The Year of the Gun by Chris Nickson

Author:Chris Nickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750985161
Publisher: The History Press

THEY sat in canteen of a big welding shop in Hunslet, where a Careless Talk Costs Lives poster was peeling away from the wall. Then in the porters’ room at the infirmary, where a man with thick glasses blinked every time he answered. And finally out to Crossgates, the Royal Ordinance Factory. Close enough to the sprawling old Barnbow munitions factory where she’d worked during the last war. Where she’d met Geoff.

She knew the streets round here. She knew the smell of them, the taste of the air. It was funny how it all came back as soon as she stepped out of the Humber. So many houses now where there had once been fields and farms. But this factory stood apart, buildings full of noise and heat. Casting metal for artillery guns.

The heavy-set woman had thick smudges of dirt on both cheeks, a pair of dark goggles hanging by their strap around her neck. Her hair was tied up in a scarf, and tiny welding scars covered the back of her hands. She eyed them suspiciously.

‘I’ve not seen him.’ Her voice was a rasp. Standing outside the building in the damp grey air she took a Woodbine from the pocket of her overalls, lit it and gulped down the smoke. ‘Don’t want to, neither.’

Vera Dodds had been Terry Cruickshank’s girlfriend, according to his mother. She’d already been questioned once by DC Smith and had given the same answer then.

‘When did you see him last?’ McMillan asked.

‘Came round after he deserted. I told him to get lost.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘I’m doing my bit for the country. If he can’t do his, he can sling his hook. No time for yellow bellies.’

‘How did he react?’

‘Stormed off like a little lad in a tantrum.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Sod him.’

Someone shouted. Dodds turned her head towards the open door of the building. Inside, showers of sparks came from the welding machines every few seconds. ‘I said I’d be back in a minute,’ she shouted, then turned back to them. ‘Bloody slavedrivers.’

‘Do you know where Terry might be?’

‘In a ditch somewhere for all I care.’ She nipped the burning tip off the cigarette and put the dog end in a tin. ‘Is that it? Only we’ve got an order to get out.’

‘Yes,’ he said, then added, ‘If you hear from him, please ring us.’

‘Course.’ She smiled and for a moment the hardness vanished from her face. ‘Strange to think I liked him once. Funny old life, isn’t it?’ She shrugged, turned and vanished.

‘Terry doesn’t seem to have many friends, does he?’ Lottie said as the car bumped out of the yard. Back to Selby Road, a quick glance at the place that had been the making of her before 1918.

‘I wish one of them would turn him in.’

‘Where now?’

‘We’ll start at the office,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Maybe there’ll be something new. And happen pigs can fly, too. After that we’ll go and see the Yanks.

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