Dark Days for the Tobacco Girls

by Lizzie Lane

  Dark Days for the Tobacco Girls

  The Tobacco Girls Book Two

  LIZZIE LANE

  Dedicated to Cordelia and Rita at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, who kept me laughing when they stuck needles into my arm, gave me ice lollies as well as information about Zimbabwean tobacco!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  More from Lizzie Lane

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  Bridget Milligan

  The news from the British Expeditionary Force in France was bad and spread like wildfire, flashing from town to town, house to house and family to family. A whole army had been plucked from the beaches and the safety taken for granted had melted away. Britain was in danger of being invaded.

  Feeling sick inside, Bridget Milligan gripped the newspaper with trembling hands, thankful that no member of her family was serving in the army. Being of a caring nature, she felt great empathy for those who did.

  Her clear blue eyes exchanged a worried look with her father as she passed the newspaper back to him.

  ‘It doesn’t look good.’

  He shook his head solemnly.

  Studied on a map, the battleground and the retreat from Dunkirk in Northern France seemed a long way off from the city of Bristol, yet still they felt its effects. Bridget saw those effects on the strained faces of some of her workmates at W. D. &. H. O. Wills, the tobacco factory where she’d worked since she left school. She heard it in their voices, concern for their menfolk, not knowing whether they were injured, lost or listed amongst casualty lists that were as yet incomplete.

  That night whilst brushing the hair of her sisters, she thought about her friend Phyllis. They’d worked together and been best friends for a long time, but she’d hardly seen her since she’d married Robert Harvey. Robert had joined up shortly after the wedding and Phyllis had moved in with her in-laws, a situation Bridget didn’t envy. Had Phyllis heard from Robert? She was tempted to go round there and ask, but Mrs Harvey didn’t welcome visitors, especially girls who worked in the tobacco factory.

  Molly, one of her sisters, interrupted her thoughts. ‘Will my hair be as long as yours one day?’

  Bridget smiled down at her little sister who hadn’t long turned six years of age, a fact Molly was inordinately fond of, as though six meant babyhood was left behind.

  She patted Molly’s head. ‘Well, it’s the same colour as mine and just as shiny.’

  Molly’s hair was indeed of the same brandy brown as Bridget’s and just as glossy.

  ‘I’m next,’ said Mary, nipping under Bridget’s arms to make sure that she was.

  A year older than Molly, she had the same colour hair as all the girls except for Ruby, who, at eleven, was the eldest of Bridget’s sisters and had just gone up into the big school. Her hair was dark blonde and, according to Bridget’s mother, was inherited from her father’s side of the family. Between Ruby and Mary in age was Katy, who had not been able to stay awake for her turn but fallen asleep, her hair a glossy sundial arrangement round her head.

  The boys, Sean now thirteen, and Michael aged ten, were still downstairs in the bathroom.

  ‘Now let me see if you’ve done behind your ears,’ she heard her mother say, and smiled. Washing wasn’t top of her brothers’ agenda, though Sean was changing his attitude now his voice was breaking and girls didn’t disgust him quite as much as they used to.

  ‘The boys are growing up,’ Bridget remarked once everyone, with the exception of Sean, was safely tucked up in bed.

  She was standing with her mother, drying the dishes whilst her mother washed them in a mixture of flakes of Sunlight soap and a handful of soda.

  ‘So are you,’ murmured her mother with a sidelong look. ‘They’re not the only ones to have had birthdays.’

  This year had been Bridget’s twentieth birthday, but she was wise enough to know there was more to her mother’s remark than it being another year gone by. There was no young man walking out with her, none she’d invited home and none she’d ever mentioned – none that were local anyway. There were only the letters – infrequently nowadays – from Lyndon O’Neill, an American, the wealthy owner of a Virginian tobacco plantation.

  She’d formed a bond with Lyndon from the very first time they’d met, but the war had intervened in their relationship and he’d gone back to the United States with his parents, wealthy people with great ambitions for their son which did not include a factory girl.

  Bridget knew very well where her mother’s words were leading. ‘I’m not an old maid yet.’

  Her mother raised her hands from the suds and watched as her fingers dripped hot water, a slight frown worrying her brow. ‘Don’t aim too high, Bridie,’ she said gently, using the familiar name Bridget was always called at home.

  ‘I’m not aiming anywhere.’ Bridget couldn’t help the sudden sharpness in her voice. Lyndon had swept her off her feet, but she still harboured fears about falling in love with anyone. She’d watched her mother give birth and also miscarry, saw the pain and vowed she would never go through childbirth if she could possibly help it.

  The terrible events on the beach at Dunkirk took the preparations for war up a gear. Fear and justifiable alarm spread. It felt as though a black cloud lay heavy on the land. France had fallen, and according to Mr Churchill, the new prime minister who’d taken over from Mr Chamberlain, England was next.

