The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  He waited in his old Citroën whilst they packed their equipment into French suitcases. As she straightened her beret and removed hay from her hair, Alice’s eyes swept round the barn.

  ‘Will we ever be this happy again, Robin?’ she murmured as tears filled her silver-grey eyes.

  ‘Darling, we’ll always be happy just as long as we’ve got each other!’ he cried as he hurried her out of the barn and onto the next leg of their journey.

  The contact dropped them off at the local railway station where he handed them both a copy of Le Figaro before telling them to take a train to Marseilles.

  ‘Some interesting reading for your journey south,’ he said and then he was gone.

  Holding the newspapers under their arms and carrying their suitcases, Robin and Alice strolled down the long platform and boarded a train for Marseilles. As they settled in a crowded compartment, they unfolded their newspapers. Buried inside, they found their next addresses written on scraps of paper. Pretending to read a news column, Alice memorized the address before shredding the scrap of paper between her thumb and fingers. Neither she nor Robin exchanged a word or a glance about what they’d found but Alice’s heart was sinking fast. For the first time she’d be separated from Robin; she’d be on her own, without his love and support. Straightening her shoulders, Alice stared blankly out of the window. She hadn’t become an agent to become soft and sentimental, she told herself firmly; she’d joined up to fight for her country. Falling in love with Robin had been a bonus but not the purpose of the exercise. Now she was about to do the task she’d been trained for and she vowed to herself to do it well.

  They only had one opportunity to talk throughout the whole journey and that was when their compartment briefly emptied out.

  Making the most of the time before anybody else joined them, Alice quickly said, ‘We’ll split at the station, yes?’

  He nodded but he looked pale and anxious.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said with a bravery she didn’t feel.

  ‘We’re going to safe houses,’ he added. ‘So we should be able to meet.’

  Alice didn’t dare reply for fear of bursting out crying.

  ‘And we can send messages,’ he said.

  ‘How?’ she asked.

  He stopped short as the door of the compartment was yanked open and an old woman with a basket of squawking chickens struggled in.

  ‘Merde!’ she grumbled as she slammed the basket down on the floor. ‘It’s bloody hot for this time of the year!’

  As the train rattled on its way, Alice gazed out at the rolling landscape and thought of the Lancashire moors where she had run wild with Emily. Holding hands and laughing, they had often stood on the windy tops with their hair flapping around their faces.

  ‘I’m Emily Brontë,’ Alice had said once. ‘And you’re Charlotte.’

  Emily had grimaced.

  ‘Don’t they both die?’ she laughed.

  ‘Yes, but it’s very romantic,’ Alice had insisted.

  Smiling at her happy memories, she dropped off to sleep as the train rolled inexorably on its way south.

  Alice’s training kicked in almost immediately she got out of the train at Marseilles station. She could have easily picked up a road map of the city from one of the railway kiosks but that would have flagged up the fact she was a stranger in town. Without giving Robin a backward glance, she walked away from the station without a clue where she was going. Well away from the bustling main streets, she stopped and asked local vendors for directions.

  Alice’s safe house turned out to be a rather small but tidy flat in the suburbs not far from the waterfront. The key to the flat was in one of the post boxes in the dark hallway. Alice removed it and made her way up a sweeping staircase to the flat where, once safely inside, she locked the door then hid her radio equipment and explosives in a wooden chest that contained kindling for the fire.

  ‘Now what?’ she said to herself.

  Once again Alice recalled her training and the words of her tutor.

  ‘Don’t just sit there waiting for instructions; make the place looked lived in.’

  Taking cups, plates and cutlery she placed them around the kitchen and half laid the table as if she’d just finished a meal. There were several books on a shelf, so she took one and put it by her rickety bedside table; some she left opened and lying around in the sitting room as if she was in the middle of reading them. And then she waited.

  Scared to go out in case she missed her contact, Alice paced the room. Then, as night fell, she prepared for bed. But sleep did not come. Only the night before she had been in Robin’s arms, pressed up to his naked body, half asleep, listening to owls hooting in the treetops that surrounded their hayloft hideaway.

