Bomber's Moon

by Raven McAllan

  Evernight Publishing ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2016 Raven McAllan

  ISBN: 978-1-77233-686-3

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: JS Cook

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To my late mum, who lived through this period, did get evacuated with her job to Northamptonshire, but to my knowledge, was never caught with her pants down!

  And to all those who gave their lives for us, whoever they fought for.

  BOMBER’S MOON

  Raven McAllan

  Copyright © 2016

  Chapter One

  Northamptonshire, England, 1942

  The night was dark—definitely no bomber’s moon—and it was more stumble and fumble than stride out confidently. Nevertheless Chrissie and Kaye made it to the village and the dance in the hall without smudging the gravy-drawn lines on their legs that pretended to be stocking seams. There was no way they were prepared to risk their precious nylons at the local hop.

  By the time they arrived, the tin roofed, wooden walled, and uneven floored building shook with the discordant notes of Billy Bloomer and his Band—otherwise known as Wee Willy Bloom and the Rodham brothers. Wee Willy, said to be a true description by the locals, was seventy if he was a day, and Joey and Fred Rodham were both waiting to be called up. Once they went heaven knows what would happen to the dances. Chrissie hoped they wouldn’t stop. It was one lighthearted evening every month, and she looked forward to it. Being evacuated with your employment from London to darkest Northamptonshire took a bit of getting used to.

  However, Chrissie and her best friend Kaye intended to make the most of it. After all it was much better than spending every night in the shelter, and wondering if you’d have a home left when you came out once the all clear sounded. Hence the three mile walk on a moonless night, for the chance to let their hair down, drink weak blackcurrant cordial and eat stale cake. Chrissie was very much of the mindset ‘do the best you can with what you’ve got.’

  It took mere seconds for the girls to shed their coats, change their shoes and join in the throng jitterbugging to an out of tune rendition of ‘“Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” Chrissie danced with anyone who asked, parried drunken and not so drunken advances by three airmen from the local airfield, and bought her own drinks. No one was going to think buying her a drink was their passport to paradise—or a quick how’s yer father up against the bike shed wall.

  As usual, the interval, where Wee Willie and the Rodham brothers were treated to a pint and a pie, was taken up by the local gentry and a fundraising talk in aid of the local WRVS, the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service. They did a stalwart job, in all areas help was needed. Even Chrissie’s mum did her stint with the food convoys that took food to areas in need after a bombing raid. She was proud of her mum, it was something she never thought she’d see happen. Mum was very much a quiet, home bird.

  Don Arnold, the local home guard captain and organizer of the dance, cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentleman, I’m so proud to announce that Lord Caverston has agreed to give a short speech.”

  You what? Oh bloody hell, what did I do in my previous life to deserve this? Oh lord, give me strength, and him defective eyesight.

  Chrissie took one look at the tall dark haired man, who joined Don on stage, realized her worst nightmare had come true, and ducked behind Kaye. This close to the floor, she could smell the detergent someone had spread all over it to try and make the surface a little smoother to dance on than its usual sticky roughness. She twitched her nose. The last thing she wanted to do was sneeze.

  “What are you doing?” Kay twisted around to look at her in bewilderment. “Why are you crouching down like a frog about to jump?”

  “Shhh.” Chrissie hissed the word like a snake, which had made its mind up to strike. She almost laughed hysterically. Why all the reptilian comparisons? “Keep your voice down, for the love of mike. I know him and I don’t want him to see me, it’s too embarrassing.”

  “What is?” Kaye obligingly lowered her voice, and whispered back, although she sounded somewhat bewildered—as well she might. “Why? It’s just some local big wig isn’t it? A bit of all right, but I bet he talks right posh. Not like us.”

  “You’re spot on there.” Chrissie wanted to run her hands through her hair but she had so many hair pins in it, that if she dislodged them, the noise would waken the dead, let alone bring her to the notice of the person she wanted to avoid. “Him, me, oh hell, you know I said about a bloke who took fright and ran? Thanks to our blooming parents sticking their oars in.”

