by Daisy Styles
When the hooter went for their next break, there was a rush to get to the canteen, where the Bomb Girls chain-smoked and drank tea, as they talked incredulously of the news reports.
‘We’re behind enemy lines!’ Maggie gasped. ‘Did you ever think it would happen – we’re fighting on enemy territory?’
Her eyes clouded with fear as she thought of her new husband. ‘Where are you, my love?’ she wondered. ‘Stay safe, Les: come home to me, please don’t die,’ she prayed earnestly to herself.
Julia broke through her anguished thoughts as she jumped to her feet and yelled across the canteen with fierce conviction, ‘Today begins the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation!’
A cheer went up as the women around the room agreed with her.
‘We’ll soon be free!’
‘Our boys will come home!’
‘The war will be over.’
‘We’ve waited long enough for it.’
Rosa, sitting quietly smoking a cheroot, thought of those who would never come home, and of the mothers, daughters and wives whose lives would never be the same again, even when peace was declared. Their sacrifices would bring this bloody war to its final conclusion, and then they would pick up the pieces and live half a life without the one they’d lost. God! How she hated these wars that men created; all around her were women, hundreds of passionate women with one burning desire: peace.
In the middle of all the heated discussions Kit literally came waddling across the canteen floor towards her friends.
‘What’re you doing here?’ Maggie gasped in amazement.
‘I got fed up with being cooped up at home, so I thought, seeing as it’s such a glorious day, I’d come and pick up Billy and catch up with mi mates whilst I was at it,’ Kit said, easing herself, groaning, into an uncomfortable upright metal chair.
‘Have you heard the news?’ Julia eagerly asked.
Kit grinned. ‘Have I heard the news? D-Day has come! The whole nation must be sitting by their wireless sets.’
Nora, who had thoughtfully picked up a mug of hot strong tea for Kit, gazed in awe at her friend’s enormous pregnant belly.
‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you sure you should be out? You look like you’re going to drop it any minute.’
Kit smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Nora, the baby’s not due till the end of the month.’
‘Heavens!’ Nora thought to herself. ‘The poor girl will explode before then.’
The girls chatted excitedly about the joyous news, but nothing stopped the bomb-making machinery rattling, so when the hooter recalled them to work they stubbed out their cigarettes and said a hasty goodbye to Kit.
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ she said, as she waved them off. ‘I’ll finish my tea, then stroll over to the nursery to pick up Billy.’
Half an hour later Malc came dashing into the cordite shed, where the first girls he spotted and beckoned to were Nora and Rosa.
‘Over here!’ he called.
‘What’s up?’ Nora asked, as he led them to his office.
‘It’s Kit: she’s in my office with her little lad.’
They found Kit sitting in Malc’s chair with Billy balanced precariously on her knee.
‘Glory be to God!’ she exclaimed when she saw her friends. ‘I couldn’t make it to the bus stop, so I had to come back here. I think I might have to get Ian to come and fetch us.’
Seeing little Billy looking uncharacteristically subdued, Nora said with a warm smile, ‘Would you like to come and help me feed Polly? I could take you on the back of my bike,’ she said, as she threw Malc an inquiring look.
‘Aye, go on, then,’ Malc agreed indulgently. ‘But one of you lasses must stay with Kit until her husband’s picked her up.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay,’ Rosa volunteered.
Billy glanced up at his mother, who smiled reassuringly. ‘Good boy,’ she said. ‘Run along with Nora – she’ll take care of you.’
As Nora led the little boy away, Malc offered Kit his office phone. ‘You’d best call that fella of yours right away,’ he said, before he left his office and returned to work.
Kit was told that Ian wasn’t in his office, so she left a message with his secretary, asking her husband to pick her up at the cowshed as she was too tired to make it home.
‘Do you mind me waiting for Ian at the cowshed?’ she asked Rosa. ‘It’s more comfortable than sitting here troubling Malc.’
‘Of course not,’ Rosa said, as she helped Kit to struggle to her feet.
Leaning against her friend, Kit started to breathe heavily as they made their way up the steep cobbled lane.
