by Annie Groves
‘You wouldn’t catch me going out with a crowd of girls if it was my birthday. I’d be wanting to be taken out by my chap.’
Was Lynsey just tactless and oblivious to other people’s feelings, or was she deliberately trying to upset Hazel, Sam wondered, feeling sorry for Hazel, who was trying not to look as though she knew what Lynsey was getting at.
‘Oh, that’s typical of you, Lynsey, and I dare say you’d have been dropping hints to him about giving you another of them engagement rings to add to your collection as well,’ May joked, once again diffusing the tension.
Hazel didn’t go up to the dormitory with them when they got back, and as soon as they were out of her hearing May turned on Lynsey and said sharply, ‘That was a mean thing to say to Hazel about her birthday, Lynsey, when you know that it’s over between her and her chap.’
‘Well, it’s not my fault that she caught him with someone else, is it? More fool her for not realising what kind he was in the first place is what I say! So what was you doing today then, Sam?’ she demanded, changing the subject. ‘Only I heard that you was going to be driving some major around.’
And Sam could guess that she had heard it from a certain Sergeant Johnny Everton, although she wasn’t going to say so.
‘That’s right. I’m standing in for Major Thomas’s driver and I had to take him to various unexploded bomb sites.’
‘That sergeant of yours is with that bomb disposal lot, isn’t he, Lynsey?’ Alice asked.
‘Yes,’ Lynsey agreed tersely.
‘Has anyone got any ideas about what we can get Hazel for her birthday?’ May broke in.
‘P’haps Lynsey could give her some lessons on how to get the right kind of chap, and how to get him so mad for her that he proposes,’ one of the girls suggested, making the others laugh until May said forthrightly, ‘Well, if you want my opinion I think Hazel’s done the right thing in ditching him. She deserves better. I’m not going getting myself stuck with anyone until they prove to me that they’re worth it.’
‘Huh, you’ve got a high opinion of yourself all of a sudden, haven’t you?’ Lynsey demanded.
‘So what if I have?’ May retorted, unabashed.
SIXTEEN
‘Oh, Molly, he’s absolutely beautiful,’ Sally smiled as she leaned over the crib to admire little Teddy.
‘Pass him to us, will you, Sally? It’s time he had a feed. I don’t know where this week’s gone. It’s Friday already and yet it doesn’t seem a minute since he was born.’
Once she had got the baby settled Molly continued, ‘Frank’s mam was telling me about Daisy having a go at you after church last Sunday. Don’t you go taking it to heart, Sally. You aren’t on your own. I remember the way she was with me over Eddie when it first got out that I was seeing him whilst I was still engaged to Johnny. Really nasty with me, she was. I reckon it’s got something to do with the fact that her hubby isn’t doing his bit.’
‘I thought he’d tried to join up and been turned down,’ Sally protested.
Molly gave a small snort. ‘Well, Daisy likes to tell everyone that. Flat feet, he’s supposed to have had, but if you want my opinion I reckon he knew he was on to a good thing staying working on the docks. He and Daisy don’t go without much. I’ve nothing against Daisy. She’s a good neighbour in her way, but she’s got a nasty tongue on her at times and she’s got no right to go round saying half the things she does and stirring up upset for other folk.
‘Doris says you’re changing your shifts and putting the boys in the factory nursery,’ Molly commented whilst Lillibet and Sally’s two boys were playing out of earshot.
‘I’m hoping to,’ Sally agreed. ‘Doris has been a rock, helping me out with them so much, but I was thinking the war would have been over long before now.’
‘You and me and most of the rest of the country,’ Molly agreed.
‘Anyway, I had a word with the foreman and he told me when I went to work last night that I could change me shift from the end of this week.’
‘But what about your singing?’
‘I won’t be doing that any more.’ Sally was too proud to tell her the truth.
‘Oh, Sally, you can’t give that up, not with that lovely voice of yours.’
‘I’d better go,’ Sally said, not wanting to give Molly the opportunity to ask any more awkward questions. ‘I only popped in to see how you were going on.’
