A Girl in Wartime (3 page)

September 1914

In Connie's place of work, Sybil Potter, who stood beside her at the slowly moving conveyor belt, said, ‘Ain't it just wonderful, the news this morning? Ain't it wonderful?'

Connie kept her eyes on the small cardboard box whose ends she was folding with nimble fingers, quickly dabbing glue around the edges ready for Sybil to press together before the conveyor belt bore the object onwards. Her eyes already moving towards the next box approaching to be dealt with, she said, ‘What news?'

She'd been too pre-occupied by her own thoughts this morning, her mind full of the drawing she had done – a really successful one of baby Henry when Elsie and Harry had come round last night. No one but Mum had noticed her in the corner working away, the small piece of paper supported on an open book, everyone probably assuming she was reading. But Mum had cast a few sly glances towards her, her eyes full of secret pride.

The drawing had become a perfect likeness of the child and as she made her way to work this morning her mind was on mounting it in a sort of framework of black, sticky passé-partout to make it look as professional as it was possible to be and giving it to her sister and her brother-in-law as a sort of present. They'd be delighted, at least so she hoped, and it would be her first ever presented portrait of someone, if only of a baby. She just hoped that they'd see it for what it was and hold on to it as a keepsake. Thinking all of this as she walked, head down, she hadn't looked up to notice the news placards.

‘
What
news?' Sybil mimicked as she stuck down the ends of yet another box. ‘What … You must have heard the newspapermen yelling it out on your way to work?'

‘I'm sorry,' Connie said. ‘My mind must have been elsewhere.'

‘Oh, you!' Sybil spat derisively.

‘Well, what news?' Connie demanded, suddenly feeling just a little shirty.

‘Why, we're winning, of course!' Sybil went on as if quoting, ‘The BEF and the French have already pushed back the German troops, almost back to where they started. And the BEF have only been over there a few weeks. Like the Government said, it'll be a quick war. And you never noticed the news on all the placards on your way here?'

‘I was thinking of other things,' Connie cut in – all she could think to say, but already her heart was thumping with relief.

Wonderful news! Why hadn't she noticed? It meant that the ordinary man in the street wouldn't be required to fight, wouldn't be told it was his duty to volunteer. Last night at home there'd been such a ruckus – her sisters were still upset, Elsie about her Harry and Lillian about her Jim. And then there was Mum crying her eyes out because Albert, only nineteen, had told them of his intention to enlist, with Dad going off at him saying he was a bloody fool and to wait until he was called up, not go rushing off like a silly sod to get himself killed and what would his Edie have to say about that.

Young Ronnie had added to their father's anger, saying he intended to follow his brother.

‘No you don't,' Dad had warned. ‘You're still under age.'

‘Then I'll just tell 'em I've just turned eighteen,' Ronnie had shot back at him. ‘All my mates are going to do it and I don't want to be the one what's left out. No one's going to question whether I'm old enough, and I do look eighteen, maybe nineteen, because they'll need all the men they can get if it comes to finishing off the enemy in double quick time. And I'll be eighteen in a few weeks' time anyway, so what's the difference?'

Dad had risen up off his chair in his anger. ‘You bloody well listen to me, you silly sod! You want to see that eighteenth birthday of yours? Well, if you get yourself killed, you'll never live to see it, will you? You ain't going to no recruitin' office, and that's that. Till you're eighteen, you come under my orders and you do as I say. After that I can't stop you.'

Sitting back down abruptly into his chair, he had leaned forward to grab his pipe off the mantelpiece and thrust it into his mouth, reaching for his tobacco pouch and stuffing some of its contents into the pipe's bowl.

The others had watched as though mesmerised as he reached into his pocket for his matches, striking one, applying it to the bowl, noisily sucking in as the tobacco ignited, to puff smoke all around his head like a grey halo. Connie recalled the smell of the smoke as she had never done before, while everyone fell silent, struck by his outburst, except for Mum, who could be heard snivelling quietly.

