The Orphan Sisters: An Utterly Heartbreaking and Gripping World War 2 Historical Novel

by Shirley Dickson

  ‘Hurrah,’ she screamed, a cruel gratification gripping her. Then she recoiled, sickened at her reaction. What was she becoming? Taking pleasure in the crews’ death?

  Like Laurie, the young men might not have known what to expect when they joined up. Maybe they too didn’t have a mean bone in their bodies.

  She’d seen enough.

  She gazed at the tranquil scene, the acres of golden sand and swelling waves that looked reassuringly the same, and held promise that life would go on as before.

  Mounting her bike, she pedalled up the hill and left the scene of carnage behind. Deep inside she couldn’t shake the feeling of being grateful that ‘our brave boys’ would return to their wives and families.

  The one thing she’d learned, she thought, as she rode towards the relative peace in the town, was that she was determined to count in this war.

  One evening later that week after a scrap of cheese on toast for tea, Esther read the account of Winston Churchill’s speech in the newspaper as he addressed the House of Commons on the state of the war. He paid tribute to the aircrews fighting the Battle of Britain by saying that, ‘never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’

  As his stirring words sank in, Esther’s thoughts turned to those brave boys who fought in the sky.

  On the next page was a public notice that read: ‘the war industry is clamouring for more women workers.’

  Beside the notice was a blue and white picture of a serious faced pilot who wore a leather aviator cap with ear flaps and a chin strap. His gloved forefinger pointed out and the caption in red bold capitals beneath read, ‘YOU can help make me a plane.’

  ‘How do I apply?’ she asked Dorothy.

  ‘Go and see the supply officer at the labour exchange,’ her sister advised.

  ‘But I’m not skilled at anything.’

  ‘You get trained, silly goose.’

  Deeply suspicious of authority, Esther was doubtful. What if she was made to enlist in one of the services and was sent miles away from Dorothy?

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not going back to the labour exchange. I’d prefer to apply direct at one of the factories.’

  ‘Remember my friend May Robinson… who helped me get this flat? She works in the canteen at a factory. I’ll ask her.’

  It transpired that May’s place of work was indeed crying out for women to join the factory.

  ‘She says to tootle along and see the labour manager.’

  With nothing to lose, Esther made for the factory the very next day. As the bus left the town and made towards Tyne Dock, Esther’s heart pounded. She was nervous – she didn’t know the first thing about job interviews and she was terrified she’d make a fool of herself. A picture of Mistress Knowles’ mocking face came into her mind’s eye, making Esther sit bolt upright in her seat. She would make something of her life and prove that cow at the orphanage wrong.

  When finally the bus stopped at the factory gates, Esther alighted and, squaring her shoulders, set off up the path.

  The high, imposing wrought-iron factory gate was locked but at the side was a smaller one where a queue had formed. Esther joined the queue and when she reached the front, a man wearing a Local Defence Volunteer armband asked her to produce her pass.

  ‘I haven’t got one, I came looking for work.’

  The man, middle-aged, with a brush of hair on his upper lip, looked nonplussed.

  ‘I can’t let you pass without proper identification,’ he blustered.

  ‘Haway,’ came a nasal voice behind Esther, ‘I’m late for work. Let the lass in… anybody can see she’s nee spy.’

  Esther turned to see a wizened man with yellow teeth, who winked at her.

  The LDV man looked flustered, but then making up his mind, waved her past.

  ‘Second building on your right, hinny,’ the old man called after her.

  She hurried past the bicycle sheds and low buildings camouflaged with green paint. The labour manager’s office was a confined space in a cabin-like building with paper-thin walls. The labour manager was a portly man with a balding head, with a manner that suggested he was continuously irritated. Sat behind a desk, he drummed his fingers on the wooden worktop.

  ‘Name,’ he clipped, ‘and address.’ Esther provided her answers and he wrote them down on a form. ‘Next of kin,’ he went on.

  All throughout the interview, the man kept glancing at his wristwatch. Esther might have been frightened, but his rudeness angered her and she fixed him an infuriated glare. After the Mistress at Blakely, she was afraid of no man.

