A Ration Book Christmas

by Jean Fullerton

  As Tommy took in the hive of activity, Reggie and his crew came in behind him. The room fell silent as everyone looked their way.

  Muscling past him, Reggie marched in to the middle of the room.

  ‘All right, playmates,’ he said, looking around. ‘Who’s in charge here?’

  ‘I am,’ replied a high-pitched voice from amongst the blackboards.

  Tommy looked up to see his old Scout leader Cyril Potter, resplendent in black ARP battle dress and a polished tin helmet, standing at the front of the stage.

  Cyril, who was probably in his late fifties, had short arms, greying ginger hair and a face like a cherub blowing up a balloon. In addition, he had deep-set eyes, which looked unnaturally enormous as he stared out at the world through the strong magnification of his spectacle lenses.

  He studied Reggie for a moment then, tucking his officer’s stick under his arm, marched down the stage steps and across to them.

  He stopped just in front of Reggie.

  ‘I’m the appointed senior Civil Defence warden in charge of this post,’ he said, drawing himself up to his full height of five foot six. ‘And I’m guessing you’re the new heavy rescue squad.’

  ‘Reggie Sweete and his merry men reporting for duty, Admiral,’ said Reggie, snapping to attention and giving the senior ARP warden an exaggerated salute.

  The men behind Tommy sniggered and a flush coloured Potter’s cheeks. ‘We’re not part of the military so Mr Potter will suffice.’ His gaze flickered over Reggie’s men. ‘There’s supposed to be ten in a crew.’

  ‘There is,’ said Reggie. ‘But Squeaky’s not all the ticket this morning.’

  ‘He’s unwell?’ said Potter.

  ‘He went a bit heavy on the sauce last night but he’ll be in later,’ Reggie explained.

  ‘Well, I hope he won’t make a habit of it,’ said Potter.

  ‘Don’t worry he won’t, Colonel,’ said Reggie. ‘He only drinks when there’s a y in the day.’

  There was another titter of laughter from behind Tommy and the muscle under Potter’s right eye started to twitch.

  ‘What do you want us to do, Mr Potter?’ asked Tommy.

  ‘Firstly, you and your crew need to familiarise yourselves with the area,’ said Cyril.

  ‘Well, seeing as how we all live hereabouts that won’t take long, will it, lads?’ said Reggie.

  The men muttered their agreement.

  ‘However,’ continued Cyril, ‘as you’re one of the HR crews who’ve been drafted in urgently you’ll have to learn on the job but if you have a chat with my second in command, Mrs McCarthy, she’ll be able to fill you in on the basics of our little operation here.’

  ‘Right you are, Field Marshal,’ said Reggie, giving him another comic salute. ‘But mind if we have a cuppa first?’

  Cyril blinked rapidly and the flush on his cheeks returned. ‘Well, I really think—’

  ‘Oi, sweethearts,’ Reggie called to a group of women ARP wardens queueing in front of the school kitchen hatch, ‘it’s your lucky day; the cavalry have arrived so be a darling and pour me and the lads a cup of Rosie Lee.’

  The women nudged each other and giggled.

  With his crew following in his wake, Reggie sauntered passed Cyril and over to the WVS refreshment station.

  The muscle under Cyril’s eyes started twitching again.

  ‘Don’t worry about them, Mr Potter, I’ll sort them out,’ said Tommy. ‘Now, where can I find Mrs McCarthy?’

  Reggie’s laughter filled the hall as he and his crew joked with the handful of women getting their breakfast.

  ‘On the stage.’ Taking off his glasses, Cyril rubbed the lenses vigorously. ‘She’s chalking up tonight’s patrol rota.’

  Leaving Reggie and the rest of the team chatting up the bevy of women at the other end of the hall, Tommy took the half-dozen steps to the top of the stage two at a time and made his way past the side curtains to where a woman in a black ARP warden’s uniform was crouched down as she wrote on the central blackboards fixed to the back wall.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs McCarthy,’ he said. ‘I’m part of the new HR crew assigned here and . . .’ Resting her hands on the chair beside her, the woman started to ease herself up. Tommy stepped forward. ‘Let me help you.’

