by Nancy Revell
Rosie stiffened. ‘Don’t say “last”. This is just the start. There’s just going to be a bit of a gap for a little while, that’s all. Until this war’s at an end.’
Peter wished more than anything that he could believe this to be the truth. He knew there was a good chance that when he waved Rosie off at the train station tomorrow, it might be the last time she saw him. He was just so glad he had got the chance to make things right between the two of them; if he didn’t make it back alive, he would die knowing that he had done right by Rosie in every way possible.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rosie said.
Peter saw Rosie’s eyes were wet. ‘What on earth are you sorry for? You’re probably the most blameless person I know.’ He moved a strand of straw-blonde hair out of her eyes.
‘For being so awful … so angry … for not understanding.’ Rosie’s voice sounded woebegone, echoing the ache in her heart as she recalled the terrible hurt that had consumed her when Peter told her that, despite being in a reserved occupation, he had signed up.
Peter squeezed her gently. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. If anyone has to be apologising, it’s me. I shouldn’t have left it so long to tell you. I should have dealt with the situation better. I was being selfish. I just wanted to keep everything the way it was until the very last moment.’
Deep down, Peter knew that really neither of them was to blame. They were just human – he for wanting to keep the magic of their love unspoilt for as long as possible, she for riling against the injustice of having the only real love she had ever experienced wrenched from her. Rosie had reacted the only way she knew how – with outrage and anger. Peter knew, however, that there was only one real culprit that had caused their hurt and heartbreak – and it was this damnable war.
‘But all’s well that ends well,’ Peter said.
‘That’s Dorothy’s favourite expression,’ Rosie said. ‘Or should I say Angie’s. She’s always reminding us that it’s a quote from some play by Shakespeare.’
Peter smiled. Thank goodness Rosie had her women welders. She might be their boss, but they were all friends, and good ones at that. If Rosie needed help, he knew they would be there for her.
‘Whatever happens,’ Peter’s voice was serious, ‘you have nothing to feel bad or guilty about. You know that, don’t you? No regrets – promise?’ He could feel Rosie nod. ‘We’ve had the most amazing six weeks together, and all the time before that when we were getting to know each other. And,’ he took Rosie’s left hand and kissed the gold band on her wedding-ring finger, ‘you’ve made me the happiest and proudest man in the whole universe!’
Rosie propped herself up on her elbow so that she could see Peter’s face clearly. It was true – the time they had been together had been magical. After having a variety of obstacles strewn in the way of their love, they’d overcome them all and been so blissfully happy.
So why, she couldn’t help asking herself, did it have to be cut short so cruelly? Rosie stopped herself. No more morbid thoughts! This was their first night together as a married couple and their last night together for God knew how long. It had to be a happy one.
‘I have to say, Mr Miller,’ she said in a mock-serious voice, ‘your proposal must have been the most business-like one in the history of romance.’
Peter’s eyes widened and he let out a loud guffaw.
‘Well, there’s no arguing there!’
‘So,’ Rosie said, a smile playing on her lips, ‘when my squad ask me how you proposed and are waiting with bated breath to hear how you got down on one knee and wooed me like in the films, I’m going to have to shatter their romantic illusions and tell them the truth.’ She kissed him before continuing. ‘I can just imagine their faces when I tell them that after meeting me off the train and taking me in your arms, you bought me a brandy in the hotel bar and told me – no, actually, you practically ordered me – to marry you!’
Peter and Rosie both started chuckling.
‘No “Darling, will you marry me?”’ Rosie continued through their growing laughter. ‘Rather, “Now listen here, Rosie, I’m going to marry you, and before you say another word, you’re going to sit there and listen to the reasons why it’s imperative you agree to it all.”’
By now they were both lying on their backs laughing uncontrollably as they recalled Peter’s rather unconventional proposal two nights previously. Rosie was holding her stomach, which was beginning to ache, and tears were rolling down their faces.
‘You couldn’t have made it up!’
And that was how they would both remember their honeymoon.
