The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  When Gary saw the swing of her long dark hair, the twinkle in her big dark eyes and the smile that parted her full pouting mouth to reveal small white teeth, his heart skipped a beat. With trembling hands he offered her a cigarette.

  ‘Good morning to you. I’m Gary.’

  ‘Hi! I’m Lillian,’ she squeaked, hardly able to speak.

  ‘I’m from Ohio,’ he added with a grin.

  ‘I’m from Bradford,’ she replied, then said with a contagious giggle, ‘We should have plenty in common!’

  During that first unforgettable meeting, with the strains of ‘When They Begin the Beguine’ weaving its way through their conversation, Lillian learned that Gary, who she later described as ‘the spit of Frank Sinatra – but taller and blond’, had never been posted so far north since his arrival in England.

  ‘I’ll give you a tour of the area when you’ve time,’ she instantly volunteered.

  ‘That would be an honour, ma’am,’ he replied with a slow smile.

  ‘When he smiled I swear to God the earth moved,’ Lillian told her pals later.

  Hearing his superior officer shouting to him, Gary shot to his feet and, standing before Lillian, he gave her a quick-smart salute that made her heart lurch.

  ‘May I see you again, ma’am?’ he said with the utmost civility.

  Lillian just about managed to squeeze out a reply, though she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Any time, Gary from Ohio!’

  And with that he gave her a final grin and was off. Back at the digs Lillian went into overdrive.

  ‘He is gorrrrgeous,’ she told Emily, Elsie and Agnes. ‘Gorgeous Gary from Ohio!’

  It was hard for her friends to take Lillian’s new crush seriously.

  ‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve never met a man more perfect.’

  Agnes smiled ruefully.

  ‘I bet he’s perfect,’ she said. ‘The Yanks, unlike us Brits who’ve been on food rationing since 1939, aren’t starved of milk and meat and eggs, so no wonder they all look so fit and their teeth are shiny white. We’re short of protein and calcium and undernourished by comparison.’

  Lillian shrugged as she snatched Elsie up and started dancing her around the room, all the while singing ‘When They Begin the Beguine’.

  ‘This is our song,’ she said dreamily.

  Still raw from her affair with sweet-talking Freddie and its heartbreaking repercussions, Emily shook her head at Lillian blissfully waltzing around the sitting room.

  ‘I can’t believe you, of all people, getting carried away by a Yank,’ she said over Lillian’s loud singing. ‘You know what they say: over here, overpaid and oversexed!’

  Unruffled by Emily’s harsh words, Lillian replied without breaking the tempo of her steps.

  ‘Gorgeous Gary from Ohio’s not like that, just you wait and see!’

  Gary searched Lillian out, and every time he came to the Phoenix they found time to be together, first for a cigarette and a chat, then, as he extended his stay, for long walks on the moors, where they lay kissing in the deep heather.

  Their love bloomed and the force of it blew Lillian away; she had never known such emotion in her life. A worldly woman who thought she could handle any situation, she was weak at the sight of Gorgeous Gary from Ohio, as she always called him with a smile on her lips.

  One afternoon, alone in the digs with the blackout blinds rolled down, Lillian received her first gift from Gary: a bottle of American scent. Called Mary Chess White Lilac, it was exotically different from Lavender Water, the only perfume commonly available in Britain during the war years.

  Lillian opened the bottle and inhaled the heady perfume then, smiling, she leaned back on the sofa.

  ‘Put some perfume on me,’ she said in a low, husky voice.

  Gary’s deep blue eyes grew wide with desire.

  ‘Sure, honey?’

  Lillian ran her hands through his wonderfully thick blond hair.

  ‘Never surer,’ she murmured.

  Gary sat back and looked into Lillian’s brown eyes, which were blazing with desire.

  ‘Honey, I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be posted here in the north, or where I’ll go next. Our squadron could go anywhere, and we’re only biding time here till we get orders to move on.’

  ‘Gary …’ she whispered. ‘I really don’t care.’

  Gary grasped her hands and slowly kissed each of her small fingers.

  ‘But I do,’ he said firmly. ‘I love you too much to play around.’

