The Shipyard Girls on the Home Front

by Nancy Revell

  ‘And as I’m sure you’ve guessed, Mrs Williams and I were not at all happy about her taking rooms in town with the coal miner’s daughter, but she went ahead and did it anyway.’

  The smile faded from Toby’s face. He did not like the slight nuance in Mr Williams’s tone when he referred to Angie, nor that he did not mention her by name.

  ‘So, if your intentions are as I believe them to be, then Dorothy will do what she likes regardless of what her mother or I might say.’

  Toby continued to stand shoulders back, one hand by his side, the other holding his cap.

  ‘But for what it’s worth, I have to say we are both beyond relieved that Dorothy has not brought some shipyard worker to our doorstep, and despite the people she is clearly mixing with down at that yard, has somehow managed to find herself a suitable match.’

  Toby would have given anything to tell this stuffy, pretentious man that his stepdaughter had met her ‘suitable match’ in a bordello, only half a mile from where they were now standing.

  Toby waited a few beats until he was sure Mr Williams had finished his spiel and then put out his hand. ‘That’s good. Good to hear, Mr Williams,’ he said.

  The two men exchanged a firm handshake. There was something about it that made Toby feel uncomfortable, as though they had just agreed some kind of business deal, rather than made a simple gesture of farewell. The rebellious part of him wanted to explain that he hadn’t come here seeking permission to marry his stepdaughter, but as a politeness before he asked the only person he should be asking – Dorothy.

  As he walked back into the hallway to say goodbye to the rest of the family, Toby thought of his own parents. He knew they’d love Dorothy to bits and that she would love them. His mother and father were, thankfully, totally non-judgemental and unprejudiced. He’d told them all about Dorothy and they had been genuinely excited about meeting her; his mother, in particular, was in awe that any woman – never mind one from a well-to-do background – would choose to work in a shipyard.

  What a shame Dorothy’s own family did not feel the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  For the rest of April, preparations for the invasion of Europe continued – both covertly and overtly. At home and abroad. In the biggest shipbuilding town in the world, there was at least one launch a week, sometimes two. Mr Havelock would regularly make an appearance, making sure his photograph appeared in the local paper. Helen would ring ahead if she was expected to attend, and if she got wind that her grandfather was to be there, she had a well-rehearsed lie that served as a believable excuse.

  Short Brothers launched Empire Pendennis, Doxford’s Welsh Prince and Trevose, Bartram’s Stanrealm and Pickersgill’s another LCT before the month was out. The need to get all types of vessels down the ways as quickly as possible had never seemed as strong as it did now. The whole country could not fail but be spurred on by the number of U-boats and Japanese destroyers that were either torpedoed or bombed by Allied forces, with the number of losses at the hands of the Axis minimal in comparison. The tally proved the Battle of the Atlantic was well on its way to being won.

  A similar picture was also emerging with the number of air raids being carried out on Germany and other occupied territories, including a carpet-bombing of the Yugoslavian capital of Belgrade and air raids on Romania taking place for the first time from bases in Italy. On Hitler’s fifty-fifth birthday on 20 April, the RAF gifted him 4,500 tons of bombs, which were dropped on the Fatherland, setting a new record for a single air raid.

  In South East Asia, the tide of war was also turning, with the Japanese making a gradual retreat from India back into Burma. The Russians, meanwhile, were making headway in Ukraine, liberating large parts of the country, as well as in Crimea, where the Germans were being forced to withdraw their troops.

  Polly added to the good news when she read the women welders her most recent letter from Tommy, which told of the first lot of repatriates – more than a thousand – arriving back in Gibraltar. Four years had passed since more than ten thousand men, women and children had been evacuated to London, Jamaica and Madeira. It was now deemed safe enough for them to return, which added to the anticipation that victory was on the horizon. A sense that was further bolstered as the country was flooded with hundreds of thousands of American troops, most of whom were housed in temporary camps in the south-west of England.

