A Stepney Girl's Secret E-Book

Jean Fullerton

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Stepney Girls
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 603

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

'An enthralling page-turner' DILLY COURT 'A heart-warming WW2 love story' ROSIE GOODWIN 'A great new series from the queen of East End sagas' ELAINE EVEREST A brand new historical romance series from Jean Fullerton, charting the loves, hopes and heartaches of three women who move into a rectory in Stepney, East London during WW2. * East London, 1940. Prue Carmichael never dreamed that she'd end up working at a railway yard. But when her reverend father is called up to Stepney, she and her family are uprooted from their country home for a new life in the turbulent city. Determined to help with the war effort, Prue signs up for work and soon becomes intrigued by handsome train engineer Jack Quinn. But as the spark between them grows apparent, so does his troubled past - a past that Prue's mother would certainly not approve of. In between cleaning train carriages and helping to shelter Jewish refugees, Prue manages to stay busy. But she has more than one admirer, and when Jack is recruited into Churchill's secret army, a very different suitor begins to pursue her. As air raid sirens sound overhead, Prue Carmichael is facing her own battle - the fight between her heart and her head . . . Amidst the ruins of war, will Prue and Jack's love find a way? * PRAISE FOR JEAN FULLERTON 'Food for the soul, it's simply deliciously readable and enjoyable' Liz Robinson, LoveReading 'Charming and full of detail... You will ride emotional highs and lows... Beautifully written' The Lady 'A delightful, well researched story' bestselling author Lesley Pearse

Leseprobe

A StepneyGirl’s Secret

Jean Fullerton is the author of nineteen historical novels and a memoir, A Child of the East End. She is a qualified District and Queen’s nurse who has spent most of her working life in the East End of London, first as a Sister in charge of a team, and then as a District Nurse tutor. She is also a qualified teacher and spent twelve years lecturing on community nursing studies at a London university. She now writes full time.

Find out more at www.jeanfullerton.com

Also by Jean Fullerton

East End Nolan Family

No Cure for LoveA Glimpse at HappinessPerhaps TomorrowHold on to Hope

Nurse Millie and Nurse Connie

Call Nurse MillieAll Change for Nurse MillieChristmas with Nurse MillieFetch Nurse ConnieEaster With Nurse MillieWedding Bells for Nurse Connie

East End Ration Books

A Ration Book Dream(originally published as Pocketful of Dreams)A Ration Book ChristmasA Ration Book ChildhoodA Ration Book WeddingA Ration Book DaughterA Ration Book Christmas KissA Ration Book Christmas BroadcastA Ration Book Victory

Stepney Girls

A Stepney Girl’s Secret

Novels

The Rector’s Daughter

Non-fiction

A Child of the East End

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2023 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Jean Fullerton, 2023

The moral right of Jean Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 759 9

E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 760 5

Printed in Great Britain.

Corvus

An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

To my long-suffering husband Kelvin

Chapter one

ROLLING HER SHOULDERS to ease the stiffness caused by a four-hour journey down the Great North Road, Prudence Carmichael glanced at her watch.

‘Not long now, Prudence,’ her father, Revd Hugh Carmichael, called over his shoulder as their elderly Austin Seven approached a crossroads.

‘Mind that parked car, Hugh,’ said Prue’s mother Marjorie from the seat beside him.

It was just after four o’clock in the afternoon. Twenty-three-year-old Prudence – known as Prue to her friends – was squashed into the back of her father’s car, and had been since the last of their furniture had been carried out of St Stephen’s vicarage in the leafy village of Biddenham.

The truck carrying all their worldly goods was probably some way behind them. Although her father rarely drove above thirty miles per hour, the three-ton Bedford truck carrying their chattels was considerably slower.

Well, when she said ‘all their worldly goods’ that wasn’t quite true, because wedged around her in the back of the car were several boxes containing items with which the removal men were not to be trusted. At her feet was a fruit box with her mother’s Royal Doulton bone-china tea set wrapped in newspaper, while on the worn leather bench seat beside her was another, filled with gilt-framed family photos. Propped up in the other footwell were the half-dozen eighteenth-century watercolours of hunting scenes bequeathed to the family by some maiden aunt half a century before.

‘Yes, my dear,’ Hugh said, replying to his wife and setting the butcher’s boy on the bicycle beside them into a wobble as he swung the car into the middle of the carriageway.

Just a year short of his fifty-fifth birthday, with a willowy frame, thinning grey hair and light blue eyes behind the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed spectacles, Hugh Carmichael looked as if a strong wind could carry him off.

As always, when about his parish business, he was wearing a loose-fitting two-piece light grey suit over his black clerical shirt, a stiff all-encompassing dog collar fixed with a stud at the back, and a soft fedora.

‘And look out for that ARP truck,’ Marjorie added, as her husband cut across a three-ton Leyland lorry that was turning in front of them.

Prue’s mother was also dressed in her everyday parish wear, which in her case was a smart light blue dress and jacket with navy shoes, gloves and handbag topped off by a modest, feather-adorned hat. However, in contrast to her father’s fragile appearance, Prue’s mother’s full-busted physique wouldn’t have looked out of place on the prow of any of Nelson’s battleships.

‘Thank you, my love,’ her husband replied, glancing at her over his spectacles. ‘I can see the traffic around me quite clearly.’

‘I’m sure you can, my dear, but everyone is driving far too fast,’ Marjorie countered, as a wagon piled high with barrels whizzed by.

‘It’s London,’ said Hugh. ‘Things are different here.’

Prue’s father was right.

Whereas the lanes in rural Bedfordshire were dusty, unpaved and dotted with black-beamed houses and low-roofed thatched cottages, and with horse-drawn farm carts ambling along at a country pace, the main artery into East London had goods lorries and military vehicles roaring back and forth, black exhaust fumes hiccupping out behind them. In addition, the road they were driving along was lined with three-storey houses, many of which had shops at ground level. And they weren’t just the regular butcher and baker and candlestick maker you could find on any busy street, but clothing wholesalers, fruit importers and several small tailors’ workshops, punctuated at regular intervals with public houses.

However, although the shops might have more variety than Biddenham High Street, the long queues of women with prams lined up outside them were all too familiar. Ever since the Government had introduced rationing in January, housewives up and down the country spent hours each day standing in line.

‘And dirtier,’ added her mother, eyeing a column of black smoke belching from a factory chimney.

