The Bomb Girls' Secrets

by Daisy Styles

  ‘And what have you told the poor young mother?’ Mother Gabriel demanded.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ian confessed guiltily. ‘I’ll phone her tonight.’

  35. Cursed

  Ian phoned Edna and asked her to get Kit to phone him at his hotel at her earliest possible convenience.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Edna asked nervously.

  ‘I think I’m on to something, Edna,’ he admitted. ‘But I must talk to Kit right away. How is the poor girl? She must be worried sick.’

  ‘Oh, she’s that, all right,’ Edna retorted. ‘White as a sheet, hardly eating – we’re all worried about her.’

  Ian groaned into the phone. ‘If only I could give her good news, just for once.’

  Kit didn’t get Ian’s message until much later that night, when she’d finished her shift and had gone into the dispatch yard to have a cigarette with Edna, who was standing by her blue van.

  ‘You need to phone Ian in Dublin,’ her friend immediately told her. ‘Jump in and I’ll drop you off at the shop,’ she said quickly.

  When Ian’s phone shrilled out in his hotel room, he steeled himself as he moved to pick it up. He wondered how on earth he was going to tell Kit what he now suspected. It was bad enough for her to accept that her son had been stolen, but now he was asking her to accept that on top of that Billy had most likely been taken to a place of hiding. ‘This really is the stuff of nightmares,’ he thought to himself.

  ‘Darling!’ he said when he heard her sweet earnest voice.

  ‘What’s the news, Ian?’ she cried impatiently.

  Taking a very deep breath, Ian told her everything. As he finished, he heard a sound like a suppressed sob.

  ‘It’s worse than I thought,’ she murmured.

  ‘Sweetheart, you must remember a large part of what I’ve just told you is what I’ve pieced together myself,’ he quickly added.

  ‘But it all makes sense,’ she replied. ‘O’Rourke, a pillar of the community, helping a disappointed couple and mi da doing whatever’s asked of him for a back-hander.’

  ‘Mother Gabriel’s on our side,’ Ian assured her. ‘She’s promised to put a photograph of Billy in the Church of the Sacred Heart to keep up an awareness of him in the local community.’ Ian paused nervously before he added, ‘There’s something else, Catherine: I paid another visit to Chapelizod.’

  After he’d told her about the fire and the information he’d got from the neighbour, there was a long silence on the end of the phone.

  ‘Kit, darling, are you still there?’ he asked anxiously.

  Her voice sounded weak and strained as it came down the line. ‘Now I have no home, no family and no son. I have NOTHING!’ she sobbed.

  ‘My love, you have me,’ he whispered.

  Kit’s response was an angry one. ‘Don’t you see?’ she cried hysterically. ‘I’m worth nothing! You would be far better off if I were dead.’

  ‘Catherine, you’re upset, and no wonder. I’m upset too! These last few weeks have been too much for you to bear, and the fact that we have nothing to show after all our efforts is devastating, but that doesn’t reflect on YOU.’

  ‘Everything I touch turns to ashes,’ she said in a strange faraway voice. ‘The bad blood in my family courses through my veins, just as it does through my father’s. That must be why God took Billy away.’ She said the words as if she was talking to herself. ‘He knew I’d be a bad mother, so He sent him somewhere far away from me.’

  Wondering if she was losing her mind, Ian spoke softly. ‘Darling, this is utter nonsense: you’re over-wrought. I beg you to stop torturing yourself.’

  Kit’s voice came back cold and hard. ‘I don’t want to see you again, Ian. I love you too much to destroy your life like I have my own.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ he replied. ‘You’re overreacting, punishing yourself,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve done everything in your power to make your life good, but circumstances have prevented this. You can’t turn me away on that basis.’

  ‘I can, Ian, and I am. For your own sake, leave me alone!’

  As the line went dead, Ian stared into the ear-piece. He’d gone too far, said too much, overloaded Kit’s already fragile state of mind. What she’d said about her cursed family and bad blood was melodramatic Irish blarney, but it indicated to him that she was clearly disturbed. Panicking, he tried to phone her back but nobody picked up.

  ‘DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!’ he ranted as he paced the room.

  No matter how close he was to unveiling O’Rourke’s plot, he couldn’t remain in Dublin; he hadto see Catherine. He had to make sure that his beloved wasn’t on the point of losing her senses.

