The Dover Cafe On the Front Line, page 12
Ethel Turner came out of the grocery store and the three women met in the centre of the square, staring down to the seafront, where a cloud of dust could be seen rising up into the sky.
‘Not a clue, Nel. All I know is that it’s scared the wits out of me.’ Phyllis shuddered. ‘One minute we’re serving fish, the next Boom! But no planes.’ She looked up again at the empty sky.
By this time, several more people had congregated in the square.
‘It’s started.’ Gladys was standing in the doorway of the café. ‘Saints preserve us, we need to leave now!’
‘Oh, stop being so daft,’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘I don’t see Nazi soldiers, do you?’
‘They’re sly ones, though,’ Lou Carter growled. ‘They could have been here all along, just waiting for the signal.’ She pointed towards the sea, glinting blue under the bright sun. ‘Any moment now, they’ll be comin’ up the beach, and I for one won’t go down without a fight!’ She marched over to her stall, and after fishing around under the counter, she came out brandishing a pistol. ‘Who’s joinin’ me?’ She looked around at the few men in the group, most of whom had fought in the last war. ‘You’ve still got your pistols. They might need a bit of oilin’ but they’ll do!’
‘Oh, I feel much better now,’ Nellie said sarcastically. ‘Lou Carter and a group of old men with guns running around the place sounds more dangerous than Hitler himself walking in to order a piece of pie. No, if it were an invasion, then we’d be hearing guns going off all around.’
Jasper puffed up then. ‘Shells!’ he called. ‘Bloody shells from France! That’s what the word is.’ He removed his helmet and rubbed at his bushy grey-blond hair. ‘One landed down on the front, and there’s more damage up on Western Heights.’ He shook his head. ‘They keep on like this, the whole town’ll be rubble before we know it.’
‘There could be more at any moment. Quick, back to the shelters!’ Gladys ran over and grabbed Nellie’s arm, trying to pull her back inside.
‘For the love of God, stop your wailing, Gladys. We start panicking now, we’ll be dead by tomorrow for sure.’
‘She’s right, though, Nell. It was already bad enough, but if this keeps on, we might all have no choice but to leave,’ Phyllis Perkins said.
‘You can do whatever you please, but I’m going nowhere,’ Nellie said staunchly, but then she sighed as she looked around her beloved Market Square, imagining the havoc the shells could wreak on it without warning. ‘How are we supposed to carry on when they just keep finding more stuff to chuck at us?’
Jasper put his arm around her. ‘Hey, Nell, we’ll find a way, right? We can’t let those buggers chase us out of our homes!’
Nellie leant her head against his shoulder briefly, then stood up straighter. ‘Come on, everyone, back to work. Like Jasper says, we can’t let the buggers beat us. And if anyone needs a bit of help, send ’em my way. Castle’s will do what we can to make sure folk don’t go hungry.’
‘You’re one in a million Nellie Castle.’ Jasper patted her shoulder fondly.
Nellie looked up at him. ‘Yeah, and so’s Hitler,’ she said sardonically. ‘Anyway, let’s get back to it before the next bloody siren goes. Anyone fancy a cuppa?’
‘Love to, but best get on. The queue was a mile long before this all started.’ Ethel Turner grabbed her husband by the arm. ‘Come on, old-timer. Let’s make sure people can at least get some dinner tonight.’ They trotted across the square and disappeared under the red and white awning above their shop.
There was a general murmur of assent as people started to disperse, most of them returning to the queues they’d been forced to leave, but despite this pretence at normality, everyone was tense, staring around fearfully, wondering if this was the beginning of the end they’d all been dreading.
‘Let me get you a cuppa at least, Jasper.’
‘Can’t stop now, love. Gotta go and make my report.’ Suddenly, there was a whistling sound above them and, a few seconds later, a crash came from the direction of Snargate Street. As one, the people in the square hunched down, hands over their heads while Jasper started to run down King Street, shouting at people to take cover.
‘Another one!’ Gladys screamed as she ran back inside. ‘This is it! We’re all going to die!’
