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Chapter 1. Moonlight Sonata. November 14^th 1940 top

Using the code name Moonlight Sonata, The Luftwaffe sent 500 planes to Coventry on November 14^th 1940, the night of a full moon. They dropped 1,000,000 lbs of high explosives and 75,000 lbs of incendiaries. A firestorm raged through the city and into the suburbs. Over 1,200 people lost their lives. Thousands more were left injured and homeless.

Harry Tandey was in the thick of it. The sickening thing was… he could have prevented it.

The blast lifted Harry out of his chair. Carrying him airborne through the open door way, it deposited him in a heap on the hall floor.

    It was a miracle that he was alive.

    Lying there, still clutching his white enamel mug, he cursed as a huge chimney pot crashed through the ceiling onto his chair.‘Bastards,’ he muttered, hurling the mug into the rubble. ‘Bloody bastards!’

Slowly, he ran his hands over his torso and legs, searching for blood and broken bones. He seemed to have escaped serious injury.

    Harry climbed carefully to his feet and stumbled over the rubble out into the street. Looking up, he saw tracer shells streaking across the sky. The noise was deafening. The shock wave from explosion after explosion thumped against his his eardrums. Half the street was destroyed. Fires crackled and burned, the flames reaching skywards. He saw silhouettes of people running around panic stricken. Sounds of terror filled the air… sobbing, screaming and crying.

‘Harry! Harry!’ It was Stan Jones, his next-door neighbour, clambering over a pile of bricks. His face was blackened and his clothes in tatters. ‘You all right Harry? Where’s Edie?’

‘She’s gone to her sister’s in Leamington thank God. How about you?’

‘I’ve lost Edna. We were inside. I was downstairs and she was upstairs. I think she’s gone… I can’t see her anywhere... I think I’ve lost her!’ Stan was shouting and crying at the same time.  

    He turned and started to claw at the debris. The front wall of his house was a heap of rubble in the road. The innards of his home were exposed in the shimmering light of the street fires. Shredded blackout curtains and sheets of blue flowered wallpaper flapped in the wind. The air was thick with grit from the smashed bricks and plaster.

‘I’ll come with you Stan! Lets go and look for her.’ A woman staggered into the road, behind them. She collapsed at their feet, bleeding from a wound in her shoulder.

‘Is that…’

‘…no it’s not Edna. You see to her, I’ll go and see if I can find your Edna!’

‘No! It’s too dangerous. Look up there! Look at the stack. It’s swaying. It’ll come down!’

Harry looked up. He could make out the shape of the chimneystack in the flickering light.

‘Look after her,’ yelled Harry pointing to the woman on the floor. ‘She’s bleeding badly, stop the bleeding, press on the wound!’

‘But…’

‘Don’t be stupid! There’s no time to argue…do as I tell you…’ and Harry was gone. Hobbling over the rubble as fast as his bad leg would allow him, he clambered his way into the building.

    The first thing that greeted him was the sharp, sulphurous smell of gas. Fighting his way through the dust and the blackness, he found the meter under the stairs and groped his way along the pipe to the main stop valve. The wheel was stiff and it took all his strength to get it turning.

    He looked at the staircase. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out a gaping hole about halfway up where some falling brickwork had smashed through. ‘Edna! Edna! Can you hear me!’ he shouted, trying to raise his voice above the sounds of the aircraft overhead.

    As he climbed the staircase on all fours, he could feel it swaying from side to side. He got to the top and crawled along the small landing, to the front bedroom, passing a huge split in the floor. The doorframe was twisted… jamming the door. He could push it partway open but there was something stopping it.

    Putting his hand round the other side, he groped around in the blackness. Just as his hands touched a body, the chimneystack smashed through the floor in the next room filling the air with dust and soot. The whole floor juddered beneath him and for a second, he thought it was going to give way and crash to the floor below. The jolt ripped the door off its hinges sending it spinning away from him and seesawing over Edna’s lifeless form.

