Orphans of War

‘You’re not one of us then?’ he said. ‘These two look like a right pair of book ends. Where did you find them?’

Maddy tried to explain to him as he shepherded them back towards another platform.

‘Hurry up or we’ll miss the train. Wait till you see her hat, the missus they sent…looks like a dartboard.’ Greg was racing them down the platform and Sid was half carried between them.

Gloria said nothing but gazed up at him as if he was a creature from another planet. ‘Where you taking us? Don’t leave us, will you?’

‘There’s a picnic on the train. Just get them on the train and say nowt. It’ll be all right. I think her in charge’s a toff,’ Greg explained.

‘Mrs Belfield is my granny,’ Maddy announced proudly to put him in his place.

‘Blimey! She’s the youngest gran I’ve ever seen then.’

There was this pretty woman in a big hat standing outside the carriage, waving to her. She rushed up and held out her hand. ‘Madeleine, at last…I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet you but I had to collect a few others and I was late, but I knew Gregory would find you.’

‘Are you Aunt Prunella?’ Maddy asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the smiling face, those dark blue eyes and that amazing hat with the net hanging down.

‘Call me Plum, dear, Aunt Plum. I hate Prunella–it sounds more like a box of dried fruit.’ She laughed and her eyes creased into a grin. ‘Thank you, Gregory.’

Gregory had sneaked into the carriage behind Aunt Plum’s back with Gloria and Sid.

‘Oh, I was so sorry to hear your bad news. Your daddy has rung but the line was terrible. They’ll be on their way home, darling, but it’s going to take an age. What a rotten time you’ve had, but you’ll have a home with us for as long as you like. Come on, we’ve grabbed a whole carriage to ourselves and you can meet the other evacuees. They’re going to live in a hostel in the village. Won’t it be fun!’

Plum was so relieved to have them all safely gathered in as the train chugged out of the station. It was getting dark and the covered lamps flickered; all she could see were legs tangled up. There was a plump boy in shorts with a grimy bandage half hanging off his knee, full of grit and raw skin. He smelled of Germolene.

Then came Gregory, his strong calves covered in yellowing bruises, wearing plimsolls with holes in the sides and carrying the overwhelming stench of sweaty socks. The next set of knees were bony like door knobs, with raised weals, looking as if they’d been leathered with a strap. Across the seat were Enid’s long thin legs in grubby ankle socks, and she wore a pair of patent ankle-strapped shoes that looked two sizes too small.

The next pair of plimsolls were very small indeed. There was a small girl huddled in the corner with another little boy. Their knees looked scrubbed clean but they smelled of wet knickers. Then Plum glanced over at her niece in her brogue shoes and woollen stockings, her school uniform two sizes too large for her and those awful round glasses that hid her big grey eyes.

Why did she think of a tin of broken biscuits when she looked at her charges? They were a bunch of misshapes indeed. Broken biscuits were sold by the pound and thrown together in bags, they got crushed and splintered but they tasted just as good once you sorted them out: Abernethy, Nice, Bourbons, Custard Creams and Garibaldis.

But these were children, not broken biscuits, tired, lost, wretched-looking children. Even Madeleine looked haunted and exhausted.

These were not first-timers, full of excitement at being evacuated to the countryside. No, this lot knew the score. Each had a story to tell and had been labelled as a delinquent, a runaway. A quick flip through their files would yield a catalogue of misdemeanours and black marks.

This was their last chance to settle down and behave. There should be six evacuees and her niece, but when she counted them Plum realised to her horror that there were two extras huddled behind Gregory.

‘Who are those?’ she asked, her heart pounding at the implication. ‘Gregory?’

‘Dunno, miss. The girl brought them with her off the train. We couldn’t leave them,’ he said.

‘Madeleine, who are they?’ Plum was trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

‘Their mother put them on the train and told me to look after them. I couldn’t find their teacher. No one came to collect them so we brought them to you,’ she said, and Plum could hear the others giggling at her refined accent.

‘’Er don’t half talk posh, miss,’ said Enid.

‘No, I don’t,’ the girl snapped. ‘Did I do wrong, Aunt Plum?’

More guffaws as they heard her nickname.

‘Shush! Have you found out their names?’

