Chapter 37 #2
She had never seen a city on such a scale. It felt a hundred times bigger than Bradford or Leeds. Some buildings here stood nine or ten storeys high. There were vehicles everywhere: cabs, buses, trams, all rushing workers to their destinations.
And so many people! City men in suits and bowler hats, hurrying to the office. Market traders and white-coated shopkeepers. Housewives pushing prams. Lads in their shirtsleeves lounging on street corners, smoking and whistling at the girls.
Yet this vibrant place was so scarred by rubble and ruins. Skeletons of what had been buildings lined the streets. It looked like Westgate in Bradford the night after the city’s one and only blitz, back in the summer of 1940, except here the destruction went on for streets and streets.
The people walked through the wreckage as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Bobby had seen bomb damage in newsreels, but it wasn’t until she had witnessed it with her own eyes that she had really understood what it must be like to live in London in wartime.
The people here had experienced a very different war to the one taking place in sleepy Silverdale.
It made Bobby think of Jake, and the important, dangerous work her brother did here in the capital.
Charlie sat quietly at her side, arrayed in RAF service uniform for what would almost certainly be the last time.
Demobilised men were encouraged to wear uniform for the presentation of military honours.
He had turned rather pale – from nerves about the investiture, Bobby supposed. She held his hand tightly.
‘First visit to the smoke, is it, missus?’ the jovial cabby asked her.
Bobby smiled. ‘Is it obvious?’
‘Not for me to say. What do you think, then?’
Bobby shook her head wonderingly as she watched the crowds of people going about their business. ‘It’s so… big. And there’s so much rubble everywhere. Yet people hardly seem to notice the damage at all.’
‘We ought to be used to it by now,’ the cabby said cheerily. ‘Got to keep buggering on, as they say, pardon my language. Now then, duckie, palace, was it?’ He winked. ‘Having tea with the queen, eh?’
‘Not far off.’ Bobby puffed herself up. ‘My husband is to be awarded the DFC.’
At the palace, Charlie was led away by a man in RAF uniform to be given instruction on protocol. Meanwhile, Bobby was shown into the spectators’ seating area in the ballroom by one of the palace ushers.
There had been a crowd of sightseers at the gates when the two of them had shown their invitation to the sentry.
Bobby was glad she had on the silk dress Mary had made for her and her mother’s pearls, as well as a fur stole that Topsy had loaned for the occasion.
Now she could really feel like a lady. Perhaps the folk at the gates thought she was some visiting dignitary or titled person.
They would never guess that here was someone from a Bradford mill family.
Bobby looked around her with wonder as she was shown to her seat. She had never been in such an opulent room before. So much gilt and crystal and velvet! Even the chair she was instructed to sit on was probably worth more than her house.
Charlie stood nervously a little distance away.
He was with four other men awaiting investiture, all in RAF service dress.
There were seven spectators including Bobby, seated in one long row.
Various other people were present: several in RAF uniforms, an official palace photographer – press photographs would follow outside after the ceremony, they had been told – and others who Bobby assumed worked in the royal household. There was no sign of the king, however.
The palace ushers were very stiff and proper, but one of them approached Bobby’s seat and bent to speak to her, dropping his formal manners.
‘No need for you to stand when they play the anthem, darling,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘His Royal Majesty will understand. He’s got two of his own, after all.’
Bobby gave the man a grateful smile. ‘Thank you.’
A moment later, ‘God Save the King’ began to play, and then… there he was. The king, George the Sixth, dignified and statesmanlike in his RAF uniform.
Bobby was glad the usher had said she might remain seated.
She felt sure she would faint if she tried to stand, just through sheer disbelief that she – humble, insignificant Bobby Bancroft from Bradford – could actually be here: sitting in this opulent room inside a royal palace, clothed in silk and furs, waiting to see her husband decorated by a king.
Two other men were invested first, and then it was Charlie’s turn. Bobby held her breath as she watched him approach the illustrious personage who was to present him with his medal.
Charlie stepped forward and saluted. He looked so very smart and handsome that Bobby could have burst for pride.
Marmaduke seemed to agree, bouncing up and down inside her.
The king spoke a few words to Charlie that Bobby couldn’t hear, then pinned the medal above his left breast pocket.
Charlie saluted again, and returned to his place.
It had taken only minutes, yet it was something Bobby would remember all her life.
Her Charlie and the king. For all his doubts about accepting the decoration after he had lost so many friends, Bobby couldn’t help feeling when the king pinned on the medal that it wasn’t only for Charlie.
It was for all of them: every man who had died in this war to keep the world free for her baby to grow up in.
It was for Teddy’s crew. It was for Bram.
It was for Chip. It was for Hynes. It was for Ernie King.
Every one was a hero, and in seeing her husband decorated, Bobby felt that each lost man was being recognised for his sacrifice.
When she swelled with pride, it wasn’t only for Charlie. It was for all of them.