Authors: Catrin Collier
‘I work on an assembly line. If I don’t turn up there’s no one to take my place.’
‘So?’
‘The fuse output will go down. They need every bomb they can get, and they’re no good without fuses. I put the detonators into them.’
‘I get three days and you tell me you can’t spare the same?’
‘What I do is important, Haydn.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Am I?’ She rose to her feet and went to the stove. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘I’d like to know what’s going on. I come home to find you working and frequenting pubs …’
‘Frequenting! I call in now and again with the girls after work.’
‘The same girls I saw Ronnie, Alexander and God only knows how many other men sniffing around.’
‘Ronnie’s my brother-in-law. I happen to work with him, and Alexander is -’
‘I know who Alexander is after. Ronnie told me. Jenny led Eddie a merry dance when he was alive, and nothing seems to have changed now he’s dead.’
‘She is a widow, Haydn.’
‘Is that what you’d like to be?’
‘Seems to me from what I read in the papers. I’m the abandoned wife.’
‘I didn’t abandon you, I brought you to my father’s house so you and our child would be safe and out of the blitz. You were the one who abandoned Anne so you could work. You leave her with Phyllis, get drunk -’ he stabbed his finger towards her – ‘and you accuse
me
of abandoning you? I really thought, really believed all this time that you were looking after our daughter …’
‘Phyllis cares for her beautifully.’
‘Is this your way of telling me that after the war is over you’d like to leave her with Phyllis?’
‘Don’t be absurd!
‘If you have anything like a conscience left, you can start exercising it right now. I’m your husband, the one you promised to obey, remember? And I expressly forbid you to go to work tomorrow.’
‘I’m going.’
‘I won’t allow it.’
‘How are you going to stop me. Haydn? Lock me in the bedroom?’ She walked over and looked down on the sleeping child in his arms. ‘It’s time she was in bed.’
‘How do you know? You’re not the one who usually puts her there.’
‘I’m tired, Haydn. I have a hangover, and I have to get up early in the morning. I’ve done all the arguing I’m going to for one day.’ Closing the flue on the stove and raking out the ashes she carried them through to the metal ashbin in the back yard then washed her hands in the washhouse. Standing in front of him, she held out her arms. ‘Can I have Anne, please?’
‘How can I trust you to look after her?’
‘I think I’ve done a better job than you for the last nine months, don’t you?’
He glared at her for a moment. She stooped down, and he reluctantly handed Anne over.
‘Good-night, Haydn.’
He heard her walking up the stairs, but he continued to sit and seethe, until sleep finally overcame him, and that’s where Jane found him in the morning. Stretched out in an easy chair, his feet propped up on a stool. She covered him with one of Phyllis’s knitted blankets, before cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair. Forgoing her usual morning tea, she closed the door quietly behind her and left the house.
‘Morning. Myrtle’s behind me,’ Wyn said, as he bumped into Huw in the black shadows that shrouded Tyfica Road.
‘I had to go to the station early, so I thought I’d walk round this way,’ Huw lied as he retreated to the foot of the steps to their house.
‘Bit of a detour, isn’t it? Still, I believe you, thousands wouldn’t. And in case you’re interested, my father’s still in shock. Forgive me for not hanging round but I’ll freeze to death if I don’t keep moving.’
‘It is nippy.’
‘Was that Wyn?’ Myrtle asked as she closed the door behind her.
‘He’s gone on ahead.’ Huw reached out, fumbled for her gloved hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.
‘What are you doing here? I know you’re not on nights this week.’
‘I thought we could make some plans. I have the day off so I could meet your train tonight, and take you to Ronconi’s for tea.’
‘I’d prefer to buy fish and chips and go back to your house. You didn’t have time to show me anything except the kitchen yesterday.’
‘In that case I’ll ask Megan along.’