  Coolly and deliberately, she answered his questions.

  ‘You’ll do fine,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘Training starts next Monday. Seven thirty sharp.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, her voice aloof.

  Esther trained in a class of fourteen women of all ages, ignorant of what the factory produced. The foreman shed some light on the matter. He talked about the precision instruments the plant made.

  ‘Speed is what’s important,’ he told the class. ‘It takes fifteen people working flat out to keep a pilot flying.’

  As reality dawned, Esther was elated. She was to play a real part in providing aeroplanes in the sky – and maybe make a difference to the war.

  An instructor gave the class a lecture about safety aspects of working with machines. He then led them into the basement and the machine rooms. Here, as in the rest of the factory, the windows were boarded up and the room’s artificial light was harsh on Esther’s eyes. Women stood at machines, concentrating on their work. They wore navy overalls and peaked hats with fish nets covering their hair. The noise deafening and the atmosphere stifling, Esther felt an ache behind her eyes. How these women spent an eight-hour shift in such conditions she couldn’t imagine. She hoped she wasn’t assigned to this department.

  It turned out that she was.

  ‘Laurie wants to know if you’ve settled in at work,’ Dorothy asked one grey and rainy morning that felt nothing like summer.

  Dorothy had recently returned home from working the night shift. Tired and wan, she’d made straight for the bedroom and changed from her uniform into her husband’s blue bulky dressing gown. She lounged on the couch, legs curled beneath her and read Laurie’s letter.

  ‘He sends his love and asks that you make sure I eat. Cheeky blighter says I’m too thin.’

  Dorothy smiled and brushed the letter under her nose as if hoping to get a whiff of her husband.

  ‘He has a point,’ Esther rebuked. ‘You eat like a sparrow.’

  Busy getting ready for work, she opened a compact – a belated birthday present from Dorothy.

  After being a nonentity at Blakely, Esther tried to feel special on occasion by wearing a touch of make-up and sometimes going to the hairdressers. Though recovering from the harsh treatment and deprivation of Blakely was a constant inward battle and Esther believed she didn’t deserve such treats.

  ‘I’ll tell Laurie myself about my job.’ Esther placed the compact in her shoulder bag.

  Dorothy gave a tired smile. ‘He’ll be touched you made the effort.’

  ‘Shall I make you a cuppa?’

  ‘No thank you. I’m off to bed.’

  Dorothy slipped Laurie’s letter into her dressing gown pocket and Esther knew it would be read many times.

  ‘Has Laurie any news of a ship?’

  ‘He can’t say because of censorship. But reading between the lines he seems to think he’ll be going to sea any time soon.’

  Which meant that Dorothy wouldn’t hear from him for a while.

  ‘Chin up, you never know your luck,’ Esther said. ‘He might be due some leave before he goes.’

  Dorothy visibly cheered. ‘D’you know, I never thought of that.’

  As time went on, Esther not only took pride in her work, but also enjoyed the company of other women – not that she made any friends. The machine room had twelve benches and small drilling machin
es where Esther operated a drill press, forming holes in aluminium discs. Though monotonous, the work didn’t drive her mad and, surprisingly, proved therapeutic.

  The position of the holes was fixed by a jig and all she had to do was insert the disc and then raise and lower a lever. Not able to think while she worked, she became inwardly calm. In a world of her own, surrounded by noisy machines, Esther sang, as did the rest of the women, at the top of her voice – and the beauty of it was, she got paid two pounds, two shillings a week for the privilege.

  Tea break came at ten. Most of the workers brought in flasks and preferred to sit at their benches on the shop floor and gossip. Esther favoured the canteen where she could purchase a hot cup of tea and a Spam sandwich. The rest of the morning passed quickly enough, though Esther kept an eye on the machine setter, who combed the room as he supervised work. At one o’clock sharp, the factory hooter blew and when the machines stopped, the silence was deafening.

  Esther shot like a bullet out of the door, for queues in the factory canteen built up quickly. Sometimes it took the whole dinner break to get served. Some workers went to the nearby cafe for a meal while others made do with packed lunches from home. For Esther, a hot two-course meal was too big an enticement to miss.