  Kaye nodded. “Not?” she tilted her head in the direction of the stage, where after the polite clapping died down, the guest speaker cleared his throat.

  Chrissie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, him. So for goodness’ sake stand tall in front of me. I can’t cope with seeing him at the moment.” Not with gravy browning on my legs and a stain on my blouse where someone spilled some cordial.

  Kaye, bless her, had done so all through Lord Caverston’s speech. Chrissie decided that to remain crouched down would look somewhat suspicious so she’d stood stock still behind her and let her memories flood her mind.

  Despair filled her heart, making her pulse race. Archie bloody Duggan. Lord Caverston. Her nemesis. The only man she had ever felt remotely like “going all the way” with. Not that she would have let him know that. Deep seated morals about what nice girls did and did not do made sure she kept her thoughts to herself. Overwhelmingly in love, she had been too young to recognize the fact that their parents trying to throw them together was enough to make Archie run like hell. After all, at first she could hardly believe he’d fancy her anyway. Well she’d thought she’d been proved right, hadn’t she? He’d toyed with her affections and when she didn’t put out he’d sloped off. Hurt, upset, and not understanding that a young, handsome, and wealthy man needed to make his own moves without manipulation, she had sworn off men.

  As Archie’s speech came to an end, and he disappeared, Chrissie gave a heartfelt sigh of relief. “Kaye, I owe you one,” she said gratefully. “I know it was pathetic but, hell, it still hurts.”

  “Your sodding parents,” Kaye said. “It makes me grateful mine don’t give a monkey’s what I get up to. In fact I’m damned sure it’s a case of out of sight out of mind with my mum. She’s too busy with her boyfriend and her bloody dog.”

  Chrissie wanted to hug her. She’d met Kaye’s parent on more than one occasion and found her lacking in every way. Apart from cheap trashy jewelry. She had an abundance of that.

  “Anyway,” Kaye went on, oblivious—thankfully—to Chrissie’s train of thought, “your ex has gone now so we can dance again. Listen it’s a jive. Or as good a jive as wee Willy can manage.”

  Chrissie sniggered as she knew Kaye expected her to. “You dance with that guy who’s giving you sheep’s eyes and I’ll get some stale cake for us.” She turned to the ever shortening queue in front of the supper table, picked up a couple of plates and waited for two cups of tea. Basic food, but it was worth paying the price of a ticket to enjoy the tea, if nothing else.

  She tapped her feet in time to the music as she remembered the last few years. War or no war, there were plenty of other things to do. Hence she was now smiling at the motherly older l
ady who held a teapot almost as big as herself.

  “Your turn to queue, ducks?” She poured tea into two chipped mugs and handed them over with a smile. “There you go, sorry no sugar, but there’s a war on.” She gave a roar of laughter, which turned into a smoker’s cough, and shook her head. “Them fags are getting to me. Anyroad, you enjoy your cuppa, it’ll keep you warm for the walk home, eh?”

  Chrissie nodded. “Yes, it gets a bit nippy out there later. Thanks Mrs. Eddy.”

  She moved out of the queue to let the next person in and annexed two chairs to one side of the hall. It was pleasant to sit and relax and know there wasn’t much likelihood of the siren going off. Not like in London. How often had they left a dance or the cinema half way through the evening and headed to a shelter? Too often to count.

  When hostilities had broken out, she’d been living in the capital with her parents. At school she was considered to be a bright pupil who could, if her parents had agreed, have gone to university. They didn’t and Chrissie hadn’t fancied arguing. Persuaded by her mother in the most gentle manner, to leave school and not take a paying job—“leave it for those who really need it, darling”—she’d drifted for a while. Eventually, bored beyond belief, she went to work as a volunteer at Victoria Railway Station, serving teas, coffee, and smiles to the hundreds of servicemen passing through. It worked for a while but Chrissie soon got bored again. Now she often wished she had stood up for herself. It would have made life so much easier later on.

