As Time Goes By

by Annie Groves

  ‘Actually I could and would if I thought that there was any danger of them contaminating others. As it is, it’s essential that the source of the sickness is identified so that we can make sure that no one else is affected by it. Sister Brookes made mention of some fish paste sandwiches which she believed were the cause of Tommy’s sickness. Where exactly did this fish paste come from?’

  Sally gave a dismissive shrug, remembering what Doris had said about not implicating Daisy or her husband. ‘I’m sure I really can’t say.’

  ‘But surely you must have some idea? In these times of rationing most housewives know what they have in their store cupboards. My concern is that this fish paste could be part of a much larger consignment, which could pose the same threat to the health of others that your son suffered. If you can remember when you bought it …’

  ‘Well, I can’t,’ Sally told him, not without some qualms at the thought of others – especially children – suffering as her Tommy had, but she quietened her conscience by promising herself that the first thing she was going to do once she got home was go round to Daisy’s and ask her to get her husband to make sure that those who had had the tins were warned not to use them.

  ‘How are you planning to get home, only it’s raining heavily?’

  Sally stared at him, surprised by his sudden change of subject. ‘We’ll get the bus.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea. My car’s right outside the hospital – I’ll drive you back.’

  ‘No … no, there’s no need for you to do that.’

  ‘Your son has been very poorly; I think there is every need.’

  Tommy took advantage of her confusion to pull away from her and run over to the doctor, clinging to his leg as he reminded him, ‘You said you’d tell me some more about your train set.’

  Sally was astonished by the smile that warmed Dr Ross’s face as he bent down to pick up her son. ‘So I did,’ he agreed, ‘but first I’m going to drive you home.’

  ‘In your car?’ Tommy was beaming from ear to ear with excitement at the thought, and Sally knew that she had no chance now of refusing the doctor’s offer.

  She could almost feel the heat of the two holes Sister’s concentrated stare of dislike was burning into her back, Sally acknowledged a few minutes later when they left the ward escorted by the doctor.

  His car wasn’t as shiny and posh as the one Bertha Harris had sent for her, but the apprehension she felt at climbing into it was equal. Predictably, of course, both her sons were round-eyed with delight and excitement, Tommy chattering away nonstop, firing questions at the doctor about the car whilst revealing a knowledge of its technical workings that astonished Sally.

  ‘You’ve got a very bright little lad there,’ the doctor informed her quietly under cover of Tommy earnestly explaining something about the car to his younger brother.

  ‘He gets it from his dad, and from Doris’s son, Frank. He’s with the Royal Engineers and Tommy’s always pestering him about engines.’

  ‘This country’s going to need young men like him when all this is over.’

  Sally didn’t say anything. They were turning into Chestnut Close and she could well imagine the interest her return home in the doctor’s car would be causing those who witnessed it.

  ‘If you’d put the cost of the hospital room on your bill then …’ she began as soon as the car stopped outside her front gate.

  ‘There’s no charge for the room. Sister gave you the wrong information about that.’

  ‘Come on, Tommy,’ Sally instructed, wanting to get out of the car and inside her own front door as fast as she could.

  ‘Dr Ross said he’d tell me about his train,’ her son protested.

  ‘The doctor’s busy, and he has to go and look after other sick little boys.’

  ‘I’ve got enough time to come in for a little while,’ he contradicted her, much to her dismay. ‘There are still some questions I want to ask you.’

  ‘About the fish paste? I’ve already told you.’

  ‘No, with regard to who takes care of your sons when you are at work.’

  He was getting out of the car before she could object, coming round to the passenger door to open it for her, taking Harry from her and holding him securely in one arm as he placed his free hand beneath her elbow to help her out.

  Sally’s instinctive reaction was to pull away from him but she was too conscious of her neighbours’ curiosity from behind their lace-curtained front windows to do so.

  ‘Mum, I’m hungry,’ Tommy complained.

  ‘I’ll heat you up a bowl of soup,’ she told him, as she unlocked the front door.