  At first, being in the canteen with masses of people and factory rules and regulations blaring from the walls reminded Esther of Blakely, and she had to quash the urge to stand to attention at the table. But as time progressed, Esther forgot any comparisons with the orphanage. She found some comfort in the place; with its loudspeakers blaring BBC Home Service, the hubbub of noise, and the smell of delicious food in the air mingled with tobacco smoke.

  The canteen was run on a self-service basis and Esther never knew whether to find a place at a table first, or join the queue. Today she opted for queuing up. Glancing around the room, she saw Bertha Cuthbertson wave over the heads and indicate a vacant seat next to her. Bertha – one of the machinists in the same shop as Esther – was somewhere in her late fifties, and a motherly type, who spoke her mind to a fault.

  ‘Next – oh, it’s you!’

  May Robinson, wearing a white overall, stood behind the canteen counter, giving a diffident smile.

  ‘I wouldn’t have the vegetable pie, if I was you,’ she said, oblivious to the sour look she received from the canteen supervisor who stood beside her. ‘Have the corned beef hash… it’s fresh on the day.’

  Esther nodded.

  Though May was years older than Esther, she radiated a childlike quality that made her seem far younger.

  She piled a plate with food and handed it to Esther, watched by the disapproving supervisor.

  ‘Any pudding?’ May asked.

  ‘Jam sponge and custard, please… and a cup of tea.’

  May picked up a metal jug and poured steaming custard over a dishful of jam pudding, before handing it to Esther.

  ‘I haven’t seen your Dorothy for a bit.’ She poured weak tea from an enormous teapot into a cup.

  ‘No… she’s on night shift,’ she replied, shortly. Esther still felt quite protective over Dorothy, and jealous of other demands on her affections. She wasn’t sure about May becoming too friendly with her sister.

  ‘Ah! That’ll be why. Mind you, I’ve been coming to work on me bike for the past two days, rather than the bus.’

  She stood with the teapot in her hands as if she had all day. ‘Tell your Dorothy me mam’s given us a bag of wool. I’ll try and get some to her.’

  May and Dorothy had struck up a friendship when they realised that both their men folk were in the forces. They both liked knitting and spent many an hour together making socks for the ‘boys on the front line’.

  ‘Less talking, Robinson,’ Miss Tait, the supervisor, a thin, impatient-looking woman, snapped. ‘And get on with your job. We’ve a queue a mile long.’

  May bristled. ‘I was only telling her summik.’ She handed the cup of tea over to Esther who placed it on her tray.

  ‘Have you got your meal ticket?’ May asked.

  Esther handed the food ticket over the counter. She liked eating at the canteen because it meant she could save on her ration coupons.

  Threading her way through the tables, she put the tray onto the bench and sat down next to Bertha.

  Bertha remarked, ‘My, you’re slipping, Etty, lass.’ For some reason Esther’s name had been shortened at work, and she rather liked it. It made her sound more mature, not like someone who came from an orphanage – not that anyone knew about her past. She made sure of that.

  ‘You’re usually first to scarper when the hooter blows and make for the queue.’ Bertha, a robust woman with a round friendly face, had two side teeth missing that were noticeable when she grinned.

  She lowered her voice. ‘My advice to you is to hang back and wait for the other lasses… else you’ll be called stuck-up and get talked about.’ She winked sagely, then slurped tea from a saucer.

  The other machinists sat around the table, in full flow conversation, weren’t in the least bit interested in what Bertha said. Esther was used to being ignored; when the lasses talked around her it was as though she was invisible. Bertha might have a point, she considered. She was so used to watching out for herself at Blakely, she didn’t give others a thought.

  ‘Give it time, lass.’ Bertha’s face expressed sympathy. ‘They’ll come round once they get to know you proper.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Esther said primly, and Bertha rolled her eyes.

  ‘Hinny, it’s the way you talk that puts folk off. Posh, like… and you act snooty.’

  If only Bertha knew, Esther thought. Though she desperately longed to be accepted, the insecurity Esther had inherited at Blakely had left her lacking in confidence.

