by Shirley Mann
The group walked to the entrance where the girls were cadging a lift in the supplies truck and Lily waved them off as they walked away, arm in arm, trying not to sound excited as they passed her. Alice paused to give her a quick hug.
Lily could see her breath as she stood in the tiny office by the camp gates and banged her hands together to try to get some feeling into them. Life was so precarious, she thought, as she marched up and down on the spot to keep warm. This war was tearing families apart, making people like Amy face tragedy and hardship at an age when they should have been having the best times of their lives. Lily’s father rarely talked about the Great War, but her Uncle Joe was always going on about it. She felt guilty remembering how she and her brother had made faces behind his back as he talked about ‘going over the top’. She made a mental note to show more of an interest and ask him more about it when this was all over, and she resignedly got on with checking her list to see which vehicles were expected in.
*
The following night, the atmosphere in the Waafery was subdued. Word had soon got around the whole camp about Amy’s mum and the normal chatter and banter was suppressed as the girls searched for something to talk about.
Amy sat in the corner at a desk, pen in hand, but she was staring at the wall more than she was writing.
‘She’s got leave for the funeral at least,’ Alice whispered to a small group of them who were half-heartedly playing whist. ‘That’s something. It’ll be hard though; her older brother’s in the navy and in the Far East somewhere so he won’t be there,’ she added, claiming her trick. ‘Apparently, her dad’s gone to pieces and her other brother’s only young.’
‘That’s Alf isn’t it?’ Susie put in. ‘I heard Amy talking to Ma’am earlier. She said he was trying to be the man of the house by sending the telegrams out. It broke me up, I had to flee to the bog.’
‘Yes, I think he’s only about fifteen,’ Alice replied, looking over towards Amy, who was wiping tears from her notepaper. ‘My mother told me our neighbour’s just heard that her son’s been killed in Tunisia. I used to play ‘Catch a girl, kiss a girl’ with him,’ she faltered and then shook her head to bring herself back to the present. ‘They say there’s been heavy fighting there. How long is this bloody war going to go on?’
‘Let’s start to think about Christmas to cheer ourselves up,’ Susie said, sitting up and taking a deep breath. She needed to dispel the panic that threatened to engulf her about her two brothers on ships in the Mediterranean. ‘Let’s make some decorations to leave for the next intake, that’ll make us feel more festive.” ’
The group all murmured their approval and put their heads together to assign each other jobs. They were trying to keep as quiet as possible, whilst constantly glancing up at Amy in the corner, who had finally started to write.
*
The barracks were quiet on Thursday morning but once Amy had left on the bus, there was a lifting of the mood and during square-bashing the girls guiltily found themselves giggling at nothing in particular. The Corporal was getting crosser and crosser at the wobbly lines the girls were forming and eventually started to use his baton to push them into position. He knew that the points that his baton kept striking were the exact spots where the medical officer had inserted a needle two hours before with their smallpox vaccinations. To distract him, Susie kept insisting on turning left instead of right.
The tall, grim-faced Corporal was not impressed and put Susie on a charge. She pulled a face which he spotted and put her on another one. He then kept them parading up and down for an extra half hour meaning they had to run straight into dinner.
‘Well, that wasn’t worth the rush,’ said Susie in her strong Midlands accent, as she sized up her plate of spam fritters, lumpy mash and baked beans.
‘Be grateful,’ said Alice crossly, rubbing her sore arm.
‘. . . there are people starving in the Far East,’ three of the girls finished for her.
‘I’m fed up with being so bloody grateful,’ Susie replied, pushing her fork reluctantly into the greasy fritter. ‘Especially now I won’t get off base on Friday.’
‘Well, normally on a Friday night, I go to the Dorchester,’ Marion interjected.
‘I go to the bloody Royal Oak for half a pint if I’m lucky,’ Alice muttered under her breath. ‘Come on, you lot,’ she added. ‘There’s another dance in town on Saturday, let’s see if we can get passes and get down there to check out the talent before we leave here.’
