Iris Gower - Bombers’ Moon

‘Oh Kate, you’re expecting and me going on about my worries!’ Hari put her arm around Kate’s shoulder. ‘If even an explosion couldn’t shift Teddy you must be born to be a mother, of course you and the baby will be fine. Not sure I’m born to be a mother though,’ she finished dryly.

Kate forced a smile. ‘Go and get us a drink, Hari.’ Her voice ached with tears. ‘Pour some brandy for us both, give us both a lift, we need it to live through this hellish war.’

The time passed slowly. Hari tried not to think about Michael or her sister, out there running, hiding or injured in a field somewhere. She kept up a flow of chatter until there was the sound of the door opening.

Kate stood up, her blind eyes looking across the room. ‘Thank God! They’re home.’

It wasn’t Hilda and the baby who came into the parlour but Stephen, his eyes dark-ringed, his scars standing out sharp against his pallor.

‘There’s been an explosion,’ he said. ‘I tried to help but when the firemen came, and the ARP, they sent me home, said I looked as if I’d given enough to the war effort.’

‘Where was the explosion?’ Kate’s voice was icy calm.

‘Just by the Lamb and Flag, nowhere near us. Don’t worry, there’s no air raid.’ He sagged into a chair. ‘I’m so tired I could sleep on a razor.’

‘Go to bed, love.’ Kate said, ‘I’m going to see Hari to the door.’ Hari watched with an aching heart as Kate walked into the kitchen and felt for her coat on the peg. Hari took her arm.

‘Look, you don’t know that Hilda was over at Maggie’s. Stay with Stephen and I’ll look for Hilda.’

‘I have to look for myself.’ Kate’s answer brooked no argument.

Arm in arm, Hari walked with Kate over the devastation that Swansea had become. Her home town wasn’t alone in this: London, Coventry, Manchester and many other big cities had been blasted to the ground. The German Luftwaffe seemed intent on bombing Britain into submission.

Hari saw at once that the Lamb and Flag was a dark, smouldering ruin with a few flames still shooting up intermittently from the rubble. She heard a faint, anguished cry fading to a ghostly stillness and her blood chilled.

‘For God’s sake Hari, the houses, Maggie’s place, what in the name of all the saints has happened?’

‘Some of the houses are bombed but Maggie’s is still standing.’

‘The Holy Mother be praised.’ Kate sagged against her and Hari swallowed her tears. ‘There, the baby is fine, come on let’s go look for him.’

Maggie’s door was open as it always was but the house was empty. Mary Pryce appeared from next door. ‘Maggie took Hilda and the baby to the Lamb and Flag,’ she said heavily. Wanted a bit o’ a drink she said.’

‘Oh Holy Mother and all the angels no,’ Kate said. Then her head lifted. ‘Hush!’ She stood like a hunting stag listening, sniffing the air. ‘I hear him so I do, I hear my Teddy’s voice.’ She stumbled forward into the smoking, ruined building. Hari followed her and tried to hold her back but Kate pressed on, climbing over huge chunks of debris until she disappeared from sight.

Hari knew that Kate’s sense of hearing, the touch of her finger tips in the darkened ruin of the Lamb and Flag, would be assets that sighted people would not have.

Hari heard Teddy wail and her heart quickened. She moved forward instinctively, waving her hands in front of her face, trying to dispel the smoke and the smell of burning. She touched a soft shoulder and dimly recognized Hilda. There was a rumble beneath her feet, the floor to the cellar must be burnt through, any minute they might crash downwards with the tons of twisted metal and masonry they were stumbling over. Hari dragged Hilda into the street.

Once safely outside, Hilda sagged to the ground. ‘I’m all right—’ she began to cough—‘help Kate for God’s sake.’

But Kate needed no help. She emerged from the smoke and handed Teddy to Hari. I’m going back for Maggie,’ she said and disappeared into the smoke once more. And even though Hari called her until her voice was hoarse there was no reply.

I sat on a bunk in the small cabin that looked as if it might belong to the chief engineer judging by the range of strange equipment on the desk. I had a blanket wrapped round me, which was just as well, because my ‘baby’ had gone when the bag had vanished into the sea in spite of my endeavours to keep it. All I could hope was that if any of the sailors from the Irish merchant ship had survived they would be kept well apart from us. I imagined they would, they were crew and Michael at least had been taken for the son of the fatherland, which of course he was. How he would explain our presence in the sea I couldn’t imagine.

