Authors: Annie Groves
Resolutely Sally ignored Doris’s exclamation.
‘And I’ve had a word wi’ the foreman on my shift and told him how I want to switch to a shift that’s got spare places in Littlewoods’ nursery for my boys. He reckons that I’ve just dropped lucky and he can get me in on a daytime shift that’s short-handed because a couple of girls on it are in the family way.’
‘Oh, Sally!’ Doris looked relieved. ‘I’ve bin worrying that much about not wanting to let you down when Molly had this new baby.’
‘I should have said something earlier,’ Sally told her, hoping that Doris couldn’t hear the bleakness in her voice and guess how she was really feeling. Of course, Doris’s own grandchildren came before
her boys, just as Molly came before her, but she still couldn’t help feeling a bit raw on her boys’ behalf. They thought the world of Doris.
‘You should see Lillibet with the baby, Sally. A proper family, my Frank’s got now. And as for little Teddy, hardly dropped an ounce, he has, since he was born. Really bonny, he is, and strong. You should see him kicking away. And he’s that good, Sally. Molly was saying how she has to wake him up for his feed at night he’s sleeping that well.’
Sally smiled and nodded as she listened to Doris’s proud grandmotherly praise of the new baby. She could understand Doris’s feelings, but at the same time she couldn’t help thinking how lucky Molly was to have a grandmother like Doris for her sons. Ronnie’s parents had both died before they got married, and her own mother was not the doting grandmother kind.
‘Have you heard the latest news about that school?’ Sally interrupted her, wanting to change the subject. When Doris shook her head, Sally continued, ‘There’s thirty-one kiddies dead along with two of their teachers. They’ve got some of the others out alive but injured.’ She gave a fierce shiver. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘No it doesn’t,’ Doris agreed fervently, before continuing, ‘Did I tell you that little Teddy is the spitting image of my Frank when he was born? Oh heavens, is that the time?’ she exclaimed guiltily. ‘I’d better get back. I promised Molly that I wouldn’t be long. Did I tell you about our Frank, Sally? Like a dog with two tails, he is, and no wonder.’
Doris couldn’t stop herself from talking about the new baby, and although she tried hard to look enthusiastic, Sally’s heart was heavy with sadness and envy. Maybe if she’d gone back to Manchester after her two had been born
they
would have had a doting grandmother, not that she could really see her mother in that role, and besides, she had a houseful now with Sally’s younger siblings living there with their own families.
She had been so happy here and had felt so safe. But those feelings had been stolen away by the war and by the problems it had brought her.
‘Fancy a cup of Horlicks?’
Sam looked up as Hazel put her head round the sitting-room door, where Sally was on her own, reading.
Before she could accept or refuse Hazel came in and sat down beside her.
‘Look, don’t go taking what Lynsey said to heart. She doesn’t mean any harm really. If you want the truth I reckon she’s fallen hard for this sergeant, and since he isn’t running around after her like men normally do it’s making her crabby.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise we weren’t to talk about Mouse,’ Sam apologised woodenly.
‘You weren’t to know. I’m glad I’ve caught you on your own. I’ve been wanting to have a quiet word with you. You’re the sort the ATS needs, Sam, but there are some things you have to understand. Sometimes it’s in everyone’s interests to have a fresh start. Like with you and Lynsey. Nothing’s
going to bring Mouse back. We’re at war, Sam, and in wartime people do, say and think things they wouldn’t do normally. Sometimes …’ she stopped. ‘Sometimes, Sam, we all have to make decisions that we may not really want to make. We have to cut away from situations that are hurting us and aren’t good for us, and draw a line under them for our own sake and for the sake of those around us. Sometimes life is unfair and unkind. War teaches us that, Sam.’
Sam knew that there was a lot of good sense in what Hazel was saying. She had heard her own brother voice much the same sentiments.
‘You and Lynsey were good pals when you were first posted here.’ Hazel’s voice was persuasive now.
‘I thought we were,’ Sam agreed.
‘I reckon part of the trouble has been on account of you dancing with her sergeant,’ Hazel said unexpectedly.