In a pact of tactfulness, they had all claimed last week’s dance was not very good and that there was no one of any interest there, just a group of local farm lads, in seventh heaven at the sudden influx of glamorous WAAFs. Marion had been indignant and extremely snobby all evening, looking down on all the farmhands as if they were an inferior species. The rest of the group had spent the whole night making apologies for her.
With a full turn-out likely for this week’s outing, the fritters were instantly forgotten and they started to fantasise about who might be there.
‘I heard there’s a few sailors passing through,’ said Lily.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Marion interjected. ‘I’m not going out with anyone of a low rank. My family would be horrified if there weren’t enough tapes on their shoulders.’
‘Oh, not the navy,’ groaned Susie, completely ignoring Marion, ‘you know what they’re like. A girl in every port. Give me a man whose plane is firmly planted in Blighty. Not going anywhere. Well, not for a while anyway. Hey, there’s all those Spitfire pilots to look forward to.’
‘Don’t fall in love with one of those,’ Lily warned. ‘I’ve been told about them. They really think they’re something, and they’ve hardly had much training. You’d think they were bomber pilots in those fantastic new Lancasters.’
Over the past few weeks, she had become more and more fascinated with those wings on the chests of pilots, not because of their appeal as men, although there was a glamour attached to their dashing uniform, but because they were able to disappear into the clouds and head towards the sun, away from the gloom of a December Gloucestershire day. Poor Danny, in his khaki uniform in a large ugly tank transporter, could not compete, she ruefully admitted. Lily found the lessons on the range of RAF planes fascinating. Sitting up straight, she drank in the information about the different types of pilots, what planes they flew and what they had to learn in training. She envied them their little world of a quiet cockpit, the silence only broken by the halting intercom from their Squadron Leader. She didn’t think about the gunfire or the burning balls of flames she’d seen on the newsreels. At night, before she went to sleep, she found herself imagining herself as an Amy Johnson or an Amelia Earhart, pioneering flying for women.
Maybe by the end of this war, I could learn to fly a plane, she thought, opening her eyes wide at the possibility of a different future from the one that had been mapped out for her before the war.
Lily the pilot, was mentally striding through the airport in a victorious post-war Britain with a confident smile, as passengers parted like the Red Sea to let her pass.
‘Do you want those beans?’ Marion said, bursting into her reverie.
Chapter 7
The dance was the little group’s swansong before they were moved off to their next training posts, and it was a lively affair. They all drank too much cider, danced their feet off, flirted outrageously with the local farmers’ sons, and when they arrived back at the barracks, they hugged, swore eternal affection and promised that they would meet up after the war. All the irritations of the past few weeks were forgotten and even an unyielding Marion got enthusiastic hugs.
The following morning, with sore feet and sore heads, there was no time for sentiment. The sergeant drilled them up and down with relentless determination on their last square-bashing at Innsworth before they looked at the noticeboard to find out their postings for their specialist training.
The girls gathered in the hallway, waiting for the
admin staff to pin up the lists on the wood-edged board. Finally, two secretaries marched importantly down the corridor and the girls parted to let them in, crowding round as soon as the last pin was in place and craning their necks to see where they were being sent. Lily searched down the alphabet to M. Next to her name was the word ‘Blackpool’ and in the adjoining column, the words ‘wireless operator’. She scanned down to find Alice’s name, her heart racing, but Alice beat her to it.
‘Blackpool!’ Alice pronounced triumphantly and then more doubtfully, ‘Hmm, wireless operator.’
‘Phew, that means we’re together,’ said Lily, reaching over to give her a hug.
Marion called from the other side of the crowd of girls, ‘Me too.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Alice mouthed at Lily. ‘You might know we’d get the princess.’
Amy came over to them both and said gently, ‘I’m for Blackpool too.’
Lily grabbed her hand and smiled. ‘I’m so glad, Amy. It’ll be nice to be with friends.’
