The Silent War Read online

  The

  Silent War

  Victor Pemberton

  Copyright © 1996 Victor Pemberton

  The right of Victor Pemberton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 9780755392490

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Also by Victor Pemberton

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  For Beryl,

  a dear friend, with love,

  and dedicated to all those who lived through their own ‘Silent War’

  THE SILENT WAR

  Born in Holloway, in the London Borough of Islington, Victor Pemberton is a successful radio playwright and TV producer, as well as being the author of three popular London sagas, all of which are available from Headline. His first novel, OUR FAMILY, was based on his highly successful trilogy of radio plays of the same name. Victor has worked with some of the great names of entertainment, including Benny Hill and Dodie Smith, had a longstanding correspondence with Stan Laurel and scripted and produced many early episodes of the BBC’s ‘Dr Who’ series. In recent years he has worked as a producer for Jim Henson and set up his own company, Saffron, whose first TV documentary won an Emmy Award. He lives in Essex.

  Also by Victor Pemberton:

  Our Family

  Our Street

  Our Rose

  The Silent War

  Nellie’s War

  My Sister Sarah

  Goodnight Amy

  Leo’s Girl

  A Perfect Stranger

  Flying with the Angels

  The Chandler’s Daughter

  We’ll Sing at Dawn

  The Other Side of the Track

  A Long Way Home

  Sunday Collins is less than happy with her lot in war-torn London, working in the sweaty, steamy laundry round the corner from her home in a stark Holloway council flat known as ‘the buildings’ where she has been brought up by May Collins, a Salvation Army Officer who found her on the Sally Army steps along with her bossy sister Louie. Sunday lives for Saturday nights, when she makes the most of her Betty

  Grable looks at the Athenaeum Dance Hall. But Sunday’s recklessly lived life is changed dramatically when, one summer morning in 1944, the laundry receives a direct hit from one of Hitler’s V-1s, and she finds she is - and it seems permanently - deaf…

  Chapter 1

  Sunday hated her name. For as long as she could remember she had always resented being named after a day of the week instead of being called something nice and ordinary, like Gladys or Lilian or Mary. Of course, she blamed it all on her mum and dad, not her real mum and dad, but the ones who adopted her when, as a newborn baby, she was found one Sunday evening, abandoned in a brown paper carrier bag on the steps of the Salvation Army Hall near Highbury Corner in Islington, North London. She got so fed up with the endless jibes from the girls she worked with down the Bagwash. At closing time on Saturday afternoons it was always the same old parting yells of ‘See yer Monday – Sunday!’ as they all streamed out into the yard outside, screeching with laughter at their same old worn-out gags.

  It was way back in 1930 when old Ma Briggs first opened her Bagwash premises in a grubby back-street mews just off the Holloway Road. Once used as an old brewer’s stable-yard, it was a place where, for a few coppers, customers could bring their dirty washing wrapped up in a bed-sheet, and get it boiled and scrubbed clean in one of three stone tubs. It was then squeezed out through the rollers of a huge iron mangle until it was drained of water, wrapped up neatly in a bundle, and tied up again in the bed-sheet ready for collection. Briggs Bagwash was a real hell-hole of a place to work in, especially for a seventeen-year-old like Sunday Collins. It was stiflingly hot both in summer and winter, with hot steam constantly curling up from the boiling water in the three huge tubs, which were heated by the cheapest coke available. Even worse was the pungent smell of soap suds, washing soda, and carbolic soap, which at times was so powerful that one or two of the younger ‘Baggies’ (as the girls were known locally) had just fainted away for lack of fresh air. But this was May 1944, and with the war now in its fifth year, young girls were lucky to have a paid job at all.

  ‘Collins!’

  To Sunday, the high-pitched squeal of Ma Briggs’s voice was like a hot knife through butter. ‘Yes, Mrs Briggs?’ she called, turning from the mangle where she was struggling to guide a large folded bed-sheet through the rollers.

  With arms crossed and a Capstan fag dangling from her lips, the boss-lady picked her way past the other girls towards Sunday. ‘You was ten minutes late again this mornin’. That’s the fird time in two weeks. Wot d’yer fink you’re playin’ at?’

  ‘Sorry about that Mrs Briggs.’ Sunday had to shout to be heard, for she had to compete with Charles Shadwell and his BBC Radio Orchestra on Music While You Work booming out from a tannoy on the wall just above her. ‘Mum forgot to wake me up.’

  The boss-lady glared back at the girl, unaware that she had let her ash fall on to a newly mangled pile of bagwash. Ma Briggs had a bony face with a pinched, upturned nose, which perfectly matched her hunched-up shoulders and painfully skinny middle-aged body. She had once sacked a girl who’d likened her to the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. ‘Wos up wiv you, Collins? Why d’yer ’ave to rely on yer old gel ter wake yer up? Can’t yer buy yerself an alarm clock or somefin’?’

  Sunday was dying to snap back, ‘Not on the wages you pay me, you old bitch!’ But, even though she was impulsive enough actually to say it, she bit her tongue firmly to resist the temptation. ‘It won’t happen again, Mrs Briggs.’

