The Steel Girls. Michelle Rawlins

Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Author’s Note

       Acknowledgements

       Extract

       About the Publisher

Chapter One

       Saturday, 26 August 1939

      ‘Would you like one?’ Betty asked, opening her bag of chocolate caramels and offering one to her handsome sweetheart, William.

      ‘I bought them for you,’ he said, smiling, ‘but if you insist.’ He winked, dipping his hand to the brown paper bag. ‘They are rather good.’

      The young couple had called at Harrison’s sweetshop on Green Street on their way to the Empire for a quarter of the gooey soft-centred chocolates; they had been a favourite of Betty’s ever since her parents had taken her to the very same theatre house as a little girl. Tonight, of all nights, it was just what she needed. After a busier than normal week at the prestigious legal firm, Dawson & Sons, where she worked hard as a secretary, writing letters to clients and answering questions about their wills, Betty was ready to let her mind wander to a faraway place. Amiable and willing as ever, William hadn’t objected when she’d suggested an evening at the Empire, where she could get lost watching James Stewart in It’s A Wonderful World.

      As she relaxed into the soft familiar seat, Betty edged as close to William as she possibly could. Just having him by her side was a sure-fire way of ensuring all her worries faded away. She had been looking forward to their date all day, knowing she could relax for a few hours with the one person who made her smile more than anyone else in the world. As the main theatre lights began to fade and the heavy deep-red screen curtains slowly opened, Betty finally started to relax, happy in the knowledge she was about to escape to a fantasy world of romance and comedy.

      But, just as it had for months now, the harsh introductory crackling of the Pathé newsreels interrupted the precious moment of tranquillity, terrifying black-and-white images invading the big screen. Stern-faced, menacing-looking soldiers stared straight ahead as they were addressed by Adolf Hitler, who had Poland in his sights. Hoping to deter an attack on Eastern Europe, Great Britain and France had formed a pledge to defend Poland if it was attacked. Instead of indulging in another chocolate caramel, Betty reached for William’s hand, subconsciously squeezing his fingers a little tighter than normal as she stared at the incomprehensible scenes flashing before her eyes.

      She understood why the public announcements had to be shown; the essential need to let the country know what was going on in the world and for people to understand once again the nation was facing the biggest risk they’d come up against since the First World War. Normally calm and methodical, Betty took a deep breath and let out an audible sigh as she looked up towards the intermittent flashing scenes. Hitler, with his pencil-thin moustache and dark, deep unreadable eyes, had signed a treaty of alliance with Italy and he was now in talks with Russia. Betty tried to placate the growing fear she felt deep in the pit of her stomach. Every time she saw that godforsaken man march his troops through another city, her heart raced a little faster. She didn’t want to be the voice of doom, but she was convinced Britain was next on the evil Nazi leader’s list. He seemed hell-bent on taking over the world and it seemed obvious to her he wasn’t listening to anyone who tried to reason with his plans.

      ‘He’s building his empire. Are we next on his hit list?’ Betty whispered to William, her voice ever so slightly faltering as she leant in even closer to the one person who always made her feel safe. Tightly clenching her free fist, Betty’s neatly manicured nails dug sharply into her soft skin, leaving deep U-shaped indents in the palms of her hands. But she didn’t feel a thing, her mind too overtaken by worry. It didn’t take a genius to work out the months ahead could see Britain facing its worst battle since the Great War. As she sat, glued perfectly still to her chair, an icy-cold shiver ran down her spine, overwhelming anxiety soaring through her. Intuitively, sensing Betty’s concerns, William turned to face her. ‘Try not to worry, my love.’ He smiled. ‘Everything will be okay – I promise.’ But, for the first time, William’s kind eyes and well-meaning reassurances couldn’t disperse Betty’s fears. Despite only being twenty-three, in many ways she was older than her tender years might suggest. In her mind, England didn’t seem ready to fight a war, despite the fact that they seemed to be perilously close to being on the edge of one.

      William had already hinted at the idea of joining the RAF if war did break out, leaving his job as a trainee manager for an electrical company, and inevitably being separated from Betty. ‘I’ve always wanted to fly,’ he’d told her the last time she’d brought up the subject. ‘Imagine how amazing it would be to see everything from above, speeding through the clouds.’ She’d immediately regretted bringing it up as William was a dreamer who saw everything through rose-tinted glasses. To Betty, though, it sounded like a pipe dream; a naive schoolboy adventure, which hadn’t been thought through at all, and the dire consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

      As the newsreel came to a welcome end, Betty was brought back to the present, snapped out of her daydream. ‘Are you okay?’ William whispered, genuine concern still etched across his kind face. Betty forced a smile and nodded weakly, but the reality was she simply couldn’t face the thought of losing someone else she loved. She and William had been going steady for two years now. He’d been the knight in shining armour she hadn’t even realized she’d needed, so hell-bent on being completely independent and determined never to become reliant on anyone – especially after what she’d been through. After losing her mum, Elsie, at the tender age of ten, she had been left with no choice but to grow up fast. She’d helped her sister, Margaret, two years her senior, take care of their little brother, Edward – who, at eight, had been equally bewildered as to why their mother had been so cruelly taken away from them.

      At nineteen, two years after securing her job as a secretary at Dawson & Sons Solicitors, Betty Clark had moved out of the neat three-bedroom terraced family home where she had grown up, and taken a small but perfectly adequate room in a smart boarding house in Walkley, the posh end of town, determined to be independent. Of course, she still went home as often as she could on a Sunday and helped her dad and Edward, now a handsome young man, prepare a traditional roast, always willing to get stuck in peeling a bag of tatties and top and tailing a saucepan of carrots.

      Every few months, Betty’s elder sister, Margaret, arrived from Nottingham with her husband, Derek, and their two-year-old dream of a little girl, June. The couple had moved seventy miles to the Midlands city after Derek was offered a lucrative job working on the railways. It meant the family only got together three or four times a year but, if nothing else, it made the afternoon even more special. After a modest feast of roast chicken and vegetables, followed by a jam sponge pudding with lashings of home-made custard, bought from the nearby bakery, the family usually marvelled at June as she toddled around the front room, showing off her much-loved dolly she’d received for her birthday. Betty missed Margaret; they had been so close growing up and Margaret had taken on the mother role she and Edward had desperately needed.

      She recalled how, on one of her sister’s visits to the family home, Margaret had looked over at Betty as she played dollies with June. ‘I hope that one day you will meet a lovely man like Derek and have a little family of your own,’ she’d mused, hopeful her younger sister would