Orphans of War

She’d eaten her sandwiches up ages ago and now she was down to the last dregs of the medicine bottle of milk, but there was one bit of chocolate stuck to the pocket lining of her gaberdine school mac. Ivy had shoved the bar in her hand when she saw her off at the station and made sure the guard knew she must be put off at Leeds.

She felt stupid with a label tied round her button and pulled it off, not wanting to be a parcel to be delivered to Brooklyn Hall, Sowerthwaite. What sort of village hall was that: a tin shack with corrugated roof?

The carriages were packed with troops straight off the docks, who slept in the corridors and played cards, the blue cigarette smoke in the carriage like thick fog.

In her pocket was a telegram from Mummy promising they’d get back as soon as they could and asking her to be polite to Grandma Belfield and Aunt Prunella until they came to collect her. She had slept with that letter under her pillow. She could smell Mummy’s perfume on the paper and it gave her such comfort.

If only she’d met her aunt before and if only she knew where she’d be sleeping tonight. If only Mummy and Daddy could fly back at once–but they would have to go by sea and round the Cape into the Atlantic, which were dangerous water.

Maddy kept feeling so tired and sad inside since that terrible night, it was as if her feet were being dragged through heavy mud. Every little thing was an effort–brushing her teeth, washing out her clothes. Now she was wetting the bed every night and it was so embarrassing to wake up and find her pyjamas all sodden. Ivy tried hard not to be cross with her but she got so upset. Mrs Sangster would be glad to see the back of her after that.

Now this train was taking her to live with strangers in Yorkshire; a place full of chimneys and mills and cobblestones and grime. She’d seen it on the pictures. The industrial north was near where the famous Gracie Fields lived and made her films. There were terrible towns full of misery, poor children in shawls who crawled barefoot under the weaving looms. The factories belched out smoke that blackened all the houses and it rained every day like in ‘the dark satanic mills’ of Blake’s poem.

No wonder Daddy ran away from such terrible surroundings. Now that towns and cities were being blitzed, other children were being evacuated out to the country. There were lines of them on each platform with labels on their coats, all of them carrying brown parcels, with stern-faced teachers ordering them up and down and ticking off lists.

Maddy sat in her school hat and coat, trying to be patient, but she could hear the noise outside the corridors of teachers telling their charges to hurry up and keep in line. She was squashed like a sardine in a tin, hoping the guard would remember to tell her when they reached Leeds Station, as all the signs had been taken from the platforms as a precaution in case the enemy invaded.

Peering out of her porthole only confirmed her worst fears as she saw rows of brick houses and chimneys poking up everywhere–no green fields and forests in view.

Beggars can’t be choosers, she sighed, trying to put on a brave face. She clutched Panda as if her life depended on it, her black curls poking from under her school panama hat. At least she was wearing her glasses and the eye patch was switched over to her bad eye so no one would see her squint. Her jaw was stiff and sometimes she kept shivering for no reason. She wished Mummy was here to cuddle her.

If she shut her eyes she could see Dolly Bellaire dressed for a concert in a midnight-blue sequined gown with her little fur shoulder shrug. She could almost smell the rich perfume of roses and the taste of Mummy’s lipstick when she kissed her good night. Her hair smelled of setting lotion and her fingernails were crimson. She always looked so glamorous.

At this moment, though, Maddy would have given up her new ration books just to have an ordinary mother in a tweed suit and jacket, with a headscarf and wicker basket, going off to the shops, and a dad who worked in an office and went on the eight ten each morning into Piccadilly. But it was not to be, and she must be strong for both of them.

I need the bathroom she thought, but didn’t want the soldiers to know she was dying to pee.

‘Will you show me where the wash room is?’ she whispered to a woman sitting opposite, who smiled but shook her head.

‘We’ll both lose our seats if I do. It’s down the corridor at the end. Ask the guard.’ The thought of asking a man horrified Maddy. ‘I won’t bother,’ she snapped back. She didn’t like pushing past all those rough uniforms sitting behind the door but she didn’t want to wet herself again.

‘Will you save my seat then?’ she asked the woman, who nodded.

There was a queue when she got there and the smell of the toilet made her feel sick, but then the train stopped at a big station. Men jumped off, others clambered aboard and a woman in a funny hat shoved two children up the steps. She hugged them tightly, big tears rolling down her face.