  Nevertheless she traipsed across the city every day and watched open-eyed and heavy-hearted as the stream became a trickle of bodies, with few left to call up, and continued with her gentle but unrelenting pressure of her parents. Eventually, reluctantly, they agreed to allow her to find a “proper job.” Hence she was now in Northamptonshire, and generally she mused as the band tuned up again, content with her lot.

  All in all, apart from Archie’s defection, she hadn’t been affected to any great degree by the war. Yes, she needed her identity card and gas mask with her at all times. Yes, she knew to get home by a certain time in order to share the Anderson Shelter with her parents or be stuck in a tube station with thousands of others, while the bombing raids went on overhead. But like all young women, she soon discovered how handy the gas mask case was to keep her precious makeup in. And how young men due to enlist or go overseas were ready for a good night out, dancing or attending the theater. She’d become an expert at knowing when it was time to call a halt and say good night without being called names, or worse. And she’d kept her virginity intact.

  Then had come the awful news of the evacuation from the Dunkirk beaches during those terrible days of May and June of 1940, when everyone was glued to their radio and people looked around with gloom and worry on their faces. Not long after that, the blitz began, and it had left London with few young men or women. It was a time for survival.

  After initial opposition, her parents had agreed she should go with her employers when they decided to move all their office staff to the wilds of Northamptonshire. They had been delighted at the thought of their youngest being safe, not realizing how many Royal Air Force and now American Army Air Force bases there were in the area. It wasn’t just bombs they needed to worry about.

  And to top it all, Chrissie thought, here she was having hidden from Archie at the local hop. If it were in a book you’d say it was too far fetched. Chrissie mentally shook her head at her thoughts, sipped her tea, and smiled as Kaye flopped in the next seat and took a mug from her.

  “Ta, love. Gawd I tell you, that bloke was like an octopus. I had to threaten to dismember him before he took his hand off my bum.” She giggled, seemingly not one whit perturbed. “So, tell me, what did I miss out on over you and Archie?”

  “I was just embarrassed, Kaye. Honestly, I should be over him, and I reckon I’m not. Thank god he didn’t see me. Now he’s gone I can breathe easier and enjoy the rest of the night. Right.” She put her mug down and grabbed Kaye’s from her. “You’ve had enough.” The band struck up again and Chrissie pulled Kaye onto the dance floor. “Now let’s dance.”

  Three laughing, breathless hours later, they set off back to the big old draughty manor house, which was their home and workplace for the duration.

  Half an hour into their walk it was ‘I need a pee’ time. Chrissie was desperate. Why was it that the moment you were out of reach of the facilities you needed to use them? There was no way she’d be able to last out until they got back to their accommodation. There was at least another half an hour to walk up the bending lane in the darkness, their route lit only by the light of a shaded torch.

  ““Chrissie, you can’t.” Kaye, her best friend and partner in crime—or the jitterbug—tried to argue with her. “We’re on the road for goodness’ sake. You can’t just go. Lawks, anyone might see.”

  Chrissie turned around in exasperation. “And your point is?” Kaye might be her best friend, but sometimes her habit of stating the obvious made Chrissie want to scream. “Kaye, it’s a country road,” she said in as patient a manner she could manage. “We’re in the middle of darkest Northamptonshire, not on the Old Kent Road—though I don’t suppose it’d be any lighter there with the blackout. We’re walking home from the local hop, not the Palais or the Gaumont. We haven’t seen a soul, not even heard a cow moo. And I have got to go. That last drink did it for me. There is no way I’m going to piddle my pants. I’m wearing those silky ones I saved my coupons for.” Chrissie felt under her skirt and fumbled for her underwear. With a bit of luck, a pitch-black night might save them from prying eyes. Not that they’d seen any eyes that might pry on their walk from the village. To say this road was quiet was the understatement of the war. In these dark days of rationing, people tended to go to bed early and rise early, thus, saving fuel. And if some of the grunts and moans they’d heard and giggled at—with more than a little jealousy—as they’d passed the cottages at the edge of the village were anything to go by, the new rationing habits were creating heat in a different manner.

