Twisting Morton around, Shaohao led him down the stairs, dropping Morton’s mobile in a dustbin as they walked.
In the chaos of London life, nobody paid any attention to the firm grip on Morton’s arm, forcing him out of the station.
As he was led along a series of ever-quieter streets to the back of a waiting white van, Morton was strangely calm. There was now no way he was going to make the appointment with Barbara, Paul and Rose, which he wasn’t too worried about. It was making his wedding tomorrow that troubled him the most.
Chapter Thirty-One
7th June 1944, Dover, Kent
The backdoor was open. Pools of warm light fell on the square terracotta tiles. The sweet, refreshing aroma of elderflower from the two trees in the garden wafted into the kitchen, where Elsie was sweeping debris into a small mound in the centre of the floor. She tutted, having no idea where it all came from. It was incredible. She had only cleaned up this morning, and yet here she was stooped over again clearing up.
Emptying the dust pan into the bin, she leant on the work top to take a moment’s pause. Wearing just a light cotton top and woollen skirt, with her hair pulled back into an untidy bun, she was sweating from the heat of the day and the seemingly endless housework. She was desperate for a cigarette and cup of tea, but it was a while yet until she could have a break.
She tidied the muddle of newspapers on the kitchen table into a neat pile. Today’s copy of the Daily Express was at the top of the stack. ‘Tanks 10 Miles in,’ read the headline. ‘No longer any opposition on the first beaches.’
The end of the war was coming.
She thought for a moment of her previous life in the WAAF. It seemed an eternity ago. She would have loved to have been in the operations room at RAF Bentley Priory when the D-Day landings had started. The atmosphere down in the hole would have been electric…but it just wasn’t to be; that was no longer her life.
The striking of the grandfather clock in the hallway made Elsie jump. It was ten o’clock; she was late in preparing the tea. Quickly, she boiled a kettle on the stove and made the drink. She set the cup and saucer down onto a tray, hurriedly added a small slice of carrot flan, then carried it all upstairs.
She tapped on the door lightly. ‘I’ve got your tea.’
‘Come in,’ a voice croaked.
Elsie nudged the door open and entered the room. The curtains were drawn, pushing back against the sunlight. Elsie placed the tray down beside the bed. ‘Are you feeling any better yet?’
The young woman in the bed—just a few years older than Elsie—looked pale, drawn and considerably unwell. ‘You know, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s that awful National Loaf that’s the cause. Nasty, dirty and indigestible. Please don’t buy it again—you can make your own.’
‘Yes, I will do that,’ Elsie answered. She hated cooking. She hated cleaning. In fact, she hated every part of being the live-in housekeeper. Almost every part.
‘I think after lunch-’ she began, cutting herself short when the horribly familiar groan of the air raid siren began to seep insidiously into the bedroom. She sat bolt upright. ‘Oh glory! Not another one… Well, I’m in no fit state to take her to the shelter—you’ll have to do it. Quick, go!’
Elsie floundered. ‘But…but I can’t—you know how I hate the shelters.’
‘Never mind that—you must take her—now.’
Elsie’s heart began to thud. She knew that she had no choice. ‘Christina!’ Elsie called, darting into the hallway outside the little girl’s bedroom. ‘Christina—we must go to the shelter.’
The girl appeared in a pretty white frock clutching a ragdoll. She giggled. ‘You said Christina again. I’m Barbara. Remember?’
A wash of panic cascaded over Elsie. Her cheeks flushed and her already pounding heart seemed to quicken to a new unsustainable rhythm, snatching her breath. She reached for the girl’s hand, daring not to look back at Mrs Binney.
Together, they hurried down the stairs and out of the front door of the chunky Edwardian house.
‘Where are we going?’ the girl asked, skipping to keep up with Elsie’s pace.
‘To the shelter,’ Elsie managed to say. She felt sick. Sick for her stupid slip-up. Sick for where they were about to go.
The public shelter—nothing more than a box made of thick concrete—was situated at the cross-roads a short walk away. Elsie had never been inside. It had been almost three years since she had last stepped foot in a public shelter.
‘Come on, love,’ an ARP warden called from outside. ‘Hurry up!’
‘Are we expecting more raids? Could this just be a false alarm?’ Elsie demanded, as they neared the entrance. The rancid, yeasty, smell that seemed to epitomise every shelter that she had ever had the displeasure to encounter, rolled out from inside.
The warden seemed not to have heard her and kept swishing his hands back and forth, trying to usher them in.
‘Only, I was under the impression that the air raids had finished now,’ Elsie persisted.
‘Oh, did you now, my love.’ He chuckled. ‘Who told you that? Hitler? Come on, get her inside,’ he insisted, gesturing at the girl.
Elsie sighed, squeezed the girl’s hand tightly and led the way into the shelter, shocking all of her senses simultaneously. She stood still and waited for her eyes to adjust. It was so terribly dark—only a