‘Now you be good, do you hear? This big girl will take you to her teacher and look after you. This is Gloria and this is Sid. There’s a letter in her pocket. She don’t read yet.’ The lady was crying and when the whistle screeched she jumped down and ran down the platform away from the train.

The two children started to howl. The little boy was screaming for his mummy. The woman was sobbing and ran down the platform again, waving to the train as they started to chug away. The children were making an almighty racket. Maddy didn’t know what to do.

‘Shush!’ she said to the boy in the balaclava and the girl in the pixie hood. ‘You can come with me. Take my hand.’ They stared up at her with snot running down their noses. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Gloria Conley…and he’s Sid,’ said the little girl. She looked to be about eight or nine, with the brightest red hair Maddy had ever seen.

It had all happened so quickly she wondered if she’d dreamed it up. The little boy was the size of one of the tiny tots in the Sunday school class and Maddy was cross they’d been left alone. She would have to find the teacher they belonged to and get them sorted out. Perhaps the others had got on at the other end of the train and in the rush they’d got separated. It was all very strange.

Sid began to howl, ‘I want my mam!’ Gloria was trying to be brave and Maddy knew just how that felt, not having a mummy to hold on to. There was something in the look on that mother’s face that worried her. Granny Mills would’ve known what to do. She would have to take them back with her first and then get them sorted out.

Maddy sat with Sid on her knee and Gloria snuggled up to her, squashing the soldier almost out of his seat. He was not amused. She counted every stop in her head so that she could tell the teacher just where they had got on. There were no signs on the station to help her.

Why had their mother not come with them? They were awfully small to be on their own but then she herself was not yet ten, and travelling unaccompanied. At St Hilda’s they never went anywhere without a chaperone. School seemed so far away now, another lifetime ago.

The children were neatly dressed in short woolly coats. They had gym shoes on their feet but their hair smelled of dried-up pee and boiled vegetables. Maddy tried not to wrinkle up her nose and hoped it wasn’t long to Leeds.

‘Where’re you going to?’ she asked.

‘Dunno,’ said Gloria. Maddy decided Gloria was a lovely name and she had a mop of glorious red ringlets even curlier than her own. There were freckles on her nose and cheeks and she had the greenest eyes, like a cat. Sid was just the same, only smaller.

‘You’ve got funny glasses,’ said Gloria, pointing at her patch.

‘What’s your other name again?’ Maddy said, ignoring her comment.

‘Burryl.’

‘No, your surname, Beryl what? I’m Madeleine Angela Belfield but you can call me Maddy.’

‘Just Gloria Burryl Conley.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Dunno…’

‘You must have an address. What town…what street?’

‘Elijah Street, by the cut. Dunno owt else,’ Gloria shrugged.

This was hopeless. The stupid girl didn’t even know her address or anything. Perhaps she was simple-minded like Ivy’s cousin, Eddy, who went to a special school.

‘Well, Gloria, when the train stops at Leeds I’ll ask the guard to find your teacher,’ she offered, feeling very grown up.

‘What teacher? I’m not going to school,’ Gloria replied.

‘But you must go to school, everyone does,’ Maddy argued.

‘I don’t. Mam don’t believe in it…I look after our Sid for her,’ she said proudly. Maddy was horrified. ‘What’s your mummy’s name?’

‘Marge.’

‘And your daddy?’

‘Dain’t got none.’ Gloria pierced her with her green eyes. ‘You ask a lot of questions. Where are you going to then?’

Maddy told them at great length her own sad story. Sid had nodded off on her knee but Gloria was taking it all in. Then the train began to slow down and a whisper went through the carriage. ‘Leeds…next station.’

The soldier helped to pull down Maddy’s little brown suitcase from the rack. She roused the sleeping boy and clutched hold of Gloria’s hand. ‘You’d better come with me. Aunt Prunella will know what to do. Where’s your case?’

Gloria shrugged, pointing to a brown parcel tied up with string and her gas mask. ‘Come on, Sid, time to go with her.’

