The Bomb Girls (29 page)

A photographer appeared and after asking the Queen if he could take a photograph of her with the Bomb Girls, he arranged Elsie, Lillian, Agnes and Emily on either side of her, with the bomb cases clearly in shot too.

Before the Queen moved away she spoke again to Agnes's team.

‘It's been a great pleasure to meet you all,' she said graciously. ‘I think you're doing a sterling job for King and country and I wish you every success, ladies.'

When she'd gone the girls looked at each other in amazement.

‘Who would have thowt any of us would be talking to the Queen of England about cordite?' Emily burst out.

Lillian winked.

‘And our Elsie chatting like they were best friends about how hot it gets in Tobruk!'

Elsie blushed, not with embarrassment but with pride.

‘Wait till I write and tell Tommy I mentioned him to Her Majesty!' she said with a giggle.

The following afternoon, as they queued for tea and chip butties, the girls were delighted to see pictures of themselves in the national daily papers.

‘Look at us with the Queen!' Elsie gasped. ‘I'm going to cut it out and frame it,' she added proudly.

‘I only hope Her Majesty didn't have to soak that beautiful fox fur in milk after half an hour on the cordite line!' Lillian laughed.

The girls had more visitors that Christmas. Stan and Esther arrived in a flurry of snow on Christmas Eve, and Elsie brought little Jonty, who was now crawling everywhere, to the digs to see Esther. The little girl scooped him into her arms and kissed him.

‘I've missed you, baby,' she said as she sat on the sofa with Jonty on her lap.

Emily's eyes widened as she saw Esther's legs dangling over the edge of the sofa.

‘She's not wearing her calliper!' she gasped in surprise.

Stan nodded as he grinned.

‘The physio's been doing a great job with Esther,' he said. ‘They work her hard but she's tough and determined.'
He turned to his wife, sitting beside him and holding his hand. ‘No idea who she gets that from!' he joked.

Happy and relaxed, they sat around the boiling-hot, wood-burning stove drinking beer and eating chips and apple fritters that Emily cooked in deep fat she'd been saving for weeks. Before the children went to bed they sang their favourite carols, ‘Silent Night' and ‘Away in a Manger', as snow fell on the Pennine moors. After a rousing chorus of ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer', the excited children were put to bed then Agnes and Stan slipped away too.

‘You won't need a hot-water bottle now you've got Stan to keep you warm,' irrepressible Lillian teased.

Whilst Stan was brushing his teeth in the freezing-cold bathroom Agnes confided in her friends.

‘It's the first time we'll have slept together since he went off to fight,' she whispered.

‘Really?' asked Emily.

Agnes nodded.

‘He's been in no fit state since he got back,' she said. ‘And when he was better he went to Keswick and I came here.'

‘Like unlucky ships passing in the night,' Lillian remarked. ‘Well, at least you've seen your fella and you're going to get your hands on him in bed tonight,' she added with a giggle. ‘I don't know when I'll ever have my arms around Gary again,' she added wistfully.

Emily hid the tears brimming into her eyes. Whilst she was visiting her parents just the day before she'd seen Bill crossing the street. He hadn't seen her but she'd had a very clear view of him in his soldier's uniform: tall and
muscular, thinner but still with the mop of thick dark hair, the same fine, chiselled features and lovely laughing mouth.

My Bill, she'd thought as her heart contracted with love.

Before he saw her staring at him she turned a corner and hurried into her mother's house where, putting on a brave face, she put presents for the family underneath the Christmas tree. She wondered sadly what joys and sorrows 1944 held for her.

After they'd been holed up in the dilapidated farmhouse for nearly a week the French contact decided it was safe for the bored and very hungry agents to move on.

‘You will go separately,' he said on his final visit. ‘For your own safety the less you know about each other's destination the better.'

The agents, who'd lived and trained together for many months in Helford House, briefly shook hands, said goodbye and went off in their pairs, never thinking they'd ever see each other again. Robin and Alice were driven – they weren't sure where as there were no signposts along the way – to a clean, airy barn with a hayloft for a bedroom.

‘Stay here until we come back for you,' said their contact before he drove away. ‘Don't leave the building until we know you are not being watched.'

As the roar of his departing car receded into the distance, Robin and Alice looked at each other and smiled.

‘Well, it's not exactly the Ritz!' Robin laughed.

‘But it's clean and with a great view,' said Alice as she looked out on to the vast sweeps of fertile French farmland.

Robin swept a hand under Alice's long silver-blonde hair and let it trickle through his fingers.

‘We're stuck in the middle of nowhere, we've been instructed not to leave the premises … what on earth shall we do to pass the time?'

Alice's eyes lit on the sunny hayloft overhead.

‘That looks like a very comfortable bedroom!' she giggled.

