by Daisy Styles
A few days later Julia found a telegram in her pigeon-hole, and, tearing it open, she eagerly read Hugo’s cryptic message.
Would you two like lunch on my day off next week?
There was no doubting the significance of the message: it was clear that Hugo wanted to meet up with her and Rosa as soon as possible. But how would they get to London? Quickly folding the letter, Julia went in search of Rosa, whom she needed to talk to urgently and in private too.
Julia found her opportunity when they were walking home from work later that evening.
‘I had a telegram from Hugo today.’
Rosa stopped dead in her tracks and gripped her arm. ‘Gabriel!’ she gasped.
‘He didn’t say,’ Julia replied. ‘But he wants to see us soon.’
‘In London?’
Julia nodded. ‘It’ll be a very short visit,’ she quickly added. ‘But first we have to get permission to take time off.’
‘It’s only a day – surely we’re owed that?’
‘With our recent instructions to push out more bombs, we might be turned down,’ Julia commented.
‘I’ll ask Malc if he can swing it for us with Mr Featherstone,’ Rosa said, as she quickened her step, then stopped again as she turned to her friend. ‘Your brother must have found something out,’ she insisted, hope burning bright in her eyes. ‘Otherwise why would he ask to see both of us?’
Worried that Rosa was running ahead of herself, Julia quickly cautioned her, ‘Let’s see what Hugo has to say first and, more to the point, if we can actually get time off to go to see him.’
Rosa asked Malc to approach the factory manager on their behalf, and he agreed to grant them twenty-four hours’ leave. ‘But you’d better be back on the line bang on time the next day,’ Malc warned. ‘Bomber Command waits for no man – or woman either for that matter.’
Once permission was granted Julia hurriedly sent Hugo a reply.
We’d love lunch, what day best suits you?
Jay x
Hugo’s reply came winging back almost immediately.
Table booked, usual place, 1 pm Monday. H
‘God!’ Julia thought. ‘Hugo’s definitely not hanging about.’
To be on the safe side, Julia suggested they travelled down to London on Sunday evening, after they’d finished their shift.
‘We can’t risk travelling on Monday,’ she told Rosa. ‘If the train should be delayed, we’ll miss Hugo altogether.’
Vividly recalling how excited Rosa had been when they’d previously heard from Hugo, Julia repeated her warning: ‘You know, Rosa, it’s vital that you keep our meeting a secret.’
‘I know you think I’ll blab to Arthur,’ Rosa said with a knowing smile. ‘But I won’t – I’ll keep my mouth shut, promise.’
Nora and Maggie were nonplussed by their friends’ plans.
‘You’re going all that way just for a day?’ gasped Nora.
‘I promised ages ago I’d go to see Mummy on her birthday,’ Julia lied.
‘And Rosa’s going with you?’ Maggie asked.
‘I’m meeting up with an Italian friend from university,’ Rosa also lied. ‘I’ve only just found out she’s in London.’
Exchanging guilty looks, Julia and Rosa felt bad about deceiving their best friends, but needs must; the last thing they could afford to do was to tell them the truth.
After finishing their long shift, the girls managed to get on a packed train just after six at London Road Station in Manchester. Too tired to talk, they fell asleep with their heads pressed together, Julia’s golden blonde hair contrasting with Rosa’s long, dark, winding tresses. When the train, packed with exhausted servicemen, shunted slowly into Euston Station, yawning Julia gave Rosa a nudge. ‘We’re here,’ she said gently.
Unable to cope with the Underground so late at night, Julia hailed a cab on Euston Road, and once they were settled in the back seat the cabbie – keen for company – reiterated the news they’d heard, of the German surrender in the Crimea. The driver nattered on, gleefully predicting the outcome. ‘We’ve got the Hun on the run for sure,’ he chuckled. ‘What with our lads south of Rome and the Soviets now on the offensive, bloody Jerry won’t be crowing much longer!’
Relieved to get out of the taxi, Julia quickly paid the driver, then, after unlocking the front door to her darkened house, led sleepy Rosa to the guest room before going in search of her mother.
