All Fall Down Read online

  By now Dolly was thoroughly out of humour. She experienced a rare moment of self-pity, cut off from the children’s game, from expressing any interest in Meggie Davidson’s love life, which she knew for a fact was the talk of the whole Court, shut out even by her own son. High and dry, left on the shelf like a bit of old rubbish; that’s what happened when a person outlived her usefulness. No good to anyone. Before she knew it she’d have a house full of smelly cats and not a soul to care for her. High and bleeding dry, she thought.

  ‘Here, Dolly, have a bite to eat.’ Annie offered her a beef-paste sandwich on her return journey. ‘And cheer up for God’s sake. It may never happen.’ She asked how she was getting on with the sugar ration, told how she’d had to save her coupons for weeks to make Geoff a nice birthday cake, reminded Dolly to get herself up to the Duke later that evening.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Dolly stalled.

  ‘Come again?’ Annie stared, plate in hand. ‘You never missed a Saturday night yet, so far as I know.’

  As the children’s voices ran through the verses of ‘Oranges and Lemons’ and two of them made an arch for the others to squeeze through, Dolly stood on her doorstep and sighed. Like a barrage balloon deflating, she rocked, then leaned against the doorpost.

  ‘Here comes a candle . . .’

  ‘You ain’t worried by the sirens, surely?’ Annie studied her old sparring partner’s lined face. ‘They ain’t getting you down?’ For months now they’d ignored the false alarms. Few customers at the Duke even bothered to head for Nelson Gardens, though most still brought their gas masks along. Annie knew that both Walter and George came under heavy fire from the likes of Rob, who resented the ARP wardens’ strict enforcement of the blackout. Rob said they were crying wolf and it was time the bloke in the street made a stand. Hitler wasn’t going to launch his bombers on London, whatever people said. He was too busy in France, Holland and North Africa.

  ‘Here comes a chopper . . .’

  ‘No, they ain’t,’ Dolly said sharply.

  ‘Well, it ain’t that carry-on between your Charlie and Madam O’Hagan, is it?’ Annie didn’t like to see Dolly looking so down. ‘You got the brass neck to put up with that surely?’ She too could be candid when necessary.

  Dolly shook her head. ‘Easier said than done.’

  ‘But it ain’t like you to fret over what can’t be helped.’ The squeals of the children broke through. Annie turned to see Meggie trying to haul Geoff and a couple of other lads off Bertie, who’d vanished under a rugby scrum.

  ‘No, but I do wish he’d break off with her though.’ Dolly hated the whispering and sly nudges, and Charlie’s conduct betrayed her own sense of honour.

  ‘She’s got him hooked.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Good and proper.’ Annie had often observed them.

  Again Dolly sighed. ‘What’s he see in her? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  ‘What’s anyone see in anyone? If we could answer that we’d be millionaires.’ She glanced down the street at Sadie, who stood watching the game from her own doorstep. ‘You ain’t alone,’ she told Dolly, relaxing her own rules for once. ‘Sadie spends half her time wondering what drags Meggie across town for a fleeting word from his ma about Ronnie Elliot. What’s he got that’s so special, she wants to know.’

  Dolly nodded. ‘Meggie still stuck on him then?’

  ‘On Ronnie? Like glue. And she’s only met him three or four times, whenever he comes home on leave.’

  They stood watching her extricate Bertie from the scrum, then laugh and swing him round.

  ‘Just like her ma,’ Dolly said. The resemblance was more than just physical. ‘No half-measures.’

  ‘I hope not, for her sake.’ Annie shook herself. ‘You get yourself up the Duke tonight, you hear?’

  ‘I might. What time is it now?’

  ‘Half four.’

  ‘Righto. I’ll sort myself out down here, then I’ll be up.’

  Satisfied, they went their separate ways.

  Half an hour later, all plans for the evening were interrupted by the siren sounding its long, warbling note. Take cover. The children had gone home from the party, the street was quiet.

  ‘Not again.’ Edie closed the ledger on her desk. In the dingy basement the wail of the siren was muffled but unmistakeable. Up on Duke Street the wardens-began to usher ever-more reluctant civilians to the shelters. She went up to help empty the shop of its last customers, as Dorothy nipped down smartly from the flat above, gas mask slung across her shoulder, one of the first to respond to the siren’s urgent call.