‘The lady called them Glory and Sidney, but she says she’s Gloria Conley and they don’t go to school, and it was six stops before Leeds when they got on…Manchester, I think. I’m sorry but I didn’t know what to do,’ whispered her niece. ‘Oh, the lady said there was a letter in her pocket and “she don’t read”.’

‘Well done, darling, you did what any of us would’ve done. Just check her pocket but don’t wake her yet,’ Plum whispered.

‘Shall I pull the cord and stop the train?’ offered Peggy.

‘No!’ Plum snapped, the panic rising within her. What if someone was searching the station for them? What if worried relatives had called out the police? Oh, why had Miss Blunt not come with her?

‘Here, miss, in her pocket, a letter…’ Gregory leaned over and shoved a paper into Plum’s hand. The note was written in pencil on the back half of a torn envelope.

To whom it concerns.

I am sending them away for good. My fella got killed and I can’t take no more. I have no proper home for them and am going away so don’t come looking. Tell them they is better off. You can call them what ever name but they will answer to Gloria Beryl and Sidney Leonard. She is ten but don’t look it and he is five. I cannot take them with me but they will be ever in my heart. Tell them they deserve better than me.

Plum went cold when she read the contents of the note. In desperation the poor mother had just thrown them on the train to the mercy of strangers. How grief-stricken and depressed must she have been to have done such a wicked thing? She must be traced and found, and made to face her responsibilities, but first they would have to take these children to Sowerthwaite for the night, inform the police and authorities and find a home for the mites.

How was she going to explain all this to Matron, and what would Pleasance make of her granddaughter? At least she showed initiative, and Gregory had sneaked them on behind her back. He was a natural leader and they were going to have to watch him.

Perhaps sometimes things just happened and you had to respond as best you could. She had wanted a challenge and, by God, she’d got one now.

Maddy could see Aunt Plum was upset as she read the letter over and over again. It was all her fault but the lady had told her to look after them and for once she’d been obedient. Now she would be in trouble for letting them get on this train, but Gloria was still sticking like gum to her side. The other girls were staring at her now with interest ’cos she’d done something naughty in their eyes.

‘Child snatcher!’ whispered the biggest one. ‘You’ll be for it!’

‘Shut up, stick insect,’ said Gregory in her defence. ‘She done what she had to do. She’s been bombed out.’

‘What’s it like? Did you see any stiffs?’ asked another of the boys.

‘It was horrid and my dog ran away,’ Maddy answered.

‘We had to have ours put down. Uncle said as we couldn’t feed it proper and the cat too. He put them in a sack and threw them in the dock.’

‘I know a lad as put his kittens through the mangle,’ boasted the fat boy with the bandage.

‘That’s enough,’ said Aunt Plum, in such a sharp voice that everyone listened. ‘We’re going to have to be kind to Gloria and Sid. It won’t be long before our station so get all your parcels and cases and follow me. You’re in the Yorkshire Dales now–it’s wild and dark, and if you jump ship you’ll get lost on the moors and get swallowed up in a bog and never found. Do I make myself clear?’ she ordered, but there was a smile in her voice.

‘Yes, Mrs Plum,’ said a lone voice, and everyone giggled.

‘I rather like that, Peggy, so you can call me Mrs Plum if it helps you remember what I say.’

Greg stared out into the darkness, wondering what he’d let himself in for. Why hadn’t he scarpered when he got the chance? Now he was stuck with this lot and miles away from civilisation, just like before.

They all clambered off the train and stood on the blacked-out station. The air was damp and chilly, but it felt fresh and Greg sniffed the scents of wood smoke and steam. There was a crisp wind that rattled round them as they made their way over the steep footbridge and out through a gate to the waiting black saloon, with pull-down extra seats and a luggage rack on the back.

‘Madam says to cover the seats in case these vaccies bring anything with them,’ said the chauffeur in leather boots and a peaked cap, eyeing them all with suspicion.

Greg took one look at the car and sighed…That’s more like it, a whopping big Daimler saloon.

Everyone had to crush in and Sid woke and started to cry so the Plum woman put him on her knee. The man in the black jerkin drove them ever so slowly up a long steep hill with only pinpricks for lights, and Greg couldn’t see a thing for Enid’s bottom in his face. Where were they going now, miles from anywhere? It was pitch-dark outside and eerie.