  Leaving the boys in the parlour, she hurried into the kitchen and lit the gas beneath the pan of soup, which she, like so many other housewives, had learned to keep going with stock and leftover vegetables.

  When she went back into the parlour to check on the boys and put coal and a match to the ashes in the grate, she could see that the doctor was looking round the room – and no doubt finding it wanting compared to his own home, she decided. Immediately her pride fired up.

  ‘I dare say this isn’t what you’re used to.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘it isn’t …’

  Sally’s breath hissed out of her lungs in outrage. A sudden yell from Harry focused her attention back on her sons, who were rolling around on the floor, squabbling over a toy. Quickly she went to separate them.

  ‘This is how Harry gets his bruises,’ she informed him. ‘Always scrapping, these two are. Doris and I do our best, but with their dad not here …’

  ‘All the more reason, I would have thought, to send them into the country as evacuees for the duration of the war. I realise that you’d miss them but at least you’d have the comfort of knowing they were safe and being properly looked after.’

  ‘They’re safe and being properly looked after now. No one could take care of them better than Doris.’

  ‘Sister Brookes may provide them with exemplary care now but, as I understand it, her daughter-in-law is due to give birth shortly.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Sally challenged him.

  ‘I should have thought it was obvious. Blood is thicker than water, as they say, and I dare say that Sister Brookes will want to be on hand to help her daughter-in-law.’

  ‘So why should that make any difference to me? Molly doesn’t work.’

  ‘Sister Brookes isn’t a young woman. She confessed to me how desperately worried she was when Tommy fell ill. I should have thought you could see for yourself how selfish it is of you to oblige her to carry that kind of responsibility, never mind the risk you’re taking with your sons’ health. A city that has suffered the bomb damage Liverpool has is not an ideal place for young children to grow up in, especially when they could quite easily be living in safety in the countryside. Any good mother would see that for herself.’

  ‘If you’re saying that I’m not a fit mother …’

  The silence that followed her challenge made Sally’s face burn.

  ‘By your own admission you work long factory shifts, in addition to which you go out at night. That hardly leaves you with much time to spend with your sons.’

  ‘I’m not having them evacuated,’ Sally told him fiercely. ‘And no one is going to make me.’ Her heart was thumping unsteadily, driven by a mixture of anger, fear and guilt.

  ‘Then maybe you should consider altering your own life to make sure that your children are properly cared for.’

  ‘They are properly cared for.’

  ‘And that you, their mother, are there when they need her,’ he continued, ignoring her. ‘You work in a factory when you don’t need to, and then—’

  ‘Who are you to say what I do and don’t need to do?’ Sally was beside herself with emotion. ‘Obviously you have a wonderful perfect wife, who doesn’t need to work and who would never leave your sons to go out anywhere, especially not a dance hall, but I’m not her and my life isn’t hers, so why don�
��t you go home to her right now, and tell her what a dreadful mother I am, and leave me to bring up my sons as I think? What… let go of me.’ Sally demanded furiously when he suddenly took hold of her, gripping her upper arms so tightly that it hurt as he shook her, and told her savagely, ‘Can’t you see how you are endangering them, you stupid woman?’ He released her abruptly, turning his back on her.

  ‘Women like you should not be allowed to have children,’ he told her bitingly, heading for the door.

  ‘Just because I’m not like your wife that doesn’t mean that I’m not a good mother, and I’m not having you or anyone else saying any different. My boys are hungry, and I dare say your wife will have your own dinner waiting for you, unless of course you’ve gone and made her evacuate herself and your kiddies to the country …’

  ‘My wife and my sons are dead.’

  Sally stared at him. A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by the hiss of the rain coming down the chimney onto the burning coal.

  ‘I must go,’ Dr Ross told her. ‘If you do remember the source of that fish paste, please let me know.’

  ‘I asked you if you would tell us what you know now about Private Hatton and if she had communicated to you anything that denoted that she might not be of sound mind. I appreciate that naturally what has happened has been a shock for you, Private Grey, but I would – indeed, I must – ask you to consider very carefully how much loyalty to a friend has guided your words.’

