by Daisy Styles
With bugs creeping down her neck, Alice began to squirm.
‘Shh!’ hissed Robin.
‘I’m being eaten alive,’ she hissed back.
Ignoring her complaints, Robin timed how long it took the guards to circle the block.
‘Nearly forty minutes,’ he said. ‘That’s more than enough time to lay the explosives.’
After the guards passed them for the second time Alice and Robin waited for the footsteps to fade, then they scrambled out of the oleander bush and dashed to the metal fence, which Robin quickly attacked with metal cutters. Alice wriggled inside first followed by Robin, who secured the fence with metal strips so that the guards wouldn’t notice the tear. Holding their breath, they dashed under the cover of some wooden crates where they waited, with their hearts in their mouths, for the worker who would guide them in. From the northern side of the building a small light flicked on and off twice.
‘That’s our signal,’ whispered Robin.
Ducking behind empty crates and factory debris, they made their way to the worker who, in rapid French, told them that the best place to lay their explosives was against the wall of the loading bay.
‘There’s enough explosive material in there to wreck the place!’ he said with a grim smile.
He led them between packing cases and crates to the darkest section of the loading bay, then with a quick thumbs-up he left them and was swallowed up by the shadows.
As Robin kept lookout, Alice planted the explosives packed with the timed detonators in strategic places along the loading bay. Once they were in place she and Robin ran towards the perimeter fence but, to their horror, they were stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of the two armed guards standing beside the fence smoking cigarettes.
‘Jesus Christ, that’s all we need!’ groaned Robin as he pulled Alice down to the ground.
‘What’re they doing?’ she groaned.
Robin listened for a few minutes.
‘Can you believe it? Talking about some prostitute they’ve visited in town!’
Alice wondered how long their conversation could possibly go on for. Wouldn’t they get into trouble dawdling about whilst on duty?
Crouched behind a pile of metal debris and with sweat pouring out of her, Alice checked her watch. She’d set the detonators for fifteen minutes, giving them what should have been more than enough time to make their getaway. But now with armed guards in their flight path they might be trapped inside the factory grounds when the blast went off.
‘Please, God, please make them move on,’ she prayed under her breath.
Stamping out their cigarette butts, the laughing guards finally moved away.
‘Now!’ she hissed.
But Robin held her back.
‘They can’t see us,’ she muttered.
‘They’ll hear us – wait!’ he warned.
Alice counted the minutes it took the guards’ footsteps to recede.
‘If we don’t go in the next three minutes we’ll be here when the place blows,’ she whispered frantically.
At last they sprinted the hundred yards to the perimeter fence where Alice, with her heart at exploding point, watched Robin snip the wire. As soon as the hole was big enough they dived through it, just as the first explosive went off.
‘Run, before the building catches fire and they can see us!’ Alice cried.
With adrenalin pumping through their bloodstream, they raced back to the safety of the dark park from where they watched the explosives take the northern wall of the factory out and the roof too, the burning, falling debris igniting the loaded packing cases, which burst into flames. As the rest of the factory caught fire, Robin kissed Alice.
‘I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’d say that was a job bloody well done!’
Alice tried to smile back but she couldn’t stop shaking.
‘I’ve never been so scared in my entire life,’ she said as she leaned against him.
‘Better get used to it, sweetheart,’ he said with a soft laugh. ‘You’re wasted on communications!’
As Alice’s heartbeat returned to normal, she felt weak with relief. Now they could leave Marseilles and get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. As the factory fire raged, they crept away and hid in the side streets until dawn broke, then made their way to a café near the railway station where they planned to buy tickets to Amiens.
But as they sat drinking bowls of café au lait, Alice spotted out of the corner of her eye that the entire area around the station was crawling with Gestapo, who were on high alert after the factory explosion.
‘We don’t have to ask why,’ said Robin as he nodded towards the flickering flames lighting up the pale morning sky.
‘They’re locking down the city,’ she said under her breath.
‘Dammit!’ growled Robin from behind Le Figaro, which he was pretending to read. ‘We’ll never get out of Marseilles today.’
