An Eagle in the Snow

“’Spect you did your best,” Ma said, oblivious, busying herself with her knitting. “All anyone can do, isn’t it? Barney’s pa, he’s away, overseas, in the army. In the Royal Engineers. He’s doing his best. Like his grandpa too. He’s staying behind in Coventry, says he’s going to carry on like before. Coalman, he is, family business. Houses got to be kept warm, he says. Stoves got to be lit, he says. Can’t let down his customers. And I says to him: “There aren’t hardly any houses left.” And he says: “Then we got to build them up again, haven’t we?” So he’s staying, doing his best, doing what’s right, that’s what he thinks. And that’s what I think too. No one can ask for more. Just do what you think is right, and you can’t go far wrong. You just got to do your best. S’what I tell Barney, don’t I, dear?”

“Yes, Ma,” I said, finding my voice again. And it was true, she was always telling me that. The teachers at school told me much the same thing, just about every day, in fact.

“But sometimes,” said the man, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, “the problem is that your best is not enough. Sometimes, what seems right at the time, turns out to be wrong.” He sat back in his seat then as if he’d had enough of all this talking. Ma obviously hadn’t recognised him. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t, not with him there. He turned away to look out of the window, and for a long time none of us spoke.

I love trains, everything about them, the hissing and the puffing, the rhythm and the rattle and the rocking, the whistling and the whooping, the roar as you burst into a tunnel, into the deep thunderous blackness, and then suddenly, with no warning, you’re out again into the bright light of day, the horses galloping off over the fields, the sheep and crows scattering. I love stations too, the bustle of them, the slamming of doors, the guard in his peaked cap, flag waving, and the engine breathing, waiting for the whistle. Then, the whistle at last, and the chuff, chuff, chuffing.

I’d told Dad the last time he was home on leave that I had made up my mind to be a train driver when I grew up. Dad loved tinkering with engines – generators, motorcycles, cars – he could fix anything. So he was pleased I was going to be a train driver, I could tell. He told me the steam engine was just about the most beautiful machine man ever created. Just being in the train that morning was a comfort to me. I may not have been able to put out of my mind the night of terror down in the shelter, nor the dreadful sights we had witnessed the next day – Mrs McIntyre sitting there on the pavement with her rosary beads, her home and her life in ruins – our house reduced to rubble, and Grandpa kneeling over Big Black Jack. But the rhythm and rocking of the train soothed me somehow, and made me sleepy too.

Beside me, Ma had stopped talking altogether and was fast asleep, her head hanging down loose as if it would fall off at any moment. Her hands were still holding her knitting needles, and her ball of wool lay in her lap. Half a sock for Dad already done.

So that left just me and the stranger opposite – who, it turned out, was not such a stranger after all. He was looking at me from time to time as if he was about to ask me a question, then thought better of it. Finally, he leaned forward, speaking to me under his breath: “It was you I carried down, after the raid, wasn’t it, son? In Mulberry Road?”

I nodded.

“Thought so,” he said. “Mulberry Road kids, you and me both then. Never forget a face. I remember thinking, as I was carrying you down, that you reminded me of me – at your age, I mean. I had a busted arm once, when I was little. Not football – fell off a bike. Good to meet up again. Spitting image of me, you are.” He was smiling at me, and nodding. Then he went on: “Your dad, where is he, where’s he fighting? Where did the army send him?”

“Africa,” I told him. “In the desert. He looks after the tanks, makes them work, mends them when they break. Sand gets into everything, he says. Hot too, he says, millions of flies.”

“That’s where I should be,” the man said. “I was there once, in the army. South Africa, long time ago. S’what I should be doing now, fighting, like your dad. But they wouldn’t let me join up. Gammy leg.” He was patting his knee. “From the last war. Bit of shrapnel still in there somewhere. And anyway, I’m too old, they said. Forty-five? Too old? Stuff and nonsense. So I got to sit at home and do nothing. Civil Defence, Air-raid Warden, that’s all I’m good for now, going and blowing whistles, telling people to close their curtains in the blackout. I should be out there fighting. I told them – more than anyone I should be out there, doing my bit, like your dad. I ain’t too old. I can still run about a bit. I can stand and fight, can’t I?” His lips were quivering now. I could see he was struggling to control himself, and that frightened me a bit. “But they wouldn’t listen,” he went on. “Stay at home,” they said. “You did your bit the last time. You got the medals to prove it.” He looked away from me then, shaking his head. “Medals. They don’t mean nothing. If only they knew. If only they knew.”

