The Restless Sea

Carl catches up with Jack on the bridge. The sky has lightened to a pale grey, and there is an eerie mist like a sheen on the river. They are dockside before first call-on, down where the cavernous warehouses and towering chimneys loom reddy-orange in the watery light. The familiar thud and crash of boat and barge mingles with the shouts and curses of men. Jack hears the warning to look out as an unsecured load crashes to the ground, sees the glint of metal as another worker digs his sharp case hook into a sack, savours the smell of coffee and cocoa beans on his tongue.

Today there is a shipment of bananas. Jack watches the green bunches trundle down from the ship’s holds on creaky conveyor belts. A man with a horse and cart waits patiently while the first lot of fruit is loaded on to trolleys for the waiting trains and lorries. Carl and Jack have worked with this man before. Once the bulk of the bananas have gone, they help him place the fruit into wooden crates and pack them around with straw. The conveyor belt creaks and squeaks and groans. Jack glances up to the gunwale of the ship, but the gold-toothed sailor is not there. The sailors looking back at him have skin the colour of the roasted chestnuts that he sometimes buys as a treat for Betsy in the winter, their white teeth flashing like chalk on slate.

The driver jumps on to the back of the cart and Carl and Jack hand the crates up to him. Jack’s arms ache: bananas are heavier than they look. There are other crates of fruit here already, apples and grapefruit that make the back of the cart smell like sunshine and sugar. Jack’s mouth waters.

When they have finished, the man hops down and chats to the dockers, while the boys rest their weary arms. The horse seems unfazed by the constant commotion. It stands with its head low, eyes half-closed, ears flicking one way or the other, resting each hind leg in turn. Jack runs his hand along the animal’s flank. It is soft and warm. He leans against it, sucking up the heat through his sleeves. After the hard work, his sweat is starting to cool.

‘Make the most of these,’ says one of the dockers to the cart driver, removing his flat cap and scratching his head. ‘Reckon you’ll be lucky to see any more for a while.’

‘Problems with supply?’ asks the cart driver.

The docker shakes his head. ‘Not at the other end. But these poor bastards are having a job getting through.’ He indicates another man, a sailor.

The sailor nods his head. ‘Sea’s swarming with Nazis,’ he says.

‘Going to starve us out?’

‘Don’t seem to make a difference what the cargo is. They’ll take a pop at anything. Even passenger ships.’

The men shake their heads and suck their teeth.

‘What if the country runs out of food?’

‘That’s never going to happen.’

‘Government’s talking about rationing butter and bacon in case we get short.’

‘Let’s hope it don’t come to that.’ The sailor shares cigarettes out around the group. They light them, the smoke curling in thin blue lines into the air. The smell reminds Jack of his dad.

‘You heading back out there?’

‘Got to.’

‘Got anything to protect you?’

‘’Course not. But I heard we might get a Navy escort.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

They stand in silence for a bit, pulling on their cigarettes. The tobacco burns and crumbles and turns to ash that flies away, dissolving into nothing.

Above them, someone starts to rattle the conveyor belt. The sailors are leaning over the edge. One of them whistles, a shrill note that makes the men on the ground look up. ‘That’s us, then.’ The men start to disperse. ‘See you next time.’

‘Let’s hope.’

‘Good luck.’

‘See you.’

The men tip their hats at each other. The cart driver drops his butt on the ground, grinds it out with his boot. At last he is ready to go. He jumps up on to the driver’s bench and the boys clamber up on the back of the cart. They lurch off, past queues of lorries, their goods covered in canvas, waiting to be sent to all the corners of the world. Past a warehouse full of vast tusks sorted into piles of various sizes. Past men in top hats, stroking their glossy moustaches.

Jack leans against a bouncing crate. Carl tips his cap to the back of his head and rubs at his short hair. It looks soft, like the fur of the rabbits that hang in rows outside the butchers’ shops.

Jack swings his legs, enjoying the ride. ‘You ever thought about getting work on a ship?’ he asks.

‘Funny you should say that,’ says Carl. ‘My dad’s been on at me to give it a go. Says the docks are a mug’s game. He’s not fifty yet, but his back’s done in and his shoulder’s all but seized up. Sometimes my mum has to help him get out of bed in the morning …’

‘What about them Nazis?’

‘If the war lasts, then we’ll all have to face them somewhere, I guess.’

The cart bounces and bumps as the city unfolds behind them: streets clogged with men and women and horses and carts and bicycles and buses and trucks. The shops are busy now, chalkboards propped up outside, doors swinging open and shut beneath bright hoardings advertising brown ale and Rowntree’s pastilles.

