by Maggie Hope
‘Harry!’ Jackson cried again. He was rifling through his kit, searching for a field dressing. He found one at last and the man who had been grumbling about the food barely a minute before was helping him get the battledress open.
‘He’s not dead, Sergeant,’ the soldier said. ‘Look, he’s breathing.’
Jackson had control of himself now. He found the place, the entry wound deceptively small considering the amount of blood Harry had lost already. But it didn’t look as though it was anywhere vital. He managed to put on the dressing, binding it tightly, and the flow of blood slowed.
‘What the hell was that?’
Relief flooded Jackson as he looked up quickly to see that Harry’s eyes were open. He was pale but his eyes were focussing properly. He tried to sit up and winced, his hand going to his side.
‘It’s all right, just a nick in your side. You were lucky that time, Harry,’ he said. ‘Help me get him inside, Private, will you?’
‘Aye, Sergeant. That lot will be back, nowt so sure.’
Behind them was a cottage, its windows dark, the owners long gone. Probably they had passed them on the road earlier in the day. They got him inside, Harry walking at least though supported on either side by the other two. As soon as he could, Jackson would get him back to a First Aid post. It would have to be a French one, they were too far away from their own lines.
‘I’ll see the French officer, Harry.’ Jackson got to his feet. ‘Get you back to the –’
He broke off at the sound of gunfire, not in the distance but close, too close, coming nearer all the time, on the other side of the hill.
‘Go on. I’ll be all right,’ said Harry. But Jackson and the Private were already at the door, rifles at the ready. The Germans were coming.
The concert party, mostly girls with a sprinkling of men, were rehearsing for the first works concert. Molly and Mona were there. They had rushed their dinner to allow as much time as possible for the rehearsal, though even then half an hour was about the most they had.
‘Now then, lads and lasses.’ Mr Dowson banged his baton on the music stand importantly, calling them to order. There was some giggling and a few remarks made in undertones but most of the concert party turned to listen.
Mr Dowson had surprised them all, turning up for the first rehearsal in response to a leaflet pinned on the notice board asking anyone interested to join the party. Not only could he sing in a fine tenor voice, he had a talent for acting which transformed him. When he was on stage everyone forgot his short stature and podgy figure. His voice rang out pure and true, mesmerising all who listened. He could play the piano too with an impressive ability so that straight away he was voted in as leader of the concert party.
Today they were rehearsing ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant-Major’. The girls were going to be dressed up in battledress, the Sergeant-Major would be Mr Dowson, sporting a large false moustache. He strutted up and down the stage as they danced, not exactly like the Tiller Girls as yet but they were getting there.
‘The thing is, it’s hard to sing and dance,’ Mona complained. ‘I can’t get me breath, I’m like a stranded trout.’
‘Shouldn’t smoke so much,’ said Molly. But she grinned at Mona. Most of the girls smoked. She herself had tried it once or twice but couldn’t understand what they saw in it. Anyway, it seemed a shame to start when there weren’t enough cigarettes for the men as it was.
‘They’re getting so scarce we’ll all be cutting down,’ Mona said gloomily.
‘Will you two girls at the back there stop gossiping and get on with it?’ enquired Mr Dowson.
‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant-Major,’ the girls sang, in a line, kicking their legs in unison, arms along each other’s shoulders.
‘Just like that picture that’s on at the Majestic. You know, Ziegfield Follies of 1938.’
Molly hadn’t seen it, she didn’t get to the pictures much. Usually she was doing jobs for Maggie when she was on the right shift.
The half hour sped by and she was soon back in her little room, filling shells with TNT from the hopper once again. Her movements were automatic by now but she had to concentrate, it was too dangerous not to. Nevertheless thoughts of Jackson sneaked into her mind. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, had he written to her?
There was a letter when she got back to Eden Hope. As always her eyes went straight to the mantelpiece and there it was. And Maggie and Frank were both smiling, they too had had a precious letter.