  ‘I love you, my darling,’ she whispered into her pillow.

  She awoke starving hungry and thirsty; she had no choice but to go out in search of bread, coffee and milk. On her way back from the local shops she looked into the post box, where she found an envelope with no name on it. Stuffing it inside her coat pocket she hurried up the staircase to her flat where, over a bowl of café au lait, she read the letter left by her contact.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped.

  Her instructions were not exactly what she’d been expecting. Her brief was to blow up a stretch of railway line, part of the network of routes that kept the German army supplied with food and ammunition. They would contact her again with further instructions and a date.

  ‘Why am I on an explosives mission?’ she wondered out loud. ‘I thought we were here to gather information and break encrypted code and transmit messages. Nobody mentioned bombing a bloody railway line!’

  In a panic she dashed to the firewood box to check she had enough plastic explosive and pencil detonators to take out a major railway line. Now she knew what her mission was, Alice had to endure a further wait for the exact details: date, time and location – and, most important of all, who she would be working with. Or would she be sent on a solo mission?

  After too many long, fretful days, Alice decided she’d pass the time by reading every book in the flat. At least it would prevent her French from going rusty.

  Towards the end of an interminable, lonely week, just as she was embarking on another novel by Zola, there was a sharp knock on the door. Hardly daring to breathe, Alice slowly opened the door to two French policemen holding revolvers.

  ‘We’ve come to search your flat,’ they snapped. ‘Bougez-vous! MOVE!’

  When Alice strongly protested the gendarmes pushed her aside.

  ‘Silence!’ they barked.

  Alice stood silently in the middle of the room watching the gendarmes turn the place upside down. They emptied every cupboard, cleared the shelves with a swipe, threw the bed against the wall to look underneath it; they even levered up loose floorboards. And then one of them approached the kindling box. With her heart almost bursting with terror, Alice feigned disinterest as she pretended to be absorbed by something outside the window. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the gendarme rustle about in the box. He lifted piles of newspaper and kindling, then dropped the lid.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  With a shrug and a grunt, they headed for the door. When they’d gone, Alice, sweating and shaking from head to toe, collapsed in the nearest chair.

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  Another rap at the door sent her pulse racing. Jumping to her feet, she crept towards the door, which this time she didn’t open.

  ‘Who is it?’ she whispered.

  There was a pause followed by a gentle tap.

  ‘Robin.’

  Sobbing with relief, Alice threw open the door and flung herself into his arms.

  ‘Quickly, back in the room,’ he said.

  He stepped inside and locked the door behind him.

  ‘I’ve been waiting outside,’ he gasped as he swept her into his arms and kissed her soft mouth. ‘When I saw
the gendarmes I thought they’d come to arrest you. Oh, my love,’ he murmured frenziedly as he kissed her eyes, her nose and her forehead. ‘I was going out of my mind!’

  Even though her pulse was racing at the sight of her beloved, Alice’s first thought was of their safety.

  ‘Did anybody see you come in?’

  ‘I don’t know. I had to take the risk – it’s no longer safe to send messages from my house.’

  Tugging at Robin’s sleeve, wide-eyed Alice whispered her news.

  ‘I’ve been instructed to blow up a section of railway.’

  ‘I know,’ he mouthed back.

  He pointed to the battered old suitcase he was carrying.

  ‘I need to set up the wireless to get further instructions.’

  Robin quickly laid the case on the dining-room table. After undoing the metal clips he hooked up the wireless aerial then laid the earth connection as close to the window as it would reach.

  ‘Please, God, let it work first time,’ Alice prayed. ‘Please, God, don’t let the Nazis pick up the signal. Please, please, God.’

  Robin winked and gave the thumbs-up as he listened intently through his headset.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  Hardly daring to breathe, they listened to the sequence of tips and taps which they were both able to decode. The hairs on the back of Alice’s neck rose as they were instructed to blow up a section of rail track heading east out of Marseilles at 23.00 hours that night. As Robin disconnected the aerial and turned off the wireless, Alice rolled up the earth wire and replaced it in the battered suitcase.