  ‘See, you’re doing it now… giving us a look as if I’m daft.’

  Esther was appalled that Bertha – or anybody else – should think such a thing. And if any of the lasses did act friendly towards her, she found herself feeling uncertain and suspicious of their motives, ending up appearing aloof.

  ‘Divvent take it so seriously, lass. We all have faults. I just wanted to help, like.’

  Bertha gave a toothless cackle and Esther couldn’t take offence at the woman.

  ‘That’s better. You’re no raving beauty but when you smile, you’re a bonny lass.’

  Esther laughed outright at the woman’s cheek. ‘My dad was a Geordie,’ she said as she picked up her knife and fork.

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He died when I was little, after the Great War.’

  ‘Aw pet, that’s too bad. What about yi’ mam?’

  ‘She’s… she came from a well-to-do family – a vicar’s daughter.’

  Bertha nodded knowingly. ‘Ahh. So, that’s why you talk refined.’

  Esther shrugged in embarrassment.

  ‘Tell yer mam you do her proud.’

  Esther didn’t explain she could do no such thing.

  Raids in the area continued during late August and early September, especially targeting aircraft factories. One dinner time, Esther was sitting outside for a breath of fresh air in the sunshine when she heard the drone of approaching planes in the distance. Fearing for her life, she threw down the women’s magazine she carried and made a dash for one of the air raid shelters – a series of long and echoing tunnels underground. Dodging the other folk intent on the same thing, she ran to one of the entrances. Planes roared overhead and machine guns started to shoot at folk on the ground who scurried in all directions to avoid lethal bullets.

  ‘Haway, hinny,’ a male voice shouted as he took her by the arm. Together, they ran pell-mell for the entrance and, safely inside, Esther looked up into the face of a foreman who worked in the machine room.

  ‘One of these days, lass,’ he told her, ‘management will think to arrange one of them barrage balloons to safeguard us. Sooner rather than later, I should hope.’

  Esther imagined the balloon, which reminded her of a massive silver kite, saili
ng high in the air and tethered to the ground by cables. Its purpose, she knew, was to damage low flying aircraft and prevent attacks.

  When a barrage balloon was delivered the very next morning the foreman responded, ‘Only right an all.’

  He asked if anyone was willing to do an extra shift on Sunday, traditionally a day of rest, and Esther volunteered. Dorothy, after nightshift, would be in bed and if Esther stayed at home, she’d be forced to creep around the flat, fearful of waking her sister up.

  Her shift finished at two o’clock and by the time Esther made her way into the canteen, two of the staff were tidying the tables and putting dishes away. They gave Esther a disgruntled stare.

  ‘I’ll serve,’ May Robinson said from behind the counter.

  ‘We’re finished. There’s nowt to be had,’ a blonde-haired woman snapped. ‘And will you not stand on me wet floor,’ she told Esther. ‘I’ll be here for the duration if she finds a footmark on it.’

  ‘Miss Tait,’ May said, by way of explanation, ‘inspects the canteen afore any of us can go home. It makes her day if she finds fault.’

  ‘And we are the ones to suffer,’ Blondie commented.

  ‘I haven’t emptied the food trays yet,’ May told Esther. ‘I can give you a spot of cottage pie if you want.’

  Famished, Esther nodded gratefully.

  She sat as far from the counter as she could, not fancying the staff glowering at her.

  As she ate the pie, Miss Tait marched in, and true enough, didn’t miss a trick.

  ‘Salt and peppers wiped… Trays cleaned…’ the supervisor’s sharp eyes travelled the room. She gave Esther a baleful stare. ‘Right, ladies… when everyone’s gone you can close up shop and go home.’

  Esther, determined not to be hurried, finished the lukewarm pie, then rose and made for the door.

  ‘See yi,’ May Robinson called out.

  Esther made her way to the cloakroom on the ground floor where stragglers from the machine room stood gossiping, cigarettes in their hands. The conversation stopped when she walked in. Esther collected her coat from the peg and, remembering the conversation with Bertha, turned and gave the lasses a friendly smile.