‘And where God has called me to serve,’ Hugh reminded her.

‘Indeed.’ Marjorie glanced out of the window at two women, their hair in curlers, engaged in a furious argument outside a shop. ‘I just wish the Almighty had called you to minister in a place with a few more trees and the odd meadow.’

They travelled on past men and women with ARP armbands and gas masks slung across them and groups of council workmen renewing sandbags against buildings.

‘I don’t know why the Government are wasting all this money putting up more air raid precautions,’ said Marjorie as they passed a team of builders constructing a four-sided brick shelter. ‘I spoke to my cousin Jeremy – you remember him, squint in his left eye and one leg shorter than the other, works in the Cabinet Office. He assured me that Chamberlain and Lord Halifax are poised to start peace negotiations again within days.’

‘I seem to remember you said that after Munich, Mother,’ said Prue.

‘Did I?’ she said airily. ‘I can’t say I recall.’

‘“Well, that’s put Herr Hitler in his place” were your exact words, when you saw the photo of Chamberlain waving a bit of paper on the front page of The Times.’

Her mother swivelled around in her seat. ‘That was different. The Germans hadn’t come up against our army then, but now they’ve had a taste of our military might they’ll sue for peace.’

‘Well, I’m just thankful Rob’s in France not Belgium,’ Prue replied.

‘But if he was, I’m sure your brother would be in the thick of it,’ her mother answered. ‘My father was in the military, as was his father and his father before him, so Robert has the army in his blood.’ Marjorie frowned. ‘And I don’t know why you must be so contrary, Prudence?’

‘Perhaps I take after Fliss,’ Prue said.

‘Good God, I sincerely hope not,’ her mother replied. ‘And how many times must I ask you to call your sister by her given name, Felicity.’

She swung round to the front, leaving Prue to stare at the back of her hat.

‘Here we are: Mile End Road,’ said Hugh, having just spotted Stepney Green station on a corner to their right.

Gripping the steering wheel with his fine-boned hands, Prue’s father pulled it hard to the left and veered diagonally across the staggered junction, causing the driver of an oncoming black taxi to stand on his brakes and blast his horn.

They motored on for another few minutes then Hugh pulled into the kerb alongside a six-foot-high brick wall. Yanking up the handbrake, he turned off the engine and got out.

As he went to open the door for his wife, Prue opened her own door and swung out her legs. Clutching her handbag in one hand and adjusting her gas-mask strap, she stared up at her new home: St Winifred’s Rectory.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ said her father as he and her mother joined her on the pavement.

‘It certainly is,’ Prue agreed.

In contrast to the squat, two-up two-down terraced houses and tightly packed tenements they had driven past since they reached Hackney, St Winifred’s Rectory was surrounded by at least three-quarters of an acre of land. There were even a couple of mature apple trees in their white spring blossom swaying in the breeze over by the side wall.

In the ordinary way of things, rectories, vicarages and parsonages were often a reasonable size, with two or three reception rooms. But with dormer windows in the eves indicating extensive servants’ quarters, the tall casement windows criss-crossed with gummed tape and the solid front door, St Winifred’s Rectory seemed more like the squire’s manor house than the humble parson’s abode.

‘Of course, when I was shown the rectory by the churchwardens a month ago, it had an impressive wrought-iron gate,’ continued Prue’s father, indicating the empty space between the two Portland-stone pillars. ‘But I suppose the armament factories need the metal more than we do.’ He offered his wife his arm. ‘Shall we, my dear?’

Marjorie slipped her arm through his and the two of them headed up the path to the front door.

Prue followed and was immediately struck by the contrast between the bustling exhaust-choked street behind her and the mute pastoral feel of the rectory’s enclosed garden.

Grasping the enamel knob beside the door, her father pulled hard. Somewhere in the house there was the faint sound of a bell ringing. After a few moments a bolt rattled back on the other side of the porch door.

The door scraped opened to reveal a stout woman in her mid to late fifties wearing a flowery wraparound apron over her dun-coloured dress, the sleeves of which were rolled back to reveal brawny forearms. A colourful scarf was tied into a turban, concealing all but a few wisps of greying brown hair. In addition, she had what appeared to be a roll-up tucked behind her right ear.

‘Reverend Carmichael?’ she said, her deep-set eyes fixing on Prue’s father.

‘The very same,’ he replied. ‘Mrs …’

‘Lavender,’ the women replied. ‘Dolly Lavender.’

‘Well then, Mrs Lavender,’ said Marjorie, adjusting her handbag on her arm and looking the woman in the doorway up and down, ‘perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting us over the threshold.’

‘Of course.’ The rectory’s housekeeper stepped back. ‘You must be gasping for a cuppa, so come in.’

They walked in and Mrs Lavender closed the door behind them. Then, as the housekeeper took their coats, Prue looked around her new home.

The broad rectory hall was large enough to accommodate a coat stand and a hall dresser with elegant curved legs and three drawers on one side. An imposing staircase led to the floor above, the polished treads protected by a central strip of worn, dull-green carpet held in place by rods. The dado rail that ran halfway up the walls and separated the white emulsion above from the redbrick emulsion below continued up the staircase, above which were various tired-looking watercolours and faded photos.

There were four doors leading off the hallways on either side and one at the far end down a couple of steps; Prue guessed that led though to the rectory kitchen and scullery.

‘Did you have a good journey?’ their new housekeeper enquired, hanging their coats on the hall rack.

Hugh removed his hat and handed it to her. ‘Tolerable.’

‘Well, it would have been,’ chipped in his wife, ‘had it not been for the army trucks clogging up the Great North Road.’

‘Well, there is a war on,’ said Prue.

‘Still, no doubt St Christopher himself watched over you, and here you all are, safe and well,’ said the housekeeper.

‘Indeed, we are, Mrs Lavender,’ Hugh replied, bestowing a benevolent smile on her.

‘It’s a right pleasure and no mistake to set eyes on you both – and Miss Carmichael, of course,’ the housekeeper said, giving her a motherly smile. ‘And it’s nice to have a family in the ’ouse again, especially after having poor Father David rattling about in this old pile by himself for half a year.’

Marjorie’s ample eyebrows pulled together. ‘I thought Father Owen left only two months ago.’

Mrs Lavender glanced over her shoulder then she leaned towards them.

