Since hearing the news about Jack’s ship going down, Gloria had barely slept a wink. Rosie was checking on her at least twice a day at work, and was passing on any scrap of news she heard from the powers that be. Rosie had told her that there had been fatalities, but that there had also been some survivors. Gloria had never been one to go to church, but over the past week she had been bombarding the Good Lord with a constant stream of pleas and prayers.
Gloria knew the women were concerned about her. She had tried to reassure them that she was fine and that she was just glad she was working as it helped to take her mind off her worries. But, more than anything, she knew she had to keep it together for the sake of the baby. She had started to suffer from heart palpitations and was glad she was now close to her due date.
Today was going to be her last day at work, before she finally put her feet up and waited for her and Jack’s baby to enter the world. Her doctor had suggested she go into the town’s Royal Hospital to give birth, especially because of her age, but Gloria had decided to have the baby at home – like she had done with her two boys. If she changed her mind, she was only a short bus journey away from the maternity ward.
When the midday klaxon sounded out, Gloria joined the rest of the women welders, and settled down with them at their spot in the partial shade by the quayside. Having unwrapped her jam sandwiches, she was using her huge, firm bump as a make-do-and-mend table.
Hannah had, as usual, also joined them. She was now two weeks into her training to become a draughtsman, or rather draughtswoman, and had taken to it like a duck to water.
Today the women were all unusually quiet – even Dorothy and Angie – and instead of chatting were simply enjoying the relative quietness, which, like clockwork, descended on the yard for exactly an hour from midday until one. The seven women were sitting in a semi-circle, looking as though they were in the stalls at the Palladium, but instead of watching a film on the big screen, they were enjoying the real-life drama of the River Wear.
The magic of the midday sun had created the illusion that the river’s surface had been sprinkled with diamonds, which were now dancing on the tips of the wash, and an eclectic mix of colliers, trawlers and paddle steamers were either doing what they had been built to do, or else resting and gently bobbing about on the grey-blue waters.
The women’s faces were all lifted up to the skies, enjoying both the feel of the heat of the summer sun and the cooling sea breeze. As they did so, the coast’s long-billed birds dive-bombed the river, resurfacing seconds after their disappearance with what looked like a sliver of silver in their beaks.
The peace of the women’s joint reverie did not last long, however.
Just a few minutes into their communal meditation, they all froze as they heard the distant murmur of what they had learnt over the past year was the approach of the Luftwaffe’s deadly bombers.
For a moment the women remained stock-still – not quite believing what they were hearing.
‘Oh my God! I don’t believe it! Look!’ Dorothy broke the silence.
As the deep mechanical murmuring became louder and louder, a huge metal Heinkel bomber appeared in the distance, bulldozing its way through the air and over the barbed-wired beaches of Roker and Seaburn. All other sounds were obliterated by the dull, relentless thumping acoustics of this airborne metal beast which was stomping its way across the skies.
The vision from above was curiously captivating, and the women welders couldn’t stop themselves staring as the lone bomber released a huge bullet-shaped bomb from its underbelly.
Then another.
And another.
The muffled, thunderous explosions caused the ground to vibrate.
Seconds later a massive cloud of smoke filled the air just half a mile or so from where they stood.
‘Come on, let’s get to the shelter – and quick!’ Rosie shouted out. The growing sound of confusion and dismay in the voices of their fellow workers started to buffet the air and could be heard alongside the thudding of hobnailed boots stamping across to the yard’s shelter.
‘Oh my God, I don’t believe it!’ Dorothy exclaimed again.
‘Dor, you’ve already said that once!’ Angie said, her voice warbling a little with nerves as she grabbed her bag and gas mask.
‘No! Look!’ She pointed at Gloria.
Gloria was standing, her sandwich still in her hand, a look of complete and utter shock on her face. The women’s eyes all travelled down to her waist and then to the trousers of her overalls.
There was a huge wet mark.