  Lillian looked him straight in the eye as she laid one of his hands on her right breast.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said simply. ‘I want to be with you for ever, and I don’t think either of us is playing around.’

  With his hand on Lillian’s full, firm breast, Gary was having trouble sticking to his argument. Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘What happens if I’m posted to an unknown destination tomorrow?’

  ‘Then I’ll wait.’

  ‘What happens if I don’t come back?’

  ‘Then I’ll have known love for the first time in my life and I won’t regret a thing,’ she said as she reached for the bottle of White Lilac. ‘Now, are you going to do as I ask or do I have to do it for myself?’

  Struggling to keep control of the passion raging inside him, Gary said, ‘I –’

  But Lillian stopped his mouth with her hand.

  ‘I love you, Gary from Ohio, come what may.’

  Gary started with a tiny dab behind her ears then ran his finger down the line of her neck and into her cleavage, where he slid his hand underneath her bra, slipping it off without any protest from Lillian. She reached up and pulled his face down onto her breasts, which he kissed; then, sweeping his palm over her slender ribcage, he kissed her navel and flat stomach.

  ‘Stop!’ Lillian said.

  She rose to her feet and led Gary down the corridor to her bedroom.

  ‘What about your housemates?’ he asked as she pushed him onto her bed. ‘Aren’t they due home soon?’

  Lillian smiled as she removed her underwear.

  ‘I gave them sixpence each to go to the chip shop in Pendle.’

  Smiling in anticipation, she climbed on top of Gary and whispered in his ear, ‘Darling, they won’t be home for hours!’

  As Lillian and Gary’s romance bloomed, and even though he and Lillian were no longer an item, Malc became both irritated and humiliated by their public shows of affection. Because he had no right to pick on Lillian in particular, he picked on the whole cordite line instead.

  ‘Late this morning, ladies,’ he’d say peevishly when they weren’t.

  Or, ‘Taking an early break?’ as the girls rushed out, eager for their first cuppa of the shift.

  ‘He’s picking on the lot of us because of Lillian taking up with Gary,’ Emily pointed out.

  ‘It’s none of his bloody business who I see,’ Lillian seethed.

  ‘You’re rubbing his nose in it,’ Agnes said. ‘Rushing across the canteen floor and throwing your arms around Gary every time he walks into the Phoenix.’

  Lillian bridled at Agnes’s criticism.

  ‘Haven’t you ever been in love, Agnes?’ she snapped.

  Agnes’s face grew pale with anger but she kept her composure.

  ‘Yes, with my husband, since you ask,’ she replied with icy calm.

  Lillian blushed to the roots of her long dark hair.

  ‘Agnes, I’m sorry!’ she blurted out as she grabbed her friend’s hand. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘That’s the point, Lil. You’re not thinking about anything or anybody but Gary,’ Agnes replied.

  Elsie, who hated any kind of trouble, looked at Lillian imploringly.

  ‘At least hold back on your canoodling when Malc’s around,’ she begged. ‘He still carries a flame for you, pet.’

  Lillian rolled her eyes.

  ‘Malc’s long gone; it�
�s time he got over it.’

  ‘He’s quite capable of turning nasty, Lil,’ Emily pointed out.

  ‘He could get you into trouble with the boss, pet,’ Elsie fretted.

  Lillian looked at her friends and smiled.

  ‘It’s about time Malc took a long walk off a short pier!’ she said with a loud laugh.

  Emily was right; Malc did turn nasty. There wasn’t a day went by when he didn’t walk slowly down the cordite line checking the girls’ every movement.

  ‘Is that shell packed tight?’

  ‘How many cases have you filled this morning?’

  ‘Speed it up, ladies, we’re not on our holidays,’ he’d say sarcastically.

  Luckily, under Agnes’s experienced eye, her team didn’t put a foot wrong.

  ‘Ignore him, concentrate on the job, hum along to the music, think of something else if he starts,’ Agnes advised her section.

  Surprisingly it was Emily who broke the stalemate. Increasingly depressed and missing Alice more than she could ever have imagined, Emily couldn’t stand Malc prowling up and down, watching them pack cordite into the shell cases.