At Covent Garden, the boys help place the boxes of fruit on to wooden barrows. A man walks past with a dozen wicker baskets stacked on his head, the tower swaying like a huge snake. Broad-bosomed women sit on the kerb, flowers in their hats, deep in conversation. Men pull barrows and crates this way and that. Horses chomp at bags of hay. Vehicles come and go. You’d never believe there was a war on.

The cart driver presses a ha’penny into Jack’s hand. ‘Thanks, lads. See you again,’ he says.

Jack pockets the shiny coin, swallowing his disappointment. Three hours of honest work earns less than the brief second it takes to snatch a wallet.

They drift towards the arched entrance to the market. The air is a pandemonium of people bartering over fruit and vegetables and flowers. Beyond a clump of ragged children, Jack spots a familiar face. Vince.

Carl puts a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Leave it,’ he says. ‘You’re doing good without them.’

Jack shakes him off, pulling the ha’penny from his pocket and shoving it into Carl’s hand. ‘We can’t split this,’ he says, ‘it’s not enough.’

‘You got to stick at it.’

‘I’ve just got one more thing to offload.’

‘There’s always just one more thing …’ says Carl, but Jack is already making after Vince, who is sliding down a back alley, hugging the wall as if he wants to sink into the brickwork.

Jack blocks his path. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says.

‘Well now you found me,’ says Vince, his eyes glittering like the sewer rat that he is.

‘I’ve got a bracelet,’ says Jack.

‘I heard you had something.’

‘It’s a proper fine one.’

Vince narrows his eyes. ‘Thing is, jewels is tricky things to get rid of,’ he says.

‘Oh, come on. It’s never stopped you in the past …’

‘Give me something to go on, then.’

Jack describes every pearl and stone in detail. He has taken the bracelet out from beneath his mattress nightly to admire its workmanship.

Vince is quiet for a moment, as if mulling over the sum in his head. ‘I’ll give you ten pound,’ he says eventually.

‘Ten pound?’ says Jack. ‘It’s worth ten times that.’

Vince shrugs. ‘Maybe through the proper channels …’

‘You mean through Stoog?’

‘That’s the way it works, my friend.’

‘I’m not your friend,’ says Jack, grabbing him by the collar.

Vince throws his hands out to the sides, twisting on the end of Jack’s fist. ‘It ain’t my fault,’ he says. Jack yanks the neck of the shirt hard before releasing his grip so that Vince yelps, then backs away, rubbing the pinched pale flesh of his neck. ‘What you do that for? You know I got to keep Stoog sweet …’

‘I’ll find someone else to take it,’ says Jack.

‘You can try. No one else is going to touch it. Stoog’s put the word out.’

‘Who does he think he is? Al fucking Capone?’

Vince shrugs. ‘Someone’s got to be in charge,’ he says, ‘or else the whole system falls apart.’

Jack feels the anger bubble up inside him. ‘I don’t need the money, anyway,’ he says. ‘I’m doing fine going straight.’

‘Looks like it,’ says Vince.

Jack glares at him for a moment and then spits his contempt on to the ground at Vince’s feet. But Vince is already sidling on down the alley, as slippery as a jellied eel.

It takes Jack some time to find a pawnbroker who will accept the bracelet and its tenuous provenance. The shops with their three gold baubles hanging above the door are easy to find, and he makes sure it is far enough north not to impact on his patch. The price is pitiful – worse, even, than what Vince offered – but Jack cannot take the risk of the bracelet hanging around the house any longer – and he does not want to have to crawl back to Stoog, cap in hand.

Carl and Jack take the day off on Sundays, even though Jack could do with the extra work. Betsy and Jack like to meet Carl down by the river at Cherry Garden Pier. It’s become a tradition. The siblings don’t even bother to say goodbye to their mother. She likes to lie in on Sundays. Dead to the world now that she’s toiling all hours. It seems wrong to Jack that his mother is working on site, building a new bridge across the river, of all things. He can’t get used to her leaving in her overalls, walking like a man in those clumpy boots, with that scarf around her head. In the evening her face is smudged with dirt, and she stinks of grease and oil. He wonders what his dad will think when he comes back. He wonders where his dad is. On the Belgium–France border, they’ve been told. But Jack’s not sure exactly where Belgium is.