‘She’ll think you’re afraid of me.’ Stopping on the corner of Tyfica Road and Gelliwastad Grove, she clamped her mittened hands on his shoulders, and pressed her mouth against his. He tasted of cold and tea. ‘There, I’ve finally done what I wanted to do all last night. That’s a thank-you for dealing so cleverly with my father. Now what about tonight?’
‘We’ll get fish and chips.’
‘Good. I’ll bring a tape measure. I bet the bedrooms could do with new curtains.’
‘They probably could.’
‘And new wallpaper and eiderdowns?’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘I can’t wait to move in.’ She clung even more tightly to his arm. ‘We are going to be so happy.’
‘I don’t see how I could be any happier than I am now, love,’ he declared as he patted her hand, feeling the outline of his mother’s ring through the thick woollen cloth.
‘Girls, what do you think? Myrtle’s not only got an engagement ring, she’s actually getting married,’ Judy announced to the packed carriage as the train drew out of Pontypridd.
‘You lucky thing,’ Maggie congratulated her enviously. Huw Davies might be ginger and balding, but he was a policeman with a respectable job and a steady wage that wasn’t dependent on war production. In two years she’d be thirty-eight, the same age as Myrtle, and she’d give her eye teeth for a man ten years older than Huw, with half of his assets. Almost any man had to be a better prospect than being left on the shelf.
‘Can we all come to the wedding?’ Sally asked.
‘You expect them to close down the factory for the occasion?’ Jenny offered her cigarettes around.
‘We’ve got to do something, we can’t just ignore an occasion like this.’
‘How about a bachelor party in the White Hart?’ Jane suggested coolly, still smarting from Haydn’s outrage.
‘Women don’t have bachelor parties,’ Judy informed her tartly.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Jenny broke in. ‘If men can take their mates down to the pub the night before they get married, I see no reason why women can’t do the same.’
‘I’m not sure I want a party …’ Myrtle began tentatively, imagining her father and the minister’s reaction to the idea.
‘Nonsense,’ Jenny retorted. ‘We can’t all come to the wedding, so when would we give you your presents, if not at a bachelor party?’
‘I suppose we could rent one of the upstairs rooms in the Hart,’ Sally said doubtfully.
‘Rent an upstairs room and hide away. Whatever for?’ Jenny rejected the idea scornfully. ‘We’ll take over the back bar like we always do. Just give us the date, Myrtle and I’ll arrange everything.’
‘We haven’t fixed it yet.’
‘When you do, let me know and we’ll give you a send-off to remember.’
‘Sounds to me as though it’s likely to be one the whole town will remember,’ Maggie murmured, wishing that this particular party could be hers.
Ronnie swung the circular sheet of metal over the mould. Centring it on the press, he nodded to Wyn, who pulled a lever down sharply.
‘One more perfect bomb casing,’ Ronnie announced as Wyn released the clamp. ‘We make a good team.’ He lifted the shell, giving it a cursory inspection before depositing it carefully in a large wire basket that had been emptied three times already since they had come on shift.
‘I’ve really tried to hate you, do you know that?’
‘The same goes for you. Let’s face it, Wyn, basically we’re good blokes, and neither of us particularly enjoys fighting.’ The whistle blew for break and he looked across the factory floor through the small window that overlooked the assembly area where the conveyor belts were grinding to a halt.
He followed Wyn from the shop floor into the corridor that led to the canteen. Caught in the flow of women, they found themselves behind Judy Crofter, Sally and Jane.
‘He said he’d be in the Hart again tonight,’ Judy insisted, oblivious to everyone around her except Sally.
‘If Alexander Forbes is in the Hart tonight, it won’t be to look at you,’ Sally dismissed coolly. ‘If eyes were teeth, he’d have crunched Jenny Powell into little pieces last night. I’ve never seen a man with such a bad case of lust as him.’
‘Everyone knows Jenny’s so bloody hoity-toity, she won’t have him. What he needs is another evening with me.’
‘You’d have to tie him down first,’ Sally sniggered.