  He offered her a hand and she took it.

  For a split second Tommy had the impression it was Jo on the floor in front of him until the woman turned and he found himself face to face with her very pregnant older sister Mattie.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, putting her hands in the small of her back as she straightened up. ‘It’s a long way down in my condition.’

  He’d not seen her for some time and he’d forgotten how much Jo looked like her, even down to the sprinkling of freckles across her nose.

  As she recognised him her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Hello, Mattie,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Tommy Sweete,’ she said, looking more than a little unsettled. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘As I said, I’m part of the new heavy rescue squad allocated here,’ he replied.

  ‘Are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I am, along with my brother and the men he employs at the yard,’ he said. ‘Mr Potter said you’d be able to give me a rundown of how things are run around here.’

  She glanced past him to where his brother and his men were now lounging in armchairs by the boiler.

  ‘They seem to have made themselves comfortable,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll make sure they do what’s expected of them.’

  She looked less than convinced but she beckoned him forward. ‘Follow me.’

  She headed over to the large map fixed to the side wall of the stage and Tommy followed.

  ‘Post 7 covers all of Wapping, Stepney and Shadwell. We have three dozen air raid wardens who are responsible for getting people to their allocated shelters during an air raid. The wardens are also in charge of keeping order in the shelters. There are also three gas decontamination parties, four auxiliary fire teams, who tackle a blaze until the fire engine arrives, and four light rescue teams to patch up the walking wounded and get them to rest centres. Finally, we have six heavy rescue teams, of which you are one,’ she said.

  They moved to the main blackboard fixed at the back of the stage. It had a grid marked on it with dates along the top and the ARP teams down the side.

  ‘There are three heavy rescue squads on duty at any one time. You’re Blue Squad and your duties will be chalked up here.’ She pointed to where the team’s name was written on the left-hand side of the board. ‘As you can see, for the next three days you’re on early-day duty – that’s eight a.m. to eight p.m.; then three days on late-day duty, which is two p.m. to two a.m.; then you have a day off then two days of early duty followed by seven days on nights, which is eight p.m. to eight a.m.. Although to be honest, in the past three weeks, all the crews have stayed on until all civilians have been accounted for.’

  Tommy nodded.

  ‘And that’s more or less it,’ she concluded. ‘If there’s anything you’re not sure of just ask me or Mr Potter.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tommy. ‘And for taking the time.’

  He gave her a friendly smile, which she didn’t return.

  ‘I heard you were going to volunteer for the army,’ she said. ‘But I suppose that was just another lie you told Jo.’

  ‘I am,’ Tommy replied. ‘But I’ve got some things to sort out first.’

  ‘Well, if one of those things is getting back with my sister,’ Mattie replied, ‘forget it, after the way you’ve betrayed her.’

  Tommy frowned. ‘Well, firstly, Mattie, for your information, I didn’t betray Jo and secondly, perhaps if you hadn’t had her packed off to the country none of this would have happened.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with Jo’s evacuation,’ snapped Mattie. ‘And although it pains me to see my little sister so heartbroken at least she’s found out the t
ruth about you, Tommy Sweete.’ Picking up her warden’s bag, she slung it across her. ‘Now,’ she said, giving him a tight icy smile, ‘in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war on so if you’d excuse me, I’ve got things to do.’

  Tommy stepped aside and Mattie swept past him.

  ‘And I’d be grateful if you could give Jo my love when you see her,’ he called after her as she waddled to the steps at the side of the stage.

  Chapter Eleven

  PULLING DOWN THE hem of her skirt, Jo recrossed her legs and glanced up at the clock above the door where the last volunteer had entered some fifteen minutes ago.

  ‘Taking their blooming time, aren’t they?’ said the young woman with bouncy blonde hair sitting next to her.

