The Forgotten Girls Read online

  The Forgotten Girls

  A completely heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel

  Lizzie Page

  Books by Lizzie Page

  The War Nurses

  Daughters of War

  When I Was Yours

  The Forgotten Girls

  Available in audio

  The War Nurses (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Daughters of War

  Hear More from Lizzie

  Books by Lizzie Page

  A Letter from Lizzie

  Author’s Note

  The War Nurses

  When I Was Yours

  Acknowledgements

  ‘The pictures are there, and you just take them.’

  Robert Capa

  Prologue

  Norfolk, May 1950

  The girls were behaving better than usual, which was a relief. Recently they had been arguing over what was black and what was white and if the moon was made of cheese. Elaine hadn’t slept a wink. She didn’t think she could handle it if they kicked off, not today.

  She was hardly able to keep herself together, never mind them.

  The girls laughed over breakfast. Barbara pretended her crumpet was a grizzly bear named Tony, who was afraid of jam. They giggled in the bathroom when Shirley got toothpaste down her Peter Pan collar, then they laughed all the way down the road.

  They were under strict instructions to ‘be good or else’ but that never made much difference when they were in one of their moods: perhaps they were more chirpy than usual because they had been outdoors so much yesterday. Elaine knew she didn’t take them outside enough. She remembered her mother used to say that children needed fresh air same as puppies. She did try, but so often life got in the way.

  Not now though. They were on holiday, and the girls skipped, their long legs flashing under their simple smocks and their socks sparkling white. Shirley had insisted on plaits; helpfully, Barbara had obliged. Then Barbara had tied her own hair in a simple ponytail, but it was better than her usual efforts. Elaine approved. They looked clean, fresh and forgiving. It probably wouldn’t last, it never did, but for now Elaine couldn’t help but feel proud of them.

  * * *

  He was already there, waiting, at the agreed time and place. His camera was round his neck, his shirt was open at the throat, he was in casual clothes. Different but the same. Same but different.

  They talked about the boat first. They just dived in, like they’d been talking about the damn boat every day for the last ten years. He had it for a few days, it belonged to a friend of a friend. He’d always had friends everywhere. It was one of his things. Effortlessly popular. They really were polar opposites, Elaine reminded herself.

  The boat was called Omaha Beach.

  The girls were thrilled to look inside, but Elaine stood apart on the bank. Although she had thought she was prepared for this – hadn’t it been weeks in the planning? – it still felt like she was in shock. Emotionally she was right back in those years after the Blitz when everyone was neither here nor there.

  Nothing had changed. This wouldn’t change anything.

  The girls came back out, clamouring to swim in the canal. Barbara went to the municipal pool with school – she had her 25-metres badge – and Shirley would go next year. It wasn’t cheap, but Elaine thought it was just about worth it.

  Elaine thought of all the bother a swim would entail, and she lied – she said it wasn’t allowed.

  He started to say, ‘Oh, but it is—’ but when he saw her expression, he agreed. ‘You never know what’s in there, girls.’

  In a lower voice, he said to Elaine, ‘They can dip their feet in though, can’t they?’

  ‘Pur-lease!’ the girls begged like their lives depended on it. ‘Can we, Mother?’

  Elaine would normally say no, they knew that, she knew that. She couldn’t say it now though, not in front of him, so she nodded just the once and they pulled off their shoes and peeled off their socks, rapidly, afraid she’d change her mind.

  They paddled, got muddy, and Barbara’s hair got messy, but Elaine refrained from saying anything. She wouldn’t get wound up today.

  * * *

  They walked. The girls carried their shoes and socks and their feet got gritty. Elaine just about resisted saying, ‘I told you so’.

  While the girls stood ahead of them, he took a photograph of them. Elaine laughed. He couldn’t just take a photo of them from the front like everyone else would.

  ‘I’ll send it to you,’ he said.

  ‘No, send it to Annie,’ she replied, and he nodded. He understood.

  He seemed very foreign here in Norfolk, more than he ever had in London. Maybe he was, or maybe she just hadn’t noticed back then.

  He showed them wispy dandelions and plump buttercups. ‘Who likes butter?’

  ‘Everyone in the world,’ answered Barbara, making him laugh. Elaine blushed. Shirley shook her head, looking to Elaine for approval. ‘Butter makes you fat.’

  They were still on the ration, but he had packed bread, cheese and chocolate for the girls.

