. One fella says they will be doing convoy duty, trying to protect the merchant ships that will sail up to meet them. Good thing too, I’d say, especially as the southern ports are having a time of it just now.’

      They were too. Night after night they heard on the wireless of the blitzing of those coastal towns. Molly felt sorry for the families suffering from such a battering, and Hitler massing his troops just across the channel.

      Churchill claimed ‘the Battle of Britain’ was about to begin, which he said would be fought mainly in the air. He warned those in Britain to brace themselves for he was certain the whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon them. Molly knew that was right, for though the threat of invasion seemed less, almost every night Hitler’s bombers began attacking London and other areas.

      ‘Birmingham isn’t mentioned,’ Tom said one night as he turned the wireless set off. ‘It just mentions a Midland town and that could be anywhere.’

      ‘I am pretty certain that it is Birmingham,’ Molly said. ‘Remember the raid last month that the newscaster said took the roof off the Market Hall in the Bull Ring in the city centre, and the later one that did damage to the church there, St Martin’s? Well, Birmingham’s Bull Ring has both places and it would be too much of a coincidence for another Midland town to have exactly the same buildings, I would have thought. Believe me, Uncle Tom, Birmingham is getting its share too.’

      The nightly raids seemed to increase through October, and then the letters СКАЧАТЬ