The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [135]
Jess saw her from the factory gate and called out her name, but Ruthie simply kept on walking. Jess hesitated. By rights neither of them should have left the factory and they would both be in trouble if they were found out, but Ruthie, of course, would be in the worst trouble because of the sugar. She needed to come back and be persuaded to tell the manager who had really put the sugar there. Jess glanced back towards the factory gates. She could always tell the foreman that Ruthie hadn’t been well and had had to go home. He would guess the truth, of course, but at least it sounded better than having it discovered that she had just walked out. And she would be there to tell him about the sugar. She took a step back towards the gate. Ruthie had almost reached the end of the road. She looked so forlorn and vulnerable. She would be crying her eyes out and worrying herself sick about her Glen. She wasn’t really in any fit state to be on her own.
Jess shook her head as though regretting her own folly, and set off after her.
‘I’m not going back, Jess. I can’t…Not with them all thinking…what they will be thinking.’
‘Well, whose fault is that? You should have told the manager about Maureen?’
‘How could I? It wouldn’t have been right.’
‘Of course it would. Do you think she’d keep mum to protect you?’ Jess challenged her. ‘Oh, come on then.’ She gave in when she saw how genuinely ill Ruthie looked. ‘Let’s get you home. Then I’ll go back and tell the foreman that you were taken bad.’
‘You don’t have to go with me,’ Ruthie protested.
‘Not half, I don’t,’ Jess told her bluntly. ‘You should see yourself. You look as sick as a cat.’
Jess was on the bus on her way back to the factory, having seen Ruthie safely home, when they heard the explosion. A dull crump, followed by a series of sharp ear-shattering bangs that caused the bus driver to stop the bus and the passengers to fling themselves to the floor.
‘Bloody hell!’ the large woman who had been sitting next to Jess puffed seconds later, as they all got apprehensively to their feet. ‘Ruddy Hitler’s getting a cheek on him, bombing us during the ruddy day…’
‘It ain’t Hitler, it’s the ruddy munitions factory,’ someone else called out.
‘Look.’
All the passengers crowded to the side of the bus and looked towards the factory where they could see flames and smoke pouring from part of the building.
Jess’s heart slammed into her ribs. Her friends were in that factory. Automatically she started to push her way past the other passengers to get to the bus door.
‘’Ere, mind where you’re putting yer feet,’ one woman objected.
‘I’ve got to get to the factory. I work there,’ Jess told her frantically.
‘Sorry, miss, but you can’t do that,’ the conductor informed her, blocking her exit. ‘ARP’ll have the whole place cordoned off by now, just in case Hitler has dropped a bomb on it. Course, if you ask me it’s more likely to be one of them fifth columnist spies wot’s done it,’ he announced, referring to the news items they had all read concerning Hitler’s spies within the country. Must have infiltrated the place, like we’re allus being warned, and then gorn and blown it up.’
‘’Ere, my niece works up there,’ another passenger said worriedly, followed by two more saying anxiously that they had family there too.
By now the whole bus was in an uproar, with the conductor barring the exit and saying that it would be more than his job was worth to let anyone get off.
‘Don’t be daft,’ someone protested, but the screams of sirens as fire engines