  The girls started arguing over ladybugs and caterpillars and which were better. He told them to try to collect one of each and they ran off squealing.

  ‘Stay where I can see you,’ Elaine commanded, but they didn’t know what she could see, or else they actually believed she had eyes in the back of her head – well, she’d told them that often enough.

  Elaine was both petrified and delighted to be alone with him at last. Not until the girls were properly occupied collecting insects did she let him take her hand in his. It felt like a homecoming. Did he feel like that too?

  Those dark eyes on her again after all this time. They were filled with tears. He always cried so easily, unlike her.

  Did he know what she was thinking? Did she know what he was thinking?

  ‘I miss Marty,’ he said.

  One

  London, September 1943

  ‘Robert Capa’s in town.’

  Despite the Keep Calm and Carry On poster right over their heads, Elaine’s usually placid workmates were in a tizz. They were supposed to be typing up
prisoner of war letters smuggled out from Asia, but Annie set down her papers and stalked between the desks making sure everyone had got the message.

  ‘I thought he was in El Alamein?’ said Felicity.

  ‘Nope, he’s definitely here,’ said Annie.

  ‘Really? NOW?’

  ‘Yes, now. Well, tonight-now.’

  ‘He’ll be at the George?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Elaine stopped typing but left her fingers suspended over the keys, each one poised for activity. The E, the H and the N were fading fast due to overuse. As a young girl, Elaine had dreamed of playing the piano. Sometimes when she was in full flow, she imagined the typewriter keys were piano keys, the clatter, clatter was a symphony and the girls around her were the orchestra.

  Listlessly, she poked the keys a few more times as Annie buzzed around the room, and then she too succumbed.

  ‘What is Robert Capa then?’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘What is Robert Capa?’ repeated Annie incredulously. She stopped prowling and went back to her home-chair. Annie and Elaine’s desks were so close, Elaine could swipe pencils from Annie’s glass ashtray without her noticing. Annie rubbed her hands together, delighted at her best friend’s naivety. ‘Have you been living in a cave, Elaine? Robert Capa is the most agreeable man in all of London.’

  * * *

  The George was the public house on the corner of Wardour Street and everyone was going to meet there at five. Elaine demurred, ‘I should get this letter done…’ but her heart wasn’t in work and it seemed like no one else’s was either.

  The thing was they hadn’t needed to get anything done for months. During the Blitz, their vast office had found itself a headquarters for the war effort. The clerical girls were charged with marking on great maps where the bombs fell, and sometimes they didn’t leave their positions until the sun was rising over the city, bleak, orange and shamefaced.

  From six in the evening, the calls came from emergency centres across the city and the clerical girls started plotting them. Sometimes, you could hear the German planes coming over and the actual bombs going off. Sometimes you heard the name of an area where you knew someone lived or where someone’s mother lived, and you just had to cross your fingers and hope they’d got down to the shelters in time.

  There was nine months of that, nine long months of autumn through to summer 1941. Sometimes it felt like Elaine was holding her breath the whole while. It was a relentless time – and she would never say it aloud, but it was an exciting time too. Exciting and terrible. Straight out of secretarial college, thrust into that crazy new world, she wouldn’t have believed it was possible if she hadn’t been there.

  Clerical girls catnapped in the day, ate on the move, and mostly talked about fires and numbers of casualties. It soon became horribly apparent that twenty dead was not too bad a night. On the way home – those early mornings – Elaine might see the fruits of the devastation that she had been assiduously logging: the shock of the newly homeless, the bravery of firemen still picking up burning timber, the unforgettable sight of a bewildered family dog.

  Since the worst of the bombings was over, the girls had been moved up to the third floor, and they could stand outside the office in the open air. Yes, there were still doodlebugs to worry about – doodlebugs was the pretty name for the latest horror, the V-2 bomber. But with the doodlebugs, there was no escape, no warning, no logic and because it was so random, it bizarrely didn’t affect morale quite so much. It was a different threat to the actual Blitz. Now, the clerical girls could smoke leisurely cigarettes in their own time. They could walk unfettered in the daytime, they could sleep (almost) untraumatised at night in their own beds, they could chat with friends in the street, but the trouble was: there was some slight uncertainty at work about what exactly they were all there for.

  Correction: great uncertainty.