  As a consequence, it was only a few weeks later that Bridget’s father persuaded her mother that the children should be evacuated. Her mother cried at the thought of being separated from her youngest children, but responded to her husband, Patrick’s common-sense statement.

  On the allotted day of evacuation, Bridget took the day off work to help with getting the kids ready to be evacuated to a place where there were no docks, no important railway links and no aircraft factories. Bristol was such an obvious target.

  Temple Meads Station heaved as though every child in Bristol had flocked there, gas masks in cardboard cases hanging from strings around their necks, bags or cases clutched in tight little hands. The noise was deafening, people shouting, children crying, chattering, laughing, and all against the tooting and steaming of great locomotives like the Bristol Castle and the Truro Castle, named after places built to fend off enemies.

  Women with plummy accents seemed to be the ones in charge. Some wore uniforms and almost all of them held a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

  Patrick Milligan ushered his family forward, his wife Mary at his side, her face white, her brow furrowed with worry.

  Bridget held tightly to the small hands of her youngest sisters as they shuffled forward in a queue that stretched far behind them, over the old flagstones of the concourse an
d down the hill towards the Bath Road.

  The woman in the green uniform was short and dumpy, her hair grey and tightly curled. Discerning eyes swept over them, nostrils flaring as though she had the physique of a spirited horse rather than that of a short-legged donkey.

  Patrick handed her a list of his children’s names, gender and ages.

  Thanks to the press of the crowd, Mary Milligan and the younger children were squashed between her husband and Bridget.

  The woman briskly checked off the names. ‘Yes. Your children are all destined for South Molton.’

  Mary smiled down at her children, especially the youngest ones. ‘There. You’ll be going to a pretty little village in the countryside.’

  ‘It’s a town, not a village,’ said the woman brusquely. ‘A market town in fact.’

  Despite her lack of stature, the woman had a high-handed attitude, as though working-class women had no knowledge whatsoever of anywhere outside Bristol.

  Disliking her attitude, Bridget bristled. ‘It’s in North Devon,’ she declared, looking down at the woman from her superior height, her blue eyes cold as ice. ‘Not that far from Tavistock. Farming country, though not quite so lush as South Devon.’

  Surprised by her knowledge, the woman looked momentarily as though she’d dislocated her jaw. ‘You sound as though you know it well,’ the woman managed to say at last.

  ‘I’m very well read on that particular part of the Devonshire coastline, though I prefer Exmoor, just north of there. Lorna Doone country. As in the book written by R. D. Blackmore.’ She said it in an aloof manner. If this woman thought she was going to make her feel small, she was sadly mistaken.

  Having accepted she’d been put in her place, the woman dropped her gaze to her clipboard, cleared her throat and pronounced that the train would be leaving from Platform 12 in twenty minutes.

  ‘I would suggest you get your family aboard as quickly as you can,’ she said, turning swiftly away as though keen to get onto the next batch of evacuees and people she could more easily intimidate.

  Patrick Milligan thanked her as courteously as the situation allowed, then shouted to make himself heard above the heaving, noisy throng.

  ‘All keep together, children. All together now!’

  Battling through the crowd was something of an ordeal. Bridget and her mother picked up the youngest two. Her father managed to lift Katy into his arms whilst the older three, Ruby, Sean and Michael, followed on behind, the two boys using their overladen carrier bags to bulldoze their way through the packed throng.

  Their excitement was obvious. As far as they were concerned, they were going on a holiday, the only one they’ve ever had except for day trips to Clevedon or Weston-super-Mare.

  Another woman with a clipboard supervised the boarding of children into the carriages. She checked their names off for a second time. Once it was done, she turned to their father. ‘If you can’t get them all into one compartment, some of them will have to go into another one.’

  A whistle sounded and steam squealed in a white cloud from the engine.

  ‘I wouldn’t want them to be separated,’ shouted Mary Milligan above the shrill noise. ‘I want them to stay together.’

  The surging crowd pressed all around.

  The woman clasped her clipboard tight against her chest. ‘Get them aboard. They can at least travel together. What happens at their destination is another matter entirely and it’s very likely that they will be split up. But still, anything is better than living under a hail of bombs.’

  Mary Milligan stiffened at the woman’s words and Patrick frowned, worried at his wife’s likely response.

  The excited chatter of other children already on the train was infectious.

  ‘Look at all of them kids,’ shouted Sean.

  Michael looked and, being one to always look on the bright side, added. ‘I ’ope they all play football.’

  The girls began to take an interest. Molly waved her rag doll; Mary followed suit and waved a one-eared teddy bear that went everywhere with her.