‘Officially yes, Mrs C,’ she said, in a hushed voice. ‘But you know, with his little problem, you might say ’e’s been “away” being looked after at one of those special places for people who …’

She winked and pretended to drink from an invisible bottle.

Marjorie gave her a cool look then ran her index finger along the bottom of a picture frame. She opened her mouth to speak but Mrs Lavender jumped in first.

‘Now then.’ She rubbed her work-roughened hands together. ‘What say you make yourselves comfy in the parlour while I goes and brews you all a nice cup of Rosy Lee?’

Turning, the housekeeper started towards the rear of the house.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lavender,’ said Prue’s father, ‘but is Father David not here?’

‘‘E is not, sir, just at this present moment in time, so to speak?’ the housekeeper replied. ‘Got a phone call, ’e did, at half past one, and dashed out like ’e had the imps of hell after him, muttering about an emergency or some such. And I should wonder after the way ’e bolted his dinner down if he ain’t been suffering the heartburn all afternoon.’

‘Then tea in the parlour it is, Mrs Lavender,’ said Prue’s father.

‘Right you are, sir.’

The housekeeper puffed and panted her way towards the back of the house then disappeared through the door at the far end of the hall.

‘Mrs Lavender seems very cheery, doesn’t she?’ said Prue.

Prue’s mother kicked the corner of the hall runner up and glanced at the unpolished tiles beneath. ‘Well, let’s hope her cooking is better than her housework or I can see myself having several words with her.’

‘Now, now, Marjorie; a little charity, if you please,’ Prue’s father replied.

‘Dad’s right,’ said Prue, slipping off her summer blazer and hanging it on one of the empty pegs. ‘I’m sure once Mrs Lavender gets used to our ways everything will be fine. And this rectory is too big for you to run without help, Mum.’

Her mother raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to reply but the doorbell bouncing on its spring cut across her words.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Prue, thankful for the interruption.

She retraced her steps across the black-and-white hall tiles and opened the door.

Standing on the doorstep was a tall young man dressed in a black cassock. He had a shock of blond hair and a set of cheekbones so sharp they’d cut your finger.

He blinked a couple of times then pulled himself together.

‘M … M … Miss Carmichael, is it?’ he asked, in a crisp, cultured voice.

‘Yes,’ Prue replied. ‘You must be …’

‘David. David Harmsworth.’ He forced a light laugh. ‘Curate of this parish.’

‘Father David!’

His light grey eyes passed over Prue to where her parents stood.

‘Father Hugh,’ he said, stepping around Prue to greet her father.

‘Good to meet you again,’ said Prue’s father, extending his hand.

‘My deepest apologies for not being here when you arrived,’ David said as the two men shook hands.

‘I understand and don’t worry. We’ve only just walked through the door and the lorry has yet to make an appearance,’ said Hugh. ‘Was it someone in need of spiritual comfort in their final hours, perhaps?’

‘No,’ said David. ‘The ARP controller called us all in.’

Prue’s mother raised an eyebrow. ‘Us?’

David rummaged around in his cassock pocket for a moment then pulled out an armband with ‘ARP’ embroidered on it.

‘I’m the ARP warden for this area,’ he replied, twiddling it between his long fingers, ‘and there was a bit of a flap at the ARP control centre at the Town Hall. I’m afraid it was all very hush-hush so I can’t tell you anything further. Not that I’m implying you’re a German spy, Father Hugh, but …’

‘You can never be sure, can you?’ Prue chipped in, earning herself a hard look from her mother.

Her father’s thin lips lifted in a benign smile. ‘Father David, may I introduce my wife?’

Putting on her Lady Bountiful face, Marjorie took the curate’s proffered hand. ‘Lovely to meet you, Father David. My husband’s told me so much about you.’

‘And my daughter, Prudence, you’ve already met,’ her father said.

‘Hello,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

The doorbell rang again.

Moving out from under David’s somewhat intense gaze, Prue went to open it.

This time the driver of the removal lorry and two of the four men who’d loaded their entire home into the back of the vehicle some five hours before were standing on the doorstep.

‘Right, miss,’ said the driver, pinching out his roll-up and stowing it behind his ear. ‘Where do you want it, then?’

‘Just bring it inside and I’ll tell you where,’ barked Marjorie, striding across to the door. ‘And be sure you don’t traipse mud all through the house.’

‘No, missus,’ the driver replied.

‘Madam, if you please,’ Prue’s mother snapped back. ‘I’m the rector’s wife not the daily char.’

‘Yes, madam.’ Touching the peak of his cap, the driver and his assistants ambled off back down the path.

‘And take a care,’ Marjorie called after them. ‘You’re handling my family’s heirlooms and I will hold you financially responsible for any breakages.’ Turning back, she gave her husband a tight smile. ‘If you’d excuse me, my dear.’

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Father David and I will get out of your way and adjourn to the study.’

However, before they could move an inch, another delivery man arrived with the first of the tea chests.

‘Kitchen,’ Prue’s mother said, glancing at the label stuck on the side.

The removal man tramped off towards the back of the house as another walked through the door.

‘Right, Prudence,’ said her mother, taking off her jacket and hat, ‘I’ll take charge of the operation here and I need you upstairs directing the traffic into the correct bedrooms.’

‘But which ones?’ asked Prue.

‘Obviously your father and I will have the largest,’ her mother replied, pointing a delivery man towards the back of the house. ‘But other than that, you decide.’

‘If you don’t think it too bold of me, sir,’ David said, shooting a glance at Prue, ‘perhaps you’ll permit me to show your daughter the upstairs.’

Prue’s father looked at his wife.

Marjorie studied the young curate for a moment then gave a quick nod as another of the removal men appeared carrying a standard lamp.

‘Join me in the study when you’re done, Father David,’ Hugh said as he opened the door into the front room.

David turned to Prue.

‘After you,’ he said, sweeping his hand towards the staircase.

Leaving her mother shooing delivery men hither and thither, Prue headed up the stairs with St Winifred’s fair-haired curate a step behind.

‘Have you been at St Winifred’s long?’ she asked as they reached the halfway landing.

‘Two years,’ he replied. ‘St Winnie’s is my second curacy. I was in a little place just outside Oxford before that.’

‘My father was at Trinity College,’ said Prue.

‘As was I. It seems we have a great deal in common already, Miss Carmichael,’ he replied, as they reached the first-floor landing.