Now, from what Sybil Potter had just told her, she couldn't have heard more wonderful news if she'd looked for it. It meant that her brothers had been saved from their mad impulse to join up; that her sisters would stop quarrelling with their husbands over this talk of volunteering, and that this country could return to peace as soon as the enemy was beaten back by the French and the wonderful British Expeditionary Force – back to their own country to lick their wounds. That would serve them right for thinking they could push other countries around.

The Battle of the Marne it was being called. The Germans losing all the ground they'd captured, Paris now breathing a sigh of relief as the enemy found itself pushed back. Its only course, the papers were saying, had been to dig in and hope for recovery. Open warfare on what was being called The Western Front was a hopeless task. In six weeks all it had done was to march through Belgium with only a fraction of French soil gained and now lost.

But now the papers were reporting that with the enemy forces firmly entrenched, French and English troops were finding it hard to dig them out and had decided to dig in as well so as to stop the casualties it was causing. As autumn passed, the front line seemed to have suddenly become a stalemate.

‘It 'aint right!' Connie heard her dad burst out as he crumpled up his evening paper in a fit of frustration. ‘Soldiers are supposed to stand up and fight, not cower in bloody trenches.'

‘Maybe there's no other way,' Mum said mildly as she poured yet more tea into the quarter-full one sitting within reaching distance on the parlour table beside him.

Taking his ease after a day hauling hundredweight sacks of coal on his back to one customer after another, Dad now sat with his feet on the fender of the fire which blazed away against an uncomfortably chilly September day that had rained non-stop since early morning.

‘Well, I can't see it being a short war if they're goin' to carry on doing that,' he answered her. ‘Someone's got to give way in the end, then they'll have to fight like proper soldiers. This sort of lark could go on for ever 'n' ever as far as I can see.'

Connie sat at the table gazing into the fire and occasionally at Dad's boots, idly wondering how long it would take for them to start smouldering and Mum to say as she always did, ‘Watch them boots of yours, love, before they catch fire,' and him moving his feet to stare at the boots before returning them to their usual position.

Connie had arranged to go down to the library with Doris but she wasn't looking forward to the prospect in weather like this. Umbrella or no, she'd probably return home looking like a drowned rat.

In fact a drowned rat was coming through the front door even now, the door closing with a loud bang. There stood Albert, dripping wet but on his face an expression of triumph mingled with defiance.

Going straight through to the kitchen to take off his sodden topcoat and boots, he came back into the parlour to plonk himself down on an upright chair just by the curtain that shielded Connie's bed.

From there he surveyed his parents' faces, first his mother's. ‘Sorry I'm a bit late coming home, Mum. Been out with some of the blokes. Me tea in the oven, is it?'

She nodded. ‘I'll bring it in here for you, love.'

As she disappeared, he turned his attention to his dad. ‘Well. I've done it!'

‘Done what?'

‘Signed up.'

There came a gasp from his mother, who was coming back with his dinner, a cloth shielding her hands from the hot plate as she stood there stock still.

His father glared at him. ‘You've what?'

‘Signed up. Took meself into the recruiting office and volunteered.'

His father took his feet off the fender, almost falling out of his chair.

‘You bloody fool! What the bloody 'ell for?'

While his mother, like some automaton, put the hot dinner plate carefully on the cloth-covered table, his father, half out of his chair, leaned belligerently towards his son.

‘You bloody, silly fool! What about your girl? What about Ada?'

‘Edith,' Albert corrected calmly. ‘Edie. I'm telling her tonight, when I see her.'

His mother had sat down, limply. ‘Oh, Bertie, love! You should've told us what you intended to do. You should've spoke to Edie first – warned her. And what about you, love, say if you get ki … hurt, wounded?' Her voice faded, choked into silence by stifled tears.

He looked at her affectionately. ‘I'll be all right, Mum. I'll make sure of that. But I had to,' he added firmly. ‘Everyone's doing it. You can't be the odd one out, standing back and watching them go and you do nothing. It's not right.' He gave a shrug. ‘So I've done it, and there's no going back.'