  The captain was speaking quietly and very sternly.

  Sam had no idea how long ago it was now since she had finally managed to open the warrant officer’s office door and had found Mouse. Half an hour … an hour … She had lost all sense of time, her thoughts weighed down by leaden misery.

  ‘Everything I’ve said is the truth,’ she answered the captain bleakly. ‘The warrant officer picked on Mouse horribly. She made Mouse feel that she couldn’t take it any more.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ Sam had to admit, ‘but we could all see the state she was in, and we all knew why.’

  Sam knew that it was almost unheard of for a lowly private to speak out as she was doing, but she had to do so for Mouse’s sake. Only she knew how much she blamed herself for not having guessed what Mouse was planning to do, and somehow been able to stop it. Had she been there when Lynsey had lost her temper with Mouse and told her to go and ask Toadie for her bear back, she knew she would have made sure that Mouse did no such thing, but Lynsey, of course, had no idea about the bear’s fate.

  ‘You are making what amounts to a very serious accusation against a senior officer, Private, and I would ask you again to look very carefully into your own heart – and memory. When our emotions are disturbed we can all make assumptions and judgements that are not as correct as we like to think. We understand that when young women first join up and wear a uniform it can take some time for them to adapt to Forces life and its rules and regulations. The attitude of those in charge can seem harsher than one is used to in civilian life, but it is there for a purpose and that purpose is to train you all into a cohesive unit fit to work for the defence of this country. Inexperienced privates such as yourself cannot know and see as others can the very sound reasoning behind certain methods of discipline. You have told us about Private Hatton’s distress at the removal of a teddy bear she brought here with her. Maybe to you this seems an unnecessary and even a harsh act, but I would say to you that it is a vitally important part of what you all must learn, and that is immediate obedience to orders. I would suggest to you therefore that what you witnessed in the warrant officer was simply a normal part of that learning process.’

  Sam could hear the censure in the captain’s voice but she had to stand up for her friend and defend her. ‘I understand what you are saying, ma’am—’

  ‘Good, then we will consider the matter closed.’

  ‘But I do know what I saw. And I did see what Warrant Officer Sands had done to Mouse’s bear. We could all see that Mouse wasn’t strong enough to cope,’ Sam rushed on, trying not to feel cowed by the captain’s obvious displeasure. If she didn’t stick up for poor Mouse then who would? How could she square her conscience if she didn’t at least try to defend her? ‘Mouse never wanted to join the ATS, you see. She’d been forced into it by her aunt. She told me that her bear had been given to her by her mother and that she treasured it because of that. She was terrified of the warrant officer and yet she was so desperate to get the bear back that she went to her to ask for it.’ Sam could feel the tears threatening to clog the back of her throat.

  The captain was looking at her very grimly. ‘I see. We’ll start again, shall we? Now, Private Grey, knowing that Private Hatton was suffering from personal worries, you felt that it was your duty to seek out Warrant Officer Sands and alert her to Private Hatton’s disturbed state of mind.’

  Sam was too shocked to conceal her feelings. ‘No! I would never have betrayed poor Mouse to—’

  As though Sam hadn’t spoken the captain continued, ‘I seem to be having difficulty making myself clear to you, Private. Obviously there will have to be a full report on the whole matter, which will naturally include a statement from you. Once written and filed, such a statement can never be unwritten, Private Grey, and remains to dog us and sometimes to damn us for the rest of our lives. I should warn you that contained in the verbal and informal statement you have just given me there are accusations which, if formalised, will do a great deal of damage to yourself as well as to others. People who let the side down and tell tales on others are not well thought of in the Forces. Now, I fully accept that you have had a bad shock. Therefore I shall consider that this talk between us has not taken place, other than for the purpose of my informing you that I shall speak to you again tomorrow when you have had the chance to think clearly about where your loyalties should lie.’

  The captain wanted her to change her story, Sam realised.

