The Sicilian Secret: Completely gripping and heartbreaking WW2 fiction by Angela Petch

Author:Angela Petch [Petch, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2024-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

The pub in Bletchley was lively, full of young people from the Park and Joy and Rosie enjoyed a couple of glasses of Gin and French and a brandy bought by Rosie’s friend, a freckly-faced pilot called Sandy. When time was called, the young man and women spilled onto the pavement outside the Park Hotel.

‘Fancy a nightcap?’ Sandy asked, pushing between the two girls, linking arms with them. ‘The night is young.’

‘I’m all in,’ Joy said. ‘And I have a long week of late shifts to look forward to. I’m ready for my bed.’

‘Aw! Don’t be boring,’ Sandy complained. ‘What about you, Rosie-Posie? You used to be such fun.’

‘Thanks, Sandy, but…’

‘You can’t live your life like a nun.’

‘Sandy. I know you’re trying to be kind. But…’

He held up both hands in surrender. ‘Can’t blame a man for trying. I promised Bill I’d look after you.’

Rosie hugged the young man close and Joy heard her say, ‘I know, I know. But I’m not up to it yet. Don’t be too kind to me.’

He held her close for a few moments and then pulled away. ‘Oh well, dear ladies. You don’t know what you’re missing. As I said, the night is still young. Go and hug your hot-water bottles instead. Maybe another time.’

He walked away, waving his white silk pilot’s scarf behind him, his voice breaking into song. ‘Kiss me goodnight, Sergeant Major…’ and Rosie shook her head.

‘He never gives up.’

They pulled their bikes from behind the hedge where they had parked them at the start of the evening.

‘Don’t much feel like going back to Perks yet,’ Rosie said, ‘but I wasn’t up for partying with Sandy either. Shall we push the bikes for a bit? Are you very tired?’

Sensing that Rosie needed to get something off her chest and despite her aching fatigue, Joy replied, ‘Fine by me. We have our own key. At least Perks doesn’t insist on a curfew.’

They walked together without speaking, the spindles turning on the bicycle wheels and their footsteps treading the road the only sounds. A car approached in the distance and they pulled well back to avoid being hit. The headlamps were dimmed in case of air raids and there had been cases of drinkers returning home from the pub being run over, with drivers having reduced visibility.

‘Shall we stop here for a bit?’ Rosie asked as they reached the village pond, a half-moon fingernail reflected in the water.

Rosie leant her bike against a tree and Joy copied, before following her to sit on a bench close to the water.

‘Sandy went to school with my boyfriend,’ Rosie said. ‘He’s a kind fellow, but I can’t give him what he wants.’

She turned to Joy as she wiped her cheeks.

‘Don’t like to go on about it,’ she said. ‘But you might as well know I was engaged for the briefest, most wonderful time. Bill was a midshipman. Torpedoed in the Med. He was only nineteen, Joy. A bally stupid waste. We’d known each other since we were toddlers.

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