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By Roberta Eaton Cheadle
1 November 1916
The three women stood on the platform. The train had long since disappeared into the heavy mist, but still they stood, staring at the empty tracks.
The eldest of the three, a middle-aged woman wearing sensible lace-up shoes, a heavy winter coat, and a plain hat pulled down low over her greying hair, sighed deeply and looked away.
“Come on girls,” she said, false cheerfulness giving her voice a tinny edge. “Let’s find a café and get a cuppa. A hot drink will do us the world of good, and a slice of apple pie wouldn’t go amiss either.”
The two younger women nodded. Tears leaked from the eyes of the shorter of the pair and ran in unchecked rivulets down her cheeks.
“Come on Lizzie,” the taller woman looped her arm through her sister’s. “Mum’s right. A piping hot cuppa will go down a treat, and I’m starving.” She patted the bulge of her pregnant stomach.
As the three walked away, the yellow tinge to the taller woman’s skin was jarring in comparison to the doughy complexion of her mother and pink and white prettiness of her sister.
Fifteen minutes later, the trio entered a small tearoom and seated themselves at a table for four near a large window.
Another gusty sigh escaped from the older woman’s thin-lipped mouth. “I’m glad to rest my feet,” she said.
“I saw they’re quite swollen again, Mum,” said the yellow-skinned woman.
“I’ve been soaking them in a cool Epsom salt bath, Mol,” her mother replied. “It helps with the swelling. You should get some for later,” she nodded significantly towards Molly’s bump, “Your feet will swell towards the end.” She paused, readying herself for the kill. “Especially if you continue in your current job.”
The tired-looking waitress came over and took their orders, relieving Mol of the duty of responding to her mother’s comment.
Mol reached over and swirled her hand in a circle on the window. A peep hole appeared in the condensation, obscured by raindrops. She watched the shadowy shapes of people hurrying past on the street outside. Her mother’s words were not lost on her, neither was her gesture towards Mol’s swollen belly and not Lizzie’s, even though both of their babies were due less than a month apart.
Mum gave their orders. “Three teas and three apple pies with custard.”
The waitress shuffled away, and her mum looked at Mol expectantly.
Why can’t she just drop it, Mol thought, rolling her eyes.
“I like my job, Mum,” she said, cringing internally at the defensiveness in her voice. “And it is important work for the war. The government needs munitions workers.”
“But look at you, Mol. You are yellow!”
Mrs Vera Stubbs leaned down and pulled a small, stained hand mirror from her cavernous bag. She held it in front of Mol’s face.
Mol’s reflection stared back at her in accusation. Her skin was the bright yellow of a canary, hence the nickname of ‘canary girls’ assigned to the munitions girls. A fuzz of short, crinkly ginger hair decorated her forehead and stood up on her crown.
I look hideous. Like a circus freak.
Pushing the mirror away, she said: “The job’s well paid and I’m doing vital war work. Jimmy’s proud of me.”
“Jimmy,” her mum snorted. “He ain’t here, is he? And he may never be. He’s gone back to the front and left you to bring up the kid alone.”
Vera broke off in mid-rant.
Tears ran unchecked down her younger daughter’s face, splashing onto her protruding stomach.
Reaching out, Vera patted Lizzie’s hand. “There, there, Lizzie, don’t cry. Will and Jimmy will both be back, mark my words.”
“The storks are bringing you and Mol war babies,” she smiled. “Do you remember that story? About the storks? You loved it as a girl, and Mol used to read it to you.”
The weary waitress rattled over carrying a tray laden with a fat teapot, three teacups and saucers, and three delectable slices of steaming apple pie smothered in thick custard.
Glancing at Lizzie’s tear-stained face, she dumped the items on the table and waddled off as quickly as possible.
Mum poured the tea and added sugar and milk to each cup. She continued to distract Lizzie with talk of her favourite girlhood story.
Mol’s mind wandered.
“The Storks” was not a pleasant story, she thought. The storks punished the naughty boy who teased them by bringing his mother a stillborn baby. The war is like the storks. It has brought many women babies, some unwanted. But mine is wanted. My Jimmy is delighted we are having a child, and he’s fighting to ensure our future safety.
Lots of the canary girls have had babies and they’ve all been fine. They’re born yellow, that’s true, but the colour fades with time.
Mol jutted out her chin defiantly. I’m going to keep doing my duty, and I’ll work at the factory until the baby comes at the end of January.
