Dark Autumn

By Charles Palgrave

It is September, 1940. The so-called phoney war in France is over. A British army has been rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk, but the Germans have greater ambitions. England is enjoying an Indian summer during September - skies are blue, and nights clear. Germany and the Luftwaffe have turned their attention to the major cities of England, and the civilian population – Hitler’s prelude to invasion. Aged only nineteen, Charlie Fuller, is devastated by the events of Sunday, the eighth of September. Events that will forever change his life. The indiscriminate bombing of London has seen the loss of a small family, on only the second day of the Blitz. Charlie is devastated. He is forced to seek a new home with his cherished grandmother, Elsie. Charlie wants to fight, and he attempts to join the ranks of those eager to beat the Germans. At his medical assessment, and to his chagrin, Charlie is refused medical status to join his mates in the army.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684700929

Book preview

CODICIL

CHAPTER ONE

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1940

S quadron Leader Helmut Grossman followed the mass of aircraft that turned to follow the mission commander along the River Thames towards London. He maintained his position, just south of the meandering silver-grey outline of the River Thames below. At ten thousand feet, with the sun setting in the west and scattered cloud below it was easy to navigate the course west to the heart of England - London.

In his ears, he heard the navigator beside him call: ‘Five minutes to target, Kapitan!’

Helmut gave a curt acknowledgement, then looked up to his overhead instruments and checked his new compass bearing of two-seven-zero degrees.

His navigator glanced across the instrument-congested cockpit. ‘Where are the Tommy fighters, sir?’

Grossman turned. ‘They are waiting, Freddie,’ he said. He pointed to the sky above and the escort Messerschmitt ME109 fighters high above them. ‘The Tommies know our fighters have only ten minutes fuel over London.’ Even as he said it, he heard in his headphones the first of the fighter pilots call that they were turning back to France.

‘What is the wind heading and speed, Freddie?’ he asked his navigator.

The navigator checked his map and calculations, ‘Two-four-zero degrees, Kapitan, at five knots!’

Helmut was quite calm. Even without the fighters, it would be impossible, even for the British R.A.F., to shoot down more than three hundred aircraft in just six minutes, the time it would take for all the German aircraft to make the bombing run.

Above and ahead, Helmut could see at least one hundred other Heinkel and Junkers bombers of the three hundred that had taken off from the various airfields in France for the bombing raid on London. Everywhere he looked in the early autumn evening there were the silhouette shapes of aircraft in loose formation heading west.

Grossman had flown the day before, the first raid on London, and he knew they would continue to return until the stubborn British understood that they could not stand up to the might of the German Luftwaffe. Germany was at war, as much with the civilians of Great Britain as her armies. He again checked his heading and his position in the massed congregation of aircraft set to bomb London again. Goering had promised the Fuhrer he would destroy the R.A.F. - they had failed, but now the destruction of England’s cities was essential for a quick surrender of the British. He looked forward from his elevated seat through the greenhouse cockpit that offered an unobstructed vision. He could see Battersea Power Station ahead as the sun cast its final rays of pink and red light through the clouds and over the city.

‘Achtung! Achtung!’ (Attention! Attention!) Helmut heard the warning in his earphones, they were not quite at the target – the Docklands and The City of London. Helmut could see the Spitfires and Hurricanes, like a swarm as they dove from the late evening sun. He looked down through the glass canopy as the East End and Docklands passed under the aircraft. He was south in the formation but still heading west at two hundred and thirty miles an hour.

Suddenly, a Spitfire came in head-on, slightly higher, and its guns flashed. Helmut called into his microphone, ‘Stay calm, and aim carefully!’ he shouted. Instantly, Helmut heard his own nose and upper gondola single machine gun positions answer the streaking Spitfire as it overflew the compact German aircraft formations.

To his left Helmut saw a thin oily smoke trail start from a Junkers at the edge of the formation - the right engine propeller turning slowly. The damaged aircraft was from another French-based squadron. The Junkers began to turn just as a Hurricane dived past his cockpit, and he saw the strikes smash into the Junkers belly. In a blinding flash, the aircraft blew up.