Lying in a hotel bed, stomachs aching, crying with laughter.
Enjoying every last minute they had left together.
Chapter One
Borough Road, Sunderland
Monday 12 January 1942
After an epic journey from Guildford to Waterloo Station, a schlep across the capital to King’s Cross, then an eight-hour journey back up north, Rosie finally returned home and practically crawled into bed. Yet, as she lay there wide awake, it was clear that sleep was not going to give her body, or her mind, the respite she craved. Instead, she spent the night tossing and turning, her mind spinning with all that had happened, her nerves tingling, her body on some strange kind of high, pumped full of adrenaline, love and excitement. The past five days had been the most magical, the most wondrous, the most loving, and the most surreal of her life.
At half-past five, she finally gave up and got out of bed, pulled on her thick dressing gown and padded into her little kitchenette, where she started to fill the kettle. As she did so the glint of the gold band caught her eye and she found herself standing stock-still, staring at her polished rose-gold wedding ring.
‘You bloody well better come back to me, Peter Miller.’ Rosie spoke the words aloud, before getting on with the task of making a brew. By the time she had drunk two cups, forced down a slice of toast and put on as many extra layers as possible under her denim overalls to fend off the dropping temperatures, it had gone half six and she was closing the front door behind her.
As she walked the short distance from her flat to the ferry landing down by the south docks, Rosie sensed the fear that had been there these past few days. While she had been with Peter, Rosie had refused to let it contaminate her joy, but as she jostled onto the ferry with the other shipwrights and dock workers, the fear pushed itself to the fore.
Glancing at the large barrage balloons above her, Rosie took a deep breath and forced herself to face the fear – the terrifying spectre of what the future might hold, of what might become of Peter. She stared it down, challenged it, and then pushed it back with all her might.
As Rosie took her place at the side of the boat, she knew she had to stick to the resolution she had made last night as she had lain awake. She would keep herself as busy as humanly possible so that she didn’t have time to think. It was how she would cope. She had done it when her parents died, and again when her uncle Raymond had reappeared in her life. And she would do it again.
Rosie waved across to Stan the ferryman, whom she had known since she first started working at Thompson’s shipyard. She thought that he looked older; another harsh winter was taking its toll. As the ferry bumped against the north ferry landing, Rosie hurried off and up the embankment to the gates of J.L. Thompson & Sons.
‘Mornin’, ’n welcome back, Miss Thornton!’ Alfie, the young timekeeper, handed Rosie her white time board.
Rosie smiled her thanks and wondered how she was going to tell not just her squad and everyone at the bordello, but also her employers that she was no longer ‘Miss’. As she walked through the shipyard’s main entrance, with its two huge metal gates, she breathed in the fresh sea air. This early in the morning it was still relatively quiet. She knew she had a good half an hour before the blare of the klaxon sounded out the start of the day’s shift and the place was filled with the overwhelming and all-consuming noise of men and machinery.
K
nowing that the yard manager, Helen Crawford, was always at work by seven, Rosie decided to go and see her, find out what had been happening while she had been away. As she walked past the long brick building that made up the drawing office, she noticed a light on inside. Looking through one of the windows, criss-crossed with the now customary brown anti-blast tape, she spotted a mop of black hair bobbing over one of the long workbenches. Entering the warmth of the large, high-ceilinged office, Rosie was hit by the distinctive smell of polished wood and the sight of row after row of workbenches covered with rolls of tracing paper, pencil sharpenings and pots of Indian ink.
‘Hannah! What are you doing in this early?’ Rosie’s voice sliced through the quietness.
‘You’re back!’ Hannah hurried over to see her former boss and gave her a hug. Rosie knew that Hannah would always feel grateful to her for getting her a job in the drawing office as a trainee draughtsman once it became clear she was not at all cut out to be a welder.
‘How did it all go?’ Hannah’s dark, almond-shaped eyes were glistening. As she spoke, her boss appeared from the back room. He had both hands in his tweed waistcoat pockets and was looking over his half-moon spectacles to see who it was.
