Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

by Mary Gibson

‘Ah yes, they’re looking for experienced women. They’ve started making cream for burn victims, very important work, or plane parts. Do you have any experience of soldering?’

  ‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact I’ve done soldering on the talcum powder tins.’

  The woman looked up, suddenly interested. ‘That should come in handy. Women usually have to be sent on training courses. I’ll recommend you for Atkinson’s.’

  Peggy’s one fear had been that with her husband in prison she’d be considered a ‘mobile woman’ and shipped off to the other end of the country. At least now she could stay near her family.

  After the labour exchange she went to the local WVS office. It was buzzing with activity. In one corner, overalled women were sorting piles of second-hand clothing. The unmistakable fusty smell of unwashed clothes hit her and she hurried past to the kitchen, where, through a serving hatch, she could see women bending over deep sinks, washing cups and saucers. An elderly woman, in WVS green, greeted her at a reception desk and asked what hours she could do.

  ‘I’ll be doing war work at Atkinson’s, but I can volunteer around my shifts. I don’t mind night work,’ she said, thinking of the long nights ahead without George.

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ The woman smiled and looked down at a rota. ‘We’re desperately in need of help on the mobile canteens’ night shift. So many women have to get home for their children, you see.’

  Again came the list of questions ending in ‘husband’s occupation?’ And for some reason, this time her courage failed and she said, ‘Forces.’

  She was disappointed that she couldn’t start right away, but in this, as in every other service, it seemed there was a uniform to be got. As she was being kitted out at the depot, with green frock and felt hat, along with a green woollen overcoat, she couldn’t help feel that there was nothing here that George could object to. She looked the picture of respectability. The thing that gave her greatest pleasure, however, was the tin helmet. With that on her head, she began to believe that she really was part of the war effort.

  She had to share her excitement with someone and decided that May would be the one to really appreciate why she needed to get involved. Her sister had changed since they’d lost Jack, surprising Peggy with her own campaign to be allowed to join up. May had always been the predictable homebody, and sometimes Peggy felt envious of her sister, for escaping all the expectations that their parents had piled upon her as the firstborn. Peggy, the pretty one, the one who had to marry and give them grandchildren and make them proud. She’d already failed. After four years, there were no grandchildren, and perhaps never would be. But her sister of late had begun to do the unexpected, and now it felt that she was beginning to surge ahead, leaving Peggy hurrying to keep up.

  She waited in The Grange, opposite the factory gates, and finally saw May walking towards her, chatting to a young man. Peggy didn’t recognize him but this looked like another first for May, who’d been so boy-shy for all her teenage years and had never had a chap. He was dressed smartly in a jacket and tie and had one hand in his trouser pocket. Though his face was turned aside, she saw he had a strong profile, with a head of thick wavy hair, which he pushed back from his forehead every now and then. As he walked he didn’t look straight ahead, but kept his gaze on May. They were so intent on their conversation that neither of them had noticed her waiting.

  ‘Peggy, what are you doing here?’ May gave her a look which forbade comment.

  Peggy slipped her arm through May’s and said to him, ‘Excuse my sister, she’d never think to introduce us!’

  She felt May’s nails digging into her arm. He laughed, a pleasant, deep laugh, and put out his hand. ‘Oh, she doesn’t need to – you’re Peggy, she’s told me all about you! Bill Gilbie, pleased to meet you.’

  He might know all about her, but she knew nothing of him. It was just like May to keep him hidden away. He fell into step with them and seemed as easy and relaxed as May was awkward. It was a mystery to the whole family why one of the local chaps hadn’t snapped her up, but Peggy thought this one looked keen enough. She was intrigued.

  When they reached Grange House, he stopped. ‘This is where I live,’ he said, waving towards the block of flats, and Peggy saw a look of disappointment cross May’s face.

  ‘Oh, see you tonight, Bill!’ she said, stopping dead, as he paused at the block entrance.