‘Edna! Edna! Can you hear me?’ The bitter taste of soot and grit made him choke and splutter as he shook her gently. He ripped the sleeve off his jacket and tied it round his mouth to make a crude filter.

   She was silent. Deathly silent.  The cloud of soot came down, blocking out the moonlight that was shafting through a huge hole in the roof. He felt around her body. Brushing through something warm and sticky, his hand found its way to her neck. He placed two fingers on the jugular, and felt for her pulse; it was strong and regular.

    Hauling her onto his back like a sack of coal, he staggered out of the doorway and crawled backwards down the swaying staircase. He reached over the split at the halfway point and his heart leapt as the stairs lurched violently. A moment later, he was out of the dust-cloud and onto the pavement, stumbling over the debris.

    The light was better outside. Flickering flames cast dancing shadows along the cobbled street. Gently, he lowered her to the floor as Stan ran towards them.

‘How is she… is she alive?’

‘Looks like she’s had a knock on the side of her head. There’s a bit of a gash, though she doesn’t look too bad.’

‘Oh God Harry! What am I going to do?’ the brick dust on his face was streaked with tears.

‘Pull yourself together Stan. Her breathing is regular and her pulse is strong. There doesn’t seem too much wrong to me. I’m no doctor but fingers crossed she’s all right eh?’

‘Yes… yes… fingers crossed she’s all right.’ Stan was knelt down besides his wife, stroking her forehead.

Harry turned and waved at an Ambulance man. The man returned the signal, indicating he would be over as soon as possible.

‘I thought that stack had done for you Harry.’

‘You needn’t worry.’ He coughed violently, the dust and soot scratching at his throat.

‘Are you all right?’

‘’course I’m all right. I’ve had worse. Try to find something to cover her. Keep her warm before shock sets in. There’s a tablecloth or something in that pile of bricks over there. Can you see it?’ Stan nodded, went for the cloth, returned and gently draped it over Edna. Suddenly, a woman started screaming about twenty yards down the road.

‘Are you all right now Stan? That looks like Hattie Wilson, I’m going down there to see if there’s anything I can do.’

‘We’ll be all right. I can’t thank you enough Harry. You’ve saved her life you know.’

‘Give over… don’t go on about it. ‘Bye for now.’ He left them and made his way to a group of people who were trying to console a woman who was crying and beating her forehead with her hand.

‘They’ve just brought her boy out of there,’ said a man answering Harry’s questioning look.

‘What? Young Peter?’

‘He’s dead. He was twelve last week.’

Harry’s face was deadpan. But his eyes were scalding and he couldn’t swallow. He turned on his heels and strode towards a policeman. He cleared his throat before speaking. ‘What’s the story officer? What can I do?’

‘Anything you can sir. We think there’s a lot of people trapped, poor devils.

‘God. Bastards. If only I’d have known… this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘Sorry…?’

‘Oh nothing. Just something I should have done a long time ago. Right. Where do you need me?’

‘Can you see that Fire crew over there …’ he was pointing down the road. Harry nodded. ‘Blue watch I think they call themselves… they’ve just lost a man. Part of a wall came down on him crushing his leg. You could go and help them.’

‘Right.’ Harry ran to the fire tender, his limping gait attracting a comment from a fireman.

‘You all right mate? Need a doctor?’

‘What…? Oh no. I got this in the last lot. It’s fine, just left me with a limp. Here let me help.’ Harry started to wrestle with a canvas hose that was caught round a lump of masonry. As he freed it, the water snaked through the hose changing it instantly into a rock hard tube and making him stumble. ‘Careful,’ said a fireman. ‘There’s some pressure in that thing, it’s pumped straight off the tender!’ A man from the home guard joined them, shouting above the sound of pumps, and explosions. ‘We’ve got someone trapped upstairs in that house over there!’

‘Come on then,’ said Harry running across the road.

