The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  Nevertheless it was a hard winter and a cold one too. The fact that after a long shift they could come home and light the wood burner with wood they’d gathered on the moors made an enormous difference. They didn’t have to sit hugging blankets like other women in draughty accommodation; they could light a fire that crackled and blazed as they set about making their shared tea. When the dark descended early and they pulled down the blackout blinds the girls felt like they were shutting out the world.

  ‘We’re a lot warmer than the poor Ukrainians on the front,’ Lillian said as they sat in their cosy sitting room, warming their hands around mugs of hot tea. ‘How cold must those poor buggers be?’

  ‘They’re giving the Germans a good run for their money,’ said Emily.

  ‘So are the Lancashire Fusiliers,’ said Elsie proudly. ‘Tommy’s in Naples now, you know.’

  ‘It’s good his letters are coming through,’ Agnes said.

  ‘He writes whenever he can and never fails to ask how little Jonty is,’ Elsie said with a proud smile.

  ‘And you write whenever you can, Elsie,’ Emily reminded her.

  ‘Yes, with a bit of help from my friends,’ Elsie laughed. ‘I am a bit of a dumb bugger!’ she added.

  ‘You’re not dumb,’ Emily insisted. ‘How could you learn to read and write if your dad never let you go to school?’

  ‘I’m learning now,’ Elsie said happily. ‘You’ve all been doing your bit, teaching me where Italy is – I can find Rome on the map now,’ she winked in Emily’s direction. ‘Agnes lent me some of Esther’s little reading books and they helped a lot. I didn’t have time for learning when I was growing up but I do now.’

  ‘I tell you what, next time you write to Tommy ask him to send us some of that gorgeous Neapolitan sunshine back in a bottle,’ joked Lillian.

  Elsie winked over her steaming mug of tea.

  ‘I will if you can tell me how to spell Neapolitan!’ she laughed.

  After the heaviest British air raid on Berlin, patriotism was high and the desire to help the brave lads on the front line was so intense that all the munitions girls at the Phoenix volunteered to do unpaid overtime.

  ‘It’s the least we can do when you think about it,’ said Agnes as they put in a fifteen-hour day, starting work in the dark and finishing in the dark too.

  ‘Good job Daphne left when she did!’ laughed Elsie.

  ‘We should have known that Flight Lieutenant Rodney Harston-Binge would keep her close to home.’

  They all missed Daphne: her wit, beauty, searing honesty, languid smile, long cigarette holder and her devilish sense of mischief. When her letters arrived, and she wrote a lot, in a flamboyant, elegant script on thick, embossed paper, they always read them together, sitting round the wood-burning stove in the digs.

  I miss you all so much, my darlings.

  It’s just that Rodders likes me at home, close to the home fires, so he can have his way with me whenever he’s on leave.

  ‘Still the same naughty Daphne,’ Elsie remarked.

  Don’t run away with the idea that I’m doing nothing for the war effort. Rodders found me a nice little job in the War Office where I’m surrounded by handsome officers from dawn till dusk! I have long lunches with them, which so improves their morale! I miss you, though, dearest friends, and, believe it or not, I miss the ghaaastly digs where I spent some of the happiest days of my life.

  On top of missing Alice and Daphne, they missed little Esther too, but Stan wrote often to say she was improving in leaps and bounds. At least they had baby Jonty to kiss and cuddle whenever Elsie or Tommy’s mum brought him to the digs for a visit.

  As Christmas approached and the days were cold and dark, life seemed to be one long drudgery.

  ‘It’s nowt but sleep, work, sleep then work again,’ groaned Lillian.

  ‘We mustn’t grumble; we’re a lot better off than others,’ said Agnes as they dragged themselves out of bed one freezing-cold morning and broke ice in the sink to wash themselves.

  When they arrived at the Phoenix there was a buzz going around the canteen. As they queued for their tea and toast, a woman in the line turned to them.

  ‘Have you heard about the King and Queen coming here?’

  Lillian burst out laughing.

  ‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on!’ she joked.

  ‘It’s God’s honest truth!’ the woman declared. ‘Featherstone announced it t’morning shift and they’ve just towd us.’

