The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘What you’re really saying,’ said clever Alice, ‘is that you want us to work longer hours?’

  Agnes smiled apologetically.

  ‘That’s what it boils down to, Al,’ she replied. ‘It really is the only way we can reach the production target.’

  Though weary from their twelve-hour shifts the girls did put in an extra hour a shift when called for.

  ‘I’d love to tell Mr Featherstone where to stick his bloody targets,’ grumbled Lillian as they took a brief cigarette break.

  ‘You do get into a rhythm of work,’ said the ever-philosophical Alice.

  ‘So do mad rats in a run!’ laughed Lillian.

  ‘What I mean is that even though you’re tired to the bone your brain’s on automatic pilot: shell, cordite, detonator, shell, cordite, detonator. Sometimes I say it in mock French,’ she said as she pronounced the words in a French accent. ‘Case, detonateur, cordite, case, detonateur, cordite.’

  ‘Sounds sexier in French!’ laughed Lillian.

  As the girls’ friendship deepened and their trust and confidence grew, Agnes talked increasingly about Esther, especially when they settled around the wood burner in their digs, swapping Woodbines and drinking tea.

  ‘I know the extra hours and the increase in productivity are in a good cause but there’s always something that gets in the way of me seeing my Esther. At the Woolwich Arsenal it was impossible; they said they couldn’t spare an experienced supervisor to go gadding about the countryside visiting relatives.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call visiting a sick child gadding about,’ Emily protested.

  Agnes continued angrily, ‘Now their excuse is that time off is impossible because of the blasted targets. I tell you, I can’t win!’ she exclaimed as she threw her hands in the air with sheer frustration.

  ‘It’s a right bugger,’ Lillian agreed.

  ‘Maybe we could have a word with Mr Featherstone,’ Alice suggested.

  ‘And what good would that do?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘Compassionate grounds,’ Alice quickly replied.

  Agnes was silent for at least a minute then she said, ‘Maybe I should go and have a word with Mr Featherstone myself?’

  Elsie vehemently nodded her head.

  ‘Thems that doesn’t ask doesn’t get,’ she said solemnly.

  Agnes smiled at her intense, loving face.

  ‘You’re right, Elsie, them that doesn’t ask never gets!’

  A few weeks after her meeting with Mr Featherstone Agnes got her much-deserved compassionate leave. When she found a leave pass sitting in her pigeonhole she was so stunned she couldn’t stop shaking.

  ‘Two days! TWO DAYS!’ she gasped incredulously.

  ‘That’s all we can spare,’ Lillian teased. ‘Then we want you back, bossing us about on the bomb line!’

  Agnes threw her arms about Lillian.

  ‘I’m so, so happy,’ she said on the verge of tears.

  Lillian hugged her tightly. How could she have ever thought Agnes was stern and miserable? She was one of the best and kindest women she had ever met. But there was no doubt about her dress sense; it was unquestionably the worst Lillian had ever seen!

  Disentangling herself from Agnes’s embrace, Lillian said firmly, ‘Now, Agnes, we’ve got to get you smartened up. We don’t want you arriving in Keswick looking like you work down a coal mine, do we?’

  Agnes took off her glasses to wipe tears of laughter from her eyes.

  ‘Honestly, Lillian, only you would think of clothes at a moment like this!’

  ‘She might be thinking frocks but I’m thinking food,’ Emily said with a secret smile. ‘Chocolate truffles for Esther.’

  ‘CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES!’ hooted Elsie. ‘How do you plan to magic them up?’

  Emily smiled as she gave a knowing wink.

  ‘Mock chocolate,’ she replied. ‘All I need is a bit of marzipan, golden syrup and cocoa powder, some breadcrumbs – and all your sugar rations!’ she ended with a peal of laughter.

  ‘And maybe a little book you could read to Esther at bedtime,’ Alice suggested. ‘I’m sure I’ve got an old copy of Grimms’ fairy tales at home.’

  ‘I’ve got nowt to give the wee bairn,’ Elsie said candidly. ‘But when she gets here I could teach you a right bonny lullaby.’

  Smiling, Agnes held out her arms to embrace all her friends.

  ‘I promise you Esther will love you all as much as I do!’ she cried.

