Bombers' Moon (6 page)

Bob came into the shed, his face grim. ‘Disasters all over the country. London got a good pasting from those blasted Hun – the bastards flattened some of those nice London buildings. King and Queen won’t leave though, bless ’em.’

Kate looked at him and he caught her gaze. ‘No slacking then, girl, if the Queen can get about in the blitz and cheer folk up you can do your job right? Now get on with it.’

Kate felt like crying. There was no need for Bob to be so sharp.

‘Go easy, Mr Bob, sir,’ Doreen said gently, ‘she just lost her man, Germans got him, didn’t come back from the front see.’

‘Bad luck.’ He said it as if she’d lost a penny farthing but Kate nodded and lifted her empty buckets and began to trudge wearily across the rickety boards outside in the chill of the evening to the shed where the powder was kept.

It was dark by the time Kate climbed on the bus and sank into the seat she usually shared with Hari. The seat was empty as Hari was down country seeing to her kid sister. Meryl was always trouble but it seems this time she’d been given a bad beating by some horrible spoiled-rotten boy.

Would Hari bring her home? Kate hoped not, Meryl was far too sharp a kid for her own good, she saw things most grown-ups didn’t even notice. One day she’d be a newspaper reporter or suchlike if she lived that long.

Kate stared out of the window and saw her distorted reflection, eyes heavily ringed with shadows, nose looking angular and over-long. She closed her eyes and thought of Eddie with pity now as well as longing. He’d been called up, been sent to what they called ‘the front’, near enemy lines. He’d gone willingly, a broken-hearted, disillusioned man because of her.

She must have dozed because when the bus jolted to a stop she opened her eyes to see she was back in Swansea. The sea stretched like a band of steel across the bay, no hiding that from the German planes.

The hills of Townhill and Kilvey were blacker than the surrounding skies, hidden, crouched in shadow but once the flares were dropped – those chandelier flares that hung so prettily in the sky – the town would be at the mercy of the enemy bombers.

‘You’re early today, Kathleen.’ Her mother was lifting the heavy pot of thick broth from the hook over the fire. The smell of bacon and lentils filled the little kitchen and Kate felt like heaving. She sank into a chair and put her bag, holding the remains of her sandwich and her canteen of tea, on the floor at her feet and sighed heavily.

‘My arms ache from carrying those buckets of powder all day.’

‘Well, a lot of girls are doing the same thing, my girl, it’s war work, it’s that or the forces, or farm work, at least this way you sleep at home safe and sound.’

Her mother poured her a cup of tea from the cherry-coloured teapot; it was strong and hot and Kate drank it, grateful for the kind gesture rather than the tea itself, somehow tea didn’t taste the same these days.

‘One of your friends called for you, that Jenny, the one you used to work with at RTB, she wants you to meet her at the ice cream parlour but sure, if I were you, I’d go straight to my bed after supper, you look all in.’

‘I’ll see how I feel later.’ Kate wondered if she could summon the energy to go out tonight and yet anything was better than sitting in all evening listening to her mammy go on about the war and how in her day it was all different, in the first war the men were men and they showed the Hun that the British were not to be ruled by anyone.

As her mother filled the bowls with soup and cut great doorsteps of bread Kate heard the door bang open. ‘Paul’s home.’ The warning was unnecessary as her growing brother barged into the kitchen. Mammy had brought him home as soon as the blitz on Swansea had eased a bit. Mammy needed her brood around her she said.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, take your time Paulie!’ Kate shook her head. ‘You’re like a homing pigeon – you know fine enough when the food is on the table.’

He scrambled on to a chair and frowned under his thick fringe of hair when his mother told him to go and wash his hands.

‘That girl wants to see you, the one you used to work with, said you’re going out with her, she’s coming for you about eight o clock.’ Mrs Houlihan pushed a bowl of soup Paul’s way and over her shoulder spoke to Kate.

‘You look tired but perhaps it would do you good to get out a bit, you been stuck in here for days and I’m tired of you under my feet.’

So that was decided then, she would go out. In a way Kate was glad to have the decision taken out of her hands.

