by Daisy Styles
‘I’ve never known anybody eat so much and stay so thin,’ said Emily as she brushed her long, unruly hair.
‘It’s cos I was half-starved as a kid,’ Elsie replied cheerfully. ‘Everything tastes so good here – and it’s free!’ she added with a laugh.
The usual morning routine kicked in: women greeted each other familiarly as they dispersed to their workplaces, Music While You Work struck up loud and chirpy and the conveyor belt rolled the empty bomb cases down the line.
‘Now come on, girls, let’s bash out a couple of thousand bombs for our boys to drop on Berlin,’ joked Lillian as she got into the swing of the music.
‘What about our lads in Italy?’ Elsie called over the sound of the rattling machinery.
‘Them buggers too!’ Lillian replied.
‘We could write notes and stick them in this batch,’ Emily suggested.
‘Saying what?’ Elsie asked.
‘ “Give ’em some welly, lads”!’ Lillian suggested.
‘ “This one’s for Hitler”!’
‘ “Come home soon”,’ Elsie murmured softly.
As Frank Sinatra sang ‘Mack the Knife’, the girls tapped their rubber boots on the damp concrete floor and sang along. Lillian, who knew every word and action, wiggled her shapely bottom as she sang the loudest.
Singing along with Lillian, Elsie suddenly caught sight of an overfilled shell case. Her eyes widened in horror as loose cordite spilled out of the case onto the rattling metal conveyor belt. She froze as she took in the leaking yellow powder, knowing without a doubt that it would ignite. Without a moment’s hesitation, she pushed Lillian and Emily, who were either side of her, as far away as she could and then slammed her hand over the sparking cordite. In the split second that Lillian and Emily, startled by Elsie’s aggressive action, turned towards her, a white flash and a deafening roar sent all the girls falling to the ground. As metal components exploded around them, the girls covered their heads, and when they dared, one by one, to look up they saw flames spreading over the factory floor. Seeing the loaded bombs swinging from the overhead conveyor belt, the prostrate girls instinctively knew that if those went off they’d all die.
As the alarm siren shrieked out, a girl not twenty feet away panicked, leaping to her feet and running through the flames.
‘RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!’ she yelled.
A blazing beam fell from the ceiling and landed on the girl, setting her overalls on fire. As she screamed and writhed in agony, Emily’s instinct was to run to her and help. But somebody was dragging Emily the other way.
‘NO! Let me go!’ she heard herself scream too.
Smoke blinded her eyes and filled her throat, but as she gagged for breath she made out Malc’s face and realized it was he who was dragging her outside to safety.
‘Malc! Malc!’ she cried. ‘Where’s Lillian? Where’s Elsie?’
Knowing there were enough bombs in the place to blow them all to kingdom come, Malc was half-crazed with fear. He swore loudly.
‘Just get a bloody move on.’
With a grip of steel, he literally shoved Emily out of the building and onto the edge of the moors opposite the blazing factory. Nearly two hundred terrified women were huddled together there watching parts of the Phoenix blow clean away, its walls and windows collapsing as flickering orange flames leaped high into the sky.
‘GET BACK!’ hollered Malc as he pushed the women away from the blaze. ‘Get away from the sodding building before the whole bleeding lot goes!’
With acrid black smoke swirling around them, Emily and the other survivors coughed and choked as they watched stream after stream of fire engines, police cars and ambulances roar up to the burning factory.
In despair, Emily searched the crowd for her friends, who were nowhere to be seen.
‘Oh, my God!’ she said out loud. ‘Please don’t let them still be inside.’
As she made a move to bolt forwards, she was dragged back by the women around her.
‘Emily! No!’
‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’ they cried.
‘I’ve got to save my friends!’ Emily screamed hysterically.
She was stopped in her tracks by the sight of Malc staggering out of the factory wreckage bearing an unconscious Elsie in his arms. Horrified, Emily rushed towards them.
‘Will she be all right?’ she gasped.
We’re got to get her to the hospital!’ Malc said grimly.