‘I’ll tell you all about it later,’ Rosie whispered to Hannah, before turning her attention to Basil.
‘I hope you’re not overworking our little bird here?’ Rosie’s voice was light and jocular, but Basil knew the concern was genuine. Hannah might no longer work with Rosie’s squad of women welders, but he was well aware that Rosie and the rest of her gang all kept a close eye on her – and woe betide anyone who didn’t treat their former workmate well.
‘No, no, Rosie, you know me better than that,’ Basil said a little defensively as he walked over and ruffled Hannah’s hair. ‘Can’t keep the wee one away.’ Despite living in the north-east most of his life, Basil still retained a slight hint of his Scottish ancestry. ‘She keeps badgering me for overtime. I think she’d work round the clock if I let her. She’s even got me coming in early so she can get cracking at seven o’clock sharp.’
Rosie glanced at Hannah and caught something in her look that she couldn’t quite make out.
‘Her indoors …’ Basil said with a chuckle, referring to his wife, who he liked to make out was a battle-axe even though she was anything but, ‘… is giving me a right earbashing lately, saying she hardly ever sees me these days.’
‘Well, as long as Hannah’s getting her overtime pay?’
‘Of course!’ Basil nodded furiously, as though the mere suggestion that he would have Hannah here working for nothing was an affront.
Seeing Rosie turn to leave, Basil took hold of her left hand and patted it. ‘Anyway, it’s good to see you, my dear. Yer should pop yer head in ’n say hello more often.’
‘You cut yourself?’ Hannah perked up, looking at the thick plaster wrapped around one of Rosie’s fingers.
Rosie stared at her hand, not quite sure what to say. This morning, as she had got ready for work, she had resolved never to take off her wedding ring. Ever. And so she’d gone to her first-aid box and taped up her finger to protect the band of gold that was so precious to her.
‘Eee, eyes like a hawk, this one,’ Rosie said.
‘Aye,’ Basil laughed. ‘She has that. Incredible attention to detail. Wish all my apprentices were like this wee bairn.’
Hannah didn’t seem to mind being referred to as a child. As Rosie made her way across the drawing office, Hannah shouted out that she and Olly, her ‘friend boy’, would join her and the rest of the women for lunch.
As Rosie continued on her way to the main administration building, she noticed the familiar sight of Helen standing at a window on the first floor. Her raven hair was surrounded by a swirl of smoke, although Rosie could still make out her perfectly made-up face and bright red lipstick.
Hurrying up the stairs, Rosie found Helen still standing by the window, smoking; she looked lost in her own world. Her hair was pulled back into victory rolls and she was wearing a deep olive tailored dress that perfectly complemented her shapely figure. Rosie had heard people liken her to Vivien Leigh, and after Dorothy had taken them all to see Gone with the Wind, Rosie could see why.
‘Helen?’ Rosie’s voice seemed to echo in the expanse of the large open-plan office that was full of desks but devoid of people.
‘Ah, Rosie, you’re back!’ Helen’s emerald-green eyes narrowed, scrutinising the woman she had always envied. Her father thought the world of Rosie, and over the years Helen had been forced to feign interest whenever he mentioned how well Rosie was doing, how hard she worked, and how she was the only woman welder he knew. Of course, Rosie had been knocked off her pedestal of late thanks to the war. Now there weren’t just women welders being employed to work in the shipyards, but women crane drivers, platers, drillers – even riveters.
‘You caused quite a stir, leaving the yard in the middle of your shift last week.’ Helen opened the window a fraction and tossed her half-smoked cigarette out into the yard before walking, or rather, sashaying, the short distance to her office.
‘Come in,’ she beckoned as she manoeuvred herself behind the large steel desk, which, Rosie noticed, no longer had any photographs of her mother and father. In their place was a heavy steel ashtray.