She was halfway home, when Tommy called out, ‘Look, Mum.’
Sally didn’t need Tommy’s warning to alert her to the sight of the telegram boy. No one could see the slight figure in his uniform riding his bicycle purposefully down their own street without their stomach turning over and that cold hand clutching at their heart, Sally felt sure, even if Tommy was too young to know the true significance of his presence. A telegram brought urgent news – good and bad. This time, though, the news wouldn’t be for her, even if the sight of him brought back everything she had felt when she had received the telegram telling her about Ronnie being made a POW. No, this time it would be someone else’s turn to unfold that piece of paper whilst sick dread filled them.
There were any number of households in the Close with loved ones in the services, even if the telegram boy was slowing down as he approached their house …
Without being aware of it Sally had started to walk faster, almost dragging Tommy off his feet as he struggled to keep up with her. The telegram boy was dismounting … right outside the house, but that must be a mistake … he must be going next door surely … Sally broke into a run, stopping to scoop up Tommy, who protested, ‘Mum!’ clutching him with one arm whilst she pushed Harry’s pushchair with the other.
The boy was knocking on the front door as she pushed open the gate. He turned to look at her.
‘Telegram for Walker.’
Sally nodded. She could see the familiar War Office envelope he was holding out to her. Putting Tommy down, she took it from him white-faced, her throat muscles locked. She could hear front doors opening, her neighbours alerted by the sight of the telegram boy. Her hand was shaking so much that she couldn’t get the key into the lock. Her heart was pounding. It could not be anything to worry about, she reassured herself. She had already had the bad news … ‘Daft, you are,’ she to herself when she had finally managed to open the door and get the boys inside. ‘Just because it’s a telegram …’
She waited until she was in the back parlour, though, to open it. The words wouldn’t keep still, and it took her several seconds to realise it was because her hand was trembling so much. She put the telegram down flat on the table, trying to ignore the thudding of her heartbeat, as she began to read it.
‘We regret to inform you of the death of Corporal Ronald Walker.’
No! No! That could not be! She read the words again, and then again.
‘Mum, Mum …’ Tommy was tugging anxiously on her coat, Harry was crying and someone was knocking on the front door.
Sally sat down heavily, still holding the telegram. There must be some mistake. Ronnie was a Japanese POW – how could he be dead?
Someone was knocking on the back door now, then she heard a key turning in the lock, but she could not drag her gaze away from the telegram.
‘It’s Nana Doris,’ Tommy announced.
‘I saw the telegram boy, Sally love,’ Doris said gently, ‘so I thought I’d best call round. I did try the front door first before I used me key. I hope you don’t mind.’
Sally stared at her as though she didn’t know her, her hands flat on the telegram, concealing its news.
Doris had come to stand beside her. ‘Let’s have a look, love.’
‘There’s nothing to see,’ Sally told her desperately as Doris gently moved her hands so that she could read the telegram. ‘They’ve got it wrong, Doris, they must have. Ronnie won’t be dead. How can he be? He’s a POW. They must have confused him with someone else … I’ll have to tell the War Office. Some poor woman’s lost her husband and she won’t know abou
t it yet. My Ronnie’s a POW and they don’t get killed, do they?’
‘I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll have a nice cup of tea, and then when our Frank comes home off duty we can let him sort it out,’ Doris told her gently.
‘There should be a law against giving folk a shock like this, telling them that their husband’s been killed when he hasn’t.’ They both looked towards the hall as someone knocked on the front door.
‘You stay here, I’ll go and see who it is.’
Through the open doorway Sally could hear voices, Doris’s low and determined, although she couldn’t quite catch what she was saying, the other voice, Daisy’s, sharp and clear as she insisted, ‘I just come over to say that I hoped it wasn’t bad news she’d had, what with her Ronnie already being a POW. I know we had them words the other day, but it’s only neighbourly to come across when you see a telegram being delivered, and her on her own without any family around her.’
Sally got up and walked unsteadily into the hallway.