‘Water! Over here!’ shouted the home guard. A second fireman appeared running with a hose in tow. The ground floor was ablaze and an old man was shouting from the bedroom window. An exploding incendiary bomb had smashed through the roof taking part of the first floor with it. Hitting the ground floor, it burst into flames trapping them above. Harry ran for the front door. ‘Give me some water!’ he shouted as he charged at the front door with his shoulder. It didn’t budge. He planted a hefty kick and it flew back splitting away from the top hinge.

    The flames and heat met him full on, forcing him back. A fireman joined him in the doorway with a hose and threw open the valve on his nozzle. He directed the jet through the hall and onto the stairs. Steam filled the hallway as the flames were extinguished, leaving a charred, smouldering staircase in front of them. The rest of the house on the ground floor was ablaze. Harry yanked the blackout curtain down from the back of the front door and draped himself in it. ‘Gives us a good soaking will you?’ he shouted. The fireman directed his hose up and down Harry’s body saturating him.    

    Harry turned and started testing his weight on the staircase one step at a time. The hallway was filled with the stench of burnt wood and linoleum. Steps one and two held his weight but the third gave way and his foot crashed through the charred wood, trapping him by the ankle.

‘My foot’s stuck!’ he yelled at the top of his voice.

‘Hang on,’ shouted the fireman. ‘Keep water in the hallway Bill!’ he screamed.

‘Pressure’s dropping!’ came a voice. ‘One of the mains have been hit round the corner! I’ll do what I can!’ A jet of water kept the flames at bay while the fireman attacked the splintered staircase with his axe. Harry was free in seconds and started up the stairs. ‘Hang on,’ shouted the fireman. ‘I’ll come with you!’

‘No! It won’t take the two of us. Lend me your axe!’ The fireman handed the axe to Harry and he carried on carefully up the stairs. ‘You better be quick!’ shouted the fireman. ‘This line’s off the mains… we may be out of water soon.’ At the top of the staircase, Harry looked up to see a big hole in the roof and silhouettes of aircraft flying across the face of the full moon.

    By now, three firemen appeared at the front of the house. They were struggling trying to get ladders up to the first floor but all the rubble and debris made it impossible.

    Harry crawled along the landing to the front bedroom and opened the door. He could just see in the gloom, the shape of an elderly man at the window. His wife was lay on the bed amidst a pile of bricks. The burst of an incendiary bomb on the other side of the road illuminated the room like a flash of lightning. ‘Mr Tandey! Is that you? We couldn’t get to the stairs, it was a mass of flame,’ said the man. ‘And my wife took a few bricks or something on her hip. We think it’s broken. She’s in agony and she can’t walk.’

‘Come on Mr Taylor. We’ll get you both down don’t worry! It’s very hot out there on the landing and the stairs are nearly gone. They’ll only take us one at a time. Watch out for the third step from the bottom, it’s gone through. I’ll look after Mrs Taylor.’

    Harry wrapped her in his wet curtain and guided the man through the smoke to the top of the stairs. He could feel the heat from the floor below through his shoes. Leaving him to make his way down the stairs, he returned and lifted the woman off the bed. The pain shot through her leg and she winced, biting her lip. She was a big woman. The blackout curtain flapped and wrapped itself round his legs as he struggled to get her on to his back. ‘Are you all right my love? Mind your leg now.’

‘Oh… Oh… God this is hurting… I’m all right… you carry on dear.’

‘I can hardly see in this light. Are you bleeding?’

‘No… Don’t think so. It’s just so painful, I can’t put my weight on it.’ The noise of an aircraft grew louder overhead and the blast from another explosion rocked the building bringing plaster tumbling down around them.

‘You’ll have to try and sit down,’ said Harry at the top of the stairs. ‘Try and slide down the steps on the good side of your arse!’ he shouted, lowering her to the floor.    

