The Gentleman on Pennyfield Street Read online

  Betsy still wore her headphones which fed her directions. Betsy sat downstairs, manning the large radio and the electrical supply for the searchlight. The whole top story of the building was taken over to support the searchlight.

  A thin slice of ham gave her sandwich barely more than flavor. She ached for some vegetables and remembered the lovely tomatoes they had grown at Lady Pettifer's villa in the south of France. Such abundance seemed so far away now, almost unbelievable.

  "I thought I would go dancing tomorrow if it's a clear night. They suggest it might be clear." Vera had a scheduled evening off and was seeing a man who worked on the Watch.

  "That would be nice," Dory said. Dancing wasn't something Dory loved as much as Vera. For her it wasn't easy having a good time, when so many were fighting across the Channel, but those same men came home for a few days and wanted to do little else but have a good time. Even with all the bombs dropping, they still managed.

  Chapter 3

  THERE WAS SMOKE in the air when Dory walked home at dawn. The rescue brigade was still out, quelling fires and searching through the rubble.

  The streets were full of people returning to their houses. Most slept in the air raid shelter, or tried to. Returning to their houses at the break of dawn to carry on with their day.

  Dory was heading for bed. It had been a long night and working the searchlight, with all the energy and anxiousness expended, she was utterly drained. It seemed her body ran on anxiousness these days. Even in her sleep, it couldn't be assured that bombs wouldn't start dropping. They tended not to anymore during the day, but it could still happen. Or worse, dreaded news that the Germans were crossing the channel to invade. Anything could happen while she slept.

  A woman was putting an 'Open for Business' sign on a store where the windows had all been shattered. Intact windows were a luxury these days. So far, they still had theirs on the terrace house she shared with Vera and Betsy. A typical two rooms upstairs, two downstairs. With so many people homeless, they were thankful for having a roof over their heads.

  Walking down Pennyfield Street, smoke grew thicker and the rescue brigade had lorries and ambulances along the street. This must be where one of the bombs dropped. It was probably the one Dory had seen during the night.

  Glass crunched under her feet as she walked, staying on the other side of the street from where all the activity was, but she couldn't avoid seeing the bodies of four people laying on stretchers. Obviously someone had built their own air shelter at home, but it hadn't been enough for a direct hit. There weren't enough air shelters for everyone. It had been a bone of contention in the community and the Government had sent out pamphlets advising people how they could build one at home.

  It hadn't served these people, though.

  One of the bodies was a child and Dory felt her heart twist, unable to bring herself to look away. The body was so covered in dust, it looked almost indistinguishable from the rubble it had been drawn from. With so much dust, they must be hard to find.

  The Government didn't release information about the people who died in the bombings. Nothing regarding the numbers of dead was printed in the newspapers—only the location of strikes. But they were so abundant, they were often not reported anymore. Information of any kind was hard to get these days. One had to inquire about someone specifically to get an answer.

  "Move along," a police officer said, waving her along the road.

  With a tight smile, Dory continued, but quickly looked back. The second body was a woman, and then two men. One of them wore green corduroy pants and a woolen vest. Brown shoes.

  Tearing her gaze away, she continued walking. A mobile tea bus stood at the end of the road, and Dory fished through her pockets for two shillings. A warm cup would perhaps revive her a little.

  "It's awful, isn't it?" the woman with blond curls said as Dory approached the small window at the side of the bus and asked for a tea with milk. Sugar wasn't an option anymore. What Dory wouldn't give for a bit of jam or a piece of chocolate. Still, the condensed milk did add some sweetness. "They were in their house, too."

  "Yes, I saw it last night."

  "You're one of the ATS girls."

  "Yes," Dory confirmed. "On the searchlight down the road."

  "Ah. I was in the Dee Street shelter myself. We all felt it. Poor Sandra, and her child too." The woman tsked with sadness.

  "You knew them?"

  "Well, you do, don't you? I'm stationed here every day. They came down to buy a tea both her and her husband. He was quite partial to a Chelsea Bun on a Friday. Worked in the sail factory down the road."

