There is an unusually long section of notes at the end of this story, but I'll give you an abbreviated version here for two terms that will probably be unfamiliar. "Dduw" or "Duw" is Welsh for "God" and to "poss" is to use a tool to manually agitate the laundry, which was necessary in the years before washing machines.

HOMING INSTINCT

May 12, 1945

She rose early every day out of long habit, but on Saturdays she could have an hour to herself before she needed to roust the children from bed. So Mary Newkirk slipped off the covers, dressed quickly, and padded gingerly down two flights of creaky stairs to the kitchen. She boiled water, poured it over some weak leaves, and took her tea out to the garden, where it was sunny.

She sat in a weather-beaten wooden armchair beside an empty one and stared up at the blue sky. It promised a glorious day. She felt a cool breeze ruffle her pinned-up hair.

How long had it been since the news had come over the wireless? Three days? Four days?

It was a bit of a blur, really, Mary thought as she listened to the early morning symphony of chirps. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was back in the meadows of her girlhood village in Wales instead of the garden of a terraced house in Stepney. She could still pick out the finches, linnets, and song thrushes. She'd tried over the years to teach all 10 of her children their songs, but they were city-bred, and could never really make out a bird call over the din of daily life. But the songs were there to hear, if only one would listen.

Four days, she decided, counting back to Tuesday. That was when Germany had surrendered and the world had changed—and yet it hadn't. Not for her.

Not for the first time in her life, Mary Newkirk was waiting for young men to come home. And annwyl Duw, she hoped it would be the last time. Twenty-six years ago, she was waiting for her husband and brothers. Now it was her sons.

Harry, she knew, would be awhile. He'd gone late in the war, because he was 18 and still in training during the invasion. He shipped out in November with the Royal Field Artillery and was somewhere in the Netherlands. He wrote only two weeks ago to say that he was safe. She had to trust that nothing had changed. Please, Dduw, protect him.

But Peter. He was back, somewhere. She knew that; she'd had a telegram. He'd returned to England, but didn't yet know when he could come home. Soon, he said. Well, that was something. Because she missed that boy like a limb.

It had been a long, long time since she'd seen her eldest son. Five years and three months, to be exact, and that was for just an overnight visit before he boarded a troop train to Ramsgate to ship out to France. Only two months later came Dunkirk.

Many lads made it home, more than anyone expected. Peter did not, and she feared the worst until she learned he'd been captured. Once the relief wore off, the idea of that lad caged tore at her heart.

Peter had sprouted wings young. He was still only 15 when he'd taken off to support himself, assuring her that he would be all right and that she needed one less mouth to feed. She'd cried, and Mary Newkirk never cried. She'd pleaded with him to stay.

Food was a ridiculous argument coming from a boy who subsisted on tea, toast, chips, and cigarettes. His flight from home was never about the cost of feeding him. It was about sparing her and the young ones the anguish of the constant skirmishes between father and son. And sparing himself, too, no doubt. But mostly it was to restore peace in their home, and her heart ached to know that he'd sacrificed himself for her sake.

He returned now and then, of course, especially when he was sure his father was away. And when he happened to be in the East End when his father was home, he circled, checking on Mary to make sure everyone and everything was safe. If he couldn't get to his Mum, he found Mavis, the closest to him in age though still a gaping five years younger, and he sent her home with bags of sweets and pockets of coins.

Mary finished her last sip of tea and shook off the reverie. She stood, stretched, and inspected her victory garden, just a few planters and a patch of earth beside it. Green shoots were poking through the clay soil that she'd worked so hard to enrich. She smiled at it. Stubborn stuff, that clay. Still, so was she. There wasn't much compost, but she did what she could with tea leaves, shredded weeds and leaves, and newspapers that the children gathered.

The result: Asparagus, she thought with a grim smile. Two of the children would eat it grudgingly; two would choke it down dramatically; the youngest would whinge and carry on until one of the girls pinched him and made a bad situation worse. But it was nourishment, and they needed every bit of that.

With spring and summer, there would be more good food. The children didn't care for spinach, and that went double for beets, but they were going to ruddy well eat it. She had her ways. She'd been feeding children for nigh on 30 years now. The first five grew up skinny from poverty. Life had just started turning around, and then the next five grew up skinny from war.