    She looked up at him, her expression was a mixture of pain and gratitude and she began to shuffle down the stairs crying and drawing her breath in sharply with each bump. After five steps, she paused. ‘You watch that third step from the bottom now!’ shouted Harry. ‘Is there anyone else in here love?’

‘No. Just me and my Jim. Oh God!’ her face was twisted in agony. ‘We decided not to go to the shelter.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You, me and a few others. Right come on now. Take a deep breath and carry on. You’ll soon be down… you can do it love…’ She tried to smile at him through the tears and began to shuffle down the stairs. Bumping down, crying out loud with each step, she was soon in her husband’s arms at the bottom. Harry followed and the three of them staggered out into the street. The fireman was at the side of the staircase on the ground floor keeping the flames at bay with the hosepipe. ‘Here’s your axe mate.’

‘Thanks.’

 Harry helped the man carry his wife to a queue of injured people who were seated on piles of rubble waiting for ambulances.

    He glanced along the road. By now, over half the street was alight and the sky had taken on a red glow as far as the eye could see.

‘Bastards!’ he said, looking up at the sky. ‘Bloody Bastards!’ Walking briskly along, he stopped at a fireman who was operating the pumps on a fire tender. ‘Have you got a spare lamp mate?’

‘No sorry. We’ve no battery lamps left but there may be an old carbide in the cab. Hang on I’ll go and have a look.’

‘And an axe, if you’ve got a spare one.’

He returned and handed over a lamp and an axe. ‘Watch the handle on that mate. It’s working a bit loose. It’s an old one.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Your face is bleeding. Are you all right?’ Harry wiped his dirty hand on his trousers and ran it over his face. ‘It’s only a scratch. I’ll be fine. Thanks for these.’

‘Anytime. Let me have them back later. Be careful now... it’s going to be a long night.’

‘Yes. You’re right there.’ Harry lifted the cover off the lamp’s reflector and held a match to the wick.

‘The WRVS should be here soon with the tea wagon. Make sure you take a bit of a break. It’ll help you carry on.’

‘Will do.’ Harry gave the thumbs up to the fireman and walked round the front of the tender.

    He saw an ARP man and an old chap from the home guard carrying a door, stretcher-fashion, out of a bombed out building. The charred and twisted remains of a human body were lying on it. ‘Landmine. Direct hit,’ said one of the men answering Harry’s stare. ‘There’s four more in there. The whole family’s bought it.’

‘That’s the Johnsons. I had a drink with their Bill last night. Leave ‘em,’ said Harry. ‘You can do bugger all for ‘em. Let’s go and find some live ones.’ 

‘Yes. You’re right mate! I’m not thinking straight.’

‘Well, we’re all a bit shell shocked,’ said Harry. ‘We’re the lucky ones. Come on, let’s try over there.’ After putting the body down and covering it with a piece of blackout curtain, they clambered over a heap of bricks into another building. All the windows had been blown out with the exception of one pane of glass up on the first floor. It was hanging from the top of a frame, swaying in the wind.

‘Watch out for that!’ said one of the men directing his lamp upwards.

‘Everyone clear!’ shouted Harry picking up half a brick. He lobbed it up at the glass and it fell, smashing into tiny pieces. They picked their way through the ground floor.

Only the outer shell of the building remained. The first floor, roof, staircase, inner walls, everything had come down in a mass of brick, plaster and slates crushing the furniture. They looked at each other and began sweeping their lamps over the mounds of debris.

‘Hello! Anyone there?’ shouted the home guard.

‘Jesus,’ said the ARP man. ‘No-one could be alive under that.’

‘Yes they could,’ said Harry. ‘This road is on a slope. The houses at this end have cellars and there could be someone down there sheltering from the raid.’ He crouched down to the floor. ‘Give us a hand to clear a space.’ The three men cleared an area of about one square yard and Harry banged on the floorboards with a brick. He lay down with his ear on the floor.