Sam was too astonished to conceal her disbelief. ‘But I explained to her that he isn’t interested in me, and I’m certainly not interested in him.’
‘He danced with you when she’d been expecting him to dance with her, with it being the last dance of the night and everything. Lynsey isn’t the kind who would take kindly to something like that. In her eyes, him dancing with you showed her up. She isn’t used to coming second best; it’s other girls who are jealous of her normally, not the other way round.’
‘She doesn’t have to be jealous of me. I—’
‘You might know that but I reckon Lynsey isn’t convinced. If you want my opinion, for all that she won’t admit it I think she’s finding it harder to get this sergeant to fall for her than she expected. For once she’s the one doing the chasing. The other girls can see that and they’re not slow to tell her so, especially May. It’s bad for morale when girls fall out over a chap. Lynsey isn’t as tough as she likes to make out and my guess is that she feels pretty badly about Mouse, even if she isn’t saying so.’
‘I’m beginning to think that it would be best for all of us if I put in for a transfer,’ Sam told her in a low voice. ‘I don’t seem to fit in any more and since we’re talking of fresh starts …’
‘Give it time,’ Hazel advised her.
It was all very well for Hazel to tell her to give things time, but how was she supposed to do that when Lynsey was making it clear how much she resented and disliked her? Working here on her own at the barracks, where she had worked with Mouse, half expecting to hear her voice every time she managed to forget what had happened for a few seconds wasn’t helping either, she acknowledged miserably as she stared at what seemed like a never-ending stock list.
‘Frank told you yet that Molly’s had a little boy?’
Sam almost jumped out of her skin. Sergeant Everton!
‘Anyone would think you’d been trained as a
spy the way you go creeping up on a person,’ she complained.
‘Over the moon, he is, from what I’ve heard.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Sam agreed, refusing to look at him.
‘About the other day …’
The gloves were off now and no mistake. She had been waiting for something like this, Sam admitted. She had known that he wouldn’t let what he had seen go without saying something about it. Not that he had any business telling her what to do.
‘I’m going for my break,’ she told him, knowing that whatever it was he planned to say to her, she did not want to hear it. What gave him the right anyway to keep on at her the way he did? It wasn’t even as though she had done anything wrong.
‘Heard about what happened to your pal.’
Sam was too taken off guard to do anything other than stare up at him in pain. Lynsey must have told him, she guessed.
‘Bad do,’ he added, causing Sam’s shock that he should mention Mouse to turn to anger. Did he really expect her to believe that he meant that? Of course he didn’t. Not a man like him. And besides, he was bound to agree with Lynsey’s opinion of Mouse, as they were seeing one another.
‘
I
think so,’ she told him pointedly. His words had grated on her still-raw emotions like someone touching an exposed nerve in a bad tooth. ‘But you don’t. Not really. I expect you think the ATS is better off without her, just like Lynsey does.’
‘Now wait just a minute—’
‘No! Why should I? And why should people like you still go on criticising poor Mouse? Haven’t you all hurt her enough? She’s dead now. Can’t you leave her alone and let her rest in peace? You don’t care about Mouse at all. No one here does except me. No one! I’m not even allowed to ask what’s happened to … to her, or if she’s going to be buried with her mother, like I know she would have wanted,’ Sam burst out wretchedly, filled with the misery of the last few days and her pain at the lack of any proper respectful mourning for her friend, even though logically she knew why this was not possible. To her chagrin she realised that she was dangerously close to tears. She could feel them clogging her throat and burning the backs of her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was to humiliate herself by crying in front of this man.
‘I’ll bet that you and Lynsey had a wonderful time pulling Mouse to pieces, just like Toadie did her bear,’ Sam rushed on, swallowing back her threatening tears.
‘Lynsey?’
‘And I’m sure she’ll have told you as well how relieved everyone is that poor Mouse isn’t around any more. Everyone but me, that is.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ he tried to stop her, but Sam was too caught up in her own feelings and her determination to show him that she cared about Mouse and she didn’t care how unpopular that made her.
