The Bomb Girls (24 page)

‘What're you doing here, bitch?' Ivy snarled.

‘Gettout!' snapped the younger sister, Edie.

Elsie didn't bat an eyelid but got straight down to business.

‘I'm here to save you from joining my husband in Preston Prison,' she said, cold as ice.

‘What've we done wrong?' Ivy demanded.

‘Perjury for a start. That carries at least a ten-year sentence,' Elsie replied.

Clearly, neither girl had a clue what perjury was, but they weren't prepared to admit that.

‘What the hell are you on about?' Ivy shouted.

‘Lying in court,' Elsie answered calmly. ‘Telling the judge that Tommy killed Dad on purpose is a black lie, and you know it.'

‘Who ses? You weren't even bloody here!' Edie yelled.

‘I know how mad mi dad was,' Elsie answered emphatically.

The sisters exchanged a conspiratorial look.

‘Your bloody husband killed him; he pushed him,' Ivy insisted, but Elsie detected a wobble in her voice.

‘Totally unprovoked?' Seeing her sister's blank expression, Elsie simplified her question. ‘Did mi dad start the fight?'

She left the question hanging in mid-air. Neither girl replied but Elsie could tell they were hiding the truth.

‘Here's the deal,' she said as she cut to the chase. ‘I'll give you a hundred pounds each, every penny of mi savings, if you'll give me written evidence of what really did happen when Tommy met Dad.'

The girls' eyes almost bugged out of the heads.

‘
A hundred pounds!
' they said in unison.

‘
Each?
' gasped Ivy.

‘Each!' Elsie said as she opened her bag and took out a thick wad of banknotes, which her stepsisters ogled incredulously. ‘On condition I have a written statement of exactly what happened between Dad and Tommy.'

Ivy dragged out a chair in order to sit at the table.

‘Give us a pencil and some paper,' she said with a greedy glint in her eyes.

Elsie had everything ready for them. Taking paper and pencils from her bag, she laid them on the table too.

‘Mi mam'll be back any minute,' Edie said in a panic.

Though her heart was pounding in her ribcage, Elsie kept her calm.

‘I've posted a look-out in the street; she'll let us know when your mother's on her way back. Don't rush, and write down everything that happened in the order you remember.'

‘Your dad lost his temper and threw a chair at your husband's head,' Ivy said.

‘Write it down,' Elsie urged.

‘He ducked and it smashed against the wall,' Edie added as she copied her sister and quickly wrote down her evidence.

‘Then your dad grabbed hold of your husband's hair and dragged him round the kitchen, punching him around the head and face. Your husband butted your dad in the chest and he fell over backwards. That's when he hit his head against the sink,' Ivy added.

‘He flopped onto the floor and then he bled a lot; it were a big pool of blood all over't floor,' Edie said out loud as she scribbled the words onto the paper in front of her.

‘Mother said he was dead … She said we was to tell the police your husband murdered him. She said she'd kill us if we didn't.'

‘Write it down,' Elsie said.

A sharp rap at the kitchen door made all of them jump sky-high.

‘She's on her way back!' Emily called from the yard.

With a sweat breaking out on her brow, Elsie cried, ‘Sign your names! Don't forget the date. Quickly, quickly,' she begged.

‘She'll kill us,' gasped Edie as the kitchen door opened.

Ivy grabbed the banknotes off the table.

‘Not if we've got this, she won't!'

As they grasped their money, Elsie folded the precious sheets of written evidence and carefully put them into her bag. Before all hell could break loose, she sidestepped her bewildered stepmother and, with a victorious smile on her face, she joined Emily waiting for her outside.

‘I've not a penny in the world,' she said. ‘But I've got enough evidence to save my Tommy from swinging!'

Tommy's trial took place a few days after Elsie's dad's funeral, a ceremony that Elsie had no intention of attending. From across the courtroom she watched her stepsisters cower under the beady eyes of her stepmother. When they were questioned by Tommy's lawyer, who had read their written evidence, they didn't falter from what they had written, which left their mother in a more than awkward position.

‘So why, madam, did you accuse an innocent man of
murder?' the lawyer said as he turned on the dead man's widow.

