Maddie Brady had some dates scorched into her memory. And apart from
the day she’d met Rudi, they had mostly been anniversaries that heralded
sadness. Now, she had another to add to this growing litany of sorrow.
It
was a Sunday when they heard the news. She would always
remember that. And Sunday would have a darkness attached to it from then
on, that even in cheerful times Maddie would find hard to dismiss.
At first, she’d been confused. The arrival of a serious-looking Chief
Commander Worthing at their house in Mill Hill had been an unusual start
to the day. Maddie had assumed she’d done something wrong, was on the
carpet for it. But nothing came to mind. And when Helen Worthing had
insisted that she needed to speak to both her and Gertie, it had only
deepened the confusion.
They’d had to wait for Gertie to get dressed. Maddie had tried to find a
calm space in herself, but her heart had pounded as if it might force its way
out through her skin.
She made the officer some tea. The woman looked as if she needed it.
And then Gertie arrived, sleep still in her eyes and her unruly red hair like a
wig perched on top of her head. The sight made Maddie relax and she even
managed a smile. Her friend Gert wasn’t at her best early in the morning
and it usually took two mugs of tea to shake her brain into action.
Chief Commander Worthing pushed her chair back from the table, and
her face took on a sombre, funereal look. That’s when Maddie knew for
sure. Only bad news followed an expression like that.
‘Private Elizabeth Wooten…’
‘Elizabeth? Who’s Elizabeth?’ asked Gertie, confused.
‘Betty – our housemate? She’s not here right now,’ said Maddie. ‘She
went into town shopping yesterday. Hasn’t come back yet. She had a
seventy-two-hour pass. Can we give her a message?’
‘A message…’ said Helen Worthing. She took another sip of the tea.
Her hand shook.
‘Unless you’d like to wait for her, ma’am,’ said Maddie.
‘Betty – Private Wooten. A good friend?’
‘Yes, ma’am. The very best. The three musketeers, that’s what we call
ourselves,’ said Maddie, blushing. Feeling slightly embarrassed at the
juvenile idea. ‘She’s a great friend to everybody at the billet. Bit like a
mother to us. Smashing lady and wears the uniform with pride,’ she added.
She didn’t know if Betts had got herself in trouble but call a spade a spade
Betty Wooten was a loyal friend and a good soldier. Worth standing up for.
‘Have you got any more sugar?’ asked the officer.
Maddie pointed lamely to a cupboard and watched fascinated as Chief
Commander Worthing walked across to the tap and refilled the kettle, put it
on the stove and took the sugar canister from the cupboard above the sink.
She made them all tea and filled three ATS-issue tin mugs to the brim, using
up most of their sugar ration for the week.
When all three of them were seated around the table, drinking the tea,
Helen Worthing took a deep, shuddering breath and composed herself.
‘There’s no other way to do this,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid I have bad news.’
‘No!’ Maddie was no psychic, but you didn’t have to be to guess what
that news might be.
‘You won’t have heard anything about this yet. The powers that be want
to keep a lid on it for a while. Not good for morale,’ said the officer. ‘But it
happened yesterday, right in the middle of a busy shopping district.’
‘What? What happened yesterday?’ asked Maddie, her voice rising to a
high-pitched crescendo. And she distractedly grabbed hold of Helen
Worthing’s sleeve. Tugged on it.
‘Jerries knew exactly what they were doing. They launched one of these
awful new terror weapons we’ve been hearing about, the V-2 rockets.
Timed to fall over London right when people were shopping on a Saturday.
When it would have maximum impact. Your friend was killed in the
blast…’
‘Gawd Almighty,’ said Gertie.
‘One hundred and sixty-eight people killed outright. Thirty-three
children. Some were babies still in their prams. Over a hundred injured.’
The officer’s voice was barely a whisper now – now that she’d delivered
the horrific news.
‘Where?’ asked Maddie. Her voice shook. And she suddenly noticed the
hand that gripped the commander’s sleeve. Looked at it in surprise and let it
fall to the kitchen table, where it trembled with shock. Helen Worthing put a
comforting hand over Maddie’s.
‘I’m so sorry. No other way to tell you both. I know it’s an awful shock,
especially when she was such a good friend. We lost six more ATS girls in
the atrocity as well. A heinous act, a deliberate act of terror designed to
murder as many innocent civilians as possible.’ The officer choked on the
words and took another sip of her tea.
‘Where?’ asked Maddie again.
‘New Cross. The large Woolworths store there took a direct hit, but the
blast radius was massive. Shops, nearby houses, cars exploding, people
working in offices had their desks blown out from under them. Pure
carnage. Poor devils didn’t stand a chance.’