He gazed down at her for a moment, then seemed to remember why they were there.

‘Here are the family rooms,’ he said, indicating a number of doors painted the same dull white colour as the paintwork below.

‘And those are the … the facilities,’ he added, as Prue popped her head around the two doors at the top of the stairs and discovered the lavatory and bathroom.

‘And up there,’ he continued, opening a narrow door tucked into the corner and revealing a rough-hewn staircase, ‘are the old servants’ quarters. Apparently, fifty years ago, this place had six domestics plus a groom to look after the rector’s horse and carriage.’

‘Is that where you are?’ Prue asked, peering up into the dark passageway.

‘No, I’m through there.’ He nodded towards a door behind them at the far end of the landing. ‘It’s just a couple of rooms over what were the stables; in times past the housekeeper and gardener lived there but now it’s the curate’s accommodation., A smooth smile spread across David’s lean face. ‘Although Father Owen, the previous rector, was a very spiritual man, he was single and as such the parish – how can I put this? – suffered a little from the absence of a feminine hand on the rudder.’

‘Well, you certainly have that now,’ said Prue, as her mother’s voice echoed up from below, berating the removal men for some blunder or other.

‘And we are doubly blessed in that regard as I’m sure you’ll be an invaluable helpmate to your mother around the parish,’ he concluded.

‘I will be,’ answered Prue. ‘That is until I find some gainful employment.’

His fair eyebrows rose. ‘You work?’

‘I do,’ said Prue.

‘How very modern,’ he replied, with just a hint of condescension.

Prue pulled a face. ‘This is nineteen forty, not eighteen forty. Unmarried women no longer spend their days taking tea and pressing flowers. Actually, I was the almoner’s assistant at St Peter’s Hospital in Bedford.’

‘Assisting the infirm and afflicted,’ he replied. ‘What a noble occupation.’

Prue smiled but decided against mentioning it also gave her two pounds fifteen a week.

‘Father David!’ Marjorie’s voice trilled up the stairs.

They peered over the top of the banister and saw her looking up from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Would you mind helping the rector in his study?’ she asked, with a sweet smile.

‘Of course, Mrs Carmichael.’ He gave Prue a brief smile and hurried down the stairs.

Prue soon located the large main bedroom which overlooked the back garden and a smaller one next door which, judging by the fairyland wallpaper, had once been a nursery. The next door revealed a further bedroom also overlooking the garden. Next, Prue strode across the faded hall runner and into a bedroom with bright flowery wallpaper and a view over the rectory vegetable plot at the side of the house. Glancing around it from the doorway she opened the remaining door and walked in.

This room wasn’t quite as big as the one she’d allocated to her sister but it had the same cast-iron fireplace and sash windows. The view from the windows, however, was quite different.

Walking across the room Prue gazed out on to White Horse Lane. To her right at the other end of the High Street was the solid square tower of St Winifred’s, hemmed in on all sides by tightly packed grey-slate roofs. But it was the hustle and bustle going on just over the rectory wall that held Prue’s interest.

Women with shopping bags over their arms and their hair concealed beneath scarf turbans stood gossiping on street corners; men in rough cords and puffing roll-ups were easing barrels through cellar hatches and leaning back to take the strain on the rope. And a dozen barrage balloons overhead, glowing pink in the late-afternoon sunshine, tugged at their moorings. Unlike the soft rolling hills and gentle country ways she’d observed from her bedroom window in Biddenham, this scene was animated with purpose and life.

‘Where do you want this, luv?’

Prue turned to see one of the delivery men standing just behind her and balancing the brass headrest of her parents’ double bed over his shoulder.

‘In the room opposite, please,’ Prue replied.

‘Right you are.’ He half turned and then halted. ‘Oh, by the way, have you ’eard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘There’s been a special news bulletin on the wireless about ’alf an hour ago saying that the Dutch have gone under and the Germans are sweeping into Holland,’ he replied, the roll-up stuck to his lower lips bobbing as he spoke. ‘Looks like we’re at proper war now, don’t it? Room opposite, you say?’

Prue nodded and the man adjusted his hold on the metal frame and left the room.

Although she wasn’t supposed to know, the truth was that her father’s move to East London wasn’t so much to do with the Almighty prompting him as the newly appointed Bishop of Bedford suggesting that he should perhaps think about seeking another living.

However, the removal man was right. England was properly at war now and would be for God only knew how long. And although her mother was less than enthusiastic about finding herself living in the heart of the capital, Prue felt the complete opposite.

Chapter two

WIPING THE SWEAT from his eyes, and with the sound of tools on metal echoing off the corrugated roof of the London and North Eastern Railway’s Stratford shunting yard and works main locomotive shed and ringing in his ears, Jack Quinn grasped the spanner again. Taking a deep breath, he bore down on it and prayed that the bolt would turn. For a moment it resisted his efforts, but just as he was beginning to think he’d have to drill it out he felt it budge.

‘Grease, Tosh,’ he gasped to the fifteen-year-old apprentice hovering at his shoulder.

The gangly youth with a mop of bright red hair sprang forward and aimed the nozzle of the can he was holding, smothering black glutinous oil on the bolt jammed in the Castle Class 4-6-0 train’s piston.

It was somewhere close to five in the evening and Jack, along with the rest of the morning shift who’d arrived as the sun came up at 6 a.m., was still hard at it, even though he should have clocked off three hours ago. Not that anyone working on the London and North Eastern Railway took any notice of working hours any more, not since the Railway Executive Committee took command of running the four big railways six months ago.

The veins on his bare forearms raised with the effort, Jack continued the pressure on the bolt until, all at once, it spun around.

‘Cor, Jack, you wanna give up all this train malarkey and take up bending iron bars in a circus,’ said Bill Brown, his friend, second-in-command on the maintenance team and ten years his senior at thirty-eight. Unlike Jack, who had been determined to become a senior locomotive engineer since his first job as a cleaner at the age of fourteen, Bill was content to be a maintenance worker.

Jack grinned, giving the bolt one last turn and catching it as it fell out.

‘Over to you,’ he said, handing it to Bill. ‘I’m going to have to leave you and Tosh to get the piston back in working order. Old Prentice sent a message an hour ago to join him in his office when I’m done.’

‘Good luck,’ said Bill.

‘Thanks.’ Jack glanced across his friend’s head at the red streaks lighting up the western sky behind Stratford station. ‘And you’d better get a shift on – the light’ll be gone in an hour or so.’

