The Bomb Girls (26 page)

‘
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!'

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.

‘Where would you like to go on holiday?'

At first nobody could be bothered; it was early in the morning, the din from the conveyor belt was relentless and a cold wind whistled in from the moors.

‘Mars!' said Lillian grumpily.

‘Come on, be serious,' urged Elsie. ‘I'll go first,' she yelled over the clatter of the overhead conveyor belt carrying filled bomb cases across the factory into the packing department. ‘Blackpool!'

Smiling at the sweet simplicity of Elsie's answer, Agnes went second.

‘Walthamstow Rex, with Stan, watching
The Wizard of Oz
for a whole week with beer, fish and chips and choc ices thrown in,' she laughed.

Without any pause in her work, Emily filled the shells rolling by as she thought for a moment or two.

‘I'm not going to think about a holiday with Bill, though we did plan a honeymoon in Rhyl,' she said sadly.

‘Come on,' urged Elsie cheerily. ‘Keep it upbeat, Em.'

‘Okay, I'd love a holiday with Alice, camping in the Lake District, talking and walking and laughing just like we always did. That'd be my choice.'

‘Your turn, Lil,' said Elsie, but when she turned to
Lillian, instead of getting a cheeky reply, like ‘South of France with nowt on', she saw Lillian was crying.

Still keeping an eye on the conveyor belt that rolled interminably on whether its attendants laughed, cried or fainted, Elsie moved up closer to Lillian so she could lay an arm over her.

‘Lil, love, I'm sorry,' she said.

‘It's not your fault, Elsie,' Lillian said as tears rolled down her pretty face. ‘I'm so sick and tired of hardly hearing from Gary. I'd give anything just to be near him; even sitting beside him in a plane on its way to bomb the bloody Germans would be a treat!' she sobbed.

Agnes nodded at the twenty-five-pound bombs swinging overhead.

‘Blow one of them a kiss; they're all on their way to Gerry!'

The girls cheered up when Daphne breezed back into the digs with her suitcase bulging with fabric samples, dress designs, gin, chocolates and toys for Jonty and Esther.

‘Daddy's agreed to everything!' she announced as she picked up a bottle of Bollinger's. ‘Wedding at St James's, Piccadilly, reception at Claridge's, honeymoon shooting grouse in Scotland!'

‘It's a miracle what you can get on the black market if you're loaded,' Agnes remarked.

Without a moment's guilt, Daphne beamed at her.

‘I know, darling, isn't it marvellous?'

As the cork whizzed across the room and the champagne fizzed, Daphne poured everybody a cupful then raised hers for a toast.

‘Here's to the eighth of September, my wedding day!'

‘Heck! You've moved fast,' Agnes remarked.

‘There's a war on, darling, we can't hang about!' Daphne giggled as she raised her glass. ‘To me!'

‘Yeah! Cheers! Good luck!' her friends replied.

They all drank, all but Elsie, who, after taking a cautious sip, shuddered.

‘Ugh! It tastes like Eno's Liver Salts!'

Daphne rolled her eyes.

‘Elsie, darling, you are truly a philistine.'

Elsie copied Daphne and rolled her eyes too as she replied.

‘Lucky I canne understand posh words!'

This time there was no stitching and sewing, begging and borrowing like there had been at Elsie's wedding. Measurements were taken by Lillian and recorded by Daphne, and colours were finally agreed, after many hours of anguished indecision.

‘Green,' said Elsie.

‘Blue,' said Emily.

‘Red,' laughed Lillian.

‘Pink!' said Esther.

Daphne looked at the samples.

‘I'm in cream silk with a strapless lace top, bouffant skirt and Brussels lace veil, and you, my gorgeous bridesmaids, must blend in around the bride.'

‘This isn't exactly fashion on the ration!' Agnes said as she quoted one of the familiar slogans of the day.

Lillian swept a professional eye over the silk samples on the table.

‘Not green, not red … blue,' she finally said.

‘And me?' asked Esther.

‘Pale pink,' Lillian replied as she planted a kiss on the little girl's dark curls.

The samples and the girls' measurements were sent off to the dressmaker.

‘Sorry, not Hartnell,' Daphne apologized. ‘He's just for
moi
– the virgin bride!' she joked.

Lillian snorted with laughter.

‘Try telling that to the vicar!'

Daphne left ahead of the girls for her final dress fitting with Mr Hartnell.

Emily, Agnes, Elsie and Lillian followed later, travelling overnight with Esther, who asked Elsie why baby Jonty couldn't be a bridesmaid too.

‘Well, he's a lad for a start, and he's too little to travel all the way to London so he's staying with his nan in Pendle,' Elsie explained.

