Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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Molly wasn’t the only one giving small yelps of terror or shaking like a leaf. The heart-rending screams and cries from the frightened babies and small children rose above everything.
The air grew muggy and stale, and Molly wasn’t sure how long they had been entombed when just above them there was one terrific explosion. Even the seasoned Brummies, well used to raids, began to wail and whimper in fear. The wardens played their torches around the roof and walls and Molly saw that the walls were bulging in an alarming way, while the roof was creaking ominously. She suddenly felt her eyes gritty and tasted brick dust in her mouth, and by the light of the warden’s torch she saw the mortar seeding from between the bricks holding up the roof trickling down on those below.
Suddenly the shelter door was opened and a warden popped his head through. ‘Get everyone out,’ he cried, ‘and quick. This place is in danger of collapse.’
There was pandemonium and panic. People were shouting and shrieking as they fought to get out first, elbowing others out of the way. Ray, however, took hold of Molly’s arms and pushed his way through the fear-driven crowd until they were out on the street, where the air smelled of smoke and gas, and scarlet flames licked the night sky. It was no safer, of course, and the warden was trying to direct the distressed people to the nearest alternative shelter. Molly stood a little way from the sinking, collapsing shelter and saw nearby buildings that seemed to crumple to the ground in a mass of rubble and masonry. The tramlines were lifted and buckled, and there were great craters in the road.
Above, the planes were all around her like menacing black beetles, flying in formation, droning like thunder, and the barking of guns, which she presumed were trying to bring them down, was incessant. She actually saw the bomb doors of the first planes open, saw the black harbingers of death toppling from them before Ray took one arm and Charlie the other as they hurried her through the streets after the warden trying to lead them to a place of safety.
Molly noted with some surprise the devastation around her as they leaped over masonry that had spilled onto the pavements, and avoided potholes, dribbling hosepipes and bleeding sandbags. By the time they reached the nearest shelter, which was in a cellar, Molly felt rigid with fear and quite surprised that she was alive and in one piece. She felt she would always be grateful to Ray and Charlie because she knew she wouldn’t have managed half so well without them.
Throughout the rest of that raid, Molly trembled and shivered in abject fear, jumping with any louder than usual bangs, and she bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood. In the end Ray put his arms around her. In fact she snuggled in further, seeking comfort, and Ray held her shaking form and encouraged her to tell him what she was doing in Birmingham.
‘It might help,’ he said. ‘Take your mind off things.’
Ray had another reason for asking. Molly had all the hallmarks of a runaway – there had certainly been no one waiting for her with arms outstretched at the station – and yet there was something about that theory that didn’t quite gel. He had to be sure there would be no marauding father after him, no policeman feeling his collar.
‘I doubt there is anything that I can say or do that would take my mind off what is going on,’ Molly said, flinching at the noise of an eruption too close for comfort, ‘but I will tell you if you like.’ She intended to tell him a diluted version of what had happened to her, but Ray was too skilful at asking questions for her to do that unless she had been downright rude, and how could she be to someone who had been so kind to her? When she began it just spilled out of her, particularly the concern she had for her little brother and how important it was to find him as quickly as possible.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ray said. ‘I will help you do that, if you like. Though you were born and bred in Birmingham you were a child when you left it five years ago and the place is so different now.’
‘I think you are one of the kindest men I have ever met,’ Molly said sincerely. ‘And I thank God I met up with you this night. And I would be grateful for any help you can give me.’
Ray smiled to himself, but he had noticed the slur in Molly’s voice and how her eyes were glazed with fatigue. He said, ‘You look all in, if you don’t mind me saying so. Why don’t you lie against me and try to sleep?’
Molly didn’t argue. She was very tired, though she doubted she would sleep, but it was a relief just to lean against Ray and close her heavy eyes, and quite soon afterwards the exhausting events of that very long day overcame her and she fell into a deep sleep, despite the noise of the continued bombardment.
Ray, watching her sleep, told himself he was on to a winner this time. This Molly had no mother, nor father either, in fact no one but a young boy to miss her at all. It was just perfect, especially when he found out where the boy was and ensured that he wouldn’t pose any sort of problem to them.
Molly was woken with a jerk by another ear-splitting siren and, seeing her alarm, Ray gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘That’s the all clear, sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘It’s all over, at least till the next time.’
Molly hadn’t been the only one who had fallen asleep. Around her, others were waking stiff and cold, and began making their way to the door. Molly felt sorry for the mothers trying to rouse still drowsy children, or soothing fractious ones while they gathered their belongings around them.
And then, she suddenly realised, apart from the bag that she had hung from her shoulder, she had nothing with her at all. After a cursory look around she said, ‘Where’s my case?’
Though it had always been part of the plan to dispose of the case, like they always did, Charlie looked contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. When they told us to get out of that shelter and fast, the case just went out of my head.’
Molly could quite see how that would be. She had been frightened witless herself, but everything she owned was in that case. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Really, I do understand, it’s just …’
‘We’ll go back that way,’ Ray promised, ‘and see if we can salvage anything, if you like, but just now I could murder a bacon sandwich.’
‘So could I,’ Molly said. ‘But where will you get one of those?’
‘WVS van,’ Ray said. ‘Course, they don’t always have bacon, but toast and tea would fill a corner, I bet.’
‘You bet right. Lead me to it,’ Molly said.
She found it just as Ray said. Only a street away was a van where two motherly, smiling women dispensed sympathy and humour with the tea. They were doing quite a trade, both with the weary homeless and the rescue workers. The orange sky lit up the early morning like daylight and Molly could see that almost all were covered with a film of dust, on their faces and in their hair. She guessed she was the same, and that her hat was probably ingrained with the stuff. They did have bacon butties, quite the nicest Molly had ever tasted, and these were washed down with hot, sweet tea. After, Molly, who had been feeling quite frightened and tearful, was more in control.
That was until she surveyed the mound that had been where they had taken shelter earlier that night and knew she would have been killed if they hadn’t got out. What was her life in comparison to a caseful of clothes? Nothing, of course, but what was she to wear – and in fact where was she to sleep off what was left of the night?
Ray surveyed the mound with satisfaction, knowing the case would be crushed beyond recognition. And he knew the site would remain untouched: there wasn’t the manpower to clear mounds of rubbish that were no danger to anyone. It was all they could do to rescue those trapped, and so this time Ray didn’t even have the bother of throwing the case in the cut, like he’d had to do a couple of times.
He said to Molly, ‘So, what are your plans now?’
‘I haven’t any,’ Molly said. ‘Not now, I mean. I had intended looking for lodgings just for a few days while I found out a few things and, I hoped, located Kevin, but then there was the raid and all, and now I don’t really know.’
‘Well, you can’t go looking for lodgings at this time of night – or