War Girls

by Adele Geras

  One month went into the next and we heard that the War was escalating. Apparently, not enough boys were signing up to fuel the fighting, so the authorities were talking about bringing in conscription; that is, all single young men of eighteen or over would be made to go into the Army whether they wanted to or not. Everyone in the country had an opinion: some were for it, some against. Most of those who had already lost someone were very much against it, of course. Grandad changed his mind every day.

  One day I was devastated to see the Handsome Man arrive at the restaurant with a woman; tall and pretty with fair, curly hair (though not a patch on Miss Clementine). They sat opposite each other and he ordered two slices of veal and ham pie. Was it his wife? I looked at her wedding finger – no ring. The cad – he was carrying on with two girls!

  Feeling desperately sorry for Miss Clementine, I asked if she would like to move to a table behind one of the pillars, so she wouldn’t have to see them together. She just smiled though, and said it was nothing at all to worry about; they probably worked at the same place.

  But as I watched them, I began to feel that Miss Clementine was being bit gullible. The Handsome Man and the Other Woman were chatting in a very friendly way, and this seemed particularly cruel of him, seeing as he knew Miss Clementine was sitting just across the room. I decided, therefore, I would take my break as soon as they left, follow them and see if they really did work together.

  Miss Clementine did not stay long that dinnertime, and there were no envelopes exchanged – which was hardly surprising. The Handsome Man asked for his bill (I was very frosty towards him), and when the relief waitress arrived from upstairs, I was ready to go after them.

  I followed the pair across Trafalgar Square at a discrete distance, noting with pleasure that the woman was not holding the Handsome Man’s arm. They went along Whitehall, talking all the way, then up Horse Guards Avenue, entering an imposing marble-faced building, set well back from the road. Once they had disappeared inside, I went closer and read the small brass sign on the gateway: War Office.

  So they were work colleagues. And they were employed (just wait until I told Grandad) at the War Office. How very exciting!

  As it was, I decided not to tell Grandad. I was tired of him banging on, and anyway, he was horribly old-fashioned about affairs and people taking lovers and all that. He’d be bound to think it was shocking, and that would take all the fun out of it.

  The Other Woman (though, of course, she wasn’t really this at all) did not come into the restaurant with the Handsome Man again, and things returned to normal, with envelopes going backwards and forwards, and Miss Clementine and the Handsome Man giving each other swift, secret looks. I was dying to know if they ever met up properly, actually went out together, but I couldn’t get up the nerve to ask Miss Clementine – and I’d never have dared to ask him.

  About a week later, the Handsome Man came into the restaurant quite early, leaving a small oblong envelope on his chair. I collected it along with his empty plate and hid it, as usual, in my serving station, behind the stack of paper serviettes. I knew Miss Clementine would be in shortly for her sandwich.

  But she didn’t come.

  I waited and waited – I didn’t even take my dinner break – but by four o’clock, when we began serving afternoon teas, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to turn up.

  What should I do? After much thought, I decided to take the envelope home for safekeeping and bring it in the next day. If Miss Clementine didn’t turn up again, I’d give it back to the Handsome Man as soon as he came in.

  I don’t quite know how the envelope came open but somehow, as a result of being jostled about in my handbag, the flap unstuck itself. Sitting on my bed at home, I debated with myself for a couple of moments and then curiosity got the better of me; I shook the envelope and let the contents drop out onto the bed.

  It was a slim volume entitled Byron’s Selected Love Poems, and I sighed when I saw it, for we’d done Byron at school and some of his poetry was very passionate. When, with a little encouragement, the booklet fell open, I saw that some words had been underlined, while others had scribbly writing next to them. The writing was pretty bad; I couldn’t read a word – but then I realised that it wasn’t written in English, but in a foreign language. How very strange. It didn’t look like French. Could it possibly be …? No, I was getting as suspicious as Grandad.

  I was about to put the book back into the envelope when a piece of paper fell out: a chart, by the look of it, written on very thin paper and folded over several times. I unfolded it: it was a list of names and dates in English. The names weren’t those of people, however, but of battleships: HMS Dreadnought, Vincent, Collingwood, Neptune … I’d heard of most of them.

  I stared at the chart. The dates were in the future. How curious. Were these the dates when the ships would put to sea, I wondered. But I knew – I’d read it in the papers – that the Navy never divulged information on when ships were going to sail for fear it should get into enemy hands. Somehow the Handsome Man had obtained this information and was passing it on to Miss Clementine. They must be … But no! I just couldn’t believe it.

  I had a sleepless night. Had I been the greenest, most gullible girl in the world – or was I simply reading too much into all this? Was I helping a sophisticated couple who had embarked on a love affair, or were they traitors, callously using me for their own ends?

  I still didn’t know the answer when, at eight thirty the following morning, I arrived at the War Office with the book of poetry and the chart. Was I doing the right thing? Or would they laugh me out of the place?