‘Well, you can tell her that she won’t have to
put up with me for much longer because I’m going to put in for a transfer. That should please everyone. And this time I’m going to ask for a posting as a driver, seeing as that’s what the ATS have me trained to do.’
‘You’ve trained as a driver?’ he queried sharply.
‘Yes,’ Sam confirmed.
‘Then how come you’re working as a clerk?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Larked about and got rumbled by the wrong person, did you?’ he guessed.
Sam stared at him. He had no right to make such an astute guess and be right. How could he have judged her so accurately when he barely knew her? Suddenly she felt vulnerable in a way that was totally unfamiliar to her. How could this man, who did nothing but criticise her and who always seemed to be there when she most wanted him not to be there, be able to know something like that about her? Certainly not from Lynsey, because Sam hadn’t told the other girls about that. She felt thoroughly unnerved, not just by his assessment but by her own emotions, which she could neither understand nor control.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she told him, refusing to acknowledge that he had guessed correctly.
‘But you do want that transfer?’
Why was he asking her that? Because Lynsey had told him about their fall-out? Because he harboured suspicions that she was trying to chase after Sergeant Brookes?
‘I said I did, didn’t I?’ she answered assertively. ‘Do you really think I’d want to stay here after what’s happened?’ she demanded when he made no comment but instead simply looked at her, subjecting her to a silent scrutiny as though he was weighing her up – and finding her wanting. ‘Well, I don’t,’ she told him forcefully. ‘In fact …’ Sam stopped, her voice cracking, unable to continue, hating herself for her vulnerability, and hating him for being there to witness it. What was
happening
to her?
She started to turn away, wanting to get away from him before she broke down completely and then stiffened, inhaling in shocked disbelief as he moved, blocking her exit and then closing the distance between them, to take hold of her in an imprisoning grip. She could feel the strength of his hands as he held her upper arms and she could feel their warmth too.
‘Now listen to me for a moment.’
‘Listen to
you
?’ Her heart was jerking around inside her chest and her pulse was racing. Humiliatingly she could feel tears prickling the backs of her eyes. ‘Why? So that you can start criticising me again? So that you can make more accusations about me that aren’t true? No thank you.’ She must not let him see the effect he was having on her or how emotionally vulnerable he made her feel. No man had reduced her to tears, not ever, and she had never imagined that they might. Tears in reaction to male criticism belonged to a very different type of woman from her, and
it increased her hostility towards Johnny Everton that he should somehow have managed to provoke them.
Sam wasn’t prepared to listen to him any more. Abandoning her list, she pushed past him, ignoring his curt demand that she stay and listen to what he had to say. She could imagine all too easily the cruel way he and Lynsey would have talked about poor Mouse.
She
was
going to ask for a transfer, Sam decided. A fresh start was definitely what she needed.
‘You sang lovely in church this morning, Sally, didn’t she, Vicar?’
‘Indeed she did, Mrs Brookes,’ the vicar agreed. ‘In fact I was hoping to have a word with you to ask you if you’d be kind enough to help out with teaching the little ones ready for the Christmas carol service. I know we’re only just going into October this week, but it takes time to get them to learn all the words properly. Brown Owl does her best, but she isn’t very musical.’
‘Well …’ Sally began uncertainly.
‘You don’t have to give me an answer right now. Oh, excuse me whilst I go and have a word with Dr Ross and welcome him to our community.’
Dr Ross! Sally couldn’t stop herself turning round to look over to where the doctor was standing with the vicar’s wife. Was it because she now knew of his personal loss that she felt he looked very alone?
She
was feeling sorry for
him?
Sally frowned.
‘Well, I’m not having mine joining in any carol
singing, not if she’s going to be teaching them after what she’s tried to do to me and mine.’
As the strident sound of Daisy’s voice reached her, Sally was well aware that it had been deliberately pitched loud enough for her to hear, and not just her; she could feel the sidelong looks she was being given.
‘That’s daft talk, Daisy, and you know it,’ Doris responded immediately, coming to Sally’s rescue. ‘In your shoes I’d be down on me knees thanking God that I hadn’t got more sick kiddies on me conscience.’