  Neither Violet nor Gladys saw Kit after their shift finished. She said she had a headache and rushed off home. Violet held back to say goodbye to Gladys, who was finally going home to Leeds to visit her family.

  ‘Good luck with your parents,’ Violet said, squeezing her friend’s hand as she and Arthur waved Gladys off on the last bus. ‘Seeing you is sure to cheer them up, and I hope you get some news,’ she added.

  Gladys’s face crumpled as she thought of her parents. ‘I’m terrified, Vi,’ she admitted. ‘There’s been nothing for so long – could Les really have survived?’

  ‘Hundreds of prisoners on the run do,’ Arthur answered confidently. ‘Don’t give up hope.’

  ‘That’s what I say every time I write to my parents, but it’s hard to stay strong when you’re on your own and thinking the worst,’ she admitted.

  ‘Come on now, Glad,’ Violet said as she gave her a hug to send her on her way. ‘Les wouldn’t want you to give up hope.’

  ‘You’re right, Vi!’ Gladys said as she waved them goodbye, then ran to catch her bus.

  When she’d gone, Violet linked her arm through Arthur’s and they walked for a few minutes in companionable silence.

  ‘So, sweetheart,’ he said as he held her close, ‘when are we going to get married?’

  ‘Now, tomorrow, right away!’ she laughed. ‘Imagine sleeping with you every night,’ she whispered. ‘We could even start tonight,’ she teased.

  ‘Much as I’d love to, I’m only going to make love to you when you’re my very own beautiful wife.’

  Violet turned and kissed him passionately on the mouth.

  ‘I can’t wait much longer for you, Mr Wonderful Leadbetter – we should fix a date right now!’ she declared.

  Early the next morning, whilst Violet and Kit slept safely in their beds, Arthur was busy at work in the filling shed.

  ‘Here he comes!’ Ivy cackled to the girls working at her table. ‘Why’ve you got a big smile on your face?’ she cheekily asked.

  ‘I might be getting married soon, Ivy,’ Arthur announced proudly.

  ‘Well, I hope she’s good enough for you?’ Ivy teased.

  ‘Oh, she’s more than good enough!’ Arthur retorted.

  Ivy nodded towards several trays at the end of the bench, all stacked with fuses awaiting collection.

  ‘Do something useful,’ Ivy joked with Arthur. ‘Once I’ve stamped these fuses and got them into the trays, shift ’em out of the way, will you, lad?’

  Ivy picked up the stamping machine which she used to imprint the date and batch number on all the filled fuse cases. As Arthur pushed the metal trolley he used to transport the fuses around the factory towards another bench some distance from Ivy, he had no idea that she was using – tragically unbeknownst to her too – a damaged machine. As the stamper hit a fuse stem in the wrong place, Ivy didn’t have a split second to move before it exploded and immediately detonated all the other trays on her bench. Arthur watched helplessly as he was thrown backwards by the blast, seeing poor Ivy and the girls she’d tried to shield burn to death, before his eyes. Knowing the slightest wind or vibration could set off further detonations, Arthur scrambled to his feet and hollered at the top of his voice, ‘OUT! OUT! EVERYBODY OUT!’

  As severed sparking electric cables dangled precariously from the
ceiling, the munitions workers ran screaming for their lives. Terrified for their safety, Arthur turned to Malc, who’d run into the filling shed when he heard the explosion.

  ‘Get them right out of the area,’ frantic Arthur cried. ‘If there’s another explosion the whole factory and everybody near it could go up in flames.’

  As Malc herded the terrified women to safety, Arthur called after him, ‘Come back as quickly as possible – I’m going to need your help.’

  As fleets of fire engines dealt with the flames and toxic black smoke, ambulance crews carried out the dead and the wounded whilst the police guided the workers to safety.

  ‘Don’t come back till you hear the all-clear,’ they told the munitions girls, who, scared they might get caught in another series of explosions, ran screaming in panic down the hill into Pendleton.

  As soon as he was able, Malc rushed back into the factory to find Arthur, who’d gathered together a group of male volunteers. Looking white and tense, Arthur explained that they had to get all the fuse trays out of the Phoenix.

