The Arrow's Arc

by John Wilcox

  “Yes.” She tossed her head. “But I am fit enough, see, and I didn’t have a bad time with Caitlin. I knew about the night work and I’m prepared to give it a go, if you’ll have me.”

  He smiled. “Oh yes,” he said, more softly this time. “We’ll have you all right, Kathleen. Now,” he sat back, “we will give you two weeks’ training – it’s a sort of trial period, as well – at £4 a week. Then, if everything’s okay, we take you on properly at £7 a week. All right?”

  “All right.” Seven pounds! What money! “When do I start?”

  “Tomorrow, if that’s all right with you. We’re working flat out at the moment. Now, are you sure the babbie will be okay while you’re working?”

  “Oh yes. Me Mam is already looking forward to having her.”

  “Good.” He stood up and extended his hand again. “See you tomorrow then, at eight o’clock sharp.”

  She gave him her best smile – the black spot didn’t matter now that she’d got the job – shook his hand and left. As she went through the door she realised he was whistling “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen.”

  *

  Once outside, she found that the rain had cleared, and decided to walk home. It was three miles or more but she felt elated and the exercise would be good for her. Kathleen Gladwin, twenty-four years of age, wife and mother, was now also about to become a fully-fledged factory hand! Oh, the trial period would be no obstacle, she knew that. She was good with her hands and, since Bill had gone away, she had done all the repair and maintenance work in their house without a second thought. Punching rivets would be nothing to the girl who had fixed the lavatory cistern and put a new roof on the lean-to outside lavatory! She grinned, swivelled her hips and swung her handbag just as Lana Turner had done in “Boom Town”.

  There was another reason for her elation, however, and she was sufficiently self aware to recognise it. It had been a long time since anyone had so openly admired and flirted with her, as – what was his name? Ah yes, Fred – had done. A small but warm frisson ran through her. She had no intention of being unfaithful, although she knew one or two ex-schoolfriends, wives of soldiers serving overseas, who weren’t above hanging about the nearby depot of the South Wales Borderers. No. That wasn’t for her. But a girl could enjoy being admired, couldn’t she? That was no sin.

  Her train of thought led her back to Bill. What would he think of her getting her hands dirty in a factory? Her husband wasn’t a snob, she was pretty sure of that, but he had never really got on with Mam and Da, even though his own parents had died some years ago and you would have thought that a bit of working class warmth and home comfort would have been welcome to him. When she had met him, he had been living in digs near the school where he taught and she had brought him home soon enough, like a good girl should. She had retained her virginity until her wedding night – that was only proper – and she sighed at the memory of his frustration during those months and at his ardour in the early days of their marriage. But somehow, as the days had gone by when he was waiting to go away to war, he had become colder, more reserved. It was her fault, she knew that. If only she could bring herself to read more books and try and keep up with him, to develop her brain a bit and all that. He loved his books and history was his passion, as well as his job. One thing though – and she smiled at the memory – he had been impressed by Uncle Tony, there was no doubt about that. Uncle Tony, her mother’s older brother, was one of the famous Black Archers of Llantrisant. She knew the story well, for it was treasured within the family. After the Battle of Poitiers in the Hundred Years’ War against the French, whenever that was, the Black Prince of England had wished to reward the small band of archers from the little town of Llantrisant in South Wales who had fought so well for him in the battle. So he had made them freemen of the town. More than that, he had given them 260 acres just outside the town to be theirs for ever to be used for the grazing of cattle. Mam had come from Llantrisant – there was not much to it, even now, just a little group of houses on a hill – but those acres were still owned by the descendents of the archers and Uncle Tony was one of them. A Black Archer, as they were all still called. Bill had been fascinated and had gone with Uncle Tony to the pub and questioned him about it all. She smiled again. That was a feather in the family’s cap all right!

