by Ellie Dean
Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Ellie Dean
Title Page
Dedication
A Note from the Author
A Map of Cliffehaven
The Cliffehaven Family Tree
Epigraph
Part One: November 1943
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
Part Two: January 1944
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Dear Readers
Copyright
About the Book
Slapton Sands, 1943
War has not been kind to Carol Porter. It took her husband and baby, and with them, her heart. At last she’s found some peace, working as a land girl at Coombe Farm. But Carol’s sanctuary is about to be disrupted.
When Pauline Reilly hears news of Carol’s relocation she’s worried for her little sister. But as rumours about Slapton Sands reach Cliffehaven, Pauline becomes more concerned for her only surviving son. Despite her sister-in-law Peggy’s best efforts, nothing soothes Pauline’s fears.
As Carol prepares to face the impending upheaval alone, her beloved mother, Dolly, swoops in to Slapton, and packing up Carol’s life presents unexpected opportunities for them both. Carol looks to her future while Dolly confronts a ghost from her past, and they both have a chance to mend their broken hearts.
About the Author
The Waiting Hours is Ellie Dean’s thirteenth novel in her Cliffehaven series. She lives in a tiny hamlet set deep in the heart of the South Downs in Sussex, which has been her home for many years and where she raised her three children.
To find out more visit www.ellie-dean.co.uk
Also by Ellie Dean
There’ll be Blue Skies
Far From Home
Keep Smiling Through
Where the Heart Lies
Always in My Heart
All My Tomorrows
Some Lucky Day
While We’re Apart
Sealed With a Loving Kiss
Sweet Memories of You
Shelter from the Storm
Until You Come Home
This book is dedicated to the American troops who lost their lives during the terrible events in Lyme Bay. And to the people of the South Hams of Devon, who gave up their homes, their farms and businesses for a year so that the rehearsals for D-Day would ensure a successful invasion into France.
A Note from the Author
The research into what happened at Lyme Bay and on Slapton Sands during April 1944 was complicated by the fact that so many reports were conflicting, and quite often tainted by rumour and differing points of view. I have done my best to keep to the facts, and fully accept any errors as my own.
The story of Slapton Sands is one I’ve wanted to write since I began the Cliffehaven series, and in order to do so I have had to go back on myself in time. In The Waiting Hours I’ve retraced some of the steps covered in Until You Come Home, which ended in April 1944, but from a new perspective. I hope you still love this book as much as I loved writing it.
When the great red dawn is shining,
When the waiting hours are past,
When the tears of night are ended
And I see the day at last, I shall come
Down the road of sunshine,
To a heart that is fond and true,
When the great red dawn Is shining,
Back to home, back to love, and you.
‘When the Great Red Dawn Is Shining’ – an American song from 1917
PART ONE
NOVEMBER 1943
1
Devon
The sun had barely risen over the eastern hills when Carol set out from Coombe Farm with the horse and cart. Dressed in the land-army uniform of beige sweater, shirt and khaki dungarees beneath the standard-issue gabardine mac and thick scarf, she was insulated against the cold, though she knew she must look rather ridiculous with her fair curls tucked beneath the hand-knitted tea cosy-style hat.
Carol had always liked these early hours when she made the milk delivery, especially at this time of year when the steep-sided coombs were shrouded in mist. The dew glittered on the freshly ploughed earth, and a hush lay over the scattered huddles of villages and the patchwork quilt of fields and grazing pastures. Her work as a land girl suited her perfectly, and the fact that she could go home to her cottage every night was an added bonus, for she guarded her privacy and independence fiercely.
Hector the shire had plodded patiently along the winding cobbled streets, where thick-walled thatched cottages nestled against one another like loaves on a baker’s tray, and the housewives came out with their billycans to collect their milk ration and make a fuss of him. He’d negotiated the narrow lanes winding between high banks to stop by farm gates atop lonely hills and waited stoically as she’d exchanged empty churns for the heavy full ones, and then carried on with a whicker of pleasure as they’d approached Slapton village, for this was where he would head for home and a well-deserved breakfast.
Carol held the reins loosely in her gloved hands and let her thoughts wander. There was no need to guide Hector as he’d been doing this round for years, and she enjoyed these quiet moments after the earlier hectic activity in the milking shed, the silence broken only by the sound of the heavy clomp of his hooves on the stony tracks, the jingle of harness and the occasional cry of a sea bird.
Carol’s dreamy mood was broken by a familiar sound and she looked out towards the distant seashore and the freshwater lake that glittered in the early sunlight behind its shingle bar. With a smile of pleasure she watched the flock of geese rising from Slapton Ley, their honking conversation echoing in the stillness as they formed a chevron and flew towards Kingsbridge estuary. It was a sight she’d seen many times before, but still it entranced her, confirming once again how very lucky she was to live in this special part of England.