  But now, in 1942 with so many men fighting away in far off countries, it didn’t pay to ask questions about just who was creating the heat, or with whom. Everybody knew what was going on, yet no one admitted to anything. It was the best way. As Kaye remarked one day, “they say careless talk costs lives, but as my brother said, careless cocks cause lives.”

  That still made them both giggle but it was true. It was probably the best birth control ever. Never mind the ‘nice girls don’t’, it was ‘nice girls do, but carefully’.

  And nice girls also needed to go and spend a penny.

  “Here.” Chrissie thrust her scarf into Kaye’s hand. “Hold this.”

  “What is it?” Kaye asked, horror in her tone. “I’m not holding your drawers!”

  Chrissie laughed. “No, you’re okay. It’s my silk scarf I’m not risking it getting caught on anything. Do you know, I don’t half miss hand cream. My hands are like pot scourers. Thank goodness I didn’t wear my nylons. I’m down to one pair and I’m saving them for something special.” It had taken a lot of begging and pleading to her sister before she was given the longed-for pair, and she didn’t want them ripped.

  “How did you get nylons?” Kaye asked. Chrissie could hear the envy in her voice. “I’ve tried every which way to get a pair. Well, almost. I do draw the line somewhere. And don’t worry; my hands are as bad as yours. Your scarf is safe in my pocket. I even resisted stroking it. But nylons, you lucky bugger. Who were you nice to?”

  “Boyfriend of Merle’s, and I wasn’t too nice, I can tell you. Although, he is a bit of all right. You keep the torch and let me know if anyone comes along.”

  Chrissie removed her drawers, tucked them into her coat pocket and crunched over crisp fallen leaves as she made her way toward the side of the road. She took a match from the box she always carried with her and lit it carefully to see if there was a gap in the hedge. As every serviceman she knew showed her, she cupped the light with her hand
s, checked there were no nettles, no big bushes, but enough foliage to hide behind. She found what she was looking for and heaved a sigh of relief. Too much blackcurrant cordial tended to have a got-to-go-now effect on her.

  “Your sister has a Yank for a boyfriend?” Kaye asked, curiosity evident in her tone. “What does your dad say about that?”

  “Had. And he didn’t know. Now she’s married one, he tries not to think about it. You know, over paid, oversexed, over here, and all that. Phew. That’s better.” Chrissie pulled her skirt back into place, and wriggled between the bushes. She winced as a thorn pricked her arm. “Bloody dark tonight. What made them choose tonight for the dance, anyway?”

  They both knew the answer to that. No moon—no bombers! And out here, no Brock’s Benefit either. The slang for the night bombardment was familiar in London, a tribute to the famous fireworks of that name.

  “Still,” Kaye said, “it was worth the walk. That bloke I danced with at the end? He was gravy.”

  “Gravy?” Chrissie suppressed a chuckle. “He had bandy legs and nicotine-stained teeth. And was about seventy!” An exaggeration, but not by that much.

  “Yeah, well.” Kaye giggled. “He could really jitterbug.”

  Chrissie shook her head, smiling to herself. If a man could dance, he was everything to Kaye. For herself, she was looking for something more. Even if she wasn’t sure what that something was. Well, she did know what—or rather who that something was—but there was no chance there now. Parents certainly knew how to put the kiss of death into a relationship.

  Best not to go there. I’ll get annoyed. Oh, well.

  Before being evacuated from London for her job, her mother had given her the talk. Or, Chrissie surmised, as much of the talk she had been comfortable with. Poor Mum. She was typical of her generation and anything to do with sex was not something to speak about with ease if at all. No wonder someone coined the phrase, ‘lie back and think of England’. It was as close as ‘you have to just accept what your husband wants, it doesn’t take long’ as anything was. Or even, as Kaye confided her mum had told her, ‘let him get on with it, and plan the week’s meals in your head as he does it’.