  The walk did her good and, under the powder and rouge, her cheeks were glowing when she reached her parents’ house. Da was having one of his bad days and was still in bed, but Caitlin was trying to crawl on the blanket that Mam had laid in front of the fire (she had put a line of cushions to prevent the baby from getting too close) and her strange black eyes glowed when her mother picked her up and kissed her. Despite her mother’s disapproval of Kathleen’s decision to take a factory job, there was no doubt that she was impressed by the wages.

  “Seven pounds a week is it? Well, your Da never got that much as a postman in nearly fifty years! What’s the world comin’ to, I don’t know.”

  “There’s a war on, Mam. Didn’t you know?”

  *

  The next morning Kathleen rose early, deposited her daughter with her mother and reported for work at five minutes before eight o’clock. Fred gave her an appraising glance (she had put her hair in a snood and taken more care this morning with her make up) and took her to George, an elderly foreman, who in turn put her in the charge of Beryl, a cheery girl from the Valleys in the south west who was to show her how to weld.

  “There’s nothing to it really, luv,” she said. Kathleen realised that the dreadful ‘Music While You Work’ forced everyone to shout but, within seconds, it seemed to merge into the background like audio wallpaper and received no attention, unless a particular favourite, like ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, came on and then everyone joined in.

  Kathleen picked up a small steel bracket from the bin. “Is this the aileron thing?”

  “It could be a French letter for all I know, luv. All you have to do is to match the ‘oles in it to the ‘oles in this long flat piece ‘ere, look you,” she picked up another, much larger section of metal, “and stick the rivets in like this, and press the trigger like this an’ it’s welded see. It’s not proper welding, like, as they do in a shipyard or somewhere, ‘cos you ‘ave to wear a mask for that, but it’s got to be done properly just the same. Look.”

  Kathleen watched, then tried herself and before long was handling the rivet gun with some degree of familiarity, although she realised that her arms were going to be tired by the end of the day.

  “I think these things go on the Lancaster bombers,” she said to Beryl. “My Bill flies in Lancasters.”

  “Oh ah. That’s nice, then, isn’t it.”

  As the day wore on, Kathleen realised that, although the work was monotonous, it was not mind-numbingly dull because she began to develop a sense of rhythm, with her movements matching those of the girls around her, as though she was a member of a chorus line, and this gave her pleasure. It did not take her long to appreciate that she had become part of a close community. The rest of the team on her section, eleven girls, had folded around her, almost imperceptibly, discreetly watching over her to make sure that her work was up to standard and – always – chattering. The conversation was banal but lively and far more earthy than Kathleen had ever encountered in the haberdashery section of Drewlands, the department store. It seemed to concentrate on men – husbands (usually absent, fighting the war), boyfriends (scarce, unless you counted the spotty-faced recruits who passed through the Borderers’ Depot) – sex or films.

  Beryl’s husband worked at the coal face in the Rhonda. They had no children and, because she didn’t fancy employment at the pit head, she had decided to “do the war work at Brecon. I miss ‘im a bit,’ she stentoriously confided to Kathleen, “and it means I only get a fuck once in a blue moon now. But still,” she grinned as she moved a rivet from between her teeth and inserted it into the matching holes, “there’s more to life than that, eh? And I like it ‘ere, with this lot, see.”<
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  Kathleen survived her probation period and, to her satisfaction, was retained in Beryl’s team, although the work changed quite often. She particularly disliked being put to drill holes in steel blocks – she had no idea what their purpose was, but she hated the scurf filings that spiralled out and covered her hands and forearms with a layer of steel dust that irritated the skin and had to be removed with care. At first she dreaded the prospect of her first night shift but quickly succumbed to that extra-warm feeling of comradeship that working through the night engendered in her team – that sense that they were special, working while the world slept.

  Early in February she received a letter from Bill saying that he was nearing the end of this particular tour of duty and would then probably be taken off active flying and given an instructor’s job on another station, although he intended to resist this. As usual, he expressed no particular emotion, although, as always, he enquired after Caitlin and asked if a snap of her could be sent to him. He closed his letter, ‘with love, Bill’. No crosses at the bottom, of course, although she always surrounded her name with them when she wrote. She had stopped some time ago blotting her lipstick in a crude kiss at the end of her letters. She felt that perhaps Bill would think it vulgar. Now – to tell him of her new job, or not? Better to do so, rather than surprise him if he came home having been given leave before his new posting. Yes, much better.