  "Who was the other man?"

  "What other man?"

  "There were two men pulled out of the rubble."

  "They must have had a visitor. As far as I know, no one else lived with them. Oh, it's so awful." The woman shuddered and then had to serve a customer.

  Blowing on the hot tea in a chipped enamel cup, Dory moved away, finally taking a swallow of the hot liquid. It warmed her insides and she sat down on a low brick wall to finish it. Lorries trundled past and merchants set up shop. Children ran along the street, getting themselves off to school.

  Dory didn't have enough money to buy a bun, but there was a bit of bread and cheese waiting for her at home, a snack before bedtime.

  Finishing her tea, she returned the empty cup and quickly wiped the dust off her backside before continuing home. Tiredness was dogging her steps, which grew heavier the closer she got to her bed, but as she turned down her own street, she saw a crater in the middle of the road. Their street had been struck and there was now a substantial hole in it. Well, cars wouldn't be coming through here anytime soon.

  With a vice of dread around her heart, she continued home, to find that the bomb had knocked over the tree in their garden. A flurry of branches and leaves, but Dory could also see that it had taken out part of their kitchen wall. The window on the upper story was also shattered—more from the impact of the bomb than from the tree. Scorch marks scarred the stucco wall that still stood.

  "Just wonderful," Dory said and walked around the tree to the door. She had to use her elbow to get it open, the wall having shifted slightly. Inside the kitchen, every surface was covered in dust and bricks were strewn across the floor. Not to mention the treetop now decorating the whole side of the kitchen. Well, the stove was intact, but Dory doubted the electricity was.

  Testing the light, she confirmed that the electricity had been taken out. It would be ages before they could get someone to reattach it. Still, they were lucky. They still had a roof and three walls. Better than some had it. There was nowhere for people to go when they lost their houses to a bomb. Often they simply wandered during the day, and stayed in the air shelters at night. Not much else you could do when your home was turned into a pile of rubble.

  Wiping the dust off the bench with her hand, she opened the bread tin and pulled out the loaf to cut herself two slices. The water still worked, she noted. At least the bomb hadn't hit the water main.

  While eating her cheese sandwich, Dory started picking up the bricks from the floor and carrying them out into the front yard. They would have to find a saw to cut branches off the tree. The trunk would likely have to stay where it was for the time being. Perhaps someone would find a use for it and carry it away. Nothing went to waste. They had to save absolutely everything from rags to bones left over from supper. Apparently they all had a use somewhere.

  "Hells bells," Vera said as she walked through the door. "I said I liked outdoor dining, but this is a bit far."

  "Who do you think we can call to take the tree trunk away?"

  "I don't know," Vera said. "I'll ask Kevin." Kevin was her boyfriend and warden in the area. "Has Betsy seen it?"

  "No, she said she needed to go to her mothers."

  Betsy was a local girl, while Vera came from Liverpool.

  "She's not going to be happy," Vera continued. "Did you see the window was blown out?"

  "Yes,"
Dory said. Her room was in the back, so most likely, her window was still intact. It was the smaller of the rooms, so she had it to herself, while Vera and Betsy shared the larger room at the front of the house. "We will have to find a pane somewhere. Do you think Kevin can help?"

  "I'll have him go to the salvage yard, but glass is hard to come by. We might have to board it up. Let's finish cleaning this up once we've had some sleep."

  Dory could only agree. This all felt additionally desolate because she was so tired, so she stopped and closed the front door inside it's warped frame. "Hopefully the house won't fall down."

  "It should be alright," Vera said. "Or we might be showing more of our private business to the whole street. Could you imagine if the wall fell away while we slept? I am so tired, I probably wouldn't notice. There's going to be glass all over my bed." It was unlikely the house would fall down as this was a terrace house and the structural walls were between the houses.

  "Do you want some help?"

  "No, I'll manage," Vera said with a smile. "Let's sleep and deal with it later."