Five or six days spent waiting for the all-clear might have been a nightmare for any other agents, but for Robin and Alice, who treasured every moment they snatched together, it was an unexpected bonus. They weren't short of food, wine or water; plentiful supplies appeared every day, brought by the farmer's wife, who made her own bread, cheese, smoked ham and pâté. She brought local fresh vegetables too, and tiny tomatoes bottled in oil and garlic; she also provided rugs to keep them warm at night and towels so they could wash in the bubbling stream that ran close by. Early one morning, along with warm bread and coffee, the farmer's wife brought news, which they'd been starved of for days.

She spoke in a thick French dialect, which, for all their training, Robin and Alice had difficulty understanding.

‘We have just heard on the news that the British dropped three thousand tons of bombs on Hamburg last night.'

‘Three thousand tons!' Alice's thoughts flew to the Phoenix factory. How many thousands of those bombs had been made by her munitions sisters working round the clock there, she wondered.

‘They must have just about razed the city to the ground,' Robin muttered.

‘It is time the Germans had a taste of their own stinking medicine,' said the farmer's wife with relish, then with a curt ‘
Au revoir
' she went on her way.

One day Alice found Robin attaching his radio aerial to one of the stout wooden rafters.

‘What are you doing?' she gasped in alarm.

‘We need to know what's going on,' he answered tersely.

‘No, Robin!' she cried as she grabbed his hand to stop him. ‘We were told to lie low – the enemy are still looking for us.'

‘If I could get one quick message out I'd feel easier,' he replied.

‘And if it's not a “quick message” we could be traced. It's not worth taking the risk. Please, darling, we have to wait. We're sure to get news soon,' she implored.

Robin sighed then set about taking down the aerial.

‘You're right,' he said with a rueful smile. ‘I've never been good at doing what I'm told!'

That evening as they lay side by side watching the stars come out, Robin ran his hands along her silky, slim thighs and mused.

‘You have the most wonderful bottom!'

Rolling onto him, Alice stared down into his deep blue eyes.

‘And you are the best lover in the world!' she exclaimed.

‘And how many have you had?' he teased.

‘Oh, hundreds!' she replied with a laugh. ‘They were queuing round the block at the Phoenix munitions factory.'

‘I bet they were,' he replied as he rolled her over and kissed her passionately on the mouth.

After several minutes of kissing Alice came up for air.

‘Actually,' she said as she pulled a warm rug around her naked body, ‘I was so lost in books and reading I hardly ever thought about men.'

‘I bet they thought about you!' Robin murmured.

‘They may have but I never noticed.'

‘Bookworm!' he joked as he tickled her cheek with a prickly hay stalk.

‘Emily and Bill were courting by the time they were fifteen. They met at school … Childhood sweethearts,' she added. ‘Pity it didn't stay that way.'

They both wanted a cigarette but they obviously couldn't smoke in the hayloft. Wrapped in blankets, they crept outside where they sat smoking Gauloises on a stone bench outside the barn.

A new moon the size of a baby's fingernail appeared in the evening sky.

‘Make a wish,' Alice said dreamily.

‘I wish –' he started.

‘Shh! Don't tell me, it's bad luck,' she said.

‘I wish … mumble … mumble … mumble …' he said as he covered his mouth so she couldn't hear what he was saying. ‘Then when that wish has come true I hope we have three little girls who all look like you!'

‘No! Three boys, just like you.'

‘Okay, six in all,' he agreed as he put out his cigarette. ‘Back to bed, my love,' he said softly.

Taking his hand, Alice followed him into the barn now bathed in silver moonlight.

‘Not to sleep, I hope!' she whispered with a giggle.

After five days they were roused at dawn by their contact.

‘Time to go,' he said urgently.

He waited in his old Citroën whilst they packed their equipment into French suitcases. As she straightened her beret and removed hay from her hair, Alice's eyes swept round the barn.

‘Will we ever be this happy again, Robin?' she murmured as tears filled her silver-grey eyes.

‘Darling, we'll always be happy just as long as we've got each other!' he cried as he hurried her out of the barn and onto the next leg of their journey.

The contact dropped them off at the local railway station where he handed them both a copy of
Le Figaro
before telling them to take a train to Marseilles.

‘Some interesting reading for your journey south,' he said and then he was gone.

Holding the newspapers under their arms and carrying their suitcases, Robin and Alice strolled down the long platform and boarded a train for Marseilles. As they settled in a crowded compartment, they unfolded their newspapers. Buried inside, they found their next addresses written on scraps of paper. Pretending to read a news column, Alice memorized the address before shredding the scrap of paper between her thumb and fingers. Neither she nor Robin exchanged a word or a glance about what they'd found but Alice's heart was sinking fast. For the first time she'd be separated from Robin; she'd be on her own, without his love and support. Straightening her shoulders, Alice stared blankly out of the window. She hadn't become an agent to become soft and sentimental, she told herself firmly; she'd joined up to fight for her country. Falling in love with Robin had been a bonus but not the purpose of the exercise. Now she was about to do the task she'd been trained for and she vowed to herself to do it well.

