WHEN THE NEW canteen opened at the glorious three-story, redbrick, Renaissance-style Victoria Station, Emma and Margaret were both there, and signed up for two-and three-hour shifts throughout the week. As opulent as the train station was, the canteen was a simple tiled room filled with pots and pans so new, their surfaces gleamed like mirrors.
What’s more, Mrs. Pickering had arranged for children’s care for mothers so they could still assist the WVS. With so many men at war, those mothers were often finding themselves in the same position as Emma had been for years—raising children alone.
There was very little good to come out of war, but in this one small area of her life, not being ostracized as a single parent offered Emma a place in a society that previously never had room for her.
She hung up her apron after one of her volunteer shifts. “I already brewed more tea,” she said over her shoulder to Margaret, then waved her farewell and swept from the room. The half mile from Victoria Station to the Council House where Olivia was being minded by the WVS was a quick, easy walk. When Emma arrived, she found her daughter officiating a game of tag for the younger children.
Olivia grinned when she saw Emma and ran over as soon as the game concluded.
“Sorry I’m a few minutes late.” Emma pressed a kiss to the top of Olivia’s head. “We had a train come in at the last minute.”
They were never given the train times when soldiers would be arriving, not when such information could be used by the enemy to attack their boys.
“Be like Dad, keep Mum,” and all that.
So, the women at the canteen were at the mercy of when a train might come in, but always at the ready with slabs of fruitcake sliced into easy-to-grab pieces and brewed tea. The men arrived in droves, high in spirit and quick to flirt. Especially with Margaret, who always skirted around the numerous offers to go out dancing when the men were on leave.
“I don’t mind that you’re late.” Olivia pushed her hair back from her face and grabbed her jacket, slinging it over her shoulders. “I like helping.”
With Olivia being one of the older children, she’d taken on the role of assistant. Her duties were minor—helping prepare meals, coordinating and leading activities—but the responsibility had been significant to Olivia and made her stand a little taller.
The entire way home, Olivia regaled Emma with exploits from the playroom, a saga with no end yet told with such exuberance that Emma always found herself smiling.
The routine they’d fallen into was comfortable, both doing their part for the war effort, and both all the better for it. That was the thing about being one parent with one child—they were a team, able to be completely in sync with the other.
It was just the two of them against the world, as Papa had always said.
Days such as this made that tender camaraderie between mother and daughter apparent and left Emma grateful for the special connection they shared.
“Have you seen any men coming back from France yet?” Olivia asked as the tenement house came into view. “I heard they’ll be on the trains soon.”
A chill skittered down Emma’s back. There was news of a great defeat in France, of soldiers stranded on the shores of Dunkirk and needing to be shepherded back to British soil. Which meant France was losing the war.
Emma didn’t want to think beyond France’s loss. Or what the loss of a country so close to Britain might mean for England. “How do you know about that?”
“The ladies at the WVS and I were talking about it,” Olivia answered with an overly mature air.
Emma hid her frown. “That isn’t something to discuss around children.”
“We remained out of earshot,” Olivia reassured her.
But Emma hadn’t only meant the smaller children. She’d also meant her own sweet girl, the one who suddenly considered herself an adult. At only eight, Olivia was very much still a child, even if she looked older than others her age.
“I haven’t seen any men from France yet, but you must know that if the soldiers start to come through Victoria Station, I might have some late nights,” Emma cautioned as they climbed the three short stairs to the main door. “Later than tonight.”
“I don’t mind. The WVS will need me then too.” Olivia pulled the key from her pocket and unlocked the door to the building before Emma could fish hers from her handbag.
Tea was brewed in large vats with a pile of sparkling clean mugs to the right, and platters of simple jam and bread sandwiches were cut into neat triangles in wait of the soldiers.
Newspaper accounts had stated how British troops stranded on the beaches in France were finally being rescued, not by large military craft, but by England’s fishermen, who the government had entreated to come out with their small vessels.
Those recovered soldiers were now on trains, being transported throughout England. The WVS didn’t know where those soldiers were going, or when they might come through Nottingham, but the women were prepared to provide British hospitality.
Margaret ran into the canteen’s kitchen, clapping her hands. “A train is coming.”
The room burst into a flurry of activity as women rushed this way and that to fill mugs with tea and ready the platters. Experience had told them that the brief train stop was too little time for the men to come up to the canteen. It was far better to bring the items downstairs with a coordinated effort in place to keep a rotation of trays coming down at a regular rate.
Emma joined the others, carefully balancing a tray of mugs full of steaming tea, her heart thumping with shared anticipation. The train pulled to a stop, the windows revealing not rows of men sitting in an orderly fashion, but packs of men, all crammed inside like sardines in a tin.
The door slid open, and the bevy of soldiers poured out, rushing toward the women for refreshments. But these weren’t the clean-cut, excited men who had departed with neat kits thrown over their backs and bright smiles as they waved farewell.