  I had to wait in Reception until someone came to collect me. We went upstairs and into a little office where I told three nice men – one with a bristling military moustache – all about Miss Clementine and the Handsome Man, describing them in detail and adding that they were such polite and kindly people that there was probably nothing in it and the whole thing was ridiculous, and I was more than likely wasting their time. And they said, No, they were very pleased I’d gone along; what I’d handed in was most interesting and they’d definitely let me know if anything transpired.

  And then I went to work and was only a little late.

  I began to get really nervous near dinnertime, waiting for Miss Clementine or the Handsome Man to come in – and of course I’d left the poetry book and chart at the War Office so I knew I wouldn’t have anything to pass on. I still had the empty envelope however.

  Miss Clementine finally arrived at one o’clock, a little later than usual. I took her order and said it was nice to see her and I hoped she hadn’t been unwell the day before. My voice kept going all funny: rushed and squeaky one minute, gruff the next. I just couldn’t think how to be normal.

  She shook her head. She seemed rather distant. ‘I was much too busy yesterday to spare the time,’ she said. She looked around the room; it was filling up quickly with the dinnertime trade. ‘Was anything left for me?’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll put in your order first, then I’ll get it.’

  ‘Could you be quick?’ she said, quite abruptly, then added, ‘In fact, I’ll take my sandwich back to work with me.’

  ‘Certainly,’ I said – and you know that expression ‘the scales fell from my eyes’? Well, suddenly the scales jolly well fell from mine. I was shocked both at the harshness in her voice and how different she seemed. She was no longer the generous, kindly older sister; there was a pursed tightness round her mouth, as if I irritated her, and she looked at me with hard blue eyes.

  I gave her order at the kitchen and went to clear a couple of tables by the front door. Across the road at the station a military band had arrived and they were playing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ to the crowd who had gathered there. I heard someone calling, ‘The troop train’s in!’ and, from all over the place, people started running towards the station forecourt.

  I delivered two or three orders to my tables and then, forgetting my own little drama
for the one happening over the road, I opened the front door of the tea room and stood there, watching. Most of the customers came too, including Miss Clementine, and as the band started on ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’, the injured troops began to limp through from the station.

  They had come straight from the front line, I heard someone say, and it was heartbreaking to see them. Some were in wheelchairs or makeshift barrows; some on stretchers. Most of them, however, were ‘walking wounded’, limping along with the aid of a crutch or supported on each side by a mate. They winced with pain as they walked, trailed bloodied bandages behind them. Some were missing a limb; others blind. Some had iodine-stained cloth covering their heads and faces.

  As more and more casualties poured out of the station, people began weeping, then applauding, patting the men on their backs and calling, ‘Well done!’ When the band got to the end of the song, it stopped. There was a pause and then it began, with much pomp and majesty, to play the National Anthem.

  Everyone – the customers who had come out with me, Miss Clementine among them – stood to attention and joined in the singing with a passion. It was a spine-tingling moment and I felt my heart go out to the soldiers with their terrible injuries. These boys, this war, were what I should have been concentrating on, not some grubby love affair.

  Moist-eyed, we sang the first verse, then the chorus, and after that everyone went quiet and blew their noses. Apart from Miss Clementine, that was. Her voice, clear as a bell, soared out over everyone else’s:

  ‘Oh Lord our God arise,

  Scatter his enemies,

  And make them fall!’

  She got to the end of the verse and everyone clapped and cheered – then she saw me in the doorway and asked tersely, ‘Do you have my letter?’

  ‘Of course.’ I passed her the envelope. She looked inside and saw – not a list of warships’ names, but her roast-beef sandwich, rather squashed because it had been in my apron pocket.

  ‘What on earth is this?’ she exclaimed, but luckily I was saved from having to reply by the man immediately behind her – the one from the interview room, with the military moustache – putting one hand across her mouth and using the other to clamp her hands behind her back.

  Two other men appeared and, one on each side, lifted her into the air and moved her towards a waiting black van. She struggled, kicked out and made noises, but luckily, in the hurly-burly of the crowd, and with people pressing to the front to cheer the injured soldiers, hardly anyone saw what was going on. A woman sitting inside the van jumped out and opened the back doors.

  Just before she was shoved inside, Miss Clementine turned and gave me a look of pure hatred. I shrank back a bit, but then, as the injured tommies limped by, I took a deep breath, stood up tall and looked straight back at her, as brazen as could be.

  A week later, I was both excited and terrified to be asked to go back to the War Office for what they called a ‘debrief’.

  This time it was just me and the moustachioed man. He stood up when I came into the interview room. ‘I want to say that we in the War Office are extremely grateful to you,’ he said, shaking my hand vigorously.

  ‘So she really was …’

  He nodded grimly. ‘A German spy! Dropped over here with a false passport and false identity. Speaks damned good English, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘And what about the Hand— her boyfriend?’

  ‘A traitor. Some blighter paid to betray his own country. Can you believe it?’

  I shook my head.

  He gave a tight smile. ‘We’ve pulled him in, of course.’

  There was still something puzzling me. ‘But what about the poetry?’ I asked. ‘Where does Lord Byron come into it?’