  ‘Funny tune,’ she pointed out. ‘They don’t usually sound that thing till after dark.’

  Edie thought so too. ‘Anyone in the paint shop?’ she called through to Lorna. The sight of people moving purposefully along the street, without panic but obviously intent on getting to safety, spurred her on.

  ‘All clear in there.’ Lorna came out, coat over her arm, hard on Dorothy’s heels.

  ‘Where’s Tommy?’

  ‘Out. I ain’t seen him.’ She didn’t stop to elaborate, but left Edie to do one final check through the shop before she locked up and followed. Meanwhile, the thin siren wailed on.

  ‘Don’t rush me, Walt.’ At the taxi depot Rob took his time. The siren had started just as he was about to set out on a call. Now he didn’t know whether or not the punter would want the cab. He swore at Walter. ‘How many times? Don’t rush me!’

  ‘Amy left word. She and Bobby are staying put at the Duke. She wants you there.’ Walter passed on the message, cursing back. ‘Look mate, it’s up to you. I’m just telling you what she said.’

  ‘I’m due out on a call.’ Rob stubbed his cigarette in the ash tray and put on his hat.

  ‘You’re bleeding mad, you are.’

  ‘Says you. Look, Hitler ain’t gonna drop his bombs in broad daylight, is he? Even he ain’t that stupid.’ Rob convinced himself it was another false alarm. He stepped out of the office into the car yard, built into the railway arch at the bottom of Meredith Court.

  ‘Please yourself.’ Walter tightened the strap on his helmet. Until the siren stopped and the all-clear sounded, he must treat the warning as deadly serious. With no more time to waste, he ran out of the depot towards his ARP centre on Union Street, where he met up with George Mann who told him, among other things, that Sadie, Meggie and the boys were already safe under cover in the cellar at the Duke.

  Before they went their separate ways, the two men stood in the schoolyard next to the sandbags stacked high to protect the entrance. They looked into the sky at the greyish barrage balloons shifting and rolling on their moorings, at the otherwise empty space. Still the siren whined.

  ‘What do you think? False alarm?’ Walter went by the usual pattern of events. Soon the warbling siren would die, replaced by a long, unchanging note; the all-clear.

  George shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t like the feel of this one.’

  They listened intently for the drone of engines, the bombers flying in formation with their deadly cargo. Every time they dreaded the worst, hoped for the best, thought of a thousand reasons why the enemy wouldn’t attack.

  Tight-lipped, George Mann started out on his two-hour ARP shift at the Commercial Dock. The docks would be Jerry’s prime target if me warning was genuine, but no one knew how accurate their bombers would be; that was why you couldn’t be too careful. George stopped to direct two strangers to the nearest shelter. Quickly the street emptied and traffic came to a halt.

  Then the planes came, the heavy-bodied Heinkels with their stuttering propellers, their black crosses easily visible on each wing-tip. They came low and loud in a dreadful rumble of engines over the Isle of Dogs, discharging their bombs.

  George heard the first thuds, saw the first balls of flame rise skywards. The bombs dropped singly at first, then in sticks of half a dozen, raining down on the docksides, setting fire to nearby piles of timber which soon blazed
out of control. He ran to telephone HQ for a fire engine to come quickly to the woodyard. On the way he had to duck the flaming, floating skin of a barrage balloon, blown out of the sky in a roar of helium, descending in ghastly futility. Everywhere the firebombs rained down, fire engines rushed to the scene, brought to a standstill by a toppling crane, a road blocked by rubble, yet another direct hit.

  As the bomb-sticks streaked out of the sky and the white exhausts of the planes streamed across the wide blue space, anti-aircraft guns sprang into action. George shuddered as the shattering rattle almost split his eardrums. He had to stop and lean against a wall, hands over his head. But he felt nothing, not even fear. This was beyond words; a total, mindless destruction. Up above, one of the white exhausts turned pitch black as the plane caught fire and spiralled down somewhere north of the river.

  All around fires burned, the fire engines were overwhelmed, the stirrup-pumps of the wardens hopelessly inadequate. This was worse than anything anyone could have imagined. He ran back to the dockside to lend a hand in setting up emergency pumps, almost unaware by now that the bombs still dropped, that the planes still came over in droves, bank after bank of them. Close by, a tall crane crumpled and collapsed in a roar and shower of sparks onto the blazing woodyard. A stick of bombs landed just behind the hoses and silhouetted the figures of the fire-fighters, setting up a string of small magnesium fires in the Craters they’d made. George went to put them out with buckets of earth, finding that they would flare up bright again under the heap of soil, until at last he defeated them; puny effort amidst a holocaust. He drew black smoke into his lungs, rasping and coughing as he dodged another mighty shower of sparks.