All he could see were miles of stonewalls on either side of them. It was like driving through a stone maze. It had been such a strange day and he had almost forgotten why he was here. There was no sound of gunfire or planes overhead. How could this place be so quiet and peaceful and hidden away, and where were the smoking chimneys and factories of Yorkshire?

They stopped outside a long stone house and went inside. He smelled the familiar whiff of Lysol and polish. A woman in a starched apron and a funny helmet and uniform stood with her arms folded, inspecting them as they came through the door.

‘Girls to the left, boys to the right. What’s this, two extras? They’re not on my list, Mrs Belfield.’

Here we go again, Greg sighed. There was always one of these tough old birds waiting to lick them into shape. He should’ve run while the going was good but it was late and he fancied another butchers at that Daimler.

Mrs Plum was for it too and tried to explain, but everyone started talking at once and pointing at Madlin and the little ones and she blushed. Gloria started to snivel and Sid screamed and said his ear was hurting. Matron felt his forehead and said he was burning up and he couldn’t stay there.

‘Now look here, you can’t just pick up any waif or stray and bring them here. They haven’t a scrap of identification on them and no ration books. We’ll have to call in the constable. What did you think you were doing?’ she spat out a spray of spit in his face.

‘Don’t be cross with him,’ said Madlin, the thin one with the squint. ‘I told him not to leave us.’

Greg was touched that someone was sticking up for him, even if it was only a girl, but he could look after himself. He was about to launch into the old bat when Mrs Plum caught his arm, as if reading his mind.

‘Matron, I think we should discuss this in private after we’ve settled the children,’ she said, quick to jump to his defence. ‘They’re all tired and hungry and need to get their bearings, and I need to take Madeleine to the Hall.’

‘Well, she can take her two charges with her until I’m told otherwise. We aren’t geared up for extras. The bedrooms are full as it is, Mrs Belfield. Though heaven knows what her ladyship will say to these two scruffs. He’ll need the doctor, by the look of him.’

‘Then I’ll leave you to your duties,’ said Mrs Plum with a sniff and blazing eyes. ‘Come on, you three, time for one last trip to the lavatory and then bed.’

The lads were taken into the attic. There was a row of beds with large jam jars by the side. ‘What’s these for, ashtrays?’ Greg joked.

‘Just a trick the doctor thought up to stop any bedwetting, but aim straight!’ came the order. ‘The lavatory is a long way off and I know how lazy boys can be. Unpack your bags and supper is in the kitchen.’

Greg bounced on his bed. So far so good: clean sheets–a good sign–and a locker for his stuff. It would do for a few nights until he got his bearings and then he’d make a run for it again. They’d gone north and west from Leeds. He knew his geography. They couldn’t be that far from a seaport but he fancied another ride in that Daimler.

Gloria was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open as they drove up a long path with tall trees, and then a great white owl flew across in front of them.

‘What’s that?’ she whispered to Maddy. ‘I don’t like this place.’

‘Just a barn owl and it’s not far to Brooklyn Hall,’ said Mrs Plum. ‘But you’ll have to be very quiet when we arrive. Mrs Belfield is not used to little children so let me explain what’s happened first.’

‘My ear hurts,’ moaned little Sid, whimpering.

‘I know, darling. I’ll find some cotton wool and warm oil for it.’

‘Is this it?’ Gloria looked up at the huge stone house with a square tower in the middle and windows like a castle. It was bigger than all of Elijah Street put together. It was all shuttered up and unwelcoming. There was a huge oak door at the top of some wide stone steps.

‘The windows have got their eyes shut. It looks as if it’s sleeping,’ she said, making Mrs Plum smile.

They pulled the bell and a young woman in a pinafore came to the door. They were ushered inside and the driver took the car around the back. Maddy thought there must be some mistake. Were they being taken into a school?

A woman came down the stairs with a stick, a tall woman in a long black dress with a shawl around her arms, her smoky-grey hair piled up high. She smelled of flowers.

‘At long last, Prunella…Oh, what a pretty child,’ she said, grasping hold of Gloria, eyeing her carefully. ‘This is not the Belfield golden hair. Where did such extravagant curls come from? So small for her age…Come here, child and let me see you. We can do something with you.’

‘That’s Gloria, an evacuee,’ spluttered Mrs Plum. ‘Madeleine, your granddaughter, is over here,’ pointing in the other direction to where Maddy hung back in the shadows.

