sun as he laid the sticks on the track. He turned them upwards so he could easily stick the wires into the detonator charge that was already in place, his hand shaking from nerves. The back of his neck hurt, a tension headache on its way. He wished he’d paid better attention around the camp fire, when this had looked so easy and straightforward.
“Careful.” The tall man was good at making redundant and obvious statements. “Don’t blow your hand off.”
The short man scowled at him through his balaclava. “The clock. Give me the clock.”
The tall man pulled the alarm clock out from the holdall and handed it over.
The short man fumbled it and it fell onto the tracks – the chimes clanging, the first seconds of an early-morning alarm call. He retrieved it, checked it wasn’t damaged and put it into place. Finally the short man pressed the exposed wire into the putty around the connection.
“Thirty-eight minutes?” he asked.
“Thirty-eight minutes. Yeah. The train will be here then,” the tall man confirmed, checking his own watch. The Brinford to Helmstead line was run with regimented efficiency, but even if the train was late, it wouldn’t matter. The track would still be wrecked and the train would derail. It’s just that, if possible, their masters wanted the train to be caught in the explosion as well. The two men hadn’t asked any questions as to why but they assumed it was to garner maximum exposure in news stories. Maximum disruption and casualties.
Soon they had finished their grim task and were scampering off the tracks and across the fields to the seclusion of a copse of conifer trees. The tall man and the short man barely exchanged a goodbye as they went their separate ways. Once on his own, the short man stopped to breathe properly for the first time, the tension in his neck causing his temples to erupt in pain. But it didn’t matter. He’d done it and he’d got out in time. He hoped no one had seen.
Back on the tracks, the bird hopped near to the explosive charges, searching the earth that had been disturbed by the men’s boots. After a moment, it flew off to find dinner elsewhere. It had no idea what would happen in thirty-seven minutes time.
Connie Carter’s legs were attracting attention.
Of course, most of the time she was used to this, because men would give her a top-to-toe appraisal whether she wanted it or not; their eyes darting quickly, sometimes almost imperceptibly, especially if they were married men, from her long black hair, past her high cheekbones and soulful brown eyes all the way across her ample bosom and down to her toes. Connie knew that most of the time this perusal was motivated by lust or at least an appreciation of the female form. But today, Connie’s legs were attracting attention for another reason. It was because her feet were leaving a trail of thick mud on the train platform. The railway guard – a red-faced jowly old codger with a whistle hanging from his lips like a forgotten Woodbine – scowled at the clods of dirt falling from Connie’s boots.
“I’ve been workin’ in the fields, ain’t I?” Connie answered his unspoken question, her incongruous East-End voice cutting through the countryside air with the shrillness of an air-raid siren.
The guard shook his head and walked down the platform.
“Someone’s got to sweep it up,” he muttered. “That’ll be me, won’t it?”
Connie didn’t have the energy to argue. Her back was sore and her feet were throbbing from digging all day at Brinford Farm, where she and some of her fellow Land Girls had been seconded. She’d been at it since six in the morning and now it felt that even her blisters had blisters. Connie just wanted to get back to Helmstead: the picturesque village on the edge of the Cotswolds, where she was usually billeted as a Land Girl. The twin delights of a hot bath and her husband would be waiting. Helmstead had been home for the last year – a place where she was finally part of a family, of sorts. A place where she’d married Henry Jameson one month ago.
Connie and Henry were an odd match in a lot of ways. She was a worldly young woman from Stepney in the East End; he was a naive vicar from the countryside, a man who had never even been to London. Some likened it to a wild cat marrying a tortoise. She’d try to shrug off the disapproving looks from the older members of the village; those who thought she wasn’t good enough to be a vicar’s wife. But the sour expressions and the comments hurt Connie deeper than she’d ever let on. Sometimes she’d close the bathroom door and confused thoughts would race through her head. What if they were right? Why couldn’t they just accept her? She was trying her best. All she wanted to do was fit in. There was a nagging feeling that she didn’t belong here and that one day she’d have to accept that fact and move on. It was difficult to put down real roots when you felt they were going to be ripped up soon.
But when she could shut those thoughts out of her mind and focus on herself and Henry, she liked the stability he brought into her life. She thought that perhaps he liked the spark that she brought into his. Perhaps her lust for life inspired Henry. Certainly his sensible ways tempered her from getting into too much trouble. Certainly, in a lot of ways, they would infuriate each other and Connie was mindful never to push him too far. If he didn’t want to do something spontaneously, Connie would back down. She knew she wasn’t an easy fit for the world of village cricket and afternoon teas at the vicarage and she didn’t want to risk losing that. So she’d keep her thoughts to herself while secretly thanking her lucky stars that such a warm, decent man had taken her to his heart. It was too good to be true and she had to pinch herself for the chocolate-box turn that her life seemed to have taken.
Since meeting Henry, Connie rarely thought of those times before she joined the Women’s Land Army; shutting out those dark bedsit days and endless nights. It had been a different time. A life that she hoped she’d never have to go back to.
Connie’s thoughts were broken as a rough, wooden broom ran over her boots.
“Oi, do you mind?” Connie spluttered.
The old guard was sweeping the platform with an irritated staccato motion, sending clods over the side onto the track, where they would be someone else’s problem.
“Disgraceful,” the guard replied, without dignifying Connie with eye contact. “Brinford won silver in Best Rural Station last year. I don’t need this clutter on me concourse.”
“There is a war on,” Connie muttered, not giving a damn for his concourse. What was a concourse anyway? The guard continued along the platform, the wide broom head scything a path through the waiting passengers.
Suddenly Connie felt a tap on her back. She turned around, her mouth ready to unleash some angry words on any do-gooder. So what if her boots were muddy? She probably had dirt in her hair and was enveloped in the unmistakable perfume of cow dung too. But it was a friendly face that greeted her. Joyce Fisher was smiling at her. Mid-twenties, a little older than Connie, Joyce was stoic and sensible, with a sunny surface. She was a woman committed to patriotism and doing her bit to win the war. After all, that was all Joyce had to cling onto, wasn’t it? She’d lost so much and all the time the war was raging it stopped her dwelling on the thoughts of loss in her own head. The family gone forever in Coventry. If the war ever ended, then Connie suspected that Joyce would find the silence hard to deal with.
“I thought I was going to miss the train,” Joyce said, her soft eyes and sensible permed hair a welcome and reassuring sight.
“There’s no sign of it yet,” Connie replied. “Still, doubt it’ll be late.”
Joyce sighed in relief, unflappable as always. She handed Connie a small greaseproof-paper packet. “Cheese and an apple,”