  Pleased at their response and smiling hesitantly, Bridget’s father patted his wife’s shoulder. ‘They’ll be fine, Mary.’

  ‘No!’ The rest of what Mary Milligan said was drowned out with the sound of steam squealing from the engine. ‘I don’t want them separated,’ she shouted.

  People surged in a sudden rush between them and the carriage doors and they were pushed backwards.

  ‘Patrick! I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want them to go.’

  Bridget hung onto her mother. ‘Mum, you can’t change your mind now.’

  ‘Well I have.’

  But it was too late. All six of her children had scrambled up into the carriage and hurled themselves into the seats. The youngest two, looking slightly confused, were the only ones to glance back. It had indeed turned into an outing, an adventure they’d never gone on before.

  ‘Patrick!’ Mary Milligan turned to her husband in alarm.

  Fearing she’d get too close to the train, Bridget held onto her mother.

  Bridget’s father shrugged his shoulders as best he could in the tight crush of people. ‘It’s done, Mary. It’s done.’

  Out of sympathy for her mother, Bridget did her best to push through, but a railway guard intervened and slammed the door shut.

  ‘My mother’s changed her mind,’ she shouted.

  ‘Sorry, Miss. Too late. We’re ready to go.’ His manner was polite but officious. Without more ado, he waved his green flag and blew his whistle.

  The station was a place of turmoil, noise, crowds and steam, the gritty smell of burnt coal hanging in the air and swallowed with every breath.

  As the train began to slide along the platform, the crowd thinned and Bridget’s mother lunged forward. ‘I can’t let them go,’ she screamed.

  Bridget and her father held her back, both using soft words of reassurance.

  ‘Mary, me darling, the train is going now.’

  Crowds of children waved excitedly from behind carriage windows, faces rosy with excitement. Here and there was a paler face without smiles, dumbfounded that the world of all that was familiar was slipping away with the increased speed of the train.

  ‘My babies!’

  Bridget held on to her mother.

  Patrick Milligan draped a strong arm round his wife’s shoulders. ‘They’ll be safer in the country. Come on, me darling. Let’s be going home.’

  Mary Milligan looked up into her husband’s face as though he had not understood what was happening so she stated it slowly. ‘Didn’t you hear what she said? They won’t necessarily be together.’

  Patrick hugged his wife of twenty-two years tightly against his body, felt the heaving of her sobs, and buried his face in her neck. ‘We have to let them go,’ he murmured, his breath warm against her neck. ‘They’ll be safer in the country. Just you see. They’ll be safer, me darling.’

  Gradually there remained only a cloud of steam and gritty smoke where the train had been. The children were gone.

  Gathering on the platform and the concourse behind them, another throng of children and adults replaced those already on their way to safety as another train pulled in.

  Shoulders slumped, Bridget and her parents headed out of the station, leaving the noise and bustle behind them. Her mother was no longer crying, but there was an ominous silence between her parents. It was her father’s habit to run a hand across his wife’s back as they walked, even in front of the children. He did this now, an act of reassurance that on this occasion was instantly shrugged off.

  2

  Maisie Miles

  Since the very first time they’d met, when Bridget and Phyllis, who were three years older than her, had labelled themselves, the Three Ms, Maisie had regarded Bridget as a voice of calm in the midst of a storm, the sensible one when everyone else was running round like headless chickens.

  Not so this week when Bridget had been very down in the dumps; even offers to go out and pai
nt the town had met with disinterest, which was a great shame.

  Maisie eyed Bridget and thought back to the days when she’d started work at the factory. She’d been glad of the money but more so of the friendship. Phyllis and Bridget had taken her under their wing, her a scruffy kid from the Dings. She owed both of them her support in any way she could..

  It seemed an age since she’d lived in York Street. Her mother was dead now, but Frank Miles, her stepfather was still around. Rather than stay in the old house, she’d taken Aggie Hill up on her invitation to move into the Llandoger Trow, a spooky old place next to the water.

  Aggie’s husband, Curly, who was actually as bald as a new laid egg, ran the pub whilst Aggie continued to work at the tobacco factory; she reckoned the pair of them would kill each other if they had to spend twenty-four hours a day together.

  There was plenty of life in the Llandoger as it was more commonly called, a black and white timbered pub on the Welsh Back, an ancient quayside where wood for shipbuilding used to be unloaded from barges called ‘trows’ which came down the Rivers Severn and Wye from the Forest of Dean.

  Maisie had been over the moon when her stepfather, Frank Miles, had gone inside for thieving just before the last Christmas. For a time she’d thought she could stay in the house at York Street. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for long enough. In order to gain his freedom, Frank had shopped Eddie Bridgeman, a nasty criminal who was into a lot of nasty things to the police for receiving. A terrified Maisie had fled and Aggie had offered her a room.