Mary watered the crops, collected her teacup and wandered back into the kitchen, alone with her thoughts. She peered into the small scullery at the back of the kitchen, with its walls distempered in a bold, incongruous red. She bought that paint before the war at a bargain price because no one else wanted it. Peter was the one who applied it to the walls, and loudly pointed out that it went perfectly in the one room of the house that routinely became as hot as hell. She had him to thank for the littlest ones peppering their conversations with that profanity for weeks afterward.

Well, there was laundry to boil. She might as well start.

Monday was wash day up and down the street, but Mary had taken in laundry for years to make ends meet. She soaked strangers' clothes on Friday, washed them on Saturday, then repeated the pattern for her own family on Sunday and Monday. On Saturdays and Mondays, condensation dripped down the walls of the scullery from the heat, and the whole downstairs felt damp.

Clothes had been soaking overnight. She lit the coal fire under the brick copper to heat the water in the tub and gave the dolly peg a twirl. She'd get one of the boys up soon to poss the laundry; she had worked hard all week, and agitating the hot wash was tiring. While the water heated, she lifted soggy clothes one by one from the cold soak to wring and mangle them and scrub the ones that needed it.

It was boring, stifling, heavy work that she'd performed for hours and hours every week for as long as she could remember. The little ones—and there had always been little ones—were never allowed in the scullery until they could be trusted to help and not squabble.

As Mary wrung and mangled and scrubbed the wash, she smiled at the memory of a brown-haired little boy with green eyes just like her own, studying her every move. He must have been four the first time he helped her wind the mangle; six, the first time he climbed up on a stool with the dolly peg, and while he didn't last long, he soon tried again, and again. Before long, he could hang clothes on the line, iron many things neatly, fold the finished pieces, wrap clean laundry up for delivery, and take it to the right locations, all while keeping a growing tribe of little sisters entertained and out of harm's way.

He learned fast, that boy, and Mary wondered often what would have happened if he could have finished his schooling, or even just concentrated on it, instead of worrying all the time about helping her out and lightening her load. And instead of sparring with a father whose demons dominated family life whenever he bothered to come home.

Mary loaded the clothes into the hot water and added soap flakes, put another load to soak in the cold water, then swiped her arm across her forehead. I must look a sight, she thought, laboring for an hour over a hot copper and it's barely 8 o'clock.

She sat down at the table and thought she had just closed her eyes for a moment when a sound at the front door jolted her awake. She looked at the clock—it was half-eight. She'd nodded off for 30 minutes.

She walked down the hallway toward the door and could see through the frosted glass that a figure was jimmying the lock.

She frowned, then slowly dared to smile.

He stepped in, put his rucksack down on the rug, pulled his forage cap off, and smiled broadly back at her. "Hello, Mum."

"Peter Newkirk. Did you just pick that lock?" Despite her best efforts at control, a quaver crept into Mary's voice.

"I didn't have the key with me, Mum," he replied, tipping his head to one side. "Now, don't worry, there's no damage. We must get you a deadbolt, though. This neighborhood's gone to rack and ruin. Nicest house in the street, this is." She knew that routine; whenever he'd been caught at mischief, his hands started flying and so did the flattery.

"We have a doorbell. Why didn't you just ring it instead of startling me?"

Peter shrugged. "No clue, really." Mary thought he looked a bit lost as he shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the floor. Then he looked up, gazed at her, and gulped. "You look so beautiful, Mum."

He might have been layering it on, but she didn't think so. Not this time.

"Me?" she laughed shakily as her son wrapped her in an embrace. "You charmer! I've just been in the scullery doing the laundry. I look like something the cat dragged in." She gripped him around the middle, feeling his bones through his uniform.

"Clever cat," Peter said, kissing his mother's cheeks as five pairs of feet clattered down the stairs. He stopped and turned, cutting the gang off at the bottom of the stairs as they chattered and clamored all at once. He punched his 16-year-old brother in the arm by way of friendly greeting, and watched him reel back with hands up in mock defeat. He kissed the girls, who were 16, 14, and 13, and dangerously pretty. He hoisted his 10-year-old brother up by his underarms for a closer look and got a quizzical stare in return. Then he scolded them all.

"You lot go back upstairs, get dressed, and bloody well brush your teeth. And give me some time alone with Mam. I'll see you in a half hour."

"Peter! Swearing!" Mary warned.