Alice’s heart dropped; she felt like a child who’d been promised a treat that was immediately snatched away from her.
‘We’d better go our separate ways,’ he added quickly.
‘Oh, Robin, no,’ she said, nearly in tears.
‘Come on,’ he said sharply. ‘We’ve no choice but to lie low till the heat’s off.’
They hurried out of the café, but in their haste to get away they forgot to pay the garçon for their breakfast.
‘ATTENTION!’ bellowed the irate bartender.
His angry shout caught the attention of several nearby Gestapo, who immediately surrounded the café. Alice’s instinct was to run but Robin stayed calm as he held her securely by the elbow.
‘ACHTUNG!’ they barked. ‘What’re you doing here?’
‘We arrived on the overnight train and were just having coffee,’ Robin replied in flawless French. ‘We are so tired we forgot to pay. My apologies, monsieur,’ Robin said to the sulky bartender as he dropped French francs into his hand.
‘Where are your train tickets?’ one of the soldiers snapped, not convinced by his story.
Alice turned her lovely eyes on him and smiled sweetly.
‘I threw them away, sir,’ she said apologetically.
‘Your identity papers,’ the same guard said.
Alice produced her papers, which the guard curtly nodded at; Robin’s papers were not quite so acceptable. They’d been crumpled in his pocket and the forged signatures had faded. The guard passed the papers to his senior officer, who scrutinized them.
‘Take them to Hôtel Canebière with the others,’ he snapped.
Protesting their innocence all the way, Alice and Robin were herded into a hotel room, then they were separated and interrogated. Alice was pushed around and yelled at, but because her papers were in order she got off lightly. Robin, however, got the heavy treatment; he was dragged out of the room and coshed around the buttocks and calves then hit around the face. When they dragged him back with blood streaming from a deep cut above his right eye, tears stung Alice’s eyes. The Gestapo started shoving prisoners out of the room and Alice tried to snatch Robin’s hand.
‘What’s happening?’ she sobbed in French.
As Robin and a dozen other men were thrown into trucks, Alice was unexpectedly set free.
‘Get out of here!’ Robin mouthed as the truck doors slammed on the prisoners.
Wild with fear, Alice grabbed a bike leaning up against the hotel wall.
‘I’m not leaving you,’ she screamed after him.
Cycling furiously along the dusty track she followed the van until it accelerated and disappeared into the distance. Falling from the bike she crouched on the ground and sobbed and sobbed.
‘Oh, my love, when will I see you again? And how will I live without you till then?’
CHAPTER 34
D-Day
As Lillian, Emily and Agnes clocked on for their shift on 6 June, they had no idea that a momentous day in the history of the war was unfolding just across
the Channel. As they sat in the canteen during their midday break, Music While You Work was interrupted by a flash news bulletin. The familiar calm voice of the BBC newsreader rang with suppressed excitement as he announced that under the command of General Eisenhower the allied forces had begun the D-DAY attack.
The clatter and chatter usual in the packed canteen dropped to total silence as the munitions girls stared at each other in complete disbelief; could it really be true? Could the combined British and American forces be at this very moment storming the beaches of Normandy?
Then, unable to contain themselves a second longer the women leapt to their feet and started to shout and cheer as they punched the air with jubilation.
‘D-DAY! D-DAY! D-DAY!’ they cried till the windows shook with their wild exultation.
Grasping each other, the women hugged and kissed; smiling, laughing and weeping, they could hardly speak for the mixture of elation and apprehension that flooded through them, for nobody knew at that moment how the day would pan out.
‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,’ Emily confessed.
‘Laugh!’ said Lillian. ‘It makes a change from weeping!’
To the chirpy tune of Flanagan and Allen singing ‘Underneath the Arches’ they quite spontaneously broke into the conga. Singing at the tops of their voices, they danced out of the canteen and onto the cobbled street outside the Phoenix where they skipped along, kicking out their legs. Malc came rushing out to call them back into work.
‘We’ve not won the bloody war yet!’ he cried.
