Trying to remember how many people had died in the plague, Ena shook her head. To take her mind off biking home on her own, she often did mental arithmetic or thought about facts that she had learned in history at school. Tonight, having come close to death herself, she did not want to think about the outcome of the plague.
She free-wheeled down the hill, past the big white house at the bottom of Stony Hallow and the Fox Inn on Rugby Road, to the River Swift. Flying over the stone bridge, cold perspiration trickled down Ena’s back and she shivered. The moon, full and bright in a cloudless sky, illuminated the grass verge, making a couple of potholes visible. As she negotiated her way round them, Ena’s heart pounded. Out of the town, without the protection of the buildings, she would easily be seen from the air.
CHAPTER TWO
Trying to ignore the burning sensation in her calves, Ena stood on the bicycle’s pedals and pushed on up the hill. Her lungs felt as if they were going to burst, but she daren’t stop. She turned off the main Rugby Road towards the village of Woodcote and flew under the railway bridge. Plunged into darkness, her legs tiring, she wobbled but she stayed on the bike.
Without thinking, she turned on the hooded lamp in the middle of the bike’s handlebars, but turned it off when she was through the tunnel. The light, however faint, would pinpoint her location in open countryside. Besides, the moon was so bright she could see perfectly well without it.
Slowing down when she arrived on the crest of Shaft Hill, she veered to the left and coasted down Mysterton Lane.
Taking her feet off the pedals, Ena put the sole of one shoe, then the other, on the front tyre to slow the bicycle down. When she arrived at her parents’ cottage, she lifted the handlebars and bumped the bike up the verge. Thick and uncut, the long grass further slowed the bike down until she was able to jump off.
The distant wail of Coventry’s air raid sirens and the continuous crump of explosions had followed Ena all the way from Lowarth. She looked up at the sky. To the west, searchlights beamed into the cloudless night, in a desperate bid to illuminate enemy aircraft. She could hear the muffled crack and clatter of explosions, followed by the duller distant rat-a-tat-tat of anti-aircraft guns. The sky above Coventry was an orangey-red and looked as if the city was on fire.
Walking up the path, she saw the sitting room curtains twitch and a chink of light escape. By the time she had put her bicycle in the lean-to in the yard, her mother was at the back door.
‘Thank God you’re home and safe. Where’s your father?’ she asked, looking round Ena, straining to see in the darkness.
Ena stepped into the dark kitchen. ‘Still in Lowarth.’
Lily Dudley tutted and giving Ena a gentle push, manoeuvred her ample body past her. Closing the door, Lily flicked on the light. ‘Good God, girl,’ she said, grabbing the clothes brush from a hook on the back of the door and thrusting it into Ena’s hands. ‘Get yourself back outside and brush down your coat. You’ll never get the muck out of it if it dries.’
‘I thought dirt was easier to brush off when it was dry.’
‘Not when it’s that caked in it isn’t! And comb your hair while you’re out there.’ She pointed to a comb on the window ledge. ‘You look as if you’ve gone grey.’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me if I had. The goings on at the factory tonight was enough to turn anyone grey.’ Ena took the Kirby grips out of her hair, picked up the comb, and after switching off the light, opened the back door and went out into the yard.
‘Stew and dumplings for supper,’ her mother said, on Ena’s return. ‘Be a bit dried up by now.’
‘It’ll be fine, Mam.’ While Ena set the table, her mother spooned dumplings, carrots, and a small portion of meat with gravy onto three plates. ‘We’ll keep your Dad’s warm till he gets in.’ Taking the plate with the largest helping, Ena placed it in the oven at the side of the stove.
‘It’s not right you being stuck in that factory on your own till all hours,’ Ena’s mother grumbled when Ena sat down to eat her supper.
‘I wasn’t on my own tonight, Mam.’
‘Maybe not tonight, but there’s been plenty of nights you have been.’
‘Yes, but only when it’s really necessary.’ Aware that she mustn’t say too much about her work but wanting to put her mother’s mind at rest, Ena said, ‘Silcott’s do a lot of work for the military. There’s no such thing as a nine-till-five working day anymore.’
‘Why can’t some of the other women stay late for a change?’
‘They do. But the work Freda and I do is complicated. We’re the only two who have been trained up to do it. Besides,’ Ena said, ‘I like my job and I’m good at it. Mr Silcott is ever so pleased with me. I might not be in the forces, but I’m working hard for the war effort, which,’ she grinned at her mother, ‘is why I sometimes have to work late.’
Lily shook her head and sighed, as if to say she had heard it all before, which she had. ‘How much damage did the bombs do then?’
‘What?’ Her mother’s question had taken Ena by surprise. She had hoped to distract her, stop her from worrying, by
