The Gunner Girl (7 page)

Thank you, God, she thought, standing like a starched collar with the rest of the squad as the sergeant stalked and bellowed in front of them. The wind bit into her bones, but she daren't
shiver, and the cold was making her nose run, but she daren't reach into her pocket for a hanky to wipe away the dewdrop that was beginning to form. She'd got it right, they all had.
Things would start to get better from now on.

‘You pack of tarts had better remember, you're in the army now, and . . .' Would he never shut up? The horrid little man. But surely he was nearly finished. They had done well
this morning, and it was almost lunchtime already. They'd been here nearly a week now. Days of drilling and being shouted at and wearing these horrible scratchy, ill-fitting uniforms and the
swearing and the dreadful food, and the injections and the aching tiredness. But it was nearly over, wasn't it? They'd proved they could do drill well enough to go on church parade in
the morning, and to get some precious evening passes the following week. The worst had to be over. Maybe she'd even get time to write home. He was still shouting, and the wind was slapping
her cheeks like an angry nanny.

‘. . . I've seen cripples looking better on a parade square. If you lot think you're going on church parade tomorrow, you can think again. Dismissed.'

‘I can't believe we're not good enough!' Edie said, spearing a greyish potato with her fork and wiping it in the dribble of brown gravy. ‘I
thought we did really well out there.'

‘We did the best we've done so far,' said the girl sitting next to her.

‘And if that's not good enough, I don't know what is. We were all in step, all the way through, weren't we?'

The other girls nodded, their cheeks bulging with boiled beef, carrots and potatoes. All around was the clink and scrape of cutlery and the muted hum of voices as the recruits chewed their way
through lunch. Steam rose and hands nursed tin mugs of tea.

Edie put the potato in her mouth and swallowed quickly. It didn't taste good, but she was famished. All morning they'd been out on the drill square in this north-easterly. What
wouldn't she give to be able to sink under her eiderdown right now with her copy of
Gone with the Wind
, a large mug of cocoa and one of Cook's special teacakes. But instead,
she was here, in the cold, with the shouting and the swearing and, now, not even the solace of church to look forward to. Really, she could cry. She crammed another soggy potato into her mouth and
sniffed.

‘Anyone have a clue what's on this afternoon?' said Joan, sitting opposite, mashing up carrots with her fork and mixing them in with her potatoes.

‘Nanny used to do that for me,' Edie said. ‘Sunshine mash, she called it. She always used to make me eat up all my vegetables, told me they'd make my hair curl like
Shirley Temple. That and toast crusts,' she added, poking a piece of meat that was more gristle than anything.

‘I'll finish it, if you don't want it,' said the girl next to her.

‘Yes, do,' said Edie, handing over her plate. She was still hungry, but she didn't feel like eating; she felt like running away and hiding. Basic training was worse than the
first term of school.

‘Ta,' said the girl. ‘And the answer is, scrubbing. I overheard Corporal Robbins and the troop staffie talking about it on the way in.'

‘Scrubbing what?' said Edie.

‘I don't know, but I'm sure they'll think of something,' she said, shovelling the remains of Edie's lunch into her mouth. ‘They always do.'

This has got to be the final spirit breaker, thought Edie, as they stepped into the denim overalls. Fumbling with a bit of string round her waist, she reminded herself to be
cheerful. Did they make Mary Churchill do this as well? she wondered. They were tasked with scrubbing the inside of an empty hangar. There was an enormous concrete floor. They were given buckets of
cold, soapy water and old scrubbing brushes with half the bristles missing and told to get on with it.

Dear Jesus, give me the strength to get on with this without complaint.
An internal prayer sometimes helped; she tried to think about what He had done for everyone, and her privations
just seemed trivial in comparison. What was her suffering in comparison to His? She told herself to buck up, and swung the slopping water bucket to the furthest corner of the hangar.

