The Bannister Girls

by Jean Saunders

  ‘Your mother has been ignorant of my relationship with Harriet for a good many years now.’ He confirmed her suspicions. ‘The last thing I want to do is to hurt either of them, Angel. Do you understand?’

  ‘You want my silence,’ she answered baldly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve already decided to save Mother the humiliation.’

  He didn’t notice her trembling lips, suddenly realising that never in a thousand years could she have foreseen this conversation. It was Angel then, who deliberately talked about Ellen, about Louise, about anything but the subjects dearest to both their hearts. By the time they returned to Meadowcroft, they were both exhausted from the pretence of trying to act normally in what was a far from normal situation.

  She was almost thankful when the week’s leave was over and she could meet up with Margot in London. One look at Margot’s face told her that her friend’s week hadn’t been greatly successful either.

  ‘Mother seems to think I can call at a reception desk and ask for Edward, as though we’re staying at some luxurious hotel,’ she complained as they were crushed together in the corridor of the train taking them to Dover. ‘She’s expecting me to wet-nurse him, just because we’re both in France. She’s conveniently forgotten the size of the country, and she spent the entire bloody week making me feel guilty because I haven’t tracked him down yet.’

  From Margot’s tone, Angel knew that she did feel annoyingly guilty because there simply hadn’t been an opportunity to find Edward Lacey, apart from the barest enquiries.

  ‘I know she’s damnably worried about Eddie,’ Margot suddenly capitulated. ‘He was her little pet after Daddy died, and she simply can’t come to terms with him being old enough to go to war.’

  ‘He’s not old enough. None of them are. He’s a schoolboy. He’s not ready to fight or –’

  ‘Go on,’ Margot said relentlessly, as Angel’s jerky words stopped. ‘Not old enough to fight or to die. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?’

  ‘All right! He’s too young to die. So is Jacques. So are we. So is every other poor devil who comes into the hospital at Piersville. Try telling that to the power-crazy men who juggle with ordinary people’s lives.’

  Other people in the corridor glanced their way as their voices rose, half-amused to hear two educated young ladies arguing so vehemently. Angel looked shamefaced.

  ‘I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be quarrelling like this.’

  ‘I’m sorry too.’ Margot’s voice was oddly muffled. ‘If you want the truth, I’m frantically worried about Eddie too, and I’ve had the devil’s job not to let Mother see it all this week.’

  ‘Hasn’t the little stinker even written home yet?’

  Margot gave the semblance of a smile. ‘No, the little stinker hasn’t. I shall give him a piece of my mind about that when I catch up with him.’

  She cheered up, having something positive to think about. It was a good thing that she couldn’t read Angel’s mind, as the fervent hope ran through her head that young Edward Lacey was still around to be caught.

  Angel had her own enquiries to make. The code name of Jacques’ squadron headquarters, Brighton Belle, was used more as a flamboyant gesture of allegiance to England than to any hope of fooling the Germans of its presence. It wasn’t difficult for Angel to find its whereabouts.

  How to get there was another matter. The base was about thirty miles to the south of Piersville. To Angel’s surprise it was the hard-faced Sister Yard who came to her rescue. Nothing was kept private for long at Piersville.

  ‘I understand you want to visit the British air base, Bannister. I know you haven’t been given an ambulance yet, but if you want to do replacement duty tomorrow, you can take four convalescent cases to an overflow hospital, and bring back any medical supplies that they can spare. Take the afternoon to visit the air base, but get those supplies back as soon as possible.’

  ‘Thank-you, Sister!’ Angel was overcome with gratitude, despite the trauma of driving more unknown roads. At least the convalescents wouldn’t be terminal cases, and for that she must be thankful. She sped through the wards to find Margot.

  ‘Best news I’ve heard all day.’

  All Margot’s attention was on the man she half-supported in the bed, ignoring his filthy rags in deference to his apologetic vomiting splashing all over her uniform. His body convulsed, and a strong, distinctive smell rose from the middle of the bed as the man retched and spewed.