Amy nodded, but she had become detached and even quieter since her mother had died. The girls had tried to include her but she sat apart, hugging her knees in the armchair in the corner, hardly saying a word. They were all worried about her but between lectures, marching and exams and the endless Freedom from Infection tests and kit inspections, there was little time for sympathy.
Travel warrants were issued for their next posting but first, some of those who had volunteered, including Lily, were allowed a three-day pass to go home for Christmas.
In the run up to her leave, Lily was so excited she could hardly eat. It had only been a few short weeks, but she already felt she was inhabiting another world. Alone at night, under the bedclothes, the early homesickness tears had dried quite quickly and Lily had found it easier than some to adjust to being away from home, but the regular letters from her mum always brought a pang. Now, when she closed her eyes at night, hugging the rough blanket to herself, she allowed herself to imagine luxuriating in the prospect of her cosy eiderdown. Home was always the same, the same china cups on the morning room table, the same clock ticking, Patch snoring under her dad’s chair. But was she the same girl, she wondered?
*
‘Lily, stand still for a minute and come and talk to us,’ Ginny shouted up the stairs, but Lily was too busy racing from room to room to check that everything was exactly where she had left it in her Manchester home. The bus journey home from the station had been a sharp reminder that the war was not only affecting those in uniform. She had felt a sickening lurch of her stomach spotting rubble where the Boys’ Brigade hut used to be and suddenly needed reassurance that her home was still untouched by the war. The continued destruction came as a shock to her. Despite the early years of the war when Manchester was pummelled from the air with relentless destruction, she had naïvely believed that once she joined up, she would take the war with her, leaving Manchester in peace. Her stomach turned with relief when she first spotted the solid bricks of her home and her mum racing out of the front door to greet her. From that moment, Lily had felt her shoulders relax. Now, pausing by her own bedroom window, she glanced again at the corrugated sheeting shelter in the garden and shivered. She pleaded with it to carry on keeping her family safe while she was away.
‘Mum, the house looks great,’ she said, hurtling down the stairs at her customary speed. ‘You’ve found the decorations,’ she added approvingly, looking up at the ceiling strewn with red and yellow paper chains. ‘Although, they look newer. Are they? And the branches make a lovely tree.’ Her mum had done everything she could to make the room look jolly. Despite the worn cushions and faded wallpaper, the Christmas scene was familiar and comforting. Determined to eradicate the misery of war, Ginny had spent hours re-making the paper chains, using bits of old wrapping paper from the back of the dining room cupboard. Lily smiled when she noticed the little Father Christmas she had made out of felt when she was in primary school in pride of place on the mantlepiece. Government warnings that Christmas had to be a parsimonious affair had been carefully manipulated in the Mullins household to allow Ginny to make it look reassuringly cosy and welcoming. Lily breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Well, it’s not what we’re used to’, her dad said, coming in from the hallway, ‘but I cut the branches down from the garden and they’ll do. We can use them for firewood afterwards and the tree will grow again after the war. And despite the Government saying only presents for children, we’ve done what we can,’ he added with a small amount of pride.
‘It’s all wonderful,’ Lily said, grabbing her mum’s arm and twirling her round in front of the tiny pretend tree in a bucket trimmed with brown paper.
‘Eh, it’s good to see you, lass,’ her dad said. ‘The house has been so quiet, hasn’t it, Ginny?’
‘Well, I’m back for three whole days, so I’ll try to make as much noise as I can,’ Lily laughed, ruffling her brother’s hair as she waltzed past.
‘I haven’t missed you a bit,’ Don replied, ducking out of her way out of habit. ‘It’s been blissfully quiet. And anyway, I’ll be joining up soon’
‘You’re thirteen,’ his mother said, ‘the war’ll be over by the time you’re old enough.’
‘That just wouldn’t be fair, it’d be typical of Lily to get all the fun.’
‘I know, such a shame, after all, the war would have been over by now if the Germans had had two members of the Mullins family to deal with.’ Lily told him with a grin.
