Iris Gower - Bombers’ Moon

I knew I was blushing. ‘I don’t care if I have to share with the entire Highland Regiment so long as I can lie down.’

It was luxury to stretch out, though fully clothed in case we had to move swiftly, and soon, exhausted, I fell asleep.

The next morning, we had transport, at least some of the way. Gladly I climbed on the back of the lorry and crouched down under some scruffy potato sacks. I heard kisses and a playful slap and I guessed Fritz was saying a fond, if unromantic, farewell to his lady love, one of many if only she knew it.

The dawn came, the earth warmed and so did the creatures in the sacking. The fleas or ticks or whatever they were bit me and stung, but at least I wasn’t having to walk and I was getting nearer the coast all the time and soon, perhaps sooner than anticipated, I would be home.

Hari stood in the register office in Swansea holding a tiny bouquet of flowers. She was witness to her friend Vi’s marriage to Georgie Dixon and she could hardly believe it. Alongside her was one of Georgie’s workmates looking uncomfortable in a shabby suit with a white scarf instead of a tie.

It was over very quickly. The registrar tried to make the ceremony sound meaningful but there were many hasty marriages made in time of war and usually they ended in a disaster of some kind. Hari could tell he knew that by the sadness of his tired blue eyes.

Vi was excited and happy and her pretty face was flushed. Even the yellow had been toned down by the application of powder. She clung to George’s arm as if she would never let him go and he seemed to have blossomed under her love, his smile happy but his eyes full of tenderness as they rested on his new wife’s face.

Jessie had given them leave to use the farm during their honeymoon; Carmarthen was where George grew up and where he would probably want to live after the war. Vi would find it strange and quiet after the town and the company of the people in the munitions works but she would soon adapt to country life Hari was sure.

Outside in the late sunshine Hari kissed her friend and hugged her close. She smelled sweet, lavendery, her hair shiny and curling on her shoulders. ‘I know you’re going to be happy,’ Hari whispered, and Violet’s smile was radiant.

‘I’ve never been in love before, not with anyone. I really didn’t know what love was till I met George—’ Vi’s voice was breathless—‘isn’t he so handsome and proud in his best suit?’

He did look handsome, a far cry from the ‘porky pig’ of Meryl’s childhood memories and Hari felt a pain like a stab wound as she thought of her sister. The thought led to Michael and grief and confusion engulfed her. Hari fixed a determined smile on her face.

‘So long as he’s good to you everything will be just fine.’ She glanced at George and raised her voice. ‘You be a good husband to my dear friend now George, or you’ll have me to deal with.’

He grimaced. ‘I don’t want that, not if you’re anything like your sister Meryl.’ He put his arm around his wife. ‘She was a little devil, mind, we used to fight like enemies. She whacked me where it hurt most one day, not that I didn’t ask for it.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But then none of us are kids any more, war makes a man grow up and realize that violence achieves nothing.’ He wandered away to talk to some friends and Hari and Violet watched as Jessie finished making flat Welsh cakes with a little margarine and tiny bits of fruit, mainly bits of apple and dried figs. The cakes steamed hot from the griddle and the spicy aroma filled the kitchen.

‘They smell nice,’ Hari said.

‘Should have currants and raisins in and a nice bit of sugar but they’re the best I could do,’ Jessie grumbled. ‘She smacked George’s hand away as he reached for one. ‘Go and have the spam fritters first, fill your belly with potatoes and then you can have Welsh cakes, right, my boy?’

Hari had acquired a bottle of gin from her friend up at the German camp—she had kept in touch with James hoping to learn more about the German prisoners. She knew Michael was alive, had been in the camp, but she never saw him again and the fear was he had grown sick and ill and had been shipped off elsewhere.

After the meal she raised her glass. ‘A toast to the bride and groom,’ she said, sipping a little of the gin spiced liberally with Jessie’s home-made pop. ‘May you live happily ever after and have many little ones.’

Violet blushed and Hari stared at her in concern. ‘Violet you’re not, well… you’re not, are you?’

Violet looked puzzled and Jessie put it more bluntly. ‘Was this a shotgun wedding, girl, that’s what Hari means?’