When Rosa woke up the next morning, for a single wonderful minute she thought she was back home in Italy. The crisp, ironed linen sheets on her comfortable bed smelt of lavender, just like hers used to; the big room full of morning light was warm and pretty, with pictures on the wall and fresh flowers in vases; and when she sniffed she could smell coffee – real coffee. Jumping out of bed, Rosa rushed into the bathroom, where she started to run a bath, and as she waited for it to fill up she looked at her steamy reflection in the mirror – would today be the day she had dreamt about for almost three years?
‘Please, God,’ she prayed as she closed her eyes, ‘let me hear my beloved brother is alive and well.’
37. The Usual Place
Julia’s family always jokingly referred to the Ritz Hotel as the ‘usual place’, so Julia was in no doubt where she and Rosa would be meeting Hugo for lunch. She thought it wise not to mention this to her mother, who, though delighted to see her daughter and to meet Rosa, was clearly disappointed that their visit was so brief.
‘What a shame,’ Mrs Thorpe sighed, as she poured the girls a second cup of rich, dark coffee. ‘I thought we’d have more than a few hours together.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mummy,’ Julia apologized.
Rosa quickly added, ‘If we’re not back on the bomb line first thing in the morning, we’ll be in big trouble!’
‘We’re doing more overtime than ever these days,’ Julia said with a grimace. ‘Bomber Command are going through bombs like nobody’s business.’
‘I’m surprised you could be spared from the workplace,’ Mrs Thorpe remarked.
‘Believe me, Mummy, it wasn’t easy!’ laughed Julia.
Before the girls left, Mrs Thorpe handed Julia a shopping basket packed with goodies from her own pantry.
‘I have to confess,’ she told Rosa with a guilty smile, ‘that my housekeeper procures coffee for me from the black market – at an extortionate price, I might add.’ She rolled her eyes in mock shame. ‘I know it’s wicked and not at all patriotic, but it really is my only sin!’
‘I think we can live with your wicked sins,’ Rosa said with a conspiratorial smile.
‘Come back soon, darling,’ Mrs Thorpe urged, as she kissed her daughter. ‘You too, Rosa. Goodbye!’
Julia and Rosa took the bus to the West End, passing shattered shops, blasted factories and tenement blocks caved in on their own foundations.
‘I sometimes wonder if London will ever recover from this onslaught,’ Julia said, as she gazed sadly out of the grimy bus window. ‘How much more can Londoners take?’
‘God knows what I will find when I eventually return home,’ Rosa murmured. ‘I don’t really care about anything, if I’m honest,’ she blurted out. ‘Buildings, museums, works of art – I just want my family safely back.’
Julia gave Rosa’s hand a comforting squeeze. ‘Have you ever talked to Arthur about your brother?’ she asked curiously.
Rosa quickly answered, ‘Oh, yes! Arthur knows everything.’ She grinned as she added, ‘He even knows about me running away to London.’
Julia tentatively asked a question that had been on her mind since Maggie’s wedding. ‘I hope you don’t mind my poking my nose in, Rosa,’ she started to say, ‘but it’s perfectly obvious to me, and to others too,’ she said with a cheeky wink, ‘that you’ve taken a shine to Arthur Leadbetter.’
Rosa blushed. ‘Is it that obvious?’ she asked shyly.
‘Oh, yes!’ Julia teased.
‘But it’s hopeless!’ Rosa exclaimed.
‘Why?’ Julia cried
.
‘He was so in love with Violet. And she was my dear friend.’
Rosa gave a heavy sigh as she recalled the terrible tragedy of Violet’s death in the explosion at the Phoenix, which had also left Arthur badly injured and hospitalized for several weeks.
‘I think if it hadn’t been for Stevie,’ Rosa told Julia, ‘Arthur would have lost the will to live, but he had to keep on going for his son.’ Rosa turned to Julia with tears in her eyes. ‘It was love at first sight for me with Stevie; I adored him, and still do,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t know when my feelings for Arthur started to change. I’ve always been fond of him, and we all felt so sorry for him and missed him when he went to work in Dundee, but it really was no more than that.’
‘What changed things?’
