The Night the City Burned
Created | Updated Nov 11, 2008
The siren howled through the darkness like a pack of wolves. Connie Oake turned from the washing up and dried her chafed hands on a roller towel.
“Dad,” she yelled. “Air raid!”
“I’m not going down that damned shelter. It gives me the creeps.” George Oake appeared in the hall, one hand on a door frame as if seeking support.
“We had better go. We’re too close to the Daimler here.”
“If a bomb has got your name on it, that’s it.”
“That’s just superstition, Dad.” As Connie opened the back door, a sudden burst of flame erupted in the distance, briefly illuminating the factory. “It’s started already! Come on!”
“I’m not going.”
“Well, I am,” said Connie, collecting her old navy coat and tartan bag. She stood by the door, hazel eyes defiant behind her glasses.
“Would you leave your old Dad?”
“You can come with me. Bring your gas mask.” Connie hurried along the alley behind the terrace and into the neighbour’s garden.
Her father limped behind her, complaining. “In my day, a girl wouldn’t speak to her father like that. She’d get a clip round the ear.”
“I’m not a girl. I’m twenty five.”
Fires blossomed across the night sky, silhouetting Mrs Mason standing by the shelter with her baby and small daughter.
“Oh, I am glad to see you, Connie. I can’t manage the shelter on my own.. I don’t half miss my husband,” Mrs Mason said
“I’m sure you do. But I’ll do what I can to help.”
Connie climbed down into the corrugated iron chamber with a torch and lit the Calor gas lamp, revealing a small space, plank benches and a few bags. She took the baby from Mrs Mason, who helped little Lily down the steps.
“Where’s that nice Fred Armstrong tonight?” asked Mrs Mason.
“He’s working nights.”
Connie imagined Fred struggling to put out incendiaries as fast as they fell. He had come to Coventry to work as an armaments inspector but the job of fire watcher had been added once bombing started. She was determined not to reveal the churning sea of anxiety within her to Mrs Mason, who was already worrying about her husband.
George sat on a plank bench, rummaging in the pockets of an old tweed jacket, threadbare round the cuffs and collar. He took out matches, pieces of string, handkerchiefs and, eventually, a packet of Woodbines. His hand trembled so much that he had to try several times to light the cigarette.
“ He’s a dull dog, that man,” said George.
“He’s nothing of the sort!” cried Connie, with more feeling than she intended.
“ A man who doesn’t smoke or drink is a dull dog.”
“He’s got a good sense of humour.”
As she looked back, it seemed that her friendship with Fred was like a rare flower in the desert of the last difficult year. Once war had been declared she was overwhelmed with work, trying to organise the evacuation of children from Trinity School to the surrounding villages. They had gradually returned and were now in the city sheltering from the raid as best they could.
“Mum, I want a wee” murmured Lily.
“I’ll take her,” said Connie, glad to escape her father’s antagonism.
She balanced the little girl on the edge of the bucket at the end of the passage. The plank floor was wet and slippery despite the care with which Fred had laid it. Connie looked at the low heeled court shoes that she wore for school. They were old but she always kept them clean. Now, they were covered in grey mud.
Gradually, the noise of the bombing changed. Thuds reverberated across the city, at first distant, then growing closer and combining with the crashes of buildings collapsing until the whole city seemed to shake. George shrank into his jacket, pulling the collar up round his ears, so that his thin face peered out from a frame of hair and tweed. Lily cried inconsolably, so Connie took the baby while Mrs Mason held the tearful little girl in her arms.
“Where’s the RAF when we need them?” moaned George.
“I’m sure they’re doing their best,” snapped Connie.
Mrs Mason took out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “I don’t rightly know what Stan is doing. Perhaps we ought to pray for them.”
“Fat lot of good that would do,” said George.
“You’re welcome to pray if you want to Mrs Mason. I don’t believe in God myself.”
“You don’t believe in God?” asked Mrs Mason, raising her eyebrows.
“No,” said Connie, adopting the tone she used to address her class. “I think human beings have to sort out their own problems.”
“ So the damned Huns bomb the hell out of us,” sneered George.
“But you don’t believe in God either, do you Dad?”
“ I couldn’t believe in God after the things I’ve seen. I sometimes believe in the other chap, though.”
Mrs Mason gave a little cry and started praying, fingering her handkerchief as if it was a rosary. Connie sat listening to the thud of bombs and the crash of buildings, trying to work out how distant the explosions were.
Suddenly, the trap door of the shelter was opened and a torch shone on them.
“You better move,” said the ARP warden. “It isn’t safe here.”
“We’re all going to die,” moaned George.
“No we’re not, Dad,” said Connie, affecting more certainty than she felt.
“I knew the damned Huns would get me in the end.”
“They’re not after you, they’re after the armaments factories.”
“Move, now!” shouted the warden.
“You’re not my damned sergeant,” complained George.
“If you stay here, you’ll roast. The Daimler is well alight.”
Connie carried the baby out of the shelter, followed by Mrs Mason and Lily. George trailed along behind them, muttering. They emerged to find that the night was full of lurid fire light. Strange broken walls loomed out of the darkness and piles of debris smouldered. They met other groups of people making their way through this ruined landscape.
Eventually, they reached a shelter, although it was already full of haggard-eyed people. George sat on the floor and lit one Woodbine after another. Connie looked around at the groups of people: families with children, old people, women but fewer adult men. She spotted a colleague of Fred’s and greeted him.
“Have you seen Fred Armstrong?”
He shook his head. “I was on the day shift. Sorry.”
Connie returned to her space on the floor, next to Mrs Mason and thought of Fred. She remembered the summer weekends she had spent cycling with him down the Warwickshire lanes. That time now seemed to glow in her heart like a sunset. At that moment she knew that, if she came out of the shelter alive, she must find Fred.
It was many hours before the explosions tailed off, to be replaced by an eerie calm.
“Has it stopped?” asked Mrs Mason. “Can we go home?”
At last, someone announced the all clear and people began to leave. They emerged into air which filled their eyes and noses with smoke. Connie led a dispirited group back towards their homes, threading her way past piles of brick and masonry. Troops and soldiers worked around them and her heart winced when she spotted a hand or a leg among the rubble.
As they neared the Daimler, they reached a wasteland of chimney stacks and end walls, twisted metal and brick. Connie stopped, bewildered, unable to find any landmarks she recognised. Mrs Mason stood beside her, tears streaming down her face.
“This place looks like Arras,” George said.
Connie wandered among the rubble until she spotted a chimney stack and wall that looked familiar. She stopped and picked up a battered pressure cooker.
“Is this all that’s left? ” Some restraint within her broke and she wept.