Nellie hurried after her and put her arm around her friend’s shoulders, pulling her tight against her side. ‘Stop this, Glad! You’re not helping. Get back downstairs and calm down.’ Despite her brave words, though, Nellie’s hands were shaking as she stood by the café door and called out. ‘There’s room in the basement for any that needs it.’
Then she stood aside as people rushed past and through to the kitchen where Marianne and Donny were holding the basement door open.
Chapter 14
‘I think we should go and see what’s going on?’ Lily said as she and Charlie stood listening to the distant sounds of explosions. ‘People might need our help.’
Above them, they could hear the ack-ack guns going into overdrive, causing the room to shake. But what was the point, Lily wondered, if there were no planes to shoot down?
Charlie nodded. ‘You’re right.’ He grabbed a black bag from under his desk and a torch from the drawer, which he handed to her. ‘Come on. The quickest way is through the tunnels. It’ll bring us straight out onto Snargate.’ With his free hand he grasped her arm and hustled her out of the room and towards some spiral stairs that led down into the hillside. Lily kept the torch’s beam on the ground so they wouldn’t trip over any unexpected rubble, and they clattered down the steep steps. After winding round three flights, Lily was starting to feel dizzy and she breathed a sigh of relief when they finally emerged into a large cavern. She stared around in amazement. Seating had been cut into the chalk walls, and people were sitting or standing in groups, talking anxiously about this new development. Against one wall, a stainless-steel urn sat on a large trestle table, cups and saucers laid out beside it. It seemed, though, that the urn was empty as people were ignoring it.
Charlie urged her on through a wide tunnel towards the entrance and emerged at the end of Snargate Street by the Masonic Hall. Lily paused briefly and looked up the steep hillside that rose behind the street, astonished that they had managed to come down from the top of Drop Redoubt right to the town, but she didn’t have time to ponder for long. Beside her, Charlie was swearing roundly, and she followed his gaze. Snargate Street was clouded with dust and smoke, and, halfway down, a couple of buildings seemed to have collapsed. She followed him, stepping carefully over the smashed glass and rubble, as he made his way towards the damage, pausing beside a woman sitting on the pavement. Her face was grey with dust and she was holding on to a small boy who was screaming as blood poured down his face.
Further along, Lily could see a group of people digging in the rubble of the buildings. She spotted Jasper standing on the pile of bricks, handing what looked like a door back to the man behind him. ‘Jasper,’ she called, running towards him, while Charlie knelt beside the woman.
‘Lily! That girl needs treatment. Can you help?’ He gestured with his head at a slight figure lying in the road, while beside her a middle-aged woman screamed frantically, ‘Doris! Wake up!’
Lily ran towards them and took the screaming woman gently by the arm. ‘Let me have a look at her for you,’ she said.
‘Tell me she’s not dead!’ The woman started to sob.
Someone led her away while Lily knelt beside the figure and gasped. It was a girl she used to be at school with, she realised. Doris had left when she was fourteen to work in her family’s newsagent’s, and they’d not had a lot of contact since. She looked at the remains of the shop. The glass from the windows lay sparkling on the road like diamonds, and the doorway had been completely blown away. The poor girl must have been serving behind the counter when the shell hit.
Gently she put her fingers to Doris’s neck, finding a faint pulse, but she had no idea what she could do for her. Scrambling up, she ran to Charlie who was cleaning the cut on the little boy’s head.
‘I’ll do that. That girl needs you more.’ She pointed behind her. Charlie nodded and ran towards the inert figure.
‘It came out of nowhere,’ the little boy’s mother was muttering. ‘One minute we was walkin’ down the road. Next, wham!’ She shook her head and, clasping her hands around her knees, started to rock backwards and forwards.
‘All right, love,’ Lily soothed as she cleaned the boy’s cut and started to wrap a bandage around his head. ‘You’re safe now, and your boy’s going to be fine.’
‘But what was it?’ she wailed.
‘I don’t know. But it’s stopped now, so try to keep calm for your little one. You’re scaring him.’ The boy’s screams had faded into whimpers now and he had stuck his thumb in his mouth. Finishing the job, she picked him up and held him out to the woman, who grasped his small body tight to her as she struggled to hold back her sobs. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just the shock of it. I’ll be right as rain in a jiffy,’ she said bravely. ‘Long as my little Peter’s all right then we’ll get through.’ She kissed the top of her son’s dusty head.
