The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘Stick around, kid, and find out,’ Emily said with a knowing smile.

  Lillian organized a popular swing band from Bradford to play for the evening.

  ‘We’ll pay them out of the takings,’ she said confidently.

  Agnes, Elsie and Esther helped decorate the canteen with bunting and Union Jacks, whilst Daphne and Lillian stacked away all the metal tables and chairs so there was a large enough space for dancing.

  Emily was in her element in the kitchen, where Esther soon joined her, eager to help with rolling out the pastry. Emily gently simmered minced meat in a pan, stirred in Oxo cubes and onions, then bulked out the mixture with carrots and potatoes, adding a bit of gravy browning to give it depth, and a generous sprinkle of wild herbs freshly picked from the moors that morning.

  ‘Mmm, it smells good!’ Esther said as she sniffed the bubbling pan.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s roll the pastry whilst the meat cools down,’ said Emily.

  The pastry was made with brown flour, white lard and as much shin-beef dripping as Emily could scrounge from the canteen cook, and to add moisture she added mashed potato and milk; then she rolled it carefully on a well-floured board. She and Esther made over a dozen huge savoury mince and onion pies, which Emily intended to cook during the dancing so that she could serve the food fresh and piping hot.

  Excitement increased as preparations heightened. Esther was thrilled when the Bradford Swing Band arrived early to set up and rehearse. As they struck up ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’, she danced all through the number, regardless of her calliper, and received a standing ovation from the band.

  ‘I’m going to be a dancer when I grow up,’ she announced.

  ‘Move over, Ginger Rogers, is all I’ve got to say,’ said Lillian as she picked the little girl up and swung her round the floor to ‘In the Mood’.

  Only one thing dampened Emily’s anticipation of the dance night and that was Freddie Bilodeau. He would inevitably be there along with all the other Canadian servicemen, now well established in the nearby airfield.

  ‘I wish we could stop Freddie from coming,’ she said as they hung bunting in the canteen.

  Lillian, balanced on a ladder, said, ‘We can’t ban him on the grounds that he’s a bastard!’

  ‘I know,’ Emily answered. ‘I just wish he’d drop off the edge of the universe so that I never have to see him again.’

  ‘No chance. Where there’re women there’ll be Freddie Bilodeau,’ said Lillian knowingly.

  ‘Who is this wretched Casanova character?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘The man I cheated on Bill with,’ Emily said miserably.

  ‘Only to discover he’s a womanizer,’ Elsie added.

  ‘Believe me, he’s been through half the workforce,’ said Agnes.

  Emily cringed as she covered her ears.

  ‘STOP!’ she cried. ‘I made such a fool of myself.’

  ‘Darling, we’ve all been fools for love,’ Daphne said as she passed yards of bunting up to Lillian.

  ‘But this fella’s not worth the heartache,’ Elsie said indignantly. ‘He behaves like he’s cock of the roost.’

  ‘My dear, you say the quaintest things,’ Daphne laughed.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Elsie replied. ‘He’s only out for what he can get.’

  Daphne and Lillian exchanged a mischievous look.

  ‘Mmm,’ Daphne said. ‘Maybe it’s about time Mr Fancy Pants Bilodeau was taught a lesson.’

  Agnes and Elsie declined invitations to the dance, preferring to spend the evening in the digs with their children, but it didn’t stop them helping their friends get ready.

  Agnes ironed their rather dated dance dresses.

  ‘What wouldn’t I give for a new frock?’ Lillian sighed as she repaired a rip in the sleeve of her dress.

  ‘You could’ve knocked one up in no time,’ Elsie laughed.

  ‘Oh, yeah! Done an Olivia de Havilland and made a new ball gown out of the curtains,’ Lillian mocked.

  Elsie polished their shoes until they shone, Daphne did their make-up and Lillian washed and set everybody’s hair, including Esther’s, which she brushed into an elegant chignon.

  ‘You all look lovely!’ Esther cried as Lillian, Emily and Daphne paraded up and down the sitting room in their party attire.

  ‘I just hope I don’t get mushy peas down the front of my best dress,’ Emily joked.

