The Waterway Girls Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Milly Adams

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Broaden your Waterways Vocabulary …

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Letter from the Author

  Copyright

  About the Book

  October 1943, West London

  Nineteen-year-old Polly Holmes is leaving poor bombed London behind to join the war effort on Britain’s canals.

  Stepping aboard the Marigold amid pouring rain, there’s lots for Polly to get to grips with. Not least her fellow crew: strong and impetuous Verity, whose bark is worse than her bite, and seasoned skipper Bet.

  With her sweetheart away fighting in the RAF and her beloved brother killed in action, there’s plenty of heartache to be healed on the waterway. And as Polly rolls up her sleeves and gets stuck into life on board the narrowboat – making the gruelling journey from London up to Birmingham – she will soon discover that a world of new beginnings awaits amid the anguish of the war.

  About the Author

  Milly Adams lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband, dog and cat. Her children live nearby. Her grandchildren are fun, and lead her astray. She insists that it is that way round.

  Milly Adams is also the author of Above Us The Sky, Sisters at War and At Long Last Love. This is Milly’s first novel featuring her waterway girls.

  Also by Milly Adams

  Above Us The Sky

  Sisters at War

  At Long Last Love

  To lovely Wynne and Ilva.

  And let’s not forget that 2017 is the 75th anniversary of the launch of the Ministry of War Transport’s Women’s Training Scheme, in which robust women were to be trained to work cargo-carrying narrowboats on the inland waterways – I raise a glass to them all.

  Broaden your waterways vocabulary …

  Basin – a partly enclosed area of water at the end of or alongside a canal, housing wharves and moorings

  Bilges – the bottom of the boat

  Butty – engineless boat towed by the motorboat

  Canal frontage – land abutting the canal

  Counter – deck

  Cut – canal

  Fender – a bumper put over the side of a vessel to protect it from colliding with other vessels, objects or structures

  Gunwale – inner ledge around boat

  Hold – where the cargo is carried; both motors and butties have holds

  Lock – the main means of raising or lowering a boat between changes in water levels on a canal

  Long pound – a long length of impounded water between two locks

  Moor – to secure a boat against the bank

  Motorboat – the narrowboat with an engine

  Port – left

  Prow or fore-end – front

  Short pound – a short length of impounded water between two locks

  Slide hatch – sliding ‘lid’ above cabin doors to keep out the rain

  Snubber – long strong rope for towing a butty along a long pound

  Starboard – right

  Stern – rear

  Straps – mooring and lashing ropes

  Tiller – the handle attached to the rudder; steers the boat

  Wharf – structure built for cargo loading or discharge

  Windlass – L-shaped handle for operating lock paddles

  Bull’s Bridge, Southall, is the location of Grand Union Canal Carrying Company’s (GUCCC) depot

  Limehouse Basin, also known as Regent’s Canal Dock

  Grand Union Canal Paddington Arm runs into Regent’s Canal leading to Limehouse/Regent’s Canal Dock

  Tyseley Wharf, Birmingham

  Chapter 1

  Monday 25 October 1943 – London

  Polly Holmes stood on the train shivering. She was on the way to Southall, west London where she could, at last, do something useful. Even better was the fact that it would be on the canal, which was not the same as sailing, but at least it was something. She had run from her Ministry of War Transport interview in Mayfair, to her medical, to the bus and then the station and each time the heavens had opened. Finally her ancient mackintosh could cope no more and she was soaked through to her knickers. Of course, if she had remembered her umbrella she would have been able to sit down on the train, but it seemed unfair to drip where others might sit.

  Her mind played with this rhyme rather than think of her destination, one that the Ministry official, Mr Thompson, had arranged as the final part of the interview. It was this meeting that would decide whether she was to be accepted on the Boatwomen Training Scheme for cargo-carrying canal boats. She thought Will would approve. No, not Will.

  She swayed as the train pulled into a station. Rain still dripped from her hem on to her legs. She glanced down at the pool of water in which she was standing. Worse, her felt hat had blown away so her hair hung like rats’ tails, having escaped the hairgrips which pinned it up.

  Some passengers disembarked, and others came on board. A businessman gestured her before him to the remaining seat, his black umbrella hooked over his arm. ‘I’m fine standing,’ she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

  He nodded, sat, and dragged out a newspaper from his briefcase. She wasn’t fine and wasn’t sure she ever really would be again. Her twin brother, Will, had been killed six months before in Montgomery’s North Africa campaign, aged nineteen. She was surprised to have been able to put that thought together, the first time she had done so since she had heard the news. Perhaps it was because today could be the start of something else, a going forward.

  It was a ‘going forward’ that she had mentioned to her parents two weeks ago, as she showed them the advertisement the Ministry of War Transport had placed in the newspaper, one which explained that they were to operate a war work scheme with the co-operation of the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company. It appeared that young women would be trained to replace narrowboat men who had already signed up, and, what’s more, as Mr Thompson had said today, ‘There will be no other men allowed to leave the canal. We need every means of transport we can get. We’re running a war, not a village fete.’