  ‘Too true it won’t!’ The boss-lady unfolded her arms and finally pulled the fag stub from her lips. ‘Let me tell yer somefin’, Miss Clever Arse!’ she said, smoke filtering out through her brown-stained teeth as she spoke. ‘Your hours are eight ’til five. Next time yer get ’ere past the hour, I’ll bolt the bleedin’ door on yer!’

  Sunday didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She knew only too well that if she raised h
er eyes and looked straight into Ma Briggs’s face, she would say something she’d be bound to regret. Relishing the power she held over her girls, the boss-lady tossed the remains of her fag to the floor and stubbed it out with the sole of her foot. As if consolidating her victory over someone who she knew would not dare to argue with her, she attempted to straighten her hunched shoulders and stretch herself to a height above her normal five feet four inches.

  ‘Oh, an’ just one more fing, Miss big shot Collins,’ she sniped, leaning so close to Sunday that the smell of Capstan fags on her breath practically overpowered the girl. ‘I saw yer showin’ off yer arse to them sailor boys on the dance floor down the Athenaeum the uvver night. Fink you’re really somefin’, don’t yer, duckie? Wonder wot your old woman’d say if she knew ’alf wot you get up to?’ And lowering her voice, she added, ‘Bet she wouldn’t like ’er mates up the Salvation Army to ’ear such fings.’

  Chuckling to herself, Ma Briggs brushed some fag ash from her white cotton blouse and black skirt, adjusted her turban, and made her way back to her room at the rear of the Bagwash.

  Sunday watched her go. As soon as the boss-lady had closed her door, the other ‘Baggies’ stopped what they were doing and waited for Sunday’s reaction. But Sunday did not react. She merely carried on where she had left off, turning the wheel of the huge mangle with one hand and easing the wet sheet through the rollers with the other. Whatever her thoughts were, she was keeping them to herself.

  Music While You Work had now come to an end, and as it was 11 o’clock in the morning, Sandy MacPherson at the BBC organ was on the air, with his regular programme of listeners’ requests.

  ‘Take no notice, Sun,’ called one of the ‘Baggies’ who was at the tub closest to Sunday. ‘Briggs is all mouf an’ no trousers!’

  Sunday turned back to look at her best mate, Pearl Simpson, a dumpy little thing with jet-black hair, large emerald-coloured eyes and a lovely moon-shaped face with a small mole on her left cheek.

  ‘I’m not fussed,’ said Sunday, coldly. ‘Mrs Briggs doesn’t mean a damned thing to me. Her trouble is, she’s frustrated. Ever since her old man went down at Dunkirk, she’s been grateful for every bit of hard she can get her hands on.’

  ‘Yer can say that again!’ Pearl left the tub where she was stirring clothes in boiling water, and after making sure that the other girls could not overhear her, she joined Sunday at the mangle. ‘Did yer know she’s been bangin’ it away wiv Tommy Leeson,’ she said, doing her best to compete with Sandy MacPherson’s organ-playing.

  Sunday abruptly stopped turning the mangle wheel. ‘Tommy Leeson! That one behind the bar down the Nag’s Head? She can’t be. She’s old enough to be his grandmother!’

  ‘Tommy ain’t fussy,’ sniffed Pearl, with a huge grin on her face. ‘’E likes ter lay old hens. Reckons they’re always better at it than spring lambs!’

  Both girls burst into laughter. Their workmates turned to glare at them, disliking the fact that they were not privy to the joke. And when Ernie Mancroft turned up with another pile of washing for Sunday to put through the mangle, he shrank at the sound of the two girls’ laughter. Being one of only two young blokes working in the Bagwash who had not yet been called up, he was sure that, as usual, he was the reason for another of their piss-taking jokes. And, as usual, Sunday and Pearl never gave him cause to think otherwise, containing their laughter only long enough for him to dump the washing and leave. But Ernie never responded to their jibes. He fancied Sunday far too much to stir up trouble. Every time he even caught a glimpse of her, he was determined that one day she’d find out what he was made of.

  On the stroke of five that evening, like every evening five days a week, it took no more than a minute for the Bagwash to empty. Eight hours was long enough to expect any human being to endure, cooped up in the stifling atmosphere of steaming hot tubs. As usual, Ma Briggs was at the main doors waiting to lock up. It was the time of day she hated most, watching her ‘Baggies’ filter into the mews outside, and rushing off in an excitable gaggle of laughter towards the Holloway Road. Once she was alone, she felt all the power drained from her. After the last girl had gone, the boss-lady slammed the door behind her and padlocked it grudgingly. To make things worse, it was Saturday evening. No more power now until Monday morning.

  In the road outside, Sunday and Pearl breathed in the fresh May air, and sighed with relief. Sunday ran her fingers through her shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair, then ruffled it up to restore some life to it. From in front and behind them, there were the usual calls from the other ‘Baggies’ of ‘See yer Monday, Sunday!’ The same old gag. And, to gales of laughter, ‘Save us a bit er trousers at the dance ternight!’ As usual, Sunday ignored them all. Apart from Pearl, she considered herself a cut above the other ‘Baggies’. To her they were really just a bunch of knuckle-heads, who’d never really taken to her because she didn’t speak their lingo.