Violet’s blush deepened. ‘Of course not, we haven’t done anything like that—how mean of you, Hari. Don’t you think George married me because he loved me not because he “had to” as they say these days?’

‘Sorry, Violet, very sorry,’ Hari said hastily, ‘it happens to so many people.’

‘Well, not to me and George.’

‘Well, be happy.’ Hari hugged her and Violet relented and smiled.

George shuffled his feet and glanced anxiously at Violet. ‘We’re taking it steady, aren’t we love?’

‘Yes, of course we are George, anything you want.’ She sounded uncertain and Hari wondered if Violet knew the facts of married life. Would Violet lie dazed and fainted with love and delight in her husband’s arms? Would she be raised on a glowing cloud to heaven the way Hari had been when Michael made love to her? She pushed the thought away. All that was over, a thousand waters had flowed beneath the bridges since then. Michael was a married man now and, what’s more, was a prisoner considered an enemy of the British people, spat on and hated by the inhabitants of Bridgend and all the world for all Hari knew.

Later, she drove the newlyweds to their country retreat. Violet stared out of the back of the jeep Hari had borrowed and looked in awe at the darkening countryside.

‘It’s a bit lonely isn’t it? No lights… nothing.’

George put his arm around her. ‘You’ll love it like I do, you’ll see.’

Hari left them at the door of the farmhouse and drove away, a lump in her throat. She could picture Michael there, his hair blown into a mop by the wind, his face tanned, his eyes very blue—and she wanted him.

It took her hours to drive back through the gloom of the blackout and, sometimes, when the moon appeared from behind the clouds and the roadway was a ribbon of light, she thought the bombers would spot her and drop their load on her. It was a relief to enter the familiar streets of Swansea and park the jeep at the curb outside her house.

Inside, the kitchen still had the scent of fruit and cake but Jessie was sitting at the table, her apron screwed up between her hands, her face white. ‘They’ve got out. The prisoners—they’ve got out.’

‘What do you mean?’ Hari’s mouth was dry.

‘A man called James came here, told me to tell you, “report to you”, he said. The Germans have escaped, girl, run away. Dug a tunnel they did, made the place all tidy like with milk tins and lights and such. Anyway, over seventy of them have got out, gone, God knows where, we could be killed in our beds.’

Hari wished she could faint, be out of the grip of fear and pain and the thought of Michael on the run with police and army and men with guns chasing him. But she just slumped into a chair and stared into the fire. How could she tell Jessie that her son, the boy she believed dead, was alive and probably with the other escaped prisoners on the run?

It was days now since the escape and Hari had heard nothing about the prisoners. Outside the camp the guard had doubled and even though Hari managed now and again to talk to James he was more tight-lipped than he’d been previously.

She saw him now outside the fence and waved and to her relief he came over to her. He took her in his arms and to her surprise buried his face in her neck.

‘For Gawd’s sake pretend you’re my girl,’ he murmured, the other fellows are getting a bit suspicious like.’

Hari felt uncomfortable as she put her arms round James’s neck but she could see the sense of his words. A warning bell sounded in her head, even James must be suspicious the way she kept standing around the camp. She put a bit of enthusiasm in her hug and James responded, kissing her soundly.

She drew away and forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry, James, it’s early days yet but I do like talking to you.’ She hated herself for the deception but it was necessary; she had to hide the fact that one of the German prisoners was in fact brought up on a farm in Carmarthen by a Welsh mother.

The Welsh guards might be sympathetic but the Germans would manage to do away with Michael because they would most certainly think him a spy.

‘Where do you think they are, the prisoners I mean?’

James looked dour. ‘One of them has got out of Wales, I know that, he was seen on a train, pretending to be a Welshman, could even speak Welsh. Wonderful what these chaps have picked up in here. Intelligent blokes these Germans.’

Hari’s heart pounded. ‘Was he caught, this man?’

‘Aye, he’s been caught, don’t know what state he’s in, mind, might have been shot or something or at least given a good hammering, don’t look right for prisoners to escape from our camp in Bridgend.’ He looked even gloomier. ‘So far this is the first escape ever of German prisoners, they don’t want to go back to war, most of ’em, havin’ a fine time doin’ nothing but lying around being treated like lords. I can only hope our boys are bein’ treated half as good in Germany.’