  On a chilly December morning Agnes stood at Clitheroe station looking quite unlike she’d ever looked before. Wearing a borrowed pale blue hat and coat of Alice’s and carrying Lillian’s best leather handbag, she looked a good ten years younger.

  ‘Don’t forget to wear your glasses when you’re on the train,’ Emily said. ‘You don’t want to miss the view of the mountains.’

  Agnes winked as she patted her glasses tucked away in her coat pocket.

  ‘They’re right here. Lillian said they ruined my new image. I’ll put them on the minute she’s out of sight,’ she said with a low chuckle.

  Emily and Alice handed over their gifts for Esther: Emily’s home-made mock-chocolate truffles which they’d spent all their sugar allowance on, wrapped in pretty paper and decorated with coloured string, and Alice’s old battered copy of Grimms’ fairy tales.

  ‘I hope the big bad wolf doesn’t frighten her to death!’ Alice giggled.

  ‘Give Esther our love!’ Elsie said.

  A blast of black engine smoke sent the train shunting sharply forward.

  ‘Get in, be quick,’ urged Lillian as she hustled Agnes up the steps and into the train. ‘Enjoy yourself!’

  ‘Don’t forget to come back!’ joked Emily.

  ‘Take care,’ cried Alice.

  Agnes hung out of the open window and waved goodbye to Emily, Alice, Elsie and Lillian standing on the platform. Before she disappeared from view around a twist in the railway track Agnes blew them kisses.

  ‘THANK YOU!’ she cried as the train gathered momentum.

  Sitting back against her scratchy upholstered seat, Agnes put on her glasses and gazed out of the window. Joy bubbled like a fizzy drink all the way through her. After months and months of waiting she was only two hours away from her beloved daughter. But now their meeting was a reality what would Agnes tell her little girl if she asked about her father? Esther had still been a baby, not even two years old when Stan had joined up and even then, at such an early age, she adored her father. Images of the horrific Pathé News footage floated into Agnes’s mind: walking dead men beaten into submission like dogs, hopeless and unloved. As the train hurtled north, Agnes gritted her teeth; she had to keep believing that none of them could be her Stan.

  The view from the window changed radically once they were past Preston and Chorley, the fertile Lancashire farmlands giving way to the first soft roll of the Cumbrian mountains which grew steeper as they passed Kendal then soared high and majestic as the train chuffed its way around Windermere. Agnes, who’d barely travelled outside of London, had never seen mountains so high or lakes so vast, and when she stepped off the train at the quaint Keswick station she gasped at the purity of the air. Esther could only thrive in such an environment. Following directions to the cottage hospital, Agnes hurried through the market town with its charming Moot Hall, then turned right towards Derwentwater; there she found the hospital surrounded by lawns that ran down to the edge of the lake.

  With her pulse racing with excitement and trepidation, Agnes found Esther’s ward, where she introduced herself to the doctor.

  ‘I have to be honest, Mrs Sharpe,’ the doctor said after the initial formalities. ‘Esther’s progress is slow and she’s distinctly timid about trying out anything new.’

  ‘She’s very young,’ Agnes replied defensively.

  The doctor smiled sympathetically.

  ‘We understand that, plus Esther was parted abruptly from both parents in a very short space of time. She’s been through a lot.’

&n
bsp; Agnes nodded as she bit back tears.

  ‘We’re hoping this long-awaited visit from you might increase Esther’s confidence,’ he said as he led Agnes to a window through which she could observe Esther working with her physiotherapist.

  Agnes’s heart skipped a beat as she watched her little girl intently working on exercising her left leg, which was strapped in a heavy metal calliper that caused her to walk with an uneven hopping gait. Agnes was surprised to see how much Esther had grown since she last saw her, though she was shocked at how thin and pale she was. Tears stung Agnes’s eyes as Esther kept anxiously reaching out for her stick, but the physiotherapist was discouraging her from using it. Esther valiantly struggled on but she wobbled nervously as she tried to balance her body weight against the calliper.

  She’s so young, so small and vulnerable, thought Agnes.

  Unable to wait a minute longer, she hurried to the treatment room.

  ‘Esther … darling,’ she whispered as she pushed open the door and held out her arms to her daughter.

  Esther let out a cry of pure joy as she fell into her mother’s open arms.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy!’ she sobbed.

