The Air-Raid Shelters
Gerrard Wilson
Copyright 2015 by Gerrard Wilson
The Air-Raid Shelters
The Air-Raid Shelters
I went to school at St Ignatius, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, England. It was an old school, a wonderfully, quirky old school. Although the Second World War had finished twenty years previous, there were still air-raid shelters in the school grounds, two of them to be exact. Yes, we really did have air-raid shelters! These shelters sat firmly entrenched at the beginning and end of our school playing field. They were a fascination to each and every one of us. We played around them, on top and them and sometimes even ventured inside of them.
Playing inside the air-raid shelters was, however, expressly forbidden, on orders from our headmistress, Sister Alexis. Whilst most of the time we obeyed this rule without question, realising that it was there for our own protection, because the air-raid shelters were is a bad state of repair, we sometimes found it impossible to fight the temptation, the urge to go inside – and explore.
Sitting low in the ground, the air-raid shelters were twenty foot wide, twelve foot high and one hundred foot long. Although they were originally covered in soil, most of it had long since worn away. With an entrance, a gate at each end of them, in front of which stood a concrete, blast protection wall, the air-raid shelters were magnets to us children.
When we were bored of playing ‘IT’, and racing our Corgi and Dinky cars down the sloping, soil covered sides of the air-raid shelters, we were drawn to their gates, the only things separating us from the perceived wonders therein. Although the rickety old gates were padlocked shut, it was all too easy for us to pull them ajar, and pass through them. I can still remember my friend, Bernard Molloy, returning from one such foray, saying to me, “Gerrard, there’s an underground tunnel connecting the two shelters…”
Other boys (and sometimes girls) returned from their own expeditions, telling of magical wonders, items stashed beneath the shelters, like giant pencils, huge ladders – and mysterious boxes. More frighteningly, some children said they saw signs that someone was living down there! With each child returning, telling ever more incredible stories about the shelters’ hidden, mysterious interiors, my curiously grew and grew until it was so much, I too had to venture inside...
Although I had made up my mind that I was going to venture inside the air-raid shelters, I was in no hurry to do it. No. I wanted to plan it, down to the very last detail. There were so many things to be thought about, first, such as which shelter to enter – the nearest one, close to the school building, or the other one, at the far end of our school playing field. Each shelter had its good and bad points to consider, points such as accessibility, dryness underfoot (the far one had a habit of flooding during rainy spells), the time needed for the sortie, possibility of sabotage by fellow pupils, and, lastly, whether or not anyone was really living there. I was not going to be hurried by anyone. My plan was to enter the air-raid shelter and find something, possibly treasure that someone had stashed inside. Plans can, and oftentimes do, go wrong; mine was going to be no different…
It was three weeks later when I was ready to set off, on my sortie, my adventure. Although I had decided to go alone, my best friend, Robert Cooley, had talked me in to letting him accompany me. He told me that he was worried, in case something untoward might happen to me. He did not fool me that easily, though. I knew he wanted to go for the adventure – and the possibility of finding some treasure. Although I told him that I wanted to go alone, I was secretly happy that he was coming along with me when I ventured inside.
It was a wonderful May afternoon. The sun shone brightly upon us as we made our way across the school yard, towards the air-raid shelters. Although it was after school hours, and the area deserted, we had to be vigilant lest anyone saw us. We chose to enter the air-raid shelter closest to the school building because we deemed it the driest underfoot, and easiest to enter.
As Robert pulled the rickety gates open, I said, “Have you got the torch?”
“Yep,” he answered. He switched it on. A beam of white light lit up the forbidden interior.
Stepping inside, I took hold of the gate so that Robert could also squeeze his way through. “Thanks,” he said to me. Thoughtlessly letting go of the gate, I cringed as it banged and clattered shut. “I hope nobody heard that,” Robert whispered.
“Me too,” I answered.
Inside the air-raid shelter we were on our own, with no hope of rescue if anything were to go wrong. I had planned to bring my own torch, but dad caught me trying to smuggle it out from his tool shed. ‘Where are you going, with that?’ he enquired. I dropped it then ran down the garden path without telling him why.
It was eerily quiet, inside the air-raid shelter. Although I had stepped through the gate on a number of times previous, it had always been during school hours, when other children were about. Staring down the steps, the thirteen hard concrete steps that led to the forbidden interior, we wondered what we might find, there. The sound of water dripping somewhere spurred us on, to do it, to enter the structure proper.
Pointing down the steps, I said, “Aim the light down there.” Robert diligently obliged. Following the light beam, I began to make my way gingerly down the steps. My footsteps echoed far into the shelter’s mysterious interior.
“Come on, Robert, let’s get this over with.” I said to him.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked me uncertainly.
“Of course it is!” I hissed.
“But...” His voice tapered off.
“If you don’t want to do it, if you are afraid,” I said to him, “I will do it alone.”
Robert’s eyes grew wider. “You would really do that, go on without me?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes, of course I will,” I answered. “That was my original plan, remember?”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Come on, then, we have treasure to find.” With that I raced down the steps, turned left and then disappeared from sight.