    It was hard to hear anything above the noise of aircraft and explosions but he could just make out the sound of voices shouting. Harry gripped the old axe with both hands and smashed his way through the floor, splintering the boards with his blows. Then using a broken table leg to prise them up, he made a gap big enough to look through. His lamp cast a pool of light down into the blackness lighting up three children’s faces. Two boys and a girl looked up at him, fear showing on their faces.

‘You all right?’ he shouted.

‘Yes. We’re on our own. Mum and Dad sent us down here. They said they’d come down when the kettle boiled.’

Harry looked at the ARP man who was searching round the mass of rubble. He paused, turned to Harry and shook his head. The home guard pointed to something and drew a line across his throat.

‘Right. Come on,’ said Harry. ‘Let’s get you out of there.’ He waved the ARP man over. They hacked at the hole in the floorboards until it was big enough to lift out the children.

‘Where’s Mum and Dad?’ said one of the boys.

‘Don’t know son,’ said Harry brushing them down gently. Could be outside. We’ll have a look for them don’t worry.’ Harry signalled to the ARP man indicating it would be best to get them out of the building. The home guard was stood on the other side of a pile of slates and crushed furniture. ‘Come on you three. Out you go,’ said the ARP man ushering them outside. As soon as they were out of earshot, the home guard worked his way over the rubble to Harry’s side. ‘Both dead,’ he said pointing at the pile of slates. ‘Poor kids.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. Hardly anything left.’

‘Come on let’s look next door,’ said Harry.

    Number 9 Cope Street was a smouldering pile of rubble. As the two men swept their lamplights over the debris, the soft glow picked out a child’s foot. It was sticking out of a pile of splintered wood. Gently moving the floorboards to one side, they came to a large pool of blood and the lifeless body of a small girl. She had been speared through the neck and shoulder by shards of wood from the splintered floorboards. Harry tried not to look at the tortured expression, her face frozen in terror and pain. There were no signs of life anywhere in the building. They untangled the child to make sure she was dead and carried her out to the street. As Harry laid her down, he covered her with a piece of old blanket from the rubble and brushed the tears from his face. The ARP man joined them. Speaking with a trembling voice, Harry said ‘Come on lads, it can’t all be like this. We’ve got to get some live ones.’

Harry worked on through the night. In one rescue, as he fled a burning building carrying an old woman on his back, a wall came crashing down behind him. An ARP man saw it from across the road and ran over to check they were all right. ‘Bloody ‘ell! You nearly bought it then… you’ve got a charmed life.’

‘I always have had,’ said Harry laughing. ‘I always have had.’

    The bombs dropped without respite for ten long hours. It was 6.15 am the following morning when the sirens sounded the all clear. Harry sat down, in the half-light, at the curbside next to the tea wagon. ‘Christ! I’m buggered!’ he said to no one in particular.

    He looked along the road, through the fog and smoke; things had changed beyond recognition. No walls of flames any more. The raging infernos had died to small fires and smouldering ruins. A grey cloud hung over the whole area, depressing the dawn. Columns of smoke and steam rose from crumbled buildings and a bitter stench filled the air.

    Rows of covered bodies lined one side of the street, waiting for their final journey. Hosepipes snaked over the ground in tangled confusion. Water leaked from the joints, swirling through black silt along the gutters to the drains. Fountains and jets played onto smoking ruins from nozzles left tied to lampposts and road signs.

    Down the road, about 50 yards away, a lone fireman sat on the remains of a wall coughing violently, his tin hat on the floor beside him. A kitten darted back and forth, pawing at the sparks as the breeze fanned a pile of smouldering timbers. 

    Harry tried to rub the smoke and grime from his stinging eyes. A group of rescue workers seated themselves around him, weariness carved deep into their blackened faces. The WRVS women brought them big mugs of steaming tea. One man stood up and looked at the rows of coloured mounds, covered with blankets, tablecloths and old curtains.

