The Gunner Girl by Clare Harvey Read Free Book Online Page A

sliding
window to push down the door handle and open the carriage door as the train slid to a halt.
    â€˜Well, it was very nice to meet you, Corporal Bill Franks from 32 Armoured Engineers,’ she said, smiling as she picked up her case.
    She paused in the doorway and looked out over the crowds of passengers scurrying on the concourse, so busy, so purposeful. All those strangers and not a single child – there were no
children left, in London. Then she stepped off the train and joined the childless throng. There was no going back: she was one of them, now.

Chapter 4
    Vanessa stumbled like a refugee onto the concourse. Getting here had been hell. Crowds eddied and seethed around her as she looked for a sign. A miasma of steam, smoke and
London smog hung over the crowded station. She pushed through the throng, butted and jolted like a Dodgem car, until she found the notice board. SOUTHERN RAILWAY: WHAT YOU WANT AND
WHERE TO FIND IT , said the painted sign.
    Her stomach growled and her mouth felt dry as sand. She’d been sick twice in the night, vomit splashing over the platform edge and onto the dark Tube tracks. She’d had some water
from the sink in the station toilets this morning, but nothing else, not since yesterday. Her fingers fumbled in her pockets, but there were no spare coins clinking there, not even a couple of
pennies for a cup of tea. She still felt sick, and her head throbbed.
    WHAT YOU WANT AND WHERE TO FIND IT , said the sign.
    Well, what did she want? She fiddled with the papers in her pocket, eyes scanning the board. There would be a train to Devon in half an hour. The crowd heaved and milled around her. There was
the hiss of steam and the sound of a guard’s whistle. Colours swam and bled like paint on tissue paper. She swallowed hard, gulping nausea back down into her empty inside. Why was she here?
To say goodbye, that was it. To give her a proper send off, with Mum and Dad. But where were they all?
    â€˜Joan!’ she thought she heard her mum’s voice above the cacophony. As she spun round, the world spun with her, blurring and sliding and out of reach, until the concrete floor
was a cold hard slap and then there was darkness . . . and when the darkness went all she could see in front of her was a forest of legs and feet. A small white-gloved hand dangled down in front of
her.
    â€˜Upsy-daisy!’ said a posh voice. The voice belonged to a girl. Vanessa grasped the hand and let herself be pulled up. Now face to face with the young woman, the only thing she
noticed was her freckles.
    â€˜Thank you,’ she said. The world had stopped its wild spinning and was just wavering, hazy at the edges. She reached out and leant on the notice board to steady herself.
    â€˜Not at all,’ said the posh voice. ‘Are you all right, dear?’
    â€˜Yes, I’m fine.’ Her tongue was thick in her mouth as she struggled to articulate. A taste of bile still in her throat, the echoing rush of station noise and everything
swelling, liquid, unfocused.
    â€˜You look quite peaky. Shall I get some tea?’ the voice continued.
    â€˜No, thanks, I’m fine.’ She didn’t have any money for tea. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
    â€˜Let me get you a cup of tea,’ said the voice. ‘Honestly, you’d be doing me a favour. I’m going to get one myself anyway.’
    Vanessa couldn’t focus on the girl’s face. Images kept flashing in front of her eyes, like the screen at the flicks when they reached the end of a reel: an airman with his
outstretched arms; a mess of bricks that used to be a home; the blank scream of the empty tube tunnel in the darkness.
    â€˜I won’t take no for an answer,’ the voice continued, and the small, gloved hand tucked itself under Vanessa’s elbow and led her towards the tea stall in the archway.
‘Just lean here a moment and I’ll bring yours over,’ said the