  ‘I thought we were on a communications and interception mission,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t think they’d hit us with explosives the minute we were in the field.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ he admitted. ‘Somebody must have bought it, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked us to step up to the plate.’

  He looked her square in the eye.

  ‘Are you okay with this, Alice? If you’re not now really is the time to say so.’

  She looked him steadily in the eye as she answered calmly.

  ‘I’m a Bomb Girl, Robin. Give me five minutes to get ready.’

  Alice quickly removed her block of plastic explosive and her pencil detonators from the chest then laid them on the table alongside a baguette. Robin looked baffled.

  ‘You’re not thinking of making sandwiches, are you, sweetheart?’ he teased.

  ‘Watch,’ said Alice with a cheeky smile.

  Tearing off the top of the crusty baguette, she scraped out a quantity of bread, and into the empty space she pushed the explosive and the slim detonators, both carefully protected by plastic wrapping. Alice laughed as she popped the baguette, now containing enough explosive to take out the main line between Marseilles and Paris, into a shopping bag containing a string of onions.

  ‘Let’s do it, mein Herr!’

  CHAPTER 31

  Factory Explosion

  As the Allies advanced on Germany and Italy in the spring of 1944, more and more bombs were needed by the British forces to win the war.

  ‘I feel like I’ve been filling bloody shell cases all my life,’ groaned Lillian as the tired workforce continued to do unpaid overtime.

  ‘Making bombs and living off chips, tea and toast,’ grumbled Emily.

  ‘I quite like chips, tea and toast,’ giggled ever-upbeat Elsie.

  ‘When I think back to my days at the mill canteen, when I used to dream of running the place, it seems like I was another girl,’ Emily said nostalgically. ‘I was so young and naive, I thought I’d only got to bat my eyelashes and I’d get what I wanted.’

  ‘Welcome to the real world, lovie,’ said Agnes.

  Lillian snorted as she recalled her own selfish naivety.

  ‘We were just kids,’ she said as she shook her head. ‘I thought I could dodge conscription and carry on doing exactly what I wanted. Stupid or pig-headed or both?’

  ‘I wouldn’t change a single thing,’ said Elsie. ‘I’ve loved every single moment here with you. They’ve been the best days of my life.’

  ‘Oh, Elsie, you are the sweetest, kindest girl,’ said Lillian as she hugged little Elsie till she went pink in the face.

  ‘Can you remember food before rationing?’ Emily said with a sigh.

  ‘Was there life before rationing?’ Lillian joked.

  ‘We used to think nothing of going down to the shops for cheese, sausages and bacon,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Eggs, chocolate, butter, cream, white bread, pork chops …’ Emily said longingly.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if I never saw another tin of Spam again,’ Lillian laughed.

  ‘By fair means or foul, I’ve got to lay my hands on some fresh meat soon,’ said Emily. ‘We deserve a good square meal after all the extra unpaid overtime we’ve put in.’

  Luckily for Emily, the local allotment pig, fattened up on slops from the neighbours, had just been butchered and Mrs Yates had kept back some pork for her daughter.

  ‘Here,’ she said as she wrapped the fresh meat in brown paper. ‘Treat yourself and them lasses in yon digs to a good meal.’

  Emily hungrily eyed the small piece of fresh pink pork.

  ‘Oh, Mum, the things I could do with that!’ she cried.

  Her thoughts raced through delicious recipes: roast pork and crackling with apple sauce, softly stewed pork with prunes, pork baked with sage and thyme.

  Emily jumped as her mother spoke and snapped her out of her reverie.

  ‘Just eat it!’ her mother laughed. ‘You all look like you need fattening up.’

  Emily rushed back to the digs wondering how she could spin out the meat to make a meal for four. She decided to mince the pork, to which she added salt, pepper, fresh sage, an egg and some flour, then she rolled the mixture into little patties.

  ‘Mmm, the smell’s driving me mad!’ cried Elsie as she watched Emily fry the patties in sizzling hot fat.

  ‘I don’t remember when I last had fresh meat,’ Lillian said.