  Retreating to her little room, Dory pulled off her jacket and hung it up, then her dark green trousers, to slip into her welcoming bed. Sleep took her almost immediately, but she did register Betsy's swearing when she came home.

  Chapter 4

  THE MESS SEEMED even worse when Dory woke. Vera was already cleaning up and there were men outside, contemplating the sizeable hole in the road.

  "I borrowed a saw from Harriet," Vera said, pointing to a rusty saw lying on the table. "I thought we should at least get rid of the branches."

  "Some would say it's a nice look," Dory replied, grabbing the saw. "In some circles, having a tree inside is all the rage."

  "Perhaps a nice decorative palm, not a great, big ash tree through the side of the wall."

  Starting at where the wall used to be, Dory started sawing the branches of the tree.

  "What's the weather like?" Vera asked.

  "Cloudy. I doubt it will be a clear night." Everyone prayed for a clear night. The bombers didn't come.

  They still had to man the searchlights, but would merely be sitting there on the roof drinking tea, and everyone in the city would be safe that night. Unfortunately, there had been very few clear nights of late. A reprieve would do the whole city a world of good, but it didn't look like it.

  "If you keep going with the branches, I'll fry us a couple of eggs."

  Hunger gnawed at Dory's stomach, but it was a feeling she was getting used to. They weren't starving, but there was never quite enough.

  "Post," a man called from outside.

  "Hello, Howie," Vera said. "How is everything?"

  "Can't complain. Many have it worse," the older man in his late sixties said. He'd been retired before the war started, but as all the young men had left, he’d been asked into service again. "We keep ticking on, don't we? Two letters today. I see your tree wanted to come in. Didn't like it outside anymore?"

  "Who does?" Vera said and accepted the small bunch of letters. "See you tomorrow, Howie."

  "Right then," he said with a tap to his cap.

  "Letter for you," Vera said and handed a white envelope to Dory.

  Dory expected a letter from Lady Pettifer, but it wasn't her handwriting. Staring at it for a moment, she knew it was from DI Ridley, or Captain Ridley, as he was now called. It was the first time in a long time that he had written and Dory didn't know what to do. Should she rip it open and read it right now, or save it for later? She decided on the latter, tucking it away in her pocket.

  There would be no end of questions from Vera and Betsy if they knew a man was writing to her, and also, she wanted to read it when she was ready.

  Having cleaned the dust off the frying pan, Vera was starting to fry a couple of eggs for them. They had run out of ham and wouldn't be getting any more until next week. They weren't the most frugal—unable to make their rations last a whole week. They were out of lard too, which made the eggs hard to peel off in one piece.

  "I think we should go to the hall for dinner before work tonight," Vera said.

  "Sure."

  The hall was a standard restaurant, which had cheap, basic meals. Without children or families, the wage provided by the ATS was sufficient to provide a few extras, and the restaurants were good for when rations had run out.

  Returning to the work at hand, Dory continued cutting through the branches, while Vera turned on the radio. There was a play on, interrupted by public service announcements urging them to do without. They even sang it in a jingle, 'If in doubt, do without.'

  "I am so tired of being told what to do every moment of the day. It's as though they believe we are completely incapable of thinking for ourselves," Betsy said, appearing at the door. The impressions of her pillow were still pressed into her cheek. "Save this, save that. Don't be greedy. We have nothing to be bloody greedy with, do we?"

  "Good morning, sunshine," Vera said.

  "And that bloody hole in the road. The clog heads have been out there talking about what to do about it the whole morning. Fill the damned thing. Why is that so hard? It’s not like there’s a shortage of rubble. And what about our wall?"

  "I doubt anyone is going to worry about the wall. Well, we're lucky no one got hurt."

  "There's going to be people in here pilfering our clothes the minute we leave tonight." Betsy grumbled as she sat down. "Maybe I can ask Harriet to stay the night. They're stepping on each other's toes every moment of the day over there."

  "I don't mind," Dory said. "She can sleep in my room."

