Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [1]
Ma looked down at Celia, who smiled nervously. She was so tall, so pretty. Celia shivered again and Ma handed her a poker. Celia looked uncertainly at it for a moment, until the Doctor took it from her hands and jabbed at the hearth with it. The fire began to flare up again. The Doctor handed the poker back to Celia, who smiled and began prodding the fire experimentally for herself.
‘At a quarter to seven on June twenty-eighth, the Germans attacked. I was there, most of us were. It was Friday, the warmest evening of the year. We were just coming back from church and Mayor Sherwill was making a speech on Smith Street, trying to reassure everyone. There was a droning noise, a squeal, and then a thud. We’d never heard a sound like it before, so we didn’t realize at first that the Germans were bombing the harbour. A lot of vans were down there, and the planes targeted them. The drivers didn’t know what to do. A lot of them sheltered underneath their vehicles. They died. We all saw it; there was nowhere to go.
We just didn’t know what we would do. Do you know, there wasn’t a single bomb shelter in the whole town? It just shows how naïve we were. It’s odd: my main impression was of the colour pink. The explosions were a sort of salmon pink. I don’t suppose that fact will ever make it into the history books. Noise and panic. Confusion. Screaming and black smoke.
‘Look, it’s not really much use remembering. We had to piece together what had happened afterwards, anyway. For nearly half an hour, half a dozen bombers soared and dived overhead, strafing the area with bullets and dropping bombs.
Then, it was over. Twenty-seven men and four women had died and forty others were wounded. Two hours later, at nine, we all listened to the BBC news, and learnt that the government had demilitarized us and hoped to keep us out of the war.
‘Later, the Germans said that they regretted the deaths
— the purpose of the raid had been simply to prevent the shipping of a consignment of tomatoes, the deaths had been incidental.
‘The real invasion wasn’t long in coming. We were all terrified on Saturday. We thought that there would be another raid. Or a gas attack. We were very worried about being gassed. On Sunday afternoon, three German planes landed at the airstrip, but they were scared off by an RAF patrol. I learnt about that later. The Germans returned in force at six in the evening, most of us heard the plane circling. They must have been looking for ground defences. There weren’t any.
Half an hour later, Major Lanz had assumed command, and had set himself up in the Royal Hotel. Most of us didn’t learn this until the day after, when we read the declaration. Some people, the ones in the outlying farms, well, some of them didn’t find out for over a week. All private transport had been outlawed. The curfew was in place. The Swastika was raised from every flagpole.
‘It was so strange that it didn’t sink in for a couple of days, until the planes came. Wave after wave of troop transports, Junkers, barely clearing the rooftops. One hundred and seventy-eight huge aircraft bringing thousands upon thousands of Nazi soldiers. We just stood around, watching them arrive, watching all these young men pouring off the planes, then marching in regimented lines.’ Ma couldn’t think of anything else to add. Celia had turned to the Doctor.
‘Doctor, what’s happening?’
‘You know, it’s so long since one of my travelling companions asked me that. It really takes me back to the good old days...’ There was a toothy grin all over his face. Ma sighed, hadn’t he been listening?
‘Well, it’s a long time since you gave a straight answer