  It was ten o’clock on the last Thursday in September and she was sitting in the LCC Eastern Division’s ambulance headquarters in Homerton, just around the corner from the Fever Hospital. It had been just two weeks since she’d presented herself at Stepney Town Hall and filled in the form to join the ambulance service. The invitation for her to attend an interview had arrived in the afternoon post on Tuesday so she’d damp-sponged her best suit, unrolled her only pair of stockings from the tissue paper and spent an hour taming her wayward curls into something approximating tidy before getting a tram to Stratford Broadway. She’d walked the two miles across Hackney Marshes to reach the Victorian double-storey ambulance station where she was now waiting.

  ‘I suppose they have to be thorough,’ said Jo.

  ‘Gillian West,’ said the young woman, offering Jo her hand.

  ‘Jo Brogan,’ Jo replied, taking it. ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Bow Common, you?’

  ‘Wapping.’ Jo yawned.

  ‘I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night either,’ said Gillian. ‘It was bad, weren’t it?’

  Truthfully, with German planes raining high-explosive bombs and incendiaries down on them from dusk to dawn, it had been bad for the past nineteen nights. However, Jo, like everyone else huddled in shelters across London, was learning to survive on the odd half an hour’s sleep between the waves of bombers. To be honest, it wasn’t the Luftwaffe robbing her of sleep but that bloody two-timing Tommy Sweete. And it was just so unfair. After the way he’d behaved she would never forgive him but annoyingly, even with the image of him with that half-dressed tart fixed in her mind, somehow the memory of his arms around her and his mouth pressing onto hers still sent excitement coiling in the pit of her stomach.

  The door opened and the previous applicant came out, clutching a large, manila envelope. She hurried off. There was a pause then the door opened again. This time a middle-aged woman, wearing an expensive navy suit, polished brogues, and a close-fitting hat, stepped out.

  Glancing over her half-rimmed spectacles she scanned down the clipboard she was holding.

  ‘Miss Brogan,’ she said, looking up.

  Jo stood up.

  ‘Follow me.’

  She was led into a room containing a long table behind which sat a man and a woman.

  The woman who’d ushered her in indicated that Jo should take the vacant chair placed centrally in front of the interview panel, so Jo sat down while the woman joined her companions on the other side of the desk. Tucking her knees together and placing her handbag on the floor, Jo studied the three people in front of her.

  The man on the panel was probably her father’s age. He had a long thin face and was completely bald except for a couple of tufts of steel-grey hair over his ears. He was dressed in a black uniform with a white sash that went diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip, his jacket had white chevrons on his right sleeve and sewn on each shoulder was a metal badge with the St John Ambulance symbol on it. Sitting on his left was a scrubbed-faced woman wearing a matron’s navy uniform with a starched white cap pinned to her short, mouse-brown hair.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Brogan,’ said the man sitting opposite her. ‘I’m Captain Brinton, senior training officer for the London St John Ambulance, and this,’ he gestured towards the woman who’d called her in, ‘is Mrs Willis, coordinator of voluntary and full-time ambulance personnel for the eastern district.’ He then turned to his other side and said, ‘This is Sister Smith, the senior nursing officer for ARP emergency services in East London.’

  ‘Good morning,’ said Jo, smiling at them.

  ‘Now, Miss Brogan,’ Captain Brinton continued, glancing down at the pile of papers in front of him, ‘I can see from your application form that you went to Coburn Grammar School for Girls and left in June having successfully gained your school matriculation certificate.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo. ‘I was going to secretarial college but after Dunkirk I was evacuated out of London with my younger brother.’

  ‘It also says you passed the St John’s Intermediate certificate with merit,’ said Sister Smith.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo.

  ‘And,’ said Mrs Willis, consulting her notepad, ‘you’ve been working in a general store in Essex over the summer and driving their delivery van.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo. ‘Mr Garfield, the owner of the store, showed me how to work the gears and brake and sat with me for a couple of days but then let me go out on my own.’

  Captain Brinton’s straggly eyebrows rose. ‘This shopkeeper allowed you to drive his shop van around the countryside on a provisional licence?’