‘It’s not far now,’ Rosa said cheerfully. ‘We’ll have a nice cup of tea when we get there –’
But she never finished the sentence, because, with a gush, Kit’s waters broke and amniotic fluid flowed down her legs and landed in a puddle at her feet.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Kit cried out in alarm; then, full of fear, she turned to her friend and said, ‘This shouldn’t be happening, Rosa – it’s too early!’
38. D-Day Landings
Somehow Rosa got Kit up the cobbled lane and into the cowshed, where she led her into her own room.
‘Lie down and rest,’ Rosa said gently, settling Kit on her bed, before opening the window as wide as it would go; and, as she did so, she heard happy skylarks singing their glorious rhapsody as they soared higher and higher in the hot June sky.
‘Stay with me,’ Kit begged. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Carissima, dearest,’ Rosa murmured, smoothing Kit’s long, dark hair off her hot face. ‘I promise I’m going nowhere.’
Kit reached out to take her friend’s warm hand. ‘I was on my own most of the time when I was in labour with Billy – my sister took fright and ran a mile – but she did fetch an owd biddy to cut the cord and clean me up.’ She sighed as she recalled her beloved son’s birth. ‘It was tough.’
‘This will be easier,’ Rosa said with a confidence she certainly didn’t feel.
Kit interrupted her with a loud groan: ‘Oh-oh, the contractions are starting!’
As the contraction grew in strength, Kit’s distended stomach looked as tight as a football, but she breathed through the pain and loosened her grip on Rosa as the pain faded.
‘Oh, thank God for that,’ Kit gasped as her body relaxed.
Wondering what to do for the best, Rosa quickly said, ‘Can I get you anything, sweetheart?’
‘Some water, please,’ Kit murmured, as she sank back on the pillows and closed her eyes.
Whilst Rosa was running the tap in the kitchen, she saw Nora and Billy walking towards the cowshed. Rushing to the front door, Rosa dashed outside.
‘Kit’s in labour,’ she whispered behind her hand in order to avoid alarming Billy.
Nora’s blue eyes all but rolled out of her head. ‘Jesus!’ she squeaked.
‘Take Billy away.’ Rosa frantically added, ‘He can’t stay here.’
Putting on a big, bright smile, Nora turned to Billy and said, ‘Let’s go to the allotment and pick some carrots.’
‘Want Mammy!’ Billy started to wail.
‘Don’t cry,’ Nora pleaded, and then had a change of mind. ‘Forget about the silly carrots; let’s go to Edna’s chip shop instead.’
‘CHIPS! CHIPS!’ yelled Billy as he skipped away.
‘Wait for me, sweetheart,’ Nora called and set off running after the little boy.
When Rosa returned to her bedroom, she found Kit half sitting up as she panted her way through another contraction.
‘They’re coming faster and getting stronger,’ she said when the pain eased and she was able to gratefully sip from the glass of water that Rosa held to her lips. ‘God!’ she fretted, pushing her damp hair off her face. ‘Where is Ian? Do you think he got my message?’
Rosa was asking herself the same question. What if Ian was out of the office all day and hadn’t even got the message?
&nbs
p; ‘Christ,’ she whispered under her breath; then, holding back a wave of suffocating panic, she quickly asked Kit, ‘Cara, who is your midwife?’
‘Nurse Hodson,’ Kit replied.
‘Where does she live?’
‘In Pendleton, near Edna’s shop,’ Kit told her.
Rosa’s mind was racing. Dammit, Nora had just left; she could easily have taken a message to Edna for the midwife.
‘Maybe I could catch up with her?’ Rosa frantically thought. ‘She can’t have gone far, not with Billy.’
Turning to Kit, she said gently, ‘Cara, I have to go outside for just a few minutes?’
Kit’s big dark eyes grew wide in alarm. ‘You said you wouldn’t leave me,’ she wailed.
Torn between her desperation to catch up with Nora and her guilt about abandoning her friend in labour, Rosa dithered at the end of the bed. Her heart leapt when she heard Nora shout from the sitting room, ‘I’m just picking up Billy’s coat.’
‘Nora!’ Rosa gasped, and she all but bolted out of the bedroom. ‘Nora – stop!’ she cried as she grabbed her friend’s arm.
Looking scared, Nora asked, ‘What’s the matter? You’re as white as a sheet.’
