Citizen Armies Read online

  Citizen Armies

  Beryl Kingston

  © Beryl Kingston 2019

  Beryl Kingston has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2019 by Endeavour Quill Ltd.

  Endeavour Quill is an imprint of Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter One

  It was chilling to be sitting round the wireless in the middle of a sunny Sunday morning, waiting to be told they were at war again. The room was too ordinary for such a dreadful thing to be happening there. Too ordinary and too peaceful, just a well-used, comfortable, family room: the battered three-piece suite in a welcoming circle round the fireplace, the coal scuttle crouched ready for use, the brass fender dented, the fire irons lolling against each other, their special picture over the mantelpiece. Everything in it had a purpose: shelves in the chimney corners for their precious books and the wireless, a table in the window where the light was best and the girls did their homework, an ancient clock on the mantelpiece to keep the time like the guardian it was. And now this precious time was going to be disjointed – because war was coming and they all knew it.

  Jim Jackson sat in his armchair with his hands on his knees, his face so quiet it was almost impassive. Looking at him, Rosie thought how old he looked, that thick mane of tawny hair greying at his temples and more lines on his face than she’d noticed before. My poor Jim, she thought, he’s only forty-four and he looks old. He works too hard in that market stall of his, that’s the trouble.

  He’d been so quiet yesterday morning, when their Mary went off to school to be evacuated, and he hadn’t really said much since. Of course, she’d had Gracie with her to keep her company until she got on the train and she is sixteen and very sensible… but even so, it’s a hard thing to have to say goodbye to your child, especially when you don’t know where she’s going.

  Gracie Jackson sat on the sofa with an arm round her mother’s shoulders because she could see how anxious she was. She didn’t know which of her parents she felt most sorry for. Dad, because he was being so stoical, or Mum because she looked so upset. None of them said anything, for really, now that the war was so close and children were being evacuated, what could they possibly say?

  The music on the wireless was coming to an end. The clock clunked round to mark a quarter past eleven, the announcer called them to attention for the prime minister. Jim turned up the volume, they listened attentively.

  Chamberlain’s voice was reed-thin and very sad. ‘This morning,’ he said, ‘the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’

  His tired, sombre voice made Rosie’s heart lurch with foreboding. Anguished memories jostled into her mind: finding her poor Jim gaunt and haggard and stinking of dysentery in that hospital bed, and watching him weep with anguish on their wedding night because he was so torn with pity for all the men who’d died. Opening Mrs Taylor’s terrible letter and reading the hammer-blow words that told her Tommy had been killed –her lovely brother Tommy, taken so young. Seeing dear old Mr Feigenbaum’s face crumpling into grief when he told her his son had been killed, too. Nursing her poor mother as she struggled with the Spanish flu and calling that pompous doctor, who took his half a guinea before he’d go upstairs and examine her and then told them there was nothing he could do. Dear God, dear God, are we to have this all again?

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ she said.

  ‘Now,’ Jim told her, practical as always, ‘I’m going to put the kettle on an’ make us a cup-a’-tea.’ Which he did.

  What a dear man he is, Rosie thought, watching him and admiring his calm. If they do start bombing us the way people say they will, he’ll be a splendid air raid warden.

  So the tea was made and they all sat round the kitchen table, ready to enjoy it, but they’d barely drunk half a cup before the aid-raid siren sounded. The noise of its long upward howl was so loud and sudden, it made Rosie jump. She was used to hearing the horrid thing because it had been sounded quite frequently in the last few months so that people knew what it was, but that was a rehearsal –and now they were at war, and this was the real thing.

  ‘Good God alive,’ Jim said, putting his cup in the sink. ‘They’re not bombing us already, surely to God?’ He went out into the hall at once, donned his warden’s white tin hat, picked up his haversack of first-aid kit and slung it over his shoulder. ‘Go to the shelter,’ he said, and was gone.

  ‘I shall finish my tea first,’ Rosie said, determined not to be put out by a siren.

  But Gracie had other ideas and stood up, cup in hand. ‘Better do what he says,’ she advised. ‘We can take it with us. We don’t want to get stuck in the house if they’re going to drop bombs on us.’

  The shelter was a source of constant irritation to Rosie. It annoyed her every time she looked at it. Four years ago, when they moved from their old flat to Coney Street and had a house and a garden all of their own, which was a rare thing in the Borough, she’d set to at once to nurture the soil. It had been horribly unpromising when they moved in; grey and lifeless and littered with broken flower pots, spent matches and crumpled cigarette packets, and it had needed a great deal of care and nourishment. But she’d cleared it and dug it over, and she and Jim had built a sturdy compost heap which she’d turned and aerated at regular intervals. And when the compost was finally ready to use, dark brown and moist and full of nutrients, she’d dug it into the ground she’d set aside for a vegetable patch and fruit bushes, feeling quite the countrywoman again. The moment when she’d planted her first seeds and potatoes and dug in her first soft fruits was such a red-letter day she’d marked it in the calendar, singing with the sheer joy of it.