"Sorry, Mum," he murmured. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and started tapping it against his leg.

"Spare a fag, Pete?" his teenage brother asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I could use a smoke."

"Not for you," he replied sharply. The boy looked crestfallen until Peter added, "I'll take you out for a pint later, all right?" His brother grinned in agreement, showing a smile that matched Peter's exactly.

Mary had gone back into the kitchen, and as she heard Peter enter, she tried to keep her shoulders from shaking, because Mary Newkirk never cried.

Except this once. In the arms of her son, who'd been gone so long and not just at war, she cried tears of happiness and relief and joy.

"Noel got big," Peter said into her hair, which seemed to be getting a bit damp. His cigarettes, forgotten, had fallen to the floor.

"That's what children do, Peter." She cried into his chest, and he held her close and tentatively stroked her hair. He held on to her as tightly as she held him. She knew they both were trying to believe that this moment was real.

She dried her eyes and held him back at arm's length. "Let me have a look at you. Oh my, you're too thin. You've lost a lot of weight."

"There wasn't much food to be had in the last months of the war, Mum. They actually fattened me up a bit once I got back to England," he said, patting his midsection.

"Where have they been keeping you? You sent a telegram 11 days ago."

"I had to go to debriefings. Lots of debriefings. But it's all right. I'm home now, and I'll be discharged soon."

She raised an eyebrow. She didn't remember her husband being debriefed for days on end.

"And the Germans, Peter. Did they treat you all right? Were they cruel, son?"

"We gave as good as we got, Mum. It wasn't awful. Really."

She looked him up and down, still holding onto his wrists. "I carried you in my arms to meet your father when he came home from the Great War. And now look at you." She touched his shoulder. "Sergeant's stripes. Just like your Da."

"I remember that day," he said, smiling softly at the memory of being safe in her arms. Then he saw the fear in her eyes. "It won't be like that for me, Mam," he said softly. "We won this war good and proper. And I'm not Da."

Mary sat down shaking, then got back on her feet, flustered yet determined to do something, anything. He must have seen horrible things. Men always saw horrible things in war. But surely Peter was right. He wasn't his father. He'd spent his young life first trying to get close to Alfred, and then trying to get as far away from him as possible.

"I'll put the kettle on," Mary declared. There, if all else failed, she could make tea. "How long will you be staying, Peter?" She tried to sound confident, to keep the panic out of her voice, knowing full well that before long he would fly off again, because he always did.

"Well," he said, stretching his back, "I thought I might stay a good long while this time if I could. A few months?"

Mary's heart swelled. So he wouldn't take off in an hour, or a day, or even a week. "I'll make your attic bed up," she said. She turned her head to see where he'd gone. "What are you doing?"

He was in the scullery, twisting and turning the dolly peg. From his height, it looked easy. "Just lightening your load, Mum." He turned to look at her and smiled again. "Would you mind if I had some friends call round for tea tomorrow? They're shipping out in the next few days and I want them to meet you."

Mary beamed. "That would be lovely." Then concern suddenly descended. "But what can we feed them? We haven't got much, with rationing." He hadn't heard her; he was busy. A few minutes later, as he finished possing the wash and moved it into the rinse water, she poured the tea. "I do have some lovely asparagus coming up in the garden," Mary told him. "It would do for a salad. Let's go have a look."

"Asparagus?" Peter groaned. "Oh, I have a mate who could help you with that."

"Are you complaining about asparagus? It's delicious and very good for you, Peter," Mary said. The lecture continued as they went out to the garden, teacups in hand.

By the time they sat down, Peter was explaining that Mary was not to worry because he had a small stash of tea, flour, butter, and sugar in his rucksack, courtesy of the U.S. Army Air Force. Apparently his commanding officer had pressed it on him before dispatching him home at dawn.

"Well, then, we'll make some savoury tarts, I suppose," Mary said shakily, stunned by having abundant ingredients at her disposal. "We'll just need a bit of cream."

"I have ration coupons," Peter replied as he finally lit a fag. "We'll get it before the shops close." He paused. "Mum, I've sent Mavis a note and I think she knows I'm here, but the other girls, will they… ?" His voice trailed off as if he knew chances were small that he'd see all of them so soon. Mary could hear the yearning in the question, the need to count them all up and see them for himself, like the solemn dog that herded her grandfather's sheep.

