Dispatches

The newspapers talk in terms of numbers,

so many killed, injured, especially children,

buildings targeted, razed to the ground,

particularly schools and hospitals, families fled,

borders crossed, as if figures in themselves

were emotive, rather than individual lives

traumatised by circumstance beyond their grasp,

leaves gusted in warwind, dropped

in anywhichwhere.

In the second world war, back then,

there were no drones -

Hitler in his bunker specifically

targeting the child. She recalls

sitting on the floor,

in the corridor during a bombing raid,

listening to explosions

in other people’s streets.

Her priorities were elsewhere:

Cook had her hair in barbed wire curlers -

and the ridge along the top

of the wainscotting

was cutting into her spine:

‘Please can I go back to bed?’

So many things to remember.

Always carry your gasmask. Do not

use the box for sandwiches.

You try opening a gate on horseback

while wearing a mask.

What about the horse?

If you see yellow boards turn green,

or was it the other way round,

run to the top of a building:

gas lies low. However enticing they may look,

do not walk on beaches. They are mined.

Then there was the time, mid-Atlantic,

when an enemy submarine from the wolf-pack,

fired a torpedo at her ship,

fortunately detonated

by a pod of whales:

stunned, they bobbed on the waves.

And we used the papers

in lieu of toilet roll.

That was the child’s war.

It was to be the last.

Since then…?

Phoebe Caldwell February 2026