‘Bloody blackout regs,’ muttered Bill. ‘’Ow do they expect us to keep the rolling stock on the rails if we can’t have the lights on to work by?’

‘Better than showing the Luftwaffe where to drop their bombs,’ Jack replied.

‘If they ever do,’ Tosh replied.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Jack, wiping his hands on the tatty bit of towel he kept in his dungarees pocket for the purpose, ‘the Germans are coming all right, and we’ll be one of the first on their list when they do. Now I’d better get myself over to the office before Prentice sends out a search party.’

Leaving Bill and Tosh to their task, Jack stepped over rail tracks, half-dismantled steam engines and damaged wagons to make his way towards the engine shed’s entrance.

Stratford’s shunting yards and engine sheds lay to the north of the station, covering what had once been marshland. It was bordered by the River Lee in the west and Angel Lane to the east, with Hackney Marshes to the north and the old road to Essex at its southern border.

Founded in the height of the railway boom a hundred years before, its foundry and workshops had once built locomotives and carriages from the ground up. However, the production of both had ceased by the outbreak of the First World War. By the September following the General Strike, when Jack walked through Angel Lane gates, he discovered that the Stratford works dealt only in repairing and renovating engines and rolling stock.

As well as the dozens of specialist repair shops, Stratford was also one of the busiest shunting yards in the country. Wagons carrying grain from East Anglia, fish landed in Grimsby and Yarmouth, coal from Newcastle and timber from Scotland arrived day and night. In addition, rubber from Britain’s colonies in India and Burma and oil from Egypt and Arabia that were unloaded at Harwich, Tilbury and Hull all passed through on their way to their final destinations.

There were already half a dozen locomotives with the apple-green livery of the London and North Eastern Railway gleaming in the sun’s mellow rays, their waggons attached and hissing steam, ready for their night run across the country.

Pausing beside the track, Jack waited as a smart-looking D1 4-4-0 Class pulling low-loading wagons covered by mud-coloured tarpaulin passed. Then, crunching gravel beneath his boots, he headed for the main office building, built some fifty years before in the solid but functional red-brick architecture favoured by civil engineers of the time. The wages and personnel departments were situated either side of the corridor while the canteen took up the back. Usually those working in the office could have looked out on to the yard’s activities; however, for the past nine months their view had been obscured by a wall of sandbags that covered all but the top six inches or so of glass.

After holding the main door open for a couple of drivers who were leaving work for the day, Jack strolled in. As it was Tuesday the appetising smell of lamb stew drifted into his nose from the canteen. However, Jack ignored it, and headed up the central stairs to the floor above.

The first floor of the building was the command centre of the whole yard. There were windows on three sides of the room, now all interlaced with gummed paper as per Government recommendations to prevent flying glass. The windows that looked out over the yard and sheds had also recently had internal shutters fitted. They were folded back at the moment but had letterbox-sized peek-holes cut in them so that during the blackout those inside could squint through and see the rolling stock below.

Working at the control panels at any one time were a dozen controllers, in the company’s regulation charcoal uniform. Each of them was responsible for the rail traffic using a particular route into the yard. They worked closely with the signalmen in the junction boxes to ensure each train ended up on the right track and, more importantly, not steaming towards another locomotive coming in the opposite direction. A couple of them who were between tasks greeted Jack with a nod as he passed them.

Stopping in front of the brown door at the far end, with ‘E. Prentice Manager’ painted in gold in the middle, Jack knocked and without waiting for an answer, turned the handle and walked in.

Somewhere between his mid to late forties, Ted Prentice was a rotund individual with a little head, stubby fingers and oddly small feet, which gave him more than a passing resemblance to a spinning top. He was dressed, as always, in a pinstriped suit with his pocket watch chain dangling across the waistcoat beneath.

‘Quinn,’ said Ted, his thinning, over-oiled hair gleaming in the light from the forty-watt bulb overhead.

‘Sorry, guv,’ said Jack, sounding anything but. ‘But I’ve only just got the duff piston off Pride of Cambridge. Have you changed your mind about signing my release?’

Ted shook his head. ‘I can’t let you go.’

Jack raked his fingers through his coal-black hair. ‘For God’s sake.’

‘I can’t spare you, not with the way things are,’ his manager continued. ‘That’s why railway workers are a reserved occupa—’

‘Is there anything else?’ cut in Jack.

‘No. That’s it for now, Quinn.’ His piggy eyes looked him over. ‘Except stop putting in these bloody requests every sodding week.’

Struggling to hold his temper in check, Jack glared down at his manager.

‘Well, then,’ he said, holding his gaze, ‘as I’ve still got the coupling gear on a tender and a firebox door hanging off its hinges to fix before I clock off, I’d better get on.’ He marched to the door, opened it and turned back. ‘Oh, and I’ll be putting another request on your desk every Monday until you release me to join the army.’

Two hours later, having unjammed the coupling mechanism, tightened the fire-door hinges and spent half an hour scrubbing the soot from the back of his neck in the changing room’s lukewarm dribble of water, Jack finally strolled out of Stratford shunting yard’s side gates and emerged on to Angel Lane. Crossing the cobbled road, he strolled into the Railway Tavern situated on the corner.

As usual at the end of the working day, the yard’s unofficial annexe was full of railway workers ranging from uniformed station guards and ticket collectors to men like Jack dressed in rough corduroys and frayed shirts.

The Railway Tavern was very much like any other East End pub: faded flock wallpaper, scuffed floorboards and mirrors with the names of popular drinks like Whitby Pale Ale and Mackeson Stout painted on them. However, like the etched windows of the establishment, they were partially obscured by the paper glued across them. There was also a piano up against the far wall and a pitted dartboard fixed to the back wall. As most of the Tavern’s customers were railway workers, neither got much use.

Making his way through the press of men and the thick tobacco smoke, Jack took his place at the bar. Ruby, the Tavern’s blonde and well-endowed barmaid, was there, dressed in a flowery frock and chatting to a couple of young apprentices. She spotted Jack right away and wiggled over.

‘Evening, Jack,’ she said, giving him a welcoming smile. ‘We don’t often see you in here on a Tuesday. The usual?’

‘Please,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ve just spent all afternoon in the machine workshop in this heat – my mouth’s like the bottom of a budgie’s cage.’