‘No, but it’s a step in the right direction,’ several laughing women shouted back.
‘Nobody said we don’t need any more bombs,’ Malc reminded them, with a smile he couldn’t hide.
‘Slave-driver!’ the girls teased.
‘Don’t you want to be near the radio to hear the next news flash?’ Malc deviously suggested.
Nobody could argue with that, and the women quickly returned to their lines, eagerly listening out over the clattering roll of the conveyor belt for more news of the invasion, which dribbled in slowly all through that long and fateful day. Their hearts sank as they heard of the beaches littered with mines.
‘God help our lads,’ Lillian prayed out loud.
‘They’re walking into a death trap!’ gasped Agnes.
When the news finally came through that the Allies had secured the German beachheads and had begun marching inland the munitions girls were incredulous.
‘They’ve got through!’ yelled Emily. ‘We’ve broken the line.’
Their shift came and went but nobody wanted to leave the factory. As the next shift clocked on, Emily, Lillian and Agnes and many other women stayed gathered together, tensely waiting for more news from the BBC. As Emily looked at her fellow workers smoking and drinking tea, she thought of those thousands of soldiers landing on the Normandy beaches, rushing forwards with bayonets at the ready to kill the enemy or die trying, and wondered how many were husbands, sweethearts, sons and brothers of the women around her. Emily’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. Bill, she thought. Where in God’s name was he? She’d heard on the radio that all possible forces – Brits, Yanks, Poles, Canadians, anybody who could handle a weapon – had been utilized. Was Bill one of the boys on the beach, walking into the jaws of death with his bayonet at the ready?
To their amazement, Elsie came rushing into the canteen, pushing with one hand the big old Silver Cross pram that she’d picked up in a junk shop for a shilling and was immensely proud of.
‘I couldn’t stand not being here with you all,’ she gasped, out of breath from running up the hill from Pendle.
It wasn’t just Emily, Agnes and Lillian who loved Elsie; everybody at the Phoenix had admiration and respect for the little lass who had put herself in the line of fire, just like their loved ones were now doing in northern France.
‘In’t it wonderful?’ Elsie cried as she grabbed a huge chip butty and a cup of scalding-hot tea.
‘Bugger me!’ Lillian exclaimed. ‘Not even the D-Day landings take your appetite away.’
Elsie smiled as she bit into her butty.
‘Eeh, I’ve been missing these!’ she giggled.
They stayed together until exhaustion and Jonty’s hungry cries for his supper sent them their separate ways, but not before they’d heard more heart-lifting news on the radio.
The Allied troops who’d landed that morning were already several miles inland of the Normandy beaches and were pushing steadily on.
‘Nothing’s going to stop ’em now,” said Elsie gleefully.
‘I’d say this was one of the best days of my life,’ said Lillian happily. ‘Well, apart from the day I met Gary – oh, and the day I first had sex!’ she added naughtily.
‘Ooh, Lillian, you can’t say stuff like that,’ said Elsie as she settled yawning Jonty in his pram.
‘I can – and I do!’ laughed Lillian.
They waved Elsie off then headed back to the digs; though it was evening, the night was summer-light and birds were still tweeting on the moors.
‘Here we are, surrounded by peace and beauty, whilst just across the Channel all hell is breaking loose,’ said Agnes with a sigh.
‘God bless and save them all,’ prayed Emily with all her heart.
Emily said a lot of prayers during the next few days after she heard from her mother that Bill’s infantry unit had indeed been among the troops shipped over and deposited on the beaches of northern France. As soon as she could she hurried down the hill and into the town to visit Bill’s mother.
When Mrs Redmond opened her door Emily immediately knew that something was wrong.
‘What is it?’ she gasped.
Mrs Redmond wiped a hand across her weary face.
‘We don’t know. You’d best come in,’ she said as she turned around and walked into her tidy back kitchen that smelled of baking bread and soaking peas.
Emily looked around the familiar room where she’d so often sat with Bill. She remembered holding hands as they sat drinking tea – once they’d even had a cup of instant coffee, which she’d thought was very bold and exotic. They’d kissed in secret in the back kitchen and planned their lives together, she recalled with a gulp, but that was a lifetime ago when they were young and innocent.