Hearing the welcome sound of an ambulance, Lily patted the woman on the shoulder and walked over to Jasper who was still with the group clearing the rubble of the collapsed buildings.
‘Anything I can do, Jasper?’ she called.
‘Get back!’ he replied urgently as he backed away from the building. ‘Everyone! Get back! The whole lot’s gonna come down.’
The crowd scrambled back as, with a groan, the building folded in on itself.
Lily stood with her hand over her mouth, her eyes stinging as a cloud of dust engulfed them. Charlie came to stand beside her and she gave him a questioning look.
He shook his head. ‘There was nothing I could do,’ he said sadly.
Lily glanced behind him and saw that Doris’s mother had laid her coat over her daughter’s face and was now lying, her head on the girl’s chest, sobbing broken-heartedly. She tried to recall their time at school. Doris had always been in trouble, she remembered, and when she’d left, she’d burned her school skirt in the playground, and run off with her group of friends cackling. Lily smiled slightly at the memory. She’d been so full of life and mischief. Why hadn’t she seen more of her once she’d left? Lily wondered. It was too late now. Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped her hand across her face.
Charlie put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Can you do more? Can you go and check that man over there?’
Lily straightened up and nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Gently, Charlie led her over to a middle-aged man who was sitting in a doorway, his eyes glazed with shock as he stared sightlessly ahead, before leaving her to help somebody else.
Jasper came over to her. ‘What are you doing here? And who’s that?’ He nodded towards Charlie, who was talking earnestly to an ambulance driver.
‘That’s Dr Alexander. Runs the barracks hospital up Drop Redoubt. I was sent to help him today.’
Jasper took in her pale face and tear-stained cheeks and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Why don’t you get off, love? There’s plenty here to help.’
She shook her head. ‘No. This is what I do now, Jasper. I can’t crumble at the first challenge, can I?’
‘That’s the spirit. You’re a chip off the old block, aren’t you?’ He smiled approvingly at her.
‘Seems so.’ Lily tried to smile back, but found her face was too stiff from trying to hold back the tears. ‘Not sure whether that’s good or bad.’
‘Oh, I think it’s good, love. Definitely good.’ He patted her cheek affectionately.
Lily nodded gratefully. Jasper’s words had given her the strength she needed to keep going, and she knelt down beside the injured man, speaking softly to him as she took his elbow, and with Jasper on his other side, they helped him to the ambulance.
Chapter 15
Once the all-clear sounded, news reached the café of the devastation in Snargate Street. Immediately, Nellie hauled out a large wicker basket from the pantry, and between them, she and Marianne filled it with the food that Marianne had prepared for distribution to any who needed it. It was becoming a well-oiled routine now, and within ten minutes, the basket was loaded onto the small trailer on the back of the bike, and Nellie was cycling down King Street.
As she turned into Snargate Street, she stopped, panting and squinting through the dust that still swirled in the air. After taking a flask from the voluminous pocket of her apron, she took a slug of tea and grimaced; no sugar. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to drinking it without her usual three spoons.
She rubbed her backside. She was getting better at this cycling lark, after making half a dozen trips up to Houghton Without, but she didn’t like it. Not one bit. She was trying out a new supplier tonight; someone much closer to home. The only problem was she wasn’t sure she could trust them. Maybe she’d talk to Jasper about it. He was disapproving of the risks she was taking in buying extra food on the black market, but he understood her reasons. Marianne, of course, wanted her to stop altogether, so there was no point speaking to her. Not a risk-taker, her Marianne.
Her gaze was drawn towards the end of the street where two of the buildings had collapsed into each other. People were swarming around the ruins like ants, and when the crowd parted slightly, she saw Jasper’s familiar figure. He had his arm around a girl in nurse’s uniform, the blonde hair that was escaping from her cap gleaming in the sunlight. Lily! she realised in astonishment. What was she doing here? At that moment, Jasper stroked her daughter’s cheek and smiled, his bushy head bending close to Lily’s. Nellie’s breath caught as she thought about how different her life could have been. She shook her head impatiently. ‘You are a foolish old woman, Nellie Castle,’ she said to herself as she got back on the bike and set off again, taking care to avoid the worst of the rubble.