I thought that was all he was going to say, but it wasn’t. “Well, anyway, I did what they said. Got no choice, had I? But what can you do, with all them bombs coming down, houses blowed to bits, schools, hospitals, and those people killed, hundreds of ’em. Kids your age, babies. We were pulling out dozens of them, and most of them already dead. What’s the use of that? You got to fight them. We should have had guns firing at them, knocking them out of the sky. We should have had planes up there shooting them down. Hundred of bombers, they sent over, set the whole city on fire, and all I could do was run around the streets blowing whistles and pulling people out …” He stopped then, too upset to go on.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, and looked out of the window. The train rattled on through the countryside, the telegraph poles whipping by. I counted a hundred of them, before I got bored with it. Raindrops were chasing each other down the windows. I was looking up at the clouds then, watching the smoke from the train rising up, becoming part of them – now part of a roaring lion cloud, then a map of Britain cloud, then more like a one-eyed giant’s face. It was a deep dark eye, a moving eye. It took me some moments to realise that the giant’s eye was an aeroplane. By the time I knew and understood that properly, I found I couldn’t make out the giant’s face in the cloud any more. It was just a cloud with an aeroplane flying out of it.

That was the moment I felt something stinging my eye. I knew at once it was grit from the open window. I could feel the sharpness of it. No amount of rubbing or blinking could seem to get it out, however hard I tried. It was stuck fast, somewhere deep in the corner of my eye. My finger couldn’t get it out, blinking couldn’t, nothing could. Everything I did was only making it worse, making it hurt more.

The stranger leaned forward then, took my hand and pulled it gently away. “That won’t help, son,” he said. “Let me have a go. I’ll get it out for you. Hold steady now, there’s a good lad. Head back.” He was grasping my shoulder, holding me firmly. Then he was trying to prise my eyelid open with his thumb. It was hard not to pull away, not to wince, not to blink. I could feel the corner of his handkerchief against my eyeball. I was blinking now. I couldn’t help myself. It took a while, but suddenly it was over. He was sitting back, smiling at me, showing me triumphantly the black speck of grit on his handkerchief.

“See? What goes in always comes out,” he said. “You’ll be fine now.” And I could tell from my blinking he was right. It was gone. I kept checking afterwards, blinking again and again to be quite sure.

That’s what I was still doing a little while later, as I was looking out of the window, which was how I saw the plane coming down out of the clouds. But it was much lower now than it had been before, and closer too. A fighter! And it was coming right towards us!

“Spitfire!” I cried, stabbing at the window with my finger. “Look! Look!” Ma was awake at once, all three of us now at the window.

“That ain’t no Spitfire, son,” said the stranger. “That’s a flaming Messerschmitt 109, that is. German fighter. And it’s diving, attacking. Away from the window! Now!”

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He grabbed us both and pulled us down on to the floor of the carriage. There came a sudden roaring overhead, the sound of guns blazing, of shattering glass, of screaming, of the train whistling, gathering furious speed all the time. I was up on my knees, wanting to look out again, to see what was happening, but the stranger pulled me down again, and held me there. “He’ll be back,” he said. “Stay put where you are, you hear me!” He was covering Ma and me now, his arms around us both, holding us to him, hands over our heads, protecting us.

He was right about the plane. Only moments later it was back and attacking again. We heard a bomb exploding, and the repeated rattattattatt rattattatt of firing, and with it came the whining and the roaring of the plane’s engine as it passed overhead. And all the while, the train raced on, faster, faster, until we were plunged into the sudden blackness of a tunnel. The brakes went on, hard, so shrill and loud that it hurt my ears. We found ourselves thrown violently together, squeezed half up against the seat, and half underneath it. The squealing of the brakes seemed to go on forever, and all the while the stranger clung on to us tight, until at long last the train came to a shuddering, hissing halt, and we were lying together there in the darkness. It felt almost as if the train and ourselves were breathing in unison, panting, both of us trying to calm down. The carriage was thick with darkness, pitch black.