‘Oh, I see…Take off your glasses, girl, let the dog see the rabbit.’ The lady eyed her up and down. ‘Oh dear, how unfortunate…Not our side of the family at all, is she? She’s like a horse with a wall eye, not to be trusted. Ah well, it was to be expected.’

Gloria’s eyes were on stalks. She’d never seen such a grand room except in the pictures. She’d seen Little Lord Fauntleroy and Shirley Temple at the fleapit on Saturday mornings. She was living in fairyland in the middle of the pictures and this was going to be her new home. Then the old lady saw Sid whining. He was going to spoil everything.

‘Just shut up and behave or we’ll get chucked out,’ Gloria whispered in his ear. Didn’t he know when he was well off? He was looking queer again.

‘This is Gloria and her brother, Sidney, who’s not very well. They need a bed for the night and some medical attention, I’m afraid,’ Mrs Plum said.

‘This is impossible, Prunella. It was bad enough-having the one but now you’re asking me to put up three and to call out poor Dr David at this time of night. Can’t it wait?’ The two women were trying to argue quietly but Maddy could hear their angry mutters.

‘It’s like the pictures, innit?’ whispered Gloria, looking around with wonderment. ‘I keep pinching myself. If Mam could see us here…’

‘Where’s she gone to?’ said Maddy, hoping to catch Gloria off guard.

‘Dunno,’ came the guarded reply. She was too tired to think what Mam was doing now. She’d just left them on the train to fend for themselves and she didn’t understand why, but Gloria was still preening herself for having been picked out as the Belfield girl.

Sid was looking funny again.

‘Miss, miss, he’s fitting! He allus does this when he’s sick,’ she yelled.

The old lady looked on with concern as he was laid down, rigid with tremors. Perhaps Sid could be useful after all. If he was sick they couldn’t move him and she could stay the night in a palace. She was curious now and wanted to see what it all looked like in the morning light.

‘Shall I put something over his tongue? Miss Connaught does that when Veronica Rogers has a fit,’ offered Maddy. Her grandmother looked surprised to hear her speaking the King’s English in her best elocution voice. At least she wasn’t being ignored now in favour of Gloria’s pretty looks. That had hurt more than anything.

‘Now look what you’ve brought to our door…Send Ilse to The Vicarage and he can phone for Dr David. These lower classes don’t know how to look after themselves properly, letting children loose in this state. Those children look half starved and such coarse accents. I don’t want Madeleine picking it up. Arthur’s taught her some manners, I see.’

‘I can speak French too,’ Maddy added. ‘We did French and Latin at St Hilda’s but I hate Latin.’

‘Speak when you’re spoken to, girl,’ said the old woman. ‘Go and find Ilse and send her off with a torch. This is most inconvenient!’

Maddy wondered if they were expected to bob a curtsy like the maids did, but decided against it. She raced across through the baize door into a warren of passages, Gloria clinging on to her, into the kitchen where they found two women sipping tea.

‘We need the doctor for a little boy. Please can someone go to the nearest phone?’

The women jumped up and put on their coats.

‘Just the one of you, I think,’ Maddy ordered, but the girls shook their heads.

‘I not go in the dark. There be ghosts in the lane and soldiers. We go in twos together, please,’ pleaded the brown-eyed girl with her hair all scraped into a plait around her head.

What sort of place was this house, where servants were afraid and Mrs Belfield lived all alone? No wonder Daddy never spoke of it and his horrid mother, who was a snob. Why had no one told her that the Belfields lived in a castle with big sweeping stairs and stone floors that smelled of old smoke?

Tomorrow she would ask Aunt Plum if she could join the evacuees in the village. Gloria could stay here with Sid and be petted, but she didn’t want to spend another night in this horrible place where she wasn’t wanted.

Later, when the doctor came to examine Sidney and pronounced that he’d burst his eardrum and needed bed rest and medicine, the two girls were tucked up in a huge four-poster bed with curtains round the posts. The room smelled of lavender and damp.

Ilse had warmed the sheets with a big copper warming pan and made a fuss of the pair. Gloria was made to stand in a tub and be sponged down by Aunt Plum to see if she had fleas. Her underclothes were thin, clean and she wasn’t wrapped in brown paper like some of the vaccies were supposed to be. She was enjoying every minute of the fuss.