  And then that wretched ARP had announced that they were going to deliver air raid shelters to all the houses that needed them and had room for them and, although she tried to tell Jim that they really wouldn’t need one, he’d overruled her and the dratted thing had been dug in. Now it bulged in the garden where her vegetables should have been planted, with the good rich earth that Jim had packed down over its reinforced steel roof growing grass as thick as a lawn, and the deck chairs they’d put inside ready for them to sit on spotted with black mould and beginning to split. She didn’t want to sit out there in the dratted thing at all.

  But Gracie was adamant. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Dad’s right. If they’re going to start dropping bombs, we’ll be safer out there than in the house.’

  So although she scowled and grumbled, Rosie took her tea and went out to sit in the shelter and a horrible, dank, uncomfortable place it was. But they’d only been there about half an h
our when the all clear sounded.

  ‘Well, that was quick,’ she said, feeling a bit surprised. ‘How peculiar.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Gracie said, ‘if we wet the pot we can have another cup of tea.’

  But as they walked through the kitchen door, the phone began to ring and her mother forgot about tea and ran into the hall to answer it.

  It was Mary and she sounded quite perky. ‘You’ll never guess where we are,’ she said.

  Rosie was too disgruntled by the shelter to have the patience for guessing games. ‘Well tell me then,’ she said.

  ‘We’re in Hastings. By the seaside. What d’you think of that? It’s no distance at all, is it? And me an’ Margaret have got a billet with a lovely old couple, they’re called Mr and Mrs Patterson, he calls her Maud but I don’t know what his name is because she always calls him Father, which is a bit odd. Anyway, we’ll be all right here. You’ll love them. Mr Patterson’s a bit like Grandpa –he’s got the same sort of white beard and he used to work on a farm, imagine that –only now he’s a baker and works all night and Maud says she’s a fair old cook, which she is, and to tell you she’ll look after us and put roses in our cheeks in no time.’

  What a sauce! Rosie thought, miffed by the suggestion that her Mary looked peaky. But she didn’t say anything. She just passed on the news, without embellishments, to Gracie who was standing beside her, and Gracie blew a kiss at the phone.

  ‘Gracie sends her love,’ Rosie said and changed the subject. ‘How was the journey?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ Mary said. ‘They were good kids, considering. One or two of them were a bit weepy. We jollied them along. But listen. They gave us all a postcard when we got here so’s we could write and tell you where we are. You should get it tomorrow. I’ve put my address on it.’

  She sounded so hopeful that Rosie understood at once what she was hinting at. ‘We’ll come down and see you as soon as we can,’ she promised. ‘Let me know what you want us to bring.’

  ‘Could you bring my sandals for a start?’ Mary said. ‘My school shoes are so hot. And some of my ordinary clothes. I can’t wear uniform all the time or I shall wear it out. I’ll send you a list. Oh! There’s the pips. I’ll have to go.’ And the phone cut out.

  ‘Well at least that’ll be something good to tell your Dad when he gets in,’ Rosie said, walking back into the kitchen. She grimaced at the teapot. ‘That tea’ll be stewed. Let’s make a fresh pot and then I must get the joint in or it’ll never cook.’

  The air raid had been a nuisance, nothing more. They were back to normal now. The sun was shining. Mary was all right.

  *

  Jim came home half an hour later. ‘Dunno what all that was about,’ he said as he hung up his tin hat. ‘Fellers in the wardens’ post reckon they was testing us to see if we was ready.’

  ‘Listen, Jim,’ Rosie said, and told him her news.

  ‘There you are,’ Jim said, grinning at her for the first time that day. ‘She’s a good kid. You needn’t’ve worried. ’

  ‘I needn’t have worried!’ Rosie mocked him. ‘Well I like that! You were the one fretting. You’ve had a face as long as a wet week ever since she walked out that door. Daft ha’porth.’

  ‘We was both worried,’ Jim said easily. ‘Stands to reason. But she’s all right now. She’s fell on her feet. When’ll you go an’ see her?’

  ‘Sunday, I expect,’ Rosie said, putting the potatoes on the table. ‘Or Saturday. Gracie’ll be at the hospital all week, won’t you Gracie?’

  ‘All week and then some,’ Gracie said, making a grimace. ‘They warned us things would hot up once war was declared. I told you. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘You did,’ Rosie said, remembering as she spoke. That damned shelter had put everything out of her head. ‘And I might be at work too. It wouldn’t surprise me. Mr Korda’s bound to press on with The Lion Has Wings for a start. He’s got it all planned, so Hamish was telling me the last time I was in, when we did that commercial. D’you remember? He only needs the money for it, that’s all, an’ Hamish reckons he’ll get that come hell or high water.’

  Jim wasn’t interested in the film or its finances. ‘Did you go in the shelter like I said?’ he asked, unlacing his boots.

  ‘Yes,’ Gracie said, handing him his slippers ‘Course.’

  ‘Was it all right?’