Her decision reaffirmed, Mol turned her attention to the apple pie.
“Oh my,” she said, swallowing a mouthful. “This really hits the spot.”
***
28 DECEMBER 1916
Mol stood in the changing room in her underwear.
“You’ll have to take that off,” the supervisor pointed at her bra. “It’s got a metal clip.”
Nodding, Mol removed the offending article and dressed in her extra-large boiler suit. Around her, other girls were changing and removing any banned items of clothing.
Clothing made from silk, hair grips, and anything containing metal had to be removed.
“A rogue spark caused by static could cause an explosion,” the supervisor had explained. “We definitely do not want that.”
The women obliged cheerfully; they knew their work was dangerous.
“Give me a hand with my boots, Sarah,” Mol asked the woman changing next to her.
At nearly eight-months pregnant, Mol could no longer bend over and pull on the compulsory gumboots.
Ten minutes later, the women had clocked in and were seated at work benches in the workroom. Wearing masks, they set about the demanding task of filling the shell casings with powder, putting a detonator in the top and then, gently, tapping it down. The work required concentration and little talking took place during work sessions. The women made up for this silence during their breaks in the canteen, when raucous laughter and a ceaseless flow of chatter helped relieve the tension.
KABAM!
The explosion rocked the tables and work benches. There was silence, followed by a terrible screaming.
***
MOL WOKE TO A SILENT, white world. Every part of her hurt and her head ached violently.
Looking down, she saw her body was flat beneath the sheets.
“My baby,” her voice was a whisper.
A pale face topped by an even whiter cap floated above her. “Your baby’s fine. He’s small, but his lungs are strong. The doctor had to do a Caesarean operation. Now rest, and don’t talk.”
Mol’s eyes fluttered closed. She slept.
Some time later, a nurse brought her son to her. He was small, with a head that appeared too big for his scrawny body. He was also bright yellow. His colouring was not unexpected, but the sight of his puckered up, yellow face peeping out from the folds of the white hospital blanket startled Mol.
“He looks like an alien,” she gasped.
The nurse was kind and helped Mol latch the baby, so that he could feed. Despite his bird-like appearance, he had a strong suck, and the nurse smiled.
“He’s a strong boy. Don’t worry about his yellowness, it will fade. What’s his name?”
“Robert,” the word scratched Mol’s throat. She accepted a drink of water from the nurse and moaned at the pain caused by the slight movement.
The baby finished feeding, and the nurse laid him in a bassinet next to her bed. “Now rest,” she said. “You need to recover from the surgery.”
Mol drifted into a restless sleep, and the memory of the explosion at the factory surfaced.
She dreamed that an army of storks in uniforms were delivering babies to expectant mothers. The anti-aircraft guns boomed as they fired at the line of flying birds. The storks were singing the words of the ditty from the story her sister had loved so much.
“The third will be shot with a bang
The fourth will be roast for the squire.”
***
IT WAS A FULL WEEK before Mol learned the details of what happened at the factory that day.
She was sitting up in bed, feeding Robert, who was always hungry, when one of her work colleagues walked into the ward.
“Hi Mol,” said Evelyn.
Dragging a wooden stool over to Mol’s bed, she plumped herself down. “My, it feels good to be off my feet.”
Mol smiled at the words, so reminiscent of her mum.
Evelyn reached into her handbag and retrieved a package. She handed it to Mol. “My Beth made these for you.”
Inside the package was a selection of homemade shortbread.
“What a wonderful gift, Evelyn. Please thank your daughter for me. Here, try one?”
Evelyn took the offered biscuit, and they both sat, quietly munching.
“This is the best shortbread I’ve ever tasted,” Mol exclaimed.
Smiling with pleasure, Evelyn told Mol that Beth had a ‘light touch’ with baking and produced the most delicious biscuits and cakes. “Mr Groves has offered her a position working in his bakery on Saturday and Sunday. Of course, she jumped at the chance.”
“What a wonderful opportunity for her,” Mol said.
Mol felt Evelyn’s eyes inspecting her. “I must admit,” her visitor said, “you look good. I thought it would take longer for you to recover from a Caesarean operation.”
“Thank you, Evelyn. My incision has healed nicely, and I’m expecting to go home soon.”
“What! Going home a week after a Caesarean operation?” Evelyn was shocked. “I suppose they want the bed.”
Evelyn shook her head in bewilderment, and then looked at the bassinet next to Mol. “How’s the baby?”