‘I was just after a quick word,’ Rosie said, panicking that Helen was going to try and grill her about the telegram and why she had been needed in Guildford. ‘I just wanted to have a catch-up and see where my squad are at?’ Rosie stopped in the doorway to Helen’s office.
Helen remained standing as she reached for her packet of Pall Malls, pulled one out and lit it. She desperately wanted to probe Rosie about her four-day hiatus from the yard. She had managed to squeeze a little information out of Harold, the yard’s head honcho, and had found out that the telegram had been from a detective sergeant. It had all been very mysterious; even the town gossip, Muriel, who worked in the canteen, had had nothing to offer on the subject. If Rosie had been another worker, Helen would have used her position to bully the information out of her, but she had always been a little wary of Rosie. Perhaps, loath that she would be to admit it, even a little intimidated by her.
Helen blew out a thin trail of smoke. ‘Oh, your lot have got along just fine without you,’ she said with more than a hint of venom.
‘Did Gloria manage all right?’ Rosie fought to keep the irritation out of her voice. Last Wednesday she’d had to leave straight after Harold had given her the telegram as her train was due to depart at three. She’d put Gloria in charge, but hadn’t had the chance to get it sanctioned by her superiors.
‘Oh, yes. Gloria managed just fine.’ Helen’s voice had taken on a rather theatrical lilt.
Rosie looked at Helen, waiting for her to expand. She felt uneasy. Something didn’t feel quite right.
‘Well, are they still working on Brutus?’ Rosie asked. SS Brutus, a 400-foot-long cargo vessel, was one of the Empire ships commissioned by the Ministry of War Transport to replace the growing number of merchant ships that were being sunk by German U-boats.
‘Yes,’ Helen’s voice rose, ‘they’re all still slaving away on the brute’s back.’ She paused to take another drag. ‘However, I was told at the end of last week that we may be getting in a tanker that’s had a hole blown in her bulkhead – apparently you can drive a double-decker bus through it, so your squad may well be needed to do the usual emergency surgery.’ Helen expelled more smoke.
Rosie knew that tankers were notoriously hard to sink, aided by the fact that they were really just a collection of self-contained boxes. Providing the engine room or boilers weren’t hit, chances were the air in the other compartments would keep it afloat – long enough for it to get its injured hulk back to shore. Since the start of the war Rosie had been amazed by many a ship’s resilience and had seen dozens with appalling damage being repaired in the dry dock before being sent back out to sea, almost as good as new.
‘But don’t wor
ry. I won’t split up your squad if your lot are needed elsewhere.’
Rosie let out a weary sigh. She wasn’t in the mood for any verbal sparring with Helen this morning. If she had been, though, she would have reminded Helen that she’d already tried to split up the squad once and had failed miserably.
Just as she was turning to leave, Helen suddenly spoke again. ‘Oh, and just so you know – as I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough – Mr Crawford’s been transferred.’
Rosie looked at Helen. There was something about her manner that was a little off.
‘Really? Is he coming back here?’ It was a natural presumption. Jack had spent most of his life at Thompson’s and had only been sent next door to Crown’s on the understanding that he was needed to help with the expected amalgamation of the two yards.
Helen stared at Rosie for a few moments without speaking.
‘No, my father has been transferred to one of the yards on the Clyde.’
‘Really?’ Rosie was shocked. ‘Why? I thought they needed him at Crown’s for the buyout?’ she asked. Something definitely wasn’t right.
‘Well, the Scots obviously need him more than we do.’ Helen’s voice sounded cold and bitter. The discomfort Rosie felt in her gut was getting worse by the second.
Something had happened.
‘Oh?’ Rosie stood, wanting to know more, but not knowing what else to ask.
‘Anyway, can’t stand here chatting all morning.’ Helen looked up at the clock on the wall.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Rosie said her goodbyes and turned to leave.
Something was most definitely amiss.
Chapter Two
Rosie walked across the yard to the dry basin where her squad of women welders, as well as dozens of platers and riveters, would soon be gathering in anticipation of the day’s work, ready to flesh out the hull of SS Brutus.