From all over the sky Helmut Grossman could hear other crews shouting urgent warnings and instructions into their radios.

From the pilot’s seat, Helmut could see the massed formation break. He again heard the orders from the mission commander: Bruch! Bruch! (Break! Break!)

A pair of Hurricanes climbed through the congregation of bombers just ahead and banked hard left in unison to bring them back for another attack. And all the time his gunners fired at the darting British fighters that now filled the sky like flies. Helmut broke left and put the Heinkel into a shallow dive.

‘Kapitan, should I drop the bombs?’ called the bomb aimer.

‘Get rid of them,’ barked Helmut in urgent response, ‘or we will go up with them still in our belly!’

The Heinkel continued to bank left; they were now over the suburbs of London - south of the River Thames.

‘Bombs loose, Kapitan!’

Helmut put the twin-engine Heinkel HE-111 into a steeper dive to clear the other aircraft still on their bomb run.

Light ack-ack fire from the ground came up at them, and around the aircraft black sooty puffs appeared as the shells exploded. He could hear the crump of the shells, and shrapnel pinging against the fuselage of the dark aircraft. He dived down to the scattered clouds at eight thousand feet, the Heinkel reaching three hundred miles an hour. In the distance, he could see the purple haze that was the English Channel, and he knew, beyond, the safety of France. He steered the aircraft into the light clouds hoping to avoid and outrun the R.A.F. before they looked for aircraft escaping for home. He turned his head left then right to see if they were alone, and to his amazement, not another aircraft, friend or foe could be seen.

Helmut kept the Heinkel in a shallow dive. He could see the coast of England; his course would take them south between Brighton and Eastbourne.

The navigator had his eyes trained on the ground and realised their folly as he saw a flat green expanse, runways, control buildings and hangers. Biggin Hill Aerodrome was eight thousand feet below. They were just little black silhouettes, four of them climbing up through the ether to engage them.

He shouted: ‘Fighters, Kapitan! Four Tommy fighters coming up, Kapitan!’

‘Stay calm Freddie, tell me where they are.’ Helmut stamped on the right rudder pedal and banked the Heinkel sharply.

‘Two thousand feet below and to the left, Kapitan,’ called the fear-stricken navigator.

‘We need to get down,’ shouted Helmut, ‘we can lose them in the dusk shadows close to the ground.’

Helmut Grossman again put the Heinkel into a dive, he could see the needle of the altimeter spin backwards. He heard the twin engines roar at his maltreatment of the plane. He could see the coast of Britain only five miles ahead as the nose of the aircraft pointed towards the English Channel.

The Heinkel was down to two thousand feet when the first shells struck. The port engine seemed to come apart and the wing was shredded to pieces. Helmut could see the trailing edge minus the aileron ripped from the wing. The engine, as it was, no longer existed. Helmut saw the Spitfire shoot from under the cockpit and bank gracefully left. He tried to correct the increasing left bank of the Heinkel when the cockpit blew apart. He felt the massive blows of the shells as they thumped through the floor beneath the radio operator. Then he saw, rather than felt the bullets as they tore through his lower body, exiting to smash the greenhouse cockpit windows in a pink shower spray of his own blood. In the few seconds, before he died, he realised they had not even reached the English Channel.

CHAPTER TWO

C harlie Fuller had never been to a funeral before, and he never thought in his young life that the first funeral he would attend would be for his family - his total immediate family. He was stunned and numb; at a loss; a total loss. It hadn’t penetrated his dulled mind. He looked sideways to his grandmother, Elsie, standing beside him in black.

She gave him a fragile smile of encouragement and touched his arm. Elsie Fuller had the same blue eyes as her son. Charlie stared at them; stared at the eyes of his father and they stared back with warmth, empathy and sorrow. But they were not his father’s eyes. His father, mother and sister were all dead. Charlie felt himself sway in the heat of the day.

Elsie saw the signs, she even expected it and she grabbed his arm tightly. Charlie blinked and gathered himself.