‘There’s bin a mistake,’ she told Daisy. ‘The War Office have got my Ronnie confused with someone else.’
Daisy and Doris exchanged silent looks.
‘Bad news, was it then? I thought as much. That’s why I come across. A person needs good neighbours when they get bad news. If you was wanting me to sit with you for a while or owt, Sally …’ she offered.
‘Thanks for offering, Daisy,’ Doris responded for her, ‘but I’m going to be here.’
‘What about your Molly? I’d heard that she isn’t too well after the baby.’
‘Molly’s doing fine,’ Doris told her firmly, determinedly closing the door.
‘Come on, love,’ she instructed Sally, taking hold of her arm and guiding her back to the kitchen. ‘Let’s go and have that cup of tea, shall we?’
‘It can’t be true, Doris, I know it can’t. Not with Ronnie being a POW. I mean, it’s not as though he’d have bin fighting or anything, is it?’
‘Let’s wait until Frank comes home, then he can sort it out, shall we?’ Doris suggested again.
*
‘Frank, my Ronnie can’t possibly be dead. I mean, it stands to reason, doesn’t it, like I’ve already said?’
They were all crammed into Sally’s small back parlour: Sally herself, Frank, still in his uniform, Doris, Molly’s dad, listening whilst Sally paced the floor, still wearing the coat she had arrived home in hours ago.
‘I’ll tell you what, Sally, why don’t you and me go and get some tea ready for your Tommy and Harry and then get them off to bed?’ Doris suggested.
‘Frank, you will go down to the barracks and tell them to tell the War Office that they’ve got it wrong, won’t you? And make sure that you tell them that they’ve got no right sending people telegrams saying their husband is dead when he isn’t,’ Sally demanded, ignoring her.
Sally didn’t see the looks Frank exchanged with his mother and Molly’s father.
‘The thing is, Sally,’ he began heavily, ‘there’s bin some news in the papers …’
‘What kind of news?’
‘Well, it seems there’s bin a bit of an accident with an American sub sinking a ship carrying British and Canadian POWs from Hong Kong. This ship, the Lisbon Maru, was being escorted by Japanese warships and …’
Sally watched as Frank broke off to control his own emotions.
‘When she got hit the Japs gave the order to batten down the hatches with the men still down below, and then they abandoned ship. Them men as managed to break them open and get out were machine-gunned by the Japanese warships. That’s no way to fight a war, drowning defenceless men and then shooting them as manages to escape.’
Sally shivered as she tried not to let her imagination picture the scene Frank was describing.
‘But what’s that got to do with my Ronnie?’ she asked him blankly.
‘Well, the thing is …’
‘What Frank’s trying to say, lass,’ Albert told her gruffly, ‘is that mebbe summat of that sort might have happened to your Ronnie.’
Sally looked at him, and shook her head. ‘No, how could it. My Ronnie’s safe in a prisoner of war camp. How could he be on a ship?’
‘Sally, what Albert’s saying is that them Japs don’t allus treat their prisoners like we do. They see things differently to us. None of them surrender, you see. They don’t hold with it. They’d rather kill themselves, and so …’ Frank shook his head, unable to go on.
‘You mean they’d kill my Ronnie because he surrendered?’ Sally asked. ‘But they can’t do that.’ When no one spoke Sally repeated, ‘They can’t do it … can they, Frank? They can’t.’
‘Sally love …’
When Frank went to put his arm around her Sally pulled back bursting out fiercely, ‘No, no, no …’
‘Come on, Sally, none of that now. You’ve got to be strong and brave for your kiddies’ sake,’ Doris told her firmly, stepping in quickly and giving Sally a small shake. ‘My Frank will go down to the barracks and see what he can find out. I’ll tell you what, I’ll get that fire lit for you, shall I? It must have gone out. It’s no wonder you’ve still got your coat on.’
Sally looked blankly at the dead fire and then at her coat. It seemed no time at all since she had taken the telegram from the boy but now here was Frank home from work and it was already going dark.
‘It’s got to be a mistake,’ Sally was still insisting. ‘My Ronnie can’t be dead.’