Carl is waiting for them in the usual spot. The tide is out, and they roam the muddy beach, searching for treasure among the slimy pebbles and bits of smooth, gnarled wood. Sometimes there are old coins, medieval pins, Roman pottery to be found. Stoog says he once saw a severed hand, but no one believes him.

They find a place to sit on the driest bit of the shoreline furthest from the water. In the distance Tower Bridge sticks two fingers up at the sky. The river oozes towards the sea. Ships of all shapes and sizes run with it and against it. The dredgers are at work scraping their clawfuls of silt away from the banks and dumping them into the middle of the river. Jack breathes the smell of the dank shore deep into his nostrils.

Carl throws a stone as far as he can. It plops into the water. ‘My dad’s inquiring about that place at sea school,’ he says. There is an apologetic tone to his voice.

Jack’s heart sinks, but he can’t blame his friend for wanting to do something about his life.

‘You could come?’ says Carl.

‘I can’t,’ Jack says, tilting his head in Betsy’s direction. ‘You know my dad wanted me to keep an eye on the girls.’ He tries to raise a smile, but it’s impossible. He is destined to be stuck here, scraping a living while other people travel the world, or fight the Jerries. It isn’t fair.

‘Any trouble from Stoog?’ Carl asks.

‘I’m steering clear.’ Carl still does not know about the bracelet business, and Jack has managed to avoid Stoog for now. There is an uneasy truce on the streets as the city waits to see what the war has in store for it.

Carl is silent for a moment, watching Betsy sift through the rubbish on the shore. Her shoes and socks are wet, and her hands are filthy. Her long dark hair is matted like a bird’s nest. ‘Don’t give up now, Jack,’ he says. ‘You’ve worked hard at staying out of trouble.’ Jack does not tell him that he has already started to thieve again. Three wallets in almost as many days. He had forgotten what easy money it was compared to the lugging and scrimping down at the docks. Blackout has its advantages, after all.

Betsy tugs at Jack’s sleeve.

‘Look,’ she says. She holds a piece of coloured glass up to the light. Although it has been polished smooth to a hazy green on the outside, inside it there is an imperfection – a crack – that looks just like a star. ‘It’s for you.’

‘Don’t you want to keep it?’

‘Promise you won’t send me away like the other kids?’

‘I’m not planning on it.’

‘Promise.’

‘Fine! I promise.’

‘Then I want you to have this to remember your promise.’ It’s the most she’s said in weeks. Her solemn brown eyes peer out at him from under the tangle of her hair.

‘I don’t need it to remember,’ he says, grabbing hold of her and rumpling the top of her head.

‘Take it.’ She presses the glass into his hand until it hurts.

‘All right!’ he says. ‘I won’t forget. You’re not going anywhere.’ He pulls her down next to him and gives her a squeeze. They watch the sky darken and lighten as clouds shift across it, chasing each other away from the city. They are each lost in their thoughts.

It starts to drizzle, blobs of cold on their skin. Jack stands, yanking Betsy up too. ‘Come on,’ he says. The three of them make their way towards the embankment. The rain trickles down their backs and over their gas mask boxes, softening the cardboard and making the doodles on Betsy’s blur at the edges.

The boys start to run, but Betsy can’t keep up. Carl grabs her and hoists her over his shoulder as if she weighs nothing more than a coat. She hangs there giggling as he trots up the beach and the uneven stone steps towards the road. Jack laughs too: he had forgotten what Betsy’s happiness sounded like. It rolls and falls from her mouth like a song in time with Carl’s strides, and her long hair flies out behind them like seaweed.

CHAPTER 2

Sunday, a year later, and they no longer meet at Cherry Garden Pier. In fact, Jack has not seen Carl for weeks. The Nazis have started to fly their bombs across the Channel, and Mr Mills keeps an even tighter rein on his son.

With fewer and fewer ships making it through, there is hardly any work at the docks. The men clamour for jobs; the gangers struggle to keep them under control. There is nothing for Jack. He is bottom of the heap. It is no longer a question of whether he stays straight. He does what he can to survive.

Betsy and Jack wander the streets and parks, making the most of what little daylight there is and enjoying the break from the daily drudgery of their lives. It has been raining heavily, and there are dirty puddles on the road. The pavement is dark and shiny. The wheels of the traffic splosh through the water and spray them with mud. They wander past their old school. It has been taken over by the air-raid wardens, and doubles as a first-aid post. The playground where they used to play hopscotch and marbles and kick-the-can is empty now, apart from sandbags and a big board with a clock face on it, telling them what time blackout is tonight. An ARP warden has just finished moving the hands. It’s the same warden who patrols their street, shouting through the letterbox if he thinks there’s any light showing at night.

