the wall that led, Agnes knew, to a small storeroom.
‘It will be locked,’ Agnes told him, breathless with anxiety.
‘I’ve got the key,’ Ted responded with a grin. ‘Got it off Smithy this morning, only you’d better not let on to anyone else, otherwise we’ll be crammed in here like sardines in a tin. Do you fancy that, girls,’ he teased his sisters, keeping them in front of him as he let go of their hands to remove the key from his pocket, ‘being squashed like sardines?’
Agnes was very conscious of the fact that right now she was squashed up very close to Ted. It made her feel warm and safe and somehow very grown up to be this close to him in this kind of situation. The intimacy between their bodies was that of a couple bonded together by their need to protect the young lives of Ted’s sisters, just as one day they would protect their own children.
‘In you go, all of you,’ Ted told them once he’d got the door open just enough for them to slip in.
‘It’s dark inside, and I don’t like the dark,’ little Sonia piped up unhappily.
‘There’s a light inside, love, but I don’t want to switch it on until you’re all safely in there,’ Ted tried to reassure her.
Agnes guessed that he didn’t want to put the light on straight away and alert others to the existence of the small hideaway, so she smiled at the little girl and told her, ‘I’ve got my torch, look . . .’ She flashed it briefly ahead of her so that she could see inside what was little more than a large cupboard. About six feet square, with a washbasin inside, it had some hooks on the wall and three battered-looking bentwood chairs.
‘Come on, you two.’ Taking charge, Ted’s mother went into the storeroom, dragging her daughters with her, but still ignoring Agnes.
‘I’d better get back to the office,’ Agnes told Ted. ‘They’ll be expecting me there, seeing as I’m supposed to be volunteering to help out.’
‘I’ll walk you back there,’ Ted told her.
But as he reached for her hand his mother said sharply, ‘Ted, the girls are getting upset. You’d better get in here and help me calm them down.’
Agnes could see how torn he was, so she touched his arm and smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ll be all right You stay here.’
She could tell that he didn’t like letting her go on her own, so she added firmly, ‘When people see that I’m in uniform they’ll let me through.’
‘Ted, your sisters need you,’ Mrs Jackson announced in an even sharper tone.
‘Mum’s a bit on edge and not herself with all this bombing going on,’ Ted whispered apologetically to Agnes, giving her hand a little squeeze.
Agnes nodded. She hoped so much that he was right, she thought, as she made her way slowly and with great difficulty through the mass of people filling the platform and back towards the ticket office. She hoped so much that it was only because Ted’s mother was worried for her children that she had been so off with her, and not because she didn’t like her.
Sergeant Dawson and Dulcie were four houses away from number 13 when they heard the air-raid siren. Without a word the policeman took Dulcie’s crutches from her and, wrapping one strong arm around her waist half carried and half dragged her as he ran with her in the direction of her landlady’s front door.
Dulcie wasn’t the sort to show fear – of anything or anyone – not even to herself. It was a matter of pride, something she had set out to teach herself from the very first minute she had seen her mother gazing into the basket that contained her new baby sister, Edith, with a look of such love in her eyes. So she told herself now that the hammering of her heart was caused by her exertion and not by anything else.
‘I hope that they aren’t in their Anderson already,’ Sergeant Dawson muttered half under his breath as he made to knock on the door, but Dulcie shook her head.
‘It’s all right, I’ve got a key.’
However, the door was already being opened by Olive, who exclaimed, ‘Thank heavens! I was beginning to worry that you’d be caught out in the open somewhere.’
‘Not twice in less than seven days I’m not going to be,’ Dulcie grimaced as she took her crutches from Sergeant Dawson, thanked him and hobbled inside. She had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the sound of the sirens, yelling as though in warning to the oncoming bombers: ‘You aren’t getting a second chance to get me.’
‘Come on. I’ll help you both down to the Anderson,’ Sergeant Dawson told them, also raising his voice, as the noise of the planes’ engines vied for dominance with that of the siren.
‘You should be getting yourself to safety,’ Olive, who had her arm around Dulcie and was guiding her down the hall, protested as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
‘I’m on ARP duty. I’ll have to check the street and make sure that everyone’s left their houses, so I may as well start here.’
‘Where’s Tilly?’ Dulcie demanded when they reached the empty kitchen; the anxiety sharpening her voice touched Olive’s heart and reminded her of just how much her opinion of this young woman had changed in a year.
‘I sent her to the Anderson the minute we heard the siren,’ Olive told her.
Meaning that Olive had waited for her, Dulcie recognised. The tears she hadn’t allowed herself to cry with her mother now filled her eyes and made her blink determinedly to hide her emotion. Dulcie didn’t believe in having emotions, never mind giving in to them. Or at least she hadn’t done until the other girls living at number 13 had risked their lives to save hers when they had been caught in the open in the city’s first big bombing raid.
That night had bonded them together for ever and had completely changed how Dulcie felt about them and about living at number 13. But most especially it had changed how Dulcie felt about Olive.
Olive was glad of the carefully shielded beam of Sergeant Dawson’s torch after they had left the blacked-out house behind and were making their way down the unlit garden path to the Anderson, where, against all the rules, Tilly had the door open, the lit oil lamp glowing out from inside.
There was just time for her to thank Sergeant Dawson yet again before the sound of their voices was drowned out by the incoming bombers, so close now, surely, that Olive didn’t dare risk glancing up at the sky as she shooed Dulcie into the shelter ahead of her and then pulled the door closed behind herself.
‘Mum said that you’d make it back,’ Tilly greeted their lodger. ‘She’s made you some sandwiches in case you didn’t get round to having your tea, and there’s a flask here as well.’ She held up the flask to show Dulcie, who nodded her head.
It was not in Dulcie’s nature to thank others effusively for anything, but there was something in the smile she gave Olive that sent its own special message of all that she now felt for her landlady and her kindness.
‘How was your mother, Dulcie?’ Olive asked as they all settled themselves on the three bottom bunk beds that formed a U shape at the far end of the shelter. ‘Has there been any news about your sister?’
‘No. Mum’s convinced that Edith’s dead, though, and I suppose