  Freddie did arrive, with a large crowd of airmen who made a beeline for the bar then headed eagerly onto the dance floor. He saw Emily straight away – who could miss the blue-eyed beauty with the flaming hair? – but he chose to blank her, for which she was deeply grateful. Taking the hand of a small pretty girl who Emily recognized from the packing department, he swung onto the dance floor, showing off his great body as he moved in sync with the music.

  Sighing, Emily made her way into the kitchen. In fact she was happy to spend most of the night preparing food for the revellers who she knew would be starving come nine o’clock. Hopefully, Freddie would leave early with his girlfriend; he’d probably take her back to his love shack, the stable where he would seduce her, as he had so many before.

  Through the serving hatch, Emily saw Lillian wink at Daphne then nod in the direction of Freddie, who had returned to the crowded bar. Waving her cigarette holder, Daphne sashayed up to the bar, where she asked for a gin and lime. As she turned her back and walked away, Freddie’s eyes widened at the sight of her swaying, shapely bottom in her tightly-fitted red dance dress. Leaving his drink on the bar, Freddie quickly followed Daphne to the edge of the dance floor.

  ‘Hey, are you new round here?’ he asked.

  Daphne turned her exquisitely made-up face to him and smiled languidly.

  ‘Not exactly. I’ve just been incarcerated in the munitions factory for months,’ she replied with a seductive smile.

  ‘What a waste!’ he said with a twinkle in his charming eyes. ‘With a body like yours you should be in the movies.’

  Daphne batted her false eyelashes.

  ‘How kind,’ she drawled.

  Ignoring his waiting partner, Freddie held out his hand to Daphne.

  ‘Care to dance, honey?’

  Through the serving hatch Emily watched Daphne and Freddie take to the dance floor.

  ‘What is she up to?’ she hissed to Lillian, who popped her head through the hatch and laughed at Emily’s astonished expression.

  ‘Teaching lover boy a lesson,’ Lillian replied.

  Knowing how anarchic Lillian could be, Emily eyed her nervously.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  Lillian smiled and winked.

  ‘Wait and see …’

  Clearly enchanted by Daphne and oblivious of the now rather upset pretty girl he’d started the evening with, Freddie danced the foxtrot, the waltz and the square tango with his new partner, then excelled at the jitterbug.

  ‘Is there nothing you can’t do?’ Daphne gushed.

  ‘With a gorgeous girl like you in my arms I could fly!’ Freddie announced as the band struck up another jive number.

  Before she could protest, Freddie swung flabbergasted Daphne over his shoulder, then with a deft flick he brought her back down and spun her around before sliding her between his legs.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ gasped Daphne.

  In the kitchen Emily and Lillian were rocking with laughter.

  ‘I think I just saw our Daphne’s camiknickers!’ Emily gasped.

  ‘I think I just saw what she had for breakfast!’ Lillian giggled.

  To the Andrews Sisters’ ‘Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar’, Freddie continued to spin, throw and catch Daphne, who, with dishevelled hair and crumpled dress, was beginning to look more like a scarecrow than a glamour girl.

  ‘Poor kid!’ howled Lillian. ‘She hadn’t reckoned on being thrown about like a rag doll.’

  ‘From the look in her eyes, she’s ready to kill Freddie,’ said Emily.

  ‘Well, that’d make two of
you, wouldn’t it?’ said Lillian.

  Finally the dance number finished.

  ‘Grub’s up, so we’ll take a break!’ said the hungry band leader. ‘Best meat and potato pie this side of the Pennines.’

  As Emily and Lillian dished up supper, they spotted Freddie leading Daphne out of the canteen.

  ‘Where are they off to?’ Emily asked.

  Behind the steaming meat pies, Lillian winked.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Gorgeous grub, love,’ said appreciative airmen as they tucked into Emily’s delicious home-made food.

  ‘You should open a shop, honey,’ one of them said.

  Emily smiled.

  ‘Maybe I will one day,’ she replied.

  Meanwhile, out on the dark moors, Freddie was keen to get Daphne into the stables he so favoured for his lovemaking but she persuaded him into walking to Witch Crag.

  ‘It was used by the Pendle Witches,’ she said alluringly. ‘It has magic powers,’ she added, holding his hand as she led him along the narrow moorland track.

  With only one thing on his mind, Freddie followed like a lamb to the slaughter.

  ‘It’s kinda isolated,’ he said as he breathed heavily in her wake.