‘May God help them and their families,’ he said. ‘They say it’s the same all over Coventry.’

 ‘Yes. I was in town earlier,’ said a policeman. ‘There’s a temporary mortuary at Hillfield Gas works. The bodies are piled two-high. Relatives were hysterical - trying to find their loved ones… they were panic stricken. The home guard Captain sent six despatch riders in to restore order, they had to physically drag them out.’ He paused as a woman passed him a mug of tea in silence. ‘They reckon they haven’t enough ambulances to take them to the mortuaries. One bloke said they’re going to get the old standby busses out of the depots and tie ‘em in the seats. You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Bastards!’ said a home guard taking off his tin hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead.

‘Do you know if Leamington got it?’ said Harry.

‘Don’t know about Leamington especially, but it’s been bad all over the Midlands. Coventry was the main target though,’ said the policeman. ‘Why? Have you got relatives over there?’

‘My old lady went to see her sister there yesterday afternoon. I hope to God she’s all right.’

‘Sorry. All the phone lines are down. Otherwise, you could’ve used the phone at the station to phone Leamington police.’

Harry nodded his thanks. ‘I’ll get chance to listen to the radio later. It’ll be on the Home service no doubt. They usually give the towns that have caught it.’

‘They hit the cathedral… bloody flattened it,’ continued the policeman. ‘It’s devastation everywhere... you wouldn’t believe it.’ His head was shaking from side to side. ‘A fire crew from Stoke on Trent bought it… all of ‘em. Blown up by a landmine. Dropped straight on to ‘em. They were trying to lay overland pipes from the Swanswell Pool to the city centre. There weren’t enough bloody water.’

‘Christ! I hope we make the bastards pay for this,’ said another man offering cigarettes round the little group.

‘Not enough people in the shelters,’ said Harry shaking his head, refusing a cigarette. ‘Not enough bloody shelters.’

‘It don’t make no difference,’ said the policeman flicking his lighter. ‘If your numbers up, it’s up. You know that public shelter at Gosford Green?’ some of the men nodded. ‘Copped a direct hit. Ninety of the poor buggers… all dead. You wouldn’t believe what I saw. I can’t believe it myself. I keep seeing it… but I still can’t believe it.’

    A woman pushed a steaming mug of tea into Harry’s hand. His torn fingers and ripped nails made it hard for him to grasp the smooth surface of the enamel mug. ‘There you are dear,’ she said. ‘There’s three sugars in that. Bugger the rationing… you deserve it!’

     Ron James, the local Bobby came over and sat next to Harry. ‘Just been talking to the ARP boys over there. Do you know you’ve been in twelve houses pulling people alive out of this mess?’

‘I wasn’t counting Ron.’

‘You’re a bloody hero Harry. You deserve another medal for that.’

‘Nah. Other people have been doing the same. I’m no hero.’

‘Well I think you are!’

‘Rubbish.’ Harry looked up suddenly, a thought striking him. ‘Bloody hell!’

‘What?’

‘That reminds me… my medals… my clock… they’ve probably been blown to bits. I’ve got to go and see if they’re in one piece. I’ll have to get word to Edie somehow. She might come back and think I’ve bought it when she sees our house. I know, I’ll leave a note pinned to the front door… well, what’s left of it.’

‘You be careful going back in there. A wall could come down on you. That would be ironic wouldn’t it?’

‘I don’t care. I’ve got to go and get my medals… and my clock.’

‘Well if they’re anything like their owner, they’ll have survived.’

‘I hope so!’

Harry gulped his tea down and returned his mug to the tea wagon. With a brief nod to the group of men, he turned and limped down the road towards the burnt out ruin that used to be his home. Arriving at the smouldering building, he glanced up. It was just a shell. The front door was a charred lump of wood lying on the floor. He couldn’t see into the hallway. Carefully, picking his way over the rubble, he hobbled into the swirling smoke.

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