Page 16 of The Island Girls

As Peggy made the short walk from the harbour master’s office to Poole Pottery where Rose Stevens and Major Carter were based, she heard the familiar sound of a Sunderland taking off and looked over to see the plane decked out in its red, white, and blue roundels, rising from the Hamworthy RAF runway. She stopped to raise a hand to her eyes and peer up at the cockpit, wondering if Darrell was flying this one. She smiled to herself and she remembered the way he had tenderly held her arm as if to protect her on their walk home from the dance last Saturday night. She wondered if he might be there again tomorrow.

‘Thanks for popping in, Peggy. There’s lots going on at the moment so let’s have a cup of tea and a sit-down so I can run through it all,’ said Rose as she greeted Peggy and led her through to the passengers’ tea lounge. Rose took out her dark-red, leather-bound ledger in which she recorded all the flights and the passenger lists, as well as the names of the seawomen who ran the launch to and from each flying boat and the crews that flew them in and out of Poole Harbour. She made a pot of tea and set it on a tray with two cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits, then carried the tray to Peggy, who was more than a little bit surprised – and delighted – to be given such special treatment.

‘You’ll be driving some passengers from the train station up to the Harbour Heights Hotel early this evening, and then inthe morning, they fly out on their way to Sydney, so you’ll pick them up in the launch from Salterns Marina after they’ve had their breakfast at the hotel and someone from there has dropped them down to the marina for you,’ Rose said as she put her cup back in the saucer and ran her finger down the ledger, looking at the plans for Friday.

‘And tomorrow afternoon, there will be a large delivery of cargo coming in, some for the hotel and some supplies going to RAF Sandbanks and RAF Hamworthy. So I’ve been sent some paperwork from London that I need to give you so they can grant you a special pass for access. The RAF business is quite separate from us here at BOAC of course, but it seems more and more that we are to be involved in the RAF’s war effort here in Poole. I hear you might be on your way to getting your own special access to some parts of the RAAF though, Peggy,’ teased Rose.

‘Not you as well, Rose.’ Peggy giggled. ‘We’ve only had a dance and a few evenings together in the pub.’

‘But he does seem like a very lovely young man, don’t you think?’ asked Rose with a more motherly tone than before. ‘In times like these, I’d advise you to grab at any opportunity for happiness, Peggy. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.’

Both women sipped their tea silently for a few moments, remembering all those friends of theirs who had already lost husbands, brothers, and lovers. Peggy knew that Rose’s own husband and brother-in-law were away in the war and the twin sisters lived together waiting for news of their safety, while Rose’s twin Daisy was growing a baby at about the same rate as Peggy’s sister Molly.

‘You’re right, Rose. Today really might be all we have. And I agree, he does seem lovely. He’s fun and caring. And solid – dependable too,’ she mused.

‘And strong, I should think – looks like he’d be a great help around here with those muscles of his.’ Rose laughed.

‘Actually, that reminds me. There’s a man working on the docks – Charlie Edwards – arrived fairly recently in Poole from London, and he’s got experience with boats. He’s in the Home Guard – has a limp, which I think must be from polio from what he’s said, and so he can’t serve, which is good for us. We can train him up and know he would have a chance of staying, unlike all the other fellows around here. Patricia is going to see if she can get him some work on the launches and I wonder if he could help with the driving, or at least with the loading and unloading for us,’ offered Peggy.

‘Which leg is it that has the limp? He would need a strong left leg to handle the clutch so that might stop him from driving. But extra muscles with those crates would be an enormous help,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll ask Pat to send him up to me if she takes him on, then I can check him out and give him a pass for the RAF bases too. You might have some company on the run tomorrow.’

Rose turned over the page in her book and tapped it with her pen.

‘Now, I’m not certain who they are, because I’ve not been given any names, but next week, there’s a VIP coming in to the hotel, spending a day visiting places I’ve not been told the whereabouts of, and then flying off somewhere as yet to be discovered,’ said Rose with an arch brow, which told Peggy this was the way of things these days. Major Carter, with his history of serving in the Great War, might be in charge of field security in the harbour now, but Rose was just his secretary at the pottery, not military personnel, and so was never privy to the details. So much was on a need-to-know basis, and apparently, neither Rose nor Peggy needed to know these details.

‘But Major Carter has asked for you, personally, to be the taxi driver and the launch pilot – on the day that I cannot yet name. I just wanted you to be aware that when you hear from Pat thatyou’ve been called for, you’re not to swap your shift with any of the other girls,’ said Rose.

