Girls on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

‘Over at the screens already.’ Tom jerked his head to the right. ‘Remember?’

  ‘Oh aye, I remember, just didn’t think I’d have to fiddle about on ’em ever again. I’m a big boy, our Tom.’

  Tom shoved back his cap and smiled, his eyes tired. ‘Ah, but the whelp divint be, our Stan. And maybe won’t never be. You’re with him on number-three screen, lad, and good to have yer back, even if it near bust yer da’s gut when he heard. Steam there was, out of every orifice.’

  Stan cut through the passing miners and headed up the slope to the massive open-sided shed where the sorting was carried out. There, waiting, was Ralph Massingham, wearing a Harris tweed jacket, clean trousers, polished brogues, a tweed cap and, to top it all, a yellow cravat. Well bugger me, where does he keep his brains? Stan thought, knowing the cravat wouldn’t be yellow for long, and that what’s more it made the idiot even more of a laughing stock.

  Ralph was shouting something at Barry Woods, who was in charge. Stan was glad he couldn’t hear over the clatter of the coal on the screens, and the noise of the winding gear as it brought miners up from the depths and took others down.

  There were teams of men on the three screen belts, hard at work sorting the coal between gash and good as it rumbled along the belt, and he waved to Frank Tumbler, who’d lost half a hand and half a leg when a firing went wrong. There was also Sammy Street, too old for the face now. Learning the game were a couple of youngsters amongst the rest of the old or damaged. The lads would do as they were told and learn quickly, if he knew anything about Barry, who taught well.

  Stan sighed and tapped Barry on the shoulder. ‘I’ve to report to you, Barry,’ he yelled.

  Barry turned, cupping an ear, then saw it was Stan. ‘About bliddy time,’ he shouted into Stan’s ear. ‘And the best of bliddy luck with this fecking idiot wearing a fecking canary round his fecking neck.’

  He stormed away as Ralph walked towards him, waving a languid hand and drawing out his silver cigarette case. Stan stared, just as much as the other men who were already hard at work sorting. Ralph placed a cigarette in his mouth. It was this that triggered Stan, who snatched it and flung it on the ground, grinding it into powder. ‘You’re here to bliddy work, not ponce about,’ he yelled.

  Stan pointed to the chute where coal was pouring down to the screens and from which dust billowed, gritty and strong. He showed Ralph what needed to be done, and together they watched the men for a minute, separating the stone and slate from the coal as it moved along the metal belts.

  ‘Your da’s modernising was halted by the war, so no shaking belts and it’s up to us. Make the best of it,’ Stan shouted. ‘Chuck the gash onto one of the other belts; shove the good stuff through the holes.’

  Ralph brought out a pair of black leather gloves. Stan sighed and the men grinned, their teeth white against the black of their faces. As they worked, Stan remembered it all: the splint screen or belt on one side for throwing splintered coal, a stone screen on the other, and the main screen, where the men sorted the wheat from the chaff. Stan nudged Ralph and pointed to the machine at the top end that tipped out the tubs, then the jigging machines that did the first sort, shaking out a fair bit of dust, and then the tumbling of the coal and crud from the chute onto the screens. ‘There’s a sort of symmetry to it all, but tomorrow you won’t have any gloves left – they’ll be shredded by the end of the day.’

  Suddenly, Stan pictured Davey’s Grandpa Percy’s shredded football. Did Ralph? Clearly not, for he was bawling, ‘Better them than my hands, old boy.’ Ralph’s voice broke, and for a dreadful moment Stan thought the lad was going to cry, but then he saw it was rage. Ah well, better that than tears, because the men would never let up if they saw even a hint of that sort of rubbish.

  Stan started and was slower than the rest, but he soon remembered, speeding up, grabbing at the stone and slate, the splintered coal, and chucking them into their new homes, shoving the good through. Much slower was Ralph, who, after an hour, nudged him, shouting above the noise, ‘When do we get a break?’

  ‘What’s the time?’ Stan yelled, leaning close enough to shout into his ear. He was sure he smelled cologne.

  ‘Seven o’clock.’

  ‘Another four hours’ll bring us to eleven – fag time.’

  Ralph’s expression was one to remember and those men who had learned to lip-read after months on the clanging, crashing screens roared with laughter. Ralph saw, and his face set. ‘Get on with it,’ Barry called from his platform above them, stabbing towards Stan and Ralph.