Feigning grief and shock, Mrs Hogan said she was in no state at the time of the accident to know exactly what was going on. The lawyer sternly warned her that if her daughters had not volunteered the truth, they might all have gone down for ten years on a charge of perjury.

The court decided Tommy's actions were carried out in self-defence and he was allowed to leave the courtroom a free man.

As Tommy walked out, clutching a tearful Elsie in his arms, Mrs Hogan tapped her stepdaughter on the shoulder.

‘Don't you ever darken my door again,' she said with hatred in her voice.

Elsie gave her and her miserable, cowering daughters a radiant smile.

‘With the greatest of pleasure,' she said as she turned her back on them for ever.

Tommy was granted a few weeks' compassionate leave with his wife and new baby, and when he did finally return to his battalion it was to wonderful news: after the surrender of the Germans and Italians in North Africa, the Lancashire Fusiliers, under Montgomery, were already advancing in mainland Italy.

Though their farewell was tearful, both Elsie and Tommy knew it could have been a lot worse – at least he wasn't in prison with a death sentence hanging over him. And Elsie, after some happy and relaxed time with her husband and son, was a picture of health again.

‘Sweetheart, are you really well enough to go back to work at the Phoenix?' Tommy fretted.

‘I'm a lot better than I was!' she laughed. ‘Anyway, if you're doing your bit, fighting the Eyeties, I can do mine by filling shells to end the war,' she answered robustly.

‘And what about our little lad?' said Tommy as he cradled Jonty in his arms.

‘He'll be fine. He's got a place at the Phoenix day nursery, so he'll be close to me, and there's your mum too – best of all worlds!' Elsie answered with a happy smile. ‘Little Esther was pushing him around yesterday and I heard her telling everybody he was her little brother!'

For all their brave words and determination, Elsie and
Tommy clung onto each other at Clitheroe station on the morning of Tommy's return to his battalion.

‘I love you so much, Elsie,' he whispered.

‘And I love you,' she replied. ‘Come back soon, my love, come back safe,' she cried as the train pulled out of the station.

Normal life began to resume. Lillian heard from Gary from time to time, but communications were frustratingly sporadic as he was stationed in some secret location and regularly on bombing raids over Germany. Agnes heard from Stan, who was fully off his medication and had just started working on a fruit farm in the Cambridgeshire countryside.

‘I'm planning on coming up to Pendle to see you and Esther as soon as I'm discharged,' he wrote.

‘It's good to be back to normal,' said Elsie as she resumed her work filling shell cases on the cordite line. ‘Though I wish Tommy could have stayed, of course.'

‘Don't tell me you're not missing the drama of the last few months?' Daphne teased.

‘Oh, yeah, I'm sure she's missing the fact that nobody's being murdered or sent to prison,' Lillian joked.

‘I'm just glad it's all over,' Elsie said with a happy smile.

One Friday evening at the end of a long hard week, Elsie, Emily, Lillian, Daphne and Agnes, arm in arm, swung up the cobbled lane singing Vera Lynn's heart-wrenching song, ‘Yours' at the tops of their voices.

Emily, who always associated that song with Bill and the early carefree days of their courtship, started to choke up. Seeing Emily's sad face, Daphne called out.

‘Change the record, girls, something more cheerful, please.'

Lillian immediately burst into a rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and everybody joined in.

Standing on the moorland just outside their digs, with the wind lifting her hair and the warm sun beating down, Emily suggested they all went for a walk.

‘Darling, you have got to be joking!' Daphne exclaimed. ‘I've just finished a gruelling twelve-hour shift and I am on my knees, stained with cordite and, more importantly, desperate for a gin!'

‘It's a wonderful time of the year for wandering the moors,' Emily said as she recalled the happy times she'd spent rambling with Alice.

Agnes and Elsie, who'd left their children with Tommy's mum for the evening, were looking forward to a relaxing time with their friends, not a route march across the wild Pennine moors.

‘I thought we were having a girlie night-in,' Elsie said enthusiastically. ‘Hot bath, hair wash and a sing-song before bed.'

Agnes came up with a compromise that pleased Emily.