  ‘Yes, see you tonight, “Happy Days”!’ He walked backwards, smiling at May, seeming to mime at playing an invisible piano. ‘And lonely nights!’ May pulled a sad face and laughed at what was obviously a private joke, so that Peggy felt like a spare part. As soon as he was out of earshot, May said, ‘Trust you to embarrass me!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft. I had to say something to break the ice, you’re so bloody tongue- tied. Anyway, you never told me you’d got a chap! Good-looking too!’

  ‘He’s not my chap.’

  ‘Well, how come you’re going on a date with him then?’

  ‘It’s not just me – all the Garner’s girls go there. He’s the piano player at the Red Cow.’

  May blushed furiously and Peggy felt sorry for teasing her.

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean to break anything up. It’s just I had to tell someone my news. I’ve got a job and I’ve joined the WVS!’

  ‘Peggy! Blimey, you didn’t lose any time, did you?’ May said, and Peggy thought she saw a flash of admiration in her sister’s eyes.

  *

  For the time being she was free to work both day and night shifts on the mobile canteen, at least until her job at Atkinson’s was settled. She couldn’t drive, so was paired with another woman who could. The next morning she reported for the early shift. After filling the urn with boiling water and stocking up the van with trays of cups, saucers, buns, cigarettes, matches and a hundred other things bombed-out families or volunteer workers might need, they set off. Her partner, whose name was Babs, was a middle-aged woman with a brisk, friendly manner. She was single, a bank clerk by day, and seemed a good driver, explaining to Peggy that she’d trained on ambulances in the last war. She’d moved here all the way from Devon, just so she could help in the worst of the Blitzed areas. She chatted non-stop, as they followed their set route around the bombed docks and streets of Bermondsey. They served tea, buns and sundries to whoever seemed most in need along the way. First stop was for some homeless families in a bombed street without a house left standing. Covered in a uniform white dust, whole families sat on the remains of their bedding, piled up on rubble mounds – all that was left of their homes. Most of them had escaped with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

  At the sight of the tea van, the little groups stirred, children coming to life first, running over for pies and sandwiches. There was no time to worry about what she didn’t know. She just followed Babs’s lead and soon was hooking down cigarettes and ferreting out aspirin from all the clever cubby-holes built into the van.

  ‘Orange juice and three teas, please.’ A woman with a face full of small cuts, no doubt from flying glass, stood at the drop-down counter with a toddler beside her and a baby in her arms.

  ‘Jenny Cole!’ Peggy recognized the woman she’d once worked with at Atkinson’s. They’d both married at the same time and been forced to leave their jobs.

  ‘Peggy!’ The woman smiled, her skin crinkling beneath a coating of brick dust. ‘I thought I recognized you.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, love. Is that your house?’

  Jenny nodded. ‘Was. That’s me mum and dad – they lived on the top floor.’ She pointed to an older couple sitting on a suitcase. ‘Thank gawd we all come out alive. We was under the stairs.’

  Peggy handed the woman the bottle of orange juice, looking down at the toddler who was hiding beneath the counter.

  ‘These two your’n?’ Peggy asked and the woman smiled, bouncing the baby in her arms. ‘That’s Archie and littl’un here is Alfie. You got any?’

  Peggy shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

&nbs
p; ‘Lucky you!’ the woman said.

  But Peggy knew she meant the opposite.

  Some Pioneer corps who were helping clear the rubble came up in a rowdy group and Jenny went back to her parents. Normally the sight of those two round-faced children would have stirred an unacknowledged longing, but she knew all the gradations of that particular desire and, today, it was not so fierce. Perhaps what she’d really wanted all along was simply to feel useful. And by evening, when they made their final stop for a group of exhausted firemen, fighting a warehouse blaze in Shad Thames, she had no doubt of her usefulness. But it hadn’t been as easy as she’d imagined – even more tiring than a double shift at Atkinson’s.

  Before the end of that week, Peggy’s nights no longer seemed so dark, lit as they were by the aerial play of searchlights, exploding bombs, blazing buildings, phosphorescence from incendiaries and also, by the faint glimmer of her own returning self.