‘He doesn’t say much, lass, not about where he is. But according to the wireless, they’re fighting in Belgium. I tell you what, our lads’ll soon see the Huns off, you mark my words.’
‘The main thing is, he’s all right. Harry an’ all, he reckons,’ said Maggie.
Molly kept the letter beside her as she ate her tea. She kept looking at it, a warm glow suffusing her whole body. When she had finished she left the washing up and went up to her room. Jackson’s room, it still was really, his things were still about, comforting to her.
‘My love …’
Molly was lying on her bed, gas jet turned up high so she could see to read by its flickering light. (The mantle was about done, it had two holes in it and the flame hissed and licked at it. Gas mantles were getting scarce along with everything else. The houses had been about to be wired for electricity but the war stopped that.) She kissed the words. She was his love, she thought. ‘As soon as this campaign is over, I’ll get some leave and we’ll be married …’
There was no real information. Harry was well, so was he. There might not be a letter for a while because he was going … The rest was blanked out by the censor, the only bit in the letter which was. Jackson was always careful what he wrote.
But at least it was a letter. He had held it in his hands, written the words. It was the only link Molly had had with him for weeks. She closed her eyes and imagined the feel of his lips on hers, him lying beside her.
Oh, well, she’d best go down and see to the washing up. And she’d promised to turn the pantry out for Maggie who had little time to spare now she took Frank out in the wheel chair every day. Up to the pit yard where he could meet the men coming off shift and have a few words with them. Or down to the Miners’ Welfare, where there was a ramp for the chair and the chance of meeting some of his old mates for endless talks of wet seams and cavils and, nowadays, how the war was going.
‘I had a letter from Harry yesterday,’ said Mona. ‘I think he wants us to get wed when he comes home.’
‘Me too.’ Molly smiled at her friend. ‘I mean, I had a letter too.’
‘Hurry up, girls, there’s another rehearsal,’ a voice said behind them and they looked at one another. It was getting difficult for Molly to hold off Mr Dowson. He was always about when she came out of her work room, always next to her in the queue at the canteen somehow.
‘We know, Mr Dowson,’ said Mona, and gave Molly a meaningful grin. ‘He’s here again,’ she whispered loudly.
‘Shh!’ hissed Molly.
‘Call me Gary,’ Mr Dowson said affably, and Mona could hardly control her giggles.
‘Now then, our Mona, stop messing about. Do you want cabbage or not?’
Mona’s mother was behind the counter, her hair done up in a net, a voluminous white overall wrapped round her. Mrs Fletcher was a widow. Mona’s father had died only three months before the war started and his wife had been just under fifty so didn’t receive a widow’s pension.
‘Quite right, Mrs Fletcher,’ said Mr Dowson primly. ‘Go on, girls. As I said, we have to rehearse.’
‘OK, Mam, give us a spoonful,’ said Mona. ‘It looks all right, you cannot have cooked it, eh?’
Her mother made a threatening gesture with her serving spoon and Mona ducked, laughing. The girls took their trays to one of the long tables and settled down to eat fish and chips and cabbage followed by spotted dick and custard.
The days were getting longer. When Molly left the factory and walked along by t
he perimeter wall to where the buses were lined up near the station the sun was still shining; in the trees across the road birds were twittering as they got ready to roost for the night. She felt a surge of optimism. Summer was almost here. Surely it would be a good summer after the cold snows of winter? Was the sun shining on the boys in Belgium, or wherever they were?
Jackson and six of his men were lying just under the brow of the hill above the hamlet, watching the column of approaching Germans. The French Lieutenant was further along the hill, staring at the advancing column, looking as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But Jackson didn’t wait for his orders. As soon as the column was within range he ordered his men to fire. The column slowed, halted for a minute or two, and then came on inexorably.
‘Fall back!’ called the Lieutenant. ‘Fall back!’ he cried in English to Jackson, but Jackson didn’t hear. Rifle fire in his ears drowned out all else. When he looked across at where the Frenchmen had been, they were gone.