I knew we had bypassed Ireland; when the mine struck, the ship had floundered, drifted way off course and now, hours later, we were on our way to Germany, making our way past the coast of France.

Michael came into the tiny cabin accompanied by some sort of officer.

‘My wife,’ Michael said in German. The officer scarcely acknowledged me. I was relieved I didn’t yet know what we were supposed to be doing at sea in the first place.

The officer nodded again and left us. Michael sat down beside me and rubbed his face. ‘Speak German,’ he instructed me, ‘and only speak when you have to, I’m not sure they trust me.’

‘Was wirst du ihen sagen?’ I huddled close to him.

‘The story is you came from Ireland but from German parents,’ he replied. ‘We were returning to Germany when the Irish boat was accidentally sunk by the sub.’

‘We would have drifted off course,’ I said. ‘And what about the crew, the good men we were with?’

‘Poor sods,’ Michael said. I gathered that none of the Irish crew had survived.

‘Let’s try to get some sleep.’ Michael pushed me to the side of the bunk and stretched out beside me. I wanted to cry but Michael would think me even more of a child. Even now, when I had womanly curves and had got away with being an expectant mother, he treated me as if I was his kid sister.

He was lying beside me, our bodies touching out of necessity, the bunk was so narrow. It was torture for me. I wanted him, touching me, holding me, being inside me. I was a woman and human but Michael was in love with my sister, profoundly in love and he would no more betray her love than he would hand her little sister over to the enemy.

Eventually, I slept.

I was woken roughly by hands pulling me from the bunk. I opened my eyes sleepily and saw one of the sailors gesturing for me to go with him. I looked at Michael and he nodded. ‘Go easy with her,’ he said in German, ‘she’s very young and a bit slow-thinking like most of the Irish.’

I bit my lip as I realized Michael was acting in character. German people thought every other race was slow compared to them. The man holding my arm had clear blue eyes that seemed to penetrate my skull, he was someone to be reckoned with that was for sure.

An officer invited me to sit opposite him and nodded to me politely. ‘Frau Euler?’

I nodded.

‘Tell me what’s been happening to you and your husband.’

‘He was taking me to his homeland, he wanted to fight for his country.’ I hoped my funny accent would be taken for the Irish part of me.

‘Where had you been?’

‘Been? I don’t know what you mean, sir.’ I know I sounded stupid, at that moment I felt stupid.

‘Where have you been living?’ he said slowly and loudly.

‘In Ireland, sir.’ I hoped that was a good enough answer. He seemed to be waiting. I dabbed my eyes. ‘My mammy, she died while I was at her bedside.’ I stopped then as Michael had warned me not to say too much. The officer looked at me without expression.

‘Where did you live in Germany?’ It was like a bullet from a gun. Where did I know of in Germany? What would I say? I decided to stay as near the truth as I could.

‘On a farm. Michael was working the land for food for the troops, his mother Mrs Euler was very old, she too died. So,’ I sighed heavily, ‘we went to say goodbye to my family before Michael joined the…’ I didn’t know the word for ‘forces’ so I took refuge in wiping my tears on the edge of my skirt again. The officer averted his eyes from my dimpled knee.

‘That will be all, for now.’ He stood up and I quickly left the room. I don’t know how much of my story he believed, he gave nothing away, but as I was marched back to the cabin, Michael was being taken out. I put my arms around him and pressed my cheek to his.

‘I told them about the farm in Germany,’ I whispered, ‘didn’t give a name to the district.’ I kissed him, savouring his unresponsive lips. ‘Liebling,’ I said more loudly.

‘We’ll be back home in Hamburg soon,’ he said and kissed me softly. And then they took him away from me and I wondered if I would ever see him again.

The smoke that would have blinded most people made little impression on Kate’s eyes, she could see nothing anyway. She did start to cough and, clearing her throat, she shouted as loudly as she could.

‘Maggie! Where are you, you old baggage?’

She heard a sound like a cat mewling and went towards it. She stumbled over some rubble and, on her hands and knees, careless of the tearing of her stockings and the grazing of her shins, she called again.

‘Maggie, keep calling me, I’m coming for you.’

There was no reply but her sharp ears caught the sound of movement and she scrambled towards it. There was the noise of stones, a shower of them falling, and then her hand reached out and touched a warm, human hand. From the sticky feel of it Kate knew Maggie was bleeding.