  When Lillian passed on the news to her friends Emily shook her head.

  ‘Why are they coming here?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘What’s so bad about coming here, like?’ Elsie retorted. ‘Us Bomb Girls deserve a bit of attention.’

  A few days later the Phoenix got more attention and publicity than it had ever received in its time as a munitions factory. Not only did the King and Queen arrive, bumping over the cobbled lane to the factory in a smart black car, but along came the press, photographers, local councillors, even the mayor in his fine flowing gown and gold chain. Children, who were given the day off school in honour of the visit, waved flags and cheered as they ran alongside the royal car.

  ‘God save our King!’

  Elsie, Lillian, Emily and Agnes clapped and waved along with the entire workforce as Mr Featherstone greeted the royal couple.

  ‘I love her hat!’ Lillian exclaimed at the sight of the Queen’s silk hat, its wide brim decorated with a spray of bright feathers.

  ‘And her silver fox fur,’ said Emily.

  ‘And look at that crocodile-skin bag!’ gasped Elsie.

  Cheeky Lillian started to giggle as her boss bowed low to his sovereign.

  ‘Mr Featherstone looks fit to pop with pride,’ she giggled.

  ‘I’d die if they spoke to me,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Elsie,’ Agnes assured her. ‘Mr Featherstone will be keeping them well away from the toxic cordite line!’

  But an hour later the Queen of England breezed into the damp and draughty workshop.

  ‘God help her if she slips and falls on the bloody wet floor!’ Lillian muttered under her breath.

  ‘Shh!’ hissed Agnes as she eyeballed Lillian and the rest of the giggling girls on her bomb line.

  Of all the girls to stop and chat to, Queen Elizabeth chose Elsie, who was so hard at work packing cordite into shell cases she didn’t even look up when the royal visitor asked with a charming smile what she was doing.

  With a shell case in one hand and a lump of cordite powder in the other, Elsie could no more have explained what she was doing than orbit the outer stratosphere.

  ‘I’m … I’m …’ she gulped as she stared into the Queen’s kind periwinkle-blue eyes. ‘I’m making bombs for my Tommy on’t front line, like!’ she blurted out.

  The Queen blinked and smiled as she politely asked how Tommy was.

  Elsie’s lovely green eyes widened as she smiled back; Tommy was a subject she could speak about with great confidence.

  ‘He’s a lot better now he’s in Italy, Your Majesty,’ she replied. ‘It’s not as ’ot as Africa where they were nearly boiled alive in’t desert!’

  Before Elsie launched off into a long list of Tommy’s war experiences, Agnes quickly interrupted.

  ‘This is the cordite line, Your Majesty. We pack an explosive called cordite, this yellow stuff,’ Agnes said as she pointed to it. ‘We pack it into shell cases then slide in a detonator like so,’ she said as she demonstrated. ‘The bombs are then carried across the factory floor,’ she nodded to the bomb cases hooked onto the conveyor belt rattling overhead, ‘and sent to the packing department where they’re picked up and taken to RAF centres for immediate shipment.’

  Seeing the Queen peering closely at the yellow stuff, Agnes couldn’t stop herself from giving a warning.

  ‘Best not to go too near it, ma’am, it’s a toxic chemical and it can turn your skin and hair yellow. That’s why our nickname’s the Canar
y Girls – we’re always covered in the yellow stuff … it gets everywhere,’ Agnes finished in a rush, self-consciously aware that she’d said too much.

  A photographer appeared and after asking the Queen if he could take a photograph of her with the Bomb Girls, he arranged Elsie, Lillian, Agnes and Emily on either side of her, with the bomb cases clearly in shot too.

  Before the Queen moved away she spoke again to Agnes’s team.

  ‘It’s been a great pleasure to meet you all,’ she said graciously. ‘I think you’re doing a sterling job for King and country and I wish you every success, ladies.’

  When she’d gone the girls looked at each other in amazement.

  ‘Who would have thowt any of us would be talking to the Queen of England about cordite?’ Emily burst out.

  Lillian winked.