  Fear had been her parents’ reaction. ‘I will be safe,’ she had said. ‘Safe. So trust me, one of your children will live.’

  They had agreed to her applying, and to her giving provisional notice from her secretarial job at the solicitors’ office in her home town of Woking, Surrey. Her dad had said, ‘It will be good for you to move on. I know you loved sailing with Will. It won’t be the same, but you will be on the water. You always said it made you feel in a different world.’

  Mr Thompson at the Ministry had barely given her ti
me to sit down on the hardback chair on the other side of his desk before he had talked, and talked, steepling his fingers against his lower lip, explaining the world she would enter, emphasising the relentless travelling in narrowboats along the canal, or cut, as the boaters called it. ‘Narrowboats, you hear,’ he said. ‘Barges are bigger, and can’t squeeze along all the canals.’

  He continued, telling her of the long hours in appalling weather conditions, the loading of freight at Limehouse Basin, which some chose to call Regent’s Canal Docks, in east London. He explained the staircase of locks that would need to be traversed along the route to Birmingham as their narrowboat, the one with the Bolinder motor, towed their engineless narrowboat butty. ‘They’re both the same size and will be heavily loaded. On arrival there will be the unloading of freight which could be wood, steel, whatever, and the loading of coal at Coventry on your return trip.’

  The rain had beaten on his window. A spider plant with babies hanging off perched on top of a grey metal filing cabinet. His brown leather briefcase was propped up behind that, with his initials stamped into the leather: P.O.T. Polly had wondered what the P and O stood for, and if his nickname was Pot.

  He’d continued, staring over her head, his fingers now beating against his lower lip. ‘Of course, the actual unloading will be done by others, but you will be expected to prepare the boats, and generally do as is bid.’ Finally he lowered his hands, then picked up a pencil which had a rubber on the end. He had looked at her, and made a note as she nodded.

  Do as she was bid? she thought as the train rumbled on. It’s almost what Will had said when they went to sea for the first time in their little sailing boat, Sunspot, when they were sixteen. ‘Do as you are bid, girl, just for once, or you’ll have us over.’ She’d had some pluck then. It had gone missing, along with him.

  The train was fetid and warm from so many bodies, but her shivering increased and it was nerves. Was Mr Thompson going to take her on the scheme? What he had said was, ‘If you still want to help the war effort in this way, it’s as well you go and meet a trainer today and see what it really entails, as there is no time to waste. You must decide if you think it will suit and, importantly, we need to know whether Miss Burrows feels you have what it takes.’

  He had straightened the sheet of inked blotting paper on his desk, and muttered, ‘We can’t have time-wasters. We have a war to win. Idle Women might be the nickname given to the canal girls because of the Inland Waterways badge they are awarded after training, but trust me, they are anything but.’

  He had stood, the interview at an end. She had asked if she was in the running. ‘All in good time,’ he had said and sent her for the medical. The doctor had said the same after she had coughed, breathed in then out, and her feet had been checked for arches.

  The train was slowing, sliding into the station. Polly peered through the window: Southall at last. The bus and train journey had taken over an hour with its wartime stops and starts. She disembarked and found the exit, shivering even more as the chill of October collided with her nervousness.

  Outside the station the clouds were looming, though the rain had stopped. She heard the distant rumble of thunder as she gripped her handbag and tried to get her bearings. Behind her the sandbags at the entrance to the station stank of dogs’ pee, but so did all the sandbags in poor bombed London.

  Polly checked her watch: 1.15. She should be meeting Miss Burrows at 1.30 at the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company depot situated a little over half a mile away on the canal at Bull’s Bridge. She was going to be late. She looked both ways – was it left or right? What had Thompson said? But her mind was blank as the panic rose.

  A man approached, on his way into the station. She called, ‘Please, I need to head for the Grand Union––’

  He interrupted. ‘Go left, head south and straight across the crossroads. Just keep going.’ He hurried on.

  ‘Thanks so much.’ She started running along the pavement. As she reached the Green she grew more confident, at last remembering Mr Thompson’s instructions. Still racing along, she skirted the puddles and running gutters, looking for the 1930s cinema Mr Thompson had mentioned, and which seemed unscathed; she didn’t stop to see what was playing but ran on, panting. Her sodden raincoat slapped the back of her legs, wiping away the remnants of her gravy-browning seams. Somewhere a bird sang. For a moment she stopped, lifted her head. Yes, birds still sang even though the world was turning upside down.

  Polly passed women queuing at a butcher’s shop, but the chalked blackboard, declaring what produce was on offer, had been washed by the rain. Was it a tiny rationed bit of bacon or perhaps … well, who knew?