  7

  Play On

  February–March 1941

  Life had gone on around them, and the leather works was almost back to full production. Persuading her parents to let her join the ATS was proving a more protracted battle than she’d expected, but meanwhile, determined to do something, May now took her turn with the other volunteer spotters on the factory roof. The weekly rota meant that she was often on Garner’s rooftop at the same time as Bill Gilbie. They watched for enemy planes by day and fires by night, ready to give the warning for the factory to take cover or the fire service to spring into action. It was in those hours, patrolling the rooftop with Bill, that she began to lose her shyness around boys, or perhaps it was just this particular boy. Somehow it helped that most of her attention was focused on their common task – it was hard to be self-conscious when life and death hung in the balance.

  *

  It was a daylight raid. To save production hours these days the factory only evacuated once the bombers were almost overhead. She leaned her elbows on the roof parapet, binoculars scanning the sky.

  Between shifts Bill had already taught her the difference between a German bomber and an English fighter, drawing little outlines of the planes and testing her afterwards.

  Now he propped his elbows on the parapet too, raising his own binoculars. ‘See the Alaska rooftop?’

  ‘Yes, got it.’

  She focused on the Alaska fur factory, not far off, in Grange Road.

  ‘That’s the highest around here, higher than Atkinson’s or Young’s. Alaska always spots ’em first. When you see their spotters running for it, sound our alarm sharpish!’

  There was silence between them, and May heard Bill sigh. He seemed more subdued than normal.

  ‘You’re quiet today,’ May said, for she’d discovered that she was never stuck for conversation with Bill.

  He glanced at her, then put his binoculars back up to his eyes. ‘I’m in a bit of a quandary, to be honest.’ There was a pause and he seemed to make up his mind. ‘Iris got in touch again.’

  ‘Iris? Oh, Iris. Your old sweetheart?’ She hadn’t thought about the girl since he first mentioned her, but now she found she was intrigued by the woman who’d captured Bill’s heart so young and then broken it.

  ‘I can’t make it out, May. She didn’t take long to get over me, you know… took up with someone straight away. That hurt at the time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bill.’

  He looked at her again, and the sadness in his eyes was evident. ‘I’m long over it, May, but I just wish I knew why she’s got in touch, now of all times, when I’m really...’ he searched for the word, ‘happy.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll pick up with her again?’

  He didn’t answer, but instead raised his binoculars and asked, ‘Fancy coming for a walk dinner time?’

  ‘OK,’ she said, and saw Bill smile as he turned away to scan the eastern horizon.

  She was surprised that a friendship could have blossomed in such unlikely, ruined soil, but since that fateful walk through the bombed streets of Bermondsey, she felt bound to Bill, by the tragedy they’d witnessed and by the tiny life that they’d saved. It seemed natural, after that day, that sometimes he would ask her to go for a lunchtime stroll. She didn’t care if it drew knowing looks from Emmy or smirks from Dolly. She always had to put up with their cross-questioning later on, but, in truth, there was never much to report that would interest her curious friends.

  Today, May and Bill set off down Fort Road, intending to stop for a drink at the Havelock Arms. She pointed out the ruins of the Labour Institute, which had suffered a direct hit.

  ‘I used to belong to a club there, country dancing of all things!’ She grimaced, and catching Bill’s look of astonishment, wished she’d kept quiet about it. It was the sort of thing her brother would have teased her about, and suddenly grief caught her. She bit her lip, distracting herself from the pain.

  ‘You’ll never believe it, but I used to go in for country dancing there too! Well, not for the dancing so much as the free jam sandwiches afterwards!’

  May laughed, quickly brushing away a stray tear. ‘Did you ever go to any of their concerts?’

  ‘Oh yes, Dad took me once. He plays himself, not bad… he hits at least one in three notes right…’

  Bill had a pleasant laugh, half throwing his head back, so that his dark blue eyes brightened in the noon sunshine. It was good to see he’d thrown off his earlier melancholy over Iris.

  ‘It’s nice to meet someone who appreciates a bit of classical. Mind you, I like the big bands too.’ He smiled secretly to himself. ‘Reminds me of my most embarrassing moment at school. Thing is I had a bit too much old bunny in class!’ Bill said.