  ‘Oversexed, overpaid and over here!’ Dorothy whooped with laughter.

  ‘Dinnit get too excited, Dor,’ Angie jibed. ‘They might be over here, but they’re not up here.’

  Dorothy pulled a clown’s sad face.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re pulling a face,’ Gloria said, ‘you’ve got Toby, haven’t yer?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Angie laughed. ‘One not enough?’

  ‘No harm in looking, is there?’ Dorothy said, putting on her hoity-toity voice.

  Rosie, Gloria and Polly looked at each other and shook their heads, although they too were smiling – not at the thought of all those young Americans, but because of a rising sense of triumph, for the accumulation of such a huge number of troops could only increase the odds that the war would be won and the men they loved would finally come home.

  It was because of the need to do their bit that the women’s personal lives were increasingly put on the back burner thanks to overtime and Rosie’s gentle but persistent cajoling to work just that bit harder and that bit longer.

  Rosie’s work at the bordello suffered, but Lily didn’t make a big deal of it. She understood why – and that it would not be permanent. Charlotte used her sister’s preoccupation with work as an excuse to argue her case for being able to go to Lily’s after school. Knowing the stress Rosie was putting herself under in her determination to have some input in bringing her husband home, Lily took the reins and explained to Charlotte that as she was still only fifteen years old, she could not risk having her at the bordello during its hours of business. Perhaps, she said, they would review the situation when Charlotte was sixteen in the summer. It brought Rosie a temporary reprieve, for which she was thankful.

  A song called ‘It’s Love-Love-Love’ recorded by Guy Lombardo and his orchestra topped the Billboard singles chart in the States and was becoming hugely popular in Britain. Helen couldn’t get the catchy little ditty out of her head and it seemed to repeat in a loop, especially when she was driving along the coast road to Ryhope to rendezvous with John and, of course, visit Henrietta. It was the highlight of her week and about the only socialising she did, apart from her visits to see Hope, which she tended to do on Sundays as it meant that she could also spend time with her father and Gloria.

  The conversation she’d had with John at Pearl’s reception kept playing over in her mind until she could repeat what he had said to her verbatim. He was not concerned with adhering to the social norms expected of their class. He would consider courting – marrying – a woman like herself, a woman who many might think, as her own mother did, had tarnished herself and her reputation by sleeping with another man before wedlock, and worse still, by falling pregnant. This, Helen repeatedly told herself, was not something that concerned John, for he was driven by the heart and not society’s conventions.

  The only problem, though – the rather glaringly obvious fly in the ointment – was that if this was how John felt, and what he believed, then his feelings for Claire must be purely those of love. He must be in love with Claire. Otherwise why would he be with her?

  And that was when Helen’s heart would once again sink and she would fall into a troubled sleep, invariably suffering the same frustrating dream of running but not going anywhere. Perhaps her dreams were telling her that she was pursuing something she could never attain? Of course they were. But she couldn’t help herself and so she kept running – in her dreams – towards a love that could never be, certainly not while he was with another woman.

  Dorothy continued to go to Gloria’s on Friday nights to see Hope and to be a buffer between Bobby an
d his mam. It was something Gloria wanted as much as Bobby did, although for different reasons. Bobby had a feeling his mam knew the real cause of his acrimony and, like her son, was avoiding having to talk about it.

  Dorothy still believed Bobby’s stubbornness was due to Gloria’s domestic situation, and so she continued to drop scathing comments into her conversations with him when he walked her home. He picked up some of the comments if Dorothy remembered to speak to his hearing side, but some he didn’t, though it didn’t matter as he often found himself unable to take in what she was saying anyway. The way she talked, her animated expressions, the many different ways she managed to scowl, never failed to distract him. He’d imagine kissing the smooth skin on her neck when she twisted her long hair into a ponytail, only to let it go again so that it unfurled down her back. He tried to put a stop to his growing infatuation, but it was no good and was made all the more difficult because he saw her every day at work.