  They worked for another four hours at the rattling metal screens. Ralph was struggling and Barry or Stan had to yell at him as he kept making mistakes. Ralph’s lips almost disappeared as his anger grew.

  Finally, Barry came down from his platform and tapped two men at a time to take a break. The screen kept moving and the remaining men kept working, the dust billowing and the grit crunching between their teeth. At last it was Stan and Ralph’s turn and they walked away, heading towards the same supply shed the others had lolled against. Stan sat on the ground and unscrewed his flask of cold tea, while Ralph stood over him. Finally the owner’s son nudged him with his no longer polished and shiny shoe. Stan looked up and Ralph shouted, ‘Where’s the canteen?’

  Stan shook his head and pointed to the flask. ‘’Tis it. Share mine, lad. Cold tea or nothing. Jam sandwich? You should have asked your da, he’d have told you what was what.’

  ‘He thinks I know all about the mine, just like he knows about it, and his factories, and …’

  Ralph sank to the ground and leaned back against the shed, tearing off his shredded gloves and tossing them aside, picking at his coal-filled cuts. Stan drank half, then handed over the enamel mug his father had fashioned to fit the top of the flask. They each ate a sandwich from Stan’s bait tin, leaving traces of blood and black grit on the bread. ‘By,’ Stan yelled, ‘me hands have got soft, and me feet. The buggers ache.’

  Ralph said nothing until Barry semaphored them to return to the screens and then the boss’s son looked up as Stan stood over him. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m going home.’

  Stan nodded, hoping he would but knowing the lad would have to face his father and could never show his face at the village again. He said just this and Ralph’s face set, then he took Stan’s hand. Stan hauled him to his feet and led the way back.

  Ralph walked as though his joints had stiffened and once on the screens he worked even more slowly, his hands too stiff to grasp the stones, slates and coal. Barry let fly at Ralph’s head with one of the smaller stones, knocking his cap to one side. Ralph bellowed and swung round. Stan grabbed his arm. ‘He does it to us all, it’s how we learn.’

  ‘It bloody well hurts,’ Ralph shouted.

  Stan grinned. ‘Aye, that’s why we learn.’

  They worked on, and when Barry scurried down from his platform, he slipped on the last rung of the ladder, whacking his shin. He leaned down and touched the rung. Grease had been applied. Of course it had, Stan thought. Oldest trick in the book when there were new workers, as well Barry knew. Nonetheless, the foreman played the game and stormed along the screen. ‘Who did that? Come on, you buggers, who be it?’

  One by one the men pointed to Ralph. Barry squared up to the lad, knowing full well it wasn’t him. ‘I suppose you think that’s funny?’ It was also part of the game to test a new one.

  Ralph drew himself up and shouted, ‘I’ll have your jobs for this, and your houses—’

  Stan shoved him over, anything to stop him going on. Barry stared down at the lad lying at his feet; the men glanced at one another, disgust and fear on their faces as they returned to the screens. One said, ‘By, puts me in mind of Grandpa Percy’s footie smashed to shreds down the back lane, it do …’

  ‘Aye, only big strong boys do that, eh?’

  ‘Some never change, do they?’

  There was a low laugh, which grew until it could be heard over the rattle of the screens and the rumble of the
coal.

  Ralph lay there as Stan hunkered down by his head. ‘You get up, lad. You get up and yer laugh, and you nod, and you say, “Yes, it seems like it were me,” as it weren’t anyone else, and you take it like a man and pretend you like the trick. You do that and yer might rescue the mess you just shoved your nose into, because these men remember your Blackshirt meetings and your German trip, and lots else, like smashing up footballs belonging to one of their own, and if you’re ever to be accepted, that’s what you do. Now get up or get out – your choice.’

  Stan stood and there was no helping hand this time for Ralph, who had to struggle to his feet, brushing himself off as there was a good half-inch or more of coal dust on the ground. He paused, and finally, as the muscles worked in his jaw, he nodded to Stan. He waved to Barry, who was back on the platform. ‘Yes, sir. It was me, and I’m ready for my punishment. Shall I bend over?’

  Stan sighed as Barry cupped his ear and leaned forward, bellowing, ‘Come again, divint hear thee.’

  Barry was making Ralph work for forgiveness. He’d threatened him and his men, and in spite of any apology he made, it would be tucked away in all their memories. What’s more, the word would travel like wildfire around Auld Hilda that the boss’s son had failed the test, so the lad would have to be whiter than white from now on.