Rosa dropped her voice to an urgent whisper: ‘Can you tell Edna to fetch Nurse Hodson up here right away?’
Turning ashen, Nora nodded, then ran out of the house, just as poor Kit was gripped by another contraction.
‘Rosa! Rosa!’ she called.
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Rosa returned to Kit, who was howling in pain, first holding up one finger, then another, and another, and another. ‘They’re coming every four minutes,’ she panted.
After gently mopping Kit’s brow with a flannel she’d dipped in the bowl of cold water, Rosa murmured soothingly as she removed Kit’s clothes, leaving only a slip over her sweating body.
‘Lie back, sweetheart, I need to make you cool.’
‘Arghh!’ Kit grunted, as she eased herself down the narrow bed. ‘Have you sent for the midwife?’
Keeping her voice steady, Rosa answered, ‘She’s on her way; she’ll be here very soon.’
Kit looked Rosa steadily in the eye. ‘If I start bearing down, there’ll be no stopping the baby,’ she warned. ‘You might have to deliver it yourself.’
A panicked Rosa blurted out, ‘Tell me what to do!’
‘I’ll need clean sheets underneath me,’ Kit told her. ‘And plenty of hot water, towels too – and sharp scissors, sterilized,’ she quickly added.
Feeling sick, Rosa hurried into the kitchen, where she gripped the edge of the table to stop herself from shaking; then, after she’d put the kettle on to boil, she went in search of clean sheets and towels.
Nora had never run so fast in her life; with Billy skipping along beside her, she virtually tore down the steep hill that led into town.
‘Faster, faster,’ little Billy laughed in excitement, thinking it was a game.
By the time she reached the chip shop, Nora was gasping for breath.
‘EDNA! EDNA!’ she cried.
Seeing Nora’s flushed sweating face, Edna immediately laid down the whisk she was using to beat a large bowl of frothy batter. ‘What is it, lovie?’
Nora dropped her voice to pass on Rosa’s message: ‘Kit’s in labour, in the cowshed – Rosa said you’re to fetch the midwife right away.’
Not one to waste time on words, Edna simply said, ‘Stay here and watch the shop whilst I run round to Nurse Hodson’s house.’
Nora hardly had time to catch her breath before Edna returned with the midwife in tow.
‘Can you stay on here whilst I drive the midwife up to the cowshed?’ Edna quickly asked Nora.
‘Yes, yes, just go,’ Nora urged.
Billy cried hungrily, ‘Chips, chips!’
‘Later, sweetheart,’ Edna promised. ‘Keep an eye on the little lasses,’ Edna added. ‘They’re in the back room; they’ll entertain Billy whilst I’m gone.’
Back at the cowshed, Kit was desperate to push. ‘It’s coming, Rosa, the baby’s coming,’ she moaned, as she fell back on the bed, heaving and shuddering with exhaustion.
At her wits’ end, flustered Rosa nearly wept with relief when she heard Edna calling out from the sitting room, ‘The midwife’s here.’
‘Thank God!’ Rosa gasped, making her way for the calm, buxom lady in a clean uniform with a nurse’s bag and a reassuring professional smile.
‘How are you, dear?’ Nurse Hodson asked, as she stepped forward to expertly assess her patient. ‘I need hot water – right away,’ she quickly told Edna.
Leaving Edna to do as instructed, Rosa went outside for a smoke. Through the open window she could hear the midwife talking firmly to Kit, who was groaning in pain. ‘Good girl, it won’t be long now. I can see the baby’s head – one more push should do it.’
‘Poor kid,’ Edna murmured, as she joined Rosa and lit up a Woodbine.
‘Thank God you got here just in time,’ Rosa said. ‘I hadn’t a clue what I was doing.’
‘You did a grand job –’ Edna started to say, but she stopped as they both heard the sound of a baby wailing.
‘She’s had it!’ Rosa exclaimed and burst into tears of pure relief. ‘Kit’s given birth!’ she said, as she tossed away her cigarette.
Creeping into the bedroom, Rosa and Edna saw the midwife wrapping a clean towel around a small, wet, pink baby.
‘A girl,’ she announced as she laid the newborn in Kit’s arms. ‘A beautiful baby girl.’
As weeping Kit clutched her daughter, Rosa and Edna wept too.