‘We could go walking on the moors tomorrow with the children?' she suggested.

Emily nodded.

‘We'll go winberry picking and I'll make a big fruit pie and custard when we get back,' she said with a happy smile.

Baths were shared out, then, sitting in their winceyette nighties with rollers in their hair, the girls took it in turns to paint each other's nails ruby red.

‘Just like Elizabeth Taylor,' Lillian laughed.

They were all startled by a loud bang as a car pulled up outside their house.

‘Who could that be?' asked Agnes as she peeped under the blackout blind.

Curious, Lillian joined her by the window.

‘My God!' she gasped. ‘It's an RAF officer in a flash sports car.'

All further speculation was stopped by a sharp rap at the door. Agnes went to cautiously open it and there, filling the doorway and wearing a huge RAF navy-blue overcoat, stood none other than Rodney Harston-Binge.

‘Hello, ladies! Rodney Harston-Binge – pronounced Bing not Binge as in pissed – signing in for duty!'

Nobody but Emily had a clue who the booming man was and Emily, in a nightie with rollers in her hair, felt very much at a disadvantage.

‘Bloody hell, look what the wind blew in,' Lillian giggled. ‘Mr Bing not Binge! Any relation to Bing Crosby?' she asked cheekily.

As Rodney stared at her in humourless confusion, Emily stood in front of her irrepressible friend just in case she blurted out any more rude comments.

‘Oh! Er, please come in,' Emily mumbled as she tried to surreptitiously yank rollers from her hair.

Oblivious to the commotion, not to mention amazement he'd caused, Rodney strode in and surveyed their digs as if assessing a residence for war requisition.

‘Whiffs a bit,' he said with a bit of a goofy grin.

Wishing the floor would open and swallow her up, Emily was at a loss for words, but Daphne, who'd had
time to remove her rollers and change into a sexy purple satin dressing gown, rescued her awkward friend.

‘Welcome to our humble abode,' she said in her snootiest voice. ‘Do, please, sit down,' she added, waving towards the sofa as if they were at the Ritz.

‘Just got to pop orff for a few bits and pieces I left in the car,' Rodney said as he exited.

The second the door closed behind him, Lillian snorted with laughter.

‘Pop orfff! What planet is he from?'

‘Shh! He'll hear you,' Emily hissed at her outrageous friend.

‘Where did you dig him up?' Elsie giggled.

‘I met him in London when I went to visit Alice. He asked if he could see me again, and I was drunk and said yes, but I never thought he'd turn up!' she babbled.

‘Well, he has, darling, and he's got the hots for you, so get those rollers out and for God's sake change out of that wretched nightie!' cried Daphne as she began to push her out of the room.

‘What're we going to do with him?' Agnes whispered. ‘He can't stay here.'

‘He absolutely definitely can't stay here,' cried Emily as she dashed to change in her bedroom.

Rodney returned with a hamper containing Martini, gin and a silver shaker in which he flamboyantly made cocktails. Then he handed out dry biscuits and caviar, which promptly made Elsie, unused to rich and exotic food, feel quite sick. How on earth had Rodney got his hands on all this, the girls wondered.

‘Not used to the high life, eh?' Rodney said as he hooted with laughter.

Little Elsie blushed.

‘I'm not used to fancy food, like,' she said apologetically. ‘I prefer simple food, like chip butties and meat pies. They suits me far better than fish eggs,' she said, turning green at the thought of the salty caviar she'd just thrown up.

One by one the girls drifted to bed, leaving only Emily and Daphne.

‘Don't leave me alone with
him
!' desperate Emily whispered to Daphne when Rodney popped outside to relieve himself.

‘He's rather sweet,' said Daphne, who'd imbibed too many gin cocktails.

‘He should have written to tell me he was coming and not just turned up out of the blue!' Emily muttered angrily under her breath.

‘Darling, don't you know officers in the RAF think they're God's gift to women?' Daphne replied tipsily. ‘He'll be expecting to have your knickers down soon, believe me!' she added with a loud hiccup.