With the lighter load, Hector had picked up the pace as they climbed the hill towards Slapton, the empty churns rattling against one another, the harness jangling with every thud of his hooves. Now Carol could see the ruin of the fourteenth-century tower looming over the thatched roofs of the village. The imposing remains had once been part of an ecclesiastic college and chantry before the dissolution; the cottages for the men who’d built it long since converted into the quaint and popular Tower Inn, the chantry now a rather grand private home.
As they crested the hill Carol could see that the village was coming to life. They approached the villag
e school and she caught sight of her best friend, Betty Wellings, who was busy shepherding her small charges through the door into the single classroom. Betty was small and fair and had just celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday. Had fate been kinder, she would have liked to have joined the WAAFs, but she’d been struck down by polio as a child and now walked with a calliper and cane. Yet that couldn’t overshadow her enthusiasm for life, or her pleasure in teaching the children.
Betty must have heard Hector’s approach, for she looked up and waved, her beaming smile lighting up her pretty face. ‘I’ll see you at the weekend,’ she called over the heads of the children. ‘Are we still going to the pictures?’
‘Two o’clock matinee,’ Carol replied. ‘See you about eleven, and we can have some lunch in town first.’
Hector plodded on and Betty went back to her little ones, but Carol’s thoughts remained on her friend. They were looking forward to a day out in Kingsbridge, for it was rare for Carol to have a Saturday off, and Betty usually went out with her young man, Ken, whose family owned a large farm at Chillington.
Carol thought Ken was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud and not nearly imaginative or bright enough for Betty. They’d been walking out for two years and Betty still hoped he’d pop the question, which made Carol wonder if perhaps Ken was stringing her along. If that was the case then Carol vowed to give him a good piece of her mind, for Betty didn’t deserve to be treated so badly after all she’d gone through. Her years in the orphanage, the trials of recovering from polio and the struggle to attain her teaching certificate showed that Betty was not easily defeated, but Carol suspected that if Ken let her down, she’d find it hard to recover.
Hector’s hooves rang on the cobbles as they entered the village, and Carol’s gaze was drawn as ever towards the cemetery surrounding the church of St James the Great. She felt the familiar prick of tears and blinked them away, for they couldn’t bring David back, or breathe life into the stillborn baby girl who now lay beside him in that lovingly tended plot. And yet the pain was still raw after eight months, the loss like an open wound which seemed no nearer to being healed.
The shire continued on past the steep cobbled lane where Thyme Cottage overlooked the sweeping fields of the old manor house right down to the sea. David had inherited it from his widowed father who’d died of lung disease two years before the war, and he’d set up his successful carpentry business there before the world had been thrown into turmoil and everything changed.
They’d met at a wedding in Dartmouth and, following a whirlwind romance, had been married in the centuries-old village church of St James the Great. David had carried Carol over the threshold into Thyme Cottage for what they’d hoped would be a long, happy future together, but the declaration of war had ruined that dream, and once he’d enlisted they’d had only a few snatched days of leave to share over the following years – and now he was gone.
David had been with Montgomery’s Eighth Army when they’d broken through the Mareth Line in Tunisia back in March. The news of his death had come shortly after she’d written excitedly to tell him about her pregnancy. She’d known he’d received that letter, for it had been opened when it was returned to her along with the rest of his effects, but there had clearly been no time for him to write a reply. However, the shock of losing him had made her careless and clumsy, and a heavy fall down a slippery flagstone step had brought the baby into the world too soon. The only solace was that her precious little girl was with David, and that one day all three of them would be together again.
Carol took a quavering breath. David used to say he admired her strength of character and her determination to make the best of things no matter how difficult life became, and she’d certainly been put to that test. Although he was no longer here, she needed to prove to him – and herself – that his faith in her was justified; that she wouldn’t weaken and let the grief overwhelm her. At times she found it almost unbearably hard, but even in her darkest moments she knew it was important to hold on to the fact that she was not the only one to have suffered tragedy. If her elder sister Pauline could carry on with such courage, then so must she.
Fate had been so cruel to Pauline and her husband, Frank Reilly, taking two of their three sons during a U-boat attack in the Atlantic. Pauline was fifteen years older than Carol but they’d always been very close, and Carol dearly wished she could see her more often, especially during these past traumatic months. But Pauline lived down in Cliffehaven, and wartime travel restrictions made visiting almost impossible. Pauline had a great network of friends and family around her, including her sister-in-law, Peggy Reilly, who could always be relied upon in any moment of need, and although Carol had good friends in Slapton, there was nothing quite like family.
