The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘Are you the lady from the War Office?’ the driver enquired.

  Alice nodded.

  ‘Hop in!’

  The journey through the night over rutted moorland tracks seemed endless but eventually, after what seemed like hours, the car stopped and Alice walked towards a darkened entrance hall where a tired housekeeper in a dressing gown stood waiting for her.

  ‘Breakfast’s at eight,’ she said as she showed Alice to an overnight guest room.

  Yawning, Alice slipped out of her clothes and into her warm winceyette nightdress. She managed to stay awake long enough to clean her teeth then fell asleep to the sound of water lapping outside her bedroom window.

  Alice would have slept the morning through if she hadn’t been awakened by the sound of clattering feet hurrying down the corridor just outside her room.

  ‘Aargh! Ten to eight,’ she cried as she checked her watch and leaped out of bed.

  Flinging back the curtains, she gasped at the sight of a sweeping garden running down to the banks of a wide, rushing river. With no time to admire the view, Alice put on clean underwear, a fresh blouse and her new suit. She threw water on her face and pulled a brush through her glistening hair then hurried along the winding corridor wondering what her first day would bring.

  After a hearty breakfast of boiled eggs, toast and fresh coffee the trainees were taken into an oak-panelled drawing room that overlooked the gardens and river. Alice was surprised at the mix of thirty people, roughly one-third women and two-thirds men, who, on first encounter, appeared to be from all walks of life and occupations. As she chatted to Gwynne from Aberystwyth, she noticed a good-looking man across the room peering at her as he lit up his pipe. Blushing, Alice caught his smile then quickly turned away as the introductory meeting got underway.

  Brigadier Russell Kingsley welcomed the newcomers in English but told them that from now on they would be speaking only in French.

  ‘Welcome to Helford House,’ he said.

  Alice smiled to herself. At last I know where I am, she thought.

  ‘Alors, nous continuons en français. We have prepared a programme of work that will help you out in the field and in some cases might save your lives. So pay attention. An eye for detail is vital at all times,’ he said. ‘The first thing we need to do is iron out any trace of accent or any incorrect grammar. The wrong noun or the wrong accent could get you shot,’ he added gravely. ‘You’ll be taught the art of surveillance and counter-surveillance, how to receive, decode and transmit encrypted wireless messages, how to assemble a bomb, load a revolver and kill the enemy. Listen well, learn quickly.’

  Continuing to speak in French, he explained that the new recruits would start with exercises to teach them techniques on arranging clandestine meetings and establishing communications. ‘Bonne chance!’ he concluded.

  As they split up into teams, the pipe-smoking man introduced himself to Alice.

  ‘How do you do? I’m Robin Fairfax.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Alice replied formally. ‘I’m Alice Massey.’

  ‘En français, s’il vous plaît!’ the Brigadier barked.

  ‘Pardon, monsieur,’ Robin said with a wink at Alice.

  For their first lesson, led by a middle-aged Frenchwoman called Monique, the agents had to give a concise description of a person in another team and set up a contact point where they would meet.

  ‘Each team must use its own initiative as to how they’ll make contact and rendezvous with the link man or woman, using pre-arranged passwords,’ Monique instructed. ‘Alors, on y va!’

  Laughing awkwardly to start with, the groups quickly got into the exercise, agreeing passwords then adding clues that would help the go-between make contact. In no time at all Alice quickly realized that though the exercises might initially seem a bit silly, acted out in a sun-drenched, oak-panelled drawing room in a lovely part of England, they were in fact an effective way of building up group rapport and improving their French vocabulary. When Alice, in a flurry of nerves, said she was standing on the ceiling instead of walking across the floor everybody burst out laughing. Shortly afterwards a sweet-looking girl called Gladys completely messed up her sentence; she said she was singing in the hills instead of sitting in the park.

  Monique smiled bleakly then said, ‘Attention! Pas d’erreurs, s’il vous plaît!’

  The smile fell off Alice’s face. Monique was right: it was vital to pay attention because a silly mistake would definitely cost lives.