‘You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face tomorrow. I’ll catch him and get him to the altar before Myrtle lands Huw Davies, you’ll see.’
‘Get a move on,’ a voice shouted from the back of the queue. ‘At this rate, the whistle will blow for the next section’s tea before we’re served.’
The girls moved on, and Ronnie caught up with Wyn.
‘Is your sister marrying Huw Davies?’
‘Next month.’
‘Good for Huw. I’ve always liked him, he’s a fair policeman and a nice bloke. Are you pleased?’
‘For Myrtle, yes. Both of them really, they seem very happy,’ he added with a touch of bitterness.
‘Diana thinks a lot of Myrtle.’ Ronnie fell silent as he realised who he was talking to. He picked up his tea and carried it over to the table Wyn was sitting at. The canteen was so crowded and time so short, he couldn’t have sat at another one, even if he’d wanted to.
‘I never really knew Maud,’ Wyn said, as he stirred the grey-brown mess in his cup. ‘I saw her, of course. In fact I picked her up off the floor once when she fainted, but that’s not really knowing someone. Was she like Diana?’
‘In some ways,’ Ronnie agreed. ‘She was incredibly gentle, kind and considerate, but once she’d made up her mind to do something, nothing would shift her: argument, logic, bribery and I suspect, though I wouldn’t know, blows.’
‘A bit like Diana. Once she makes a promise, she never breaks it.’
‘No matter how much it costs her?’ Ronnie raised his eyes to Wyn’s to let him know he understood exactly what he was telling him.
‘It’s not the cost to her, but the cost to other people she’s concerned about.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’ Ronnie pushed his cup aside. The tea suddenly tasted even worse than usual.
The whistle blew again, and they began filing out. Ronnie wondered if it was worth the effort of moving. He decided he’d probably feel more refreshed if he lay down on the floor next to the machine and did without the tea. Perhaps he should try it next time.
He glanced at the clock. They were heading into the final three-hour stint of the shift. The assembly lines had already started up. Three hours and he’d be leaving, four and he’d be in the White Hart, six and he’d be home. Drink, eat, sleep, get up and repeat the day again … and again … and again.
Nothing to look forward to except chance meetings with Diana like the one in Bethan’s house. Meetings that caused more pain than pleasure.
Jane picked up a fuse, and a detonator. Just before slotting it in she called out for a supervisor.
‘This doesn’t look right.’
Myrtle took it from her. ‘Well spotted. I’ll put it to one side.’ Holding it out at arm’s length she walked down towards the X-ray machine at the end of the line.
Jane picked up the next fuse and another detonator from her box. As she slotted the detonator into the fuse, the world burst before her eyes, erupting in a cascade of fire, smoke and blinding white light.
Everything fell quiet, too quiet, just as it had when the bomb had fallen on their house in London. A merciful darkness blacked out everything as she was flung headlong into nothingness.
One minute Ronnie was lifting the finished casing from the machine, the next he was thrown against the press as an explosion rocked the ground under him. Landing flat on his face he cowered as a ball of flame roared overhead, scorching the air and singeing the back of his overall. He closed his eyes tightly, waiting for it to either recede or roast him. He didn’t have to wait long. A gust of freezing air followed. Opening his eyes he saw that half the outside wall of the factory was engulfed in flames; the other half was no longer standing.
‘What the hell happened?’ He looked to Wyn, but he couldn’t even hear the sound of his own voice above the crashes, bangs and sirens screeching into action.
‘A minor incident.’ Wyn had lip-read the question. He had been in the factory longer than Ronnie, and had become accustomed to the management’s euphemisms.
‘Mother of God! The whole damn place is coming down on top of us!’ Ronnie rolled on to his back and pushed himself under the inadequate shelter of the press he and Wyn had been operating. The whole roof was swaying, rocking from side to side like a cradle. Kicking Wyn further beneath the machine, he covered his head with his hands as shards of sheet metal splintered apart and hurtled downwards.