‘I know. You’d think it was July not May. It must be close to seventy degrees this afternoon,’ she said, fanning her hand in front of her generous cleavage. ‘Opened all the doors and it’s still like a blooming desert in ’ere.’

Stretching up, she retrieved a pint glass from the metal shelf above the bar and held it beneath the bitter spout.

‘And it’s not as if we can pop off to Southend beach to have a little paddle, is it?’ she continued, pulling on the polished wooden handle of the pump. ‘Not with the army covering the shoreline with ruddy barbed wire and landmines.’

‘I don’t mind missing out standing in the waves if it stops the Nazis landing,’ Jack replied.

‘The Nazis won’t land here,’ said Ruby, placing a frothy pint in front of Jack. ‘They’ve got to get through us and the French first, and we’ll stop them.’

Jack handed over a couple of coppers but didn’t reply. Then, as he raised his drink and took the first sip, a two-tone whistle cut through the hullabaloo.

‘Belt up, you lot,’ bellowed Tubby Forester, the Railway Tavern’s longstanding publican. ‘The six o’clock news is coming on.’

‘Bloody wireless,’ muttered a voice behind Jack. ‘Every time the announcer comes on they just tell you more bad news.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed someone else. ‘Last week it was that the Germans had moved into Luxembourg, then yesterday that the Belgians had blown up all their bridges to stop them Nazis. God only knows what it’ll be today.’

As the wireless valves warmed up, the closing bars of Children’s Hour singing out from the Bush radio on the shelf behind the bar grew louder. The pips sounded and a hush settled on the room.

The plummy announcer started with an upbeat piece about the British Expeditionary Force holding Germany between Liège and Maastricht. This was rather undermined by the next item, which concerned the Dutch Government’s flight to Britain in the early hours, followed by a report of twenty bombs landing – albeit harmlessly – in some woods outside Canterbury.

Sensing the end of the bulletin, a low murmur started up in the bar before the refined tones of the BBC presenter cut through again.

‘And now, in a change to our scheduled programmes, the Right Honourable Anthony Eden, MP, Secretary of State for War, has a special announcement to the nation.’

Another pause, then the minister’s voice rang out across the crowded bar: ‘I want to speak to you tonight …’

After reassuring listeners that any enemy aircraft attempting to enter British air space would be shot down by the air defences, he then went on to describe in some detail the German tactic of dropping specially trained and heavily armed parachutists.

‘What? We’re going to have bloody Germans dropping from the sky now, are we?’ shouted someone on the other side of the bar.

The minister continued to explain how the army would be dealing with such troops promptly so there was no need for the population to be alarmed; however, after receiving countless enquires from those not yet called up who were eager to do something to defend the country …

‘Now is your opportunity,’ said the minister. ‘We want a large number of such men in Great Britain who are British subjects between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five …’

With his glass poised halfway to his lips, Jack straightened up as he listened to the minister’s convoluted announcement. ‘… and the name of the new force which is being raised will be the Local Defence Volunteers …’

The minister went on to explain that it would be part time, based in their own home towns and that the men who volunteered would be part of the armed forces when they were on duty. He finished by saying any man interested was to give their name in to the local police station.

Jack swallowed what remained of his drink in one gulp and silently put his glass on the bar.

‘You off home, then?’ asked Ruby, as the minister launched into the final few paragraphs of his speech.

Jack shook his head. ‘To the local nick.’

Chapter three

STOWING HIS LOGBOOK in the appropriate pigeonhole ready for the night warden taking over his patrol, Father David Harmsworth wished his fellow ARP wardens a cursory good evening and strolled out of ARP post number three.

The weather had been exceptionally warm since Easter, and tonight, as David stepped out into the balmy air, was no exception. Somewhere in the darkness, the metallic sound of a harmonica cut through the still air and many of the locals had dragged chairs out into the street and were sitting having a cup of tea or a bottle of beer with their neighbours. In fact, had it not been for the pitch blackness all around, you could almost forget there was a war on.

They greeted him as he walked back to the rectory, his muted torch making a pale pool of light at his feet on the pavement. St Winifred’s clock struck half past nine as David reached the rectory’s front gate – or rather, the space where the front gate had been before an armament factory requisitioned it for spare metal.

Taking his keys out of his ARP uniform trousers as he went, David reached the front door in half a dozen strides. He stepped through the blackout curtain into the house and, as he expected, a table lamp illuminated the hallway. Mrs Lavender always kept it lit when he was on evening patrol.

However, instead of Father Owen’s shabby mac hanging in lonely abandonment on the coat rack, there were several garments he wasn’t used to seeing: a red coat with a fur collar, a tan Burberry trench coat, a woman’s tartan jacket and a black Crombie with a velvet trim. In addition, instead of the previous rector’s misshaped trilby, there were at least half a dozen perky hats with feathers and ribbons on the pegs above.

Furthermore, a Turkish runner had been laid over the black-and-white hall tiles and a hefty majolica vase placed on the hall table. The dirt-layered, nondescript oil paintings that had been hanging on the wall the last time he was here had now been replaced by a series of bright pastoral watercolours.

Taking off his tin helmet and placing it on the hat stand, David walked into the back parlour overlooking the garden. However, the fruit trees, spring flowers and shrubs within it were now obscured from view by the heavy blackout curtains.

Prudence Carmichael was curled in one of the fireside chairs with her stockinged feet tucked under her, reading a book. She was wearing the same summery dress as she had been when he’d left after supper at six fifteen, a light blue cardigan now draped around her shoulder.

Her auburn hair, which had been pinned up when he’d left for duty, was now unbound and cascaded down as God intended it. So much more feminine, to David’s mind, than the modern craze among young factory girls for short hair.

He had wondered, as he’d patrolled the streets checking everyone was complying with the blackout regulation, if perhaps his mind had exaggerated Prudence Carmichael’s beauty, but with her face slightly averted and her hair falling over her shoulders as she studied the text, David realised the opposite was true.

But it wasn’t just her outwards appearance that stopped him in his tracks.

He prided himself on being an intellectual rather than a mystical follower of the Lord, so had always been more than a little sceptical of his fellow clergy who claimed to have had a divine experience. But as he stared down at Prue, the peculiar feeling he’d experienced that afternoon when she stood framed in sunlight was washing over him again.

Prue smiled. ‘Hello.’

‘All by yourself?’ he asked, stupidly, as she was clearly the only person in the room.