  ‘Just us and the stars,’ she replied beguilingly.

  ‘Sounds good to me, honey,’ he replied.

  Once on the rather blustery crag, which Daphne had explored only the day before with Lillian, there was no holding Freddie back.

  ‘God, you’re driving me crazy,’ he gasped as they lay down together. ‘I gotta have you, babe,’ he said as he threw off his jacket.

  Daphne responded convincingly to his kisses, letting him reach up her skirt, and as he fiddled with her suspenders she huskily suggested that he removed his trousers.

  ‘We’re not going to have much fun if you’re wearing those, are we?’ she teased.

  Freddie’s trousers quickly joined his shirt and jacket on the heather. Daphne had no problem in whipping off his underpants, by which time Freddie was begging for it.

  ‘C’mon, get your clothes off,’ he cried impatiently.

  Daphne stood up and, whilst pretending to loosen her bra, she cast her eyes around the dark moor.

  ‘Speed it up, babe,’ Freddie implored.

  As he reached to pull her down on top of him, a light flashed from a gravel track that ran alongside Witch Crag. Freddie was too far gone to notice but Daphne certainly saw it. In a blink, she grabbed Freddie’s clothes then ran across the moors as if the devil were on her heels.

  ‘Oi!’ bellowed Freddie as he sprang to his feet and gave chase.

  Daphne, clothed and shod, made better progress along the twisting narrow path than naked Freddie, who tripped over spindly heather roots, cutting his feet and legs.

  ‘Bitch! Come back!’ he shrieked.

  Waiting on the gravel track was a grinning Malc, who’d kept his promise to pick up Daphne on his mate’s motorbike and sidecar.

  ‘Hop on before lover boy catches you!’ he chuckled.

  Sitting in the sidecar, breathless Daphne reached into her bag and pulled out a Kodak Brownie. It was far too dark to line up the shot but she aimed the camera in the direction of Freddie’s furious roars then hit the flash. As the livid jilted lover bore down on her, Daphne threw his clothes into the heather whilst Malc, revving at full throttle, burned down the track. Freddie was left scrambling for his trousers and muttering foul curses that would have made his mother weep.

  A few days later, as soon as the photograph was printed, a smiling Daphne returned to the digs and, in front of all the girls, presented it to Emily with the negative.

  ‘Payback time!’ she said with a laugh.

  Emily gasped in shock then burst out laughing.

  ‘How on earth?’ she cried.

  ‘Lillian and I hatched a little plan,’ Daphne told her.

  Emily turned to Lillian in amazement.

  ‘So that’s what you were up to! I knew there was something going on.’

  ‘Actually, we all knew about it,’ Agnes said with a smile. ‘Even Esther – not all the gory details, obviously,’ she quickly added.

  ‘He had it coming,’ said Elsie. ‘Mebbe he’ll mend his dirty ways after this.’

  ‘Want to see a photograph of Fancy Pants Freddie Bilodeau stark bollock naked?’ Daphne teased.

  Elsie blushed as she covered her eyes.

  ‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘Tommy would never forgive me.’

  ‘I’m not shy,’ said Lillian as she grabbed the photograph and scanned it appraisingly. ‘He’s certainly got all the tackle!’

  ‘Will you shurrup before I die of embarrassment!’ Elsie pleaded, though in truth she was laughing so much that tears were pouring down her face.

  Emily looked at the photograph, not quite as appreciatively as Lillian, and shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘How did you get him to take his clothes off?’ she asked.

  Daphne rolled her eyes.

  ‘Darling, do credit me with some sex appeal! He started to strip the minute we reached Witch Crag.’

  ‘You must have been egging him on a bit,’ Agnes said with a wide smile.

  ‘Of course I was!’ Daphne exclaimed. ‘But I was worried sick that Malc wouldn’t show up – otherwise I’d certainly have been rogered right there and then on the spot!’

  ‘Malc’s turned out to be our knight in shining armour,’ Elsie said fondly. ‘He’s always there when you need him.’

  ‘You know, now you’ve seriously hurt Freddie’s pride he might come back for vengeance,’ Agnes pointed out.

  Lillian snorted with laughter.

  ‘We’ve hurt more than his pride! With this photograph we could blackmail him till he flies back to where he came from.’