They remained there, huddled together while all around pieces of what had been the factory hailed down, blanketing the fires.
After an eternity Ronnie gradually became aware of people screaming. He looked out from under the machine. The wall that had separated their section from the assembly lines had gone. In its place was a vast dome of bent and twisted metal. A man stood next to it, shouting for help to get the bins of ammunition and shells out of the flame path.
As he rose hesitantly, a second explosion knocked him to his knees. He couldn’t hear himself think. He had a sudden, overwhelming craving for peace and quiet without even being aware of the continuous, ear-shattering wail of the alarms. Everywhere he looked he saw bodies, flung into untidy heaps of lolling arms, legs and heads, like broken mannequins.
Wyn crawled out behind him and hauled him to his feet. They looked at one another. It was useless to even try to talk, but they both knew what needed to be done. Slowly, carefully, they picked their way across the floor, stamping out sparks with their boots until the rubber melted and burnt the soles of their feet. They headed in the same direction. Towards the bins of gunpowder and cordite that stood miraculously intact next to the roof that had caved in on the assembly lines.
Someone grabbed his arm and pointed to the right, where the ramp to the canteen stood unscathed.
‘Go out and tell them to shut off those bloody sirens,’ Ronnie shouted illogically into the man’s ear, before continuing resolutely towards the bins.
He stumbled, looked down and saw a girl lying at his feet. Picking her up, he carried her past the bins and handed her to a fireman who was standing at the head of a line of water bucket carriers. Flames licked at his feet and around a bin of finished fuses. He kicked the bin, rolling it out of the fire path as he stumbled into the loading bay.
Bodies and people were everywhere. Girls sat, slumped with their backs to the wall, their overalls covered in smoke smuts and powder burns, nursing scorched fingers and faces while the factory nurse and emergency first-aiders concentrated on the more serious cases laid out on blankets hastily thrown on to the tarmac.
Wyn was ahead of him, handing over a girl he’d helped outside to a first-aider. The yard was awash with battered, blackened corpse-like figures. He didn’t know where to start. Another team of factory firemen ran past with a hose.
‘Either of you hurt?’ the deputy manager asked. ‘No? Good, over there with the others.’ He pointed to the wall.
‘I’m going back in to see if anyone’s alive beneath that roof.’ Wyn turned round.
‘Don’t be a fool man. Leave it to the professionals.’
‘My sister worked there.’
‘I forbid you. You are not allowed -’
‘The hell we aren’t!’ Ronnie bellowed. ‘You can’t just leave them.’
‘Help is coming …’
Ronnie didn’t waste any time pointing out that it might come too late. As Wyn headed back towards the smoking ruins of the factory, he followed.
Maggie recognised Wyn and Ronnie as she sat leaning against the wall, nursing her bloody and battered hands and shivering with cold. She watched as they worked steadily, side by side, picking up the injured, handing them out to the firemen behind them, pushing aside twisted girders and bins of explosive material.
‘I never took those two to be heroes.’ Sally slumped beside her.
‘You all right?’ Maggie moved her head carefully. Her neck hurt and she was too shocked to explore the pain.
‘Do I look it?’
‘You’ve lost your eyelashes, but they’ll grow back. You seen any of the others?’
Sally shook her head and looked at the mess around her. ‘I’d give anything for a fag and a beer.’
‘Have to wait until the end of the shift.’ Maggie tried to smile but it hurt her face. ‘The way it’s looking now, we’ll be doing overtime.’
Dr John called Bethan minutes after he received the message that all the medical personnel and able-bodied men who could be spared from the town were to go to the munitions factory immediately.
She threw on her uniform, kissed her children goodbye, said a hurried farewell to Maisie and Liza, warned Alma not to have her baby before she got back, jumped in Andrew’s car and raced down the hill. Turning right up Graig Avenue she did an emergency stop outside her father’s house. Leaving the engine running, she dashed up the steps and opened the door, shouting for Haydn.
