When the bombing started my parents sent me to live with friends as far away from the London as they could get me. It was safer that way and there were a lot of other children sent to the country besides me. The only reason I was in London for Christmas was that I had thrown so many tantrums I was sent home for the holidays. Mum and I were in my bedroom and I remember her singing as she folded my clothes .I was sitting on the floor next to my trunk with Molly trying to select witch one of my books I would bring with me. I asked Mum if Tristan would like a book to take with him back to the R.A.F. and she didn’t answer, she just smiled at me. That’s when I heard someone start banging on our front door. Mum told me to stay while she went to answer the door. While I was still in my room I could hear another woman’s voice, it was the same voice, Tess, not Beatrice heard on the phone earlier. The woman at the door had an East End accent, she sounded like someone who lived in White Chapel district. She definitely had an East End accent! I listened as the woman came inside our house and began arguing with my Mum. I, Beatrice, crept into hallway and peeked over the banister to see what they were arguing about. The young woman downstairs kept saying, “he does not love you anymore he loves me!” Even as a child I could tell she was from the lower classes because of her poor diction and the amount of makeup she had on her face. My mother caught me eavesdropping and told me to go to my room. Then I heard it coming!” Tess exclaimed her face filled with dread.
“Heard what coming?” Robert asked trying to hurry up her response.
“Airplanes overhead, then loud, long whine of the siren. I thought the German’s were coming for me and I ran in my room to get my dog! I heard mother shouting at the strange woman she told her to leave, when she didn’t my mother shouted that she would tell my father.
As the first bombs were dropped off in the distance I heard my mother scream, “no!” I was trained as to what to do next. I ran downstairs, got my coat at the same time I was screaming for my mother. Then I picked up the torch, that’s the flashlight, next to the front door and jumped up to grab the dog leash off the hook next to the hall closet. When I turned around I saw the strange lady standing over my Mum in the living room, she was holding the telephone in her hands, the cord was broken and she was out of breath. There was blood all around my Mum’s head and she wasn’t moving. I ran over to my Mum and begged her to wake up! I kept telling Mum that we have to go to the air raid shelter now. The bombs were getting closer and I could hear people outside on the street yelling and the sirens blaring. At this point I was one hysterical child. The cheap lady who had hurt my Mum ran for the front door then came back and grabbed me by the shoulders. I kept saying to her you hurt my Mum! She shook me hard then and said in a low, mean voice that Mum had an accident and it wasn’t her fault!
As another load of bombs came closer to my house the lady said that we had to get out. She grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the front door. I didn’t want to go with her. She told me that we were going to find my father and that my father would fix Mummy and make her all better. When she promised me that everything would be made right I was more compliant. I told her we had to take Molly with us. She grabbed my hand and took Molly’s leash away from me and picked up the dog. I trailed behind her hanging on to her long red coat. The streets were chaos as we ran down them, the bombs started fires everywhere. People were running for their lives
When we got to the entrance of the tube, I mean the subway, entrance it was a heap of rubble. Not knowing what to do next a man on the street told us that our best chance was to go to St.Pauls Cathedral. I can’t describe the terror on people’s faces as they ran by us or the loud hum of the German planes before they dropped their bombs. We were running towards St. Paul ’s Cathedral, we were just a few blocks away when I shouted that I was going to tell my father that she hurt my Mum. The cheap lady stopped dead in her tracks she turned and looked down at me. She was so angry she was shaking. Without a word spoken to me she just dropped my dog Molly on the street and kicked her hard. Molly ran down the street in the other direction and I ran after Molly.
By this time fire storms were sweeping through London and whole walls of buildings were collapsing onto the streets. I found Molly hiding in an alley near the tube and picked her up and began running home. I just wanted to go home. I wanted my mother. I got lost in the smoke and started to cry. I was all alone. Then I heard the bombs whistle from above, I looked up clutching my puppy then nothing.” Tess finished saying her head in her hands tears running down her cheeks.
AND
Tess broke apart from the group and climbed up the steep embankment a few hundred feet from the river’s edge. Robert hollered at Tess to be careful while he, Nancy and Ellen sought out shade under a nearby oak tree, three hundred feet away from Tess.
Robert’s voice was cut out in mid sentence. Suddenly it was early morning, back in the last century and as Tess folded her arms across her stomach. She was literally holding onto herself. She could smell the last remains of smoke from an overnight campfire being extinguished not twenty feet from her. The air felt cool; it was a refreshing change from the summer’s heat. Right then Tess caught sight of a wounded Union soldier walking past her holding what remained of his right arm. The soldier’s Shell jacket was hanging off his good shoulder, and his white shirt underneath had dried perspiration stains. Tess shouted out to the soldier, but he either didn’t care to respond or couldn’t hear her. Shocked at the sight of it all, she watched, listened and waited.
Looking past the soldier the river’s water looked blue and clear. The tall trees seemed bigger and the woods untouched by man. Was she seeing something from the past or a collection of ghosts going about their daily business unaware of their deaths? All these questions raced through Tess’s mind the split second she locked on to the one armed soldier’s eyes.