Authors: Murdo Morrison
How many times am I going to cry today?
she thought. She looked around, feeling helpless. With death everywhere there was little point in reporting individual tragedies. Ella felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the calamity that had fallen on Clydebank. She set off again towards May’s house, consumed with a rising terror that made her queasy and unsteady on her feet.
Further on she spied more dead. A young woman lay near the baffle wall of a close, a small child firmly grasped in her arms. She had been rushing for shelter when cut down. A pool of drying blood extended from their broken bodies to the kerb. Ella sank to her knees, wretching. She was used to the hard life of the tenements, where people often died at home and death was a familiar visitor. Yet that had left Ella ill-prepared for the sudden cruel taking of young healthy lives in such a manner.
After a time Ella recovered her resolve. She rose and went on, the grim fate of the mother and her child increasing her torment about her own family.
Fate had played a grim game of chance with the people of Clydebank. She would pass a block of tenements that appeared untouched and here she found easy passage. A block further on she would be lucky to find her way through. Her path to May’s street required many detours and careful scrutiny of where she was stepping.
It was while she was passing through a particularly difficult stretch that, looking down at her feet, a mother’s instinct made her stoop to inspect what appeared to be the half buried remains of a child’s doll. “Aw some poor wee smout has lost her dolly,” she said out loud.
Her mind was playing tricks, translating hard reality into more palatable scenes. As she pulled on the arm it came free from the rubble. No longer able to pretend, her mind snapped back into focus. She saw at last the severed arm of an infant, torn away at the shoulder, the end a pulpy mess of crushed tissue.
She dropped the terrible object and scrambled blindly away, screaming so loudly that she attracted the attention of an ambulance man who came running to her. Despite her protests, he made her sit in the ambulance until she calmed down. Overwhelmed by the number of people needing assistance, he failed to notice when Ella slipped away.
When Ella approached May’s street her spirits lifted. The bar at the corner was still there, and the tenement across the street looked all right. Ella hurried forward, but when she turned the corner she sank to her knees, a great scream of pain erupting from her. Of May’s house and the remainder of her street, not a recognizable trace remained. A great sea of rubble stretched before her. Ella collapsed on the street and pounded the surface with her fists in a state of complete despair.
A man came running from the bar quickly followed by two more. They brought Ella to her feet and carried her bodily into the pub. The older of the men ran behind the counter and splashed a generous amount of whisky into a tumbler. He came over to Ella and brought the glass to her lips. Ella, who never drank alcohol and disapproved of it strongly, tried to push it away. “Have some o’ this, hen,” he said softly as though shushing a baby to sleep. “Ye’ve had a terrible shock, it’ll dae ye good.”
Ella gulped a mouthful and made a face. “God, that’s awfy stuff,” she cried, the burning taste of the liquor snapping her out of her fit. One of the men brought over a chair and she sank into it, her head in her hands.
For a moment she forgot her situation and asked the men indignantly, “Whit are ye daeing hanging aboot in a bar at a time like this? Dae ye no’ hae families o’ yer ain tae go tae?”
“It’s a reasonable question,” one of the younger men said in mild tones that bore a distinctly London accent. “You see, we are off a ship that’s refitting at Brown’s yard. We were here last night when the air raid siren went off, so our host let us stay in his cellar. It was a terrible night. We thought we had had it. We were just about to head back to our ship when we heard you outside.”
Ella’s expression softened. “Whit a way tae welcome ye tae Clydebank.”
The man smiled nervously. “Eric Arnold,” he introduced himself, “and this is Dennis Mulholland.” Ella nodded to them both. “Are you all right, can we help you in any way?”
“Aye well, ah’m ower the first shock o’ it but…” She stopped. “Wid you two dae something for me?” They both agreed readily. “Ella nodded towards the street. “Mah daughter May and her family lived doon that street.” The men looked at each other and their faces fell. “Aye, ah know,” Ella said flatly. “Wid ye come doon there wi’ me, keep me company? Ah know it’s nae use, but she’s mah lassie an’”… A tear rolled down her cheek.
Eric placed his arm around her shoulders, and they walked out slowly, mourners at a funeral for a community that was no more. The street was so devastated that Ella had trouble finding No. 26. Using the lampposts that reared up at crazy angles as landmarks they found their way at last. So complete was the devastation, there was nothing to indicate a structure had once stood here.
Ella sat down heavily on the stones and slowly picked up one after another but soon stopped. “They never had a chance,” she said through her tears. “Those German bastards, whit kind o’ people are they tae kill harmless women and weans?”
Dennis sat down beside her. Not knowing what to say, he rubbed the back of her hand gently, feeling the deep grief of this woman he barely knew. He looked up at Eric who shrugged helplessly. “What’s your name?”
She looked at him for a long moment as she struggled to get the words out.
“Ella, Ella McLennan.”
“Ella, we need to get you home,” Dennis said, then stopped, realizing she might have no home to go back to. “Where do you live?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
“Aye, ah need tae get hame. But ah don’t know whit ah’m going tae say tae her faither. This’ll be the death o’ him.”
The men helped her up, and they returned to the corner. Despite her protests, Dennis and Eric insisted on seeing her home. At first they made only slow progress, not only due to the destruction, but the fact that the streets were now crowded with people. As they worked their way slowly towards Scotstoun they had to take lengthy detours around crushed buildings and rescue operations. Once a policeman waved them away from a partially collapsed tenement. “Unexploded bomb,” he shouted at them. “You’ll have to go around the other way.”
Farther along they saw rescue workers bringing a small child out of a tenement. Ella stopped abruptly and turned around, heading back the way she had come. They ran after her and when they blocked her path she cried, ”Get oot o’ mah way. Ah have tae go back. Maybe they’re still alive under there.”