‘Yes, my parents were exhausted and went up about twenty minutes ago,’ she replied.

‘I’m not surprised; you’ve all had a long day,’ he said. ‘How’s the unpacking going?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask. Thankfully we’ve managed to find the essentials but there are tea chests that have yet to be opened in every room.’

‘I only brought a couple of suitcases and a tea chest of theological books with me when I arrived in the parish,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine what an upheaval it must be to bring an entire house.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be straight in a day or two,’ she said brightly. ‘I was just about to make myself a cocoa, would you like one?’

‘Yes please,’ David replied. ‘But only if it’s not too much trouble. I wouldn’t want to impose on your good nature, Miss Carmichael.’

‘It’s no trouble at all. And Prue, please. We’re not living in a Georgette Heyer novel.’

David frowned. ‘Georgette Heyer?’

‘She writes stories – romances, really – set in the Regency period,’ Prue explained. ‘Like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, where everyone called each other Mr this or Miss that.’

‘Romance,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m afraid I tend to confine my reading to biblical texts or theology dissertations, but as it is the middle of the twentieth not the nineteenth century please call me David in the same spirit.’

His gaze tracked every movement of her shapely legs as Prue unwound herself from the chair and stood up.

Sliding her feet into her slippers, she headed towards the door. David followed a step or two behind, mesmerised by her unbound, auburn hair.

She switched on the light overhead and the forty-watt bulb sprang into life, bathing the tidy kitchen in a yellow haze.

David noted a new blue gingham tablecloth, a vase with a couple of freshly cut dahlias in the centre and a complete Crown Derby dinner set stacked on the dresser with a velvet cutlery box on the shelf beneath. In his absence the kitchen had apparently undergone a transformation from a stark refectory into a homely hearth – complete with the lingering smell of this evening’s lamb stew hanging in the air.

Taking the kettle from the back of the hob, Prue carried it to the sink.

‘And making you a cocoa is the least I can do after you’ve spent all evening keeping the streets safe,’ she said, holding it under the tap to fill. ‘Did you have a good night?’

‘Quiet,’ he replied, leaning back on the kitchen table and crossing his ankles. ‘My patrol patch is …’ He rattled off a list of streets and shop names for a moment then stopped mid-sentence. ‘Forgive me. You only arrived a few hours ago and here I am bombarding you with the highways and byways of Stepney.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said over her shoulder as she crossed to the long, lemon-painted Welsh dresser at the far end to collect their mugs. ‘I intend to go out tomorrow to get my bearings. I will need to find Stepney Town Hall so I can register us, otherwise Mrs Lavender won’t have any ration coupons to feed us.’

‘The Town Hall is pretty straightforward from here,’ he replied. ‘I take it you’re going to walk there.’

‘I’ll have to because when my bicycle was unloaded today, the front wheel had a puncture. Mrs Lavender said she’d get her son to fix it.’

‘Well, no matter,’ said David. ‘A brisk walk should have you at the Town Hall in twenty minutes. I’ll draw you a simple map – I know ladies aren’t very good with directions.’

She opened her mouth to say something – her thanks probably for his consideration, he guessed, as he studied her shapely legs again – but before she could the kettle whistle cut between them.

‘It’s very decent of you to volunteer as an air raid warden,’ she said, breaking through his thoughts.

David formed his features into a self-effacing expression. ‘I felt I should set an example, you know. Lead from the front, and all that.’

To be honest, he wouldn’t have dreamed of volunteering had the bishop not waxed lyrical about the initiative. As a favourable bishop’s recommendation was the difference between being offered a comfortable living in the Home Counties or a rundown parish in a smoke-clogged, Godforsaken industrial town up north, David had duly signed up.

‘Did you hear the Secretary of State for War’s special announcement tonight?’ she asked, as she heaped three spoonsful of cocoa into each mug.

‘About this volunteer civilian force of locals taking up arms?’

Prue nodded.

‘I was out on patrol, but Wilf, the senior warden, filled us all in when we got back. But we shouldn’t worry,’ he went on airily as she stirred their cocoa. ‘The British Army is the best in the world and once we give Hitler and his Nazi thugs a bloody nose they’ll be clamouring for peace.’

Actually, to his mind, Chamberlain had had the right idea when he came to an agreement with Hitler over Czechoslovakia. If he’d done the same last September instead of letting the hotheads in the Cabinet push him to give an ultimatum, the authorities wouldn’t have needed to set up all this ARP nonsense in the first place. After all, half the population of Great Britain probably wouldn’t be able to find Poland on a map.

Of course, now Churchill had muscled his way into number ten and Anthony Eden was recruiting the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker into this Local Defence Volunteer force, the whole population would be rolling up their metaphoric sleeves for a fight, and such views would not be well received any more.

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Prue, cutting across his thoughts once more, ‘because my brother Rob’s over there at the moment with the King’s Own Artillery Company.’

‘Mine too,’ said David. ‘Although with the infantry.’

‘Are there just the two of you?’

‘Good heavens, no. I’m the youngest of four boys,’ he replied, as she handed him his cocoa. ‘Charles has the baronetcy and estate to keep him occupied, James is Conservative Member of Parliament for Milton St Oswald and Henry is a colonel in the Welsh Light Infantry; so with the traditional openings for sons of the gentry covered, it seemed natural that I should enter the Church. I tried my hand at banking but after a misunderstanding over Swiss and French Francs, I felt God was calling me to enter the ministry. Do you mind if I join you in the lounge?’

‘Actually, David,’ she yawned, ‘I’ve been up since six this morning so I think I might take my drink up and get ready for bed.’

‘Of course. I quite understand,’ he replied. ‘You’ve had a very tiring day. Goodnight.’

‘Yes, goodnight.’ Cradling her cocoa, Prue gave him a shy little smile. ‘See you at breakfast.’

She left the room.

David stared after her for a moment then made his way to the back parlour.

She’d obviously popped back in before heading up as the book she’d been reading had gone. Worship through Music was just starting on the wireless, so sitting in the chair opposite the one Prue had occupied, David took a sip of his nightcap.

There were a couple of hymns and the homily was about the evils of drink, a subject which in the usual way of things would have held David’s interest but not tonight. Not with the image of Prudence Carmichael’s rich auburn hair bouncing on her shoulders and her sparkling hazel eyes dancing in his mind.