  She laughed. ‘That doesn’t surprise me!’

  ‘Me and my best mate, Stan, chatted all the way through one music lesson, so old Mr Credon gives us the choice, six of the best, “Or,” he says, “you can sing for yer lives, you grubby little beggars!”

  ‘Anyway he wanted a song from us, all the way through, word perfect. “I’ll String Along With You” was our favourite. We used to harmonize, pretend we had a big band behind us, you know.’ Bill smiled and May could see the boy he’d been, with his full lips and fine eyebrows.

  ‘It was a long one but we knew the chorus and all the verses too. Stood up in front of the class, did our turn, and I could see the old boy waving the bloody cane, getting ready to do a run up. We brought the house down!’

  May laughed, asking for a demonstration and Bill sang, unembarrassed, while they picked their way through a stretch of glass-strewn pavement.

  I’m looking for an angel, but angels are so few.

  So until the day that one comes along,

  I’ll string along with you!

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said, breaking off, ‘why don’t you come to one of the lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery with me, on Saturday?’ She hesitated a moment and he said gently, ‘Go on, you need a break, May, with all you’ve been through… and it’ll be my treat. They let you take in sandwiches – it’ll be a sort of picnic.’

  His lips were parted slightly, in an encouraging half smile. She knew he wanted to do something to ease her grief, and so she agreed. Because of the circumstances, she wasn’t sure if this counted as being asked out – no doubt, Emmy and Dolly would enlighten her later.

  And as she’d expected, the following afternoon she was plagued by questions from her friends.

  ‘You just talked!’ Emmy repeated, looking at her dubiously. ‘Talking’s all right for starters, and it’s all right for afters, but it’s no good for yer dinner, love!’ And Emmy’s husky laugh was full of innuendo, plain enough even for May to understand. Dolly too had plenty of her own advice to add and after a while May felt she’d had quite enough of it.

  ‘Oh shut up, you two, he’s just a really friendly chap. To be honest, I think he feels sorry for me, you know – he must do, to want to string along with me.’

  ‘He’s looking for an angel!’ Emmy crooned, and May blushed scarl
et. The words of the song must have lodged themselves in her mind and she cursed herself now for giving Emmy any inroad into that part of their conversation.

  ‘What are you going beetroot for?’ The two young women leaped upon her discomfort, like sharp-toothed little animals.

  May knew that Bill’s schoolboy story wasn’t anything to get Emmy’s romantic heart beating and besides, it was a confidence, an innocent tale you might tell your sister, or your best friend, and she didn’t want to repeat it to these two, just so they could bandy it about the factory floor. So instead she told them about his invitation to the concert the next day and their faces lit up as they concluded that, indeed, she had definitely been asked out.

  *

  All the paintings had been sent away to the country – a bit like the children, May thought. But after standing for over an hour in the cheerful queue which had snaked round the corner into Charing Cross Road, May tried to keep her disappointment to herself. She hadn’t realized the gallery would look so bare. It was stripped of all its grandeur, sandbagged, blacked out, pared back to its utilitarian shell, just like every other building in the capital. Of course, she knew that the raids didn’t stop at Bermondsey or the docks, but she’d somehow hoped that some things had remained unchanged.

  ‘I should have mentioned it,’ Bill said, as they passed through the entrance and she’d commented on the absence of paintings.

  ‘Oh, but it’s the music we’ve come for!’ she said, not wanting to seem ungrateful. But even Bill couldn’t hide his disappointment when they were ushered into an airless basement. Unadorned, distempered walls, lagged with sandbags, were criss-crossed with water pipes and there was no natural light to relieve its gloom. Over three hundred eager concert-goers squeezed in and then somehow, more were stuffed around the edges, sitting and lounging on pipes and stone floors.

  ‘Sorry, May, last time I came to one of these, it was held in a gallery with a beautiful great glass dome! Nothing like this.’

  May shrugged. ‘If there’s an air raid we’ll be glad of it. Besides, it’s the—’