  ‘And mashed potatoes with cabbage and leeks,’ Agnes added as she laid the table for supper. ‘Fresh locally grown veg instead of dried peas and butter beans. Mmm, just thinking of it makes my mouth water.’

  ‘I always feel sorry for the poor pig,’ said Emily as she drained the fat off the patties and popped them onto a warm plate. ‘He thinks everybody loves him until somebody comes along one morning and slits his throat.’

  ‘Life’s never fair,’ said Elsie as she hurried after Emily bearing the plate of steaming, aromatic meat to the table.

  ‘Especially if you’re a pig!’ laughed Lillian.

  It was a nice change to sit down to a really good meal in their own home without the relentless din of the clattering conveyor belt and the constant blare of Workers’ Playtime. After they’d eaten every bit of the delicious pork they sat full and contented around the crackling wood-burning stove smoking Woodbines and drinking tea.

  ‘I think I might have “When the War’s Over” tattooed on my forehead,’ chuckled Lillian. ‘I say it so often I don’t know what I’ll say when life gets back to normal.’

  ‘Whatever normal is any more,’ said Agnes thoughtfully. ‘I can’t ever imagine living in London again.’

  Emily, Lillian and Elsie looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Really?’ asked Emily.

  Agnes nodded.

  ‘I’ve grown to love the north and the people round here,’ she said as she smiled fondly at her friends.

  ‘One thing’s for sure – I am never, ever, ever going back to Gateshead,’ said Elsie emphatically.

  ‘Don’t blame you,’ laughed Lillian. ‘Not whilst the stepmother from hell is alive!’

  ‘My life’s here in Pendle, with Jonty and Tommy … when he comes home,’ Elsie added wistfully.

  ‘Come on, no moping!’ Lillian said briskly. ‘You’ve seen Tommy a lot more than I’ve seen or heard from my Gary this last couple of years. Sometimes I think I dre
amed him,’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘He was real all right. He was larger than life and heart-stoppingly good-looking,’ Agnes reminded her. ‘He’ll come back to you just as soon as he’s finished bombing Germany.’

  ‘I hope every bomb he drops has Hitler’s name on it,’ said Lillian vengefully.

  ‘And Goering’s and Goebbels’s, Rommel’s and Himmler’s,’ Agnes added gleefully.

  Elsie topped up their mugs with fresh tea.

  ‘I wonder where Alice is now?’ she said thoughtfully.

  Lillian shook her head.

  ‘No idea. It seems ages since she lived with us. Don’t you hear from her, Em?’

  Emily shook her head.

  ‘Not a word since I saw her in London.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered what keeps her down south so long,’ Elsie said in all innocence. ‘I mean, I know she speaks French, like, but what does she really do down there?’

  Emily was surprised to catch a knowing look in Agnes’s eyes.

  She’s guessed Alice’s secret, Emily thought.

  She hadn’t breathed a word to anybody but Agnes wasn’t stupid; she was an intuitively clever woman and had obviously worked out for herself exactly what Alice was up to.

  Without giving anything away and avoiding Emily’s eyes, Agnes turned to Elsie.

  ‘I think Alice is probably locked up in an office for hours on end translating French war memos for a lot of stuffy old soldiers.’

  ‘I bet Daf’s doing no such thing,’ laughed Lillian.

  ‘Knowing Daf, she’ll be out on the town dancing at the Ritz every night,’ said Elsie, who, though often shocked by Daphne, was also immensely entertained by her.

  ‘I bet she’s got a string of fellas to keep her happy when Rodders is away,’ chuckled Lillian.

  ‘Come on, ladies, bed,’ said Agnes as she got to her feet and started to clear away. ‘We’ve got an early start tomorrow morning.’

  The bright light of a lovely spring morning, combined with riotous birdsong, woke the girls just after dawn.

  ‘God, I wish I was as chirpy as a bird,’ Lillian groaned as, half asleep, she staggered into the bathroom.

  ‘Be quick in there,’ Elsie called after her. ‘Let’s clock on early then we can get some tea and toast before we start work.’