‘But maybe it wasn’t Betts,’ said Gertie. ‘We can’t be sure, can we?
People make mistakes. It’s wartime, things get scrambled up.’
‘I’m so very, very sorry, Private Adams,’ said the officer. ‘I’m afraid
there’s no mistake.’ Helen Worthing reached into the pocket of her
greatcoat and took out the identity disks, one green and the other one red.
Both still intact, Maddie noted with a strange sense of detachment, as if
her body didn’t belong to her. No damage to the ID disks, no blood. No
evidence of the carnage the officer had spoken of, but then maybe they’d
been cleaned up.
Maddie shuddered as her imagination grappled with a scene of blast
damage. Bodies scattered everywhere, blood, survivors stumbling through
the rubble of buildings and broken glass; smoke and dust finding its way
into their eyes and nostrils. A struggle for breath. And hysterical screams as
the trauma hit them.
She shook her head in denial. ‘Not Betts. Not our Betts. You’ve got that
wrong. It couldn’t be her, she’s a survivor.’
‘That’s right,’ said Gertie. ‘She promised us! Nobody in this house
would die. You remember, Madds?’ Gertie’s shoulders heaved with grief.
Maddie went over to her friend and put her arms protectively around
her. ‘I remember.’ She looked across at the officer. ‘No chance it’s a
mistake?’
‘No, I’m sorry. They got a positive ID from her military identity card.
That and the disks…’
‘So, her face…?’ asked Maddie.
‘Not a mark on her. Looked like she was sleeping,’ said Helen
Worthing. ‘Not like some of them…’ The commander’s face lightened by a
shade as she remembered. She’d been one of the officers called to the scene
because of the ATS victims, and it was a picture of horror that she would
find hard to wipe from her mind.
‘Gawd Almighty,’ Gertie swore again.
The officer nodded in what might have been agreement. She turned to
Maddie. ‘She’d put you down in her Army Book 64 as next of kin, Maddie.
So, you’d better have these.’
Maddie stared blankly at the identity disks. ‘Me? Next of kin?’
‘She didn’t tell you? I guess she had no one else.’
‘Yes, but…’ And that’s when Maddie truly understood. Betty Wooten
had treated them like family, she and Gertie. So, maybe it was true then,
and they were all she had. And she remembered Betty bullying her to write
to her own family. Family’s precious, she had said.
‘Can I do anything for either of you?’ asked Helen Worthing. ‘Would
you like me to contact the welfare officer? Or the padre, perhaps?’
‘No!’ They both answered at once.
‘I think God has done enough damage for one day,’ said Gertie, bitterly.
‘I can sort out some compassionate leave…’
‘Thank you,’ said Maddie. ‘You’ve been very kind. We’ve got each
other, that’s enough.’
When the officer had gone, Maddie made more tea. And they cried together
until it seemed impossible there could be any more tears left in the world.
And then they started to recall all the things they’d done together with
Betty.
‘Elizabeth? She was never an Elizabeth, was she?’ said Gertie.
‘No. She was our Betts. Always will be,’ agreed Maddie. ‘And at least
she got to fly her kite. But I can’t forgive myself for not saving her the
wine.’
‘She’d understand,’ said Gertie. ‘She’s probably up there laughing at us
now.’
‘Maybe,’ said Maddie. But she had her doubts. Betty Wooten was gone,
not hovering above them playing a harp. But she certainly wouldn’t be
forgotten.
She and Gertie still had their memories of her; the laughs they’d had
together. That’s how Betts would live on. Maddie turned the ID disks over
in her hand. Read the name on there: Elizabeth Wooten. Gertie was
perfectly right. Betts had never been an Elizabeth. A Lizzy, maybe. But they
would always think of her as Betts.
‘You think it’s right – what Sissy said about those things?’ asked Gertie.
Sissy had claimed that the two identity disks they were expected to
always wear around their necks were coloured red and green for a good
reason. The green one, she’d said, was waterproof, so that if you died in a
drowning, they’d still be able to read it and identify you. At least then your
family would have something to remember you by. And the red tag? She
claimed it was fireproof.
‘I shouldn’t think Sissy was right about many things,’ said Maddie. ‘She
had some odd ideas. A good kid, but still a bit of growing up to do.’ Maddie
smiled, remembering. Sissy had started lots of squabbles when she’d lived
at the house in Sunnyfield, but they’d all got used to her. Had missed her
when she left.
And it was rubbish, of course. Just a myth born in Sissy’s wild
imagination. But even so, the idea took root in Maddie’s head. And that,
along with horrendous visions of a V-2 rocket landing, gave her vivid
nightmares for weeks to come. And Woolworths! She might never be able
to go into any of them again. It was – had been – Betty Wooten’s favourite
shop