‘I think we’re on our own here, Sergeant,’ said the Private who had helped him with Harry earlier in the afternoon.
‘You’re not supposed to think,’ snapped Jackson. ‘Keep firing!’ Suddenly there was a deafening explosion as one of the leading tanks in the column fired at the hill where they were concealed. Three of his men were thrown into the air and fell heavily, to be covered in a rain of grass tufts, soil and stones.
‘Bloody hell!’ the Private said. Jackson glanced at him. He was white and shaking with shock. He had dropped his rifle but picked it up quickly and turned back to face the Germans.
‘Fall back to the gun emplacement,’ said Jackson. ‘Now!’
Only two of the men got to their feet. As the dust cleared, Jackson crept closer to the others. They were all dead.
Harry … He had to get back to Harry. What would Molly think if he let her brother fall into the hands of the Germans? With its even occurring to him how ludicrous the thought was when they were all likely to be taken by the enemy at any minute, Jackson picked up one of the dead men’s rifles and carried it along with his own down the hill to the cluster of houses near the bottom.
Thank God there was a French ambulance standing there, they must be taking away the wounded. There were bodies all around, the German fire had taken a heavy toll of the French infantrymen.
‘Harry?’
His friend was being brought out of the cottage, leaning heavily on the arm of a Red Cross man. He was white from loss of blood, but he was on his feet.
‘I’m fine, Jackson, don’t bother about me. I reckon this lot’ll get me a nice fortnight back in Blighty.’ He looked over his shoulder and winked at his friend as he was helped into the ambulance which was already crowded with wounded.
‘Lucky beggar,’ said Jackson. At least Harry was getting out of it, he thought as he turned away and began to climb back up the hill to the clump of bushes where the French ack-ack gun was, barrel trained on the skyline where the Germans would appear. The thing was to hold them back as long as possible, he told himself.
The French were falling back, only the gun crew were still there. But even as Jackson slid behind the sandbag barrier the Germans appeared on the skyline, inexorably moving nearer. The French were shouting to each other. The soldier manning the gun left it and moved back. Jackson realised they were going to abandon the position. But if they did, the Germans could easily overrun the ambulance, take them all prisoner, and then what about Harry?
‘Allez! Allez!’ he shouted, and took hold of the gun. With a quick glance behind him he waved them away, a gesture they understood more easily than his terrible French. He began firing at the enemy, succeeded in halting the first car, then the tank behind. He didn’t pause but carried on firing until the ammunition was exhausted. When he looked behind him the French were gone, all of them, men and vehicles, including the ambulance carrying Harry, thank God.
Now was the time to get away himself, while the Germans were momentarily halted. Jackson slid away from the gun emplacement on his belly, got almost to a clump of trees by the now roofless farmhouse when an explosion rocked the earth once more. The gun he had been manning was flung into the air like a child’s toy and he sank into oblivion.
Chapter Nineteen
‘MIDDLESBROUGH BOMBED!’
The news spread fast around the Royal Ordnance Factory.
‘Bloody hell,’ the guard on the gate said as Molly showed him her pass to get in. ‘Middlesbrough! Not a kick in the backside away from here, is it?’
Molly agreed. All of them felt a surge of disquiet at the news. It wasn’t the fact that Middlesbrough was the first industrial town to be bombed so much as the thought of what would happen if a bomb dropped on this factory. Half of County Durham could be blown to smithereens.
‘What the heck?’ said Mona when they met during the break. ‘They’ll never find us, not with the fog down most of the time. Any road, we have to go sometime, haven’t we?’
They were getting used to the feeling of danger, all of them. At the beginning of the war they’d all carried their gas masks everywhere but now fewer and fewer people did, though more might well after this latest event.
‘No letter from Harry,’ Mona said as they walked down to their places. For once she was solemn-faced. It had been on the radio that the Germans had broken through, were streaming into France. She looked at Molly questioningly.
‘I haven’t had anything either.’