These men were grizzled and filthy, some with bandages around their limbs and heads or with flecks of blood on their skin and uniforms. They carried with them the oily smell of weapons and damp wool, and the pungent odor of unwashed bodies.
One soldier approached with a skinny brown dog in tow and pulled two sandwiches from a tray. He drew the first toward his mouth and extended the second to the dog.
“Only one,” the woman holding the tray chided.
The soldier put the one he was about to eat back and gave the other to the dog. His gaze was hard as he regarded the woman. “This dog saved my life.”
Before he could leave, Emma grabbed the sandwich from the tray to return to him.
He accepted it with a nod of thanks and split the sandwich with the dog, who snapped the food up without chewing.
The woman holding the tray shot Emma a chastising look, but she didn’t care.
A man with a gun slung over his shoulder grabbed a cup of tea from Emma’s tray. “May I take two?”
“Of course,” she replied, loud enough for the woman next to her to hear. Who was she to tell a man who had risked his life for Britain that he couldn’t have an extra bit of tea?
Two cups in hand, he swiftly departed.
“You’re going to give away all our provisions too fast,” the woman said crossly.
Emma watched the man go inside and hand the additional mug to another soldier seated in the train, who patted blindly at the mug before securing it between his palms.
“It was for two,” Emma said, a catch in her throat. But her words were drowned out as the mugs were swiped away with nods of thanks faster than she could keep up with.
Her tray empty, she stepped back to retrieve more, only to find herself trapped in a wall of soldiers and WVS volunteers. The floor under her shoes ground and popped and only then did she realize they all still had beach sand caked on their boots that was now being scattered over the train platform.
“Coffee?” a man asked, his uniform foreign and his accent thick with what she assumed was French.
Emma shook her head. “Only tea.”
One side of the man’s lip pulled in and he gave a dejected nod.
Another man appeared in front of Emma, young enough that she wondered if his parents had needed to sign off on his enlistment papers, as some did for their boys who were under the age of eighteen.
His pale lashes lowered as he glanced at her empty tray and looked back up to her. “Do you have any more tea?”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. He was replaced by another soldier with a similar question, followed by yet another.
As soon as the soldiers had arrived, they were gone, withdrawing like a wave ebbing back into the sea. The WVS women stared about in exhausted shock. Trays were scattered on the ground, and what few mugs remained lay tipped on the floor amid several crushed sandwiches.
At no point was any woman able to go upstairs to acquire more trays of sandwiches or tea, meaning some of those men left without. The woman next to Emma gave her an irritated glare, as though the entire thing was her fault for sparing an extra sandwich and mug of tea.
They would need another way. A better way.
The following evening, the ladies of the WVS were more prepared. Vats had been carried downstairs by the train station porters. Most contained tea, but several had been brewed with coffee for the French allies who were rescued alongside the British soldiers. Instead of mugs, which had all but totally disappeared by the second train, there had been a citywide collection of jam jars, which now served perfectly for tea and coffee. The soldiers did not complain.
As the trains continued to come, the condition of the soldiers worsened. These men had clothes streaked with soot and blood, their hollow eyes filling with tears at the sight of the WVS waiting for them.
The women with their trays of sandwiches, fruit cake, and tea were a glimpse of peace, or so one man said to Emma as he held his jam jar of tea and told her how surreal a contrast the welcome was to the hell of war. He said it was beautiful. And so was she.
Some of the men were full of compliments, especially for Margaret, whose smiles were tireless and without limit. But despite her outward demeanor, Emma knew worry for Jeffrey was taking its toll on her friend. Last Margaret had heard of her fiancé, he too had been in France.
One would never know her inner turmoil to look at her as she gently dodged earnest marriage proposals and offered spirited encouragements to the downtrodden troops.
It was why Emma had almost not heard the soldier calling, “I know you.”
A hand settled on her shoulder. “Nice to see a familiar face.”
When she spun around, she found a man she recognized, one she had to scour her memory to place.
“You traded tickets with me on Christmas Eve last year.” The young man offered a charming smile, the kind men gave when they knew the effect it had on women.
“Yes,” Emma replied, as the memory slammed into her. The soldier who Aunt Bess had said likely took advantage of her. Given the way he looked at Emma now, he had smooth talker written all over him.
A flash of anger shot through Emma at having missed Christmas with Olivia—more at herself than at him, for how gullible she’d been.
“You’re an angel, really.” The man winked.
“How is your mother?” she asked, feigning concern for a mother who likely didn’t exist.
The charm bled away and he swallowed, appearing suddenly younger than the Casanova who stood before her only a fraction of a second before.
“Dead, miss.” He shifted his weight as though trying to dislodge the words. “My mam was gone within an hour of my arrival. If you hadn’t given me your ticket...” He looked down, briefly overcome with emotion. “I would have missed my chance to say goodbye.”
He caught her hand in his and gazed at her with a sincerity that pulled deep within her chest. “You are truly my angel. Thank you.”
And with that, the tide of the train’s departure swept him away, leaving more French sand scattered over British soil.