She let the reins go slack and wiped her eyes, determined not to give in to self-pity. She should be careful what she wished for, and be thankful that their mother was living far enough away from them both not to make things worse with her smothering and over-enthusiastic attempts to make up for all the years when she’d been absent.
Dorothy Cardew, or Dolly, as she preferred, was a woman possessed of a great passion for life which, unfortunately, had led her down many a wrong turning in her sixty-one years, and when things went haywire – as they often did – she’d return momentarily to her role as loving mother before leaving again. She was vivacious, glamorous, exasperating and totally unreliable, but her love for her daughters was never in doubt – which was why Carol and Pauline adored her. But they both agreed that she would try the patience of a saint, and Carol was certain that Dolly would be ruffling a few feathers down in Bournemouth now she’d joined the Women’s Institute.
Carol emerged from her thoughts as Hector drew to his usual stop outside the village pub, the Queen’s Arms, where a gaggle of housewives were waiting with their tin pails. Greeting them all cheerfully, she jumped down and opened the tap on the large churn to pour the milk into the cans, stamping their ration books once they’d paid her. There were extra rations for Mrs Parnell and Mrs Rogers because they had children under five and were both expecting again.
Carol spent a few moments nattering with them and then climbed back onto the wagon and flicked the reins over the horse’s back. They were her neighbours, and although she was an incomer from Dorset, they’d made her welcome and offered loving and practical support when she’d needed it most. But there was only so much sympathy to be had from friends and neighbours and she knew that the passing of time and the lack of nearby family meant she had little choice but to deal with her burden and get on with life as best she could.
The old horse snorted and broke into a trot which made the empty churns clang against one another in the wagon, the wheels rumbling over the rough ground as they headed out of the village towards the hillside hamlet of Beeson and the farm that sprawled along Tinsey Head.
Coombe dairy farm had been in the Burnley family for over a century, and from the precipitous fields on the headland there was a magnificent panorama of the entire curving arc of Start Bay, from Start Point to Combe Point. Jack Burnley, the taciturn farmer, didn’t believe in using new-fangled machinery or changing the routine his ancestors had laid down over the years, and still relied on his horses, steam traction engine and the trusty old methods of tilling, sowing and harvesting. His only concession to modernity was the huge generator which gave light and heat to the farmhouse, and ran the vast cooling vats and milking machines in the dairy.
He’d kept his prize-winning South Devon Red dairy herd despite the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food demanding that he turn some of his grazing into fields of crops, for he’d grudgingly cleared the steepest fields for this purpose; and because his was the only dairy herd for many miles around, the officials had relented and he was now the main supplier of milk to the area.
Jack was waiting impatiently for Carol at the gate, dressed as always in wellington boots, baggy corduroy trousers and layers of ragged flannel shirts and disreputable sweaters, his fil
thy cap wedged firmly over his thick white hair. His face was as brown as a conker and etched with deep lines, his large hands roughened by over sixty years of being out in all weathers, but his eyes were the same bright blue as the sea on a sunny day, and on rare occasions would gleam with humour, reminding her of Pauline’s father-in-law, Ron Reilly. Unfortunately this was not one of those moments.
‘You be late,’ he grumbled in his deep Devon burr. ‘And I need there horse for pulling the tilling machine.’
Carol knew she wasn’t late, but then Jack always liked to have something to moan about, so there was little point in arguing. ‘Hector needs to be fed and watered and free of the shafts for a bit,’ she said firmly. ‘Why don’t you use Harriet?’
His jaw worked as he regarded her sourly from beneath his shaggy brows, then he muttered something under his breath and slammed the gate behind her as she led Hector and the cart towards the dairy. ‘Don’t feed him too well or he’ll think he be on holiday,’ he called after her.
Carol ignored him, for she knew from having worked here for three years that under that dour exterior beat the heart of a man who really cared for his animals and begrudged them nothing. She grinned at the two land girls who came out of the dairy to help unload the empty churns. ‘I see he’s his usual cheerful self this morning,’ she said, unhitching the wagon and giving Hector’s neck a hearty pat.
There were actually three other land girls working on the farm alongside the elderly farm labourers who lived nearby. Maisie, Pru and Ida were all twenty-one, and had come from the East End of London where they’d been neighbours since childhood – until Hitler’s Luftwaffe had flattened their homes, scattering their families to all four corners of the country whilst their fathers and brothers fought abroad. Having previously worked in Billingsgate fish market, they were used to dealing with bad-tempered men.
Maisie and Pru grinned back at her. ‘Don’t mind ’im, ducks,’ said Pru. ‘He can’t ’elp being a misery-guts when he’s married to ’er.’ She tipped her head towards the field where Carol saw Jack’s wife, the formidable Millicent Burnley, berating a red-faced – and clearly furious – Ida.