Crystal's Song by Millie Gray Read Free Book Online

my Archie’s section, Dinah? It wasnae their fault that they planes came at two-thirty in the afternoon.” She now turned to Patsy. “As Gawd’s ma judge, Patsy, I’ll never forget yon day. Oh aye, the efternoon o’ sixteenth October 1939 will bide in my mind for ever!”
    “Right enough. We weren’t expecting them afore supper time. Bloody cheek they had, turning up just when the bairns had been let oot o’ school.”
    “Dinah,” shouted Patsy, “that’s quite enough! Mary here has enough to contend with – I mean – Tam being missing, poor Archie having to do his bit here wi’ some other air-raid wardens – that dinnae seem to be up to their job – and Dod …” She didn’t continue as she knew Mary was ashamed of Dod, her third son. She did say to people now that he had deliberately got himself into prison because he was a conscientious objector but in truth he was a problem child, having been sent to Borstal for thuggery when he was just twelve years old. The only thing of value he got out of that Borstal training was an ability to play the trumpet exceptionally well. Such a pity it was that, when the police arrived two years ago to arrest him for black-marketeering, instead of blowing his trumpet he banged it over the arresting officer’s head while pushing some contraband butter up his nose!
    “You know, Patsy! It wasnae the fault o’ Archie and his mates that 602 and 603 squadrons thought it was just another practice. I mean, how can they be blamed because the Brylcreem Boys were sitting on their arses at East Fortune and Turnhouse playing poker while the Jerries were knocking hell out o’ our ships in the Forth?” argued Mary, who was anxious that all the blame for the fiasco didn’t fall on her least able son.
    It was now time for Dinah’s ten-year-old Johnny to provide a display and he startled everyone by giving a loud demonstration of a ducking and diving aeroplane. “Aye, but once oor flying ace, Patrick Gifford, knew what was happening he and his pals got their Hurricanes airborne with the guns goin, ‘Ack! Ack!’ And they didnae half put the frighteners on they Jerries. Shot two o’ them down and sent the others tearing back to Germany, so they did.”
    Patsy nodded in assent. “Looking for our braw battleship, the HMS Hood , they were. Good thing she wasn’t there. Mind you, I think when they couldn’t find her they knocked hell out of all the other ships just for spite.”
    “And then the damaged German planes flew so low, they did, trying to get back hame,” interjected Mary, ignoring Patsy’s observations, “that the bairns in the street could see the swastikas on their wings and helmets. Know Ivy Dickson?” All nodded towards Mary. “Well, she says the plane that was coming down on Restalrig Crescent was losing height so fast you could smell the soorkraut the pilot had had for his denner the night afore.”
    Dinah rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling before commenting: “Mind you, you’ve got to hand it to the blooming Joppa Christians, who you’ll remember gave the two pilots a proper military send-off after fishing them oot o’ the sea at Port Seton.”
    “Right enough. They good folk,” enthused Patsy, “let them lie in yon St Philip’s church the night afore their burial at Portobello cemetery, so they did. I think they did that because they’d spared the bairns. Could have killed some o’ them, so they could.” Patsy looked about the room before continuing in a whisper, “Mind you, that wasn’t reported in the news – censored oot it was because they didnae want people thinking there might be some good Germans.”
    “Right enough, but what about our sixteen brave sailor laddies that were killed when their ships were bombed by your pals – no to mention the forty they hospitalised. What did the Christians do for them?”
    “Look here, Dinah, I ken what you’re trying to do by going on about the Germans – avoiding the real issue here the