Connie watched her father still sitting forward in his chair as if turned to stone, then abruptly he got up and stalked out, passing his son without a glance at him.

‘I'm going down the pub.' His voice drifted back to them from the kitchen.

Moments later he reappeared in his overcoat and cap as he stomped down the narrow passage, heading for the front door, his wife's voice calling out, ‘Don't be too long, love,' but the door had already slammed shut.

There was silence for a while then she said to her son, ‘Your tea's on the table, Bertie, love. I think I'll have an early night.' So saying, she moved away, going slowly up the stairs, shoulders hunched as though her clothes were now a heavy weight, too heavy to bear.

Connie too got up from where she'd been sitting by the window with its curtains closed against the miserable weather outside.

‘I've got to go out now,' she informed Bertie, who had taken himself over to the table to begin his dinner. He nodded without speaking.

‘I won't be all that late,' she added. She didn't know what to say about her brother enlisting. She was proud of him, she guessed. Proud and a little afraid. ‘I'm off to the library.'

Somehow the thought of braving the bad weather for the bright, warm lights of the library seemed now strangely enticing.

The parlour was deserted when she got back home, Mum already in bed as she'd promised, Dad not yet back from the pub. Albert had mentioned going round to see Edie, and Ron hadn't yet come home from wherever he was. And George was no doubt at his church. Connie settled down in the silent cosiness of the parlour to start on the book she had borrowed from the library:
Sons and Lovers
. She'd taken a fancy to it, while Doris had got herself a light, humorous book, peeking into it and laughing out loud until the librarian had frowned at the two of them.

The library had been practically empty, most people no doubt preferring to leave it until a day when the weather might be kinder. Now, back at home with the place to herself for once, she was looking forward to at least an hour or two before Dad and her brothers came trooping in.

Settling back in Dad's empty fireside chair, absorbed by the story, she didn't know she'd fallen asleep until the sound of a key fumbling in the lock brought her awake with a start, her book having fallen to the floor.

Quickly retrieving it, she leapt out of the chair, thinking it was her father coming home; by the sound of the fumbling key, he was a little the worse for wear from drinking with his mates. Or perhaps it was Ron, equally tipsy, he too no doubt having met friends.

The street door opened and Connie could make out someone trying to creep quietly along the passage, in his effort making more noise than he intended. Connie heard her mother's tired voice call down from upstairs. ‘Love, try to be quiet, you woke me up, dear.'

It was Bertie's voice that answered, a tiny bit slurred. ‘S-sorry, Mum – didn't mean to wake you.'

‘Albert?' Connie called. At the sound of her voice, the parlour door opened. Albert peeped around the door, a foolish expression on his face as it moved into the room followed by the rest of him.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Con. Was you asleep?' No doubt she looked like she had been, but she shook her head.

‘I was reading.'

‘Won't keep you, then,' Albert began, but in seconds had started to expand on his remark. ‘Just come back from Edie's. Had to tell her what I done … enlisted … you know.'

So saying, he flopped into Dad's now vacant chair. ‘I'm sorry, Con, I had a couple of glasses while I was round there, Dutch courage, I guess.'

‘How's she taken it?' Connie asked cautiously.

‘Not sure,' he muttered. ‘But it's done now. No going back. Have to hand me notice in at me firm tomorrow. Give up me milk float, say goodbye to poor old Jinny, me horse. Been good to me, Jinny, pulled me milkfloat ever since I started the job, never ever got skittish. Now I'm going to be whipped off to be a soldier and Lord knows where I'll end up. Don't s'pose I'll ever see poor old Jinny again.'

‘So how did your Edie take it?' Connie repeated in an effort to make him talk more sensibly. She feared she knew the answer – as if his Edie would take his news with smiles and cries of good luck, well done, he not even consulting her before doing what he had. Where were his brains?

Albert grimaced. ‘Not too happy, I'm afraid.'

‘Did you expect her blessing?'

‘Lots of blokes are going off to war with the blessing of them that love 'em. It's our duty.' He looked as if he were about to cry.