They are at the edge of the park when Betsy tugs on Jack’s sleeve. ‘Look!’ she says. It is the first time he has seen her smile for weeks. The cumulative effect of fear, poverty and boredom has ground them both into near silence; his face is as pinched and drawn as hers.

Carl is waving at them across the grass. The boys greet each other warmly, and Betsy lets Carl hug her. He lifts her clean off her feet. She looks pitifully scrawny dangling there against his stocky frame. The three of them linger in the park, relaxing in each other’s company, catching up on all those weeks missed.

‘I’m going at the end of the month,’ says Carl.

‘Going?’

‘Don’t you remember? Sea school.’

‘So it’s actually happening? You’re leaving me for dust.’

‘It’s not too late, Jack. You could still come. There’s space …’

‘You know I can’t …’

Carl shrugs. There is no point pressing on. ‘How you been keeping anyway?’

‘I get by.’

Carl frowns, but there is no time to expand, because at that moment they see more familiar figures approaching: Tommy and Vince are swaggering along the path. Beside them is Stoog, carrying a football and walking with jerky movements, as if at every step he expects trouble.

Jack can sense Carl’s irritation. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘they’re not that bad. Have a game? It’ll be like the old days.’

‘I thought you two had fallen out?’

‘We fell back in again.’ It is true that they have buried the hatchet for now, but there is always a simmering tension where Stoog is involved, and Jack knows that he has not forgiven him. But Jack needs Stoog again, as he needed Carl before. Stoog can get him work. On the street they’re brothers of a kind.

‘You know you can’t trust him …’

‘I have to trust him. I’ve got no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘Please?’ Jack puts a brotherly arm around Carl, and Carl rolls his eyes, but nods.

The incomers are upon them. ‘Up for a game?’ says Jack.

Stoog shoots Carl one of his looks. They have never got on. The other boys watch in silence. Stoog puffs out his chest, enjoying being the one on whom the decision rests. He nods slowly. The boys grin.

They call to a couple of the other boys who are scattered across the park. Jack recognises Eddy, who used to be in Betsy’s class, one of the many kids who trickled back to the city after the first round of evacuations to the country. ‘Why don’t you two go and look for conkers?’ says Jack.

Betsy nods at Eddy shyly and they wander off towards the large horse chestnut tree on the edge of the path. Eddy swings his gas mask up into the tree. Betsy giggles and does the same. They run to where the green balls are knocked down on to the wet grass, cracking them open to see if any are worth keeping.

The older boys set up a football pitch, using their gas masks to mark the goal posts. ‘Only thing they’re bloody good for,’ says Jack.

‘And this,’ says Stoog. He takes his mask out and holds it over his face, making a loud farting noise. The boys laugh. Stoog is in charge again, and everyone is in their rightful place.

It has turned into a breezy day, and the ground has dried a little but it is still slippery. Jack soon warms up. It is good to be doing something physical, to be chasing his friends and to feel his heart pumping and to be thinking of nothing else but the ball. Soon they are caked in mud. Stoog forgets his attitude, and Carl belongs for a moment. They point and laugh at each other, and their cheeks glow as steam rises from their skin and dissipates into the cool afternoon air.

But their fun is short-lived. A man in a tin hat is making his way across the grass towards them. ‘Come on, lads,’ he shouts. ‘Time to get home now.’

It’s the ARP warden. The boys roll their eyes at each other.

‘Just a bit longer …’ says Tommy.

‘No,’ says the warden. ‘The dark’s coming in fast tonight and we’re expecting trouble.’

The other boys moan too, and then Stoog picks up the ball and flings it at Jack, who flings it at Tommy, who pretends to fling it at the man. The man reacts instinctively to catch it, but there’s nothing to catch. The boys laugh, and Tommy drops the ball on to the ground as if to start the game again.

‘Come along, now.’ The man’s cheeks have turned scarlet. ‘It’s time to be going home.’

‘All right, all right. Keep your hair on, old man,’ says Stoog.

‘Watch your mouth, sonny.’

‘Who’re you telling to watch their mouth?’

‘Who do you think?’ says the man, squaring up to the boy. The rest of the boys form a ring around them. Betsy and Eddy stop looking at conkers. The tension vibrates in the cool air.

Carl steps in. ‘Let’s leave it there. He’s only trying to help.’

‘Never thought a Jew boy would be on the same side as a fascist,’ says Stoog, spitting the words as he cranes his neck around Carl, trying to push him out of the way. The ground is soggy beneath their feet. The sky is darkening.