  There was a cry; a fireman fell into darkness from the top of an extended ladder against a backdrop of red flames. ‘Fetch a searchlight!’ someone cried. More men ran, the anti-aircraft guns rattled on hopelessly, their own shrapnel raining back down on those who fought from the ground.

  For a second George plunged with the plummeting man into the depths of horrified despair. This was London, his home, his people under attack. No longer the mud and barbed wire in the trenches of Flanders, no longer soldiers with guns in the firing-line, but his wife, her family, the children. He prayed they were safe as a high explosive bomb plunged into a warehouse, another direct hit, another deafening roar, a moment suspended in time before the walls fell out like a house of cards in a storm of flame and then, the awful shifting and scraping of debris in the dusty aftermath, the crashing of beams, the final collapse of a doorway, the splintering of glass.

  At the end of his patrol George made his slow way in the dark to his HQ on Union Street, through a new landscape of craters and ruined buildings. If he raised his head from the dust and smoke, all he saw was a red glow over the river. At his feet a hole ten feet deep had swallowed a black cab, while the mangled front of a bus teetered on the opposite brink. He thought of Rob, then switched him out of his mind. It was as much as he could do to get himself back to base to report to his senior warden.

  The siren started at five, and by ten minutes past Ernie had the boys safe in the cellar. He shot down the Court to number 32 to round them up, only to find Geoff protesting that it was his birthday and he didn’t want to go down a rotten shelter. Sadie looked harassed, and Meggie was all too ready to believe that this was another false alarm. But Ernie knew the routine, he gave them no option.

  ‘Air raid.’ He burst through the front door and called down the hallway. ‘Bertie, Geoff, air raid!’

  Geoff scrambled to meet him. ‘It’s my birthday, Uncle Ern. I ain’t going down no shelter.’

  For answer Ernie picked him up and tucked him under one arm, legs kicking, V-necked jumper riding up from his waist as he wriggled. ‘Get the bag, Bertie.’

  Bertie knew not to argue. He hopped upstairs quick as a flash to collect the bag containing two sets of pyjamas, their slippers and a book each to read.

  ‘Bring the cake,’ Sadie told Meggie. ‘Now stop going on, Geoff, if you know what’s good for you.’

  Soon they were ready and running up the street, the siren wailing but the sky so far was clear of enemy planes. They met Amy and Bobby in the entrance to the public bar. Together they piled into the cellar with Annie and Hettie; that made nine of them, snug on the mattresses that the women had provided to make their refuge more comfortable, able to brew up on a primus stove when they felt like it, surrounded by their own things and with a degree of privacy unknown at the shelter in Nelson Gardens.

  ‘I hope Rob makes it.’ Amy’s concern was shared by the rest. ‘Knowing him, he’ll take his time.’

  ‘Don’t worry, he can take care of himself.’ Annie tried to keep everyone calm; the boys were still excited from the birthday fun; Amy on edge over Rob. ‘Bobby, you light up the primus, we could all do with a cuppa. Ernie, you push that mattress up against the door, there’s a good chap.’ As soon as he’d done that,’ the sound of the siren would be deadened and they would get some peace. Fresh air filtered in down the ramp from pavement to cellar, where the beer barrels were rolled up and down. Its exit was carefully boarded and sandbagged, but still there was enough air to keep them from suffocating. Annie’s bustle and organization kept them in line. Soon the tea was brewed and Bertie and Geoff, happy on their makeshift bunk, mouths full of birthday cake, heads stuck in their books.

  When the bombs dropped, a distant thud that broke through the sirens, Amy’s heart shot into her mouth. ‘He hasn’t!’ she stuttered, meaning Hitler – horrid little man.

  ‘He blinking well has.’ Annie’s eyes widened as she wielded a brown teapot. ‘He’s gone and done it!’