  ‘As you would say, Lillian, he’s really getting on my tits!’ Emily giggled.

  ‘He got on my tits long ago!’ Lillian laughed.

  The situation blew one morning as the girls sang along to George Formby’s ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ on the factory radio. Malc was peering over their shoulders and making comments that caused the hairs on the back of Emily’s neck to stand on end as he approached.

  ‘Whilst you’re fooling around singing along to bloody George Formby, our boys are dying on the front line for lack of bombs and ammo. Get your fingers out!’ he almost shouted.

  It was poor little Elsie who broke under the pressure of his words, and it was ironic that it should have been her as she was without doubt his favourite little lass. Bursting into tears, she sobbed.

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Malc. My husband’s one of them boys on the front line and I would rather die than not do my job for King and country!’

  Gathering herself together, she turned to Agnes and said, ‘Excuse me.’ Then, without another word, she fled across the factory floor.

  Before Agnes could say a word to Malc, who was visibly shaken by gentle Elsie’s reaction, Emily totally lost it.

  ‘How could you say such a thing when Elsie’s out of her mind with worry about Tommy?’ she raged.

  ‘She’s not heard from him since they got married,’ Agnes icily pointed out.

  Malc looked uncomfortable but he pretended to shrug it off.

  ‘It’s not my job to keep track of everybody’s relationship.’

  Emily stormed towards Malc.

  ‘Emily, don’t!’ Lillian warned as she tried to grab her by the arm, but Emily was well past cautioning.

  ‘You’ve been breathing down our necks for weeks, picking and criticizing everything we do. If you’ve got a gripe, be a man and spit it out instead of intimidating the workers.’

  Malc’s dark bushy eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Are you accusing me of intimidation in the workplace, Miss Yates?’

  ‘Yes!’ Emily replied without a moment’s hesitation.

  Behind her back, Agnes groaned.

  ‘Oh, no, now she’s done it.’

  Furious Malc eyeballed equally furious Emily for a few seconds before he snarled, ‘I think you need to air your grievances with Mr Featherstone, young lady.’

  ‘I think I do!’ Emily retorted.

  After her long meeting with Malc and Mr Featherstone Emily returned to the digs to find her friends anxiously awaiting her.

  ‘What happened?’ Lillian, Elsie and Agnes cried in unison as Emily walked through the door.

  ‘Case to be considered,’ said Emily as she sank into a chair. ‘Suspended until the case has been decided,’ she added grimly.

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s one way of getting off work,’ Lillian joked.

  ‘Oh, Em, you should never have gone and defended me,’ said Elsie, on the brink of tears.

  Emily smiled at her sweet, anguished face.

  ‘It wasn’t just you, lovie,’ she answered softly. ‘He’s been looking for a fight since Lil took up with Gary.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you just have ignored the narky sod?’ Lillian asked.

  Emily slumped further back into the chair.

  ‘I dunno. He just pushed me too far.’

  ‘What’re you going to do now?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ Emily replied. ‘I’ve got to leave the Phoenix.’

  Elsie smiled as she tried to look on the bright side.

  ‘It’ll be nice to spend some time at home, pet,’ she said.

  Emily shook her head.

  ‘I’m not letting on to Mum and Dad about this,’ she said. ‘I’m going to see Alice … She’ll talk some sense into me!’

  ‘But we don’t know where she is,’ Agnes pointed out.

  ‘She said if we sent mail to the War Office it would be forwarded to her. I’ll write today,’ Emily replied.

  Sweet, generous Elsie looked wide-eyed at Emily.

  ‘Do you need any money for the train fare to visit her?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m all right, lovie. I’ve got a bit saved up,’ Emily replied with a hint of her old smile. ‘It’s not like there’s much to spend your money on in Pendle!’

  Emily’s letter went off and the War Office must have forwarded it immediately because very soon Emily received a telegram from Alice saying she had been granted a short leave. Emily’s blue eyes sparkled with excitement as she scanned the telegram.

  ‘I’m going to see Alice in London!’ she told her friends.