Maddy waited by the carriage door until it was opened for them and lifted Sid out and then Gloria. The platform was packed with soldiers and children milling around. She pushed her way as best she could, with Gloria clinging on to her sleeve, clutching Sid’s hand. How would she find Mrs Belfield in all this throng?

Gregory Byrne eyed the line-up of other kids and the welfare officer waiting to hand them over like parcels on the foyer of Leeds Station. It was not going to be easy. This one knew all the tricks and was watching him like a hawk, making him walk in front. Greg had a reputation to keep up. He wasn’t called ‘Houdini’ for nothing at his last billet; the escape merchant.

Any open window, convenient drainpipe, and he was off on the run, living rough, stealing from market stalls, a proper Artful Dodger, but his last escape had gone wrong and now he wasn’t as quick after doing that stupid dare.

If only the warden hadn’t been such a cow and teased little Alfie about his dirty pants. ‘What’s this stinking mess?’ she accused, shaming him before the gang.

‘He can’t help it, miss,’ Greg had gone to Alfie’s rescue. ‘Maybe if you stopped picking on him so much…’ He squared up to the old dragon. He was growing so fast, he towered over her.

‘You’ll speak when you’re spoken to, Byrne. Any more cheek from you and you’ll be on your way again. How many billets have you gone through? No wonder your mother ditched you in an orphanage as soon as she cast eyes on you. Not much of a specimen to behold, are you?’

She was eyeing him with contempt but he was not going to be bullied like the others.

‘Shut your mouth, you old bag. At least I don’t have to look in the mirror and see that frightening gob looking back at me!’ he shouted, and the others stood back in horror at his cheek. He was for it now but he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring about anything but cars and bikes, years ago.

She’d insulted his mother, who’d died when he was born. How dare the old dragon try it on with him? He was hardened by years of playground abuse. He wasn’t going to take no more stick from the likes of her.

‘Go to your room, Byrne. I’ll not be insulted by a scruff who has the brain of a flea and the brawn of an ox. I am sick of taking in riffraff like you. No one wants you–get out of my sight.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not stopping in this miserable dump!’ he replied. There was no holding him in a place where he was not wanted. He was out of the window and into the fields as fast as his legs could carry him, to join the other evacuees. They were kept outside all day until it was dark so that they didn’t mess up the house. It was a miserable hole but no worse than some of the others he’d been expelled from.

Greg led his gang away from their usual path down to the riverbank, making instead towards the mainline railway line.

‘We’re not supposed to come down here,’ said little Alfie, looking up at him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m off. I’ve had enough of the old cow,’ sneered Greg, his face set with determination. His penknife was tucked in his pocket along with the Saturday spends that he’d been saving up.

‘But you’ve no money.’ Alfie was running after him.

‘You don’t need money; I’ve done it before,’ he said as he made his way to the footbridge, and the others were running to keep up with him. The iron footbridge linked two meadows over the main line going north and south. They were on pain of death not to come train spotting too close to the track.

The others were standing in awe as he prepared for his escape.

‘You’re not going to jump?’ Alfie croaked. ‘They go too fast down here.’

‘Gertcha! I bet he daren’t,’ sneered Arnie, who was growing into a bully himself.

‘You just watch. I’m waiting for a coal wagon or freight, easy peasy. You can watch. I’ve been practising for ages,’ Greg bragged, but that was a lie. He’d only just thought of the idea.

‘Houdini does it again!’ His admirers crowded round.

‘Where’ll you go?’ said the little boy.

‘Dunno…join up and see some action, runaway to sea,’ Greg replied, lifting his legs over the iron railings, dangling them. They were out of sight and half a mile from the hostel. He was hanging ready to drop as soon as the sound of a train came rattling down the track.

‘Anyone coming to join me?’ he laughed, knowing none of them would. ‘One drop onto an open wagon and we can be miles from here by teatime.’

‘Summat’s coming round the bend,’ yelled Alfie, ‘and it’s a slow one.’

‘Just you watch me…I’ll give the old bat a wave when I pass the kitchen.’ Greg was hanging from the bars now. The noise of the train and the steam filled the gully and stung his eyes.

Alfie tried to stop him. ‘Don’t do it!’

‘Get off me, the train’s coming now,’ Greg yelled, pushing him away. They were all consumed in a blind cloud of soot and steam and fire, his ears bursting with the noise as the engine roared past and the wheels clanked.