It meant only one thing.
‘My waters broke,’ Gloria said in a shocked, quiet voice.
‘Bloody hell, Glor, you don’t half pick your timing!’ Dorothy laughed more than a little hysterically, just as the ack-ack guns started drilling the air.
Rosie, Polly, Hannah and Martha all looked at each other with slightly desperate faces. None of them had a clue about being in labour – never mind the actual ‘giving birth’ part.
Never mind delivering a baby during an air raid.
‘Ange, your mum’s practically given birth to a whole football team,’ Dorothy shouted above the chaos, ‘you must have some idea what to do,’ she added hopefully as she hurried over to hold Gloria up; she had gone as white as a ghost and looked as though she was about to sink into the ground.
‘Yeh, but I wasn’t there when she had them all, was I?’ Angie shouted back, rushing over to Gloria and grabbing her other arm.
All of a sudden Gloria let out the most blood-curdling cry, which momentarily erased all other sounds.
‘The baby’s coming. I can feel it!’ Gloria gasped. Her knees buckled and she started to go down but was buoyed up again by Angie and Dorothy.
‘We need to get to the shelter!’ Rosie shouted above the din of the panicked workforce, all now running for cover against the backdrop of the air-raid siren’s piercing wail.
‘No time!’ Gloria bellowed. ‘This baby’s coming now whether we like it or not,’ and with that she let out another deep groan that seemed to come from the very depths of her being.
Dorothy looked frantically around, her head swinging from left to right, scouring the area.
‘Let’s get her to the painter’s shed,’ Angie said, pointing over to the far side of the yard.
‘Good idea,’ Rosie agreed. ‘At least there’s some shelter there.’
The painter’s shed was a huge wooden shack with a flat metal roof. Its two large doors were always kept wide open to allow the fumes to escape. Although it was unlikely to withstand a direct hit from the Luftwaffe, it would probably offer the women some protection from flying debris should a bomb explode in the yard.
‘I’ll take her!’ Martha’s voice boomed out as she stomped over, practically batting Dorothy and Angie out of the way as she grabbed her groaning workmate’s arm, slung it around her neck and started hauling her the two hundred yards or so towards what was to be their makeshift delivery suite.
Rosie led the way, with Hannah fluttering alongside Martha as she dragged Gloria forward, scouring the ground, making sure the way was clear.
‘Watch those leads … and those rivet guns,’ Hannah shouted out, just in time for Gloria to look down and lift her feet over tools and machinery which had been dropped at the first sight of the enemy aircraft.
Dorothy and Angie had run ahead to the shed that was now empty, vacated by the yard’s labourers and painters at the blast of the lunchtime hooter; if there had been any stragglers they would have done a runner at the sound of the impending air attack.
They both started frantically looking about at the array of abandoned pots of paints, brushes and buckets.
‘Let’s clear that bench over there,’ Dorothy yelled, voice shaking, as she nodded over to an oblong-shaped wooden table.
Martha, now sweating profusely with the effort of practically carrying Gloria, came to a standstill at the shed’s entrance.
The women all started clearing the area, while Hannah started wiping the surface of the table down with a piece of rag, trying her hardest to make it as clear and clean of dirt and debris as possible.
Guided by Martha, Gloria, now panting and emitting the odd swear word, waddled across to the wooden bench.
‘Boiling water?!’ Dorothy demanded.
‘I’ll get it …’ Rosie ran off to where the tea boy had set up his little stove that was always in constant use, heating up water for the workers’ brews.
‘I’ll get some clean covers.’ Polly ran off in the opposite direction to the storeroom, where all the cotton rags, dustsheets and work gear were kept.
As Gloria reached the table, she let out another gasp of pain as she was hit by another contraction. As she did so, Dorothy looked down to see Gloria was still clutching on to her jam sandwich.
