The Glory Girls (11 page)

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Good, good.’ Miss Croft continued, talking over tented fingers and making it all sound more like a Women’s Institute lecture on
economizing
in the home. ‘We are looking for drivers mainly on this recruitment operation. Drivers and radio operators. You will, of course, be given some training. However, in view of the pressing circumstances of war, these could well be basic and you might find yourself thrown in, as it were, at the deep end.’ She glanced down at the form Mary had filled in while waiting and tapped her pen on it. ‘Are you a particularly nervous person, would you say?’

‘Not particularly,’ Mary said, not really sure, but she didn’t leap a mile, as her mother and her grandmother did if something went
phut
beside them.

‘Neat handwriting and, as I recall, you speak French fluently and can get by in German. I needn’t tell you how invaluable you could be to any unit you join. It is highly likely that you will end up by being sent to France because of your linguistic ability.’

‘It’s a long time since I spoke either language,’ Mary informed her.

There was a slight clearing of the throat from Anne, who was
beginning
to rock slightly on the balls of her feet, her arms tucked neatly behind her back. Miss Croft looked at her and gave an almost
imperceptible
nod. Anne suddenly bent over the desk and gave Mary a mouthful of rapid French, to which Mary responded without thinking. When Anne switched to German, Mary replied in the same language, but her German was halting and flawed.

‘Thank you, Beasley,’ Miss Croft said and Anne returned to standing stiffly to attention.

‘That was very impressive, Mary. Your French, at least, is still
excellent
.’

‘I don’t get much opportunity to practise foreign languages here in Felling,’ Mary said with an amused smile, wondering what Harry Hornby would do if she suddenly addressed him in German. Faint, probably.

‘Quite,’ Miss Croft almost smiled back at her, but checked herself and returned to the papers before her. ‘Now, just one or two formalities …’

A few minutes later Mary emerged from the van, her cheeks scorching with excitement. Iris was waiting for her and she could also see Effie Donaldson hovering in the background.

‘Well?’

‘I think I got accepted, but I have to wait for official confirmation. You?’

‘Me too,’ Iris squeaked. ‘I think my dad must have pulled some strings with his Masonic pals.’ Iris’s father was an engineer at Swan Hunter’s shipyard.

‘He must have pulled some for me too, then.’ Mary laughed. ‘I thought you had to come from a better background than mine. Mind you, it is wartime.’

‘They’re probably glad of anything they can get.’ Iris raised her eyebrows, then grinned. ‘Just joking, Mary. Anyway, you’re cleverer than me.’

Behind them they heard the spluttering cough of the motorbike engine revving up, then Effie rode off, her tyres kicking up gravel as she swerved perilously around the corner, her skirt riding up to her skinny thighs.

‘They must have turned her down,’ Mary said, feeling quite sorry for the poor girl.

Iris pulled a face and laughed.

‘Well, they do say that the FANYs come from all walks of life, but I doubt if they’d want to dig down as low as Effie Donaldson, even if her father is an undertaker.’

‘Even so,’ Mary felt the need to defend Effie. ‘She can die for her country as well as anybody else.’

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ Iris allowed. ‘I’m sorry I said that.’

‘So you should be. Come on, let’s go and break the news to Mr Hornby … and our families.’

‘You’ve done what, our Mary?’ Jenny West’s eyes were out on stalks and already filling up with tears as she took on board what Mary was telling her.

‘I’ve joined the FANYs, Mam.’

‘What in the name of God did you do that for? Frank, did you hear our girl?’

‘Aye,’ said Frank through the open door between the kitchen and the scullery where he was standing in the tin bath washing off the coal-dust of the day. ‘Here was I wishing I had a son to be proud of and me
daughter
’s
proved herself to be a man.’

‘You what, Frank?’

‘Well, ye know what I mean. I’m proud of ye, Mary, lass.’

‘But Frank! She … she’s joined up, for goodness sake. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

‘Aye,’ came the reply through grunts and much splashing. ‘They turned me down, but now this family can hold its head up high, thanks to our Mary.’