  ‘You must be bloody joking, pal!’ Malc exclaimed. ‘We’re talking about more than 12,000 fuses.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Arthur retorted. ‘If they should ignite, we’ll have an uncontrollable blaze that no number of fire engines could extinguish – the flames could even reach Pendleton. It’s imperative that we get the fuses out of the building as quickly as possible.’

  As fire workers continued to hose the flames that were now licking the factory roof, Arthur continued, ‘We have to work swiftly. Carefully load all the fuse trays on to trolleys, then wheel them very slowly – don’t bump them, they might explode – out of the factory.’

  ‘Where do we take them?’ an edgy volunteer asked.

  ‘One of my duties as fire safety officer was to dig a large explosive pit for an eventuality such as this,’ Arthur replied. ‘It’s in the field well beyond the dispatch yard.’

  Hardly daring to breathe for fear of unbalancing the fuses in the trays, Malc, Arthur and the volunteers worked for over three hours trundling loaded trolleys out of the building, whilst the maintenance crew tried to deal with the exposed electric cables and collapsing interior walls.

  ‘God Almighty!’ Malc muttered as sweat poured off him.

  Working carefully through the batches of fuses that the volunteers wheeled to the pit, Arthur discovered a batch of fuses with damaged stems. Used to handling live explosives, Arthur said to Malc, ‘I’ll take charge of this faulty batch – I’ll remotely detonate them in another pit well away from this lot.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Malc said.

  Arthur shook his head. ‘Stay here with the others, and make sure you stand well back – there’ll be a hell of a bang!’

  Arthur carefully carried the fuses on a tray to the detonation pit. Lying flat on his stomach, he stretched his arm as far as it would reach in order to gently lay each of the defective fuses deep inside the hole, where he planned to electronically detonate them. As he laid the last fuse, Arthur saw with a sinking heart a trickle of soft earth fall into the pit. He immediately tried to stem the flow with his hand but as he did so a new trickle started on the opposite side. Knowing that the falling earth would shift the position of the fuses, Arthur desperately tried to stretch wide to halt the new flow. But his frantic efforts were in vain. Just as he did so, a fuse disturbed by falling earth went off in his face.

  Hearing a loud explosion Malc and the volunteers waited a good ten minutes for Arthur’s return. When he didn’t show up, pale-faced Malc stood up.

  ‘Stay here, I’ll check what’s going on,’ he commanded grimly.

  He found an unconscious Arthur flat on his back with his hair singed and blood oozing from a head wound.

  ‘Jesus God!’ he cried. ‘HELP! HELP!’

  Malc and the volunteers carried Arthur into the dispatch yard, where an ambulance crew were still treating the wounded.

  ‘The fire safety officer’s taken a direct hit in the face,’ Malc quickly told them, panicked. His voice broke into a sob as he gazed down at his wounded friend. ‘For God’s sake get him to the hospital!’

  The first explosion, which killed Ivy and her team, had shaken the ground underneath the girls’ beds. Confused and half asleep, they ran into the sitting room, where they saw, through the cowshed windows, flames licking the walls and roof of the Phoenix.

  ‘Arthur’s in there!’ Violet wailed as she ran out of the door in her nightie.

  Grabbing coats and shoes, Violet and Kit ran to the factory, where Violet stopped a woman in her tracks,

  ‘What happened?’ she cried.

  ‘Nobody knows owt other than the fire started in’t filling shed,’ the woman gabbled.

  ‘The filling shed,’ Violet gasped in horror.

  ‘We were told to run for it before the whole factory blew!’ the woman added melodramatically.

  Before Violet could detain her any longer the woman ran off.

  ‘ARTHUR! ARTHUR!’ Violet screamed.

  As she bolted towards the factory, a burly policeman blocked her path.

  ‘You should be running in the opposite direction, Miss,’ he said. ‘This is a danger zone.’

  ‘My fiancé’s in there,’ Violet cried as she pointed at the blaze. ‘I’ve got to find him.’

  Seeing Kit and Gladys behind Violet, the policeman called out, ‘Best take care of your friend before I have to lock her up for her own safety,’ he warned. ‘Get yourself down into Pendleton with the other lasses and wait there for the all-clear signal.’

  Gladys and Kit half dragged Violet to Edna’s chip shop.