‘We know his division were sent out to Normandy,’ Mrs Redmond said as she brewed a pot of tea. ‘There’s been a lot of fatalities,’ she added nervously.
Emily bowed her head as she imagined lads even younger than Bill shot down as they ran off the boats or, if they made it to the beaches, blown up by one of the thousands of landmines.
Human fodder, she thought; but these words she wisely kept to herself.
‘Some of the lads’ families have had news, but we’re still waiting,’ Mrs Redmond continued as she put a china cup and saucer in front of Emily and a plate of carrot and coconut buns.
‘Mrs Ryecroft round the corner has lost both her sons,’ Mrs Redmond said as she picked up her cup and saucer with trembling hands. ‘She heard the news this morning,’ she added faintly.
Emily, who hadn’t set foot in the Redmonds’ house since her split with Bill, stood up and walked around the table so she could put a hand on Mrs Redmond’s shoulder.
‘I know I did wrong,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s not a day goes by when I don’t kick myself for what I did … but I still love your son and I always will.’
‘Aye, it’s a pity,’ Mrs Redmond replied sadly. ‘You broke his heart and that’s God’s honest truth.’ A knock at the door sent the blood rushing from her face. ‘It might be a telegram,’ she said faintly
It wasn’t a telegram; it was a neighbour come to ask the same question as Emily.
‘How’s your lad?’
Emily bade Bill’s mother farewell and then, feeling heavy-hearted, she made her way to Pendle church where she sat in silence praying for the soldiers fighting on the beaches of northern France.
She returned to th
e Phoenix in time to clock on for her shift, and as she was changing into her work overalls Agnes came rushing up to her.
‘Great news!’ she cried, flushed and excited.
Completely preoccupied with Bill and his brave battalion, Emily absent-mindedly answered, ‘I just hope they make it home alive.’
‘I’m not talking about the war!’ Agnes exclaimed. ‘Though I hope they are all safe too. But I’ve just got a letter off Stan. He’s got a job interview on one of the local sheep farms and he’s coming next week with Esther,’ she finished excitedly.
‘That’s wonderful!’ cried Emily, truly delighted for her friend.
‘Oh, I can’t wait!’ said happy, smiling Agnes. ‘Just think – if he gets the job we’ll be near each other for the first time in five years.’
Every day more news dribbled in: the Allies were advancing on Caen, they’d taken Bayeux, Rommel was leading the Germans in a much-delayed counter-attack.
‘It’s emotionally exhausting listening to it all,’ said Lillian. ‘One minute you’re up, the next you’re down and worrying how many are dead, how many are casualties. I wish they could release names and put us out of our misery.’
‘It’s way too early for that, Lillian,’ Agnes said realistically. ‘All we can do is stay focused on the good news and pray for our boys over there.’
Emily nodded in agreement whilst at the same time she constantly wondered if Mrs Redmond had heard news of Bill yet, or would he turn out to be one of many missing in action?
When Stan arrived, Lillian and Emily made themselves scarce so Agnes could talk freely with her family – and there was a lot to talk about. Stan was determined that if he got the job he was going to live on the sheep farm, which was a five-mile hike over the moors from the Phoenix.
‘But … what about Esther?’ Agnes asked as she cradled her lovely daughter in her arms.
‘She’s still got to have treatment every month at the hospital in Keswick but one of us can take her up there on the train and bring her back again,’ Stan said, then he added as he looked Agnes straight in the eye: ‘Sweetheart, I’ve given this a lot of thought whilst I’ve been looking after Esther. We’re a family who love and need each other very much, but because of circumstances, cruel twists of fate, we’ve been forced to live apart more than we’ve lived together. It’s a miracle I got out of the POW camp alive. It’s a miracle that Esther grows stronger every day. And it’s a miracle you were evacuated out of London, well away from the Woolwich Arsenal. Don’t you think that God’s trying to tell us something?’