‘I didn’t know you wanted to be a FANY, Dad,’ Mary joked. ‘Oh, Mam, stop looking so worried. It’s not as if I’m going to be fighting or anything like that. They just want drivers and mechanics and such.’

‘But they’re all volunteers, that lot,’ Jenny said. ‘What are you going to do for money?’

‘I’ll manage, Mam,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve got all my savings.’

‘But I thought that was for when you got married.’

‘Yes, well …’ Mary wrinkled her nose and avoided her mother’s eyes. ‘There’s plenty of time for that. Right now, helping my country’s more important.’

‘And where will they be sending you? Not overseas, I hope?’

‘We’re going on a crash course at York. After that we’ll be billeted out wherever we’re needed.’

‘Oh, aye?’ Jenny’s chin was wobbling and her eyes were full to the brim with tears. ‘And who’s “we”?’

‘Iris and me,’ Mary told her. ‘And a few others that were taken on today. I saw Pamela Richardson in the queue, and Nancy Walters. I think poor Effie Donaldson probably got the thumbs down, though, the way she rode off without a word.’

‘Who’s Effie Donaldson when she’s at home?’ Jenny said, trying to mask the fact that she was broken-hearted at the thought of her favourite daughter leaving home and doing something other than knitting for the war effort.

‘She’s from Donaldson’s Funeral Parlour, Mam.’

‘Oh, she’s feisty, that one,’ Frank said, stepping into the kitchen in clean long johns and still drying behind his ears. ‘When she was born I think the midwife must have rubbed her down with sandpaper. Rough as they come, but she’s good at her job. It’s not everybody that can lay out a corpse.’

‘Well, I’m glad they don’t take the likes of her on,’ Jenny concluded. ‘I wouldn’t want you rubbing shoulders with common tarts, and may God forgive me for speaking so bluntly and using such language.’

‘Oh, Mam!’ Mary laughed and moved to the door; she hadn’t even stopped to take off her outdoor things.

‘Now where are you off to?’

‘I thought I’d just slip over to our Helen’s and tell her my news.’

‘Well, before you do, and before I forget to tell you, this letter came for you this morning.’ Jenny took an official-looking envelope down from the mantelpiece and handed it to her daughter.

Mary looked puzzled as she stared at the unfamiliar writing and the
BFPO postmark.

‘Aren’t you going to open it? I thought you’d be excited, getting your first letter from Walter, wherever he is, bless him.’

‘It’s not Walter’s writing, Mam,’ Mary said, sliding her thumb under the seal and pulling out the single piece of paper that was folded inside.

‘Well, who’s it from, then?’

Mary stared at the short letter, written in a bold, slanting hand that seemed to have been unsteady at the time of writing. She read it quickly, not believing what she saw there, then blinked at her mother.

‘Oh, just a friend,’ she said hastily, aware that her cheeks were
colouring
up furiously.

Murmuring her excuses, she stuffed the letter in her pocket and rushed out into the darkening night. She knew her way blindfolded to her sister’s and she headed there now, but her mind played over and over again the few words she had read in Alex Craig’s letter.

By the time she stumbled through Helen’s door, she had so many conflicting emotions rushing around inside her she burst into bittersweet tears and nearly frightened her poor sister to death.

‘Mary! What on earth is wrong?’

‘Everything!’ was all Mary could say.

Three months later, in a windswept field hospital in northern France, Alex was washing the blood of a young soldier off his hands, wondering if he would ever manage to get a proper night’s sleep. The lad was just twenty years old and talking volubly about how lucky he was to be among the wounded. He couldn’t wait to get back home and take his
girlfriend
ice-skating. They hadn’t told him yet that even if he survived surgery he would never walk again, for he had spinal damage and had
lost the use of both legs in the explosion that had blown out the brains of his best pal, whom he had tried to save.

