Читать книгу Seminary Boy - John Cornwell - Страница 11

I HAVE DIM early impressions of East Ham, the shunting steam trains, clashing couplings and buffers beyond the yard fence; fog horns echoing from the docks in the night; a medley of nostril-scorching stenches. Later I learnt that the bad smells came on the wind from the Becton gasworks, the factories in the Silvertown basin, the polluted waters of the Thames at Woolwich.

I feel my father holding me under my armpits in his strong hands, to a rising and falling chorus of sirens. Then I see it: flying high, caught in the searchlight shafts, a growling black flying object shedding fountains of fire. Dad is holding me up, arms outstretched, to watch one of Hitler’s ‘doodlebugs’ crossing the night sky.

The shelter smelt of dank clay. Lying on the top bunk wrapped in a blanket, I watched Mum gazing imploringly at the image pinned to a cross of wood, her lips moving constantly. Eventually the sirens stopped and the night was silent. Through her bowing and whispering before the figure, Mum could control the fiery black thing in the sky and the hideous wailing across the rooftops.