The Bomb Girls (28 page)

The two couples were driven to a small airfield where, in a Nissen hut, the final checks were made for every imaginable detail: suits, skirts, blouses, shoes – all had to have a French label; teeth were checked for French fillings; wristwatches had to be French or Swiss; loose change, notes, cigarettes, handbags, hairslides, headscarves – all had to be recognizably French. The last sombre check was for cyanide pills sewn into their hems and cuffs and trouser turn-ups.

Bearing the heavy packs containing their parachutes, the two couples left the hut and walked to a Whitley bomber, which was completely stripped out and had a large hole in the floor. They huddled together, and Alice
shivered as they took off and roared across the English Channel.

‘Action at last, sweetheart!' Robin whispered.

After what seemed a surprisingly short time they heard the pilot's voice announcing that they were approaching the drop zone. Alice's heart almost stopped beating. Tensing herself, she waited for instructions that would send her tumbling to earth on a thousand-foot drop. As she took deep breaths and psyched herself up for the command to jump, she heard the pilot speaking sharply.

‘We've got to go round again.' He swung out in a wide arc then added, ‘Our people on the ground are supposed to signal two letters in Morse, so far we haven't received anything.'

Totally wired up, the agents slumped as their adrenalin levels dropped, but after two or three rotations the pilot finally received the correct signal.

‘Okay, chaps, it's safe to go,' he said. ‘Wait for the all-clear, red to green then jump.'

This is it! Alice thought to herself as she waited for her signal. Then an image popped into her mind: a memory of running over the moors with Emily, who was holding her hand and calling out excitedly, ‘Fly, Alice,
fly
!'

‘Now!' said Robin.

In pairs, they dropped through the large hole cut into the Whitley bomber, and even after months of training, Alice gasped in amazement as she left the plane. She seemed to float for a few seconds on an air current, then her chute opened, blooming like a flower overhead as she gently fell to earth. By the silver light of the moon she could see vast stretches of French countryside, the fields,
tracks and trees way down below. Then came the landing. As the ground rushed towards her, Alice was dragged for yards by a brisk ground wind before she managed to hit the quick-release box that enabled her to drop out of the heavy parachute harness. She frantically looked around for Robin, who had landed in the lower boughs of a nearby tree. Without either of them saying a word, she helped him struggle out of the tree, then they stuffed their parachutes into the nearest bushes and cast about for their radio sets, which were dropped along with them.

‘God,' Alice prayed as she frantically crawled around in the dark, ‘please let them be close.'

‘Found them!' hissed Robin.

Before Alice could join him, and from their separate positions, they each heard footsteps. They instinctively pulled out their revolvers.

‘
C'est qui?
' Robin whispered.

Fortunately, it was only the couple who had parachuted in with them.

‘Keep down and wait for the contact,' Robin said.

Crouching in a bush, Alice held her breath. Surely everybody in the area must have heard the Whitley circling over the drop area? When she heard hurrying footsteps approaching she almost fainted with terror.

‘
C'est qui?
' hissed Robin again.

‘The fox at midnight,' a low voice said in French.

‘Howls at the moon,' Robin completed the pre-arranged password in French.

‘
Allons! Rapidement
,' came back the urgent whisper of their contact.

The four of them were taken to an abandoned
farmhouse and told to lie low. Alice's worst fears were confirmed when their contact spoke again.

‘The plane made so much noise before the drop, everyone in the area knows something has happened. The police are already out looking for you,'

‘Should we separate?' Robin asked.

The contact shook his head.

‘No, stay here until I return with more information.'

As he hurried away, swallowed up by the darkness, the four spies stared at each other.

‘Better get some kip,' said Robin. ‘God only knows what tomorrow will bring.'

Agnes wondered how she could best prepare Esther for her return to Keswick and the difficult parting that would necessarily ensue. She desperately wanted to talk to Stan but couldn't get through to him on the phone; the Cambridge fruit farm where he worked didn't run to such a luxury. When she phoned Addenbrooke's Hospital Agnes was told by the doctor that Stan only came in once a week for a check-up. So she gave the doctor a message to pass on, just in case he saw her husband before Stan received the letter she'd posted to him.

When the day came to leave Pendle little Esther screamed the place down. Everybody cried, but most of all Agnes, who had wracked her brains trying to think of an alternative to Esther living in Keswick. Eventually, she'd had to bite the bullet. This wasn't just about care and accommodation; this was about hospital treatment for polio. Sentiment had to be put aside if she ever wanted her daughter to walk normally again.

Clutching the pretty china doll that Daphne had bought her from Hamleys toy shop months ago, Esther sat on the train and sobbed. When they arrived in Keswick Agnes asked Mr and Mrs Sugden, who were to take care of Esther again, if she could spend at least one night there, just to soften the blow before Esther went back into hospital. The old couple kindly agreed, but counting down
the hours to her departure the next day was a torture for Agnes, and Esther, of course, picked up on her mood. In between being moody and emotional, she clung to her mother like a limpet, and Agnes seriously wondered if she'd let her go the next day.