  As they strained to listen, Sadie prayed that the bombs would drop on some other street, or harmlessly in the river. She couldn’t imagine that they might emerge to a scene of destruction on their own doorstep, even though bombs thudded and fire engines raced against the background of anti-aircraft fire, so close it almost might be directly overhead along the well-worn tram-tracks of Duke Street, or down Paradise Court.

  ‘Chin up.’ Hettie sat quietly beside her. ‘We could be worse off.’

  ‘Yes, like Walter and George.’ Sadie’s hands shook, though she tried not to let the boys see.

  ‘Maybe it sounds worse than it is.’ Hettie cast around for small comfort. No one knew yet how bad the Blitz might be; maybe they’d get off lightly once Jerry found out they were prepared with guns on the ground, the mighty barrage balloons and searchlights that pierced the sky and picked out enemy aircraft.

  But when Rob finally made it home, after dark, when the bombs had been falling for three or four hours, his face told them the worst. ‘It’s bleeding murder up there,’ he said, still breathless. ‘It ain’t gas we’ve got to worry about, it’s fire-bombs. Hundreds of them. The whole place is alight.’

  Amy had to check that he had survived unscathed. ‘Trust you, Rob Parsons,’ she said time and time again, flicking ash and dust from his navy-blue coat. ‘You’ll give me a heart attack one of these days.’

  Annie handed him fresh tea, while Ernie barricaded them safe and sound with the mattress. ‘I was up on Tower Bridge,’ Rob said. ‘I had to leave the cab there and walk back. Everywhere you look there’s this dark red glow, and all the warehouses fit up like bonfire night. We’re sitting ducks for them Luftwaffe pilots, believe you me.’

  His bad news fell into silence. Sadie tucked Geoff up tight in his temporary bed.

  ‘He’s the only one who’ll get any sleep tonight,’ Amy whispered, her nerves taut with listening. All night the bombardment continued. By dawn, when the long, single note on the siren signalled the all-clear, East Enders knew what it was to live in controlled terror, helpless under the bomb blast, coining up out of the shelters to houses blown apart like matchboxes, to homes which lay in ruins.

  Tommy O’Hagan’s first thought when the siren started at teatime on Saturday was for Edie. He was caught out far from his own patch, seeing about some scrap iron that he might be able to
sell on to the Ministry. He had two choices; to dive down the nearest shelter at Liverpool Street, or risk an attempt to get home and check on the shop. This was how he phrased it even to himself, but the impulse to go back was prompted by concern for Edie. He knew she would have to wait behind for the shop to empty before she could lock up, which could mean her being stranded if the warning were to turn into reality. Without another thought, Tommy waved down a cab and headed for Duke Street.

  But by the time he’d run the gamut of what Jerry could chuck at them, the incendiaries and heavy mortars causing the buildings to crumble, smashing mains that gushed water and gas out of raw craters, the sky was dark and the streets deserted. The low roar of planes continued but the searchlights scarcely pierced the black haze. Nothing could get through, so Tommy took to his own two feet, past wrecked and twisted tram tracks, blazing cars; one with its driver slumped against the wheel, still recognizably human but beyond all help. He hurried on, came onto Duke Street at the Meredith Court end and ran to the post office where Edie had her flat.

  What he saw struck him stone cold. Instead of the neat red post office building, with its three floors of apartments, there was a shell. Not a window was left in place, much of the masonry on the bottom storey had been blasted out and, in the glare of a nearby fire, he saw the windows gape black and sooty. But in comparison with the offices next door, the post office had got off lightly. There, where people sat all day typing and answering the telephone, was a jagged gap; four storeys had imploded to the ground in a heap of bricks and plaster dust, the slope of a grey slate roof, sitting at an odd angle where it had fallen, almost whole, like a collapsing umbrella. The ends of rooms appeared in view, fireplaces and chimney breasts, a wall light, the remnants of a bookcase.

  Tommy didn’t stop to think whether Edie could possibly still be in the flat. He had to make doubly sure by going to look. The door of the post office had blown off its hinges, so he stepped over it and up the back stairs; the way he usually took up to her second storey flat. The staircase at least was intact, though the corridors billowed with smoke from a small incendiary bomb, still alight in a room off a first floor landing. He went in and hauled a mattress from the bed, shielding his face from the smoke, throwing the mattress on the glowing floorboards to smother the fire. Then he ran on upstairs, calling Edie’s name, all caution, all common sense gone. How could she still be here? Still, he had to find out.