  "Our house is going to turn into a flophouse," Betsy said.

  "Maybe for the best until we work out how to sort the wall," Vera said.

  "Or we just lock the door to the kitchen," Dory said.

  "We haven't got a key to that lock."

  That was a point. "I got the key to my room. Perhaps we should swap the locks."

  "Well, I will leave that up to you," Betsy said, finally cheered when receiving a plate of egg on toast from Vera.

  Locksmithing wasn't a skill Dory had, but tradesmen were near on impossible to find. How hard could it be to change out a lock? It would be something she would worry about after her breakfast. They only had a few hours before it was time to head off to work.

  "Still, we are lucky no one was hurt," Vera said as she brought over two more plates to the table.

  "They weren't so lucky on Pennyfield Street," Dory said. "The family was at home."

  "It's heartbreaking when they drag them out of the rubble."

  Involuntarily, Dory's mind returned to the sight—the young girl covered head to toe in dust. Then the man with the green corduroy trousers. He wasn't covered in dust. "Are they always covered in dust?"

  "Any I have seen," Vera said. "A house goes down and it more or less pulverizes."

  Cutting into the egg, the yolk bled bright yellow, like liquid sunlight.

  *

  After replacing the carbon filament and cleaning the mirrors, Dory took a moment to return downstairs to the operations room for their searchlight station. There was no indication of the Luftwaffe coming just yet. Betsy was out the back, tinkering with the radio—something about the transistor. Dory had no idea how a radio worked.

  Taking a seat at the desk, she turned on the desk light and brought out the letter she had been saving all day.

  The envelope was battered but intact. It had a black stamp on it that said 'Field Post Office' and another in blue that said 'Passed by Censor.' Ridley's handwriting was neat and crisp, stating her name and address. There was no return address, but she still wrote to him on the base at Pirbright. It seemed to get through eventually. How long it took to reach him, she had no idea.

  With a penknife, she slid along the top of the envelope, the cutting sounding harsh. The paper was thin, folded three times. It had only a few lines, and it looked as though he'd been in a hurry. It was postmarked only a few days ago, so his letters traveled quickly.


  Dear Miss Sparks, it started. He rarely called her Dory.

  I hope I find you well. I travel a great deal more as the war progresses, and I can tell you very little about what I am doing. I shall be back in London at the end of the month. Unfortunately only for a few days. Perhaps I could call on you then.

  Dory blinked, surprised that he wanted to call on her, and nervous at the thought already. Over time, she got increasingly nervous seeing him, and distracted by thoughts of him.

  She had written to him when she'd first moved to London, informing him of her change in circumstances.

  I hear of the nightly bombings and am distressed to think that you face them every night. Be safe.

  Regards,

  M. Ridley

  Dory read the letter over and over again, trying to glean any new understanding out of them. It warmed her heart thinking he worried about her. No doubt what he was up to would terrify her. People in military intelligence were supposedly exactly where they weren't supposed to be, but they were absolutely tight-lipped about what they got up to. Perhaps it was best she didn't know, or she would lie awake and worry endlessly as she lay in bed.

  The idea of him not returning from the war was the worst thought she could conceive of. Her brother was still too young to serve, but if this war stretched on, it would absorb him as well. Hopefully the people on the radio saying this war would be over by spring were right.

  Seeing him in a few weeks would cheer her. He felt so distant. Not that she had any claim on him in any way. They had never been romantically involved. Had never even shared a meal together, except that one time in a pub near Wallisford Hall, but she had barely known him then.

  Chapter 5

  THE USUAL MAYHEM was inflicted upon the city. It was so strange to consider this usual, but it was. Death falling from the sky had become commonplace. If at all possible, it was best not to think about it. Come dawn, life went on. Not for everybody, though.

  Unwillingly, Dory's thoughts returned to the family. It was so awful the child was there, but Dory knew that many hadn't sent their children away somewhere out in the country. If they would have done so, the girl would still be alive—albeit alone and an orphan.