As Agnes led a very reluctant Esther along Keswick High Street the following day, she pointed out Catbells, which was bright and sharp in the morning sun.

‘Look, darling,' she cried. ‘That's where Mrs Tiggywinkle lives, right up there. That's where she hangs out her washing to dry on sunny days.'

Esther, who loved the story of Mrs Tiggywinkle, didn't respond. She just limped along beside her mother, her calliper dragging heavily on the ground.

Agnes stopped and bent down to talk to her sad little daughter.

‘Esther, this is for your own good,' she said, with a briskness she didn't feel. ‘If your leg goes untreated it will never get better.'

Esther nodded. She'd been in hospitals long enough to understand her mother's words.

‘I don't want to leave you, Mummy,' she said as tears slid down her ashen-grey cheeks.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I don't want to leave you either!' cried Agnes, stifling a sob.

They walked down the old familiar ward, where the staff greeted Esther with genuine pleasure.

‘This is your bed,' said the ward sister as she whipped back the cubicle curtain.

‘Hello, sweetheart,' came a voice.

A beautifully familiar voice. Agnes looked up, scarcely
able to believe what she had just heard. It couldn't possibly be … But, yes, it was Stan!

He stepped out from behind the curtain and, laughing with happiness, he lifted his astonished daughter into his arms.

‘Daddy! Daddy!' she cried as she hugged and kissed him.

‘You came and helped me get better so I thought I'd come and help you,' he told her.

‘Daddy, pleeease stay for ever,' Esther implored as she clung onto him.

‘Do you know what? I will!' said Stan simply. ‘I've sorted it. I'm going to stay right here with you.' Over the top of his daughter's head he winked at Agnes, who was so flabbergasted she could hardly speak. ‘Mummy has to go back to work but we'll stay together in Keswick till you're better,' he promised.

Agnes wasn't sure she'd ever felt such relief. She looked at the two most precious people in her life and felt utter joy.

As the staff nurse took care of Esther, Agnes and Stan slipped into the canteen where, over a cup of tea, he explained what had happened.

‘Why didn't you tell me?' gasped Agnes.

‘There wasn't time.' He smiled as he recalled the conversation he'd had with the doctor in Cambridge. ‘They were more than happy to discharge me. They said I had more important things to attend to up here.'

‘Are you well enough, Stan?' Agnes asked anxiously. ‘I mean really well, not just putting on a brave face?'

‘I'm fine, love. Hard, outdoor work's done me a world of good. I still have terrible nightmares, mind, but they're nothing like as bad as they were; and sometimes the old
wounds flare up. But, God's honest truth,' he said with a happy grin, ‘I'm not the walking dead man I was a year ago.'

The farewell she'd been dreading turned out to be much easier, although, of course, she wished she could stay with them both too. A smiling Esther, with her father holding her hand, waved her mother goodbye and blew kisses till the train disappeared from sight. As she journeyed back to the Phoenix, Agnes knew she couldn't leave her daughter in more caring hands than Stan's.

Nevertheless it was a hard winter and a cold one too. The fact that after a long shift they could come home and light the wood burner with wood they'd gathered on the moors made an enormous difference. They didn't have to sit hugging blankets like other women in draughty accommodation; they could light a fire that crackled and blazed as they set about making their shared tea. When the dark descended early and they pulled down the blackout blinds the girls felt like they were shutting out the world.

‘We're a lot warmer than the poor Ukrainians on the front,' Lillian said as they sat in their cosy sitting room, warming their hands around mugs of hot tea. ‘How cold must those poor buggers be?'

‘They're giving the Germans a good run for their money,' said Emily.

‘So are the Lancashire Fusiliers,' said Elsie proudly. ‘Tommy's in Naples now, you know.'

‘It's good his letters are coming through,' Agnes said.

‘He writes whenever he can and never fails to ask how little Jonty is,' Elsie said with a proud smile.

‘And you write whenever you can, Elsie,' Emily reminded her.

‘Yes, with a bit of help from my friends,' Elsie laughed. ‘I am a bit of a dumb bugger!' she added.

‘You're not dumb,' Emily insisted. ‘How could you learn to read and write if your dad never let you go to school?'

‘I'm learning now,' Elsie said happily. ‘You've all been doing your bit, teaching me where Italy is – I can find Rome on the map now,' she winked in Emily's direction. ‘Agnes lent me some of Esther's little reading books and they helped a lot. I didn't have time for learning when I was growing up but I do now.'

‘I tell you what, next time you write to Tommy ask him to send us some of that gorgeous Neapolitan sunshine back in a bottle,' joked Lillian.

Elsie winked over her steaming mug of tea.

‘I will if you can tell me how to spell Neapolitan!' she laughed.

After the heaviest British air raid on Berlin, patriotism was high and the desire to help the brave lads on the front line was so intense that all the munitions girls at the Phoenix volunteered to do unpaid overtime.

‘It's the least we can do when you think about it,' said Agnes as they put in a fifteen-hour day, starting work in the dark and finishing in the dark too.

‘Good job Daphne left when she did!' laughed Elsie.