‘I think it’s just been a gradual thing,’ Rosa replied. ‘When I started to dither about setting a wedding date with Roger, Arthur was supportive, which made me feel a bit less guilty. And then I just gradually started to realize I was much happier in Arthur’s company than Roger’s. And that feeling has grown and grown over time.’ She smiled as she recalled Arthur’s words of advice, ‘He told me, You should take your time and not be rushed. Which, to be honest, was very comforting.’
Julia laughed softly. ‘Well, that advice certainly paid off!’
A waiter in tails led them to the table where Hugo was waiting for them with cocktails.
‘Thought we might need these,’ he joked, as he kissed his sister and shook Rosa by the hand.
Rosa was so nervous she could have downed all three cocktails, but determined to keep her head clear she took only a sip from her glass.
‘How are you, darling?’ Julia said, as she sat close to her brother and smiled at him adoringly.
As Hugo grinned and chatted with his younger sister, Rosa was struck by how similar they were: both tall and lean, the same penetrating, intelligent green eyes and straight nose, though Hugo’s hair was brown rather than silky blonde like Julia’s. They had the same manner too: confident, at ease with the world; it was only when Hugo ordered lunch that Rosa noticed the stub which was all that remained of his left hand.
‘You’re from northern Italy?’ Hugo asked as he turned his attention to his guest.
Rosa nodded. ‘Padua, though I’ve not been back since the outbreak of war.’
Suddenly impatient of small talk, Rosa leant forward in her chair and said in a low, urgent voice, ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you, Hugo – you and Julia have given me hope that my brother might still be alive,’ she finished with an emotional gulp.
Hugo glanced nervously around. ‘We still don’t know that for sure, I’m afraid.’
‘But you have news?’ Rosa insisted.
With his good hand, Hugo raised his cocktail glass, which he drank from before carefully placing it back on the table. ‘One of our field agents who works the Belgian coast got a message out to us last week.’
The waiter arrived bearing three bowls of soup on a silver tray.
‘Madam,’ he said, placing a bowl before Rosa, who spread a white linen napkin across her lap and took a warm roll from the breadbasket. ‘Thank you,’ she said; then, with her heart beating double time, she waited for him to finish serving so she could hear what Hugo had to say.
‘Every month a submarine surfaces close to the Belgian coast. For obvious reasons the location changes all the time; its purpose is to pick up prisoners of war,’ Hugo explained. ‘Under cover of darkness, those chosen to meet up with the vessel wait for the sub’s signal, then row or swim to it.’
Rosa held her breath. She could almost hear the lap of the freezing cold water as the sub surfaced offshore; then, at the appointed time, a few flashes to the desperate men, women and children awaiting rescue in the shadows. What if the Germans were lying in wait too? What if they’d tortured the field agent and knew about the clandestine operation? They could pick off the escapees as they ran to the boats, leaving them to float out, dead or dying, on the tide.
Seeing Rosa tensely gripping her soup spoon, Hugo quickly added, ‘It’s unquestionably risky – there’s danger at every turn – but every month escapees make it to Southampton.’
Rosa laid a hand over her mouth to smother her cry. ‘Are you telling me Gabriel is one of them?’
Hugo answered honestly, ‘We won’t know till the sub’s safely home and the passengers have disembarked – and I don’t know the names of those on board either,’ he quickly added; then, feeling sorry for Rosa, who was desperately fighting back tears, he said, ‘What I can tell you is if your brother is still using the identity papers he was issued with, then he would have had a fair chance of being selected to board the vessel.’
Wanting to say something positive, Julia smiled brightly as she added in an upbeat voice, ‘Surely those with false identities stand a better chance of getting on the sub than those without?’
She looked inquiringly at her brother, who nodded back at her. Julia knew what his demeanour meant: that was as much good news as he could give them; from here, they would just have to wait and see.
Visibly trembling, Rosa reached for her cocktail glass, which she drained in one. ‘Thank you, Hugo,’ she managed to say in a quaky voice.
Julia gently patted her arm. ‘Darling, the search is getting closer,’ she said reassuringly.
‘I thought it was important that I spoke to you personally about this matter,’ Hugo added. ‘It’s not the sort of information I can put in a letter or speak of over the phone.’
