href="#litres_trial_promo">Chapter Twenty-Three
Spring 1941
Kitty Callaghan drew her coat more tightly around her and wondered if she’d done the right thing.
It was an old coat, but then nobody could get anything new nowadays. She’d never had much new to begin with, so at least everyone was in the same boat, now that war had been raging for over eighteen months. The material was worn and bobbled where her bag usually rubbed against it. It wasn’t much protection against the cold or the biting winds that blew in off the Atlantic. Well, she told herself, that wouldn’t matter now. She would soon be far away from Liverpool and everything she was familiar with, all she had ever known for every one of her twenty-two years.
She caught sight of herself in the dirt-smeared train window. A pair of dark eyes stared back at her, set beneath waves of dark hair, which she had tried to control with a few precious grips. Her face was white. That would be the light making her look like that. It was nothing to do with the fact that she was full of trepidation at what she had done.
Kitty had been lucky to get a corner seat. She knew that it was going to be a long journey – nobody could say quite how long, as the tracks were always getting damaged and then the race would be on to repair them. Her fellow passengers were in every sort of uniform. Soon she would be in uniform too.
Her decision to join the WRNS – the Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as the Wrens – had been a sudden one, and had come about partly thanks to a chance encounter at the New Year dance at the Town Hall. Kitty had been doing her bit for the war effort already, managing the local Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (or NAAFI) canteen on the dock road near her home in Bootle to the north of the city. At first she had enjoyed it, finding it a challenge, and was satisfied that she was helping out, even if in a small way. But, having seen the devastation caused by the bombs dropped on the docks and all around, she knew she needed to do more. Her home city had suffered terribly from attacks by the German air force, the Luftwaffe. Family and friends had been hurt, and forced to make heartbreaking decisions, such as whether to evacuate their children away from the most dangerous areas. Yet everyone had been buoyed by the bravery of the pilots in the Battle of Britain back in the summer and, once it became clear that the war was not going to be over any time soon, people had begun to dig deep and find reserves of courage. So when Kitty had bumped into a recruitment officer at the dance, she had decided to pursue the enthusiastic young woman’s suggestion that she consider joining up.
‘Penny for ’em!’ One of the young lads, in an army greatcoat that was far too big for him, leaned across from the seat opposite and grinned at her. ‘What are you doing, then? Going to see your boyfriend?’
Kitty was no stranger to dealing with such comments – you couldn’t afford to be standoffish in the NAAFI canteen. She had learned to give as good as she got. Fortunately, having three brothers at home, she had already had plenty of practice. But she also knew not to indulge in idle conversation when she couldn’t be certain who might be listening, so she shook her head gently. ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ she said lightly.
The young man’s face fell. ‘Go on, a pretty girl like you must have a boyfriend,’ he persisted. He looked about seventeen with his baby face without a trace of stubble.
‘Don’t pester the lady – she’s right,’ said one of his companions, whose own uniform showed he was a corporal, not just a private. ‘You don’t know if there’s spies out there in the corridor or not. Sorry, miss, he don’t mean nothing by it. No offence, like.’
‘None taken,’ said Kitty. She was going to have to spend many hours with these people and there was no sense in making a scene. Equally, though, she didn’t want them larking about and chatting her up. She had some serious thinking to do.
Her own big brother had signed up almost as soon as war broke out. Jack was a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm and had already had a narrow escape when his ship went down after being attacked by the enemy. He’d been wounded by a bullet in the shoulder, but insisted he was better, and had returned to active service as quickly as they’d let him.
Danny,