“He’s doing well,” said Mol. “He’s so hungry, I’m having to top him up with milk from a bottle.”
“I’m happy to hear that. It is a blessing that everything turned out well for the two of you.” The corners of Evelyn’s mouth curled down in an expression of sorrow.
“I don’t know what happened at the factory last week, Evelyn. I can remember the explosion, but that’s all.” Mol looked at her friend with anxious expectation.
Evelyn glanced around furtively. Seeing the nurse was nowhere near, she leaned towards Mol and whispered, “Sarah was badly injured in the blast. It seems she tapped the detonator too hard when she inserted it into the shell casing, and it went off. The explosion flung all the women at her table across the room. You and Alice were knocked out and ended up in the hospital. The rest of us were just battered and bruised.”
Evelyn rolled up the sleeve of her left arm and showed Mol the huge greeny-yellow bruise that ran all the way up her arm.”
“I fell on my arm and leg,” she said.
“That looks painful.” Mol’s face had paled.
“Aww, it’s not that bad.” Evelyn grinned wickedly. “You should see my arse and thigh. I’d show you, but the nurse might come back, and we don’t need her stomping and shrieking all over the place.”
Mol laughed and then pulled a wry face. “My being knocked out explains why I can’t remember what happened, and why I’ve been getting such bad headaches. The pain is here.” Moll cupped the area at the back of her head, just above her neck. “The doctor said I mustn’t knit, read, or sew, for another five weeks, and I must avoid bright light.”
Evelyn nodded in understanding. “You have a concussion.”
Mol dropped her voice conspiratorially. “Is Sarah recovering?”
“The doctor says she’ll recover, but the blast blinded her, and she’s lost both her hands.”
Mol’s face drained of colour just as the nurse bustled through the door.
“Visiting hours are over,” she announced. “All visitors need to please leave.”
There was a flurry of activity as visitors stood, pulled on their coats, and said goodbye to friends and loved ones.
Evelyn reached for her bag and struggled to her feet. “Goodbye, Mol. I’m glad you and Robert are doing well. I’ll pop by for a cuppa once you are back home.”
Mol slept poorly that night. In her dream, she was trying to tend to Robert, but she was blind and had no hands. Mum took the baby from her arms to bathe him. “I told you to leave your job, but you wouldn’t listen. Now look where your misguided loyalty has landed you. You have a baby and no way of looking after him or making a living in the future.”
Outside the windows, Mol could hear the storks in uniform singing their mocking song:
“The first little stork they will hang
The second will fry by the fire.”
What does it mean? Is my baby going to die? Am I being punished for some perceived lack of care with my work?
***
31 JANUARY 1917
Lizzie’s baby was born naturally four weeks after Mol returned home.
Elsie was a beautiful child with pink cheeks, a fluff of white hair, and screw-on hands and feet.
When the two new mothers bathed their babies in the old tin washtub in front of the fire, Robert looked yellower than ever in comparison to the rose pink and white of his cousin.
Elsie was an easy baby and cooed contentedly, bringing up her wind easily and only crying when she was hungry.
Robert fretted and cried all day and all night. There was little reprieve for Mol, who was exhausted from the lack of sleep and relentlessness of seeing to her son’s needs.
“He’s colicky,” Mum said, handing the howling child back to Mol.
Mum’s eyes held the silent judgement that Mol had brought this on herself by working at the factory.
During low moments when Robert cried unconsolably, Mol would sit in her chair, gently rocking him. Memories of newspaper stories she’d read about desperate new mothers who resorted to injuring their screaming babies filled her troubled mind.
I can sympathise with their desperation. Nothing you do stops the endless crying; it goes on and on. Combined with the lack of sleep, it wears you down and shatters your nerves.
She reflected on Mum’s unheeded warnings about her job not being suitable for an expectant mother, and guilt consumed her.
If I hadn’t insisted on continuing to work at the factory, Robert wouldn’t have been born early and he wouldn’t be yellow.
Any short periods of sleep between Robert’s fits of crying were disturbed by the army of vengeful storks in uniforms who haunted her dreams. She would wake, panicked, and soaked in sweat, clutching the sheets to her chest in the dazed belief they were her crying baby.
***
16 FEBRUARY 1917
Mol sat at the kitchen table, trying valiantly to drink a cup of tea laced with whisky. The comforting liquid could not pass the constriction in her throat and, after spluttering and choking over a few sips, she left it to grow cold.