*
Lily had just settled the man into the ambulance when she heard a familiar voice echo down the street.
‘Jasper!’
Both she and Jasper turned and the sight that greeted them managed to bring a small smile to Lily’s lips as she watched her mother wobbling towards them on the old café bicycle. Suddenly, the trailer bumping behind her tipped over and the basket spilled into the road.
‘Hell’s bells and buckets of stinking bloody gore!’ Nellie’s loud curses floated towards the group digging through the rubble and, as one, they turned to gape at her.
Jasper let out a loud guffaw and Lily heard several others join in. Today Nellie was wearing a bright orange summer dress, dotted with yellow daisies, and a yellow overall with pink, red and purple flowers. On her head was the tin hat Jasper had made for her, to which she’d attached a length of pink ribbon. Nellie’s love of bright colours was frequently eye-watering, but in this scene of destruction, it provided a welcome distraction as people cheered. The arrival of Nellie Castle could only mean one thing: food.
‘Bloody thing!’ she cursed. ‘And who put all those bricks in the way?’
‘Nellie, love! Why didn’t you send Donny?’ Jasper called.
‘Because I’m not a fool. That boy would have eaten half the food before he’d got down King Street, that’s why.’
‘All right, Mrs C. Least we can rely on you. Was hoping to see Mrs Palmer with the WVS van, but she ain’t arrived yet!’ A man holding a shovel over his shoulder mopped the sweat from his face with a dust-covered sleeve.
‘That’s right, Jack, you can always count on me! Spotted Mrs Palmer on the way as it happens. She’s busy chatting to a journalist from the Gazette.’ She pointed back up the road. ‘A photographer’s takin’ photos while she pours tea and grins like a maniac.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Only Nosy Palmer could make the shelling of Dover all about her. Come and get it then!’
Lily went to help her mother as she opened the basket to reveal several old biscuit tins.
‘Here you go, folks,’ Nellie called out, as people started to crowd around her. ‘Marianne’s sausage rolls, some sarnies and . . .’ She opened the final tin with a flourish. ‘Jam tarts. No tea, though, I’m afraid. Unless the leccy’s still on and someone can boil up a kettle.’
‘Thanks, Mrs C. Just what the doctor ordered,’ said a man in a filthy white shirt and grey trousers held up with braces, as he grabbed one of the sausage rolls with one hand and reached for a tart with the other.
Nellie smacked it away. ‘Oy! Don’t be greedy, Cecil Dyson.’
‘Mum,’ Lily hissed at her, ‘where did you get the supplies for all this? Sausage rolls? You said the sausage meat was only for use in the café when Donny asked for some the other day. If you keep insisting on feeding everyone we’ll go out of business.’
‘Oh hush, Lily. We’re doing fine.’
‘Girl’s got a point, Nel. You seem to be feeding half the town.’ Jasper raised his bushy eyebrows in query.
Nellie avoided their eyes by holding out a tin to a young woman with a baby on her hip. ‘And one for the nipper as well, love. That’s it,’ she said in approval, as the toddler stuffed a tart into her mouth. ‘Listen to the pair of you. We all have to make sacrifices, and if it means a little less for us, at least we’re not leaving people to starve.’
Charlie ambled over and Nellie held out one of the tins to him. He took a sausage roll with a nod of thanks. ‘Lily, it might be a good idea if you go back to the hospital in the ambulance. I think you may be needed there more than here with me.’
Nellie raised her eyebrows at Lily. ‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Dr Charlie Alexander. I was sent to help him up at Drop Redoubt today. Charlie, this is my mother, Nellie Castle.’
Nellie examined him from the top of his dark head to his dusty black boots. When she raised her eyes back to his face, Charlie was smiling at her. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Castle. I’ve heard a lot about you from your sons.’
Nellie smiled charmingly. ‘You know my boys, do you? Don’t believe a word they say.’ She thrust the tin she was holding under his nose again. ‘Here. Have a tart.’