  Emily smiled at her naughty, scheming friends.

  ‘One thing’s for sure – I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of you two!’ she joked.

  For all their laughing and joking, there was a sadness in Emily’s pale blue eyes.

  ‘Out with it, darling,’ Daphne said as she gave her friend a quick poke in the ribs.

  ‘It’s so humiliating to think I fell so easily for a sex maniac like Freddie,’ Emily confessed. ‘I hate myself for it.’

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ Lillian said as she handed her a cigarette. ‘For God’s sake, look at me!’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t ditch a good man for a waste of space,’ Emily said as she lit up a Woodbine and deeply inhaled.

  ‘Come along now,’ Daphne said briskly. ‘This exercise wasn’t carried out in order to make you miserable.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Emily. ‘I am grateful to you for setting Freddie up. Like Elsie said, he had it coming.’

  ‘So …’ said Daphne. ‘Would you like to do something for me, in exchange for risking my all on Witch Crag?’

  ‘Of course,’ Emily answered, then, seeing the mischievous gleam in Daphne’s eyes, she hesitated.

  ‘… As long as it doesn’t involve me running around Pendle moors stark naked?’

  Daphne paused and smiled as she looked Emily in the eye.

  ‘Darling, will you be my chief bridesmaid when I marry Rodders? He’s asked me, you know!’

  CHAPTER 27

  Claridge’s

  Daphne’s courtship with Rodders was unquestionably a whirlwind affair. After his flamboyant visit to the Phoenix Rodney didn’t seem to mind being dumped by one woman only to be picked up by another. In his ever-egotistical mind, the entire visit blurred into a beautiful romantic scenario. He’d had a wonderful time with Daphne on their first date on the moors; at least she’d responded to his kisses and not suggested they went for a walk! Daphne had managed a few visits south, where he’d introduced her to his parents in their country house in Wiltshire. Over port and cigars, his father had announced his opinion of Daphne.

  ‘Right out of the top drawer!’

  So that same evening, Rodney had taken her into the fragrant garden. There, by
the tinkling fountain adorned with sea nymphs and naked mermaids, he had, in his own words, ‘popped the question’ and Daphne, like the good girl she was, had accepted. Of course, the ‘Aged Ps’, as Rodney called his parents, had to be introduced to Daphne’s parents, who were certainly a little more risqué in their tastes and dress than the county set; but altogether it was a most acceptable arrangement.

  Back in the digs, Daphne was planning a very grand affair.

  ‘You’re being granted more compassionate leave than Montgomery!’ Lillian joked as Daphne packed her bag for an ‘urgent trip’ to London.

  ‘Darling, I’ve got an appointment with Hartnell that I can’t refuse,’ Daphne answered breezily.

  Everybody but sweet little Elsie knew exactly who Hartnell was, and as the others all looked stunned at the mention of his name, she turned to them with her usual characteristic innocence.

  ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

  ‘Only the best designer in England,’ Lillian replied.

  ‘He’s not designing our frocks too?’ Elsie gasped.

  ‘Depends how indulgent Daddy’s feeling,’ Daphne said as she snapped her crocodile-skin suitcase shut. ‘I can usually wrap him round my little finger, but since he got remarried to the daughter of Satan, I have to be very devious.’

  ‘Eeh, and there was I thinking I had the stepmother from hell,’ laughed Elsie.

  ‘Oh, you do, Elsie. You really, really do!’ Emily affirmed.

  ‘Well, this one’s a money-grabber and she loathes me,’ Daphne said. ‘But she fancies Rodney, so he can sweet-talk her whilst I twist every penny I can out of Pops,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘When will you be back?’ Agnes asked.

  Daphne clicked her heels and gave a Gestapo hand salute.

  ‘Just as soon as I can, boss!’

  There was a sense of disbelief across the nation as the war finally began to turn. With Mussolini arrested and the Fascist Italian government in pieces, Britain was no longer the underdog. But after four years of rationing, striving, fighting, hoping and grieving, the population were almost too tired to celebrate.

  In the Phoenix factory, as the shells rattled by and Workers’ Playtime belted out the top favourites – ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000’, ‘South of the Border’, ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’ and ‘This is the Army, Mr Jones’ – Elsie tried to cheer everybody up.