  Ralph repeated himself through gritted teeth, and this time Barry called, ‘Nay punishment, lad. Back to work with you.’

  Ralph said nothing more, just tucked in his chin and worked, though if his hands were as sore as Stan’s, he’d not have a good night. At two o’clock the hooter went at last and, without a backward glance, Ralph left the pit, hurrying away stiff-legged. Stan caught up with him in the yard. ‘Long way from Oxford, eh?’ he said, walking along beside him. It was then he realised that Ralph had come by car. They stopped beside it. Stan saw the folded towel on the driver’s seat. ‘Good idea. Saves the leather.’

  There was no vaulting over the door this time, but just an easing of sore limbs into the driving seat. Ralph looked up at Stan. ‘Can’t offer you a lift, old boy. The car doesn’t need your hewer’s arse on its fine leather.’ Ralph’s laugh contained all the fury of the morning, and the humiliation.

  Stan merely shrugged. ‘If you want to be part of the pit, and the war effort, this is the world you’ll be working in, lad. If you make it more than it is, it’ll be the harder for you, and you’ll muck about with the good and true Massingham name. Just you think on.’

  ‘I won’t forget a thing, bonny lad. Not a thing about today, or anything at all, and I thank you for your part in it all,’ Ralph said. The words were sort of right, but it was his eyes that disturbed Stan, for they were cold enough to freeze the beck.

  Ralph roared away and Stan loitered, knowing that soon Davey would come up from the face wanting to know more about what had happened, for gossip travelled like wildfire in the pit. But while he waited, Stan’s unease deepened as he remembered the threat Ralph had made to Davey as he left that day, clutching his stabbed football, along the lines that he’d take anything Davey valued from him.

  That evening, Fran waited with the others outside the Factory for Cecil, who drove the afternoon shift and was often late. Mrs Oborne sighed, tightening her scarf and pulling down her hat against the wind. ‘By, he’s a devil. What does he do – doze in at the depot, or what?’

  ‘Probably, lazy beggar,’ Maisie joined in.

  Sarah and Beth were stamping their feet against the cold, and Fran was thinking how full of stars the sky seemed on this cloudless night. Sarah muttered, ‘Look at that, a bombers’ moon, if there ever was one. Its size and brightness makes me shudder now, when before the war I thought it were a right good sight.’

  ‘Aye,’ Beth agreed. ‘Not sure how it affects the navy. Does it make it easier to navigate? Do they still do it by the stars?’

  Fran opened her mouth to reply, but Sarah muttered quietly, as though to herself, ‘‘Bob’s the one to ask, after all, he’d know, and he’s your husband, or have—’

  Fran gripped Sarah’s arm. ‘Sarah, lass, steady on.’ She turned to Beth. ‘He’s not been heard from yet, has he?’

  Beth shook her head, her lips thinning. ‘Or have—? What? What are you trying to say, Sarah? And no, Fran, he hasn’t been heard from, and if you hadn’t heard from your man for weeks, you’d wonder, you’d worry— And it’s all very well for people to say he’s out of contact, like many of the men are, but that doesn’t bliddy well help me, does it?’

  Beth had moved to stand in front of Sarah, who had somehow made Stan see the world was beautiful again, just with a few bubbles. Beth felt exhausted suddenly. Yes, it was just the bubbles, not Sarah. She pulled off her headscarf, wanting to feel the cool wind in her hair, and turned away, but not before she’d heard Sarah say, ‘Not many of us would make sure we were at Stan’s side all the time at the beck if we were married, though, would we?’

  Fran pulled Sarah away now, dragging her through the bus queue as Cecil drove around the corner with his slit headlights and drew into the siding. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she hissed.

  Sarah dragged her hands down her face, as though she was wiping her mind free of thoughts. ‘Oh I’m sorry, I’m just tired, and she’s just talked of Stan this and Stan that all day … and I’ve got a headache, and I bliddy itch, and I’m sick to death of mercury powder. It makes me edgy I reckon, but what if Stan goes—’

  Mrs Oborne was looking towards them. ‘Come on, you two. You’re the last to get on.’

  Fran pulled Sarah with her back to the bus, whispering, ‘Stan’s not going to let himself be hurt again. He’s different now he’s back, sort of free of worry and he’s got more bliddy sense than to go there again, and anyway, he’s not your responsibility, and … well, you don’t really think …? Surely not?’ They headed down the aisle while Fran ran over Sarah’s words again.