  ‘And our Elsie chatting like they were best friends about how hot it gets in Tobruk!’

  Elsie blushed, not with embarrassment but with pride.

  ‘Wait till I write and tell Tommy I mentioned him to Her Majesty!’ she said with a giggle.

  The following afternoon, as they queued for tea and chip butties, the girls were delighted to see pictures of themselves in the national daily papers.

  ‘Look at us with the Queen!’ Elsie gasped. ‘I’m going to cut it out and frame it,’ she added proudly.

  ‘I only hope Her Majesty didn’t have to soak that beautiful fox fur in milk after half an hour on the cordite line!’ Lillian laughed.

  The girls had more visitors that Christmas. Stan and Esther arrived in a flurry of snow on Christmas Eve, and Elsie brought little Jonty, who was now crawling everywhere, to the digs to see Esther. The little girl scooped him into her arms and kissed him.

  ‘I’ve missed you, baby,’ she said as she sat on the sofa with Jonty on her lap.

  Emily’s eyes widened as she saw Esther’s legs dangling over the edge of the sofa.

  ‘She’s not wearing her calliper!’ she gasped in surprise.

  Stan nodded as he grinned.

  ‘The physio’s been doing a great job with Esther,’ he said. ‘They work her hard but she’s tough and determined.’ He turned to his wife, sitting beside him and holding his hand. ‘No idea who she gets that from!’ he joked.

  Happy and relaxed, they sat around the boiling-hot, wood-burning stove drinking beer and eating chips and apple fritters that Emily cooked in deep fat she’d been saving for weeks. Before the children went to bed they sang their favourite carols, ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Away in a Manger’, as snow fell on the Pennine moors. After a rousing chorus of ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’, the excited children were put to bed then Agnes and Stan slipped away too.

  ‘You won’t need a hot-water bottle now you’ve got Stan to keep you warm,’ irrepressible Lillian teased.

  Whilst Stan was brushing his teeth in the freezing-cold bathroom Agnes confided in her friends.

  ‘It’s the first time we’ll have slept together since he went off to fight,’ she whispered.

  ‘Really?’ asked Emily.

  Agnes nodded.

  ‘He’s been in no fit state since he got back,’ she said. ‘And when he was better he went to Keswick and I came here.’

  ‘Like unlucky ships passing in the night,’ Lillian remarked. ‘Well, at least you’ve seen your fella and you’re going to get your hands on him in bed tonight,’ she added with a giggle. ‘I don’t know when I’ll ever have my arms around Gary again,’ she added wistfully.

  Emily hid the tears brimming into her eyes. Whilst she was visiting her parents just the day before she’d seen Bill crossing the street. He hadn’t seen her but she’d had a very clear view of him in his soldier’s uniform: tall and muscular, thinner but still with the mop of thick dark hair, the same fine, chiselled features and lovely laughing mouth.

  My Bill, she’d thought as her heart contracted with love.

  Before he saw her staring at him she turned a corner and hurried into her mother’s house where, putting on a brave face, she put presents for the family underneath the Christmas tree. She wondered sadly what joys and sorrows 1944 held for her.

  CHAPTER 30

  Marseilles

  After they’d been holed up in the dilapidated farmhouse for nearly a week the French contact decided it was safe for the bored and very hungry agents to move on.

  ‘You will go separately,’ he said on his final visit. ‘For your own safety the less you know about each other’s destination the better.’

  The agents, who’d lived and trained together for many months in Helford House, briefly shook hands, said goodbye and went off in their pairs, never thinking they’d ever see each other again. Robin and Alice were driven – they weren’t sure where as there were no signposts along the way – to a clean, airy barn with a hayloft for a bedroom.

  ‘Stay here until we come back for you,’ said their contact before he drove away. ‘Don’t leave the building until we know you are not being watched.’

  As the roar of his departing car receded into the distance, Robin and Alice looked at each other and smiled.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly the Ritz!’ Robin laughed.

  ‘But it’s clean and with a great view,’ said Alice as she looked out on to the vast sweeps of fertile French farmland.

  Robin swept a hand under Alice’s long silver-blonde hair and let it trickle through his fingers.