  His squad often worked alongside the women welders. It took all of his willpower to stop grabbing hold of her and kissing her. He always persuaded Jimmy and the rest of his squad to go to the canteen when the women went, or to stay put when they ate their packed lunches by the quayside, not far from where the dock divers worked. His letters to Gordon were full of Dorothy and his work at the yard, but contained little about their mam and her new man, although he always mentioned Hope; he loved their little sister unreservedly.

  Seeing his mam at work and every Friday night, Bobby wished he could make himself behave in the way he knew he should, but he couldn’t lie or fake what he felt. Just as he couldn’t hide his feelings for Dorothy. The irony was, he knew that if he could just bury the hatchet with his mam, then this might pave the way to softening Dorothy’s heart – make her see that she should be with him and no one else – but he still couldn’t pretend.

  He had taken Dahlia out a few times after they had met at Pearl’s wedding reception, but he had ended up talking about Dorothy, and Dahlia had ended up talking about her boss, Matthew Royce. He didn’t know whose situation was worse: his for falling for a woman who not only hated him but was on the verge of getting engaged to another man – and a perfectly nice one at that – or Dahlia’s, for loving a man who would only ever consider taking her as a lover, never a wife.

  Dorothy and Angie had both accepted it was unlikely that they would be seeing much of Toby and Quentin until after the invasion of Europe, when it was hoped the war might end. They took some solace in having been able to spend Easter with their beaux, and they would often remind themselves, when they were on their own, that they were lucky their fellas were fighting the war on this side of the Channel. Neither would have liked to swap places with Polly, Gloria or Rosie. They were pretty sure Tommy’s work wasn’t quite as safe as he liked to make out in his letters to Polly, and it sounded like HMS Opportune, the ship Gordon was stationed on, would be called upon when the invasion of France finally got going. But most of all, they would not like to be in Rosie’s shoes – not one bit. Peter really was on the very precipice of danger.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  RAF Harrington, Northamptonshire

  Saturday 29 April

  Toby walked over to one of the filing cabinets in his office at the new base at RAF Harrington. The airbase was ideal for Carpetbagger operations, as it was near enough to RAF Tempsford for liaison, and not too far from the main supply bases at Cheddington in Buckinghamshire and Holme in Cambridgeshire. Toby poured out two glasses of Scotch and gave one to his sergeant.

  They clinked glasses.

  ‘To the poor sods,’ Toby said, his face grim.

  ‘Aye, may they rest in peace,’ Sergeant MacLeod added.

  The two men each took a large mouthful, hoping the burning amber liquid would give them a little respite from the terrible news that had just come through: hundreds of American soldiers had died whilst carrying out a large-scale military practice assault, a rehearsal for the planned invasion of Normandy. The exercise, code-named Operation Tiger, had taken place over the last few days at Slapton Sands in Devon, and had been an unmitigated disaster.

  Earlier, coordination and communication problems had led to deaths from friendly fire, but then yesterday an Allied convoy of eight US landing craft on their way to shore were attacked by nine German E-boats, resulting in the sinking of two of the LTCs.

  An initial count of the dead was over seven hundred, with around another two hundred injured.

  ‘What a bloody mess!’ Toby spat the words out.

  Sergeant MacLeod shook his head in disbelief at what he’d just heard.

  ‘Obviously, it’s been buried,’ Toby said. ‘There’s no way this can become public knowledge.’ He had been told this by his SOE superior, who had passed on the information an hour earlier.

  ‘Och aye, nee way,’ the sergeant nodded.

  ‘All of the survivors have been sworn to secrecy. They’re worried about potential leaks.’

  ‘Aye. Never mind the embarrassment.’

  They were quiet for a moment.

  ‘And to make matters worse, it sounds like they hadn’t had the proper training.’ Toby’s eyes widened. ‘They didn’t even know how to put their life jackets on properly.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Sergeant MacLeod said, shaking his head again in disbelief.