‘For God’s sake, Glor, let go of the sandwich,’ she commanded, ‘I’ll buy you the biggest cake I can find after this is all over …’
Gloria let out a cry of laughter mixed with pain as her body was hit by yet another contraction.
Dorothy cast a worried look over to Angie, ‘Bloody hell, she’s close.’
Just then Polly came tearing back across the yard, shouting above the ear-splitting sound of the siren, ‘I’ve got linen – and scissors!’
As she reached the women she shook out a large dustsheet. Hannah caught the end of it and the two women spread it out across the paint-speckled worktop as if they were two nurses making up a patient’s bed.
‘Martha,’ Angie shouted, ‘can you haul her up?’
With surprising ease, like a mother would carry a sleeping child, Martha put her thick muscular arms underneath Gloria’s legs and around the top part of her back, lifted her up and, ever so slowly and gently, placed her workmate’s barrel-like body carefully on to the bench. She made it look as if she was lifting a box of feathers, not a thirteen stone pregnant woman.
Just then Rosie came back with a big metal pan; boiling hot water was slopping over the top with each hurried step.
‘Sorry about this, Gloria,’ Dorothy said, before turning to Polly and demanding, ‘Scissors?’
Polly handed them, over and Dorothy carefully cut off her workmate’s overalls.
‘Pane bože!’ Hannah said, reverting back to her mother tongue and looking as though she was going to faint there and then.
Even Rosie blanched, and Polly looked as if she was going to chuck up the little bit of lunch she had managed to eat.
The baby’s head was just starting to show.
The women all stood gawping.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ Dorothy said as she nudged her way in front of them and positioned herself at the end of the bench.
‘Okay, Gloria, time to get this wee one out … Now push!’
Rosie and Angie stood on either side of Dorothy, while Hannah, Martha and Polly went to Gloria’s side; as they did so Gloria, now panting heavily and creasing up with another contraction, grabbed hold of Hannah’s skinny arm with one hand and Martha’s very muscular arm with the other. Polly meanwhile had quickly freed her hair from her scarf and was using the square of cotton fabric to wipe sweat from Gloria’s contorted face, all the while helping her to hold her head up as she strained forward.
‘Your baby’s coming, Glor!’ Dorothy shouted.
‘Noooo!’ Gloria let out the longest moan, blotting out all other sounds.
As she half sat up through the sheer agony of another contraction, Gloria caught sight of the clear blue sky outside the shed. Thankfully, they hadn’t heard the baneful drone of any more bombers overhead. Gloria felt her mind spinning, begging there to be no more planes, no more explosions – at least not until she pushed this baby out and got somewhere safe.
All of a sudden the image of the baby that had been found in the rubble all those months ago flashed through her mind, as did the image of Vinnie standing over her, snarling into her face.
Another agonising, searing contraction gripped her body. She felt as if she was going to pass out.
‘Gloria, stay with us,’ Polly commanded as she supported her workmate’s head on her chest.
Gloria looked up to see Polly was also dripping sweat, and she felt straggles of her friend’s long chestnut hair on her own face.
Then she felt her eyes closing. They felt so heavy. And she felt so very tired.
And it was then she saw Jack. Or at least an image of his face looking at her. Smiling.
He started to disappear from her inner vision and she forced her eyes open, desperate to see him again.
‘Now, Glor!’ It was Dorothy’s voice. Uncannily serious. ‘Do it!’ she practically screamed.
The baby’s head was out – its eyes clamped shut with goo.
‘Push, Gloria!’ Polly shouted.
‘Damn it! Push!’ It was Rosie’s voice. Gloria had never heard her boss sound so afraid.
At that moment she felt her strength drain out of her, and she knew she had to do it. Now.
Using every last drop of energy, pulled from every part of her being, Gloria pushed.
She heard a strangled sound come out of her own mouth.
‘Come on, Glor! You’re nearly there.’ Dorothy lifted her head up to shout out her encouragement as her hands gently eased the baby out.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Rosie burst into tears as she watched Dorothy gently but firmly ease the baby out. Its little feet were squashed together and its tiny blotchy pink body was curled up as if still asleep.
