Sowerbutt's Loss

After the terrible night, the beef broth at the Tabby was very welcome; Sowerbutt hugging the exhausted pastor in an uncharacteristic show of emotion and slipping a fiver into his jacket pocket.

“When you’ve finished, Spaghetti, we’ll wander down to Queen’s Theatre and check our larder there.”
It was a mess. One of their remaining Poplar larders, an empty shop near the popular music hall, had taken a direct hit. The building was a shell, still standing but badly blasted. The shop was a smouldering wreck, charred goods strewn across the floor and out into the street mixed up with splinters of glass from the shattered windows. The whole scene was lit by yellow and orange flames from a building burning fiercely nearby. The surrounding air was thick with dust. Outside in the street, eerie blue flames from the shattered gas mains flared, died away and flared again.
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Sowerbutt's Longest Night

It was the longest night, visiting the Family’s properties, pushing scared families into the rubble-strewn streets on their way to bomb shelters, comforting terrified children. Dodging craters and exploding gas mains amid the endless crump, crump of falling bombs. The taste of dirt, the stench of burnt timber, the glare of flares and the blazing orange and red skies. The harsh smell of dust and shattered brickwork, the crunch of broken glass everywhere.

Through the billowing smoke and dust, sometimes swept skywards in columns, Sowerbutt and Spaghetti saw houses sliced in half as though cut with a butter knife, the upstairs floors with bed and wardrobe jutting out in mid-air and curtains flapping in the dusty, roaring wind. Rows of bodies on the pavements, covered in stained blankets and torn sheets.
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Sowerbutt's Blitz

Spluttering in the ash and dust, the two men started to walk back to East India Dock Road, only to be almost knocked off their feet by another blast. Clutching each other like a couple of drunks, Spaghetti gasped: “Hardly breathe, guv. Look at that.” The bomb had hit a small laundry on the corner of the street; the fire was out of control, canisters of chemicals exploding in the heat one after the other. The front of the building had disappeared, rubble, pieces of timber and shards of glass strewn across the road. The roof had gone and a burning staircase could be seen, leading to nowhere. The upstairs floor, hanging in space with charred furniture and boxes, was about to crash into the fires below.

Two bodies, obviously dead, were partly covered in bricks. Sowerbutt grabbed a pile of singed clothing and threw it over the bodies. “Nothing else we can do, Spaghetti. No rescue services or Fire Brigade, I guess they’re busy at the Docks. Can’t even hear any of those AA guns they talk about. We’re on our own. Come on, let’s check the other properties.”
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Sowerbutt's Orders

 

 

Sowerbutt feared this was the end game. London could not survive wave after wave of Jerry bombers, there were no defences that he had seen. Churchill would have to do some sort of deal.

Part of a fence had already burnt down and flames were licking up a telegraph pole by the time the two men reached their first house. Kicking open the front door, they pushed the tenants out into the street. “No time to pack your gear,” shouted Sowerbutt. “Get up to the All Saints bomb shelter, you’ll be safe there.”

Pointing to an old man wandering past, his hands outstretched, Sowerbutt said: “And take him with you.”  The dazed man, streaked in black and his collarless shirt in shreds, was muttering: “Lost my house and the missus. All gone, gone. Nothing left, what can I do?”

Huge clouds of black smoke and dust billowed along the street, temporarily blocking out the glowing sky which seemed to get redder by the minute.

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Sowerbutt's Fire

The two men lay flat on their backs in Poplar Rec, as the Recreation Ground was commonly known. The grass was speckled with black, tree leaves and bark were scattered everywhere plus the odd branch ripped off in nearby bomb blasts together with the shattered top of an orange Belisha beacon which had blown in from the road. “Thank God for the all-clear, guv. We’ve lost a couple of houses but our people are alright apart from a few scratches and bruises and one broken arm. A couple of them are missing, but hopefully they’ll be at work.”

Sowerbutt rarely smoked cigarettes, but he was enjoying a Player’s cadged from Spaghetti. “It was a good idea to send them to All Saints and the Tabby. The dog collars will look after them tonight and we can re-house them later. But I don’t know what will happen if there’s another raid.
“I don’t like it, Spaghetti, I don’t like it at all. The Docks are copping it with the fires way out of control. Another Great Fire of London. We can’t go on like this. Let’s get back to the house and clean up.”
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Sowerbutt's Time

“I’ll send a message to Dipper to see what stock he has to hand,” Sowerbutt said wearily, his face covered in white dust and streaks of grime. “You won’t be telling much time with that.”

Spaghetti looked down at the Omega watch that his Mamma had given him some years earlier. The glass was shattered and the hands stuck forever at 8:35, a few minutes after the second wave of bombs started falling. The two men had kicked in the front door of one of the Family’s houses, just off East India Dock Road, seconds after an incendiary bomb had landed in the street outside and exploded into flames. Spaghetti hit his wrist against the brickwork as he pulled some of the terrified tenants to safety.
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Sowerbutt's Home

“Praise, indeed,” smiled Sowerbutt, putting his arm around the waist of the attractive redhead. “I take it you like our new home.” He kissed Polly on the cheek.

“You just behave yourself, James,” Polly said. “I love the fitted kitchen with the hot and cold running water, the brand-new electric cooker and even a refrigerator. Not at all what I expected when you showed me through the door of the blacked-out shop downstairs.”
He grunted as she elbowed him in the ribs. “I love the colour scheme, so fashionable,” Polly said, throwing herself onto the leather settee with red, black and gold cushions. “Pour me a drink, James. You didn’t do this all by yourself. You paid a designer, didn’t you?”

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