‘Geronimo!’ he yelled as he jumped, but his timing was up the spout and he banged and ricocheted off the wagon side with a crash. He landed not on the coal but on the track gravel, and heard something crack.

He heard someone say, ‘Fetch the pram! Quick…run back for help. Greg’s done for!’

The voices faded and then there was nothing.

He came to in hospital with a leg in plaster, broken ribs and arm, and got no sympathy or visits from anyone. He was treated like a prisoner under guard, but his legs hurt too much to be thinking of escape.

They would move him on again but he had plans. He would get himself fit and then join up before it was all over. No one could keep Gregory Byrne tied up for long.

4

Leeds Station, Five p.m.

The train station foyer was crowded as Plum rushed through the barrier onto the platform, clutching her list of names. The trains were running late and she was overdue at the rendezvous by the drinks kiosk. A queue of dishevelled soldiers eyed her up and down. Perhaps it was a mistake to put on her big cartwheel hat but she thought it might give the children something to follow if there was a crush. Maybe it did look a bit grand for the occasion. She felt overdressed, like Lady Bountiful at Ascot.

All she could think of was collecting the six children on the list from their escort and waiting for the Transpennine Express to pick up little Madeleine. They would catch the connection through Scarperton Junction that would get them back to the hostel for tea, but everything was running late.

Peggy Bickerstaffe, Gregory Byrne, Joseph Ridley, Enid Cartwright, Nancy Shadlow and Mitchell Brown–she knew the names off by heart. With relief she saw them lined up in place with the school welfare officer, who handed them over with scarcely a nod. He shoved a file into her hands. ‘Over to you now,’ he said, and eyed her hat with surprise. ‘Can’t stop, don’t want to miss my connection. We’ll come on a visit next week to see them settled in. Good Luck!’

If she’d hoped for a line-up of compliant little infants to shepherd, then she was in for a big disappointment. This lot were older, scruffier, and two of the lads were taller than she was. Don’t show your fear or your ignorance, she primed herself. Dogs and kids could sense weakness, so she beamed with false confidence.

‘We connect at last. Sorry to be late but the train was held up for a troop train.’ No one spoke but they eyed her hat and her gloves. ‘Look, we’ve just one more to pick up from the Manchester train.’

‘Can I be excused?’ said one of the bigger girls.

‘And me too,’ said the other.

‘Not yet,’ Plum said, quick off the mark. That was the oldest ruse in the book. They were going to have to wait now on the platform. There were whistles blowing, loudspeakers going off and a crush of passengers pushing and shoving for a long train heading north. This bunch could not be trusted to sit while she went in search of information. One blink and they’d scarper to the four corners–time to divide and rule.

‘Peggy, Joseph, Mitchell?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘I’m Mrs Belfield. I want you to be our scouts and get us the best carriage on the train to Scarperton Junction, just over there. Spread out and make sure there’s room for all of us. I’ve brought a picnic,’ she smiled, tempting them with titbits in her basket: bribery and corruption, but just for once she needed them to be on her side. They were eyeing her shopping basket with interest now.

‘Nancy Shadlow, Enid Cartwright, Gregory Byrne…come with me to find out if the Manchester train has come in. I want you to search out a little girl standing on her own. She’s called Madeleine.’

‘Yes, miss,’ they replied in unison.

Could she trust them to behave? The big boy with the blue eyes brimming with mischief towered over the girls, all teeth and knees, but there was something about him she felt she could trust–call it an instinct for a pack leader. In a litter of puppies there was always one that was confident and friendly and up for good training.

Then she turned round and saw that one of the girls was heading towards the station buffet to a group of soldiers, to beg sweets no doubt.

What did she expect from strange children who were being sent packing into the deepest country just because they had been labelled as troublemakers? But if they thought her a soft touch they were in for a shock.

It was like chasing a naughty dog. It must be brought to heel and admonished on the spot or it would get the upper hand. At least she was fleet of foot and weaved in and out of the crowd. She saw the girl pocket the familiar green and gold packet of Woodbines, sharpish. Looking up, the minx beamed at her in defiance.