They only had one opportunity to talk throughout the whole journey and that was when their compartment briefly emptied out.

Making the most of the time before anybody else joined them, Alice quickly said, ‘We'll split at the station, yes?'

He nodded but he looked pale and anxious.

‘You'll be all right?'

‘Of course,' she said with a bravery she didn't feel.

‘We're going to safe houses,' he added. ‘So we should be able to meet.'

Alice didn't dare reply for fear of bursting out crying.

‘And we can send messages,' he said.

‘How?' she asked.

He stopped short as the door of the compartment was yanked open and an old woman with a basket of squawking chickens struggled in.

‘
Merde!
' she grumbled as she slammed the basket down on the floor. ‘It's bloody hot for this time of the year!'

As the train rattled on its way, Alice gazed out at the rolling landscape and thought of the Lancashire moors where she had run wild with Emily. Holding hands and laughing, they had often stood on the windy tops with their hair flapping around their faces.

‘I'm Emily Brontë,' Alice had said once. ‘And you're Charlotte.'

Emily had grimaced.

‘Don't they both die?' she laughed.

‘Yes, but it's very romantic,' Alice had insisted.

Smiling at her happy memories, she dropped off to sleep as the train rolled inexorably on its way south.

Alice's training kicked in almost immediately she got out of the train at Marseilles station. She could have easily picked up a road map of the city from one of the railway kiosks but that would have flagged up the fact she was a
stranger in town. Without giving Robin a backward glance, she walked away from the station without a clue where she was going. Well away from the bustling main streets, she stopped and asked local vendors for directions.

Alice's safe house turned out to be a rather small but tidy flat in the suburbs not far from the waterfront. The key to the flat was in one of the post boxes in the dark hallway. Alice removed it and made her way up a sweeping staircase to the flat where, once safely inside, she locked the door then hid her radio equipment and explosives in a wooden chest that contained kindling for the fire.

‘Now what?' she said to herself.

Once again Alice recalled her training and the words of her tutor.

‘Don't just sit there waiting for instructions; make the place looked lived in.'

Taking cups, plates and cutlery she placed them around the kitchen and half laid the table as if she'd just finished a meal. There were several books on a shelf, so she took one and put it by her rickety bedside table; some she left opened and lying around in the sitting room as if she was in the middle of reading them. And then she waited.

Scared to go out in case she missed her contact, Alice paced the room. Then, as night fell, she prepared for bed. But sleep did not come. Only the night before she had been in Robin's arms, pressed up to his naked body, half asleep, listening to owls hooting in the treetops that surrounded their hayloft hideaway.

‘I love you, my darling,' she whispered into her pillow.

She awoke starving hungry and thirsty; she had no
choice but to go out in search of bread, coffee and milk. On her way back from the local shops she looked into the post box, where she found an envelope with no name on it. Stuffing it inside her coat pocket she hurried up the staircase to her flat where, over a bowl of
café au lait
, she read the letter left by her contact.

‘Oh, my God!' she gasped.

Her instructions were not exactly what she'd been expecting. Her brief was to blow up a stretch of railway line, part of the network of routes that kept the German army supplied with food and ammunition. They would contact her again with further instructions and a date.

‘Why am I on an explosives mission?' she wondered out loud. ‘I thought we were here to gather information and break encrypted code and transmit messages. Nobody mentioned bombing a bloody railway line!'

In a panic she dashed to the firewood box to check she had enough plastic explosive and pencil detonators to take out a major railway line. Now she knew what her mission was, Alice had to endure a further wait for the exact details: date, time and location – and, most important of all, who she would be working with. Or would she be sent on a solo mission?

After too many long, fretful days, Alice decided she'd pass the time by reading every book in the flat. At least it would prevent her French from going rusty.

Towards the end of an interminable, lonely week, just as she was embarking on another novel by Zola, there was a sharp knock on the door. Hardly daring to breathe, Alice slowly opened the door to two French policemen holding revolvers.

‘We've come to search your flat,' they snapped. ‘
Bougez-vous!
MOVE!'

When Alice strongly protested the gendarmes pushed her aside.

‘Silence!' they barked.

Alice stood silently in the middle of the room watching the gendarmes turn the place upside down. They emptied every cupboard, cleared the shelves with a swipe, threw the bed against the wall to look underneath it; they even levered up loose floorboards. And then one of them approached the kindling box. With her heart almost bursting with terror, Alice feigned disinterest as she pretended to be absorbed by something outside the window. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the gendarme rustle about in the box. He lifted piles of newspaper and kindling, then dropped the lid.