  After each exercise the trainees were tested by interrogators on their cover story. Alice was terrified of them breathing down her neck, barking commands at her in French and demanding immediate, precise answers. It was an adrenalin-driven ordeal that went on every day, sometimes two or three times a day, and it was exacting, nerve-wracking and utterly exhausting.

  It was impossible not to bond with everybody. They were Special Ops in training, Churchill’s Secret Army, who might one day be called upon to put their life on the line for one of their team.

  In the four-berth female dorm Alice discovered a similar camaraderie to the one she’d enjoyed in her Phoenix digs. She, Gladys from Coventry, Gwynne from Aberystwyth and Iris from Bristol were good friends by the end of the first week of training. But here, unlike at the Phoenix, they had to chat in French. The French-speaking rule was upheld at all times, even in the dorm and the bathroom; Alice even began dreaming in French!

  At the end of a long day, lying stretched out on the sunny lawn, with the lovely Helford River gurgling by, the girls teased each other about the numerous handsome men they were training with.

  ‘Robin can’t take his eyes off Alice,’ Gladys said as she gave her a dig in the ribs.

  ‘En français!’ Alice scolded.

  ‘Oh, bugger that!’ laughed Gladys as she yawned and rubbed her tired eyes.

  ‘He’s an interesting man,’ Iris said. ‘A writer at the BBC.’

  ‘He’s also gorgeous,’ teased Gwynne. ‘Come on, Al, admit it, you fancy him!’

  ‘I do like him!’ Alice laughed. ‘But I’m not sure how much he likes me.’

  Gladys winked.

  ‘I don’t think it’ll take long to find out!’ she chuckled.

  The next day, in one of their surveillance and counter-surveillance exercises, mischievous Alice laid a convoluted trail for Robin that led him into the Ladies, which was their designated contact point. Sitting on the toilet seat, she bit her lip in order to stop herself from giggling. When Robin knocked three times on the toilet door Alice gave the pre-arranged response.

  ‘Enchantée, monsieur,’ she said.

  ‘Vous avez Le Monde?’ he asked.

  Alice opened the door and gaped at Robin; how could she have forgotten to bring with her to the contact point the clue that was vital to her identity? Casting about, she improvised; grabbing a toilet roll, she handed it over to an astonished Robin with a confident flourish.

  ‘Voilà, Le Monde!’ she said as she burst into peals of laughter.

  Every night after supper the trainees would gather at the bar for a drink and chat through the events of the day. Sometimes Alice, too brain dead to speak another word of French, preferred to walk in the grounds and soak up the peaceful tranquillity of the lovely Helford River. As she sat in the twilight one night, listening to the distant hoot of an owl, she felt a touch on her shoulder.

  ‘Ça va, mon amie?’

  ‘Too tired to speak French,’ Alice replied, grinning.

  ‘Shall we risk a ticking-off and break the first rule of the house?’ Robin chuckled as he hunkered down beside her.

  Surprised that he had tracked her down, Alice said, ‘I never imagined it would be so demanding.’

  Settling comfortably beside her, Robin lit his pipe and puffed fragrant cherry-smelling tobacco smoke into the air.

  ‘May I ask what made you sign up?’

  ‘At first it was the excitement of going further with my French but I soon realized it was more than that,’
Alice replied.

  ‘I gather you were previously building bombs in a munitions factory,’ he said.

  Alice smiled; she was pleased to hear he’d been making enquiries about her.

  ‘There are thousands of women all over England doing their bit for the war.’ She paused before she added, ‘I suppose I want to do more than fill shell cases.’

  Turning to face him, Alice admired Robin’s handsome profile etched sharply in the moonlight.

  ‘What about you, Robin? What brought you here?’

  ‘I was recruited from the BBC where I was writing news reports and doing some continuity,’ he replied. His voice suddenly rang with a fierce intensity. ‘I want to write about the real war, Alice, I want to see it, feel it – report it.’