Although it was difficult sometimes to interpret God’s plan, David couldn’t help but think that Prue Carmichael might just be the Almighty rewarding him for his faithfulness at resisting the temptations of the flesh. After all, why else would the maker of heaven and earth have placed such a beautiful, virtuous and Godly woman into his life?

Chapter four

‘MORNING, MISS,’ said the ironmonger, standing on a stepladder above Prue as she passed his shop.

‘Good morning,’ Prue replied.

‘Lovely one, too.’ He hooked a watering can on to a nail above his overcrowded window. ‘Hard to believe there’s a war on, ain’t it?’

Placing her hand on her hat to keep it from slipping off, Prue looked up into the forget-me-not-blue sky above her. ‘It certainly is.’

And it was.

Despite the fact that she and her parents had listened to the BBC’s plummy announcer informing them that the British Expeditionary Force were standing ready to repel the Germans, with the spring sunshine warming her face, it certainly was very difficult to believe the country was fighting for its very life.

Prue waited for a khaki-coloured Territorial Army truck and a coal merchant’s van to pass, then crossed the road and walked alongside St Winifred’s boundaries. She reached the church’s stone gateposts just as the clock on the church tower showed half past eight.

However, instead of going into the church, where her father and David were undertaking morning prayers for the parish faithful, Prue crossed at the junction, passed the Fish and Ring public house on the corner and carried on down Spring Garden Place and into Charles Street.

According to David, Stepney Town Hall was no more than a twenty-minute walk away, so she’d set off from the rectory just after eight-fifteen, hoping to be the first in the registration queue when it opened at nine.

Passing mothers pushing prams and a group of soldiers grappling to inflate a silvery-grey barrage balloon on a patch of empty land, Prue continued on until she spotted Arbour Square police station.

Stopping by the sub-post office on the corner of Wellesley Street, Prue pulled out the scrap of paper Father David had written the instruction on, studied it for a moment, then shoved it back in her pocket and crossed the road.

Having been given the eye by a couple of young constables coming out of the front of the police station as she passed, Prue crossed West Arbour Street and then turned left, expecting it to be the main thoroughfare leading to Commercial Road. Instead, she found herself looking down a cobbled street. Like nearly every other street hereabouts, this one was lined on both sides with three-up-and-three-down terraced houses, their front doors opening straight on to the narrow pavement.

The street was deserted, but Prue thought she must be walking towards her destination so perhaps when she got to the end of the street, she would find a cut-through.

Careful not to step on the newly scrubbed half-circles outside the houses, which seemed to be an early-morning feature peculiar to the area, Prue continued on, but halfway down she realised that she was going in the wrong direction. There was nothing for it; she’d have to walk back to the police station and ask directions.

Pressing her lips together, Prue turned and with her high heels striking the flagstones she marched back down the road.

Crossing diagonally as she reached the end, she was just about to step on to the pavement when a flash of something snagged the corner of her eye.

Instinctively, Prue jumped forward, catching her toe on the kerb as a truck swung around the corner. Stumbling, she dropped her handbag and her shoulder connected with a rough, moss-covered garden wall.

There was a squeal of brakes.

‘Are you all right?’ a deep voice asked.

Placing her hand on the wall to steady herself, Prue straightened up and raised her eyes.

Standing in front of her was a man a few years older than her and a good head taller. He was studying her anxiously, the front wheel of his abandoned bicycle swirling on the pavement.

He was dressed in a pair of worn navy overalls with a cap sitting at a rakish angle on his jet-black hair, which wasn’t tamed into conformity by Brylcreem. He had a square face, a blunt chin, and Prue couldn’t help noticing that although he must have shaved only an hour before, the bristles beneath his skin gave his cheeks a dark hue.

‘Are you, miss?’ he asked again, just as Prue realised that she was staring into his dark brown eyes.

‘I think so,’ she replied, not totally sure she was.

He glanced down the road and Prue’s eyes darted along the firm angle of his jaw.

‘It looked like a warden’s van on its way back to the Town Hall,’ he said, turning back.

‘Perhaps I should have asked them for a lift, as that’s where I’m heading,’ said Prue, looking away as she retrieved her handbag from the pavement. ‘At least, I’m supposed to be, but I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. I was told the second turning on the left after the police station and then just straight down from their but …’

He smiled and something rather pleasant fizzed through Prue.

‘Well, whoever gave you directions forgot Arbour Terrace; the next road is Jamaica Street where you should have turned. But all you have to do when you get to the main road at the end is keep going until you see Christ Church. Cross over and walk through Watney Market, under the railway, then you look right, you’ll see the Town Hall.’ Scooping down, he caught her lipstick rolling about on the pavement and offered it to her.

‘Thank you.’

She popped it back into her handbag and hooked the bag on her arm.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked, his gaze flickering over her again.

‘A bit shaken, perhaps,’ she admitted, ‘but no bones broken and I’m sure a walk in the sunshine will soon put me right.’

‘Or you could hop on my crossbar, and I’ll give you a lift,’ he said in a deep voice, capturing her gaze with his again.

Blooming cheek and fresh, too, thought Prue, but even so ….

Suppressing the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips, she gave him a cool look.

‘Thank you for the offer,’ she said, with more than a trace of her mother’s clipped tones. ‘But I think I’ll stick with Shanks’s pony.’

Turning on her heels Prue marched off, praying all the while that she could get around the corner before the giggle bubbling up inside burst out.

‘There you are, Miss Carmichael,’ said the young woman in a grey suit, behind the desk. She handed Prue three of the Government’s buff-coloured ration books. ‘All done and legal.’

It was an hour since her close call with the ARP lorry and she was in a large room on the second floor of Stepney Town Hall. Judging by the high ceiling and the wood panelling, it had once been a council committee room but was now the Ministry of Food Stepney sub-office. As such, a long line of filing cabinets now half obscured a series of portraits on one wall and a row of chairs against the other wall were dotted with people waiting to be called forwards. Between the customers and their files were half a dozen desks with a clerk behind each one and it was at one of these that Prue was sitting. Around her the low hum of voices mingled with the snap of typewriter keys.

Prue had arrived just after nine and thankfully there were only a couple of people in front of her at the citizen registration department on the ground floor, so having renewed her parents’ and her own dull-green identity cards without too much trouble she had made her way up the sweeping marble staircase to the second floor where all the Ministry sub-offices were located.