  Weeping with joy, Agnes buried her face in Esther’s tumbling dark hair, inhaling for the first time for over a year the sweet young smell of her. Her hands travelled down the child’s back where she could feel every bony vertebra. God, she really was thin!

  Unable to believe her eyes, Esther said, ‘Mummy! You’ve come at last.’

  Agnes, brimming with love and happiness, stroked Esther’s hair and kissed away the tears on her damp cheeks.

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ she soothed. ‘Everything’s all right … Mummy’s here.’

  When both of them finally stopped crying Agnes borrowed a wheelchair from the ward. Esther instantly hopped into it.

  ‘Come on, cherub, let’s go for a walk,’ said Agnes with a radiant smile.

  Even though it was a cold winter’s day Agnes pushed Esther in her wheelchair around the shores of Derwentwater until it went dark. Neither of them wanted the day to end. Every time Agnes asked Esther if she was cold or hungry her daughter just laughed.

  ‘Keep on walking, Mummy, keep on talking.’

  Starved of each other’s company for so long, they laughed as they sang Esther’s favourite nursery rhymes from her baby days.

  ‘Bye, baby bunting, daddy’s gone a-hunting,’ Esther chanted. ‘Has Daddy really gone hunting, Mummy?’ she asked, her dark eyes big with anxiety.

  ‘Yes,’ Agnes replied staunchly. ‘He’s gone hunting but he’s a big strong Daddy so he’ll come back soon, safe and sound,’ she reassured her daughter.

  As Agnes and Esther stood by the shore of Derwentwater watching the sun go down, Mr Featherstone sat in his office at the Phoenix scowling at a bomb-assembly manual that was written entirely in French.

  ‘And what exactly are we expected to do with this?’ he snapped at Marjorie, his secretary, as he irritably flicked the manual she’d presented to him. ‘Who in God’s name speaks French round here?’

  ‘We could make a tannoy announcement in the factory and see if we can find somebody who does,’ Marjorie replied.

  ‘Make it right away, Marjorie,’ said Mr Featherstone. ‘The longer we take to find a translator the longer the delay on the bomb line.’

  Five minutes later Marjorie’s prim tones boomed up and down the assembly lines.

  ‘If there is anybody fluent in the French language could they please make themselves known to Mr Featherstone immediately.’

  Emily, standing next to Alice at the conveyor belt, gave her friend a dig in the ribs. ‘You speak French. Off you go!’ she laughed.

  Having got permission from the temporary supervisor to leave her section, Alice hurried to the manager’s office, wiping her yellow cordite-stained hands on her white overalls as she did so.

  ‘I’m fluent in French,’ she told her boss nervously as she stood before his desk eyeing the manual he was pushing towards her.

  Mr Featherstone nodded; he liked the look of this elegant little lass with her bright smile and stunning silver-grey eyes.

  ‘Don’t ask me how we finished up with a French manual for English shell cases,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Somebody somewhere got their wires crossed. Sure you can manage it?’

  Alice turned the pages of the hefty manual and nodded.

  ‘It’s mostly technical and has a lot of English words, so it shouldn’t be too complicated,’ she replied confidently. ‘I’ll work on it when I’ve finished my shift tonight,’ she added.

  ‘No, you won’t!’ Mr Featherstone replied forcefully. ‘You’ll work on it right now, right here in my office. Marjorie!’ he called. ‘Tea and biscuits for Alice – right away.’

  It was pleasant sitting in the manager’s warm office with a fire crackling in the black grate and a big brass clock ticking away on the wall. Alice quickly forgot about Mr Featherstone and Marjorie bustling in the background as she lost herself in the French text. It wasn’t just a question of translating the document; she had to make absolutely sure that she accurately understood the intricacies of the bomb-assembly instructions so she chose her words with great care. One wrong word could lead to an explosion on the assembly line or, worse still, an incorrectly assembled bomb that failed to go off when fired on the front line.

  When Marjorie and Mr Featherstone bade her a good night Alice stayed on.

  At the end of their ten o’clock shift Elsie, Lillian and Emily came to take Alice back to their digs.

  ‘Come on, bedtime,’ Emily urged but Alice shook her head.

  ‘I’ve got to get this done by the morning,’ she said. ‘It’s really important.’