  She took great care with the letter, explaining that the conditions were clean and bright and that she was working with ‘a great crowd of girls’. She told him that she had been feeling ‘unfulfilled’ – she had to look up the spelling – with life at home and that she wanted to do her bit for her country and ‘engage her mind a bit more’. She liked that bit. He was not to worry about Caitlin, because she still had plenty of time to be with her and the night shift in particular gave her opportunity to play with her during the day. In any case, Mam was loving the bit of extra responsibility of looking after her only grandchild. Everything was fine. He was to stop bombing Germany for a bit and take up the teaching job. Teaching. That’s what he was good at, anyway, wasn’t it?

  She posted the letter the next morning on her way into work and that evening, at the end of her shift, she was stopped by Fred Lucas as she walked towards the factory entrance. He fell into step beside her.

  “How’s it going, then, Kathleen?” he enquired.

  “Oh, fine, thanks Mr Lucas.”

  “Fred, please. Fred. You live in Inkerman Street, don’t you, Kath?”

  “Yes.”

  “I go that way on my way home. Come on, I’ll give you a lift in my car.”

  “Oh, ah, no… er… Fred, thanks very much. I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble. It’s not far on the bus.”

  “No trouble. It’s not out of my way and I can drop you at the door.”

  He put a firm hand on her elbow and steered her out of the stream of workers towards the yard at the back where management kept their cars. There weren’t many, for few civilians were allowed to keep their cars on the road in this fifth year of the war. Kathleen looked around her in some discomfort. She did not want any of her team to see her being given this special treatment; what on earth would they think?

  Fred’s car was a very presentable 1938 Morris Ten saloon and he opened the passenger door with a flourish and gave a half bow. “Haven’t had a pretty girl in here for a long time,” he said. As though in answer to her frown as she settled into the leather seat, he went on: “I’m allowed to keep her on the road because I have to travel a lot to the Hercules in Brum and also to our suppliers round about. It’s very necessary and above board, love, I promise you. I get the petrol coupons straight. There’s no fiddling.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s not,” said Kathleen, but she bowed her head low and pretended to rummage in her handbag as Fred drove them through the crowds leaving the factory entrance.

  They rode in silence for a while and Kathleen had to admit to herself that this was a far more comfortable way of travelling home than queuing for the bus in the drizzle that was beginning to spot the windscreen. She tried to remember how many times she had ever been in a car before – perhaps only five or six, usually in Uncle Tony’s old Austin Seven. Nothing as posh as this.

  Fred stretched out a hand and turned on the automatic wipers. “How’s the old man, then?”

  “Who d’you mean? My Da?”

  “No. The Air Marshal. Coming home soon, is he?”

  “Shouldn’t be too long, because he is completing his second tour of goin’ out over Germany and that. Not many air gunners last that long, you know.” She spoke with pride, rather than anxiety, and Lucas gave her a sharp look.

  “Ah.” He nodded. “Good luck to the lad.”

  They sat quietly until they reached her mother’s house. “Here is fine, thank you.”

  “I thought you lived at number 39.”

  “I do.” He must have checked before singling her out. Kathleen felt uncomfortable again. “This is my Mam’s place. I have to pick up Caitlin.”

  “Ah yes, of course.” He leaned across her to open the door, brushing his shoulder against her breasts as he did so. “I can always give you a lift, you know. It’s no trouble. It’s on my way.” He smiled at her, a few inches from her face. He had good teeth. She felt a little shiver of, what? – apprehension, anticipation, excitement? – tingle down her spine.

  “Oh, it’s very good of you Fred, but no. I don’t really think it would be right, see.” She put her heel onto the pavement and, as she got out of the car, he remained leaning across the seat, looking up at her.