  Struck by his passion, Alice asked, ‘When do you find the time to write?’

  ‘At night,’ he replied.

  ‘En français?’ she teased.

  ‘Bien sûr! Toujours en français!’

  Method actors were brought in to teach the new recruits simple ideas on disguise.

  ‘We’ll show you how small props can change your normal behaviour,’ the lead actor explained. ‘Really small things, like parting your hair the wrong way, walking with a limp, wearing a scarf or glasses, can immediately take you outside your normal self.’

  Though the class began with riotous laughter as people limped around wearing glasses and fake moustaches, the amusement factor quickly faded as the trainees saw how effective the small props were and how they could transform their personality in a blink. After their exercises with the method actors Monique stressed how important it was to match their clothes to whatever role they were playing.

  ‘Play the part one hundred per cent,’ Monique told them. ‘Take meticulous care with clothing and accessories; they must be exact replicas of items manufactured in France. Check buttons, seams, collars, ties, even cigarettes and matches, anything that suggests “British” could cost you your life.’

  Monique went on to tell them about an experienced agent in Paris who went into a café and ordered a black coffee.

  ‘Coffee is always black in France, and only a foreigner would use that expression. The agent was immediately arrested, interrogated and shot,’ she ended bleakly.

  Sombre moments like these, which brought the room to silence, reinforced the point that it was a dangerous world they were entering, a world where they needed permits and papers, properly stamped and water-marked, to fit their cover story and credentials. Alice and her friends were given crisp French franc notes which they were asked to soften in their bras!

  ‘Need a hand getting them in there?’ one of the men teased.

  ‘I think we can manage!’ Gwynne giggled.

  The days were exciting, terrifying, exhausting, but for Alice the evenings, which she longed for throughout the day, were bliss. As their training progressed, Alice and Robin developed their own playful spin on spying, turning what they’d learned during the day into a bit of fun in their time off. One evening she entered the packed bar, where she found Robin with a crowd of colleagues; their eyes met and she winked twice; he swivelled his eyes towards the window overlooking the garden. Without another word or gesture, Alice turned and left the bar, but not before dropping the evening paper on the table next to the door.

  Out in the beautiful garden under a huge copper beech tree, Alice rocked with laughter as Robin approached bearing two large gin and tonics.

  ‘That was the worst bit of clandestine behaviour I’ve ever seen!’ she giggled as she took her proffered drink. ‘I must have looked like I had a tic in my eye!’

  ‘You always look breathtaking,’ Robin said as he slipped an arm around her slender waist and led her along the garden path to the river.

  ‘What must the others think we’re up to?’ Alice mused as they sat down on the riverbank.

  ‘What do you think they think?’ he asked softly.

  Alice held his intent gaze.

  ‘I don’t care!’ she replied.

  Sensing she’d said too much, she blushed and turned away.

  But Robin gently took hold of her chin in order to turn her face back to him.

  ‘You little northern madam,’ he teased as he pulled her close and kissed her.

  The touch of his warm lips roused Alice, who up until now had little experience of men. She folded her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal passion.

  Pulling away from her, Robin chuckled softly.

  ‘My word! For a girl who looks like an angel you kiss with a punch!’

  Alice’s eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

  ‘What were you expecting from a secret agent?’ she teased.

  As nightingales sang in the warm night air, neither of them wasted time with words. Under the shadow of a copper beech, wrapped in each other’s arms, they kissed until dawn.

  Alice was flabbergasted when she and the other female spies were issued with sexy black underwear.

  ‘Just in case,’ Brigadier Kingsley said with a cryptic smile.

  ‘Just in case what?’ asked Iris as they tried on the new black lingerie in their dorm.

  ‘Just in case we have to remove our knickers to take the Gestapo’s mind off slitting our throats,’ Gwynne replied without a hint of humour in her voice.

  ‘But I’m a virgin,’ Iris protested.

  ‘That might make it all the more interesting for the enemy!’ Gladys joked.