‘We should have known that Flight Lieutenant Rodney Harston-Binge would keep her close to home.'

They all missed Daphne: her wit, beauty, searing
honesty, languid smile, long cigarette holder and her devilish sense of mischief. When her letters arrived, and she wrote a lot, in a flamboyant, elegant script on thick, embossed paper, they always read them together, sitting round the wood-burning stove in the digs.

I miss you all so much, my darlings.

It's just that Rodders likes me at home, close to the home fires, so he can have his way with me whenever he's on leave.

‘Still the same naughty Daphne,' Elsie remarked.

Don't run away with the idea that I'm doing nothing for the war effort. Rodders found me a nice little job in the War Office where I'm surrounded by handsome officers from dawn till dusk! I have long lunches with them, which so improves their morale! I miss you, though, dearest friends, and, believe it or not, I miss the ghaaastly digs where I spent some of the happiest days of my life.

On top of missing Alice and Daphne, they missed little Esther too, but Stan wrote often to say she was improving in leaps and bounds. At least they had baby Jonty to kiss and cuddle whenever Elsie or Tommy's mum brought him to the digs for a visit.

As Christmas approached and the days were cold and dark, life seemed to be one long drudgery.

‘It's nowt but sleep, work, sleep then work again,' groaned Lillian.

‘We mustn't grumble; we're a lot better off than others,' said Agnes as they dragged themselves out of bed one
freezing-cold morning and broke ice in the sink to wash themselves.

When they arrived at the Phoenix there was a buzz going around the canteen. As they queued for their tea and toast, a woman in the line turned to them.

‘Have you heard about the King and Queen coming here?'

Lillian burst out laughing.

‘Pull the other one, it's got bells on!' she joked.

‘It's God's honest truth!' the woman declared. ‘Featherstone announced it t'morning shift and they've just towd us.'

When Lillian passed on the news to her friends Emily shook her head.

‘Why are they coming here?' she asked incredulously.

‘What's so bad about coming here, like?' Elsie retorted. ‘Us Bomb Girls deserve a bit of attention.'

A few days later the Phoenix got more attention and publicity than it had ever received in its time as a munitions factory. Not only did the King and Queen arrive, bumping over the cobbled lane to the factory in a smart black car, but along came the press, photographers, local councillors, even the mayor in his fine flowing gown and gold chain. Children, who were given the day off school in honour of the visit, waved flags and cheered as they ran alongside the royal car.

‘God save our King!'

Elsie, Lillian, Emily and Agnes clapped and waved along with the entire workforce as Mr Featherstone greeted the royal couple.

‘I love her hat!' Lillian exclaimed at the sight of the Queen's silk hat, its wide brim decorated with a spray of bright feathers.

‘And her silver fox fur,' said Emily.

‘And look at that crocodile-skin bag!' gasped Elsie.

Cheeky Lillian started to giggle as her boss bowed low to his sovereign.

‘Mr Featherstone looks fit to pop with pride,' she giggled.

‘I'd die if they spoke to me,' said Elsie.

‘Don't worry about that, Elsie,' Agnes assured her. ‘Mr Featherstone will be keeping them well away from the toxic cordite line!'

But an hour later the Queen of England breezed into the damp and draughty workshop.

‘God help her if she slips and falls on the bloody wet floor!' Lillian muttered under her breath.

‘Shh!' hissed Agnes as she eyeballed Lillian and the rest of the giggling girls on her bomb line.

Of all the girls to stop and chat to, Queen Elizabeth chose Elsie, who was so hard at work packing cordite into shell cases she didn't even look up when the royal visitor asked with a charming smile what she was doing.

With a shell case in one hand and a lump of cordite powder in the other, Elsie could no more have explained what she was doing than orbit the outer stratosphere.

‘I'm … I'm …' she gulped as she stared into the Queen's kind periwinkle-blue eyes. ‘I'm making bombs for my Tommy on't front line, like!' she blurted out.

The Queen blinked and smiled as she politely asked how Tommy was.

Elsie's lovely green eyes widened as she smiled back; Tommy was a subject she could speak about with great confidence.

‘He's a lot better now he's in Italy, Your Majesty,' she replied. ‘It's not as 'ot as Africa where they were nearly boiled alive in't desert!'

Before Elsie launched off into a long list of Tommy's war experiences, Agnes quickly interrupted.

‘This is the cordite line, Your Majesty. We pack an explosive called cordite, this yellow stuff,' Agnes said as she pointed to it. ‘We pack it into shell cases then slide in a detonator like so,' she said as she demonstrated. ‘The bombs are then carried across the factory floor,' she nodded to the bomb cases hooked onto the conveyor belt rattling overhead, ‘and sent to the packing department where they're picked up and taken to RAF centres for immediate shipment.'

Seeing the Queen peering closely at the yellow stuff, Agnes couldn't stop herself from giving a warning.

‘Best not to go too near it, ma'am, it's a toxic chemical and it can turn your skin and hair yellow. That's why our nickname's the Canary Girls – we're always covered in the yellow stuff … it gets everywhere,' Agnes finished in a rush, self-consciously aware that she'd said too much.