Alex had lost track of the time he had been in the field hospital. It felt like a lifetime. During the first couple of days he thought he would never get used to seeing so much human destruction. He did what he could. It was never enough. On the fourth day something took over inside him, an anger like an inner strength that shut down his nervous system and put his emotions on hold. From that moment on he was able to cope and do his job almost like an automaton.

He grabbed what little sleep he could get between batches of injured servicemen being brought in by the Red Cross ambulances. It was never enough, but during those precious minutes of sleep or half-sleep, his mind turned to pleasanter things. Memories of his childhood home on the west coast of Scotland, the happy days spent there before he went to medical school, the short time he had spent in his uncle’s Felling practice.

He forced himself not to think of Fiona. He did think, however, about Mary West and wondered what she was doing, what she thought of his unforgivable behaviour that night of the benefit when he had lost his head and kissed her. Had his profound sense of loss and loneliness driven him to do such a thing? It seemed like the right thing to do at the time and she had responded, oh, so sweetly. He saw her gentle face and bright eyes and smiling mouth, not only in his dreams, but in flashes as he cared for his patients, trying desperately to remain impersonal.

The sound of vehicles, struggling with deep, throaty roars over the rough terrain outside penetrated his thoughts, together with his ward sister running between the tightly packed beds calling his name.

‘There’s another batch of wounded arriving, Captain Craig, sir,’ Sister Grace Forsyth told him.

‘Where the hell are we going to put them, Sister?’

‘We’ve got a spare ambulance. The FANYs are kitting it out to take the walking wounded to the next field site. Orders to break camp are expected at any minute. It’ll be a crush, but until we can get an extension for this circus tent, it’s the best we can do.’

‘How many moves have you made so far, Sister?’

‘Four, including this one,’ she replied.

‘In how long?’

‘In almost as many weeks.’

‘Good Lord, Sister. Does Hitler have a crystal ball or something? Is there a spy in the unit perhaps?’

Grace Forsyth shrugged her shoulders and stared at his Adam’s apple.
He noticed how her hands bunched into fists and that she stuck them behind her back as if to hide them from sight.

‘The Germans are strong in this part of France, sir. They’re on the march and they’re knocking our units out as fast as they set up camp. It’s a war, Captain Craig. Somebody wins, somebody loses.’

‘And at the moment it would seem that the Germans have the upper hand and all we medics can do is patch up the suffering they inflict on our boys.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m afraid that’s the way it is.’

Alex doused his face with cold water and scrubbed his skin dry as Sister Forsyth went on giving him the latest progress reports on the more seriously ill and wounded in their care. The tent hospital was an
expedient
affair and could be dismantled and moved easily enough with the help of the troops who were attached to the unit. He wondered how long they could keep one step ahead of the advancing Wehrmacht. Things already seemed too close for comfort.

The hospital was draughty and never warm enough and the surgeons often had to work with hands that were blue with the cold, warmed only by the blood of their patients. There was never enough space, staff, instruments or medicines. Equipment was basic and very often archaic, and there was insufficient food to go around.

‘Damn the bloody Germans!’ he spat out, then, turning, he got his eye on a blond-haired boy as young as the private soldier he had just finished patching up.

The lad was shivering convulsively and muttering to himself, fingers plucking at his coarse army blanket. Alex imagined that the eyes behind the soiled bandage, oozing with gangrenous smelling pus, had once been a clear blue. He probably had a girlfriend back home too, and a mother weeping for him, and a proud father.

‘
Horen Sie das Lied
?’

‘What’s he saying?’ Alex asked, wondering why he had not noticed the German soldier before now.

‘He’s asking if you can hear the song,’ Grace said, her expression giving nothing away of how she felt inside, if she felt anything at all.

‘What song?’

‘I don’t know. He keeps humming a tune, trying to sing the words. He’s been like that ever since they brought him in.’

‘How long has he been here?’

‘Three days.’

‘And no one has changed the dressings on his eyes?’

‘There were other priorities.’

Alex felt a red rage rush through him, but half the fury was directed at himself. He should have noticed this boy. He, at least, had eyes to see.