‘This child is not yet thirteen and underage, so if you’re looking for any favours…’ Plum snapped at the soldiers. ‘Just walk in front of me, young lady. Do you think I’ve nothing better to do than chase after you? I thought I could trust a pretty girl like you but I’m mistaken, you’re just a silly little kid. Give those cigs to me. I’m old enough to smoke them.’ She threw them back to the soldier and shook her head.

She grabbed hold of Enid’s arm and half dragged her back to the other children who were restlessly shuffling about. ‘I see that I’ll have to escort you myself.’

She turned to the biggest boy. ‘I’m relying on you now to find Madeleine across there, Gregory. Tell her Mrs Belfield has sent you and bring her down here as fast as you can.’ She was torn between leaving the whole damn lot of them and collecting her niece but what could she do? Miss Blunt had made excuses why she was too busy to come. Who would think six children needed two escorts? Armed guards would be more appropriate. They were not coming to Sowerthwaite for their health, and she was not going to fail her first big test.

He was free! What a turn-up! Greg could scarper off and no one would know where he was–hide on a train, find the nearest port and join up. No one would guess his age or ask. His limp was not so bad now. The funny lady in the cartwheel hat had given him the perfect opportunity, silly cow!

No, that wasn’t fair. She was OK, as posh biddies went. He’d seen a fair few of those at the orphanage open days, billeting halls and WVS. They didn’t scare him.

She’d picked him out and given him a job to do, asked him to meet another kid and trusted him. That was a change! He was so used to being called ‘a bad ’un’.

Greg had no memories of any home but Marston Lodge. When the orphanage was right in the firing line off the Sussex coast, they were moved lock, stock up north, and he’d been picked for farm work, on account of his size.

The farmer near York had treated him worse than his animals, and that was saying much. When he fell sick, he’d been picked up and sent to live with the vicar as a ‘special case’.

They’d kept him in a room over the stables and they sent him to a posh school where he got in fights and got beaten up just for being a ‘vaccy’. That was when he learned a thing or two in the boxing ring.

Just when he was settling down, having bashed in a few heads of his own, along came that curate creep with the funny stare who had tried to touch his privates. He’d punched him a right hook and been sent to the correctional hostel for being ‘out of control’. Here he’d lost his southern accent for good. Now Greg was on the move again and he was sick of fighting his corner, sick of being labelled by the panel as ‘delinquent’ and a ‘dunce’.

Well, he wasn’t stupid. He could read and write as well as anyone else, but he just didn’t hold with school any more. If only he was fourteen and could leave. He wanted to be where there was danger and bullets and excitement, not to be sent on an errand like some ‘trusty’.

As he walked out of sight, the ‘trust’ word hung heavy. Mrs Belfield had picked him out and chosen him specially. Perhaps it would do no harm to fetch the kid and then bunk off, as these were orders, not punishment for a change.

Then he saw her, the kid in the white school hat with glasses, looking lost and trying to be brave. It was a look he knew so well. Blast it, he couldn’t leave her standing there–even if she wasn’t on her own.

Maddy stood clutching her charges, feeling suddenly abandoned. There was nobody waiting to meet her on the platform. She had checked this was Leeds Station and she daren’t move. Sometimes they made announcements over the Tannoy but no one called her name. She stood frozen to the spot.

Where were the teachers who should’ve gathered up Gloria and her brother? Now she was stuck with them too and it was cold, damp and sooty, the trains like smoking black dragons on huge iron wheels.

Maddy had her ticket but did they have theirs? What if the guard didn’t let them through the barrier? How horrid was Aunt Prunella to abandon her like this?

Then she saw a boy limping down the platform, a big string bean of a boy who looked her up and down.

‘Are you Madlin? Mrs Belfield sent me. She’s on the other platform with me mates,’ he smiled, pointing across the platforms.

‘And who’re you?’ Maddy eyed him with suspicion. He wore shorts to his knees, and plimsolls, his socks were dirty and his straw-coloured hair stuck up at the back.

‘Greg Byrne. Who are these two?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were here on your own?’

‘Gloria and her brother…they got lost. I have to find someone to take them.’

‘Bring them along then. Her in charge seems to be on top of the job, she’ll sort ’em out. Did they chuck you out of your hostel?’

‘I was bombed out. I’ve got to go to my granny’s.’