Free My Sweet Valentine by Annie Groves Page A

teams and make out a rota for fire-watching.’
    ‘I’ve heard that you have to go up on the roof and stay there all night when it’s your turn,’ one of the other woman broke in. A large person, her ample chins shook with anxiety as she continued, ‘I couldn’t do that.’
    ‘No, of course not, Mrs Bell,’ the vicar’s wife agreed, ‘but as Sergeant Dawson explained to me, in many cases husbands and wives are working together, so that, for instance, the husband will be the one to do the active watching but then he will call down to his wife, who will be perhaps waiting at an open bedroom window – with the lights out, of course – to tell her where the bombs have fallen. Then she will get ready the stirrup pump, which the Government is making available to households, and together they’ll go out and tackle the incendiaries with the help of their neighbours, who they will alert about the bombs.’
    ‘It’s taking advantage of our good nature, that’s what it is,’ Nancy sniffed, folding her arms in front of herbosom in a way that said that she wanted no truck whatsoever with Mr Morrison’s scheme.
    Olive’s assessment of her neighbour’s frame of mind was confirmed when Nancy turned to her and said, ‘There’s no one to do it in Article Row anyway, is there? Mr Whittaker at number 50 is too old; you couldn’t expect the Misses Barker at number 12 to get involved, nor Mrs Edwards at number 5, since her husband’s already working as an auxiliary fireman.’
    ‘There’s Mr Ryder at number 18,’ Olive pointed out. ‘I’m sure he’d want to be involved, he being retired from the Civil Service.’
    ‘Mr Ryder? With that bad leg of his?’ Nancy shook her head, adding triumphantly, ‘And it’s not as if you could do anything, is it, with you being a household full of women.’
    ‘Why should us being female stop us from getting involved?’ Nancy’s attitude reminded Olive of how she had felt when she and Mrs Morrison had been rejected by the ARP – and they had been rejected she felt sure, no matter how tactful Sergeant Dawson had tried to be.
    Mrs Morrison clapped her hands and said approvingly, ‘Oh, well done, Olive. I’m certainly going to have a word with Mr Morrison and see if we can’t get something set up.’
    Audrey Windle was smiling at her with relief, whilst Nancy was giving her a very angry look indeed.
    ‘I hope you aren’t thinking of setting yourself up in charge of some kind of fire-watch, Olive,’ Nancy told her grimly. ‘Because if you are I’m afraid that me and my Arthur will definitely have a view.’
    What was Nancy trying to say? That she wasn’t upto the job of organising a small team of neighbours to keep a watch for falling incendiaries and to deal with them when they did fall? Olive very much resented Nancy’s attitude, and instead of putting her off the idea it actually made her feel very determined to carry it through.
    ‘Well, if Arthur wants to join in he’ll be very welcome,’ was all Olive allowed herself to say.
    ‘Arthur? He’s far too busy at it is, and I’m not having him going and risking getting a cold in this bad weather with that chest of his.’
    ‘I’m sure that Ian Simpson will want to be involved, and Drew, of course,’ Olive continued, ignoring Nancy’s mean-spiritedness.
    ‘Well, yes, your Tilly would love that,’ Nancy agreed cattily. ‘Every time I see her these days she’s linked up to that American. In my days girls waited until they’d got an engagement ring on their finger before being so familiar with a young man.’
    ‘You and me are the same age, Nancy,’ Mrs Morrison cut in and then laughed, saying, ‘and I remember me and my hubby walking down the Strand with our arms wrapped around one another on his first leave home from the front and we’d only been walking out a few weeks before he joined up. We weren’t the only ones, either. That’s what happens during wartime.’
    Mrs Morrison had definitely taken the