The priest, Reverend Collins, was saying something and Charlie was pulled back with a start. He looked over the heads of the mourners across from him. Charlie and Elsie were not alone, there were others at St Thomas’ Church, dressed as he was. Charlie Fuller counted three other groups of mourners at the cemetery - all there to farewell friends and loved ones.

And the bombing of London had only started a few days before. Charlie stood sullen and silent in an old navy-blue two-piece suit and a black tie. He wanted this day to be over as quickly as possible.

He heard Elsie whisper, ‘Charlie,’ and she bowed her head. He followed her example as the priest offered a prayer, and looked to the ground. He couldn’t believe that on this beautiful day early in September of 1940, he was standing here to witness the funeral of his family. His mind was frozen with disbelief. He had lost everything in a second when a bomb exploded.

When the priest from St. Thomas’ Church uttered those final and heartbreaking words: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust… he thought he might collapse. Only the firm grip on his arm by his grandmother held him. He lifted his head slightly to see the three varnished coffins lowered into the ground for all of eternity. A father and mother he loved utterly, and a young sister he adored, now interred side by side into three deep and dark pits. He wanted to be with them. How could God allow this?

Surrounding the new graves were other fresh plots, for those who had also died from German bombs on the first day of attacks on London’s civilian population. There were headstones of shiny granite and other stones. Beyond were other graves, some well-kept, others left to long forgetfulness with old inscriptions and in disrepair. Tears slid down his stricken young and handsome face and he snuffled back his grief. He shook his head with the unbearable understanding that he would never see them again, or hear his mother call him to dinner, or ask him to perform a chore that she knew he hated. It can’t be real.

‘It’ll soon be over Charlie,’ said Elsie, sitting beside him in the lead car of the cortège. They drove slowly, and Charlie wanted to scream to the driver to hurry up.

‘There’s no need to wear the tie now Charlie,’ said Elsie. He was sweating badly.

Charlie ripped the tie from his neck and rolled his neck around the loosened collar. He wound down the window and took a deep breath.

Along the route to Elsie’s house on Beecham Road, many pedestrians turned to watch the slow procession of vehicles. Men in their trilbies and flat caps lifted their hats out of respect and knowledge.

Charlie could see in the eyes of those they passed, grim sympathy, for they knew what he now knew – this war with Germany was very real.

At the condolence gathering at his grandmother’s house - where he now lived - Charlie’s grief had turned to anger. It was not desperate anger; it was a cold determined rage. Many had thought this a phoney war, and even the evacuation of over three hundred thousand troops from Dunkirk did not convince them. His father had said: It’ll all be over by Christmas, Charlie, when the Yanks get into it. Anyway, you have an important job here.

Charlie was jolted from his musings when suddenly Richard Simpson, one of the senior inspectors and close friend of his father from the London Transport bus garage at Chapel Hill, handed him a pint of bitter.

Richard’s wife Mary stood behind her husband with downcast eyes. She wore a black top-coat that had a silver fox fur collar. Although she tried to avert her gaze Charlie could see she had been crying. She was one of mum’s friends. They were all close-knit at Chapel Hill.

‘Thank you, sir,’ responded Charlie with a small nod of acceptance and respect.

Richard Simpson and Steven Fuller had come up together through the ranks.

Richard Simpson took a swig of bitter. ‘We’re all here for you, Charlie, if you need us,’ said Richard gravely. ‘I’ll arrange some compassionate leave for you. You’re probably goin’ to need some time to get things in order… documents and stuff.’

Charlie nodded dully. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Richard Simpson looked around the small living room overlooking Beecham Road. ‘Your Uncle Les is not ‘ere then Charlie?’ he asked.

Charlie shook his head. ‘He’s still up north, sir. He’s at sea.’

Up north, for those who knew, meant at Scapa Flow, serving with the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet. Les Fuller was serving on the light cruiser, HMS Broadloch as a Sub-Lieutenant. He would be distraught when he learned that his older brother and his family had been killed in only the second raid on London.