Mona sighed. ‘Oh, well, let’s get on with it.’
Today at dinnertime they were to give their first show to the workers. Gary Dowson was full of himself, they moaned to each other.
‘Don’t forget, girls, straight in and go to the head of the queue. I’ve arranged it,’ he said, hurrying past them. Though even then he still had time for an ingratiating smile at Molly, followed by a look which drank her in from head to toe, though her figure was hidden under the enveloping overall. Instinctively she folded her arms over her breasts.
‘My Lord, Molly, you’re going to have to watch him,’ Mona commented as they paused outside Molly’s door. She watched the foreman disappear around the bend in the corridor.
‘Not so easy when we’re singing a duet,’ she replied.
They were singing ‘The Indian Love Song’ from Rose Marie, and Gary Dowson gave every indication of revelling in it. He was only acting, Molly assured herself. Don’t be a fool, he knows you’re engaged.
‘Bring your heel down on his instep,’ Mona advised. ‘Or there are other moves I could teach you which will make him reach high C.’
‘Oh, Mona!’ said Molly. She was smiling as she went in to begin work.
The concert was a success, the canteen packed with their fellow workers. Everyone cheered and clapped with enthusiasm for the dancers, now not quite so ragged in their performance as they got into the swing of it. They cheered Gary Dowson and Molly when they sang their duet, Gary looking deep into Molly’s eyes until she discovered she could fake rapture in return by staring fixedly at the Brylcreemed lock of hair arranged carefully on his forehead.
They fell about laughing when Mona recited her comic monologue, but it was when Molly stood on the improvised stage and sang the ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ that they clapped and cheered the most. Her heart beat fast and her palms sweated so she had to rub them with her handkerchief and then keep it there, twisting it between her fingers as she began the song. But then the image of Jackson appeared in her mind’s eye, his dark eyes smiling into hers, one eyebrow lifted quizzically, and she sang to him. It was so quiet in the canteen that she could have been all alone but for her dreams. And then the applause began.
Afterwards, brought down to earth by the need to get back to her work, she stood by the hopper filling shells, one after the other. Her workmates actually liked her, she thought. They did. A few of them had come up to congratulate her, clapped her on the shoulder. This was a new life for her in spite of the dangers of the war and the fact that her brother and Jackson were
in France fighting. She felt that everything would turn out well, her bad times were surely over.
She was smiling softly to herself when there was a loud bang and the alarm sounded. For a second she was disorientated. She looked around at the door as the belt stopped its progress and the music halted on the wireless.
‘Evacuate the building! Evacuate …’ Molly rushed for the door, turning to see if Mona was there before realising that she wouldn’t be. She had been transferred to the detonator section at the beginning of the week.
Joining the stream of people as they hurried for the emergency exits, Molly tried to ask what had happened but those around her had been working in closed-off rooms themselves, and were as mystified as she was.
‘Have we been bombed?’ She caught sight of Gary Dowson standing by the door, but he was busy ushering them out and for once not willing to talk to her.
Outside groups of workers were talking in hushed voices as they went to their emergency stations, away from the danger. One of the First Aid team came out of a door and hurried down the street and everyone watched as though that would give them the answer to what had happened.
‘What was it, do you know?’ Molly asked Violet, a girl from her group.
‘You know as much as I do, Molly,’ she replied.
‘Fifth columnists, I bet,’ one of them said. ‘Sabotage.’
The girls fell silent as they reached the perimeter wall and lined up by the emergency exit. The idea that a saboteur could get into the works and cause mayhem was sobering to say the least.
‘It was the detonator shed,’ a new voice broke in. ‘I was working right close. I was deafened by the bang, I can tell you.’ She put her fingers in her ears and wiggled them about, frowning. ‘I never ran so quick in all my days.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, that it was the detonator shed?’ asked Molly anxiously, an awful dread creeping over her. She began looking round for Mona, her gaze going from group to group, but her friend was nowhere to be seen. A fire engine went by along one of the internal roads, followed by an ambulance.