In the chaos and confusion that followed, everyone was looking for somebody whilst at the same time being told to get as far away from the factory as possible. The desperate need of the women to stay and search for loved ones was at odds with the needs of the police, who were removing or arresting anybody who refused to leave the Phoenix.
‘The site’s got to be cleared,’ the officer in charge bellowed.
As Emily watched the flames licking the factory roof, she prayed they wouldn’t spread to the packing area where there were enough loaded shell cases to blow the entire site halfway to Yorkshire.
‘Get in the car,’ somebody called out.
Emily turned round to see Malc, covered in smut and dirt, at the wheel of his Austin. Still in a daze, she shook her head.
‘I’m not leaving till I find my friends,’ she told him.
‘Don’t bother,’ Malc retorted. ‘Whoever’s not here is either dead or in hospital.’
All the injured munitions girls had been taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary where Emily discovered from a frantic nurse with a clipboard that Elsie, Agnes and Lillian had each been admitted. As she sat in the hospital corridor waiting for news, one loaded stretcher after another passed her by. If she approached any hospital official she was virtually pushed aside. Outside, ambulances screeched into A&E delivering an endless stream of injured workers. At one point it seemed like the whole of the Phoenix factory was in the infirmary, either being treated for injuries or waiting to find out if a loved one was alive or dead.
Emily didn’t remember falling asleep but she woke up with a jump when Malc shook her by the arm.
‘There’s nowt we can do here,’ he said wearily. ‘You’d best go home.’
Thinking Malc was talking about her going back to the Phoenix digs, bleary-eyed Emily nodded as she got to her feet.
‘I mean home, Emily,’ Malc said. ‘Not the digs.’
‘Why?’ she asked blankly.
‘The Phoenix won’t be open for some time,’ Malc replied as he bundled her into the car and drove her home to Pendle.
The next morning the papers were full of the tragedy.
FIFTEEN DEAD SO FAR
The papers reported that nobody knew how the explosion had happened, but as Emily woke up from a very disturbed sleep she had a vivid memory of Elsie turning wild-eyed towards her then holding out her hand as a white flash went off and the thunder of exploding bombs filled her ears.
‘How did I survive that?’ Emily asked herself as she struggled out of bed.
The overalls she’d come home in lay on the floor, burnt and filthy. Emily quickly washed and changed into clean clothes, then, after grabbing a cup of tea, she caught the bus into Manchester where she returned to her hospital vigil.
‘This time I’m not moving until I find my friends,’ Emily muttered as she walked the length of a long, tiled corridor where the echo of her hurrying feet bounced off the walls.
After several hours she learned that Lillian had a bad head injury and Agnes was half-blinded in one eye, but it was sweet little Elsie who had sustained the most serious injury: she had lost her right hand. But they were alive.
There was no way Emily could see her friends so she just sat in the cold corridor because that was the nearest place to the ones she loved. Sitting alone, Emily went over and over the explosion in her mind. As she replayed it, almost literally blow by blow, she realized with blinding clarity what Elsie had done: she had put her right hand over the cordite and sacrificed a part of her body in order to put herself between the exp
losion and her friends.
‘She would have died for us,’ sobbed Emily as tears flowed uncontrolled down her cheeks.
A passing ward sister took pity on the weeping girl in the corridor.
‘Can I help?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got to see my friend – she saved my life,’ Emily replied as she dabbed her wet cheeks with a hankie. ‘I can’t leave here till I’ve seen her.’
‘What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Elsie Hogan.’ Emily quickly corrected herself: ‘Elsie Carter’s her married name.’
‘Come with me,’ the sister said kindly.
She led her to a women’s ward where Emily found Elsie lying in a bed with her right hand heavily bandaged.
‘Only a few minutes,’ the sister instructed ‘She’s lost a lot of blood.’
Emily knelt beside the bed so she could kiss Elsie’s sleeping face.
‘Thank you for saving my life.’
Suddenly Elsie’s eyes opened; weak though she was, she smiled her own sweet smile.
‘You would’ve done the same for me,’ she whispered.
