Nightingales at War Read Free Page A

also told her that when he’d found out, he’d given the bully a taste of his own medicine. He hadn’t gone into details, but knowing her husband Dora could well imagine. Whatever Nick had done, he’d frightened Reg Riley so badly that he’d left town, never to be seen again.
    Nick had been protecting his brother ever since. Apart from herself and their babies, Dora knew Danny was the only person in the world Nick Riley truly loved.
    Dora loved Danny too, so she was happy to have him come to live with them after they were married. With a good home, and surrounded by love, Danny had started to thrive. He fitted right into their happy family, and since the twins came along he’d been utterly devoted to them. He would play patiently with them for hours, singing to them, making silly faces or letting them yank handfuls of his hair. He would help Dora settle them and then he would sit for hours watching over them while they slept, marvelling at their tiny fingers and toes.
    He would have taken them from her now so she could drink her cup of tea in peace, but Dora couldn’t bear to let go of them. She sat at the table with one twin on each knee, chatting to her mum and her grandmother.
    She told them all about her interview with Matron, and how she’d asked all kinds of questions about why Dora wanted to leave her children and go back to work.
    ‘Well, she’s got a point, ain’t she?’ Nanna said. ‘It ain’t right for a mother to go out to work. She should be with her kids.’
    Dora was crestfallen, but once again her mother stepped in.
    ‘Listen to yourself, Ma! You were working down the laundry when you were nine months gone with our Brenda and me, so don’t you try to tell anyone different. And I was just the same.’ She turned to Dora. ‘Take no notice of her, Dor. She’s just in one of her cantankerous moods. You should hear her talking about you to the neighbours. Anyone would think you were Florence Nightingale herself the way she goes on about you.’
    ‘I do not!’ Nanna Winnie denied, two bright spots of colour staining her jowly cheeks. ‘And as for you,’ she turned her attention to Little Alfie, who had the misfortune to walk through the back door at that moment, ‘you get out there and take those filthy boots off before you come into my nice clean kitchen. I ain’t having you tramping mud all the way through. And I hope you ain’t been feeding that sodding rabbit again? I’m telling you, the sooner that gets made into a pie, the better!’
    Rose caught Dora’s eye across the table and winked at her. Dora grinned back. Typical Nanna Winnie. God forbid anyone should think she’d gone soft in her old age.
    Rose put down her cup and stood up. ‘Anyway, I’d best get on, or I’ll never get any food on the table.’
    ‘Can I help?’ Dora offered.
    Before her mother could reply, Danny scrambled to his feet, a tangle of lanky arms and legs.
    ‘I’ll h-help,’ he said. ‘I l-like cooking.’
    ‘Well, then, I won’t say no.’ Rose smiled at him. ‘Come on, Danny. You can help me cut up the greens.’
    ‘If the bloody rabbit ain’t had ’em all!’ Nanna muttered.
    When they’d gone, Dora turned her attention to the official blue military envelope propped up on the mantelpiece. She’d spotted it the moment she came in, and her heart had bounced in her chest, hoping it might be from Nick. But peering closer, she realised the neat, round handwriting was nothing like her husband’s untidy scrawl.
    ‘Is that from our Josie?’ she asked.
    ‘It is.’ Nanna plucked the letter from behind the clock and handed it to her. ‘And this came with it, too.’ She passed over a black-and-white photograph. ‘Don’t she look lovely in her uniform?’
    Dora felt a choking lump rise in her throat at the sight of her little sister Josie, looking so smart in her WAAF uniform. ‘She looks so grown up,’ she murmured.
    ‘That’s what I said to your mum. Hard to believe she’s turned twenty,