Sam blinked, trying to remove the tired grittiness from her eyes. It was nearly seven o’clock and well past the time when she should have finished off for the day, but a report on evidence of a potential unexploded bomb close to the railway line running to one of the munitions factories had resulted in it being given an A1 priority listing, and the major announcing that he wanted her to drive him over to the site immediately. It was the first occasion on which she had had to drive in the blackout and she had been thankful for her decision earlier in the week to start studying and memorising a road map of Liverpool and its surroundings.
Now that they were here, the major was talking to the section headed by Sergeant Everton, who were about to dig down to the bomb.
As Sam had quickly discovered, Sergeant Everton was held in high esteem, both by those who worked with him and the major himself, for his cool head in an emergency and his skill in judging how best to deal with bombs in difficult sites.
‘If we tunnel down and we find the bomb’s taken a trajectory under the railway line then we won’t be able to reach it without risking destabilising the railway line and that’s going to do as much damage as defusing the bomb on site,’ he was telling the major.
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘We need to find out what angle it’s gone in at. If it’s not gone under the line then there isn’t a problem; if it has then we’re going to need to tunnel down under it and shore everything up so that the captain can work on the fuse.’
‘Good-oh. I’ll go over and have a word with him now. Wait here, Grey.’
‘Oi, you over there, put them ruddy lights out,’ an angry voice suddenly bellowed, splintering the silence between Sam and the sergeant after the major had disappeared to talk with the captain. ‘Don’t you know there’s a blackout on?’
Sam heard the sergeant exhale. ‘ARP, that’s all we need.’
As the warden got closer and saw the Noncombatant Corps men standing together, he swore and marched up to them, saying contemptuously, ‘Well, that’s typical, isn’t it? I might have guessed it would be you cowardly lot. Afraid of the dark, are you, as well as afraid of doing your duty? Ruddy cowards—’
‘That’s enough of that kind of talk. These men have a sight more courage than many another I could name.’
The sergeant had moved with such speed it made Sam blink. One minute he was leaning against the truck a few feet away from her, the next he was standing squarely in front of the ARP warden.
‘Who the hell are you?’ the warden challenged.
‘Sergeant Everton, Royal Engineers, Bomb Disposal, and these men are part of my section.’
‘Wot, ruddy connies, working on UXBs? Don’t make me laugh. That lot’d run a mile if they heard a firework going off,’ the warden jeered.
‘You reckon? That shows how much you know, chum. Being in the Noncombatant Corps has nothing to do with any lack of courage. These men aren’t conscripted, they’ve volunteered. It’s taking human life they object to, that’s all, not doing their bit to save lives.’
‘Aw, you’re making my heart bleed, you are, and no mistake, mate.’
‘Keep on insulting my lads and it won’t just be your heart that’s bleeding,’ the sergeant warned him grimly. ‘And you can take that as a promise. Worth ten of the likes of you, they are, every one of them. There’s no one I’d sooner have in a tight spot with me.’
‘All right, keep yer hair on.’ The ARP man backed off.
‘Tell you what,’ the sergeant said softly, stubbing out the cigarette he had just lit. ‘How about you change places with them and let them do your job for a week whilst you do theirs? We’ve only had three Noncombatant lads blown to bits so far this month, oh, and a couple who’ve lost a leg apiece. Had to work on round the lad who lost his leg the other day.’
The major was coming back. Worried that the sergeant might get into trouble, Sam stepped up to the major, saluting smartly as she did so.
‘Permission to speak, sir?’
‘Yes, what is it, Grey?’
‘Permission to ask Corporal Willett to check the oil tomorrow, sir?’
‘What? Oh yes, of course …’
The car’s oil didn’t really need changing but it was all Sam could think of on the spur of the moment to enable her to stand in between the major and the sergeant and thus give the latter a chance to send the ARP man on his way before he tried to complain to the major.
She had driven halfway back to the barracks before it occurred to her to ask herself just why she had felt it necessary to protect someone whom she disliked so heartily.