  Beth was sitting in one double seat, opposite another where Mary from Massingham sat. Before they reached Beth, Sarah leaned forward and whispered to Fran, ‘I’ve made a daft fool of myself?’

  ‘Aye, mebbe, or I hope it’s daft. At least she’s saved a place for us.’

  Fran slipped into the seat next to Mary so that Sarah had to join Beth, who sat with her stoney face on. Maisie was behind Fran and boomed, ‘I knew better than to sit there, after your fisticuffs.’ Then she yelled down the bus, ‘Come on, Cecil, get your bliddy foot down. It’s gone ten and I want to see me bairn, and then get to me own bed.’

  Sarah turned to Beth. ‘Sorry, Beth. I was rude. I know you miss your husband and are worried. You’re married, after all, we all know that, and it must be hard for you after you’ve taken your vows. I was stupid – tired, I reckon. I feel odd after a shift with the mercury.’

  Fran thought that if Sarah had said married, or vows, once more she’d have had to slam a hand over her mouth. As the bus moved off, Maisie yelled, ‘We met our targets, we’re all whacked, so let’s have a song, eh? Give us all some energy and mebbe make our Cecil be a bit careful, cos we all know he’s an idiot behind the wheel.’

  The laughter drove out all other thoughts and Mrs Oborne yelled, ‘Come on, you three girls, lead us into “All or Nothing at All”.’

  Fran poked Sarah, and called to Beth, ‘Got your voices ready?’

  Sarah and Beth looked at one another, Beth said, ‘Pax?’ Sarah agreed, and they both laughed suddenly, then belted out the first line so that Fran had to catch up. On and on they sang, and it was almost as though Sarah and Beth were putting more and more into it, trying to be the loudest. ‘No, no, all or nothing at all …’ Cecil joined in, his baritone like a double bass, which, coincidentally, he played. He flung the bus round a bend, beside the memorial to a coach and horses that had gone out of control in 1859, killing the vicar. He dropped passengers at several villages this side of Minton Ford, then screeched on to Minton, dropping three there.

  Having offloaded some passengers in Minton, he tore on and shuddered to a
halt outside the Sledgeford Club, and Valerie, Amelia and Beth were amongst those getting off. Beth had admitted during lunch that her mam wanted her to give up the rented house and move back to Massingham as her da’s chest was getting worse, and Amelia had raised her cup of tea to Valerie. ‘Well, why not? It’s nice to be living with a family. Better than chewing shoe leather, at any rate.’

  Valerie had looked up. ‘Is that all? Nothing to do with us being a lovely family?’ She was laughing, but there’d been an edge.

  Amelia had drawled, ‘It’s everything to do with being a lovely family, Valerie. Never doubt it. I expect your mother wants you back to mother you, Beth. She must worry about you.’

  ‘It’s really because me da’s so ill and he misses me, and she needs someone else there.’ Beth almost shook herself. ‘Plus, I reckon she wants me to beaver away cutting up the old blankets for the proggy rug she’s making in your mam’s co-op, Fran. So it’s all your fault, for it wouldn’t have happened unless you’d gone to see the bloke and set it up with Briddlestone’s.’ She had been laughing, at last.

  Fran shook her head. ‘No, it’s not me, it’s Mam. She’s like a ruddy dog with a bone now, and I reckon she’d snap and bite if anyone tried to stop their co-op. They are women possessed. But, lass, I’m sorry about your da.’

  Now she waved through the window to Beth as Cecil roared off.

  ‘I hope me da never gets black lung. It’s a pig and a half,’ Sarah whispered, wishing she hadn’t be so tetchy, so mean because she was feeling like it again, at the thought of Beth in Massingham, near Stan and it was only because her da was ill.

  Cecil swung the bus around another bend and Mrs Oborne shouted, ‘By, Cecil, it’s not a bliddy racetrack.’ It’s what she always said and it made no difference. By the end of the journey most of them felt sick.

  Sarah clung to the seat in front and said, almost as though she was thinking aloud, ‘Her da’s ill, her bloke’s not been heard from and I’ve been a right cow.’

  Fran smiled and found herself saying, out of the blue, ‘Ah well, maybe it’s because you want her to leave the field clear for you, pet.’ The moment she said it, she realised she meant it.