‘Don’t you call me a fascist,’ says the warden.

‘Why? What you going to do about it?’

‘Yeah. What you going to do?’ Vince says, the excitement high in his voice.

Stoog and the man circle each other like tomcats.

‘Jack?’ says Carl. ‘Don’t let this happen …’

Jack is torn between backing both boys. ‘Maybe we should go,’ he says. ‘It’s almost too dark to play anyway …’

Stoog snaps around, shoving his face close to Jack’s and saying, ‘That’d be just like you. Running away …’

And the warden says, ‘Now, now. I don’t want any trouble …’ But Stoog is already turning on him and he pulls his arm back and thumps the man in the side of the head with his bony fist, knocking his helmet on to the ground. There is a cracking sound and blood but Jack isn’t sure whether it’s from the warden’s ear or Stoog’s knuckle.

And Carl is yelling, ‘Stop it,’ but Stoog is already swinging again, and this time he is aiming at Jack and hissing under his breath, ‘This one’s for the docks,’ and he lands a punch right in Jack’s eye, and there’s a stinging pain and a mist descends and all Jack can think of is whacking him back.

Carl is still shouting at them to stop, but Jack doesn’t care. Stoog may be skinny, but he’s fast and he’s accurate. Tommy steps in to help Jack, and then Vince thwacks him in the mouth, and all of a sudden the game has turned into a brawl of fists and teeth and pulled hair and ripped clothes and no one is really sure who is hitting who but all Jack knows is he’s furious – furious at Stoog for hitting him, furious with curfew and blackout, furious with feeling hungry all the time, furious with his dad and his brother for going away, with Carl for getting out and doing something with his life, furious with the whole bloody lot of it. And he’s thumping and smashing and he can taste the blood in his mouth and hear the crunch of bone and the thud of flesh and it feels good to be in the moment, not to worry about where it’s all heading.

It is Carl who manages to stop him. He grabs Jack with the grip of a deal porter’s son, pulling him out of the fray.

‘Let me go,’ says Jack, twisting away from Carl, trying to scratch at his face, kick his shins, anything to release the hold. But it takes more than that to bring Carl down. ‘Let me go,’ says Jack again.

But Carl is furious. There is a vein throbbing in his neck and he is panting. ‘What’s bloody wrong with you all?’ he says as the other boys draw back sheepishly, spitting the blood from their mouths. No one has seen Carl lose his temper before. ‘Take a look at yourselves!’ He points at the warden. ‘He could be your father. Your granddad.’ And now he turns on Jack. ‘And you,’ he says, ‘you’re the worst of all. You had a chance to do something different, but you’re going to end up just like them. Well, I wash my hands of it. You go ahead and kill yourself. I’m out of here.’

He has finally released Jack. They stand chest to chest, eye to eye. Jack clenches his fists, the rage still pumping around his system. He hears a whimper, and a small, cold hand closes around his wrist. He glances down. Betsy. He looks at the warden, a grey-haired old man who is picking his helmet up with trembling hands. He takes a step backwards. The boys and the warden wait for the explosion. He takes another step backwards, and grabs hold of Betsy’s hand. ‘Fuck you, Carl,’ he says. ‘And fuck you, Stoog. Fuck the lot of you.’ And he turns and staggers away, dragging his sister with him across the muddy grass.

The other boys begin to disperse, and the warden doesn’t leave until the last boy fades into the twilight.

A month later, and the raids have grown steadily worse. London has now had nineteen consecutive days and nights of relentless bombardment, of noise and smoke, flame and dust. The docks have been obliterated, the mighty cranes are twisted and contorted into strange shapes, the warehouses flattened, the barges charred embers. Barrels of alcohol explode like gunpowder; paint melts and pours into the Thames, turning it into a river of fire. The deal porters’ timber went up on the first night of the raids. The firemen couldn’t get close enough to quench the inferno. It still burns, lighting the way for the next bombs.

The money from the bracelet is long gone. The only good that came of it was the sewing machine that Jack’s mother uses to make new clothes out of the old. But clothes don’t put food in their stomachs, so Jack has found new ways of getting by that inevitably involve Stoog.

He pulls a package wrapped in paper from his bag and offers it to his mother. Six fat sausages peep out. ‘Mostly gristle,’ he says. His mother takes the parcel. She’s given up asking where he gets these things. She places it on the side in the kitchen. She cannot bring herself to look at him.