Maddy had never undressed for bed with a stranger before. She wanted to be on her own, but not in this barn of a bedroom. She wondered about all the people who’d died in that bed. Were their ghosts still haunting the place?

What a strange day! The only nice thing about it was meeting Aunt Plum, but they never got time on their own to talk over what had happened. Everyone expected Maddy to look after the other two.

She wished she’d never gone to the washroom on the train, never seen the mother shove those two into her hands, but she had. Then she thought of her relief when Greg had limped down the platform to rescue them. Perhaps there was one friend after all who would look out for her–even if he were a boy.

5

December 1940

‘Can you pick up my knitting, dear?’ gasped Great-aunt Julia as she struggled with her two sticks across the hallway of Brooklyn Hall. Maddy wasn’t used to going at tortoise pace but she loved being useful to the old ladies in the drawing room who, wrapped in ancient fur wraps and shawls to keep out the draughts, were busy knitting for the Sowerthwaite Comforts fund. Everyone took it in turns to sit up close to Uncle Algie’s battery-operated wireless to catch the news as best they could.

Maddy couldn’t believe it was nearly Christmas, nearly three whole months since that arrival at Brooklyn Hall, when Sid had had his fit and Grandma had eyed her up and down with disappointment.

‘It’s hotting up in Greece,’ shouted Great-uncle Algernon across the room, resting his half a leg on a leather buffet as he strained to catch the bulletin. ‘Metaxas has said “No” to Mussolini and there’ll be trouble in the Balkans, mark my words…Oh, and Liverpool and Manchester had another visit from the Luftwaffe last night. Three of our planes are missing.’

‘Don’t believe a word of it, girls,’ shouted Grandma, looking up from her letter writing. ‘It’s all lies and propaganda. I don’t know why you want to depress us with such news.’

Maddy was glued to the six o’clock news every night. She had heard enemy bombers droning overhead at night on their deadly route across the moors, hoping that the searchlight on the field battery would be torching their path for the ack-ack guns.

Her parents were on their way back from Egypt, hinting in their letter that they were going the long route round Africa and there was fighting in the Mediterranean. They were coming home for Christmas, but Maddy would rather they stayed put if there was danger.

It was such an age since she’d seen them and so much had happened, so much to tell them about her new school and friends. How the Brooklyn seemed like a hotel full of shuffling old people, who played endless games of patience and bridge, who quarrelled and fussed over Ilse’s cooking and fought to get the best corner by the huge fireplace.

Besides Uncle Algie and Aunt Julia and her companion, Miss Betts, there was a distant cousin Rhoda Rennison and her sister, Flo. It was easy to lump them all together somehow in their grey cardigans and baggy skirts, darned lisle stockings and tweed slippers. Around them wafted a tincture of eau de cologne that almost masked a more acidic smell. The oldies melted into the walls of the Brooklyn between meals along with their ear trumpets, stringy knitting in carpet bags and shawls. Then when the dinner gong rang they appeared from the far recesses of the house, back to the table like clucking hens at the trough, pecking at their plates, too busy to talk to Maddy

Aunt Plum was worried about Uncle Gerald, who was waiting in barracks down south to be sent abroad soon. When she was upset she smiled with sad eyes and went for long walks over the hills with her dogs, when she wasn’t on duty at the Old Vic Hostel.

Maddy walked to the village school each morning with the two Conleys, who now lived in Huntsman’s Cottage with Mr and Mrs Batty. It was a funny arrangement: normal school lessons in the morning, mixing with the local children at St Peter’s C of E School, and then lessons in the village hall, crushed in with a gang of evacuee kids from Leeds, who were living the other side of Sowerthwaite. It was all very noisy and they didn’t do much work, just copying from the board until hometime. There weren’t enough teachers to go round.

It was not like St Hilda’s at all, and the first thing she’d done was to lose her elocution accent in favour of a Yorkshire one, flattening her ’a’s so she didn’t get teased, though it made Grandma Belfield furious if she said bath instead of baath.

‘The sooner Arthur comes and puts you in a half-decent school…You’re turning into a right little Yorkshire tyke. It’s no good Plum letting you mix so much with that village lot. They’re teaching you nothing but bad habits. I hear they’ve been up to their old tricks again on the High Street,’ Grandma sighed, looking up at Maddy’s glasses and then turning back to her letter writing.