‘Sis?’ He appeared in the kitchen doorway with Anne in his arms.
‘Is Phyllis in?’
‘Here, Beth. What’s wrong?’
‘There’s been an explosion in the factory.’
‘Jane!’
‘I don’t know any details, but they’re asking for all the help they can get.’
She turned and ran down the steps. Haydn handed Anne over to Phyllis, grabbed his coat and dashed out after her.
He had no time to shut the passenger door before she pressed the accelerator to the floor. Slamming the car into reverse, she careered backwards, turning into Illtyd Street before driving out of the Avenue on to Llantrisant Road.
‘What happened?’
‘Explosion, dead and injured. That’s all Dr John told me.’
‘No numbers?’
‘No nothing. And even when they know, they won’t be broadcasting them. Accidents like this don’t happen. They’re bad for morale.’
‘I thought that maxim only applied to military disasters.’
‘You seen any civilians since this war started? Because I haven’t. Sometimes it feels as though the whole country is fighting. Men, women and children.’
They saw the smoke long before they reached the factory. The police had barricaded the road and were waving through all the ambulances, and stopping the cars. Bethan tore off her nurse’s veil, opened the window and held it aloft.
‘Nurse John, straight through. Follow the ambulance.’
She recognised the sergeant from the police station.
‘How bad is it?’
‘You’ll see,’ he answered, tight-lipped as he signalled the car behind her to stop.
‘Oh dear God!’ Haydn stared at the rows of blanket covered corpses laid out on the concrete apron of the loading bay.
‘Find out who’s in charge, and ask what you can do to help.’ Bethan dived out of the car and looked for Dr John. He was injecting morphine into a patient so badly burned, Bethan couldn’t determine age or sex.
‘Twenty dead so far, but it’s still burning and there’s a risk of explosion. Initial estimates are sixty missing, but some of them could be working to clear the explosives from the area. The most severely injured are in this line. There’s morphine vials in my bag for the burns victims. Don’t send any to the hospital without it, or they might not survive the trip. Check for damaged limbs and severed arteries. I’ve had to amputate two arms already.’
Bethan turned to see Haydn behind her.
‘I can’t find anyone.’
She knew that by ‘anyone’ he meant Jane, not whoever was in charge, but this was no time to look for individuals. ‘Huw’s behind you. Ask him.’ She was already cutting the sleeve of a smouldering overall from a young girl. He heard her murmuring soft words of comfort as he walked away.
‘Huw?’ Haydn had to touch his arm to gain his attention. ‘What can I do?’
‘Do?’ Huw asked blankly. ‘Do you think I’d be handing out tea if there was something I could do? The roof’s caved in over the area that housed the assembly line. We know there’s at least ten girls trapped beneath it, what we don’t know is whether they’re alive or dead. Ronnie and Wyn have been trying to get them out since I’ve been here. The firemen are doing what they can, but they won’t let anyone else get near because the whole area’s riddled with bins of explosives that could go up at any moment.’
‘Jane …’
‘She worked with Myrtle, close to Jenny Powell. They think, although they’re not sure, that they are the ones trapped under there.’
‘Can you shift it?’ Wyn gasped, sliding the torch they had borrowed from a fireman ahead of him, as he slithered sideways on his back. He stopped to push a girder beneath the edge of the section of roof that covered them in the hope that it would raise it higher above their heads.
‘This is worse than trying to throw a fat woman out of bed, when you’ve a ton of eiderdowns pressing down on you.’ Ronnie summoned all his strength to push up a section of roof so he could see what lay beyond it.
‘You’ve had experience of pushing fat women out of bed?’
‘Only in my dreams.’ Ronnie had no difficulty in hearing Wyn’s voice. After the din of factory sirens, ambulance bells, and screams in the loading bay, it was miraculously quiet beneath the roof. He tried not to think about the bins of explosives and the fires that still smouldered on what was left of the factory floor. His face contorted as he bared his teeth and steeled his muscles to make one last superhuman effort. ‘It’s no good. I can’t shift the bloody thing.’ He reached up, hitting his elbow painfully on the metal ceiling that hung a scant three inches from his face, as he wiped away the sweat that was pouring from his forehead.
