Elsie suppressed a yawn in the sleeve of her bus conductress uniform. Her evening shift on the buses was almost over and she’d worked through rush hour at terrific speed, dashing about punching tickets and finding change, forcing herself to be cheerful as she wound the handle of her ticket machine hundreds of times over. There was no time to stop to have a yarn with the passengers and, instead, William’s words played over on a loop in her head: The engagement’s off. You’re free of me. Isn’t that what you wanted?

Now that darkness had fallen and because of the dreaded blackout, the bus crawled along the road at a snail’s pace and she longed to deposit the takings at the bus depot, remove the distinctive bottle-green uniform she wore and climb into bed. With dull eyes, she stared through the darkness at the advertising posters on a billboard, as the driver approached a bus stop. ‘Did you Maclean your teeth today?’, one questioned, while another bore an image of a tin hat bearing the slogan: ‘Keep it under your hat – careless talk costs lives’, and another still: ‘Housewives! Save waste fats for explosives!’

Elsie sighed, wondering if the war would ever end, and as the driver came to a halt to let people off, the unmistakable haunting wail of the air-raid siren sounded. The siren had sounded frequently in the last few months, but each time felt like the first, and fear and adrenalin shot through Elsie’s body. As a bus conductress, it was her responsibility to lead the passengers to safety and direct them to the closest public shelter, which, in this instance, was signposted by a dimly lit arrow.

Standing tall and straight, she cupped her hands around her mouth in order to project her voice.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she called out to the passengers, ‘if you would like to follow me, I will lead you to the safety of the nearest public shelter.’

The passengers – servicemen and women, and locals, who had been dancing, or at the pictures, or who were on their way home from work – wearily did as they were instructed. The air raids were a constant interruption to life and everyone dreaded them lasting for hours on end, which they sometimes did, as dogfights and raids played out overhead.

Elsie led the group to the shelter in the Lower Gardens and prayed that the ‘all-clear’ siren would soon sound. A night in the shelter was the last thing she wanted, although at least Bournemouth Council had been ordered by the Ministry of Food to provide refreshments, so the electric boiler was already heating water, and cups of tea were being distributed by kindly volunteers. Others carried trays of apples and buns that they were selling, and there was a bottle-warming service for babies.

Elsie waited in the queue for a tea, her eyes resting on the engagement ring she wore. The tiny solitaire diamond twinkled in the dim light and, once more, she felt her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. Chewing the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, she suddenly felt like whipping the ring off, running down to Bournemouth beach and throwing it into the ocean, where she imagined it sinking into the seabed, never to be seen again. She pulled it over her knuckle, then, after a moment’s hesitation, pushed it back down. Tomorrow, if she could face it, she would return the ring to William.

‘Elsie, you’re here too!’ said a voice from behind her, gently touching her elbow. ‘You wouldn’t believe what just happened to me!’

She turned on her heel to see Lily standing there, a shocked expression on her face, holding Joy wrapped in a pale-yellow blanket in her arms. Despite all the noise and the crowd, Joy was, amazingly, sleeping soundly. Lily’s eyes were wet with tears and, instinctively, Elsie clutched Lily’s hand in hers and squeezed.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Why are you out at this time? What are you doing here?’

‘Let’s get a cup of tea and find somewhere to sit,’ said Lily. ‘Otherwise we could be standing all night long!’

Sinking into two green and white striped deckchairs, requisitioned from the beach promenade where holidaymakers once sat to lick ice cream and soak up the sun, Lily recounted her evening with Henry. Elsie’s eyes widened in disbelief as she listened, occasionally nodding and murmuring in astonishment. Her overriding feeling was one of anger – Henry needed a flea in his ear.

‘What a fool I am for thinking Henry was going to try to make amends,’ said Lily, rolling her eyes at herself. ‘I should have known he was only interested in himself.’

‘It sounds like his wife put him up to it,’ said Elsie. ‘She knows about his affair with you and wants to get something out of it, or at the very least make the two of you suffer. Henry has no backbone whatsoever. He’s a weak man and I can only think you must despise him.’

Lily trembled, her eyes dropping to her hands in her lap. After letting out the story in a rush of words and emotions, she seemed to be all out of energy. Elsie grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Lily looked up at her, her blue eyes glassy and her copper hair tumbling over her shoulders.

‘Do you think he’s got a point?’ asked Lily quietly.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Elsie.

‘He said he could offer Joy things I never could,’ she said. ‘A good education, a house – actually, he said two houses – two parents, clothes, travel… He said she’d never know her grandparents, because my father won’t have anything to do with me – and he’s right. Maybe I was selfish to keep Joy. You know, there’s a big part of me that wishes I could go out to work, while still have her.’

Elsie smiled kindly at Lily, her heart going out to her friend. Ever since she had arrived at the bakery out of the blue last year, carrying the secret of her unwanted and unplanned pregnancy, Lily had struggled with whether she was making the right decisions. She had been plunged into an unknown world in an unknown town, just like Mary the evacuee, with no support from her own father and no plan for the future – and she was still only just eighteen. The two of them had shared a room at the bakery for a while last year and had become close. Wondering how best to comfort Lily, Elsie remembered some words of wisdom her father had given her.

‘Take each day as it comes,’ she told her friend. ‘Don’t anguish about the past or worry about the future. In wartime especially, everything can change, and with all these new nurseries opening up to help mothers do war work, why shouldn’t you work? Things can change at the drop of a hat, Lily. Look at me and William; I genuinely thought we would be together forever and that only death could part us, but I was wrong—’

Elsie’s words stuck in her throat and her eyes pricked with hot tears. After taking a glug of her hot tea, she stared up at the ceiling of the shelter, listening to the sound of distant gunfire until she’d regained her composure. She smiled sadly at Lily, who was staring at her enquiringly.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Lily. ‘Why won’t you and William be together? What’s happened?’