  Rosie was busy peeling the potatoes. ‘It was filthy dirty and stank to high heaven,’ she said. ‘I shall have to give it a scrub round if we’re going to have any more raids. Will you be coming to Hastings with us?’

  ‘If I can,’ Jim said, sighing as he eased off his left boot. ‘I’ll probably be on duty. Depends if we have any more raids. We’ll have to see.’

  *

  There weren’t any more raids for the rest of the week, and rumours began to circulate that the first one had been caused by a stray plane flying in across the Channel from France. But Jim was detailed to be on duty over the weekend even so, with orders to check every house in the street to make quite sure that everyone had black-out curtains to cover their windows. Gracie cycled off to Guy’s Hospital on Monday morning, promising to phone when she knew what time she’d be back for the weekend, Mary sent a letter with a long list of all the things she needed, and the next morning, Rosie had a letter from Denham Studios telling her to report for work at the start of the following week, just as she’d predicted. They might be at war but their lives had a pattern nevertheless.

  She was in the middle of answering the letter when the phone rang. That’ll be Mary, she thought, with a lot more things she wants me to bring. She went to answer it.

  But it was Gracie, to say she was learning so many things about injuries that her head was spinning, and to report that she’d be home late on Saturday afternoon.

  ‘OK,’ Rosie said. ‘In that case, we’ll go down and see our Mary on Sunday. Your Dad’s on duty all weekend so it’ll just be you an’ me. We can take a bag each, can’t we? I’ll start packing them now, I’ve got plenty of time because I shan’t be at work for the rest of this week.’

  But in fact she didn’t have plenty of time, because that afternoon her sister Tess phoned from Chichester, her voice bubbling with excitement.

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a bit of news for you. Our Johnnie’s got himself engaged, at last! What d’you think of that? Ent it a hoot!’

  Rosie laughed out loud. ‘Tell him it’s about time,’ she said. Her baby brother had turned thirty in July and although he and Connie Taylor had been walking out for five years, they’d all given up hope that he’d ever get around to getting married. It was a family joke.

  ‘’pparently they been planning this since Easter, only they never said nothing to no one –daft things –and now with the war started and everything, they thought they’d better get on with it. We was thinking of having a nice dinner to celebrate, nice bit of roast pork perhaps, apple sauce an’ everything. Sorta family get-together. We was thinking tomorrow perhaps. Could you get down, do you think?’

  ‘It’d only be me,’ Rosie said. ‘The others are all at work or evacuated, but I’ll come. Wouldn’t miss it for words.’

  ‘See you tomorrow then,’ Tess said. ‘What fun, eh? Oops, there’s the pips. Dratted things. They don’t give you no time to talk at all.’ And the phone cut out.

  *

  Early the next morning, Rosie packed a bag with fruit for the feast and took a train to Chichester, then another to the familiar halt at Lavant, where she stood on the empty platform and looked across the unchanging fields to the squat, square tower of St Mary’s church where she and Jim had got married all those years ago. And for a few seconds she could almost imagine she’d gone back in time and there were no wars and no air raid sirens and everything was all right.

  The feeling continued as she walked through the same fields. The Downs stretched their green flanks in the distance in their usual expansive way, the birds were singing the same songs, the little hamlet of Bindert
on hadn’t changed by so much as a brick. It still smelt of the same reassuring things: the sharp scent of green leaves, warm earth, cows in the byre. She had to remind herself that the guns were going to be fired again, and men were going to be killed the way poor Tommy had been killed, or injured like her poor Jim, and bombs were going to be dropped on London and people were even going to be killed in their homes this time round. It was all wrong.

  As she turned off the footpath and onto the trampled earth track that led to Binderton, she passed Binderton House, half hidden behind its screen of trees and hedges, and the cottage where she’d been housekeeper for Anthony Eden and his brother all those years ago. What memories that brought back. But then she saw Pa’s cottage set beside the road, with Tess, and Jim’s sister, Kitty, waiting for her at the gate, and quickened her pace.

  ‘The dinner’s all cooking,’ Tess called, grinning. ‘Come on in, quick.’

  ‘I brought you some fruit,’ Rosie said, waving her shopping bag. But Tess and Kitty were already in the cottage and beckoning to her to follow.

  The room was full of people. Tess’ daughter Anna and Connie’s mother were setting the table, and Johnnie and Tess’ husband Sydney were arranging borrowed chairs and putting up the bench for the kids to sit in, the way they always did at family parties. Kitty’s twins were opening beer bottles and looking very pleased with themselves, and Tess’ boy Dickie was passing the bottles across to them. The twins had grown taller since she last saw them and were wearing moleskin trousers and stout boots in the same style as Johnnie’s. A bit of hero worship going on there, Rosie thought. I wonder whether they’ll go farming too. They’ve turned twelve now, so they’ll be leaving school in a couple of years’ time.

  And there was her dear old Pa, sitting at the head of the table, smiling across the room at her. He looked so frail it tugged at her heart to see him. He’s so thin nowadays, she thought, and that hair’s like thistledown. He looks as if a puff of wind could blow him over. She eased through the crowded room to kiss him.