  Edna firmly sat her down in an armchair in the back room, where she gave her hot tea and a Woodbine.

  ‘We’ll get news soon enough,’ she said. ‘The shop will be packed out within the hour; somebody is bound to know what’s going on.’

  Edna was right: even before she started cooking, her shop was packed with munitions workers, all swopping notes on the Phoenix explosion.

  ‘Oh, it were terrible,’ a woman said to the others gathered around her. ‘Somebody said Ivy’s gang in the filling shed were blown to pieces.’

  Another woman continued in a melodramatic whisper, ‘The fire safety officer called for volunteers to help him shift the fuses.’

  ‘Arthur Leadbetter,’ a third woman picked up the story. ‘I’ve just seen one of the fellas who helped him.’ She paused before adding, sotto voce, ‘They said Arthur’s copped it.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve got your facts right?’ Edna asked sharply.

  ‘I didn’t make it up, if that’s what you mean,’ the woman retorted crossly. ‘Like I said, I overheard it from one of the fellas who carted poor Arthur intert’ ambulance.’

  Edna turned to Kit, who’d also overheard the gossiping women.

  ‘You’d better tell Violet right away,’ she said nervously.

  Pacing the back room, chain-smoking, Violet rushed to Edna when she walked in.

  ‘Any news?’

  Looking grey, Edna said gently, ‘Sit down, lovie.’

  Violet refused, sensing the worst. ‘Tell me!’

  Taking a deep breath, Edna said, ‘One of the women in the shop says Arthur’s been badly injured.’

  Frantic, Violet gripped her hand, ‘Is he alive?’

  Edna prevaricated: ‘Nothings very clear at the moment. But the wounded’ – she didn’t dare say the dead – ‘have been taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary. I think we need to get you there.’

  Without saying a word, Violet flew for the door.

  ‘Wait! I’ll take you,’ Edna cried as she ran after her. ‘Look after the shop,’ she called over her shoulder to Kit. ‘Shut it if you have to.’

  36. Manchester Royal Infirmary

  The hospital looked like a ghoulish scene from a nightmare film. Exhausted families lay sleeping on the floor or sat tensely waiting on chairs and benches. Frantic doctors, nurses and porters were running everywhere, and there were b
odies covered in blood on stretchers all waiting to be seen. Violet, who’d hardly spoken a word on the journey into Manchester, rushed to the front desk, where a frantic receptionist was trying to listen to three people at the same time. When she finally turned to Violet, the panicked young woman could barely speak. Edna quickly stepped in to help her friend.

  ‘We’re looking for a Mr Arthur Leadbetter,’ she said. ‘The fire safety officer at the Phoenix.’

  The woman scanned the long list of names on sheets of paper on her desk.

  ‘Nobody down here by that name, though the emergencies haven’t all been registered yet; they were rushed straight through to theatre.’

  ‘So he might well be there?’ Edna asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the receptionist answered. ‘If he’s not been taken to the morgue.’

  Seeing Violet clutching the side of the desk for support, Edna quickly led her to a bench, where Violet slumped in a heap.

  ‘Please God, let him be alive, please, please, God, don’t take Arthur from me, let him be alive,’ she prayed over and over again.

  Edna held her close, comforting her as she would have comforted a frightened child, but all the time she rocked sobbing Violet she wondered how she could find out what had really happened to Arthur. Nobody seemed to know anything; wild rumours flew around, but the facts were short on the ground. Who could she go to for help? As she gazed wildly around, Edna’s eyes landed on Malc, who, hollow-eyed with exhaustion and grey with fire dust, sat on a bench smoking a cigarette.

  ‘MALC! MALC!’ she yelled as she jumped to her feet and, pulling Violet behind her, she ran to him.

  Without any preamble Violet asked, ‘What happened to Arthur?’

  Too devastated even to try softening the truth, Malc said bluntly, ‘He was detonating a batch of faulty fuses – one went off in his face.’

  ‘But he’s alive!’ Violet insisted. ‘He’s not dead?’

  Malc wearily shook his head as he mouthed to Edna, ‘Not dead – yet.’

  On the verge of hysteria, Violet started to shout, ‘Where is he? I’ve got to see him?’

  ‘He’s in the operating theatre – having surgery,’ Malc told her.