Unable to find words that could express her love and gratitude, Emily smiled back but in her heart she wondered if she would have been quite so heroically selfless as dear, faithful Elsie.
CHAPTER 32
Aftermath
Emily visited her friends every day, sometimes with Tommy’s mum or Malc, and once with Mr Featherstone, who was overseeing the extensive repair work at the Phoenix, which remained closed indefinitely.
‘Maybe we won’t be needing so many bombs now that the Germans are running scared,’ Lillian joked from her sick bed. Repeating the often-used wartime expression, she added with a gleeful smile, ‘Yeah! We’ve got the Hun on the run!’
‘Don’t count your chickens,’ said Agnes wisely. ‘We need to keep churning out bombs until Hitler’s dead and all the heads of Europe have signed a peace treaty.’
Lillian snorted.
‘I could be claiming my bloody pension if we have to wait for the heads of Europe to agree on anything!’
‘What’ll happen to the Phoenix if peace is declared?’ Elsie asked as she lay propped up on her pillows.
‘It’ll be converted into a knocking shop!’ Lillian joked.
‘Stop making me laugh, Lil,’ pleaded Agnes, giggling as she pressed a hand to her wounded brow. ‘It pulls my stitches apart.’
‘Will the Phoenix really close?’ Elsie persisted.
‘It was closed for years,’ Emily said. ‘Then it was reopened in 1941 for war work.’
‘Three years ago …’ sighed Agnes. ‘I feel more northern than southern these days.’
‘That’ll be our influence,’ Lillian quipped.
‘And all them chip butties,’ Elsie added.
‘One thing’s for sure – the Phoenix won’t be churning out any bombs for a while,’ Emily told her friends, who, lying in their hospital beds, had no idea of the extent of the bomb damage done to the factory. ‘There’s a lot of rebuilding to be done before it opens its doors again.’
As the days rolled by, the deep gash on Lillian’s temple, caused by flying shrapnel, healed well, and the sight in Agnes’s damaged eye started to come back. But poor Elsie, who’d suffered the biggest loss, had the most pain.
‘It’s not so bad, like,’ she said with a weak smile.
Elsie had had an emergency operation to remove metal debris and clean the wound before it was stitched and then wrapped in layers of bandages that made her hand look like a big white club.
‘When it’s mended good and proper the doctor said they could fit me with a false hand,’ Elsie said bravely.
‘They’d better make it big enough to hold two chip butties!’ Lillian teased.
Though Elsie smiled and tried to remain upbeat, it was obvious she was in great pain, and when Jonty was brought to see her for the first time she completely broke down.
‘I can’t even cuddle mi little lad,’ she wailed.
Emily, who had taken Jonty to the hospital, popped the solemn little boy at the bottom of Elsie’s bed where he sat sucking his thumb.
‘You will be able to hold him soon when your hand doesn’t hurt so much,’ she said soothingly.
But now that Elsie had started crying the tears wouldn’t stop.
‘What will Tommy say when he sees me deformed like this?’ she sobbed.
‘Tommy would love you if you had webbed feet and no teeth!’ Emily said with a smile. ‘He adores you, Elsie; you know that better than anybody.’
Elsie smiled at that.
‘C’mon, help me cuddle Jonty before you take him home,’ she said determinedly.
By propping pillows around Elsie, they settled Jonty comfortably in the crook of her good arm, where he sat chewing toffees and burbling happily until the bell rang to announce the end of visiting time.
‘See, you managed that all right,’ Emily said.
Elsie was restored to her usual chirpiness after cuddling her little boy.
‘It’ll get better before it gets worse,’ she quipped, with a wink.
During the second week of her stay in hospital Lillian turned twenty-five. On the eve of her birthday she sighed with frustration.
‘It should be a laugh a minute having a birthday on Ward D2 with a granite-faced sister and a gash on my head that’s ruined my good looks for ever.’
Emily, who was visiting, laughed along with Elsie and Agnes.
‘Nothing will ever spoil your looks, Lillian!’ Agnes said fondly.
‘Seeing as I can’t go back to my former flawless beauty I’ve decided to build on my wounds,’ Lillian announced.