  Dawn found Alice slumped over the fully translated text. She awoke with a start as the brass clock struck six, and shivered; with the fire out the office was cold and chilly. Leaving the translated text on Mr Featherstone’s desk, Alice hurried back to her digs where she had a hot bath, a mug of sweet tea, then a few hours’ sleep before she was back on the assembly line.

  In his office Mr Featherstone read through Alice’s English assembly instructions and smiled.

  ‘With skills like this,’ he said to his secretary as he tapped the hefty pile of papers Alice had so efficiently translated, ‘that little lass is wasted down on the factory floor. I tell you, Marjorie, that young Alice Massey is made for much finer things!’

  During her whirlwind visit Agnes spent a lot of time boosting Esther’s confidence when she worked with her physiotherapist. As little Esther wobbled and swayed without the support of her stick, Agnes had an idea.

  ‘Let’s do it with Dolly.’

  Holding Esther’s little knitted doll, Agnes placed her feet on a flat surface.

  ‘Look how clever she is, she can lift her good leg, then when that’s nice and steady she can swing her poorly leg and she won’t fall over because her strong leg is keeping her upright.’

  As Agnes demonstrated the exercise several times, Esther smiled.

  ‘Clever Dolly!’ she said as she picked her up and kissed her.

  ‘Now you show Dolly how to walk without wobbling,’ Agnes urged.

  The physiotherapist winked at Agnes as she said, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  When they were on their own Esther put Dolly through her paces.

  ‘But her polio leg is still thin and poorly,’ she said sadly.

  Agnes hunkered down to be on the same level as Esther.

  ‘I promise you it will get better and stronger with the hospital medicine and the physiotherapy.’ She helped Esther to her feet. ‘Let’s all do the exercises together with Dolly.’

  By the end of the session they were laughing at each other as Agnes hopped on one leg and Esther walked with some significant improvement.

  ‘You’re hopping, Mummy. Use both legs, no cheating,’ Esther giggled as she repeated the words her mother had said to her.

  ‘You’re doing better than me because you’ve
got clever Dolly,’ Agnes replied.

  Esther rubbed the woollen toy against her pale cheek.

  ‘Can Dolly stay and do physiotherapy with me?’ she said softly.

  ‘Of course, darling,’ Agnes replied with a catch in her voice. ‘You can both help each other to get better.’

  All too soon Esther and Agnes were enjoying their last day together, they’d hired a boat and were rowing out to the island in the middle of Derwentwater where they planned to have a picnic, even though it was icy cold and there was snow in the air. Over fish paste sandwiches and a flask of hot tea they talked about the future.

  ‘Will Daddy come home soon,’ Esther asked.

  ‘He might do, sweetheart, God willing,’ Agnes replied. ‘We just have to keep hoping and praying he’s safe and well.’

  ‘Will God let you stay here with me, Mummy?’ Esther asked sadly.

  Feeling like her heart would burst with grief, Agnes gathered her daughter into her arms and kissed her soft dark curls.

  ‘Not yet, darling, but soon, I promise. Mummy will see you more often now and you can come and visit her at the factory where she works; it’s not that far away.’

  Seeing Esther’s dark eyes fill with tears of disappointment, Agnes tried to lighten her load with a joke.

  ‘And guess what?’ she said. ‘I have four best friends: Emily, Alice, Elsie and Lillian.’

  Intrigued, Esther said, ‘Tell me about them.’

  ‘Well there’s Emily, she’s a great cook; she made those chocolate truffles for you,’ said Agnes with a smile. ‘Then there’s Alice, she’s the clever one, and she can speak French nearly as well as she can speak English. Elsie is the sweetest, kindest lady in the world, and Lillian is funny and really cheeky!’

  Esther burst out laughing at her mother’s lively description of her friends.

  ‘Where do you all live, Mummy?’ she asked.

  Agnes smiled as she replied, ‘A cowshed on the moors!’

  Esther’s eyes opened wide with amazement.

  ‘A cowshed!’ she laughed. ‘With pooh?’

  Agnes shook her head.

  ‘No! We had to kick the cows out so me and my friends could move in!’ she joked.

  ‘I want to meet your new friends, Mummy,’ Esther said eagerly.