The Ha'penny Steps. Book 3. Alice's Story by C R Spencer

Author:C R Spencer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Phoneme52
Published: 2024-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Easter Saturday 12 April 1941

Southampton;

A thorough soaking

Alice Halpin arrived at the outskirts of Southampton just after five o’clock in the afternoon. She had come across one more police checkpoint on the approach road, but she smiled at the young policeman. He waved her through. That was the problem with policing in wartime. There were plenty of very young officers and even more older ones but less of those in the middle who were adept at dealing with crime. Consequently, if crime figures had been published they would have been embarrassing, especially the clear-up rate...

She had pulled the car into a lay by and topped up the fuel tank with the second of the five-gallon containers. She wasn’t sure if there would be enough to carry her home, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

A middle-aged lady pointed her in the direction of Woolston and sent her down the Portsmouth Road. She found Mrs Baxter’s boarding house on Oakbank Road without too much difficulty. She parked the car outside the house, which looked clean and tidy enough. She locked it knowing that if she were to stay there she knew she would have to remove the rotor from underneath the distributor cap. Jimmy Ryan, fearful that his neighbour’s precious vehicle might get stolen, had thoughtfully showed her how to achieve this.

She dropped her bag on the pristine doorstep and then reached up and pulled the doorbell. She could hear it ringing from inside the house. The door opened and an attractive female somewhere in her forties appeared. She looked at Alice and smiled,

“Good afternoon, Miss, how can I be of assistance to you?”

Nancy returned the smile, “Mrs Baxter?”

The landlady nodded, “Yes?”

“Corporal Turner recommended you to me. I understand you may be able to accommodate me for the night?”

“Oh, Corporal James Turner; such a lovely boy. He’s always doing odd jobs for me.” She paused, “Yes, yes, I’m forgetting my manners. Please do come in.”

She held open the door and Alice walked in. The place was spick and span. There was a little reception desk complete with a signing in book and a little bell. Georgina Baxter went past Alice and stood behind the desk. Alice noticed she was heavily but tastefully made up.

“How long would you be wanting stay Miss...?”

“Mrs Bailey; Doreen Bailey.” One night, that’s all. I have to return to London on Sunday.”

“Good; good. I’m sure we can accommodate you. Would you be requiring dinner this evening? I do have a piece of lamb that the butcher kept for me.”

Alice smiled, “That would be very nice, thank you.”

Georgina Baxter passed over the register, “If you do me the honours, please?”

Alice duly signed the book and gave Mrs Doreen Bailey’s actual address in Tottenham.

Baxter looked past Alice, “I see you have a lovely motor car.”

Alice nodded, “Yes, it’s my husband’s. He works for Vauxhall.”

The landlady took Alice up to her room. The place seemed quiet.

“We get a lot of junior non-commissioned officers here. The Ministry keeps me quite busy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.