‘That’s a lie that it were our fault.’ Daisy’s face was bright red with temper. ‘And if she’s been saying any different—’
‘Sally’s said nothing,’ Doris defended her.
‘Sez you. If that’s true then how come he’s here?’ Daisy nodded in the direction of the doctor. ‘Let him just start trying to put the blame on us and I’ll have a thing or two to say to him about her. Some mother she is, leaving her kiddies with someone else and going off out at night. You’d never catch me doing owt like that …’
‘Oh, there you are, Mam,’ Frank announced, hurrying over. ‘Molly’s told me to have a word with the vicar about the christening. I’ve told her there’s plenty of time but she wants Teddy christened well before Christmas. Can you keep an eye on Lillibet for a minute for me?’
‘How is Molly now, Frank?’ Daisy asked, immediately solicitous, turning her back on Sally as she did so.
‘Picking up a bit – but don’t go bringing her any of them sandwiches of yours, Daisy,’ Frank grinned, winking at Sally.
‘Take no notice of Daisy, Sally,’ Doris counselled Sally when Daisy had subsided. ‘Allus had a bit of a temper on her, she has. How’ve you gone on with changing your shift at the factory?’
‘The foreman says that he’s sorting it out as fast as he can.’
Sally knew from Doris’s expression that her words had been sharper than they should have been, but it wasn’t her fault, was it, that all of a sudden she and her sons were just a nuisance?
‘Dr Ross is coming over,’ Doris told her quietly.
‘He’s probably heard that Molly’s had her baby and he wants to have another go at me to have my two evacuated,’ Sally returned, refusing to let go of her hostility.
‘Well, there’s summat to be said for it,’ Doris told her. ‘I can’t pretend that I haven’t been thinking meself that it isn’t safe for kiddies to be living in Liverpool since that school was bombed.’
Sally was too busy trying to call back Tommy, who had seen the doctor and was making for him, to answer her, but it was too late, and she had to stand by in chagrined embarrassment as her son flung himself at his hero, clasping him round the knees as he beamed up at him.
‘Well, you can certainly see he’s used to handling kiddies,’ Doris remarked approvingly as she too watched the doctor bend down and pick Tommy up.
‘Huh,’ Sally heard Daisy exclaiming sourly. ‘I’m sure I know what to think about the kind of woman who uses her kiddies to go sucking up to a man, especially when she’s already got a husband. Downright shocking, I call it, but then you allus get them sort wot has that much brass face they don’t care what anyone else thinks. I never thought as we’d have one living in a respectable neighbourhood like ours, though.’
Sally had had enough. Turning round, she said to Daisy fiercely, ‘If you’re talking about me—’
‘Don’t let her upset you, Sally,’ Doris intervened quickly. ‘The trouble with Daisy is that she doesn’t allus know when she’s gone too far. She doesn’t mean any harm.’
Sally didn’t believe that for one moment but Doris’s intervention was enough to have Sally recoiling from the recognition of how ashamed of herself she would have felt if she had been provoked into an exchange of insults, not just in public, but also having just come out of church.
‘The doctor looks lonely. If it wasn’t for Molly just having had her baby I’d invite him back to have his Sunday dinner with us,’ Doris commented. ‘Mind you, I expect the vicar will have asked him to join them.’
‘Would you do me a favour, Doris, and go over and tell Tommy that we’re going home now?’ Sally asked. ‘I’d go myself only I don’t want Daisy making any more accusations.’
‘Oh, don’t pay any attention to her. No one else will,’ Doris told her forthrightly, but Sally stood
her ground, refusing to look across at the doctor, and hurrying Tommy away as soon as he came back.
Normally Sam enjoyed Sundays. There was something that always lifted her spirits about the bracing parade-ground-style march down to the small local church, followed by their shared singing of the traditional hymns that every schoolchild knew off by heart. But it would take more than singing hymns to lift her spirits today, she admitted as she filed into a pew behind May and then kneeled to say a few words of silent prayer. She had come down here to the church several times since Mouse’s death, torn between the comforting familiarity of kneeling to say her prayers for her friend, and her wretchedness and guilt because of the manner of that death.
