War Baby by Lizzie Lane Read Free Book Online Page A

Mary it felt as though her face was on fire. ‘I’m off upstairs. I need to finish dusting the bedroom.’
    After she’d gone, Ruby stood thoughtfully. Heading upstairs to dust the bedroom was only an excuse. She told herself her sister just had a case of wedding nerves. Everything would be fine – including having babies.

 
CHAPTER FIVE
    Â 
    SPRING HAD COME to the forest. Days of watery sunshine intermingled with breezy days, and days when it rained, though lightly.
    Frances stood in a forest glade, enjoying the chirping of birds in the trees and watching their coming and going with twigs and bits of sheep’s wool tugged from barbed wire fences.
    When evacuation had first been suggested to her, she hadn’t wanted to leave home and stay with Ada Perkins – mother to Gertrude Powell and grandmother to Miriam – across the River Severn in the Forest of Dean. She’d wanted to stay with her uncle and cousins in the only safe home she’d ever known. As it turned out, she settled in well with both Ada and the local kids and hadn’t grumbled too much when it had been decided, in light of the recent bombing raids, that she should come back for a while. For the rest of her life she would remember this carefree time, days of learning how to tickle trout, how to snare rabbits and how to forage for lunch when it was too late to go home.
    Frances was now thirteen. In another year she’d be leaving school, probably to help out in the family bakery in Oldland Common, unless she obtained a job in a factory producing war materials. There was one at the bottom of Cherry Garden Hill that used to produce lawn mower parts before the war. Apparently it was now producing nuts and bolts. There was a chance she might get a job there, although her age might count against her.
    In the meantime she was enjoying her few days back in the forest. Soon she would be returning home to be a bridesmaid at her cousin Mary’s wedding.
    â€˜Mary’s marrying a pilot,’ Frances proudly told her schoolfriends while on a foray to pick wild mushrooms and garlic and to see if the odd rabbit or two had got caught in one of Ralphie’s traps.
    Deacon, with his cheeky face and tumbling hair, was the friend she most wanted to impress. She was over the moon when his face lit up with awestruck delight.
    â€˜Get on! Bombers or fighters?’
    â€˜Bombers,’ said Frances, his response causing her to glow with delight.
    â€˜What sort of bombers? Hampdens? Wellingtons? Halifaxes? Lancasters?’
    All Frances knew was that he flew in bombers. She hadn’t a clue about what
type
of bomber. ‘I’m not sure: He didn’t say. I think it’s a secret.’
    Deacon narrowed his eyes so he could better read her expression. ‘You don’t know, do you?’
    â€˜Yes I do,’ Frances replied hotly. ‘But I can’t tell you. Remember what that poster in school says: “Careless talk costs lives”.’
    Deacon winced. She could see by his expression that he wanted to know more, but was an out-and-out patriot so wouldn’t dare press her further.
    â€˜Are you going to be a bridesmaid?’ asked Merlyn, the only girl Frances had really latched on to.
    Uncertain whether being a bridesmaid would impress them, she considered denying it. She’d spent most of her childhood in the company of boys, preferring to climb trees and make dens rather than play with a doll and pram.
    It was only remembering Deacon’s reaction to Susan, a blond-haired girl at school who lisped a little, but was full of confidence and favoured wearing dresses with bows and an Alice band in her hair, and how Deacon became dumbstruck when Susan was in the room, that Frances finally admitted, ‘I suppose so.’
    Merlyn persisted. ‘What colour?’
    â€˜Na, na, na-na, na. Frances is going to wear a dress and bows in her hair,’ mocked Ralph – or Ralphie as they