CHAPTER THREE

‘O h my God, Charlie, what ‘ave you done?’ called Elsie when she opened the front door to find who was knocking at such a late hour. Elsie Fuller had only just returned from the bomb shelter in the basement of St Thomas’ Church Hall. She had wrongly thought that Charlie was tucked up in bed. He never went to the shelters, and this worried Elsie.

Elsie Fuller shone her small torch down at the three young men on the shiny wet pavement below her. Charlie was being held up by two other boys dressed in damp, heavy brown army greatcoats. ‘Who’s that with you Charlie?’ she cried.

‘It wasn’t ‘is fault missus!’ defended the younger of the two boys standing in the cold beneath her on the pavement under a light drizzle.

She recognised the voice; she had known the two brothers all their lives, since they were just little tykes – mischievous little tykes she remembered. Although, the two brothers, Matthew and Stuart Brown, when you got to know them, weren’t as bad as the reputation they enjoyed. Everyone in Sefton knew them for their juvenile, unruly behaviour. But Elsie also knew the brothers could be easily manipulated, and it was her grandson, Charlie, that generally led them into misadventure. But her thoughts over the past couple of weeks, since the funeral, was that their friendship with Charlie had been a blessing. She understood that he needed support – support of friends.

‘You’d better bring him up boys, I can’t lift him,’ she said, and waved them to climb the four front steps to the Victorian Terrace. As the three young men passed through the blackout curtain into the house Elsie Fuller could smell the reek of beer on them. She flew her eyes to the heavens in despair.

‘Quietly boys, don’t wake the kids,’ she hissed, and she made sure there was no light under the door of the ground floor bedrooms of her boarders.

She went back to the front door and looked furtively up and down the long line of Victorian Terraces that made up Beecham Road to ensure none of her curtain twitching neighbours witnessed the incident. Elsie could smell the damp stench of smoke and recently burned wood from the timber store fires across the River Thames. The German bomber air-raids continued over the East End Docks each night. She pulled her deep red dressing gown around her thin frame and felt the chill and foreboding of a dark and dreadful future. London had been bombed continually since the 7th of September, and there was no evidence to suggest it would not continue. She shivered and then turned and entered the house, pleased that she could close the door on the night.

‘Take him to the kitchen, boys,’ and Elsie Fuller followed the Brown brothers struggling up the three flights of stairs to her small two-bedroom flat at the top of the house.

Charlie was dumped at the bare wooden kitchen table and he squinted at the single light hanging from the slanted ceiling. It was warm and he was aware of the Brown brothers standing beside him, fascinated with the slumped mess at the table, their mate, Charlie.

The Brown brothers stood back, ill at ease, and trepidation showed on their faces. But feisty Elsie Fuller commanded the room. They could see she was now angry, and they lowered their heads. They looked at each other discreetly and shared a furtive grin at what was about to happen.

Charlie, at the table, carefully touched the incipient swelling around his left eye. ‘Aghh, fuck!’ he groaned and cursed.

Elsie Fuller brushed through the two Browns and whacked Charlie across the back of the head. ‘Don’t you dare curse in my house, Charlie Fuller, I don’t care what state you’re in, you don’t swear here!’

‘Ah, Gran!’ he cried and winced from another beating.

‘Let me look at you, you stupid boy!’ She began to examine his now closed left eye. She turned to Matthew Brown. ‘Don’t just stand there like a stunned mullet, put the kettle on,’ she demanded. She searched and found a small box of Swan Vesta matches and tossed them to the boy so he could light the gas stove.

Stuart Brown repeated his statement from the street. ‘It wasn’t ‘is fault, missus!’ he said with defiant courage.

Elsie took a wet and cold flannel from the sink and slapped it on Charlie’s eye, and he gave another groan, but resisted the urge to blaspheme. ‘Well who’s fault was it then, young Mr Brown… yours?’ Elsie gave a huge sigh as she noticed a welt of red swelling skin over the boy’s cheek. He had taken a smack she expected, trying to defend his friend Charlie.

The kettle began to blow steam and then began to whistle a shrill tune that it had reached boiling point. Elsie began making some weak tea.