  Holloway Road had an end-of-the-week feel about it. There were plenty of people around, most of them hurrying home after shopping in the busy Seven Sisters Road, others already joining the queues outside the Gaumont Cinema and the local fish and chips shops, and others just strolling idly in the last hours of the day’s warm sunshine. In fact, it had been the first really warm day of the year, and Sunday loved to see people walking around without a topcoat for the first time since the end of summer the previous year. It was a sure sign that in half an hour or so the pubs would be open, for there were plenty of blokes already hanging around in small groups chatting to each other about the end of the football season, or which pub Darts Team was playing that evening. But it was the smell that Sunday loved most of all. The sweet, fresh smell of spring, a smell that quickly made her forget that the Bagwash even existed, a smell that helped to erase the memory of those savage early years of the war, when so many of the surrounding streets had been bombed during the Blitz. As she and Pearl strode off at a brisk pace along the Holloway Road towards the Nag’s Head, Sunday felt good to be alive – no bombs, no bagwash to mangle, no Ma Briggs, and Saturday night out at the Athenaeum Dance Hall to look forward to.

  ‘I’ve promised ter see Lennie Jackson at the dance ternight,’ said Pearl, as she and Sunday waited for a tram to pass before they crossed the road outside the Royal Northern Hospital. ‘’E says ’e’s goin’ ter teach me how ter dance the samba.’

  ‘The samba? You!’

  Pearl was immediately stung by Sunday’s implied remark. Looking hurt and depressed, she said, ‘See yer then,’ and moved off towards her bus stop outside the Foresters’ Hall.

  ‘No, Pearl – wait!’ Sunday immediately hurried to catch up with her pal. She could have bitten off her tongue for being so insensitive. ‘I didn’t mean – I didn’t mean what you thought I meant.’

  ‘I can’t ’elp the way I look, Sun,’ said Pearl, eyes looking aimlessly towards the boarded-up Holloway Empire, where dozens of pigeons were fluttering on and off the rooftop in a spectacular display of home ownership. ‘I’m not fat ’cos I eat too much.’

  Sunday was cringing inside. ‘Of course you don’t eat too much, Pearl. How could you on the bits of food we get on the ration. You’re not fat, honest you’re not. That’s not what I was saying.’

  The two girls came to a halt at the bus stop.

  ‘I’m in love wiv ’im, Sun,’ Pearl said, quite suddenly. ‘Me an’ Lennie. ’E feels the same way.’

  Sunday couldn’t believe what Pearl had just told her. As she looked at her best mate, she thought that despite her chubby appearance, she was really quite beautiful, with her black hair cut into a fringe across her forehead, and long eyelashes that accentuated her sparkling green eyes. ‘You mean, you’re going steady?’ were the only words Sunday managed to get out.

  Pearl lowered her eyes and blushed before she answered. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘But Lennie Jackson’s in the Army.’

  ‘Not for much longer,’ said Pearl, quickly. ‘Everyone says the war’ll be over next year.
My dad says that once the invasion starts, it’s only a matter of time before Jerry ’as ter give in.’

  For a moment there was silence between them, and both girls turned to look along the Holloway Road waiting for a sight of Pearl’s trolleybus. Quite suddenly, a cool breeze came up, and immediately deprived the spring sunshine of its true heat. At the edge of the pavement, a tall elm tree, which had survived bomb-blast during the fierce aerial bombardments of the Battle of Britain, had succumbed to the breeze, for its newly formed leaves were shimmering and clinging on to their mother branches with grim determination.

  Sunday didn’t know what to say to Pearl. It had never occurred to her that anyone could possibly fancy her best friend, could fancy anyone who wasn’t slim and sexy.

  ‘Lennie says ’e likes the way I look,’ said Pearl, as if she knew only too well what Sunday was thinking. ‘He says he prefers fat girls – more meat on ’em.’ She attempted a chuckle, but somehow just couldn’t manage it. ‘But I’m goin’ ter lose weight, Sunday. I’ve made up me mind.’

  Before Sunday had a chance to answer, to say something reassuring, the number 609 trolleybus arrived. Although Pearl’s legs were quite trim, they were rather short, and she had to use some effort to climb aboard the bus platform. ‘See yer ternight!’ she called, before making her way to a seat on the lower deck.

  Sunday waved to Pearl as the bus pulled away. And then she turned, and slowly made her way home down Holloway Road, stopping only briefly to look at the posters for the week’s film outside the imposing Gaumont Cinema. All the way to the Nag’s Head she couldn’t get Pearl off her mind, but didn’t know why. Was it because she felt protective of her mate, or was it because she was jealous of her? Had Pearl ‘done it’ with Lennie Jackson, she wondered? Was it possible? Was it really possible? But why shouldn’t a good-looking bloke fancy someone like Pearl, she asked herself? After all, fat girls must be just as sexy as – well, someone like Sunday herself. Quite unconsciously, she was shaking her head; Pearl had certainly given her a lot to think about.