Emily clung to Daphne like an Elastoplast, listening for what seemed like hours to Rodney's tedious stories and cringing as he cracked dreadful jokes that made him guffaw with laughter but left her totally unamused.

They finally offloaded Rodney at three in the morning, sending him to the Station Hotel in Pendle.

‘Thank God he's gone,' sighed Emily as he roared away into the night.

‘Prepare yourself, darling, he'll be back!' Daphne laughed.

Daphne was spot on: Rodney was back the next day. He stood on the threshold with yet another hamper, this time packed with a picnic for him and Emily.

‘Picked it up from Fortnum & Mason's on my way up here,' he said with a rather conceited smile. ‘Mother has an account there. Makes all the difference.'

‘I bet it bloody does, Little Lord Fauntleroy!' Lillian scoffed behind his back.

In high spirits, Rodney swung into the digs quoting a poem in a silly high voice.

‘ “Oh, to be in England now that April's there!” '

‘Oh, God!' giggled Elsie.

Standing in the middle of the sitting room, Rodney struck a dramatic pose as he boomed:

‘That's the wise thrush;

He sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first, fine careless rapture.'

Consumed by a fit of giggles, Elsie hid her face in a pillow, and Agnes covered her smile with her hand whilst Lillian rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

‘Un-bloody-believable!'

Daphne took his unappreciated poetry rendition in her stride.

‘Robert Browning, “Home Thoughts, from Abroad”,' she said as she clapped Rodney politely. ‘Always popular at prizegiving.'

‘A poem I cherish in my heart as I fly out over the Channel on a bombing raid,' Rodney bragged.

‘Take him onto the moors, lock him up in a troll cave and throw away the key!' Lillian said sotto voce to Emily.

Seeing Agnes and Elsie hysterical with laughter, Emily pushed Rodney out of the door before Lillian could dream up further withering comments.

‘Toodle-oo, chaps,' Rodney said hurriedly.

Perfectly mimicking his posh voice, Lillian waved the open-topped MG off.

‘Toodle-oo, Rodders, old boy! For God's sake don't come back!' she called, reducing Elsie, Agnes and even Daphne to howls of naughty laughter.

Out on the sunny moors loud with the calls of curlews and skylarks, Emily should have been happy showing Rodney the countryside she loved and knew so well. Unfortunately all she could concentrate on was Rodney's hand, which he planted firmly on her knee the minute he got in the car. As he drove, his hand crept further and further up her thigh until she had to shake it off and twist in her seat so he couldn't clutch her any more.

Emily purposefully didn't choose a private spot for their picnic: if Rodney was all over her in the car, what would he be like surrounded by heather and rolling moorland? She suggested they stopped quite near the road; it seemed safe and relatively public. But after knocking back half a bottle of Chablis and even more caviar, Rodney decided to throw himself at Emily and started kissing her passionately. Horrified, Emily squirmed as he stuck his tongue into her mouth. Apart from the fact that she found Rodney repulsive, she'd made up her mind long ago that she'd never be easy prey again.

Wriggling free of Rodney's groping hands, she stood up and said briskly, ‘Shall we walk?'

Rearranging himself down below, Rodney scowled.

‘I had something entirely different in mind from a damn walk,' he said as he grumpily stumbled to his feet. ‘Look, Emily, let's not beat about the bush – we're both grown-ups. I came up here expressly because I fancy the pants off you. You're a rare northern beauty and I'd like to get to know you a lot more,' he said, leaning forward to plant yet another wet kiss on her lips.

Ignoring his advances, Emily strode along the path that wound its way up the hillside onto the tops, where the wind caught her thick auburn hair and whipped it around her face. Hearing Rodney puffing and blowing behind her, she desperately tried to change the subject.

‘Have you seen Robin?' she asked. ‘I've not heard a word from Alice for months.'

Annoyed at not getting his own way, Rodney grunted behind her.

‘Haven't seen either of them since the night I met you,' he growled.

As Alice's best friend, Emily constantly worried about her, but Rodney seemed not to care about his old schoolboy chum, Robin.

‘Aren't you concerned?' she asked.

Rodney shrugged.

‘It's perfectly clear they're training to be Joes in some remote location,' he replied curtly.