  “Oh, Kath.” He gave a confident grin. “Don’t worry about what people say. Life’s too short. Anyway, it’s all above board. Give my love to your little girl. Good night.” With a gentle purr the Morris pulled out from the kerb and accelerated away. As Kathleen ran to her mother’s door in the rain, she was sure she saw the white lace curtains twitch at the window next door.

  *

  During their break the next morning, Kathleen asked Beryl about Fred Lucas. “Old Fred?” Beryl gave a great laugh. “E’s a bit of lad, I should say, but ‘is ‘eart’s in the right place. When Doreen ‘ad ‘er lad in the ‘ospital with the whooping cough – she lost her bloke at Dunkirk, you know?”

  Kathleen nodded.

  “Well, ‘e gave ‘er time off every afternoon to go and seen ‘im without loss of wages and ‘e slipped a quid note into ‘er pocket to buy ‘im something to cheer ‘im up. He’s all right, old Fred. But you might have to keep yer ‘and on yer fanny if you’re out with ‘im. As I say, a bit of a lad.’

  Kathleen wondered if Beryl had had direct experience but decided not to ask. Instead she enquired, “Is he married, then?”

  “Believe so. Think ‘e’s got a wife back in Brum, but I don’t think they get on. No kids though.”

  The next morning, hurrying to bath Caitlin and get herself ready, it was Frank Phillips reading the seven o’clock news. He was the one with the scrubby moustache and the spectacles. He looked short and his voice was short, lower than Alvar’s tall, attractive tenor. “Last night, Lancasters of Bomber Command bombed a large aero engine factory in Limoge, France. The raid was a complete success and the factory was put out of commission. Five of our aircraft are missing.”

  Lancasters! Well, she told herself, they’ll all be Lancasters now. Bill had told her that they were now becoming the main strike aircraft of Bomber Command. The fact that five Lancasters were missing doesn’t mean that Bill… She dried Caitlin, dressed her, and laid her down while she ate her toast and tea. You just couldn’t keep worrying all the time.

  The following day the telegram arrived: “We regret to inform you that your husband, Flight Lieutenant William Gladwin DFC is reported missing following a bombing raid over France. If there is further news you will be informed immediately”. What did they mean, if there is further news, for God’s sake? But on its heels came a letter from Bill’s Commanding Officer. She was not sure w
hether it was more reassuring or not. His plane had been seen going down in flames but two parachutes had been seen leaving it and perhaps more had escaped. Bill was a survivor and the ratio of escape from occupied France was now quite high. And there were always the prisoner-of-war camps, of course. She should remain positive…

  Remain positive. Positive? Did that mean going into work as though nothing had happened? Is that what the country demanded? Kathleen found that she had no tears so she prepared Caitlin as usual, dropped her off at her mother’s house with hardly a word and caught her usual bus. It wasn’t until eleven thirty in the morning when she collapsed at her bench, howling in despair. Fred immediately put her in his car, took her to her mother’s house, put a half bottle of whisky on the table and left her sitting, staring into the fire, while Caitlin gurgled at her feet.

  CHAPTER 5

  Gladwyn woke and opened one eye. He could not open the other, for it was pressed firmly against Marie’s bosom and she was rocking him gently, as though comforting a child. The rain had stopped and he had the impression that he had dozed off for a moment or two, but the soreness in his bottom and thighs had disappeared, although he felt cold and still rather tired. He stirred his head and immediately Marie sat up and, pushing back the hair from his forehead, kissed him quickly.

  “Oh, Will,” she said. “Have you… been away? You have not been long.” She sounded disappointed.

  “Been away? No. Must have dozed off for a minute, that’s all.”

  The disappointment was now clear on her face. “Did you not dream, then, Will? Perhaps made a journey, eh?”

  “No. Sorry. Nothing at all. Was I supposed to?”

  She sighed. “I was hoping… Oh, I was hoping so much, that perhaps you might…” She looked away and he caught a glimpse of a tear in the corner of her eye. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter. Perhaps it was a little too early.” She sighed again. “But we have so little time.”