Bomber Overhead

Evacuee Jeffrey Fraser and his two friends must cope. when Marwell Village, intended as their place of safety, is shaken when a German bomber finds it.

  Jeffrey, Ginger and Arthur, are separated from their parents and must survive in a strange culture after being evacuated from London's inner city. As the war rages and the bombs of the Blitz show no sign of stopping, Ginger finds a stray kitten and appeals to the others to help find a home for it. They are willing, but Jeffrey needs to deal with the death of his best friend as well as a less than satisfactory billet and the attentions of a bully who has it in for him. Arthur has to contend with an accusation that he burned down a haystack.

  Jeffrey gets a job at a farm after seeking, and failing, to get the farmer to take the kitten. Later, the boys discover an abandoned mill tower and decide to make a home for the kitten there. Ginger rejects this, but they use the place as a club house where they can keep their shrapnel souvenirs and Arthur's cherished incendiary bomb. Everything changes when a downed German airman takes Ginger prisoner and demands food. Jeffrey is caught stealing a chicken from the farm, but convinces the farmer to help in a plan to rescue Ginger. Will his plan succeed? Or fail?

  Bomber Overhead

  by

  Jim Francis

  Copyright James A. Francis 2011

  Bomber Overhead

  Chapter 1

  The night sky above Marwell was filled with stars. The moon had set. All seemed peaceful although the Air Raid Siren had sounded half an hour previously. The residents of Marwell were still unaware that a stray German bomber winged its way through the sky towards them. Jeffrey lay awake in the place where he shared sleeping space with Gordon. As with many young people during the Blitz, this place was in the cupboard beneath the stairs in a semi-detached house.

  Jeffrey had been wakened by Gordon's snoring, which was not unusual, and as always it made Jeffrey want to kick Gordon's head. This would have been easy as the two of them slept head to foot in the cubby-hole as it was called. Jeffrey's place was against the wall next to the gas and electric meters, his head to the far end. Gordon had the spot near the door. Jeffrey's feet were so close to Gordon's head that kicking it would have been easy.

  He had three reasons for not kicking him. Firstly it would be unkind. After all, could Gordon help it if he snored? Secondly Jeffery was a sort of visitor in the house and Gordon was the only son. Mrs. Burnett, Gordon's mother, didn't like her son being upset unless it was she who upset him. Thirdly Gordon was older and bigger than he was and had a tendency to thump Jeffery at the slightest excuse. Apart from all that, Jeffery knew he wouldn't get a fair hearing from Mrs. Burnett after the ensuing rumpus. At least, that's the way he had it worked out.

  As he turned on his side and pulled the blanket over his head, he heard the deep, heavy pulsed drone of the twin engine German bomber as it came closer. Brrum, pause. Brrum, pause. The sound was peculiar with no mistaking what made it. Jeffery's best friend, Peter, said his father had told him that an aircraft floating in the air tried to spin in a direction opposite to the spin of its propellers. The Germans built their twin engine bombers with engines that spun the propellers in opposite directions, and this cancelled the unwanted spin. It also cancelled the sound from the engines at regular intervals. That caused a pulsed engine noise. British aircraft, with a different system, had a steady drone. Jeffery didn't understand any of it too well, but he understood enough to know that the sound he heard meant that the approaching aircraft was a German bomber.

  And bombers like the one overhead were the reason why Gordon and Jeffery slept under the stairs. Of course, everybody knew that being under the stairs wouldn't protect them from a direct bomb hit, but it did protect from shrapnel and flying glass from blown out windows.

  "Gordon," he whispered, "Gordon. There's a bomber coming."

  Honk! Snort! Crump! Snuffle! Gordon slept on.

  The bomber groaned from a heavy load of bombs. Peter had also told him that the bombers came in over the coast to the north or to the south carrying their loads and then swung around for the run over London. Every night, Peter said, they tried to take a different route so that the anti-aircraft guns couldn't concentrate in one spot or in front of the city. Only the ones that got lost flew over Marwell. Jeffery didn't know if any of this was true, but it sounded reasonable.

  The war and the destruction it caused saddened Jeffery. People talked of the German army preparing an invasion and he worried that the German soldiers would come. They'd already overrun much of Europe -- Poland, France, Denmark, Belgium, Holland. The war was the reason he was in this house. Jeffrey was an evacuee, evacuated from London in case there was bombing like what was going on now. His present billet at the Burnett's was his third in just over a year.