Her personal prayers said, she stood up, pity clutching at her heart as she saw the little black-clad family several pews in front of her: three young children, a girl and two boys, clinging to their mother.
Not very far away from them stood a young couple who were exchanging tender looks, and Sam wasn’t surprised to hear their wedding bans being read in the service, nor the announcement of the loss of another brave fighting man – husband and father to the family she had already noticed.
‘Pity you didn’t come with us last night,’ May commented once they were outside. ‘You should have seen the way Lynsey was carrying on over
her sergeant. All over him like a rash, she was. She’s really got it bad. She’s nuts about him.’ She started to yawn. ‘Gawd knows how I managed to get up in time for parade this morning.’ She smothered another yawn. ‘This time next week we’ll be into October; I hope I get Christmas leave this year. Normally the whole family get together. My mum’s got two sisters and a brother, and they all come round to us; there’s always a houseful. We had some smashing fun before the war. I missed it last year. Have you got any plans?’
‘No, I haven’t thought about it,’ Sam told her truthfully.
‘An only one, are you?’ May looked sympathetic.
Sam shook her head. ‘No, I’ve got a brother. He’s in the RAF. I can’t remember the last time we got leave together, though.’
‘This will be the fourth Christmas we’ve been at war,’ May pointed out unnecessarily.
They exchanged looks and then May shivered.
‘My dad said it’d go on longer than everyone said. Watch out,’ she warned Sam, putting out the cigarette she had been smoking. ‘Here comes the captain.’
Both of them were standing smartly to attention, ready to salute, by the time the captain, deep in conversation with the vicar, drew level with them.
Sunday afternoon for those girls who didn’t have a pass out were normally spent in the shared sitting
room, writing letters or engaged in some activity such as reading, knitting or sewing, the captain apparently having ‘strong views’ about the morality of playing card games on a Sunday.
Sam had just finished writing her weekly letter to her parents when she heard her name being called.
‘Captain wants to see you,’ the young lieutenant informed her.
Sam tried not to look as anxious as she felt. The soles to her better pair of shoes had started to come away and so she had had to wear her other less well-polished pair this morning, and no doubt the captain had noticed that fact when she had walked past them. Had there been any other faults with the smartness of her uniform, Sam worried uneasily as she made her way to the captain’s office. She may still feel unhappy about the statement she had been pressured into giving after Mouse’s death, but she was too sensible not to know that if she went ahead and asked for a transfer, it would not help her cause if she were to get on the wrong side of the captain.
‘Private Grey, ma’am,’ the lieutenant announced as they both saluted.
‘Ah, Private Grey. Good. Sit down.’
The captain was actually smiling approvingly at her!
‘Naturally I expect the women under my command to remember that we are all judged by the behaviour of each of us and put up a good show. We all want the country to be proud of us.
However, I must say that one can’t help but feel pleased when a senior army officer applauds the pluck of one of one’s gals. Well done, Grey.’
Sam was baffled by the captain’s praise and felt sure that she had been mistaken for someone else, but she knew enough of the system now not to say so.
‘In fact Major Thomas is so impressed with you that he has requested your transfer to his unit, as his personal driver and stenographer. It seems his existing driver is getting married and has requested a transfer back to Aldershot.’
‘Major Thomas?’
Sam tried not to look too blank. She had no idea who Major Thomas was. She really
must
have been confused with someone else. A someone else she was already envying. There was nothing she’d like more than to leave the storeroom, especially for a role that involved driving. However, honesty compelled her to ask uneasily, ‘Permission to speak, ma’am?’
‘Yes?’
‘I haven’t met Major Thomas, and I was wondering if there could have been a mistake and—’
‘The British military does not make mistakes, Private,’ the captain told her severely.
‘No, ma’am,’ Sam agreed woodenly.