Later, Jack lies on his back and stares up into the darkness, listening to his mother’s dry cough, the wail of next-door’s baby, the hollow thud of an air raid in the distance. They have moved their mattresses into the small front room. They sleep in their clothes. The shelter Jack so proudly built with his brother and father is useless. It is cramped and smelly, and most of the time inches deep in fetid water.

In the distance the sky is bright with flames. There is the whine of sirens. Probably another attack on the docks. He is so used to it, he feels himself begin to drift off. A floorboard creaks and a ghostly shadow moves from his mother’s mattress towards him. A small voice says, ‘Jack? You awake, Jack?’ Betsy climbs in next to him. She is so slight that she easily fits on to the single mattress.

‘Come here,’ he says, hugging her trembling body tightly. As he smooths her dark curls, Betsy’s breaths begin to lengthen. She scratches at her head. Lice. They’ve all got them.

Jack cannot remember what it was like not to feel hungry. Food is rationed, there are queues at the shops, and their mother doesn’t have time to wait in them because of her job. Jack has plenty more profitable things to do than wait for a slab of butter, and Betsy refuses to be separated from him. There are rats everywhere. Tommy says they’re as big as terriers down his street. Stoog has been catching them and selling them for meat.

There is a whistle outside the window. Speak of the devil. Jack and Betsy are immediately wide awake and scrambling out into the cool air of the streets. Stoog leers at them in the moonlight. ‘Got a good feeling about tonight,’ he says.

Tommy and Vince are here too, and other faces that Jack and Betsy recognise. They make their way through the park where they used to play cricket and football, now home to the anti-aircraft brigade. They hug the shadow of the tree line. Jack can just make out the pale wall of sandbags and the dark shape of the three-inch gun behind it, the movement of the men of the Royal Artillery, too tense and expectant to notice the youngsters who should be safely tucked up in a shelter.

They move in silence. There is no point in trying to talk above the squealing sirens that send everyone else scurrying under tables and staircases, deep down into the underbelly of the Tube stations. But not them. They know there will be rich pickings about.

They pause at Tower Bridge, lining up one by one to gaze at the river. The moon glitters in oily patches on the surface of the water. There are shapes down there: boats battered and sunk by the previous nights’ raids. Fuel and timber still burn, pale lights flickering among the ripples. Above them, searchlights criss-cross the sky, illuminating the trailing tendrils of the monstrous barrage balloons that float fatly there. Further away, black smoke curls up from the docks, blotting out the moon like a cloud.

They hear the German planes before they see them. They can identify each type as well as any anti-aircraft regiment. No British up there yet. They can just make out the bombers, flying wing tip to wing tip above the river, following the trails of moonlight flashing on the surface, searching for the small fires lit by the incendiary devices that exploded earlier, mythical birds seeking their prey. Betsy’s eyes grow wider. Time stands still. The sound of the engines roars in their ears, rumbles in their chests. Thud thud thud. Like a heartbeat.

The planes are almost on top of them. The rat-a-tat-tat of the anti-aircraft guns starts up. Suddenly the planes swing to the left, to their side of the river, the south side, over the docks again. They catch a glimpse of light in a cockpit. And then … Boom!

The noise slams through them. They are running again, this time in the wake of the planes. The searchlights try to pick out the bombers in their pale beams, but they fail. The drone of more bombers joins the battery from the ground. Shrapnel tinkles like metal rain on the roofs. The fire engines come clanging along the road.

And now the Allied planes come swooping in to try to fight them off. But the boys aren’t interested in dogfights these days. They are running over rubble, and the air is full of dust and bangs and wails – human and inhuman. Fires rage across the city. Boy Scouts run from warden to warden, shouting above the din. But relaying messages won’t fill empty bellies.

Jack and Betsy stay together, but the others fan out, looking for the butchers and the grocers, anywhere for a bargain. ‘You all right, Bets?’ says Jack. She nods. Her teeth shine white among the smudges of dirt on her face.

There is a flash of light to their right. Jack is sure they haven’t been hit, but a split second later they are lifted clean off their feet. They slam back into the wall of a house, whose windows are blown in at the same time. The air is knocked right out of Jack’s chest and it takes a good few seconds for him to realise what has happened. All he can hear is a high-pitched ringing. Betsy is lying next to him. She has hit her head, and for a moment he isn’t sure whether she’s alive or dead. There is a trickle of red on her forehead, but then her eyes flicker open, and relief rushes through him and he leans over to grab her bony body in a hug, her wiry little arms gripping him back.