back on base she rushed to see if anything was waiting for her. There was only one letter from her aunt and uncle. Lizzie was disappointed as she made her way back to her room to read it. Flopping down on her bed she placed an arm behind her head to read her aunt’s words.
Dearest Lizzie,
I hope you are well and not working too hard. We all miss you and talk about you often, especially your Uncle Hamish, who is having to make do with Margaret helping him on the farm and I’m sure you know how that is working out. Fiona is working on a blanket she is knitting for your room as we thought you might be missing some comforts from home, it should be finished tomorrow and I will get it straight in the post. Also, last week Mr McCrae managed to get some chocolate in his little store and I wrangled an extra bar out of Margaret to send to you, I will try and get it in the post tomorrow. All is about the same here, except I wanted to let you know Karen MacAndrews had her baby, a bonnie baby girl they are going to call Ella after her grandmother. She is the loveliest little thing and has brought a lot of joy to us all in the village and helped us stop missing you so much. Looking forward to hearing from you soon about all your adventures in the south.
Much Love, Auntie Marion, Uncle Hamish, Margaret and Fiona
Lizzie reread the words ‘a bonnie baby girl’ and tried to push down the emotion that fluttered in her chest, as it seemed to reach out grasping fingers that tightened around her throat. She had gone to school for a short time with Karen who had just been married a year ago and she tried not to feel the jealousy that was welling up inside her. Why was Karen allowed to keep her girl and Lizzie was not? She was wrestling with her conflicting emotions when a head appeared around the door of her room.
‘Lizzie, did you forget you were on the washing up in the canteen?’
Dragged back to the present, Lizzie forced a smile onto her face. ‘Just coming,’ she said in a strained cheerful manner, pushing herself off her bed and slipping her feet into her shoes.
Checking her hair in the mirror she noticed the deep sadness etched on her face and swallowed down the pain. As she ran a comb through her hair, she realized things had become so much clearer to her since she had been away from her home. In fact, in the last few weeks she had decided if she found Annie and she was not happy, then she, Lizzie, would find a way to get her back. She wasn’t sure how yet, and she still had to find her daughter, but she knew if Annie had suffered as much as Lizzie had from being apart from her, she would find a way to put this all right, no matter what the fallout would be in Scotland.
14
On 15 August Diana completed her twelve weeks of barrage balloon training, including the weeks she had spent with Lizzie, and if she’d thought her basic training was physical, it was nothing compared to working with the balloon.
An incredible sight to behold, the barrage balloons were huge, each as big as a grey whale; a silver, bullet-shaped inflatable with a tail, they were launched during an air attack and it took twelve people to operate one.
For the first week they worked solely in the classroom, as they were informed it was really important to understand not just the physical job of keeping the balloon in the air, but they also had to understand the physics of how the balloon floated and how to maintain it while it was flying. That week she learned balloon drill, balloon maintenance, winch driving, winch maintenance, wire splicing, balloon technical, and balloon theory to learn the science of how it flew.
The wire splicing was very hard on all of their hands. Most of them had blisters and cuts from learning how to plait the wire, but as they were told by their commanding officers, their hands would have to harden up and it would be even more difficult if they had to repair a wire while it was flying once they were out in the field under attack.
In the second week, the girls got their first look at the