‘Fair enough. Intriguing, but I shall not ask or probe. Loose lips and all that,’ said Peggy, tapping a two-fingered salute to her temple as Rose shut the ledger with a thwump and stood to show Peggy out.

‘Absolutely. Both Major Carter and I know we can trust you on this. England is counting on us all to do our part.’

10

BROWNSEA ISLAND, POOLE – JULY 1998

Rebekah began to stir, and in the space between sleep and waking, she heard the sounds of gentle summer rain splashing on the roof and gurgling from the gutter down the drainpipes. The rain brought the scent of the woodlands into her bedroom and for a few moments, she enjoyed the luxury of having woken naturally before her alarm, knowing it was Saturday morning, so she relaxed and enjoyed the softness of her pillow a while longer.

The tap on her door was brief and hesitant, and barely loud enough to wake her from the doze she had fallen into. The second knock was a little more insistent but accompanied by a shy cough, which brought back all her memories of Paul from the night before. When she came to her senses and realised it was Paul knocking, she jumped up and opened the door. But he wasn’t there. She looked around and found a cup of tea waiting for her on the landing table.

Perhaps it would be a bit too much to greet him this early in the morning, and at her bedroom door. She took the cup of tea back to bed and sat up, nestled amongst her pillows, to enjoy it. For the first time now, she wondered at the wisdom of letting him into her home last night, this man about whom she’d knownnothing. She had known Andy for over a year before they had meandered from friendship into a relationship, and she thought she knew him completely until his controlling side had come out. What if Paul was someone with a dark and crazy side too? Strange how she felt she could trust him, despite what her head told her now. And he’d made her a perfect cup of tea. He’d certainly had chance to learn how she liked her tea after they’d had three cups together last night, in the end. It had been after two in the morning before she had finally said goodnight and climbed the stairs to bed while Paul settled down on the settee.

And when, as they had said goodnight, he had leant in to kiss her warmly on the cheek, and touched his hand to her shoulder as he did so, there’d been nothing even strange about it. They seemed to know each other so well by then. Nothing strange at all, except the way her cheek and shoulder had tingled all the way up the stairs, and she had lain awake in bed with her hand to her cheek, while she pictured him downstairs, slipping off his T-shirt and lying down, bare-chested, on her settee for the night.

The idea of Paul now filled her with warmth and an excitement that she couldn’t explain, so when she heard the front door open and click shut again shortly afterwards, the sense of panic that he might be leaving without saying goodbye, and that she might never see him again, filled her with an unexpected rush of dread that frightened her. Why should she even care whether he was here or not? Rebekah knew that she had never needed a man in her life, just like her strong mother and Aunty Peggy had been perfectly happy alone. A woman should be strong enough to cope on her own and not need the fluff of romance in her life to make her happy – especially when a man could bring the kind of horror that Andy had, and that she remembered her mum had suffered at the hands of her father. But what if, even though she knew she didn’t need to know Paul, she wanted to anyway?

She leapt out of bed and ran down the stairs two at a time, pulling on her robe as she went, and reached the front door in a matter of seconds, flinging it open and rushing out into the light rain, down the cottage garden path. He was nowhere to be seen and she could see a good hundred metres in every direction. How could he have gone so far, so fast? Had he run? Had he developed an urge to get as far away from her as possible?

‘Are you okay, Rebekah?’ asked the voice that had become so familiar to her in the middle of the night. She spun around and there in her open doorway stood Paul, a look of deep concern on his face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Paul, you’re still here! I…’ she began, then ran her hands through her hair and tied her silky bathrobe around the middle, catching her breath and taking the moment to calm her thoughts. ‘I thought I heard you leaving. I heard the door,’ she added, waving vaguely in Paul’s direction.

‘Oh, sorry. I opened it to have a look outside and see what the weather was doing. Quite a heavy rain shower – and I’m so glad I didn’t wake up drenched on that heather this morning.’ He grinned, looking to the rumpled blanket on the sofa where he’d slept. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.’ He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Did you find your tea?’ He held the door open for her as she slowly walked back inside.

‘Yes, thank you, I did. And I believe I promised you breakfast in return,’ Rebekah said, going to the kitchen and taking out eggs and a pan, and trying to look a little less ruffled. ‘Would you like an omelette?’ she asked.

‘That sounds perfect, but I don’t want to keep you. It’s already eight o’clock. When do you have to start work?’ he asked with concern.

‘It’s Saturday. I don’t have to start at all. There are staff to run the island reception, and plenty of volunteers to help, and aweekend ranger will arrive on the first ferry this morning,’ she explained.

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