  ‘Someone will escort you to the sickbay where you are to spend the night.’

  ‘The sickbay? But—’

  ‘Until this matter has been examined in more detail I would ask you not to discuss it with anyone else. Dismissed.’

  Automatically Sam stood up and saluted her, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking one anguished question. ‘What will happen … to … I mean … she doesn’t have anyone of her own, and—’

  ‘Thank you for your co-operation, Private. That is all.’

  The captain plainly wasn’t going to answer her.

  No sooner was she outside the captain’s office and in the corridor than the medical officer’s corporal arrived to tell her that she was taking her straight to the small sickbay, where she would be spending the night.

  ‘MO’s orders,’ she informed Sam.

  ‘Here you are, take this.’ The corporal handed Sam a cup of cocoa. ‘We’ve sent down to your dormitory for your night things.’

  ‘My friend Mouse, the girl—’ Sam began, but the corporal shook her head.

  ‘Sorry, but we’re under strict orders not to discuss it. I’ll leave you to drink your cocoa.’

  The small sickbay felt lonely after the bustle of the dormitory, and tonight the last thing Sam felt like doing was sleeping here alone. Poor Mouse. Had she been planning to take her own life when she had gone to see Toadie, or had it been a sudden decision made in the darkness of her anguish about her bear? If only she, Sam, had been here to stop her from going to see the warrant officer. But she hadn’t been, and because of that Mouse was dead. What would happen now? Suicide was against the law.

  The door suddenly opened.

  ‘Hazel!’ Sam exclaimed in relief.

  ‘I’ve brought you your things,’ the corporal told her.

  ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ Sam said emotionally. ‘I wanted to come back to the dorm, but they won’t let me. And, Hazel, the captain asked me to tell her what I knew about Mouse but when I did … She hasn’t said so in as many words but I know
she doesn’t want me to mention Toadie in the formal statement I’ve got to make, but it was because of Toadie …’

  Hazel sat down on one of the spare beds next to her and said quietly, ‘Look, Sam, I know how you must feel about Mouse and how fond of her you were but, in all honesty, if I were you I would think very seriously about what the captain has said.’

  ‘You mean you agree with her? How can you when you know what poor Mouse went through?’

  ‘Sam, I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but every now and again a girl joins up who shouldn’t have done and sometimes she’s silly enough to talk about being so miserable that she can’t bear things any more. Perhaps she’s used to having a lot more attention paid to her at home than she will get in uniform. More often than not that kind of girl goes out and buys a large bottle of aspirin, which she makes sure the other girls see. Sometimes she takes enough aspirin from that bottle to make herself unwell; sometimes she just talks about “ending it all”. For the rest of us, those of us who have joined up to do our duty and not to make a fuss about ourselves, the outcome is always the same: her silly behaviour has tarnished our reputation.’

  Sam had never heard Hazel speak so critically or unsympathetically, and it shocked her. ‘But Mouse wasn’t like that – you know that, Hazel,’ she protested.

  Hazel shook her head. ‘This is the ATS, Sam, not a nursery. It’s up to all of us to find a way of fitting in here, and those who can’t or don’t cause a lot of problems for themselves and everyone else. You may not have realised it, but Mouse wasn’t exactly popular with the other girls.’

  ‘You mean she wasn’t popular with Lynsey,’ Sam burst out.

  Ignoring her outburst Hazel continued coolly, ‘Anyone who draws officer attention to herself the way that Mouse did is seen as a problem by the other members of her unit, because that attention is turned on them as well. Several of the girls have told me privately that they couldn’t understand why she had brought a nursery toy into the ATS with her in the first place, and I’m afraid that whilst everyone is shocked by what’s happened, the general feeling is that whilst Toadie may have picked on Mouse, she made things far worse for herself than they need have been. Now we’re all in danger of being tainted by the shocking thing she’s done, of being thought of as not up to the mark, and are a potential cause of damage to the service because of that. It will take a long time for our dorm to live this incident down, I can tell you.