  Jo nodded. ‘I would have taken my test but they’ve been suspended for the duration of the war so he had a word with the local police constable so they knew I had his permission.’

  ‘And did you ever hit anything?’ asked Miss Smith.

  ‘No,’ laughed Jo. ‘Although I did scatter the odd pigeon or two and occasionally trimmed some of the hedgerows.’

  ‘Which is why, presumably,’ said Captain Brinton, ‘you applied to be a driver rather than ambulance crew.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo. ‘I know I haven’t got as much experience as some but I’m very keen.’

  Captain Brinton’s small mouth pulled into a tight bud. ‘I’m sure you are, Miss Brogan, but—’

  ‘Please, give me a chance,’ cut in Jo, edging forward on her seat. ‘I know the emergency rescue services are stretched to the limit and I want to do my bit like everyone else.’

  The two women on the panel exchanged looks and then Sister Smith leaned in and whispered something to the man between them. He looked dubious and turned to Mrs Willis. There was some more whispering as Mrs Willis jabbed her finger at Jo’s application and both women nodded.

  Mr Brinton paused for a moment as if considering their words then he placed his hand flat in front of him and looked across at Jo.

  ‘The ambulance service is, as you rightly say, Miss Brogan, stretched to the limits and because of that we are happy to accept your application into the ambulance service but as an ambulance assistant to work alongside an experienced driver,’ he said. ‘However, because you have a recognised first-aid certificate we can allocate you immediately and you can undertake further training as you go along. The pay is £2 3s a week, the same as the other emergency ARP services, and if you’d like to take up the post then—’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I would,’ said Jo. ‘And I could start tomorrow.’

  The severe lines of Sister Smith’s face lifted a little. ‘Monday will do, Miss Brogan.’

  ‘There’ll be a confirmation put in the post to you tonight, formally offering you a post,’ continued Captain Brinton. ‘And you can bring your acceptance letter with you when you report for duty at the St Katherine’s Ambulance Station on Monday. All the details regarding what time and who you’re to report to will be sent with our acceptance letter.’

  ‘Also because of the problems some ambulance crew are having finding their way around unfamiliar streets, we have decided to allocate you to the Ancillary Ambulance Station in St Katherine’s School, Stepney.’ Mrs Willis smiled. ‘Have you any questions?’

  Jo stared at them for a moment and then gathered her handbag from the floor. />
  ‘No,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘None at all. And thank you. Thank you very much.’

  Hooking her handbag over her arm, Jo turned and headed for the door, happy in the knowledge that if she had to spend the night awake, after Monday it would be for a much better reason than Tommy-bloody-Sweete.

  ‘Only me,’ called Jo as she walked through her sister Cathy’s back door.

  ‘I’m just changing Peter’s nappy,’ Cathy called from the front room. ‘Put the kettle on and I’ll be with you in two shakes.’

  Closing the door, Jo took off her coat and hooked it on the back of the door. After fetching the kettle from the stove, she carried it to the sink. Holding it under the tap, she gazed through the window at the Anderson sitting squarely in the middle of her sister’s small back garden. Having filled the kettle, she set it back on the hob and lit the gas under it before sitting at the table and flicking her way through the copy of Woman’s Realm that had been left lying on the breadbin. She’d just got to an article explaining how you could make a stylish skirt from a pair of men’s trousers, when her sister came in carrying baby Peter.

  Cathy was wearing an old dress covered by a wrap-around apron, and her golden hair was captured in a scarf with a knot at the front. Although it was the collective uniform of every housewife who spent their days sweeping and scrubbing the house, on Cathy the tied apron emphasised her narrow waist, which, as far as Jo could judge, was almost back to its pre-baby size, even if the rest of her was still a little more curvy.

  ‘Who’s this then, Peter, come to see you?’ she asked her four-month-old son. ‘It’s Auntie Jo,’ she continued, answering her own question.

  ‘Hello, young man,’ said Jo, making a happy face at her bemused-looking nephew. ‘And look at you, getting bigger every time I see you.’