  Every day, Elaine’s uncertainty fattened up like a goose approaching Christmas. She’d worked so hard to get into clerical, they couldn’t just let her go. It wouldn’t be fair. The other clerical girls had come across to government from studying degrees in philosophy or English at Cambridge or Oxford. Even Annie had come from a great position managing a department at Selfridges. They had talents and successes, or three languages, they had places to go on to. Whatever way they went, they would advance. Elaine, by contrast, felt like she had crawled her way up out of the mud. And she didn’t want to go back.

  * * *

  ‘C’mon, you’ve got to meet Robert Capa.’

  Felicity, who usually made it her business to disagree with most things that came out of Annie’s mouth, and had a bronze trophy for debating, surprisingly agreed.

  ‘Oh, Elaine, I can’t believe you haven’t met him before.’

  Before she could reply, Annie called out: ‘She was ill when he was here, remember?’

  Felicity didn’t. Why would she keep tabs on Elaine’s constitution? But two months after the Blitz, Elaine had gone down with a bout of appendicitis. It must have been around that time.

  ‘You will love him, Elaine.’

  ‘All the ladies love him.’

  Felicity winked at Annie, who retorted, ‘And the not-so-ladies.’

  ‘Elaine’s only got eyes for Justin,’ said Myra gently. Elaine smiled at her. Myra was such a sweetheart (and proficient in English, French and Mandarin).

  ‘No harm in making new friends, right, girls?’ said Annie chirpily. Myra lowered her eyes, chastened.

  ‘Mr Capa is actually a very agreeable man,’ Mrs Dill joined in – this too was unnerving, for Mrs Dill (office manager and accomplished flautist) rarely had a good word to say about anyone. Indeed, ‘agreeable’ was a great compliment from her permanently pursed lips. However, all this anticipation about the prodigal mystery man, all this insistence was making Elaine less, rather than more, keen to meet him. She wasn’t just being contrary – although that was maybe some of it. Everything about this Robert Capa felt over-egged: it reminded her of that film Mrs. Miniver – posters for it everywhere, yet when you saw it, you were left completely flat. And another thing, Annie had a history of introducing Elaine to people she was certain Elaine would love and she had a dubious track record.

  ‘Will Marty be there?’ asked Felicity.

  ‘Robert Capa is never without Marty,’ said Annie knowingly. ‘You know that, Fee.’

  ‘So, who’s Marty then?’ Elaine’s interest was reluctantly piqued again. She had always been a fan of the underdog and she had a feeling this was what Marty was.

  ‘Marty is Robert Capa’s best friend. He’s his loyal sidekick.’

  Robert Capa got the accolades, yet Marty barely got a mention? It was a state of affairs Elaine felt familiar with.

  ‘You make him sound like a puppy.’

  ‘Marty is like a puppy, a greyhound maybe.’

  ‘What does Mr Robert Capa do anyway?’

  Other than send otherwise sane women into a tizzy.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Nope!’

  Elaine had always hated the emphasis on what one does. What does it tell us about the human heart? But she had learned a lot in her time in clerical. This was how society ranked. For the middle-class, it was the fastest way to establish who and who was not people like us. Anyway, she was intrigued. Most men had been conscripted by now.

  Annie wore her incredulous expression again. ‘He’s a war photographer, Elaine… the war photographer. You have heard of him, surely?’

  ‘Honestly, I never have,’ Elaine protested, although come to think of it, a pea-sized bell was jangling in the back of her head.

  ‘There isn’t a conflict anywhere in the world he hasn’t covered. The Spanish Civil War, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria… he was living in the Philippine jungles for a while.’

  ‘Now you’re making him sound like Tarzan.’

  Tarzan hadn’t been a disappointment. Elaine knew Johnny Weissmuller was one of Annie’s crushes.
Not her biggest, that honour was reserved for James Cagney, but he was top-five material.

  ‘Funny you should say that, he is a bit like him.’

  Elaine laughed, but Annie was being serious as she pencilled in her lips. ‘But don’t be getting ideas, Elaine.’

  ‘Ideas?’

  ‘You know.’

  There was nothing you could say to Annie when she was like this, so Elaine got back to her letters.

  * * *

  The government office was three doors down from the building that hosted Life magazine, which was part of the bigger American company Life Corporation International. They were both tall, narrow red-brick buildings. The kind of building you would stand outside and think, wow.

  The government office had a black double-fronted imposing door and once you were through there, you still had to get past the even more imposing Vera on reception. Vera pretended she couldn’t hear anything and had an ear trumpet from the last century, but she also had an uncanny knack of overhearing anything controversial.