To begin with, she tried to make the best of it, despite her crushing disappointment about their not being up to scratch for church parade. The girls' voices echoed round the hangar as
they set down to work. Someone began singing ‘Pack Up Your Troubles' and for a while they all joined in, until eventually the singing dwindled. Then she chatted to the girl next to her,
the one who'd finished off her lunch. She was from Kent and her name was Bea. She had about a million brothers and sisters, and her mother took in washing. She showed Edie how to use the
brush properly but, no matter how hard she tried, Edie couldn't scrub as well as her. Soon Edie's arms began to ache, and her hands were red and chafed from the cold water and the
brush. The hangar was silent now, but for the sound of wet bristles and the scrape of a tin bucket against the concrete. They scrubbed for what felt like hours, until in the end the pain and the
rhythm of brushing and the chill wetness became one. She looked at the girl next to her, weary determination in her eyes as she paused to wipe her hair away from her forehead. She had such a kind,
sad face. It reminded her a bit of Mary Churchill's: dimpled and doughy. Edie told herself to buck up: no one likes a whinger, least of all a posh one.

At last, the company sergeant major was called to come and inspect, and they stood to attention along the wall, waiting. He threw open the hangar door and walked right across the wet bit that
they had just finished. The bottom of his boots were caked in mud.

‘You'd better do this bit again. It's dirty,' he said, walking up and down the hangar, and then he began to stride towards the door. Edie heard the sound of one of the
other girls beginning to sob.

‘That's simply not on,' Edie said, lurching out of line. There was a collective gasp and she caught Bea's eye. Bea shook her head, a worried look on her face, but Edie
took no notice. The company sergeant major spun his bulk round to face her, his face beetroot-red, his greasy moustache twitching. ‘Now listen here,' Edie continued. ‘It was
perfectly clean until you walked all over it in your filthy boots. We've all worked really hard and you've ruined it.'

The barrage that followed was worse than she had endured in all drill or room inspections from the previous week. He thrust forwards and the force of his roaring anger pushed her back into line:
just who did she think she was? If she ever spoke that way again . . . letting down the squad . . . letting herself down, letting the country down . . .
his horrid eyes like dirty marbles,
his putrid breath as he shoved his shouting face right into hers. She would scrub the entire floor again. On her own. He turned and stalked out.

‘Nice one, Lightwater,' said the corporal, handing her a bucket and brush, after he'd gone. Edie realised she was shaking. She could barely hold the bucket handle. The other
girls, dismissed, headed outside. Bea touched Edie on the shoulder as she left.

‘Chin up, girl,' she said.

And as Edie watched them all file out into the late afternoon, she let a couple of hot tears fall, disappearing softly onto the dampness of the floor. ‘Chin up' was what Pop always
said when she was sad. ‘Chin up, Half Pint,' when she was in trouble with Mummy or Nanny or had fallen off her pony again. She hadn't even told Pop she was leaving. He'd be
worried, and Mummy would be frantic. Maybe they'd come and find her and she could escape this horrible place. Maybe Mummy was right; maybe she was better suited to making bandages and
knitting scarves for prisoners of war. She turned, eyes blurring with tears, and knelt back down with the brush and bucket. The company sergeant had walked the full length of the hangar in his
boots. From outside, she could hear the rest of the squad being shouted at on the drill square: ‘Keep yer 'ands still! Eyes front! Hup, two-three-four, down, two-three-four . . .'
What was the point? They'd already been told they weren't good enough for church parade, and there'd be no time off next week. They might as well all give up and go home.

The floor was hard and dug into the thin skin on her knees. The water, cold to start with, was icy now. She was shaking still, partly from the shock of the sergeant's anger, and partly
from the cold. Her stomach growled; she should have eaten some more of her lunch before passing it over to Bea. Outside, the shouting went on: left wheels and right wheels and marking time. As Edie
scrubbed, she followed the squad in her head, moving the brush in time with the squad's footfalls. She had let them all down. Talking back to the company sergeant major. What was she thinking
of ?

She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and began to recite the Lord's Prayer under her breath. The rhythm of the familiar prayer mingled with the muffled sounds of drill and
the swish of her scrubbing brush.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .

It was dark by the time someone – the corporal – came back and cast a cursory eye over the spotless floor; the company sergeant major not bothering to turn up himself. Then, Edie
trudged through the darkening evening to the empty cookhouse. There was a plate of toast and jam and a mug of tea waiting for her. The toast was burnt and cold, and the tea tepid. After she'd
finished, she put the plate and mug on the counter and was just thinking about whether to head to the NAAFI for a cocoa or just give up on the whole shebang and go to bed, when she heard the sound
of the cookhouse door opening. She turned to look, and there was the company sergeant major. He took off his hat and hesitated, just a fraction, before beginning to walk towards her. Edie
didn't know where to look; there was just the two of them in the empty cookhouse, after blackout. She held her breath. What now? Was the wretched floor still not clean enough? How she wished
she'd never entered the recruiting office and signed her name in triplicate on their silly forms. How she wished she'd never even heard of Mary Churchill. How she wished she could just
go home.

Edie watched the CSM's approaching bulk. His uniform looked more brown than khaki under the dull lights, and his face was no longer beetroot-coloured. He cleared his throat as he got
nearer and she braced up, readying herself for the inevitable bawling out.

‘Sir,' she breathed, bracing up again, almost unable to speak.

‘I thought I'd find you here,' he said. ‘Stand easy.' She could see the line where his hat had cut a groove in the skin on his forehead, and the deep furrow between
his bushy brows. ‘I've got your parents in my office, Lightwater. They've come to take you home.'

‘Sir?'

‘Your mum and dad. They've been worried sick.' He rubbed a hand across his head, smoothing down the thinning hair that was slicked down against his scalp.

Edie didn't know what to say. Mummy and Pop were here! She wondered how on earth they'd found her – but then remembered Pop's old friend George Cowie, who was very high
up in the War Office, so maybe . . .

‘Why the hell didn't you let them know you'd joined up? We've had the police here as well,' said the CSM, interrupting her thoughts. He let out a sigh.

‘I didn't think they'd let me come,' she said.

‘I see.' His thumb flicked the rim of his hat.

‘So I can leave, sir?' she said. ‘I can just walk out?' Could she? Could she really just leave all this behind? Go home now, back to her room, back to Mummy and Pop and
Cook and Marjorie and Mrs Carson and quiet nights in front of the fire.

He cleared his throat again. ‘Well, you're a volunteer, not a conscript, so if you really feel you have to leave then I think we could find some form of legitimate discharge –
your height perhaps – in your case, at least.'

In her case? Had Pop asked George Cowie to pull some strings? Edie looked at the CSM and he looked back at her. His eyes had lost their glassiness. They just looked red-rimmed and tired, like an
old man's.

‘The thing is, Private, take a look at me. I've been in the army twenty years. The army made a man of me.' Here we go, thought Edie. He's going to tell me to grow up, and
try to bully me into staying. ‘And I'll tell you this,' he continued. ‘There's nothing I'd like better than to be at home right now.'

She thought she knew what was coming next. Something about how everyone was homesick, but that they were all in it to fight Hitler. About how if they all pulled together then they could beat
Germany and stop this terrible war. About her patriotic duty. But the speech never came.

‘I've got a son your age,' he said, rubbing a large hand across a ruddy cheek. ‘Joined up last year, but since he turned eighteen he's been posted. North Africa. I
had a letter from him today. He said it's colder than a witch's tit at night in the desert. Excuse my French.' He paused and sighed and Edie looked at his face. There was a nick
on his cheek where he'd cut himself shaving. She wondered if he had a wife at home, waiting, keeping his supper warm in the oven. ‘Follow me back to my office and you can tell your
parents what you've decided,' he said.

The CSM opened his office door and ushered Edie inside. She noticed the cream-painted wooden walls, covered with large charts. To her left was a desk. And suddenly there was
Mummy, grabbing her arm.

‘Edith Elizabeth Lightwater. This time you have gone too far, hasn't she, Neville?' her eyes flicked across to Pop, who appeared to be reading something on a poster.

‘Your mother was very worried, Half Pint,' he said, frowning slightly and swaying as he turned.