‘There’s a letter for you from Danny,’ her mum interrupted, looking slyly at Lily to gauge her reaction.
‘’Bout time he wrote,’ Lily said, busily rearranging the paper to get at the presents under the tree and pushing an inquisitive Patch out of the way. Danny seemed a long way away, but she was always surprised how pleased she was to get a letter. She felt a certain satisfaction that he wrote so regularly even though she barely had time to reply. He had always been so certain that they were a couple but she wanted him to know she was now a woman of the world with little time for childhood sweethearts.
‘Move over, Patch, there’s nothing here for you.’
John and Ginny shared a glance and John winked at his wife.
After the trail of unsuitable boyfriends that had called for Lily over the years, Danny, the young salesman, was one they both hoped would lead to something more permanent. Lily always seemed frustratingly impervious to his charms, but John Mullins had seen through Danny’s apparent insouciance and registered the gentle care that he took when he was helping Lily with her coat. They were both pleased when Lily agreed to write to the 8th Army soldier and cursed the war for interrupting such a promising romance.
Lily was rummaging through the small pile of presents under the tree, searching for a tag with her name on, when she had an unbidden memory of Danny. The last Christmas before he left for the army, he had brought some biscuits he had made for her mother, presenting them to her nervously. They were as hard as rock but Ginny had been very touched and Lily saw again his anxious face as the expert biscuit-maker took the first bite. He was easy to like but Lily had plans – and now she was in the WAAFs, a young salesman from her home city was not a part of those plans. She shrugged her shoulders and carried on sorting out the presents.
*
Christmas was an upbeat affair compared with previous years as they celebrated the victory over the Germans at El Alamein, along with the rest of the country, and the Mullins family made the most of it. Don, in particular, took the opportunity to bolt down huge slices of sponge cake. He could hardly remember the feasts his mother used to prepare before the war, but when the sweet, crumbly mixture hit his tongue, his taste buds burst into life again. He put his arms around his mum, unable to speak. At thirteen, Don was growing fast and Ginny struggled to put enough food on the plate for this gangly youth. She constantly gave up her rations when Don was not looking, but this Christmas, with Lily’s two shillings a week pay, she had been able to buy a few little extras on the b
lack market. She scanned the heaped plates on the table in front of them all and nodded in satisfaction. It was a small moment of triumph for a housewife after three years of war.
Chapter 8
12th February, 1943
Dear Lily,
I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while, I’d just settle down to write to you and some bright spark would have a better idea how I should be spending my time! Honestly, these boffins don’t have any respect for a chap’s private life! Hope you managed to get some leave and had a good Christmas. I thought of you with your paper hat on, pulling a cracker . . . if you made some. If I remember, your arts and craft capabilities were limited to paper aeroplanes in the office, so I hope you’ve improved your skills.
It’s been unbelievably busy here, but I think we’ve made some headway. Last week, we had a bit of a break and stopped in a local village. So now we’ve got some camp followers! The locals follow us around and brew tea for us. It’s quite a brew! They soak the tea first and then add boiling water and serve it to us very proudly in our tins. Don’t think your dad would be too overwhelmed with the strength of it but it does taste OK and it gives them a bit of cash too. It’s hard for them to earn a living when their land is in the middle of a war zone. You’d be impressed with me. I can now say, ‘Ana-mashkeen ma-feesh valoose,’ which means, ‘I am a poor man, I have no money,’ which is true on army pay. They don’t look as if they believe us though. They are so poor, and we must seem rich in comparison.
Someone had the nerve to suggest that we drivers burst our tyres deliberately every time we get hungry, which is a terrible thing to say! But we’ve perfected the art of mixing sand with petrol in a can to make a fire. It can be a bit dangerous at times if we don’t get the proportions right and, of course, we have to do it all from under a tarpaulin, so the enemy can’t see the smoke, but it works fine – as long as you’re not the one having to do it. I did it the other day and had to grab for the flap in a coughing fit from being in a confined space.