Wartime Brides Read Online Free Page A

‘Definitely on this train, is he?’
    ‘That’s what it said in his letter,’ she lied, her smile broad enough to convince anyone that she was telling the truth. ‘I don’t suppose the train is on time?’
    ‘Oh ye of little faith!’ said the beaming inspector, who’d been called back in from retirement to fill this post back in nineteen forty-one but was likely to be put out to pasture again now that a brace of more able-bodied men were coming home.
And thank God for that!
    ‘Trust to the Lord and the railways,’ said the ticket inspector.
    ‘Blasphemy!’ snapped the woman standing immediately behind Polly’s right shoulder.
    Polly exchanged a quick smile with the inspector before moving to the platform where she would wind her way through the crowds waiting at the barrier until the train came. Once it had come, she would walk up and down looking for the familiar uniform that represented a dream she was desperate to fulfil.
    Gavin had not been her first Canadian airman. There had been Pierre before him. His colleagues had called him Snowshoe because he was from some small place in the Rockies and knew how to trap and fish in the Canadian wilderness. He had been a tailgunner on a bomber that had been saddled, like a lot of others, with the job of bombing the enemy without the benefit of fighter protection. He’d told her he would marry her when he got back from his last mission.
    Even now, after falling in love with Gavin, she could still remember how dry her mouth had been that day as she waited for Pierre to return. She had wanted to burst with happiness because he was so big and strong and was going to take her to a new place that was bigger than Europe and untouched by war. With mounting tension she had watched as his plane banked over the airfield, last of a force of twenty-one, not all of which had come back. But his plane had. With mounting excitement she had watched it land, then suddenly spotted the holes in its wings, bits of metal hanging like ripped skin from its main body.
    As the plane swerved its tail round to face her, she saw the place where the tailgunner’s turret should be. Instead of the usual bubble of glass there was nothing except a gaping hole. It was as though someone had drawn a tooth and made a mess of it. Her heartbeat had seemed to slow to a monosyllabic dirge. Snowshoe was gone and it hurt like hell. So she partied and threw herself into being the bubbliest blonde, the one with the loudest laugh, the most raucous singing voice. Gather ye rosebuds … But in her case it was men she had gathered and she didn’t care who knew it. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her because life was for living and young men were dying and who knew if she mightn’t die too. So what was the point of being a little Miss Goody Two Shoes and waiting for the bomb to drop on her? Besides, she still had her dream to achieve.
    She thought she’d found her dream when she met Al Schumacher. He was coarsely built with hands like shovels and pink cheeks.
    ‘I farm with my folks,’ he’d told her. ‘In Kansas.’
    ‘Is that in Canada?’ she’d asked him.
    ‘No way!’ He’d sounded insulted. ‘It’s in the good ole US of A!’
    Good enough, she’d thought, and they’d got on really well and got really close and, eventually, he’d asked her to marry him and she’d said yes. He’d even given her a brass ring as temporary confirmation that she was engaged to him. As a warm glow spread over her, he had slid it onto the third finger of her right hand. That night under cover of the blackout, she had felt the hairs of his chest against hers, his hands exploring her body as he mumbled sweet words in her ear. He’d also told her how it would be in Kansas and how his mother would be pleased to see he’d married a girl from the old country. ‘Well, almost the old country,’ he’d added. ‘It’s Europe, ain’t it? What’s in a name?’
    She hadn’t bothered to enquire further because his