‘Of course,’ Rosa replied hastily. ‘I quite understand.’
After picking at her lunch, Rosa begged to be excused.
‘I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do,’ she said sweetly. ‘And, to be honest, I’d like to be alone for a while,’ she admitted.
Bidding Hugo farewell and kissing him lightly on both cheeks, Rosa left the restaurant with every man’s eyes following her slim, shapely form.
‘God! She’s a bit of a stunner,’ Hugo said, as he stared admiringly at Rosa’s long dark hair swinging around her slender shoulders.
‘She’s lovely,’ Julia replied with a fond smile.
‘I thought you told me that she hated you,’ Hugo recalled as he tucked into his jam roly-poly.
‘Oh, she certainly did,’ Julia retorted as she savoured her ice-cream. ‘But, after coming to an understanding, we realized we liked each other enormously.’
Over coffee (not as good as her mother’s black-market coffee, Julia thought wryly), she asked Hugo what Gabriel’s chances of survival really were.
‘As I told Rosa, if he’s on that sub I’d say excellent,’ he answered. ‘The pick-up is the most dangerous time; if he made it to the sub and didn’t get shot or drowned in the process, the chances are he’ll be docking in Southampton very soon – but, for God’s sake, don’t get Rosa’s hopes up too much – she’s nervous enough as it is.’
After finishing his meal, Hugo sat back and lit up a cigarette. ‘Things are speeding up fast, Jay,’ he said, and, lowering his voice to a whisper, added, ‘There’s talk of an imminent invasion on the French coast. If we keep gaining ground, young Rosa might even be able to return home sooner than she thinks. And let’s hope it’s alongside that brother of hers.’
The journey back North was long and arduous, but Julia and Rosa dragged themselves out of their beds the next morning and clocked in on time at the Phoenix, albeit with dark circles under their eyes and both of them yawning non-stop.
‘Shut yer gob, there’s a bus coming!’ Malc joked when he saw Julia smother another yawn.
Julia burst out laughing. ‘I’ve never heard that expression before,’ she told Malc, who was full of Northern witticisms.
‘That’s ’cos you’re from down South and you speak different from us heathens up here,’ Malc pointed out.
‘I think I might be picking up a bit of a Northern accent,’ Julia confessed.
‘Keep working on it, cock: it takes a life-t
ime of practice,’ Malc joked as he wandered off to the dispatch room.
As the Bomb Girls’ shifts got under way, they heard over the clanking of the conveyor belts the eight o’clock news bulletin, which had the entire factory riveted:
‘Supreme Allied Headquarters have issued an urgent warning to inhabitants of the enemy-occupied countries living near the coast. The warning said that a new phase in the Allied Air Offensive had begun. Shortly before this warning the Germans reported that Le Havre, Calais and Dunkirk were being heavily bombarded and that German naval units were engaged with Allied Landing craft. A new phase of the Allied Air Offensive has begun.’
Women in every part of the factory stared at one another in disbelief; Maggie on the cordite line whooped for joy. ‘At last, we’re breaking through the German defences!’
‘We can’t be!’ Nora gasped incredulously. ‘Jerry always knocks us back.’
‘Not this time!’ Rosa laughed excitedly. ‘Allied Headquarters wouldn’t issue a news bulletin like that if we were losing!’
As Joe Loss and his orchestra followed the dramatic early-morning news bulletin, the workers automatically carried on assembling bombs, but every one of them sent up a prayer for those brave boys on the beaches.
The atmosphere throughout the entire factory was electric as the clock ticked towards noon. When the pips for the news sounded out, hardly a soul moved, and they were right not to: the news was what every woman, and man too, had waited five long years to hear:
‘D-Day has come!’
A roar of sheer joy went echoing round the factory.
‘Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!’ workers keen to hear the rest of the news hissed at their neighbours.
‘Allied troops were landed under strong naval and air cover on the coast of Normandy early this morning. The Prime Minister has told the Commons that the commanding officers have reported everything going to plan so far, with beach landings still going on at midday and mass airborne landings successfully made behind enemy lines.’