‘He’s broken off our engagement,’ said Elsie. ‘It’s over between us.’ She shrugged and tried to look as if she wasn’t that bothered.

‘It never is!’ Lily gasped, leaning forward in her deckchair. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘He said he thought it was what I wanted. How he worked that out, I do not know. I’ve been in love with him since the first day we met. Anyway, it’s over and I’ll move on with my life. What else can I do but keep on keeping on?’

An older gentleman who was sitting nearby, reading a newspaper, lowered his newspaper to his lap, and pulled off his glasses to address the girls. ‘I’ve been listening to you girls talking and I’d like to knock the heads of this William and Henry together,’ he said, reaching into his pocket for his hip flask. ‘What you need is a nip of brandy and a sing-song. Please, allow me to liven up your cups of tea.’

Before he had time to unscrew the lid of his hip flask, Elsie and Lily willingly lifted their cups towards him.

‘This is to make up for the mistakes of my fellow men,’ he said, pouring them a nip each. ‘How anybody can set out to upset two beautiful girls like you – and a wee pretty baby – I do not know. In my day, a man knew how to treat a woman; with dignity and respect. These modern ways shock me, I’ll tell you that for free.’

---

When the air-raid siren sounded in Fisherman’s Road, Audrey was swilling out the milk bottles to preserve the last drops of milk, and storing the remaining milk water to make pastry. Pleased with herself for the work she’d done in the bakehouse – knocking back the dough as best she could, before setting it to prove – she sighed at the sound of the siren and the ARP warden’s call to ‘take cover’.

‘It never rains but it pours, eh?’ she said, rubbing her forehead and trying to figure out what to do. She couldn’t go into the Anderson shelter and leave the ovens, which needed stoking up, but she needed to get Mary to safety. Popping up to her bedroom to wake her, she found her already dressed, with her gas mask case over her shoulder and her doll firmly clasped in her hand.

‘Well done, Mary,’ Audrey said. ‘I’m going to see if you can go into Old Reg’s shelter. Come quickly.’

Calling for William as she passed his room, there was no answer, so she assumed he was already on fire-watch duty. Lily and Joy were nowhere to be seen either. Fear ripped through her as she prayed they were somewhere safe. That was one of the worst things about the siren going off; if you weren’t with your loved ones, then you had no idea if they were safe, and no way of telling until they returned home.

With Mary’s small hand in hers, she rushed out into the courtyard and, standing on an upside-down apple crate near the wall, she called over to her neighbour, Old Reg and his wife, Clara.

‘Can you take Mary into your shelter please, Reg?’ asked Audrey. ‘John’s been taken poorly and I’ve got to stay in the bakehouse. I don’t want to leave her alone in our shelter.’

Audrey leaned over the wall, glancing up as the searchlights criss-crossed the sky and the sound of aircraft and guns firing in the distance, as Reg and Clara headed towards their Anderson shelter, with a couple of blankets in their hands in case they were in there all night. A sudden boom, boom sent Mary’s little hands flying up to cover her ears.

---

‘Course we can,’ he said, holding up his arms. ‘Pass her over. Come on, Mary, love, quickly does it. We’ll play a game of cards, shall we? I’ve a bag of Midget Gems needs eating up too. These air-raid sirens are actually an excuse to have a bit of an adventure and a midnight feast, aren’t they, love?’

Audrey’s head and heart melted with appreciation. She smiled gratefully at Old Reg, thinking she must take him a jar of jam or some fruit buns with part of her butter ration in the morning to thank him for being such a generous old soul. Lifting Mary and her doll over the brick wall – she was as light as cotton wool – Audrey’s head whirred. She had to stay in the bakehouse to make sure the bread would be ready in time for the morning. There was a strong kitchen table in there – she would have to take shelter under that.

‘You take care, Audrey dear,’ said Old Reg, as she rushed back to the bakehouse. ‘Keep safe.’

Hearing Mary whimper when she dashed off, Audrey froze, not knowing whether to rush back to give her words of comfort, or to continue to the bakehouse, but then gave herself a talking-to. Not once, in a year and a half of air-raid sirens and attacks, had Charlie or John failed to get the bread out. Tonight the responsibility lay on her shoulders – and she would not give up.

---

Hours later, her arms and back aching like never before, the loaves were ready for the oven, and Audrey thought she might collapse with tiredness. She’d had no sleep for almost twenty-four hours and her eyes felt as though they were spinning balls in her head.

Collapsing into a heap under the table, she folded up a hessian sack on which to rest her head, just for ten minutes, while the loaves were baking. Tucking her knees up to her chest and sliding her hands under her face, it was then she noticed her wedding ring was missing. Sitting bolt upright, she felt around on the dimly lit floor for her ring. She tried to control the panic rising up within. Her wedding ring was her tangible bond to Charlie, her most precious and beloved possession. She dredged her mind for what she’d done earlier in the day.

Sometimes she took it off when she washed up, or collected the anthracite – popping it into her apron pocket. But she always put it back on, didn’t she? Checking her apron pocket, only to find it empty, she rested her hot cheeks in her palms, feeling tearful. Where on earth could it be?

A terrible thought occurred to her: Maggie. Could Maggie have taken her ring? Was she capable of such a thing? Groaning in disbelief, Audrey laid her head back down on the hessian sack in despair, and closed her eyes. In a moment, she was in a blank, deep sleep.