“Don’t like tunnels,” I said, trying my best not to sound as frightened as I was. “How long we going to be in here, Ma?”

“Best place for us just at the moment, son,” the stranger told me. “And we’re safe enough, that’s for sure. We got a lot to thank the train driver for. He’ll stay in here long as it takes, I reckon. Don’t you worry, son.” He was helping me to my feet and sitting me down. I felt Ma’s arm come around me. She knew what I was going through. It wasn’t the German plane or the shooting that terrified me – that had been exciting. It was the dark, this thick solid wall of blackness all around me, closing in on me, enveloping me. Ma knew I couldn’t stand it, that I had to have the light on outside my bedroom door at night, as well as the lamp in the street outside. I felt a sob of fear rising in my throat and swallowed it, but it came back up again and again, like hiccups of terror that would not stop.

“It’s the dark,” Ma explained. “Barney don’t like it, never has.”

“Nor me neither,” said the stranger. And as he spoke there was a sudden flicker of light in the darkness, then an orange flame, which lit up his face and his smile, then the whole carriage. “Smoke a pipe, don’t I?” he went on, “so I always have my box of matches handy. Swan Vestas – you know, the ones with the swan on the box.” He showed me. It rattled when he shook it. “See? Good they are, last longer.” At once the panic in me subsided, and I knew it would not start again, just so long as the match lasted.

“The thing is, son,” the stranger went on, “I reckon we’re going to have to be in here for quite a while. If I was the engine driver, I’d sit tight in this tunnel till I was certain that plane – and I think maybe there was two of them, or more, who knows? – until I was quite sure they’d gone. They saw us go in here, right? So they could be waiting around up there for us to come out. Like I told you, what goes in comes out, and they know it.” His face leaned in closer to me. “Trouble is, Barney, a match don’t last forever, even a Swan Vestas match, and they last a lot longer than most. So I got to save them up a bit. I’ve got … one, two, three, four left – after this one, and this one’s going out already, isn’t it? So sooner or later, I got to blow it out, else I’ll burn my fingers. But all you got to do is to ask me to light up another one, and it’s done. Easy as pie. Only you won’t need it, will you, son? Because you know your Ma’s there and I’m here. So you’re not alone. That’s the thing about darkness, son. Makes you feel all alone. But you’re not, are you?”

“I suppose,” I said. He was looking right into my eyes. It felt as if he was breathing courage into me, through his eyes, through his smile. Then he blew out the match. We were suddenly in the dark again. I didn’t like it, but somehow it didn’t matter, not as much as I thought it would, as it had before.

“He’s a brave boy, my Barney,” said Ma. “Isn’t he?”

“He certainly is, missus,” the stranger replied. “And that’s a fact. Reckon we’d better close the window,” he said. I could hear him getting up, pulling up the window. “We don’t want the carriage full of smoke, do we? The tunnel will be full of it soon enough.”

“Trouble is, it’ll get all hot and stuffy in here,” said Ma. “But you’re right, stuffy’s a lot better than smoky.”

We must have sat there for quite some time in the darkness, none of us speaking, before the stranger spoke up. “We got to pass the time somehow,” he began. “You know what we used to do in the trenches, in the last war? Most of the time in a war, you know what you do? You sit around waiting for something to happen, hoping it won’t. It’s the waiting that was always the worst of it. We’d be hunkered down in our dugout, scared silly, waiting for the next Whizzbang to come over – beastly things they were. Or we’d be waiting for ‘stand-to’ in the early mornings. We had to be ready on ‘stand-to’, see, cos that’s when Fritz liked to attack. First light, out of the sun, out of the mist. And you know what we’d do sometimes? We’d tell each other stories – in the dark of the dugout it was often – just like it is now. We could do that now if you like. What d’you think, son?”