"They're still in the countryside for a bit longer, love," his mother replied softly. Mavis had remained in London, but the two sisters who came right after her but before Harry were off doing their national service. "And I heard from Harry a fortnight ago. He's safe as houses in Holland."

Peter nodded, leaned back into the rough wooden chair and looked toward the end of the garden as he puffed. It was deep and narrow, though a tiny bit wider than most, as their house was at the end of the terrace. His eyes settled on a tree he'd perched in often as a boy.

"Blimey, half the houses in our road are in shambles, but that tree's still growing."

"It stood through everything, even the blast damage from that buzz bomb that hit across the way," Mary said, pointing at the pile of debris at the back of the garden that lay beyond where a chunk of brick wall was missing. It was a grim thought, she realized, so she lightened the mood. "We had a queue outside the front door for pears last October. Those two little sisters of yours had quite a business going."

"I'll bet they did, those schemers," Peter said with a smirk. He raised his tea cup in the direction of the broken wall. "I'll get the boys to help clean that up for you and see if we can patch it. Just blast damage?"

"For us, yes," Mary said. "Not for the Finemans. They got away, diolch i Dduw, but you can see, they lost everything." The house that once stood behind theirs was reduced to rubble.

"But they're safe?" Peter echoed. "Kids and all?"

"Yes. Gone to Swindon."

They sat quietly side by side, thinking their thoughts and sipping their tea, when a loud, clear run of musical phrases rang out from a branch high in the pear tree.

Filip filip filip, codidio codidio, quitquiquit, tittit tittit, tereret tereret tereret

"We have a little garden visitor," Mary said with a laugh.

"So I hear. Die Singdrossel," Peter replied.

Mary looked at him, startled.

"Sorry, force of habit," Peter apologized. "Song thrush. They have them in Germany, too. They start before dawn. There was one that perched on the roof of the barracks right above my head, and he was bl… ruddy loud. Three o'clock every morning, I'd hear him…."

"Him?" Mary smiled.

"Of course, him," Peter said importantly. "You can tell by the song. You taught me that, Mum, remember?"

Mary nodded with barely disguised pride as Peter continued.

"My mate Carter knew loads of bird calls, but they don't have that bird in America." He started to whistle in imitation of the song thrush, and the bird cocked its head and took a hop down to the roof of the garden shed to see who was serenading him.

"He likes you," Mary laughed. "Did he keep you awake, your German bird? At three in the morning?"

Peter paused and tipped his head, and his mother wondered what there was to think about. He couldn't have been doing anything but sleeping in a POW camp at 3 o'clock in the morning, could he?

Finally, with a small shake of his head, Peter replied. "No. Usually he woke me unless I was already awake for some reason. But his singing would put me right back to sleep." He tipped his head up toward the attic window at the back of the house. "When I lived at home, if you weren't singing, I'd hear them birds singing."

"Those birds."

"Those birds singing. Funny how much beauty there is in London if you stop to listen, ain't it, Mum?" He said the last words in his most exaggerated Cockney tone, earning a roll of the eyes from Mary.

Mary smiled and her gaze flicked up to the tiny attic window overlooking the garden. He'd heard the thrush's song for years, as well as his mother's clear soprano. Apparently some notes had sunk in after all.

Together they listened and watched as the bird finished his song, bobbed his head, and fluttered his wings. Then he was off, past the pear tree, past the brick wall, past the ruins of the house behind them.

"Solitary little chap, that one. But he'll be back," Mary said softly. "He always comes home to me."

Peter locked eyes with his mother, but said nothing. He knew what she meant. He reached across to tuck a lock of brown hair, now shining with silver, behind her ear, and she latched onto his arm.

A moment later, their silence was shattered by five squabbling children, jostling and elbowing one another as they tumbled into the garden in a mob of arms and legs. They crashed in a single mass on the small grassy patch in front of the two garden chairs, grinning up expectantly at their brother, who was more legend than memory to most of them.

He stood, crossed his arms, and addressed them like the Sergeant he now was.

"All right, you lot. You're getting big, and you know Mam can't do everything around here."

Their eyes grew wide as he issued orders.

"First, you're all to help Mam with breakfast. Then, twins—you two rinse the hot laundry and run it through the mangle. Little girls—you two clean the breakfast dishes and then poss the cold wash. And you, Noel—feed the cat, then get ready to help me hang the washing. You're tall enough now, and if you don't know how to do it properly, you will do by the time I'm done with you."