  ‘Both ends at once, old thing,’ Margot said cheerily. ‘Fetch me some clean sheets, will you, Angel?’

  Angel fled, tears blinding her eyes. Dysentery afflicted many of the men from the trenches as well as everything else. If the bullets didn’t get you, then the shells would. Or the gas or the pneumonia, or the piercing hell of a bayonet wound. When would it ever end? She rummaged for clean sheets in the linen cupboard, and then heard Margot’s cracked voice behind her.

  ‘No rush, Angel. The orderlies will clear the bed.’ It was her way of saying that in that short space of time, the man had died.

  She was gone before Angel could answer. Angel secretly worried about her. She was often too bright, too effervescent, a little ray of sunshine, according to the patients. But Angel suspected that someday that sunshine would go out, and when it did, Margot would never be the same again.

  She pushed such thoughts away. Tomorrow she was going to find Jacques. The joy that had been absent in her life for so long suddenly soared at the thought.

  And tomorrow didn’t start off too badly. The convalescents were cheerful, none of them stretcher cases, able to sit in the back of the ambulance and enjoy their smokes, and crack a few jokes with the unexpectedly beautiful young driver.

  Each of them looked at Angel’s straight back, the gloss of her golden hair framing her head, and thought wistfully of a sweetheart or wife at home. They teased her, making outrageous suggestions that would have appalled her a year or so ago, but which now had her laughing back, recognising the need in them for feminine responses, to make them feel less emasculated than the endless useless fighting did.

  They reached the overflow hospital in a state of camaraderie, and Angel was given the boxes of medical supplies Piersville so badly needed. On enquiry she discovered that a mere five miles separated her from Jacques’ air base.

  She drove more erratically than usual, without the usual cargo of wounded in the ambulance. At the base, she was uncertain what to do. She was dusty from travelling, and feeling far from fresh. A young airman asked her business, and she saw him redden with embarrassment that filled her with unease.

  ‘Captain de Ville, Miss? I don’t know. You’d best enquire in the Officers’ Mess – that way.’

  He pointed to a large hut, and Angel walked across the churned-up field to the Officers’ Mess. From inside, she could hear sounds of merriment. She remembered instantly something that Jacques had told her.

  ‘Commander Trenchard has a policy of “no empty chairs” in the messes.’

  Angel had looked mystified until he had gone on to explain with grim humour.

  ‘An empty chair means a pilot is missing, shot down in flames or blown to pieces. Trenchard is ruthless in getting replacements to fill the empty chairs. It keeps up morale, despite the fact that raw recruits are more likely to get shot down than old hands. But no empty chairs is the rule, and Trenchard abides by it.’

  Angel’s heart beat uncomfortably fast. There were officers inside the hut, other ranks filling the other messes. No empty chairs. But how many deleted names in Brighton Belle’s personnel records? She knocked on the door quickly, before she lost her nerve. An officer answered it.

  ‘De Ville?’ He glanced round as the talking hushed. ‘Are you a relative, Miss?’

  ‘No. I’m – I’m – a friend.’ She felt an acute sense of dread as one and another officer looked away. The words tumbled out. ‘Has something happened to Captain de Ville?’

  The officer took her arm. ‘Let’s go outside, Miss –’
r />   ‘Bannister. Angel Bannister,’ she replied automatically, as though they were new acquaintances at a garden party.

  Outside in the warm afternoon air, he told her quickly.

  ‘Captain de Ville didn’t come back after his last bombing raid. We’re pretty sure he got back over Allied lines, though. His plane was seen –’ he stopped.

  ‘Seen?’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was seen going down in flames by one of our chaps. It wasn’t clear if Captain de Ville got out or not. But it’s very probable that he did.’

  The voice droned on, hating having to prevaricate to this pretty girl. A stunner, the officer observed. And what rotten luck to receive such negative news. Privately, none of them thought de Ville had made it alive after seeing the inferno of his plane. But he couldn’t tell the girl that. She needed some hope. He saw her sway and put out an arm to hold her.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she muttered between gritted teeth. ‘Can I talk to the person who saw the plane go down?’