Eric looked straight into her eyes. “Listen to me,” he said slowly and carefully. When he saw her turn away, not wanting to listen, he said more forcefully, “Listen!”
Her eyes swung back to meet his. “Whit is it?” she said, like a petulant child refused its way. Gently he explained to her that May’s tenement had been hit not once but many times. He had seen newer craters in the rubble. There was absolutely no chance of them being alive. Ella’s last thin, thread of hope snapped then, and she turned without a word and resumed her journey home.
They came to a place where there was no trace of destruction and the streets looked the same as always. Here they found tramcars and buses waiting for whoever might show up. Their drivers were not disappointed, for people were streaming out of Clydebank. Ella and her newfound friends looked around at the throng - here an individual, there a small family group - many carrying odds and ends, whatever they had been able to save or carry.
While many were headed purposefully in the direction of Glasgow, there were others who wandered around dazed and bewildered. Ella passed an old couple clad only in their dressing gowns. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw them brought into an ambulance by two attendants who wrapped them in blankets.
Eric and Dennis waited with Ella until she managed to find a place on a No. 9 tramcar that had newly arrived from Glasgow. They wanted to follow her on, but she wouldn’t allow it. “Ye’ve both done far mair for me than anybody could’ve expected,” she told them. “But now ye need tae get back tae yer ship or ye’ll be in hot water for sure.” Reluctantly they watched her board and sit down, but not before she had given them her address and extracted a promise that they would come up to see her and Willie, so they could thank them properly.
Ella sat numbly in her seat, her forehead resting on the window. She retreated into a deep recess of her mind, oblivious to her surroundings. This persisted until she looked up and realized she was one stop from home. Ella descended from the tram and walked towards her close with leaden steps, her mind in turmoil.
❅❅❅❅❅
When the sirens had sounded, those left behind in the close paid little attention. They had gone down to the bottom floor, as they had grown accustomed to over the previous months. But then came a distant rumbling that sounded like thunder, only louder and more ominous, followed by the roar of airplane engines overhead. They came to the mouth of the close and peered out cautiously. The baffle wall in front of it would offer protection from blast, they had been told, but few believed it.
After a time, when the explosions remained in the distance and came no closer, they ventured out into the street and looked towards Clydebank. The sky over the town was a swirling mass of dense smoke, lit in countless shades of red, orange and yellow. Clydebank was illuminated by the sudden glow of detonations that flared up, to be immediately replaced by countless others.
Willie turned pale and leaned heavily against the baffle wall. Murdo went to him. “Whit’s wrang wi ye, man? An’ where’s Ella?”
“Ella’s no’ here,” Betty cried in anguish, her voice shrill with fear. “She went down tae Clydebank to see May an’ the new bairn the night. She’s somewhere in the middle o’ that!”
Willie came out of his trance when he heard that and started off down Dumbarton Road towards the distant fires. Murdo and the other men ran after him.
“For God’s sake, ye cannae go down there the now,” Murdo yelled placing his hand on Willie’s shoulder.
“Get yer hands aff me, or ah’ll belt ye in the gob sae help me,” Willie screamed, spinning around to face Murdo and raising his fist in his face.
But Murdo had help. Wattie McKay who lived on the second floor came up along with his big strapping sons Neil and Alistair. “Now, now, Willie, there’s nae need for ony o’ that,” Wattie said soothingly. “We just want tae stop ye from
runnin’ aff an’ daeing something ye’ll regret. Ella’s a sensible wumman, she’ll be able tae look efter hersel’. There’s naethin’ ye can dae until that’s ower.”
Outnumbered and a quiet man at heart who despised violence, Willie let himself be led back to the close and into Betty’s kitchen.
“Ye’re welcome tae stay Murdo,” Betty said in a kindly tone, grateful to him and the other men for keeping Willie home and out of harm.
“That’s very kind o’ ye, Betty but ah best be getting back tae Bessie.”
“Well, ah hope ye know that she wid be made very welcome here as well,” Betty graciously replied, already knowing his response and relieved at his anticipated refusal.
“Ah’m sure of that Betty, but aw the same.” He stopped, knowing Bessie’s status with the women of the close and understanding why it was so. On his way out he stopped for a quiet word of encouragement to Willie.
That’s how they started out to wait through the long night - most of the close’s inhabitants around the fire in the Gillies’ kitchen, Murdo and Bessie quietly by themselves. They dozed off and started, too nervous to go to their beds but too tired to be properly awake. In their wakeful moments they tried to distract themselves with tea or conversation or the newspaper, one ear on the alert for any intimation that the distant noise was coming any closer. Except for Willie, who spent the time in silence, alone with his thoughts.
For a time they were relieved that Scotstoun was being spared, although they knew that could change in an instant - their lives pulverized by an unlucky chance, a stray accident. So suddenly did their luck change that it took them long seconds of disorientation and disbelief before they were brought completely awake by the scream of bombs.
The noise was so loud that everyone in the tenement felt sure that the bombs were aimed right at the room in which they were sitting. Betty sat in her chair and screamed, immobilized in her panic. Alec grabbed her and threw her under the table so abruptly that her head banged into the leg. Everyone dived to the floor, except Willie, who sat immobile in his chair, seemingly oblivious or uncaring about the imminent peril.
The few seconds of the bombs’ flight seemed endless, the noise growing to a terrifying pitch. They felt rather than heard the force of the explosions. The building expanded and contracted as though it had given out a great sigh of relief at its close escape. The wally dugs on the mantelpiece smashed onto the fender. Pictures flew horizontally off the walls before gravity brought them arcing to the linoleum. The glass smashed, shards flying into every corner of the room.