By the time the storm hit, it was too late. They had tried to bring one of the balloons back down, but the wire which tethered it to the winch snapped free. Josie and Maude had been the nearest to hand, and they had battled in vain to bring the balloon under control, but they simply weren’t strong enough and had to give in when Josie, through the effort of pulling, suffered an abdominal strain. With Josie out of action and the balloon lost, Maude had immediately gone to help with one of the other balloons, which exploded as they brought it back to base. Maude had been second closest, and both her hands had been badly burned.

Beth had been lucky in that Corporal Spencer Evans, who hadn’t been at Shirehampton for long, had been close by and pulled her out of the way in the nick of time. Something which the other girls had thought more than a coincidence.

‘He’s been eyeing you up ever since he arrived,’ said Maude, as she sat on her bed in their billet, her hands bound in bandages. ‘If he hadn’t been keeping such a keen eye, he’d not have noticed the wire opposite you was about to snap …’

Beth had opened her mouth to respond when someone knocked on the door of their billet.

Olivia wrinkled her brow. ‘Odd! People don’t normally knock …’ She got to her feet and answered the door, and when she put her head back through the doorway she was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

‘It seems you have a visitor, Beth.’

Beth’s face had fallen. ‘Who?’

‘Corporal Spencer Evans,’ said Olivia, her grin growing wider.

Beth got to her feet and disappeared out of the billet, only to reappear a few minutes later, her cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment.

‘Well?’ said Maude, eager to hear any gossip.

‘He was very sweet,’ said Beth, ‘asked if I was all right, and whether he could take me out sometime …’

Both Maude and Olivia squealed with excitement until Beth shook her head.

‘I told him no …’ She held up a hand as her friends tried to protest. ‘I’m not ready.’

Olivia felt a blush begin to bloom in her cheeks. She knew Beth didn’t blame her for Ralph, but she still felt responsible, because had she not been so judgemental of Beth in the first place, perhaps Ralph wouldn’t have tried to lie.

Accidents like these were becoming increasingly common for the girls in Balloon Command, and due to their injuries both Maude and Josie had been declared unfit to continue in such demanding duties. At first the girls feared they might be discharged from the WAAF so they were relieved when they were sent for retraining as wireless operators, after which they had been posted to RAF Ramsbury in Wiltshire.