‘Sit down, boys,’ she offered, and went to the cold stone in the pantry to get the last of her ration of milk. Milky White, the milkman, would be along in the morning with his cart and his Clydesdale horse, Cheeky, to stamp the ration book and replace her empties.

They sat around the small table and Elsie just could not resist her maternal nature. She had been a mother, she was a grandmother, and here before her eyes was a grandson in despair. Charlie was a pathetic picture with a perpetual left eye squint and the stupid look of a wounded child. He was nineteen, with a man’s body, but the pale and flawless face of an innocent child, and her heart wrenched. But he would have to learn to become a man, and it would be hard for him. She knew he was going to have to be even stronger, for Elsie knew he had gone to the Examiners Review Board at the Town Hall that morning to find out if he had passed the medical that would see him into the army with his mates, Stuart and Matthew.

Dr. Campbell, the family physician, had already warned her that Charlie would not be given fighting fit status, and had told her that Charlie had, as a child, been diagnosed with Rheumatic Fever, and his medical history mentioned a fall from a tree had left him with a hairline fracture to the base of the cranium. This was enough to exclude Charlie, but then this, coupled with the loss of his family, so recently, meant it would be required for the panel to include a psychiatric consultant to determine his mental state.

Dr. Campbell attended the board of civil medical examiners, and had included a letter, stating only the facts on the death of Charlie Fullers’ family. The board had not even deliberated, and stamped Charlie’s request, Temporarily Unfit, and reduced his status to Home Duties Only. Not even, Active Home Duties. She knew he would take it hard and rebel, as was his nature.

Elsie pointed to the white bread bin with its cottage-by-the-sea painting in the form of a postcard picture of the Cornwall Coast, and it was slid across the table by Stuart Brown.

‘Don’t eat them all boys,’ she warned, and shared out some of her homemade oatmeal rusks.

Elsie lost some of her fearful persona and looked at them with a little sympathy. ‘So, what happened?’ she asked the Brown boys.

Matthew Brown jumped in with a mouthful of oatmeal biscuit churning in his mouth. ‘It was the Irish blokes, down at the Green Dragon, missus.’ He looked to his brother for encouragement to proceed, and the lad nodded in enthusiastic agreement. ‘We was ‘aving a quiet beer, me and Stuart, you know, just getting our uniform and that, when these four Navvies started givin’ us some lip.’

Matthew held up his hands in defence. ‘It’s not like we started it, missus, but when they said they were going back to the Emerald Isle, and said that it’s about time the Brits got some of their own,’ he glanced at Charlie with compassionate understanding. ‘Well, Charlie just saw red, missus.’

He now became brave. ‘We just ‘ad a go at ‘em, and the whole pub was behind us, missus,’ and even Charlie’s bruised and battered face nodded vigorously to authenticate the telling.

It was late, and she could not quite condemn the actions of the three boys. Elsie stood and with a matronly frown, again looked at the damage done to Charlie’s face. It would be a serious black eye in the morning, and he would probably have some other as yet undiscovered injuries, but with a couple of days of discomfort, there was nothing much to worry about. The physical injuries would heal, but Elsie was far more concerned about the mental state of the boy. Elsie said her farewells to the Brown brothers at nearly two in the morning, and as they skipped and jumped down Beecham Road, throwing fake punches and reliving the fight at the Green Dragon Public House, she had the feeling that Charlie, for all his desire to join them in the war, would be better off remaining here.

Thankfully, there were no more German bomber raids that night, although you could no longer sleep without the concern that the dreadful siren of air attack wouldn’t come at any moment.

Charlie slept through the night, but Elsie was up when it was still dark at five in the morning. She was up even before Milky White arrived at her doorstep. Elsie quietly went down to the basement kitchen of her boarders, the Hobbs, slipped out into the damp, dewy back yard and plucked a large carrot from her vegetable garden.

When she came back to the house, she could clearly hear Cheeky’s heavy-footed treads on the stone cobbled road before she even opened the door to meet Milky White.