  ‘Oh, the book of poetry was a code-breaking device they sent backwards and forwards to each other. I’m very much afraid, Harriet, that they were using you as what we call a dead letter box.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Thank God you realised.’

  ‘Well, it took a while,’ I said, slightly embarrassed.

  ‘We’re very, very grateful, of course,’ said the man. ‘If we could catch a few more …’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said.

  I had to sign a form, something to do with DORA and the Official Secrets Act, to say that I wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone. As I signed, I wondered what would happen to them – to Miss Clementine and the Handsome Man – but didn’t want to ask. It wouldn’t be anything good, that was for sure.

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘She was so very English.’

  ‘Spies are rather clever like that.’ He stroked his moustache. ‘Do you know, they say that only a spy knows all the words to—’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say!’ I said.

  And how very annoying that I wouldn’t be able to tell Grandad.

  The Marshalling of Angélique’s Geese

  by Rowena House

  The Marshalling of Angélique’s Geese

  While this story is fictional, it was inspired by real events, in particular by recent scientific discoveries about the origins of a deadly strain of bird flu known – misleadingly – as ‘Spanish’ influenza.

  Summer 1916

  I’m turning hay in the top meadow when I hear the squeak of rusty wheels and look up to see Monsieur Nicolas, the postman, peddling up the lane. I stiffen, suddenly afraid that I know the reason why he’s here.

  Please God, let it not be Pascal.

  Soft summer sounds surround me now that I’m still. Grasshoppers. Distant birds. The eternal hum of bees. The creaking of the bicycle is like some infernal machine, let loose in the Garden of Eden.

  Please God, not my brother Pascal.

  I think about the day two years ago when the church bells chimed on and on. Pascal and I were stacking hay at the time. We dropped our pitchforks and ran to the village square, and heard the mayor announce: ‘France is at war!’

  Father went straight away. But Pascal stayed long enough to show me how to gather in the harvest, how to scythe and how to plough. I was twelve years old and so excited. Now I’m fourteen and my hands are calloused and my back aches like an old woman’s.

  Monsieur Nicolas clatters slowly past the orchard, waking the geese. They flap and hiss as they waddle towards the fence. Mother appears at the kitchen door, wiping her hands on her apron. Her back is very straight.

  Monsieur Nicolas stops. He clambers awkwardly off the saddle and pushes his bicycle up the hill towards our gate. I hold my breath.

  Please God, not Pascal.

  He stops again and rests the bike against our fence. The geese clamour and shriek as he opens the gate. I pick up my skirts and run.

  It is Father. ‘Mort pour la France’ and buried in some far-off field. Mother sheds silent tears as we close the curtains and change into mourning black.

  I cry a little too, but in my heart I’m so relieved it isn’t Pascal. I’m glad he’ll run up the path some day and hug Mother and make her laugh, and tease me and demand to see King George, the finest pig in all of France, who deserves a name whatever Father says … whatever Father said.

  I think about him as we walk to Mass that evening. I try to remember something nice. But I can’t. All I recall are his fists and his belt and his leather razor strop. Pascal got the worst of it but sometimes late at night I heard Mother whimpering as well.

  Outside the church the other widows flock around Mother like crows.

  Old Madame Malpas draws me aside, wringing her bony hands and crying, ‘What’s to become of you, Angélique? You’ll very likely starve! La Mordue will go to rack and ruin without Monsieur Lacroix.’

  ‘Pascal will be home soon,’ I tell her. ‘Mother and I can manage till then.’

  ‘Manage, child? When your corn’s still in the field in August?’

  I glare at her. How can we start cutting corn when the hay’s not stacked, and the cow needs milking, the geese need tending, King George needs feeding
…?

  ‘The farm-men have been promised leave,’ I say. ‘There’ll be time enough to make a start when Pascal gets home.’

  Madame Malpas sniffs. ‘And you expect the generals to keep their promises? That’ll be the day.’

  I stick out my tongue as she stumps away. The trouble is she might be right. The farm-men were promised leave last summer too, but they couldn’t be spared from the Front.

  As Mother and I walk home through the warm, rosy dusk, a thought strikes me, a happy thought for once. The farm belongs to Pascal now. The house and land, King George and the geese, everything is his.

  I hide a smile from Mother and make myself a promise. When Pascal comes home, he’ll find the farm exactly the way he left it. I’ll clean his tools and put them back in their proper places. I’ll make his bed and lay his bowl and knife on the kitchen table. I think of it like a magic spell. If nothing changes – if I can make time stand still – then maybe Pascal won’t change either and everything can go back to normal after this War is over.

  No! It’ll be better than before because Father won’t be here.

  Next morning I wake early and dress in the dark. The house is quiet. I hear the kitchen clock and the patter of rats in the rafters.

  Outside, the cobbled yard is silver with dew. The air tastes clean and cool – until I go into the dung-heap warmth of the little stone barn which nestles against the house.

  King George is snoring in his straw. The cow stands patient in her stall. I milk her, let out the hens, then fill a pail with grain for the geese.