  The man hesitated. What good would it do? He saw the pleading in her lovely eyes and nodded briefly. She had guts, for all her apparent gentle femininity.

  ‘Stay here. I’ll fetch him for you.’

  He strode off, and Angel’s legs wouldn’t hold her up any longer. She sank to the ground, refusing to believe it, yet having to believe it. Jacques was missing … missing, and obviously, the rest of them believed him killed.

  Missing, believed killed … wasn’t that the official phrase? She heard the whine and roar of aircraft winging into the sky, and in their drumming the words kept going over and over in her head.

  Tears blinded her eyes, realising she had come too late. Jacques was missing, believed killed … believed killed…

  Chapter 15

  ‘You really are an idiot, Rose!’

  Ellen spoke in exasperation as she leaned over the girl in the bed. She bathed Rose’s burning forehead, trying not to flinch at the sight of the yellow, broken skin, fluid seeping from it.

  It was a good thing that Rose couldn’t see the effects of the TNT poisoning for herself. The doctor had said she would be unable to see for about three days. She wasn’t aware of how her face and neck and legs had swelled, making a caricature of her normally pretty appearance. She was home from her job at the munitions factory now for ten days on half pay, and Ellen did all she could to ease her discomfort when she wasn’t away working at her own machine.

  She didn’t let on to Rose how tired she was. The munitions girls worked a six-day week from eight o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night, with an hour for lunch. The factory wasn’t far from the house the two girls shared with several others, and Ellen nipped home in her lunch hour, to bathe Rose’s irritated skin, and to give her a sandwich and some of the two pints of milk a day that she was allocated to combat the TNT poisoning. Despite its help, it would be months before the affected skin returned to anything like normal.

  ‘You’re a comfort, I must say!’ Rose croaked. ‘Why am I an idiot?’

  ‘Letting yourself breathe in so much of the damned stuff! I told you to keep your mouth shut and stop being the life and soul of the party, didn’t I? We’re supposed to keep silent in working hours.’

  ‘I get bored with being a dummy,’ Rose sulked. ‘Anyway, it was better than being stuck-up.’

  ‘Like me! That’s what you mean, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?’ Ellen goaded her.

  ‘Yes, it is. They call you Miss High-and-Mighty Bannister behind your back, if you must know. They wonder what you’re doing here, instead of queening it over society functions.’

  Ellen snorted. ‘And I hope you put them right on that! When did I ever queen it over anything or anybody? I’m an out and out socialist, and well you know it.’

  Rose spoke less forcibly, the irritation subsiding a little as Ellen’s ministrations took effect.

  ‘I do know it, old duck, but you have to admit that you’re different from the rest of us! If you came out with a bit of good old Cockney sometimes, it might make you more acceptable to the other girls –’

  ‘Why the hell should I? They don’t put on airs and graces for me?’ Ellen said belligerently, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘You see?’ Rose sighed. ‘Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to point out? Your airs and graces come naturally. That’s what makes you different. You don’t belong here, Ellen.’

  Ellen stood up and brushed the crumbs off her skirt, still resentful of this criticism. Normally, it was a relief to come home for a while and be able to remove the fireproof overall and rubber boots that were so unbelievably hot in the summer months. To say nothing of the miserable cap that made her feel scalped, whether she was or not. Too many girls had accidents with their hair. She and Rose had witnessed one of them get her hair caught in a machine, and took no chances. She glowered down at Rose’s swollen, pathetic eyes.

  ‘I’m not going to listen to you,’ she said shortly. ‘They can take me as I am, or move to another factory. I’ll see you tonight, Rose. Do you need anything else before I go?’

  ‘No, thank-you. Mrs Gresham from next door is coming to sit with me this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s all right then.’

  And hopefully, the old witch would be gone long before she got back, Ellen thought grimly.

  She left the jug of milk where Rose could reach it, instructing her sternly to drink it herself and not give the old harridan from next door as much as one sip for her motley collection of stray cats. Ellen knew that tonight she would be opening doors and windows to rid the place of the cat stink that always wafted around the old woman.

