Home Front Girls

or me soddin’ elbow,’ Hilary complained at lunchtime after making a beeline for Annabelle in the mess. ‘They’ve had me cleanin’ out bedpans for most o’ the mornin’, ugh!’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust and Annabelle couldn’t help but grin.
    ‘Me too,’ she admitted as she spooned some sugar into her tea. There was sausage and mash for dinner today served with thick onion gravy, and Hilary attacked it as if she hadn’t eaten for a month.
    Well, at least the job she’s been doing hasn’t put her off her dinner, Annabelle thought wryly.
    When Hilary had finally cleaned her plate she suggested, ‘Do you fancy going over in the pinnace to the town tonight? We could have a nose round and perhaps find a café where we could have a cuppa? It would beat sittin’ up in the dormitory, an’ I overheard some o’ the other girls sayin’ they were goin’. Apparently there’s a hall where they have a dance at the weekends an’ all. That’d be nice wouldn’t it?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ Annabelle answered unenthusiastically. She didn’t feel in the mood for going out, but then she couldn’t stay in forever, and if the rest of the week turned out to be as hard as her first morning had been, she would no doubt be in the mood to escape for a time by the weekend.
    Hilary beamed at her. It seemed that she had skin as thick as a rhinoceros’s, and even Annabelle’s stand-offish attitude wasn’t going to stop her befriending her. Annabelle’s thoughts turned to Lucy and Dotty then, and she wondered how they were faring. She was missing them both far more than she had thought she would.

Chapter Thirty-One
     
    Lucy trudged home through the snow, looking forward to seeing Harry and getting a few hours’ sleep. After the shop work in Owen Owen she found her job in the munitions factory very repetitive and the shifts had totally disorientated her. It felt strange to be coming home early in the morning when most other folks were going to work, but then she knew she shouldn’t grumble. At least she still had a home to go to, which was a lot more than some people had. The snow that had been holding off for days had now started to fall, and the thin covering on the ground disguised the piles of rubble left by the Luftwaffe’s attacks, making everywhere look clean and bright, apart from the damage caused by the raid of the night before. The results of that were still very much in evidence as firemen damped down the remains.
    At last she arrived at Mrs P’s, and after stamping the snow from her boots she entered the kitchen to find Mrs P making the fire up in an old candlewick dressing-gown with her hair clad in metal curlers. Harry wagged his tail as he scampered over to greet her, and Mrs P yawned.
    ‘Eeh, I’m right glad to see yer,’ she remarked. ‘I hates it when there’s a raid an’ you’re stuck in that ruddy factory. Half the night we were up again, an’ it’s enough to freeze hell over in that shelter now. I even wrapped Harry up in a blanket in there last night. But how are you? Yer look fit to drop.’
    ‘I am tired,’ Lucy said. ‘But I’m fine. A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss though.’
    Whilst Mrs P pottered away to put the kettle on Lucy’s eyes strayed to the sideboard, which was covered in photographs of Mrs P’s three children, as was the wall behind them, at various stages of their lives. She had seen the woman dust them lovingly every single day since the two younger ones had been evacuated. She must miss them so much, she thought to herself, and once again found herself thinking of Mary. It was really hard to enter her own home now without her and Joel there, but what choice did she have? She just had to get on with life as the other people of the city were having to do.
    Thankfully she didn’t have to work that night, so she had arranged to go and see Miranda in the afternoon, once she’d had a sleep. Unless there was another raid, of course, and then Miranda would be at some church hall somewhere tending to the injured or homeless or driving an ambulance. It seemed that there was no job that was closed to women now, and the days of them staying at home to raise their families were long gone. With most of the men absent, fighting the war, the women had been forced to step into the breach – and a fine job they were making of it. It was commonplace to see women driving trams and buses now. A lot of the single women had gone to become Land Girls whilst others like