Elsie had two empty bottles and a steaming mug of Bovril beef brew in her hands and a couple of oatmeal biscuits in her pocket for Milky. Also, in her dressing gown she had the carrot for Cheeky. She went down the steps to the milkman and handed him his mug and biscuits along with the two empty bottles to be replaced.

The big horse snorted and a great gust of hot steam issued like dragon breath from her nostrils. Elsie ran her hand down her massive, grey and black, dappled flanks and came to the huge head of the docile creature.

‘What a big baby you are, Cheeky,’ she said softly to the horse, and the massive head of Cheeky nuzzled into her. She turned to Milky. ‘She’s so beautiful, Milky.’ Elsie handed over the carrot, and there was a very definite crunch as Cheeky devoured the morsel.

Milky stood the mug of Bovril on his hard, high wooden seat and blew into his bare hands and rubbed them together with a dry rasp in appreciation of the welcome warmth it would bring. It was a ritual that had started before the war when she had found out that Milky’s wife had passed away.

He took a sip and luxuriated in the simple, strong, beef extract.

Elsie had even put pepper into the brew to add additional heat. It was only September, the Indian summer falling behind them, and now the cool of a true English winter was only weeks away.

‘Thanks, Elsie, that’s great,’ Milky snuffled the early morning cold back through his nose. ‘How’s young Charlie doin’?’ he asked with a lift of his head towards the house.

Elsie wanted to remain neutral. ‘It’s a difficult time for him, Milky, as you can understand,’ and she patted Cheeky’s rump.

A firm look came over Milky’s face. ‘I ‘eard what ‘appened yesterday, Elsie, I don’t think them blokes on the Medical Board done Charlie any favours. The young bloke wants to fight the bloody Germans, and I reckon ‘e ‘as good reason.’ Milky lifted his chin with pride. ‘I’ve joined up, Elsie,’ he said. ‘I’m joinin’ The Guard. So, if them Krauts want to invade, they’ll ‘ave to get past Milky White!’

She knew he was well past fifty, and he had not served in the Great War, but it was his way of saying he was not a coward. Nobody wanted to be labelled a coward, and she understood this more so than anyone. His wife and child had both died when she tried to give birth, against medical opinion, and he had never sought another. She also realised she would need allies to defend her grandson. With a woman’s intuition and a certain degree of cunning – for she knew that cunning would be required to protect what was left of her family - she knew exactly the right thing to say. It was perhaps a little cruel to make this simple man into a hero he could not be, but times were tough, and the Fullers would prevail by any means.

Elsie, in her late fifties, still with a willowy body and strong, angular features was by any mention, sophisticated, intelligent, and, not a bad looking sort – for men of the same age.

Elsie reached up and patted Milky’s arm in the cold dawn. ‘I never doubted you, Mr. White; and we need others to follow your example.’ Elsie smiled and reached into her dressing gown pocket for her ration book. She handed it over and then looked to the sky; it was such a lovely sky. ‘Do you think we’ll have peace again soon, Mr. White?’

The spirit of the horse clumping its way down Beecham Road that morning equalled the spirit of the man guiding her. Head held high; Milky White was imbued with a vim he had not felt in years. Elsie Fuller regarded him resolute and with courageous intent. That was enough for Milky White.

Despite the cold September morning, Charlie was at the small sink in the kitchen when she returned. Elsie stood in the doorway as he bent over the sink and sloshed water over his naked upper body. He wore his overalls, tied at the waist to prevent them falling to his feet. She also noticed the large blue bruises on his back and shoulders, confirmation that he had indeed been beaten the night before. He was so white and thin, his ribs stood out like a starved dog.

‘I’ll make you some breakfast, Charlie,’ she said and came into the kitchen proper.

Charlie turned and she saw the extent of the injuries. His chest was black and blue, and his left eye was now completely closed and swollen. Her heart was crushed. She placed the milk bottles on the bare table and went to him to inspect him more closely.

‘Oh dear, Charlie, you are a mess,’ she said softly.

To her enormous surprise he dropped his head, and for the first time she could remember in a long time he hugged her, shook his head silently,