They looked at him, surprised, disappointed, and in the case of a certain 14-year-old girl, a bit surly. Several of the youngsters displayed an eyeroll to rival their eldest brother's.

"What's you and Mam doing while we're breaking our backs, then?" the youngest, tetchiest sister inquired. "It's always the grownups what get off easy," she muttered. But her chin tipped lower and lower as her mother shot her a calm but menacing glare. It was a look that had successfully silenced a generation of young Newkirks, though some required repeated exposure.

"I'm managing you lot, which is bl… ruddy hard work, and Mam's going round the shops," Peter said firmly. "We're having guests to tea tomorrow. They're my mates, three Americans and a Frenchman. And one of the Yanks is a Colonel. You're to stay out of their pockets, you hear me?"

Everyone smirked, but they did look somewhat impressed.

"Will they have chewing gum?" Noel asked.

"No chewing gum," Mary and Peter replied in unison. "Not in my house," Mary added proudly. "I have enough trouble keeping these floors clean."

"Don't be common," the 14-year-old said in a perfect imitation of her mother, and Peter managed not to snicker, even though the kids did. Anyway, he had more to say.

"Getting the work done won't take long if we pull together. And this afternoon," he added with a grin at all of them, "There's a Donald Duck picture on at the cinema called The Three Caballeros. Who's coming with me?"

The morning was warming and the garden was bright. Mary soaked in the sun and watched in amusement as her eldest held her five youngest in thrall, alternately ordering them about and making them laugh while reveling in his rusty role of big brother.

Five of Mary Newkirk's 10 children had been scattered by the war. Peter, who had been gone the longest, had found his way home at last. Mavis would be along soon from her bedsit in Camdentown. Before too long her three other grown children would return. Surely by Christmas they'd all be together. Mary closed her eyes and just for a moment she was in meadow full of finches, linnets, and song thrushes. Their wings were beating, their songs were rising in a glorious, peaceful symphony, and everyone of her children knew every note.


NOTES

Annwyl Duw is "Dear God." Diolch i Dduw is "Thank God." (The different spellings are correct … Welsh is complicated and certain initial sounds change based on which sounds they follow.)

Poss is a verb. In the days before washing machines, laundry had to be agitated or possed by hand, first in cold water, then in hot water, using tools such as a posser (poss-stick), ponch, and dolly peg. Laundry was a heavy, time-consuming work and for the working class it frequently was a family affair. It was performed in the scullery using a variety of tubs and small machines. The scullery which was a part of or extension of the kitchen, most akin to what we would call a utility room today.

Walt Disney's The Three Cabelleros was indeed playing in London in the spring and summer of 1945.

I've recently written several immediate-postwar/repatriation stories. Chronologically, this one fits third in a series of four stories written so far. (They're published on AO3 as a single story, "A Land Fit for Heroes.") The series consists of:

- Other Ranks (late April 1945)

- Who You Gonna Call? (May 9, 1945, and published for Mother's Day 2021)

- Homing Instinct (May 12, 1945)

- Charm Offensive (early June 1945)

Newkirk, as an adult, calls his mother "Mum." But now and then he slips into the Welsh "Mam" of his boyhood, especially when talking about her to his younger siblings.

The song thrush (die Singdrossel) has been a common garden bird in England, including the greater London area, as well as continental Europe, although it has been in decline for three decades. One of its distinctive behaviors is that it will catch snails and smash them open against a stone "anvil" to get at the meat.

I remain deeply grateful to dust on the wind, whose excellent story Esk Road: The Rest of the Family inspired my thinking about Newkirk's home life and made me start writing. That wartime story got me to start building out a prewar Newkirk backstory based on my already strong interest in working class life in London in the first half of the 20th century. I've borrowed the family structure from her story, but have restrained myself from adding much detail to the characters she created, because they're hers. I've deliberately only named two of them here (Harry and Noel) although they all do have names. All of the names are given in dust's story, which I can't recommend enough if you like immersive period fiction. The other Newkirk children also pop up in my stories In the Name of the Father and Dear Mavis, Are You Bloody Well Kidding Me?

Many thanks to mrspencil and Tuttle4077 for ideas and advice on this story.