As Dorothy carefully lifted the baby up, her face was a picture of sheer amazement.
‘Well done, Glor … You did it.’ Dorothy voice was just a whisper, as if in reverence of the tiny being now lying in her arms. For the first time their surroundings were still and peaceful, momentarily devoid of any sound.
Standing up straight, with tears streaming down her face, Dorothy handed Gloria her baby.
‘Congratulations,’ she said, her voice now croaky with emotion, ‘you’ve got a perfect little baby girl.’
Gloria’s eyes glistened with tears as she took her daughter into her arms and looked at the little miracle before her.
Just then the all-clear siren started up, and Gloria’s tiny baby opened her eyes and joined in with her own piercing, life-affirming wail.
The women all burst out laughing.
Hannah was sobbing her eyes out, and had her arms wrapped round Martha’s thick waist. Martha’s own tears were trickling down her face and landing on top of her workmate’s thick thatch of black hair.
Gloria looked up at Martha and smiled. ‘You were right.’
Martha grinned, as more tears dripped down her top lip and on to her chin. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘a girl.’
The women all looked puzzled.
‘Martha told me ages ago that I was going to have a girl … She even knew I was pregnant before I told anyone.’
Dorothy’s eyes rolled heavenward. ‘Bloody Gypsy Rose Lee Martha here!’
Everyone laughed, their joy and sheer relief undisguised.
‘All right everyone. We’re not done yet. Who’s going to cut the cord?’ Dorothy swung her head around and, without waiting for a reply, took the scissors and handed them to Angie.
‘Was it not enough that I learnt to weld?’ she said, taking the steel cutters with trembling hands.
The women all waited with bated breath.
‘Like a true professional,’ Rosie said, as she watched in awe as the youngest of her squad carefully snipped the cord. ‘You and Dorothy should do a sideline in midwifery.’
The women clucked their agreement as they all crowded around Gloria, who didn’t seem able to tear her eyes away from her babe-in-arms.
They all stood, captivated by the sight of this wonder that they had all helped bring into the world. A world of unpredictability. A world at war.
The physical landscape where this little girl had entered the world might have been an urban field of steel and concrete, metal and machinery, but it also lay within a stone’s throw of the most awe-inspiring natural scenery – a vast, seemingly endless stretch of sea that no amount of bombs could ever destroy. A place of contrast, where industry ran parallel with nature, and the swell of the river flowing out into the expanse of the North Sea somehow gave hope of the real possibility of eternity.
‘I know this sounds insane, but I think I’ve fallen in love,’ Dorothy said, touching the cheek of the little being now lying snuggled up in Gloria’s arms.
There was a murmur of agreement, and more sniffles from the women.
‘This is going to be the most loved baby ever!’ Hannah declared.
‘She’s a part of our team now, whether she likes it or not,’ Rosie said.
Gloria managed to drag her eyes away from her baby girl and looked up at her family of friends, who had not only probably saved her life and that of her baby, but had done so much to help her over the past few months.
She had her suspicions that one of them might have had something to do with the fact that she had not seen hide nor hair of Vinnie since he had last attacked her.
And Dorothy – the woman she had positively disliked when she had first started at the yard a year ago – had not only saved her bacon by getting Angie to swap jobs with her, but had delivered her baby as if she had done it at least a dozen times before.
‘Here, give your god-daughter a little cuddle,’ she said to Dorothy, as she carefully lifted her baby up towards her workmate.
For once Dorothy was speechless. As black rivulets of mascara streaked down her face, Gloria chuckled, ‘That’ll teach you to wear make-up at work,’ her own eyes tipping happy, salty tears down her face.