  Toby took a sip of his drink. ‘Which is why so many of the poor sods died. Drowned or died of hypothermia while they were waiting to be rescued … HMS Opportune did manage to engage – good job she was there.’

  ‘Aye, good job, but a shame she couldn’t get the bastards,’ Sergeant MacLeod said through pursed lips.

  The men spoke about the repercussions of the disastrous operation, how the Axis powers would know they were nearly ready to invade, never mind the loss of the tank landing craft. Shockingly, ten American officers from the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, who had sensitive information and top-secret knowledge of the invasion, were missing. There was talk of calling off the invasion until the bodies of all ten were found, as well as any papers they might have been carrying.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Sergeant MacLeod muttered, lighting up a cigarette.

  The two men carried on talking for a good while until, finally, exhausted by talk of warmongering and death – especially lives that need not have been lost – the subject turned, as it customarily did, to matters of the heart.

  ‘Are yer gonna pop the questions to ya sweetheart then?’ Sergeant MacLeod asked.

  Toby nodded. ‘I was going to hang fire until this damned war’s won, but after everything that’s happened today, well, it just makes me think, why wait?’

  ‘Will ya be able to get up there any time soon?’

  ‘God only knows,’ Toby said, taking another swig of his whisky. ‘But the first chance I get, I’m off.’

  ‘She’s definitely the girl for you then?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she’s one in a million, she really is.’ Toby smiled for the first time since he’d taken the call and been told the news. ‘You not got anyone waiting for you at home?’

  Sergeant MacLeod shook his head. ‘But that’s not to say I haven’t my eye on someone here,’ he said, his face breaking into a smile.

  Toby looked at his sergeant and had a good idea it was their secretary, Miss Sterling, but he knew his sergeant would never admit it until his affections had, hopefully, been returned.

  They both drank in silence. It was late, which didn’t necessarily mean it was quiet on the base. Many of their drops happened at night to avoid detection, so the place was often a hive of activity into the early hours. Tonight, though, the moon was waning and so most had either taken to their beds to catch up on some sleep, or had slipped into town for a few drinks and a Saturday-night dance at the local village hall.

  When both their glasses were empty, Toby sloshed another generous amount into each before screwing the top back on and pulling out his drawer to put it away, hoping that next time he got it out, it would be for celebratory reasons.
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  As he laid it flat, he saw the pile of envelopes that had arrived the previous week. An agent returning from a reconnaissance of the beaches that stretched along the Normandy coast had brought them back along with some invaluable intelligence and photographs. Toby took a sip of his whisky and shut the drawer, saying a silent prayer that Peter’s letter, as well as all those from other operatives in the occupied zone, would never see the light of day.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The month of May heralded the fourth anniversary of the Home Guard, which was celebrated the length and breadth of the country. The biggest parade took place in Hyde Park, during which the King took the salute.

  A more modest affair was held at Whitburn village, and among the cheering crowds were Rosie, Charlotte and Kate. The trio had agreed to a rare day out together, not just because they wanted to wave and show their appreciation of those who had spent the past four years defending the home front, but because it provided an excuse for them to revisit the place where they had grown up.

  They made a point of standing outside the old fishermen’s cottages, which had been the earliest casualty of the war when the first bombs dropped on the town and its periphery. That had been back in August 1940, shortly after Rosie had been given her squad of women welders.

  Looking at her old family home now, as she, Charlotte and Kate found themselves a gap where they could stand comfortably and watch the parade, Rosie saw that the damage had been repaired and the cottages that had taken a hit rebuilt. She smiled to herself, thinking how glad she was that the little terrace had survived. It occurred to her now that she no longer felt the shadow of the past looming over her. It had gone. And with that thought came an incredible lightness of being.

  She glanced at Charlotte and smiled. She looked happy. A little emotional perhaps, but that was likely because she and Kate had been exchanging stories from when they were young, each recalling their own days of innocence before their childhoods had been snatched away from them prematurely by the death of parents they adored and who adored them back.