  She gave an involuntary sigh as she walked back to the factory, her back as straight as usual. Was she such a snob as Rose intimated? She had never thought herself to be so. Did she think herself superior to the other girls? She had always been ready to ‘muck in’, but she had to admit she wasn’t given the easy friendship that existed between Rose and the rest of them.

  Did she care? She brushed back a stray wisp of hair from her cheek. If she had anywhere else to go, she probably wouldn’t stay on. Never one to balk at the truth, she admitted as much to herself. But where else could she go?

  Not back to Meadowcroft yet, with the memories of the farm still painful. She couldn’t forget the shame of meeting Peter Chard’s eyes when she had scrambled down from the hayloft, obviously still warm from Andrew Pender’s embraces.

  She shivered, wondering how she could have been such a fool. Andrew Pender was a leech, preying on women. She was well rid of him, and love had died as quickly as it had grown. Peter was worth ten of him, but she doubted that he would even look at her now, and if she was the crying kind, she would weep for the loss of his friendship.

  She straightened her shoulders as she approached the dreary factory gates, merging in with the chattering girls, freed from their imposed silence until they donned their anonymous garb again and let the machines take over. It was like something out of a horror dream, Ellen thought. The humans were silent, while the machines clattered and roared, producing their shells to feed the weapons of war.

  Silently, as she worked, inside herself she sang the song that said it all.

  ‘Good-bye-ee … Don’t Cry-ee … Wipe the tear from your eye … Good-bye-ee…’

  The Battle of the Somme began on July 1st. News of the long-awaited onslaught was greeted in England with cheers and optimism. Soon it would all be over. The noise of the artillery bombardment prior to the day was so tremendous that it could clearly be heard across the Channel in England.

  Since most of the Allied losses at Verdun had been French, their numbers were depleted, and the majority of the army at the Somme were British. In the battlefields and trenches of the once-lovely valley of the Somme, the two opposing armies were separated by a fifty-yard stretch of barbed wire and desolation, each wanting desperately to win a war that refused to end.

  It was a perfect summer day, the sky a cloudless blue, the larks singing their hearts
out. The Germans were deep in their superior dug-outs, but already alerted to the approaching attack by the heavy bombardment of days before, intended to blow up the worst of the wire. Because of the expected certainty of the Allied cause, the British leaders gave the complacent orders to the soldiers to march at a steady pace towards the tangled barbed wire, where the enemy would undoubtedly surrender.

  It was the worst possible command. As the soldiers went over the top of the trenches, they were slaughtered, wave upon wave of them, by the waiting German machine guns.

  When the numbers of dead and wounded were reckoned up, on that day alone, British casualties numbered sixty thousand, a number too staggering to comprehend unless you were personally involved: unless it was your leg that was sheared off, or your guts that were spewing out into the mud, unless you were one of the exhausted doctors or nurses or ambulance drivers, or the hapless V.A.D. workers, even now totally unprepared for the effect of an endless succession of human debris.

  There was no time to think of personal matters. No time to worry over a loved one, or to leave the confines of the hospital or unit where you were assigned. The thought of Jacques de Ville’s fate was pushed from Angel’s mind. It was one of the penalties of war that there was no time to weep or to mourn. There was always another soldier’s hand to be held to ease his suffering, another drink to be given gently to a mouth that couldn’t hold any liquid because only half of it remained, another bone-shattered boy to be guided along the road to death.

  Every hospital in the vicinity of the Front was strained to desperation point with the sheer numbers of wounded. It was a lasting nightmare, week after week after week … By September everyone’s job had become a dual or a triple role. Doctors became aides, nurses were stretcher-bearers, anyone who could drive took turns with the sorely-pressed ambulance drivers to go to the Front and bring back the wounded…

  ‘You’ll go out tonight, Bannister,’ Sister Yard ordered, her voice wooden with strain. ‘Doctor Lancing wants every ambulance we’ve got sent out on the road. Follow the others, and keep your head down. And good luck.’