Daphne, generous to a fault, had booked her bridesmaids into Claridge's, where a taxi dropped them off.

‘Mummy! Mummy!' shrieked Esther as they walked into the hotel glittering with gilt and shimmering mirrors. ‘Is this Buckingham Palace?'

Agnes smiled in delight as she took in the opulent surroundings.

‘No, it's even nicer!' she exclaimed.

Words completely failed Agnes a few minutes later when she walked into the grand reception area and found Stan waiting for her. Faint with delight, Agnes swayed and grabbed hold of Emily.

‘You never said,' she murmured incredulously as she gazed up at her smiling husband.

‘Daphne arranged it all,' he said as he gathered his wife and daughter into his arms.

‘
How?
' gasped Agnes.

Stan shrugged as if he wasn't quite sure how.

‘Via the hospital, she sent me a wedding invitation and money to cover my train fare to London. She's quite a girl,' he added, impressed.

‘She's a miracle worker,' sighed Agnes as she pressed her face against Stan's warm chest.

‘Darling girl,' he chuckled into her hair. ‘We're going to have ourselves a hell of a weekend!'

Esther, impatiently squeezing Stan's hand, looked up adoringly at him.

‘We missed you, Daddy.'

Stan bent to pick his daughter up in his arms.

‘And I missed you, my princess,' he said as he gave her a big kiss on both cheeks.

Having only heard about Stan and the horrors he'd gone through, Emily, Lillian and Elsie were surprised to see a tall man, admittedly on the thin side, with a strong face, thick black hair streaked with grey and dark, intense eyes that, right now, burned with love and happiness.

‘Nice to meet you, ladies,' he said as he shook each of them warmly by the hand. ‘Thank you for looking after my wife and daughter!'

Esther insisted that her daddy took her to the nearest park to feed the ducks, leaving the bridesmaids alone with the bride, who was eagerly waiting for Lillian to set her long blonde hair in an elegant chignon.

The girls bathed in turns in a sumptuous bathroom,
revelling in an endless supply of hot water, bath salts and bubbles.

‘I feel like Marlene Dietrich!' laughed Agnes as she waved one soapy foot in the air.

‘Say that when you're cuddling up to Stan in bed tonight!' giggled Elsie.

‘Save some bubbles for me!' Lillian called from the bedroom, where she was attaching Daphne's long, flowing veil to her family's diamond heirloom tiara.

Once everybody's hair was done, including her own and little Esther's, Lillian sank into a fragrant bath, where she groaned in luxurious delight.

‘Ooh,' she sighed. ‘I've never had so much fun without laughing.'

The taxi arrived for the bridesmaids and they squeezed in, in a froth of blue silk and tulle, holding their carnation bouquets high so they wouldn't get damaged. With Esther the flower girl squashed between her mum and Elsie on the back seat, they drove through the September sunshine to Piccadilly.

‘Heard the news?' asked the taxi driver as they wound their way through bomb-torn London streets where silver barrage balloons floated overhead. ‘The Eyeties have surrendered to the Allies.'

The girls in the back stared at each other in disbelief, then whooped with joy.

‘My Tommy might be there right now, celebrating in Rome,' said Elsie wistfully.

‘We really are winning,' the taxi driver said as he swung to a halt in front of St James's church. ‘About bloody time too!'

After the ceremony the bride and groom hosted a lavish meal for their hundred guests back at Claridge's: wild salmon, fillet of beef and chocolate soufflé washed down with Chablis, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Dom Pérignon champagne carefully selected from Daphne's father's wine cellar. And then the party danced till dawn. Esther, who spent most of her time riding up and down in the glittering gilt lift lined with mirrors and equipped with a sofa on which she lay like Sleeping Beauty, was finally put to bed, blissfully happy and exhausted, leaving her mum and dad time to take to the dance floor.

‘You look so beautiful, Agnes,' Stan said as they swayed to the music of the Joe Loss Orchestra, hired exclusively for the night by Daphne's wealthy father.

‘Oh, Stan,' she sighed as she laid her head on his shoulder. ‘I don't think I've ever been happier. I've got you back, strong and healthy, Esther sleeping upstairs and the best friends in the world.'

‘They're wonderful girls, every one of them,' Stan agreed.

‘They'd do anything for me and I would definitely do anything for them,' Agnes said with tears in her eyes. ‘And they couldn't be more different,' she said with a fond smile. ‘Little Elsie, so poor and frightened at the beginning, has now blossomed into a wonderful mum and loving wife. Emily's a star, loyal and strong no matter what gets thrown at her, and Lillian …' She laughed as she said the name. ‘She could cheer anybody up but she carries her own burden. God knows when she'll see her Yank again.'