‘Let me try to get round it.’ Wyn slipped his arm into a narrow gap between a bench and a girder. ‘I can feel something. An overall, an arm. It’s warm.’ Bracing his feet against the bench, Wyn pushed upwards, inching his way over the thick carpet of shattered shell casings and splintered metal that surrounded the top of the bench. ‘Hand me the torch.’ He stretched his arm out behind him. Ronnie pushed it in his direction. ‘I can see Jenny’s face. Jenny?’ he called loudly. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Is she injured?’
‘Not that I can see, but I can only see her arm and head. She’s breathing, and there’s another girl behind her.’
‘Who is it?’
‘God only knows, I can’t see a bloody thing beyond the torch beam, and I can’t move an inch.’
‘Do you think the fire’s on top of us? I feel as though I’m being roasted for Sunday dinner.’
‘Go back and get a couple more metal bars. If we can prop this section up and get the firemen behind us to form a chain, we might be able to get at the girls and hand them out from one to the other. What do you think?’
‘It’s better than my idea.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Getting everyone out there who can walk to play sardines under here.’
‘Are you ever serious?’
‘On the rare occasions I’ve tried, I’ve gone mad.’
‘If you’re going, go.’
‘Try singing to whoever’s trapped. That should wake them up.’ Ronnie crawled out backwards from beneath the roof. As he climbed to his feet he saw that he hadn’t been far wrong about the cooking. A pile of overalls had blown on to the roof from the tailor’s shop and were smoking in a foul-smelling heap of melting rubber buttons and smouldering wool.
‘Any luck?’ a fireman asked.
He explained what they intended to do. A few minutes later, the fireman and three of his colleagues came up with a couple of almost undamaged girders and an extra torch.
Taking a deep breath, Ronnie lay on his stomach and bulldozed his way back beneath the roof. The firemen pushed one of the girders alongside him, waiting for his confirming shout that he’d guided it, before lending it any more momentum. It took him ten minutes to reach the spot where he’d left Wyn. He flashed his torch and called out.
‘I’m behind the bench. Don’t touch it whatever you do. It’s the only thing that’s stopping the roof from crashing down on the girls. Go to the top of the bench.’
‘My top could be your bottom.’
‘I’ll push my torch up as far as it will go: work your way towards the light.’
‘Hi there, you look good in a spotlight, particularly with a dirty face. Are you going to sing “Mammy”?’
‘Ronnie …’
‘I’ll be serious.’
‘If I pass a girl to you, would you be able to get her out?’
‘There’s four firemen behind me.’
‘Right, first one coming.’
Ronnie heard the murmur of women’s voices. ‘They’re alive?’
‘And arguing. Tell them it’s easier to get the able bodied out of the way first.’
‘Definitely. And I hate to put a damper on a good argument, but there’s a fire on top of us. If we don’t move soon we’ll end up grilled, and it will be well-done, not rare.’
Ronnie held out his arms as Wyn thrust Jenny towards him. Her arm was at a peculiar angle and her face was red raw, but her eyes were open. He turned his head and shouted to the fireman behind, waiting for his answering cry before using the girder as a guide and pushing her down the line.
Haydn was handing out tea and hot soup from a WVS wagon when he saw Bethan racing across the yard. He looked across and saw a fireman carrying a girl. Her dust cap had fallen from her head and he recognised her. There was only one girl in Pontypridd with hair that colour.
‘Jenny,’ he breathed, remembering Huw’s assertion that she worked with Jane. Handing the tea to the person nearest him, he tore across the yard.
‘Have you seen Jane?’ he demanded breathlessly.
‘Steady, Haydn,’ Bethan warned. ‘She’s in shock.’