  ‘I hope you’ll come back happier,’ Lillian teased. ‘I’ve had enough of your mopey moods!’

  The day Emily left was unusually mild for the time of year, and Lillian and Gary took advantage of their free time to walk on the moor.

  ‘Tell me about how you grew up,’ Lillian said as they lay in a bed of warm heather near Witch Crag.

  ‘Why?’ he teased as he tickled her cheeks with a prickly fern leaf.

  ‘Because I want to imagine what it’ll be like when we bring up our children in America,’ she replied honestly.

  ‘And who said a cheeky little Brit like you is going to the US of A?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘Wherever you go, I go!’

  He bent to gather her up in his arms.

  ‘That’s true, honey,’ he said as he pressed his lips to hers and felt the line of her little white teeth, which he parted so he could kiss her more deeply. ‘But …’ he added on a more serious note.

  ‘But what?’ she asked sharply. ‘You’re already wed?’

  Gary threw back his handsome blond head and hooted at the idea.

  ‘No way, babe. I’ve been waiting all my life for you.’

  ‘So what’s the but … ?’

  The smile fell from his face to be replaced by a still, thoughtful expression. ‘There’s a war on, sweetheart.’

  ‘That must be why I’m doing a seventy-hour week packing bomb cases!’ she joked.

  ‘No kidding, Lil,’ he retorted. ‘We don’t know when this damn war will end, and I could be called away like that,’ he said, snapping his fingers with a hard click. ‘I told you, babe – my squadron is only posted up here whilst we wait for orders from the top. We’re a bomb squadron, so when the action kicks off we’ll be kept busy. And it won’t be on this side of the Channel,’ he ended bleakly.

  ‘But you’ll always come back to me, won’t you?’ she said, suddenly scared of what he might say next.

  He took hold of both her hands and stared deeply into her troubled brown eyes.

  ‘Listen very, very carefully to me, Lillian. I will always come back to you. Even if it takes me a lifetime, I will always come back.’

  Tears rolled unchecked down Lillian’s face. She could hardly speak for the emotion she felt, but she did manage to say the
words that would live with her through the long years ahead: ‘And I will always wait.’

  They clung onto each other as if they would never let go, then Gary said, as he kissed each of her eyelids, ‘Still wanna hear about Ohio?’

  ‘Yes!’ she laughed as she took his hankie and wiped away her tears.

  ‘It was a pretty perfect childhood,’ he said with a happy smile. ‘Our home was in the country, in a small town called Darcy, set in a valley surrounded by a mountain range and pine forests. Dad had a farm where we grew fruit, mostly apples and pears, and acre upon acre of potatoes.’

  Lillian closed her eyes as she lay back in his arms and imagined a place half the world away where her beloved grew up.

  ‘Were you a naughty boy?’ she asked with a cheeky smile.

  ‘A little sod, as you would say,’ he laughed. ‘There are five of us, three boys, two girls, and we all helped out on the farm. I loved it. Climbing trees, playing in the big barn, horse-riding, skiing –’

  Lillian sat bolt upright.

  ‘Skiing on snow?’ she gasped.

  ‘Sure, you great doodle,’ he teased. ‘There’s plenty of snow in the mountains of Ohio. I always wanted to join the air force and travel,’ he continued. ‘When the war started in Europe I couldn’t wait to get over here and get in the thick of the fighting.’

  Lillian gazed dreamily up into the vast blue sky where a goshawk hovered, quivering overhead.

  ‘The US Air Force brought you to me and the US Air Force will take you away from me too,’ she said prophetically.

  She was right. Suddenly and without a word of warning, just as Gary had predicted, the US servicemen were withdrawn from the temporary delivery work they’d been doing at the Phoenix. At first Lillian assumed they’d just changed shift patterns, but when British soldiers drove up with the amatol consignment and drove away with the explosives, Lillian questioned them.

  ‘Yanks have been withdrawn from service,’ she was told.

  ‘I can see that!’ Lillian snapped when they stated the obvious. ‘Do you know where they’ve been posted?’ she asked, on the verge of tears.