“Wait for me!” Robert called out. Dashing down the steps, two at a time, he followed me into the shelter.
Inside, the air-raid shelter was spooky. The shadows created by Robert’s torch wavered and quivered relentlessly before us. Circumnavigating three large, dusty old boxes, I said to him, “I think I can see something.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Point the torch across to your right, by that wall.”
“There?”
“Yes, that’s it. Can you see it?”
“No, I can’t,” he answered.
“It’s over here,” I told him, as I made my way round some crates that were barring my way. Stubbing my toe on one of the crates, I howled, “That hurt!”
“Are you alright?” Robert asked me.
“It depends what your idea of being alright is,” I sardonically replied. I sat on one of the boxes, removed my shoe and sock, and then I rubbed my sore toe.
Suddenly stuttering, stammering in wild excitement, Robert said, L, l, look at that!”
“Look at what? “I snapped. “My toe is hurting so bad, you know!”
Stuttering, stammering again, he said, “B, b, but – look at that!”
“Look at what?” I snapped again.
“That crate!”
“What crate?”
“The once you stubbed your toe on,” he said excitedly.
“You mean the one I am sitting on?” He nodded. “What about it?”
“Look at it – properly!” he ordered.
Running my fingers across it, I inspected the crate. It was made of wood, intricately carved wood. “That’s strange. It’s only a packing crate,
so why did they carve it, so?”
“Do you think it’s because it contains something valuable, like treasure?” he asked me hopefully. “Look,” he said even more hopefully, “there’s a hole in it.” He pointed to one side of the crate.
I tried to turn it, but the crate was too heavy. Clearing away the accumulation of junk from behind it, I inched my way round the crate. Then crouching low, I said, “Hand me the torch.” Pointing the light beam through the small hole, I gazed inside the crate. Disturbed by the light, a spider exited the crate through the same hole. I jumped away from it, in fright.
Why did you do that?” Robert enquired.
“Because of a spider,” I told him.
“Forget about the spider. It is treasure that we are after! Can you see anything inside it, huh?” he implored.
I moved the torch about, trying to see inside the dark interior. However, despite my best efforts I saw only one thing. Standing erect, I stood away from the crate, and scratched my head thoughtfully, going over about what I had just seen.
“Well?” Robert asked me. “What did you see, there?”
“Not much,” I answered.
“Not much?” he said impatiently. “What do you mean, not much?”
“It was a bell,” I told him. “I saw a bell, that’s all.”
“A ball?”
“No, not a ball – a bell!”
“A bell?”
Yes, a school bell to be exact,” I explained. “It’s the biggest school bell I have ever seen. Heaven knows how they intended to swing it, at playtime.”
Frowning, Robert pushed me aside. “I want to see this bell,” he said. Peering into the hole, he gasped, “Cor, you’re right, it is a bell! That must be the biggest bell in the whole world! Hold on a minute,” he said thoughtfully. “Ah, that’s it,” he laughed. “Now I understand.”
“What on earth are you blathering on about?” I said impatiently. “It’s a school bell, and that is that!”
Standing away from the crate, Robert said, “It’s a school bell all right, but not a hand bell. There is a ring at the top of it. It’s supposed to be attached to a tower, and rung by someone pulling a rope.
Feeling rather stupid, at having missed such an obvious thing, I tried to pass it off, saying, “It’s a good job one of us is paying attention, so it is.” Changing the subject, I said, “Let’s explore some more.”
“Put your sock and shoe first,” Robert advised me. Pointing to one side of the air-raid shelter, he said, “What’s that over there?”
“You mean that tall thing, leaning against the wall?” I answered.
“Yes.”
Picking my way across to it, lest I stubbed my sore toe again, I arrive at the said object. “It’s the giant pencil we were told about!” I laughed. Picking it up, although struggling under its immense weight, I offered it to Robert. “Go on, write your name with it,” I said to him.
Accepting the pencil, Robert wrote his name on the floor. “My name will be here forever,” he proudly proclaimed.
“And so say us of us,” I added, laughing with him.
During the next half hour or so, Robert and I explored the air-raid shelter thoroughly. We even found the tunnel that connected it with the second shelter at the far side of the school playing field. We did not find any treasure or anyone living there, though. Apart from the giant bell, everything we saw in the air-raid shelter was already known to us.
As we made our way up the hard, concrete steps at the far end of the shelter, and our eyes became accustomed to the light outside, I persuaded Robert to keep what we had found – or not found (apart from the bell, that is) a secret. Instead of telling everyone the truth, that the air-raid shelter was in fact a boring old place, we concocted a story of adventure; about a mad person living down there, who chased us out from the shelter after we stumbled across a chest full of treasure. That was a far better story to tell our friends, than the truth, wasn’t it?
Pardon? You want to know what happened to the bell in the crate? All that I can tell you, that I know, is this; no one saw it before we stumbled across it, or at any time afterwards!
THE END
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