  ‘We’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, we’ve been instructed not to leave the premises … what on earth shall we do to pass the time?’

  Alice’s eyes lit on the sunny hayloft overhead.

  ‘That looks like a very comfortable bedroom!’ she giggled.

  Five or six days spent waiting for the all-clear might have been a nightmare for any other agents, but for Robin and Alice, who treasured every moment they snatched together, it was an unexpected bonus. They weren’t short of food, wine or water; plentiful supplies appeared every day, brought by the farmer’s wife, who made her own bread, cheese, smoked ham and pâté. She brought local fresh vegetables too, and tiny tomatoes bottled in oil and garlic; she also provided rugs to keep them warm at night and towels so they could wash in the bubbling stream that ran close by. Early one morning, along with warm bread and coffee, the farmer’s wife brought news, which they’d been starved of for days.

  She spoke in a thick French dialect, which, for all their training, Robin and Alice had difficulty understanding.

  ‘We have just heard on the news that the British dropped three thousand tons of bombs on Hamburg last night.’

  ‘Three thousand tons!’ Alice’s thoughts flew to the Phoenix factory. How many thousands of those bombs had been made by her munitions sisters working round the clock there, she wondered.

  ‘They must have just about razed the city to the ground,’ Robin muttered.

  ‘It is time the Germans had a taste of their own stinking medicine,’ said the farmer’s wife with relish, then with a curt ‘Au revoir’ she went on her way.

  One day Alice found Robin attaching his radio aerial to one of the stout wooden rafters.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she gasped in alarm.

  ‘We need to know what’s going on,’ he answered tersely.

  ‘No, Robin!’ she cried as she grabbed his hand to stop him. ‘We were told to lie low – the enemy are still looking for us.’

  ‘If I could get one quick message out I’d feel easier,’ he replied.

  ‘And if it’s not a “quick message” we could be traced. It’s not worth taking the risk. Please, darling, we have to wait. We’re sure to get news soon,’ she implored.

  Robin sighed then set about taking down the aerial.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘I’ve never been good at doing what I’m told!’

  That evening as they lay side by side watching the stars come out, Robin ran his hands along her silky, slim thighs and mused.

  ‘You have the most wonderful bottom!’

  Rollin
g onto him, Alice stared down into his deep blue eyes.

  ‘And you are the best lover in the world!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘And how many have you had?’ he teased.

  ‘Oh, hundreds!’ she replied with a laugh. ‘They were queuing round the block at the Phoenix munitions factory.’

  ‘I bet they were,’ he replied as he rolled her over and kissed her passionately on the mouth.

  After several minutes of kissing Alice came up for air.

  ‘Actually,’ she said as she pulled a warm rug around her naked body, ‘I was so lost in books and reading I hardly ever thought about men.’

  ‘I bet they thought about you!’ Robin murmured.

  ‘They may have but I never noticed.’

  ‘Bookworm!’ he joked as he tickled her cheek with a prickly hay stalk.

  ‘Emily and Bill were courting by the time they were fifteen. They met at school … Childhood sweethearts,’ she added. ‘Pity it didn’t stay that way.’

  They both wanted a cigarette but they obviously couldn’t smoke in the hayloft. Wrapped in blankets, they crept outside where they sat smoking Gauloises on a stone bench outside the barn.

  A new moon the size of a baby’s fingernail appeared in the evening sky.

  ‘Make a wish,’ Alice said dreamily.

  ‘I wish –’ he started.

  ‘Shh! Don’t tell me, it’s bad luck,’ she said.

  ‘I wish … mumble … mumble … mumble …’ he said as he covered his mouth so she couldn’t hear what he was saying. ‘Then when that wish has come true I hope we have three little girls who all look like you!’

  ‘No! Three boys, just like you.’

  ‘Okay, six in all,’ he agreed as he put out his cigarette. ‘Back to bed, my love,’ he said softly.

  Taking his hand, Alice followed him into the barn now bathed in silver moonlight.

  ‘Not to sleep, I hope!’ she whispered with a giggle.

  After five days they were roused at dawn by their contact.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said urgently.