The Storm Child by Rita Bradshaw

Author:Rita Bradshaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

PART FIVE

Alien Stars

1944

Chapter Seventeen

Gina stood on the deck of the ship, her kitbag at her feet, gazing at the busy dock stretched out before her. Without the sea breeze which had been so welcome the nearer they had got to Egypt from England, the air was desiccated and scorching, and full of a mixture of unfamiliar smells. She sniffed quietly and then turned as a voice behind her said, ‘Now you really know you’re abroad. I remember this smell from before the war when the wife and I visited Egypt – cheap petrol, Egyptian cigarettes, exotic perfume, jasmine and frying chapattis, and acres of unwashed humanity, of course.’

She smiled at the CO. ‘I like it, sir.’

‘You won’t when you get the full force down there.’ He inclined his head at the dock. ‘But you’ll get used to it.’

‘Yes, sir.’ If she had spoken what she was feeling, she would have said she still couldn’t believe she was in Egypt. When the CO had told her he would be leaving for an overseas posting that was strictly hush-hush and asked her if she wanted to accompany him, she’d had no hesitation in agreeing immediately. That had been some weeks ago, and she had been medicated, lectured and equipped since then, but still had no idea of what the CO had been asked to do, such was the blanket of secrecy surrounding his mission. Not that it mattered. Her job was what it had been for the last few years, acting as his personal driver, and it was something she had found she enjoyed more and more as time went on. He was a fatherly kind of man, at least with her, and they had got to know each other quite well. She had met his wife, a quiet, gentle woman, and his remaining son. His other two boys had died the year before, one in January and the other in August when RAF night bombers had attacked Hamburg, and their deaths had affected him deeply. She’d privately wondered if that was why he’d agreed to get away from anything familiar.

They had travelled by troop ship and Gina wasn’t sorry the journey was over. Her cabin, which she had shared with a number of other WAAFs who were signal shift workers on their way to Heliopolis in Cairo, had been very small. It had contained four three-tier bunks and because of the blackout, had been painfully hot and airless. There was always the threat of U-boats too, and at night when it was pitch black any bump or sound was magnified a hundred times.

But she was here now. She followed the CO down the gangplank, the Egyptian sun beating through her clothes and the smells engulfing her as small children popped up around her, clamouring in their own language and trying to yank her kitbag and the small case she’d brought with her out of her hands.

The CO glanced over his shoulder. ‘Ignore them,’ he said briefly.

It was easier said than done,

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