As her friends gazed at her blankly, she continued.
‘As soon as I’m on my feet I’m going to restyle my hair and cut myself a fringe, just like Lauren Bacall.’
‘Why?’ asked Elsie.
‘To cover my scar, of course!’ Lillian replied.
‘Oh, Lillian,’ giggled Emily. ‘Only you could turn a war wound into a fashion statement.’
Before Emily left she bent over her friends’ beds and gave them all a kiss.
‘Please get well soon,’ she said.
When she bent to kiss Lillian she saw a tell-tale tear in her eye.
‘What’s up, sweetheart,’ she whispered softly.
Lillian, who liked to come over as tough and savvy rather than wet and soppy, wiped the tear from her eye.
‘I’m bloody missing Gary, that’s what’s up,’ she growled like a grumpy bear. ‘It’s bad enough lying here in pain day after sodding day,’ she said as she swiped away another tear. ‘I’m finding it hard to hold it together, Em!’ she blurted out as the tears flowed fast and furious. ‘When will I ever see him again?’
Avoiding her head wound, Emily rocked the weeping Lillian in her arms.
‘You’ve been a brave kid for so long,’ she commiserated. ‘It’s because you’re in pain that your resolve has crumbled. You just want loving – and why not?’ Emily said, on the point of tears too. ‘Isn’t that what we all want?’
Elsie and Agnes hurried from their beds and joined Emily and Lillian.
‘We’re going to get such a bollocking from the sister,’ Lillian giggled.
‘I could get into bed with you and pretend to be a patient too!’ Emily joked.
‘I only welcome handsome Yanks into my bed!’ Lillian retorted.
‘Seriously, Lil, you have written and told Gary about the accident, haven’t you?’ Agnes asked.
Lillian nodded.
‘I couldn’t write but Emily sent a note to say I’d been in an explosion and was in hospital,’ Lillian replied. ‘Whether he’ll ever get it, God only knows!’
Elsie gently stroked Lillian’s arm with her good hand.
‘It’s this bugger of a war that keeps us from our loved ones!’ she said with a sad sigh.
The next day Emily picked up the cards and a parcel that had been left at Pendle post office for Lillian.
Lillian looked at the writing on the label and sat bolt upright.
‘It’s from Gary!’ she gasped.
With trembling fingers she unwrapped the parcel, which contained a small black-leather jewellery box. Lillian flipped the lid then gazed in wonder at the twinkling diamond ring.
‘It’s so beautiful!’ she cried, overwhelmed.
Gathered around Lillian’s bed, her friends urged her to read the card that came with the jewellery box.
‘What does it say?’ Elsie asked impatiently.
Smiling radiantly, Lillian read Gary’s words on the card.
Marry me, Bomb Girl!
Your loving Yank,
Gary xxx
It wasn’t just Lillian who burst into tears of joy – her friends all joined her.
‘Oh, for this – it’s been worth the wait!’ cried an ecstatic Lillian as she popped the diamond ring on her wedding finger.
Their cries of laughter soon brought the sister hurrying into the ward; her starched white apron seemed to bristle with her disapproval of noisy, laughing visitors.
‘Ladies, what on earth are you up to?’ she snapped.
Lillian waved her new engagement ring in the air.
‘Look, Sister!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m engaged to be married.’
The sister scowled.
‘Don’t let it go to your head. If your temperature rises there’ll be no visitors for the rest of the week,’ she retorted.
Lillian’s temperature did go up later in the day when smiling, elegant Daphne swanned into the ward in a pink silk summer dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat.
‘Darlings! I just had to come when I heard the ghaaastly news!’ she exclaimed as she bore down on her afflicted friends with her usual flamboyance.
They all cringed in pain as Daphne, with her arms full, kissed them passionately one by one.
‘Aargh, watch my head!’
‘Ouch! My eye!’
‘Ooh! Don’t touch mi arm!’
Daphne dropped her gifts of fruit, chocolates and cigarettes onto Agnes’s bed then, after popping open a bottle, she poured fizzing champagne into plastic tooth mugs.