  Mr. Burnett, the householder, had joined the Home Guard. Once a week he marched and drilled, along with other local men, on the path running along the edge of the gravel pit behind the house. Jeffery liked to go out back and watch them march. They pretended the broomsticks held stiffly on their shoulders were rifles. Mr. Burnett said real rifles had been promised in a month. Two of the men used their own shotguns, shouldering them as best they could for the drill. The men hated being watched at their broomstick drill and always shouted at him to go away.

  Even though he was only eleven, Jeffery wanted to fight if the Germans invaded. Gordon owned a small book with a picture of an anti-tank rifle on the front. It didn't look that big, and he longed for one of those. Then he'd be able to shoot at the German tanks if ever they arrived. That would help make an end to the war. With the war over, he'd be able to go back to London again and live with his mother and father and his brothers and sister.

  A wave of happiness swept him at the thought of life before the war. His parents were far poorer than most Marwell people, but he'd been happy then. He wasn't very happy these days.

  At first he'd been billeted with a nice middle-aged couple who'd been very kind to him and his sister, but the man got himself into trouble with the police because of Black Market dealings and they'd been moved. He hated the memories of the second billet and always tried to push them out of his mind. He'd been very glad to get away from there, but didn't know why they'd been moved.

  Now, with the third move, he'd been separated from his sister. They lived on different sides of the village and didn't get to see each other much. His sister, being older, went to a different school. His two older brothers who'd attended different London schools had been evacuated separately to other parts of England.

  Now his mother and father had been split up. He had a new baby sister and his mother had been moved out into the countryside for safety during the air raids. His father stayed in London working as a postman during the day, and keeping fire watch at night during the raids. His night job was to put out fires from any incendiary bombs that dropped on the Post Office building roof. For a long time neither parent had been able to visit and he missed them badly. He never heard any news of his brothers. Right at that moment, though, he was worried about the approaching aircraft.

  It sounded as if the bomber was almost overhead. Now the anti-aircraft guns mounted on flatbed rail cars that ran up and down the railway tracks behind the houses across the street opened fire. Bang! Bang! Bang!

  He knew that searchlights must be sweeping the sky showing circles of light on the night sky as the beams swung, crossing each other like invisible scissors as they tried to catch a bomber between the unseen blades of light. He'd watched them one night as he'd hurried home from scouts. That was the night an aerial mine floated down by parachute, exploded and destroyed Gospel Hall. In the morning children rushed to the site looking for shrapnel. Any found was supposed to be turned over to the police, but nobody ever did that. Jeffery went, too. Poking
around in the tall grass with a stick, he saw a nice piece of metal that was curly and twisted.

  As he bent down and picked it up, a voice from behind said, "What'cha got there, Fraser?" He shuddered inwardly as he recognized the voice. It was Tommy Thorne's.

  "Nothing," he said. He tried to palm the metal, but it was too large for his hand.

  "Don't tell me, nothing." Thorne said shoving Jeffery so hard that he sat down. "Give it to me, I'll hand it over to the police."

  "No you won't, you'll keep it or sell it."

  "So what!" He put a foot on Jeffery's chest and pushed until Jeffery was lying on his back. Then he leaned over, grabbed Jeffery's wrist and twisted until the hand opened letting the piece of shrapnel drop. Thorne picked it up. "You're a liar, Fraser. I'm gonna let it pass -- this time. Don't try it again or you'll be sorry." Then he turned and strutted over to where other children were searching.

  Now, again, a bomber was coming.

  Suddenly the sound of the bomber's engines changed to a higher note as if it were lighter and flying faster. Jeffery knew what the different sound meant. Its bombs had been released. He clenched his fists and waited. Then four explosions, one after the other, rocked the house and Gordon woke.

  "Stop making noise, Jeffery. I'm trying to sleep."

  "Not making noise. That was bombs."

  Gordon shook his head, and now he was wide awake could obviously hear the anti-aircraft guns. "Were you awake? Did you hear the bomber?"

  "Couldn't sleep. You were snoring."

  Gordon's leg came up and kicked him on the side of the head, but not hard because it was a difficult thing to do as Jeffery was now sitting up. "I don't snore and don't you say that I do or I'll give you a thumping in the morning. What do you think it was? A Heinkel, a Dornier, or a Junkers?"

  "I don't know. They all sound the same to me."

  "Of course they do, you're so stupid. I'm going back to sleep." Then he turned over on his side and soon snored as loud as ever.

  The guns stopped firing and the aircraft's faint hum faded into the distance. Jeffery pulled the covers over his head, stuck a finger in his ear trying to block out Gordon's snores and fell asleep.