‘Well done, sweetheart,’ Edna whispered.
The sweet relief on Kit’s face suddenly disappeared when Nurse Hodson, who was expertly cleaning up her patient, suddenly gasped.
‘What is it?’ Kit asked. ‘Is something wrong?’
Looking up, the midwife said in a brisk voice, ‘Mrs McIvor, you’d better brace yourself: if I’m not mistaken there’s another baby on the way.’
‘Another?’ Kit gasped in disbelief.
‘Yes,’ Nurse Hodson answered tersely as she removed the baby from Kit’s arms and handed her to an astonished Rosa.
‘Outside, ladies, now,’ she barked.
Standing in the sitting room, Rosa gazed in rapt wonder at the tiny creature she was holding; the little girl’s hazy blue eyes blinked at the bright light but then she started to stare at the world she’d just been born into.
‘Look at her,’ Rosa whispered in complete awe. ‘She’s perfect.’
Edna smiled fondly at the baby, but her thoughts were with Kit, who, from her cries and grunts, was now in the process of bearing down for the second time.
After what seemed like an eternity but was in fact only fifteen minutes, the midwife assured Kit that all was going well.
‘Keep going, Mrs McIvor! One more push and I think you’ll have your baby.’
As exhausted Kit gave one last heroic push, Nurse Hodson with infinite care delivered the second, much smaller baby, who lay mewling between Kit’s outspread legs.
When Edna and Rosa (still holding the firstborn) heard the plaintive wail of the second baby they slipped back into the bedroom, where the midwife announced with a triumphant smile, ‘Another girl – two strong, healthy, lovely babies!’
After the midwife had tidied up her tired but utterly ecstatic patient, Kit lay in a freshly made bed with a baby asleep in each arm – and that’s how Ian found her an hour later.
Sweating with anxiety and breathless with running, he rushed into the cowshed with his heart in his mouth. ‘I’ve just got the message!’ he gasped. ‘Where is she?’ he asked Rosa, who was on her own after Edna had left to drive the midwife home.
Pressing a finger to her lips, Rosa led Ian to the bedroom, where his wife and daughters lay peacefully sleeping. Completely stunned, Ian gazed from his wife to the babies and back again. ‘TWO!’ he gasped.
‘Twin girls,’ Rosa said softly.
‘Girls
,’ Ian murmured, as he tenderly touched each warm pink cheek. ‘My little girls,’ he sobbed and tears rolled unchecked down his face.
Closing the door softly behind her, Rosa left the happy family to themselves.
Back at the Phoenix, Maggie and Julia had been on tenterhooks all day. Malc had told them that Rosa had taken Kit up to the cowshed to wait for Ian to come and pick her up.
‘He’ll be on his way as we speak,’ he said with supreme confidence.
But, as the hours passed and neither Rosa nor Nora returned to work, Julia and Maggie became increasingly agitated. Because they worked in different parts of the factory, they could only talk to each other on their last break.
‘What’s keeping them?’ Maggie fretted.
‘Maybe Ian’s been delayed,’ Julia suggested.
‘Delayed ALL day?’ Maggie cried incredulously.
When the hooter announced the end of their shift, they tore up the lane to the cowshed, where to their astonishment they saw Kit being carefully lowered into Ian’s car. Seeing Maggie and Julia standing open-mouthed and staring at them, Billy waved excitedly.
‘Mammy’s had twinnies!’ he cried.
Clutching a baby in each arm, Rosa quickly explained: ‘Kit gave birth a few hours ago – in the cowshed!’
After Rosa, Billy and the twins were safely in the back seat, Ian drove away, leaving Nora, who’d only recently returned with Billy, to tell her astounded friends about her and Rosa’s dramatic D-Day experience.
‘Honest to God, I don’t know what was harder: keeping Billy entertained all day or being up here all on your own with Kit in labour.’
Julia shook her head in disbelief. ‘And all the time we were listening to the news bulletins about the advance on the French coast, we had no idea of the drama going on right here in the cowshed!’
Later, when Ian dropped Rosa back home, he handed her a bottle of brandy, which he told her he’d been keeping for a special occasion.
‘Wet the babies’ heads,’ he said with tears in his eyes. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough for helping Kit and my daughters,’ he added with a proud smile.