‘Soup’s lovely, Mammy.’ She spoke between mouthfuls, preventing her mother from making any further comments. She’d wear her grey dress and her red shoes and that lovely red scarf Eddie had given her. Tears came to her eyes at the thought of sweet, darling Eddie but she ate doggedly and willed the tears away.

Later, arm in arm with Jenny, Kate tottered through the town towards Mario’s Ice Cream Parlour. Inside the huge blackout curtains, the room was bright, heavy with smoke. A couple of lads leaned over a table in the corner looking the girls over, much to Jenny’s delight. She preened and slid one leg over the other revealing a shapely knee.

Kate sat head down, not wanting to be seen. Stephen was among the gang of young men. She’d ‘been’ with him, let him into her drawers, he was probably telling the others about it now just like he told Eddie; they were leering and laughing raucously punching each other’s arms in the way that men did when they were excited.

Kate tried to talk to Jenny but they’d never had much in common and all Jenny seemed to want her for was company while she found herself some man to keep her happy.

To Kate’s horror Jenny invited the men to join them and they came hotfoot across the floor, pushing chairs into place between the girls. Stephen was beside Kate and put his hand in a proprietary way on her knee. She quietly removed it.

‘Don’t go all innocent on me now, Kate, you were willing enough that night outside the church, practically on a poor fool’s grave. Right juicy you were, too, a bit of all right, what boys? He pinched one of her full breasts, it hurt and instinctively she slapped his hand away.

‘You brazen bitch! Hot one minute and then all saintly, eh? What did I have then I don’t have now?’

‘You had fear,’ she said gently, ‘you were terrified, you begged for me to love you, you told me you were afraid of going to war.’

‘Huh! As if I would be so unmanly.’ He was scarlet.

Kate picked up her coat. ‘And most of all you had tears, you cried in my arms like a baby. I did what I could to help you. Good night, Stephen, and good luck.’

She walked out into the dark night and made her way towards home, glad of the evening breeze on her cheeks. She’d only gone as far as the middle of town when the air-raid siren scorched her ears. She stood still for a moment, frozen with fear.

Bombers droned overhead, searchlights raked the sky. She saw them descend, the beautiful deathly candles of light, and then she began to run to the cover of the nearest shelter and cowered inside, huddled against other frightened people drawn close by the twin feelings of anger and fear for what was happening to them and to their beloved Swansea.

Eleven

Hari looked up as Colonel Edwards stopped at her desk. He smiled down at her, a lined man big and bluff who had served valorously in the war of 1914–18. He walked with a stick now but she’d found that his brain was strong and active, and his eyes gleamed with intelligence.

He sat opposite her, his injured leg jutting out awkwardly before him. ‘You like your work Miss Jones, you have no desire to join the armed forces?’

She looked at him in surprise. I think I’m happy to serve my country in any way I’m needed, sir.’ She wondered if it was a rebuke.

‘So you are happy to do your war work here in Bridgend?’

‘Yes, very.’

‘Good, that’s what I wanted to hear. ‘You are quick to learn, articulate and clever. You are a well-educated young lady I understand?’

‘I did well at my school.’

‘No need of false humility,’ he said almost abruptly. ‘As you already know, the work you do is secret, I don’t want to be mysterious but signals are passed all over the country, bomber pilot to bomber pilot, among other things. Most reach Bletchley Park but it’s also my job to pick them up and decipher them, yours too if you have an aptitude for it.’

He handed her a page of writing. ‘It’s given to some intelligent civilians like you to do this work. Now this is the fairly easy code I use, it’s a peculiar shorthand of my own. I make notes of what comes my way, it’s all above board, government work, you understand? In the event of systems failing somewhere along the line, at least we here have some of the, possibly vital, pieces of information.’

Hari wondered what he was getting at. He read her mind. ‘As I said, I want to teach you to share my job. Anything could happen to me; I’m getting older and slower. Two heads, I feel, are better than one and your head is a young eager one.’

Hari was doubtful. ‘I’m honoured at your confidence, sir, but am I up to this sort of work?’

‘Well, before we go on to the difficult work,’ he said, smiling, ‘I want you to do a spot of work on this machine here. It’s a new listening radio I bought, or rather the government bought it. It’s almost like a regular wireless but you listen out for Morse messages. You understand Morse, don’t you? Learned it in girl guides like most other kiddies I expect.’