  ‘Oh, God!’ groaned Alice. ‘We’ve got cyanide pills sewn into our hems for a quick exit and lace knickers to distract the Führer – what next?’

  CHAPTER 15

  Wedding Bells

  Back on the Lancashire moors wedding preparations were in full swing. The day and time had been fixed around Tommy’s leave but everybody was on tenterhooks, most of all Elsie. What if his leave was postponed? It wasn’t an uncommon event; nothing stopped for the war, and everybody knew that.

  ‘I could be left standing at the altar holding a bunch of flowers, like,’ Elsie fretted.

  ‘Come on, Elsie, think positive and trust in the Lancashire Fusiliers,’ said Agnes briskly.

  Just hearing the name of the regiment made Emily’s heart lurch. She had found out just this week, after bumping into Bill’s mum, that there had indeed – as Alice had suggested – been a perfectly innocent explanation for the fact that he hadn’t managed to see her on his last visit home. He’d been given brief leave only once during his stay at the barracks and had immediately headed to the Phoenix; but he’d been denied entry till the end of her shift. Why had she been so pig-headed? If only she’d seen Bill she would never have thrown herself at Freddie Bilodeau.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Elsie teased when she saw Emily’s brooding face.

  Emily gave a quick smile.

  ‘Oh, just working on the wedding menu. You know me, always thinking about food!’ she joked.

  Thanks to Lillian and Agnes the wedding dress and the bridesmaids’ dresses were finished, and Lillian just needed to hem Esther’s blue silk flower-girl dress when the little girl arrived in Pendle. The veil was washed and starched and Elsie’s wreath was to be embellished with fresh wild flowers on the morning of her wedding.

  Malc, who’d become the girls’ go-between with Mr Featherstone, wangled compassionate leave so that in between her shifts Agnes could travel to Keswick to pick up Esther, then, after Elsie’s wedding, return the little girl to Keswick hospital. It would be a rush but if it meant that Esther would walk down the aisle as Elsie’s flower girl it was certainly worth it.

  Elsie helped Emily print out the menus, one to be placed on each table in St Columba’s church hall, where the wedding breakfast was to be served after the nuptial mass.

  ‘First course,’ Emily proudly read, ‘Pendle boiled ham cooked in sage and thyme, fresh new potatoes, selection of salads, pickled beetroot and red cabbage.’

  ‘Good we have the locals helping us out,’ Elsie said gratefully. ‘It would have been a
veggie affair without Mrs Carter’s neighbour donating half a side of bacon.’

  ‘Good we have a thriving black market in Pendle,’ Emily added. ‘Where else would we have got a barrel of beer and sherry too? Second course,’ she continued, ‘rhubarb and ginger tart with ice cream.’

  ‘I’ll never know how you managed to find enough cream for the ice cream,’ Elsie said incredulously.

  ‘I didn’t – some of it’s not actually cream!’ Emily confessed.

  Elsie’s eyes grew huge.

  ‘Ooh, Em, you’ve not done anything dangerous like add chemicals?’ she gasped.

  ‘As if I’d ruin your wedding day by giving your guests the trots!’ Emily laughed. ‘I mixed dried milk and water in with the cream. How else could I spin it out among forty people?’

  ‘Will it be all right in the canteen cold store?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘It’s packed around with ice cubes and is solid as a rock,’ Emily assured her anxious friend.

  Elsie hugged Emily excitedly.

  ‘You’ve all been so kind to me,’ she said as tears sprang to her eyes. ‘You’re like the sisters I never had.’

  ‘No time for tears,’ Emily said as she hugged Elsie back. ‘I’ve got to finish icing the wedding cake. Thank God every girl on the cordite line contributed their sugar rations otherwise it’d be a cardboard mock-up.’

  Grabbing Elsie’s hand, she pulled her towards the door.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got to get it done before Alice arrives tomorrow,’ she said happily.

  Alice arrived at the Phoenix having spent a day and a night travelling from one end of England to the other. Glowing with happiness, she rushed into the digs, where she dropped her case and immediately threw her arms around her best friend.