‘You will report to Major Thomas at oh nine hundred hours tomorrow morning at Deysbrook Barracks and he will brief you as to your new duties then. I do have to tell you that there will
be some degree of danger involved in those new duties, although Major Thomas tells me that you will not be required to accompany him when one of his men is actually defusing any bombs. You can, of course, refuse this transfer if you wish. However, as I have already told Major Thomas, my gals do not flinch in the face of danger.’
‘No, ma’am,’ Sam agreed, more readily this time. Disordered thoughts were whirling round inside her head. She had managed to work out from what the captain had said that Major Thomas must be with the ‘Ifs and Buts’, as the Inspectorate of Fortifications and Directorate of Bomb Disposal was unofficially known. Normally that would not have put her off working for him in the slightest – quite the opposite – but there was the small matter of Sergeant Johnny Everton, who was also with the Bomb Disposal squad, and their mutual dislike and hostility. She could well imagine how he was likely to feel about them being in one another’s proximity. The thought of that certainly put her off.
But what a marvellous thing it would be to get away from the stores, with its memories of Mouse. And what a marvellous thing too to be working as a driver. It was a dream come true. She couldn’t think of a role that better fulfilled her longing for more action and contributing something of real value to the war effort. If it weren’t for Sergeant Everton she would have been ready to jump over the moon. But then why should she let the thought of him spoil things for her? She’d be an idiot to
turn down such an opportunity. As the major’s driver she was hardly likely to come into much contact with him, she assured herself. She had learned from Sergeant Brookes that the work of Bomb Disposal’s noncommissioned ranks involved preparing the bombs for defusing, whilst the officers were responsible for carrying out that defusing.
‘Good-oh, Grey,’ the captain was saying. ‘Jolly good show.’
It was too late for her to say anything now. The decision had been made for her. Automatically Sam saluted, sensing that she was about to be dismissed.
She was still sure there must have been a mistake, and that the major couldn’t possibly have really meant her, but she knew there was no point in continuing to try to say so. Maybe once he saw her the major would announce that she
was
the wrong person. She knew already how disappointed she would feel if he did.
‘You’re looking a lot more cheerful. Had some good news?’ Hazel asked half an hour later when Sam went back to the sitting room.
‘Sort of. The captain just sent for me to tell me that from tomorrow I’m going to be driving a Major Thomas and working as his stenographer,’ Sam told her, but not adding that supposedly the major had asked for her to be transferred to his staff. ‘It seems the girl who was working for him is getting married and has asked for a transfer back to Aldershot.’
‘Don’t mention marriage to me,’ Hazel replied grimly.
Sam frowned. Hazel had hardly mentioned her naval boyfriend following her visit to see him in Dartmouth.
‘If your chap’s still holding back, I expect it’s because he’s thinking of things from your point of view and how it would be if you were to get married and something should happen to him,’ she offered tactfully.
‘You’re very kind, Sam, but actually he isn’t ‘my’ chap any more. That was decided before I left Dartmouth.’ She gave Sam a wry look. ‘The only thing he’s been holding back from has been doing anything that would stop him from playing the field, as I found out when I was down there. He certainly wasn’t holding back from trying to persuade me to go the whole way with him when I first arrived, if you know what I mean,’ Hazel continued forthrightly. ‘That’s all he could go on about, until I caught him in a corner of the services bar with a Wren. It’s sweet of you to try to make me feel better, though, Sam. I’ve been a fool to myself and I know it. If he’d thought anything of me, the ‘yes’ he’d have wanted from me would have been in answer to his proposal of marriage, not his proposition to take me to bed. Three months ago I might have been tempted to say yes, but thank heavens I used my head, otherwise I’d have been in a real state when I caught him with that Wren. Of course, he blamed me and said it was because I’d turn him down for you-know-what, and then
he kept going on about how other girls were more “understanding” and accommodating. Well, he’s welcome to them, that’s all I can say. That’s why I cut my leave short. There was no point in my staying on after that. I told him it was over between us and that I didn’t want to see him any more. To be honest, what hurts more than ending it with him is knowing that I’ve been such a fool.’ She was smiling bravely but Sam could sense that she was upset.