Lizzie and Mum had taken the two babies out in the pram, leaving her to digest the content of the telegram that lay, crumpled, on the table next to the discarded tea.
Jimmy’s dead! Dead of wounds at a Casualty Clearing Station three days ago.
Mum’s words of consolation had barely penetrated the loud clashing of her wayward thoughts. “I’m so sorry, Love ... died a brave death ... a hero ...”
The look of desperate relief on Lizzie’s face made her stomach heave.
A sound like distant machine gun fire buzzed in Mol’s head. Closing her eyes, and dropping her head into her cupped hands, she visualised a stork, its bill opening and closing rapidly to produce the noisy knocking sound.
***
23 MARCH 1917
The two women stood in the graveyard. Their fellow mourners had long since disappeared to the local pub, but still they stood, staring at the plain, wooden coffin in the hole.
Later, the gravedigger would return and cover it up with hard, dark earth. In the spring, the resultant mound would be sewn with grass, and a headstone would be planted bearing the words “Margaret (Molly) Harris - 17 September 1894 to 20 March 1917.
The dark grey sky started spitting snowflakes, which settled momentarily on the scarves and shoulders of the two women, before melting into damp patches.
“We better get going,” Vera said to Lizzie, the words slurring through her numb lips. “It’s freezing cold out here.”
In the covered pram, a baby started to whimper.
Lifted the covering, Lizzie removed her glove and stroked the downy head of the little boy. “Poor little lad,” she said. “He’s lost his father and his mother within a month.”
The two babies were lying head to toe and, after checking on her sleeping daughter, Lizzie pulled up the cover and wheeled the perambulator along the path towards the gate.
Her mother shuffled along behind her. The death of her oldest daughter had aged Vera. Her eyes were deeply sunken into bruised looking eye sockets and her body looked broken down.
Mol’s demise had been unexpected and shockingly fast.
A week to the day after the arrival of the telegram informing them of the death of Jimmy Harris, Mol had woken with a headache, nausea, and intermittent abdominal pain.
“It feels like my head’s being squeezed in a vice,” she’d moaned.
Over the course of the next week, Mol’s symptoms worsened. She slept for long periods. Her face grew thinner and yellower, gradually taking on a strange transparency through which the blue veins of her forehead plainly showed.
Dr. Green made a home visit and diagnosed toxic jaundice.
“I’m seeing other similar cases among the munitions workers at the factory,” he said. He prescribed a limited diet and a mixture of potassium citrate, neither of which made any difference to Mol’s rapid decline.
During her increasingly rare periods of wakefulness, Mol complained that her mind was foggy, and she couldn’t think.
Lizzie took over the care of Robert and Vera helped her move him onto cow’s milk from a bottle, Mol being too weak to continue feeding her rapidly growing son.
When Lizzie laid the baby next to his mother so that she could inhale his sweet baby smell and stroke his little head, she was struck by the stark contrast between mother and child. Robert had lost his scrawny, premature baby look and was plump and bonny. His skin discolouration had faded to a pale yellow.
Mol looked at him with sad, wistful eyes tinged with yellow. “I’m dying, Lizzie,” she said.
“Oh no, Mol, don’t say that,” Lizzie cried. “You must get well. Please, Mol, you have to keep fighting.”
“I want to, Lizzie, I really want to, but every day I feel myself growing a little weaker and I know I shan’t gain it back.”
Mol stopped speaking and lay quietly on her pillow for several minutes. “Promise me you’ll look after Robert, Lizzie. When I’m gone. Promise you’ll be good to him.”
“Of course I will, Mol. I promise you.” Lizzie leaned into her sister and laid her plump pink and white cheek against Mol’s shrivelled yellow one. “Don’t worry, Dear One, I’ll love Robert like my own son.”
Two days later, Mol was dead.
The wind was bitter as Lizzie wheeled the pram up the steep hill towards home. Her mother stumbled along behind her, clutching her worn coat tightly to her chest.
They passed The White Stork, the local pub where many of the mourners were enjoying an ale and a plate of fish or pie and chips. The windows were opaque with condensation, and Lizzie could only see dark shapes moving around inside. One shadow had a strangely stork-like appearance and Lizzie thought about her favourite story, The Storks.
The Storks brought Mol and I our war babies and both are doing well. It seems they took Mol as recompense for her patriotism and devotion to the war.
A silent tear slipped down Lizzie’s cheek. She took a deep breath and pressed on into the teeth of the wind.