What she had felt meant nothing, Olive assured herself. It was just because it was New Year. Because of the war. It certainly wasn’t Sergeant Dawson’s fault. He had simply been kind, she knew that. Her heart thudded anew, and then thankfully she heard the front door open, Tilly and Dulcie’s voices reaching her from the hallway. She was a mother and a landlady, she had responsibilities and duties, and instead of dwelling on certain things she would be far better off ignoring them – and making sure she didn’t experience them again.
Dulcie wasn’t the only person to be concerned about the Home Secretary, Mr Herbert Morrison’s, January announcement that he intended to make it compulsory for London’s residents and businesses to form their own fire-watching group from amongst their inhabitants and employees, as Olive discovered when she attended one of her twice-weekly WVS meetings at the vicarage. Audrey Windle told them that she felt they should extend the length of their normal meeting to make time to discuss ‘Mr Morrison’s request for people to form fire-watching groups.’
‘Well, as to that,’ Nancy sniffed, immediately bridling, ‘I hope that you aren’t going to suggest that any of us take up such dangerous work, Mrs Windle. That’s men’s work, that is, and besides, what are our ARP wardens being paid for if it isn’t to sort out that kind of thing?’
‘Well, yes, of course,’ the vicar’s wife agreed quickly in a placatory tone, ‘but the thing is that, as Mr Morrison has said, and as we all saw with the dreadful bombing raid on the 29th of December, with the best will in the world neither our Home Guard nor the fire brigade can be on hand everywhere they are needed. No one’s suggesting that anyone should put themselves in danger. It’s simply a matter of making sure that those of us who feel that we do want to be involved can be as safely as possible.’
‘Well, I don’t want to be,’ Nancy informed the vicar’s wife flatly. ‘Like I said, it isn’t women’s work. We’re all doing enough as it is, if you ask me.’
‘I don’t know, Nancy,’ Olive felt obliged to speak up, as much in defence of poor Audrey Windle, who was looking rather desperate, as anything else. ‘We’ve been very lucky in Article Row so far, but we’ve all seen and heard about the damage that those incendiary bombs can do if they aren’t spotted and dealt with quickly. The Government must think that it is safe for women to deal with them because they’ve sent out those leaflets to every household telling people what to do, and it’s normally women who are home most of the time, not men.’
Nancy was giving her an extremely baleful look but Olive wasn’t going to back down. As she’d been speaking she’d realised that although she hadn’t given it much thought before, she did actually believe that it was important for householders to do everything they could to protect their homes from the incendiary bombs being dropped by the Germans. Unlike other bombs, the incendiaries were not designed to explode and kill people, but rather to cause serious fires. The initially long, large bombs each contained many small incendiaries. As it fell it opened, showering the ground with these smaller incendiaries, which burst into flames as they landed. If discovered quickly, it was a relatively simple matter to dowse the flames, either with a stirrup pump, which used water, or by raking the burning matter into sand and smothering the flames with it. But the effectiveness of these courses of action depended on the incendiaries being spotted and dealt with quickly, and it was to this end that the Government had announced to the country via the BBC news that they must form themselves into fire-watching groups.
Giving Olive a grateful look Audrey Windle pressed on hopefully, ‘We’ve all read the leaflets. They explain very clearly how we set about organising local fire-watch teams and make out a rota for fire-watching.’
‘I’ve heard that you have to go up on the roof and stay there all night when it’s your turn,’ one of the other woman broke in. A large person, her ample chins shook with anxiety as she continued, ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘No, of course not, Mrs Bell,’ the vicar’s wife agreed, ‘but as Sergeant Dawson explained to me, in many cases husbands and wives are working together, so that, for instance, the husband will be the one to do the active watching but then he will call down to his wife, who will be perhaps waiting at an open bedroom window – with the lights out, of course – to tell her where the bombs have fallen. Then she will get ready the stirrup pump, which the Government is making available to households, and together they’ll go out and tackle the incendiaries with the help of their neighbours, who they will alert about the bombs.’
‘It’s taking advantage of our good nature, that’s what it is,’ Nancy sniffed, folding her arms in front of her bosom in a way that said that she wanted no truck whatsoever with Mr Morrison’s scheme.
Olive’s assessment of her neighbour’s frame of mind was confirmed when Nancy turned to her and said, ‘There’s no one to do it in Article Row anyway, is there? Mr Whittaker at number 50 is too old; you couldn’t expect the Misses Barker at number 12 to get involved, nor Mrs Edwards at number 5, since her husband’s already working as an auxiliary fireman.’
‘There’s Mr Ryder at number 18,’ Olive pointed out. ‘I’m sure he’d want to be involved, he being retired from the Civil Service.’
‘Mr Ryder? With that bad leg of his?’ Nancy shook her head, adding triumphantly, ‘And it’s not as if you could do anything, is it, with you being a household full of women.’
‘Why should us being female stop us from getting involved?’ Nancy’s attitude reminded Olive of how she had felt when she and Mrs Morrison had been rejected by the ARP – and they had been rejected she felt sure, no matter how tactful Sergeant Dawson had tried to be.
Mrs Morrison clapped her hands and said approvingly, ‘Oh, well done, Olive. I’m certainly going to have a word with Mr Morrison and see if we can’t get something set up.’
Audrey Windle was smiling at her with relief, whilst Nancy was giving her a very angry look indeed.
‘I hope you aren’t thinking of setting yourself up in charge of some kind of fire-watch, Olive,’ Nancy told her grimly. ‘Because if you are I’m afraid that me and my Arthur will definitely have a view.’
What was Nancy trying to say? That she wasn’t up to the job of organising a small team of neighbours to keep a watch for falling incendiaries and to deal with them when they did fall? Olive very much resented Nancy’s attitude, and instead of putting her off the idea it actually made her feel very determined to carry it through.
‘Well, if Arthur wants to join in he’ll be very welcome,’ was all Olive allowed herself to say.
‘Arthur? He’s far too busy at it is, and I’m not having him going and risking getting a cold in this bad weather with that chest of his.’
‘I’m sure that Ian Simpson will want to be involved, and Drew, of course,’ Olive continued, ignoring Nancy’s mean-spiritedness.
‘Well, yes, your Tilly would love that,’ Nancy agreed cattily. ‘Every time I see her these days she’s linked up to that American. In my days girls waited until they’d got an engagement ring on their finger before being so familiar with a young man.’
‘You and me are the same age, Nancy,’ Mrs Morrison cut in and then laughed, saying, ‘and I remember me and my hubby walking down the Strand with our arms wrapped around one another on his first leave home from the front and we’d only been walking out a few weeks before he joined up. We weren’t the only ones, either. That’s what happens during wartime.’
Mrs Morrison had definitely taken the wind out of Nancy’s sails, Olive could see, but knowing her neighbour as she did, Olive suspected that sooner or later Nancy would find a way of getting her own back. Olive didn’t know why she was finding it so difficult to get along with her neighbour