  She was panting as she ran on past more shops, then a church with its typed service details pinned on the noticeboard. The details had been rendered indecipherable by the rain, as indecipherable as the blackboard, or the doctor’s face as he conducted her medical.

  The rain began again and it drove into her face as she ran past the war memorial, but no … She looked away without altering her stride. A woman was hurrying past on the other side of the road, her head down, umbrella up. Sensible soul, Polly thought. How her mum would approve. Now she slowed and almost stopped, longing to be home on familiar ground, not here on this pavement with the red letterbox, the lamp posts, one bent as though it had been hit by a car. At a pub with sandbags at the door a woman wearing a headscarf was cleaning the inside of the windows and smiled at her.

  Polly took heart, and pounded on hard and fast, forcing herself on until she reached a crossroads. On the other side she ran through a residential area with its schools; a Methodist chapel too, or so she thought, but didn’t have time to double-check. It was 1.32. Already she was late, so she roared on but now she had a stitch, and as she trotted past allotments she was forced to slow, and then stop. She bent over and drew in ragged breaths, then out. In then out. To her left was a hawthorn hedge which lined the allotments, and behind it stood a greenhouse missing most of its glass.

  She checked her watch: 1.35. She stretched and started trotting again, this time passing a scarecrow in the middle of rows of cabbages, its straw stuffing being sucked from a ripped sleeve by the wind.

  She slipped on some mud, recovered, searching for evidence of the canal and the depot through the driving rain, and yes there were buildings ahead which must be the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company depot. She slowed to a walk, catching her breath, recalling her mum’s parting words. ‘Remember your manners before your elders and betters.’ These had been followed by her dad’s. ‘Whatever else you do, don’t be late.’

  Polly sighed, pulled her muffler straight, tucked her handbag over her arm then walked on, with some sort of decorum she hoped, and reached the gate to the depot. She asked the guard huddling in his hut, ‘Would you direct me to Enquiries, please?’

  ‘Who may you be, Miss?’

  ‘Oh, Miss Polly Holmes to see Miss Burrows.’

  ‘Got any paperwork?’

  She dug in her handbag for the letter from the Ministry and handed it to him in his hut, since he clearly had no intention of exposing himself to the elements, even though the rain was easing. He read it, and then checked on a clipboard, running his finger down a list. He reached the bottom, and shook his head. Polly wanted to snatch it from him and check for herself, but instead she asked him to give it another go.

  He did, and this time his finger stopped midway. ‘There you are, hiding between Graham and Ingles, you little rascal. Go straight ahead, and on the right there’s a big Enquiries sign on that block of offices. They’ll be glad to see you, they like drowned rats.’

  Polly smiled politely. He winked. She hurried into the yard, almost reeling from its noise and bustle, weaving between men in overalls who must have been heading towards or from the workshops, large and small, which stood around a huge yard. She smelt stew, and to the left she saw a long building from which came the clattering of dishes. Ah, a canteen. Some men came out, and shut the door behind t
hem. The tannoy leapt to life, blasting the yard with tinny music.

  Ahead there were no buildings, just a hardstanding frontage to the canal which she glimpsed through the scurrying men. To the left she could see a dry dock where repairs to the narrowboats would be carried out. The canal, though, was much wider than she had expected and for a moment it looked so like the lake frontage of the sailing club, where they had accessed the water or pulled up the boats, that she relaxed. ‘Yes,’ she murmured aloud. ‘Yes, I sort of know this world.’ A worker in overalls brushed past her. ‘You lost, love?’

  She looked at him. ‘No, but thank you. I know exactly where I am.’

  She headed towards the door below the Enquiries sign, weaving her way through the boiler-suited men who were almost running as the rain intensified, though it hadn’t made them put their cigarettes out. She felt they would have barged over her if she hadn’t leapt out of their way, so invisible did she seem to them.

  She pulled open the door but the wind snatched it from her, slamming it back against the outside brick wall. She reached over and dragged it shut behind her. All went quiet. A young man was standing behind a counter to the rear of the office, an ‘Enquiries’ sign on his left.

  ‘Name?’ He didn’t even look up.

  ‘Miss Polly Holmes,’ she said, but her nervousness had returned and it came out louder than she had meant it to. On the wall the clock said 1.40. ‘I’m late,’ she added. ‘I should have been here at 1.30. It’s at least a mile walk, surely, though I was told half a mile.’

  Behind her, the door opened. The draught slapped her raincoat against her legs, and her hair lifted, dripped, and fell to her shoulders. She turned to see a woman of about thirty in overalls several sizes too big, with hair that was as wet as Polly’s but still shone a deep red, and had somehow stayed pinned up. Her face was drawn and tired, but a certain energy seemed to shine from her eyes. She also wore a grubby blue seaman’s sweater.

  ‘Honestly, Alf, you need to fix a chain on this door or you’ll have it snatched off its hinges. Bloody sodding thing.’ She spoke quickly, just as she moved. She reached the counter and tapped out a tattoo.