Hari nodded doubtfully. ‘Only the basics, sir.’

‘Well, you’ll soon get the hang of it. We’ve found that some of the German operators get careless and make it easier for us to work out the message.’

‘You think I’ll be any good at this sir?’

He stood up, ignoring her question. ‘The messages will be in Morse but they will be coded, as I said. Just play with the damn thing, I’ll come back and see you later.’

Oh, there’s a kettle over there on the stove and tea stuff. You can’t get up and go for lunch if there’s an important message coming through, you understand?’

‘Yes sir.’

He left her then and Hari began to panic. However much she tried to concentrate, she could make little sense of the machine. Life had been easier handling simple calls in the bigger office. She couldn’t do this, she just didn’t have the ability. She rubbed her eyes and then stared at the piece of paper the colonel had given her. She would just have to try her best, but first she would make herself a much-needed cup of tea.

Hari persevered throughout the day not even stopping to eat the sandwiches she’d brought with her. She drank a lot of tea and stared at the strange codes until at last they began to make something resembling sense.

The radio buzzed into life and Hari panicked. She listened to the tapping sounds that rose and fell as if coming from a distance. She hastily scribbled the letters represented by the long and short signals; she would try to work out their pattern later.

‘How are you doing, Miss Jones?’ Colonel Edwards’ voice startled her. She looked up and put her arms over the papers she was attempting to work on and then realized how foolish she must seem. This man, this intelligent man, was well used to deciphering messages from the wireless.

He smiled. ‘Well done, I see you’ll be discretion itself. Now, how are you getting along?’

‘I don’t think I’m getting very far, sir,’ she said, ‘though some of the words are beginning to make sense.’

‘Anything important come through?’

She was taken aback. ‘I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry, I wasn’t taking notes I was so busy trying to understand how it works.’

He held up his hand. ‘No problem, just keep trying. I’ll give you a few lessons tomorrow. Go home now, I don’t want you to miss your bus to the station.’

Hari felt weariness drape over her like a fog; going home on the bus, then on to the train, darkness pressed against the windows, drowning her. She closed her eyes for a moment. Kate sitting beside her, touched her arm. ‘You all right?’

‘Just tired. You?’ Kate nodded.

‘Right as I’ll ever be.’ She took Hari’s arm and leaned against her. ‘Last night, I went out, only for an ice cream and the men there, they were horrible, taunting me, telling anyone who’d listen what I’d been up to with them. I was shamed so I was and furious at their cheek. I put them in their place so I did, telling on them crying, begging me to cuddle them before they went out to face the Hun. The cat got their tongues then and I left the ice cream parlour head in the air.’

Hari felt pity tug at her. Poor, misguided Kate, she thought she was helping the young men who were about to die and gave them everything but some of them lived to tell a spiteful tale. As the train shuddered to a halt at Swansea station, she pressed her cheek against Kate’s. ‘See you in the morning and try not to let them get you down.’

The busyness of the station gave way to silent streets and Hari breathed a sigh of relief as she turned into her road where their old, big family house was little more than a hole in the ground. A few doors down was her house.

A few weeks ago, Mr Paster, one of the neighbours, had approached her to buy the house; it was small, terraced, but it was a home of her own.

She had grown tired of the public house, the noise, the smell of beer. She had been saving for months now and she had raised enough for the small deposit and so now she was a property owner – well, she and the local bank.

As she approached the house she looked at it with pride; small it might be but it was hers, hers and Meryl’s and Father’s if he came home from the war safely.

It was dark in the house, so dark with the blackout curtains and the fire unlit in the grate. Hari sighed and sat on one of the chairs in the parlour feeling too tired to do anything but go to bed. Still, she had chores, some washing and cleaning up.

She made sure the blackout curtains were in place and switched on the lights. She was lucky the house had been modernized; she had electric while some of the houses in the area still had gas lighting.

She turned on the gas stove. She would heat a tin of soup, have some of the stale sandwich from morning and as soon as she washed out her stockings and underwear she could go up to bed.