Hannah grabbed Gloria’s shredded overalls and quickly swaddled Dorothy’s new little god-daughter in them, before placing the tiny denim-clad baby into her arms.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Dorothy said, her voice quavering, looking down at the little, crinkled baby now cradled in her arms. ‘Do you really want me to be her godmother?’
Gloria nodded, unable to speak as the tears she was trying to stop were making her choke up.
‘I’m not exactly the most saintly person you could have chosen,’ Dorothy said, speaking to Gloria, but not taking her eyes off the gorgeous little baby girl snuggled up in her arms.
‘That’s for sure,’ Gloria laughed, ‘but I think you can teach her a lot – as long as you don’t pass on your taste in men to her, I think you’ll be perfect.’
Dorothy managed to drag her mesmerised stare off her god-daughter, and look at her friends standing around Gloria.
‘Well, little one,’ she said, ‘time for you to meet all your aunties.’ And with that she passed her god-daughter to Hannah, who murmured something to the baby in her native language, before passing the child to Martha, whose slightly protruding eyes seemed to pool with awe at the godsend in her arms.
‘Beauty,’ she said simply.
When Rosie took the baby, she was struck by the most incredible feeling of love. A child was something she knew she would probably never have herself, but she would be the best aunty she could, and love and protect her.
Rosie then handed Polly the baby, who cooed and told the little girl that she would soon be meeting her aunty Bel and the rest of her extended family.
Angie then gave the baby a little cuddle, and declared, ‘Eee, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so totally adorable ever before.’ When she handed the baby back, Gloria looked at her and said, ‘Thank you for doing what you did for me, Angie. For swapping jobs. I know this one,’ she said, swinging her attention over to Dorothy, ‘more than twisted your arm.
‘And,’ she added, looking around at all the women, ‘before I get too sentimental – I just want to say thank you to you all. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
She started to cry, and through the tears she told them: ‘I’m only going to say this the once … But … I love you all … I do.’
All the women stood, overwhelmed and smiling. All with tears pouring shamelessly down their dirt-smeared faces.
As Gloria looked at her baby through a blur of tears, Jack’s smiling face came back into her mind’s eye. She had been in a state of constant indecision since she had found out she was pregnant, but now she knew with certainty what she was going to do.
If, God willing, Jack wasn’t now lying in a watery grave at the bottom of the Atlantic, alongside the sunken ship he had been travelling back home on, she would tell him the baby was his; that they had both created the most beautiful, perfect little girl – and that their daughter was a love child in the true sense of the word.
Gloria had no idea what would happen after that moment, but she knew in her heart that this was the right – the only – way forward. Jack had a right to know he had a child, and this little cherub now gurgling happily in her arms had a right to know who her real father was.
Who knew what would happen after that? Gloria had no idea. That, she resolved, was a worry for another day.
For now it was enough for her to know that her daughter would begin her life without any kind of lies or deceit. And Gloria would just have to deal the best way she could with the consequences of her decision to live an honest life.
‘All right,’ Rosie said, wiping the tears away from her face and once again taking charge of her little gang, ‘let’s get mother and daughter cleaned up and back home for some rest. I’m sure you must feel exhausted, Gloria?’
Gloria nodded, then immediately changed her mind. The thought of going back to her home felt unappealing. It held so many unpleasant memories for her; she didn’t feel it was right that the place which had witnessed so much unhappiness over the years, so much violence, should be the first roof her little girl found herself under.
‘You know,’ Gloria said thoughtfully, ‘my mother always told me how the first home a child should be taken into is a house of God.’
‘A house of God?’ Angie perked up, sounding perplexed.
‘A church, you daftie!’ Dorothy said.
‘I’ve an idea!’ Polly said. She was tying her hair back up into her headscarf, but still hadn’t taken her eyes off the little baby, and had been thinking how excited Bel and Agnes would be to meet their new charge.
‘There’s a church near to us, St Ignatius. Providing it’s not been bombed, we could go there and then back to mine?’
‘That sounds perfect,’ Gloria said.