by Annie Groves
‘Hello, there.’
She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t seen Ruthie hurrying across the road towards her.
‘Hello,’ Diane smiled back. ‘Your day off, is it?’ She noted the basket Ruthie was carrying and the summer dress she was wearing.
‘Yes. I’m on my way to the allotments. Mr Talbot, who minds the allotment Dad had, sent word to say that there’s some strawberries ready and that he’s got a bit of salad for us as well. Then Glen’s coming round for tea later.’
‘Glen? Oh, the American you met at the Grafton?’ Diane remembered.
‘Yes.’ Ruthie beamed, and then said in a rush, ‘He’s asked me to marry him and we’re engaged now.’ Proudly she held out her hand to show Diane the ring she was wearing.
Diane could hardly bear to look at it, remembering her joy and pride in her own engagement ring, but she knew that for the sake of good manners she had to. Her heart felt as though it was being squeezed in a giant vice.
‘Oh…it’s lovely,’ she told Ruthie truthfully, somehow managing not to let her voice betray her feelings.
‘And Glen’s mother has written me the nicest letter, welcoming me into the family. Glen wants us to get married soon. He’s one of them working on the new runways at Burtonwood, and whilst he doesn’t think he’ll be posted somewhere else for a while, like he says, you never know, and it’s best that we get married just as soon as we can,’ she explained earnestly.
There was no need for Diane to ask if the younger girl was happy. Ruthie’s joy was spilling out of her with every word she said. Diane could remember a time when she had felt just the same. Now, though…If only some of Ruthie’s happiness could spill into her life, on to her.
Just as Diane reached Derby House, the bus that brought in the other girls from the school in Hyatt, where they were billeted, for their ‘watch’, pulled up alongside her, disgorging a crowd of uniformed young women, including Jean.
‘You don’t know how lucky you are to be living out,’ she grumbled to Diane. ‘No barracking your bed every morning, then having to run all the way to parade for you, I’ll bet.’
‘No,’ Diane agreed. She certainly didn’t miss the morning routine of stripping her bed, and then folding the sheets and the blankets separately before stacking them up on top of the ‘biscuit’, as the narrow beds were named, but she did miss the camaraderie she had shared with the other girls at her previous post, and she would have much preferred to be billeted with someone other than Myra.
‘We were late on parade this morning and there was a CO’s inspection so we’ve been given jankers,’ she told Diane, referring to the routine punishment of things like washing up and peeling potatoes that was given for such an offence.
‘Poor you,’ Diane sympathised, before changing the subject to ask anxiously, ‘Have you heard from Susan at all?’
Jean shook her head. ‘Only that her hubby hasn’t been found as yet, and that she’s been warned to expect the worst.’
Not unnaturally, the whole of Derby House was still in the grip of an angry grief but nowhere more so than down in the Dungeon, where those working had seen the devastation at first-hand.
Breaking off their conversation to salute a Senior Service captain emerging from the building, Diane checked to see that her cap was on straight before reaching for her pass and heading for the door.
‘It’s all right for you,’ Jean continued to grumble. ‘You’ve got such lovely long hair that you can put it up. Somehow I always manage to end up with mine touching my collar, if I have to wear my greatcoat.’
It was against WAAF rules for a girl’s hair to touch her collar, and Diane took a quick look at Jean’s hair before suggesting, ‘Have you thought of rolling it round a sausage?’
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’
Diane laughed. ‘It’s a ring of stuffed cloth that you put on your head, a bit like a tiara, and then you tuck your hair into it. I think I might have one somewhere. I’ll bring it with me tomorrow, if you like, and show you.’
‘Would you? Anything that stops me from getting put on another charge would be welcome. Watch out, here come the Brylcreem boys,’ Jean laughed as three small reconnaissance planes screamed overhead, the first one doing a small victory roll.
‘Now that’s something the Americans will never be able to do in those huge bombers of theirs,’ Jean commented with satisfaction. ‘Hear about Middlesbrough being bombed the other night, did you? I’ve got an auntie living there. Let’s hope these new Lancasters we’ve got that are supposed to be so wonderful can persuade Hitler to give in.’
Diane smiled, but she suspected that Jean knew as well as she did herself that the war was still long from over.
‘Is Myra still seeing that GI she was dancing with at the Grafton?’ Jean asked her suddenly.
‘I’m…I’m not sure,’ Diane felt obliged to fib. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason really. Only that I was out with a pal of mine and her brother the other night. He’s something secret in the police – I don’t really know what – but he took us into this place for a drink for a bit of a joke. He told us it was where all the black marketeers – and worse – meet up, and who should be in there but that chap Myra was with. Ray – that’s my pal’s brother – reckons that Myra’s GI and the chap he was with could be a real bad lot. He said that they’ve had a tip-off that a lot of new black market stuff is coming straight from stores intended for the American base PXs, and that the set-up is being run by gangsters who—’
‘Gangsters?’ Diane protested, suspecting that Jean’s rather vivid imagination and dislike of Myra were getting the better of her.
‘Well, that’s what Ray said, but don’t believe me if you do not want to,’ Jean told her huffily.
‘It isn’t that I don’t believe you,’ Diane reassured her. ‘It’s just that it sounds like something out of a Warner Brothers film.’
‘Maybe it does, but Ray says that some pretty bad eggs have been caught up in the American conscription draft. You know,’ she lowered her voice, ‘Mafia and that.’
They had reached the doorway into the building now, both of them automatically presenting their passes for inspection, whilst Diane digested what Jean had told her. It seemed too far-fetched to be true and, even if she were to pass it on to Myra, she sincerely doubted that the girl would listen to her.
‘The C-in-C’s office door’s open,’ she commented to Jean, to change the subject. ‘That means he’s in. I heard that he’s been sleeping here these last few days.’
Their Commander-in-Chief took his duties towards the convoys, of which he was in charge, very seriously indeed, as everyone working at Derby House knew.
‘I heard that he’d had a real run-in with the First Lord of the Admiralty over what happened,’ Jean agreed, as they made their way to their cloakroom. ‘Someone said that they saw Winnie up here last week. I don’t know if it’s true but I do know that he does come to Derby House. Not that we’re supposed to know, of course. I reckon that’s part of the reason why the Germans would have given anything to have hit us when they were bombing Liverpool, but with the real business part of the building being so deep underground they didn’t have a chance. Thank goodness.’
Diane grimaced as she looked down at her shoes, and then went over to the box in which the girls kept a shared collection of ‘essential items’ necessary for keeping their uniforms smart. Watching her giving her shoes an extra polish, Jean exclaimed, ‘Lord, I nearly forgot I’ve got a button coming loose. I’d better sew it on whilst we’re in here otherwise I might get another set of jankers.’
Within a couple of seconds both girls were busily occupied in their chores, their shared silence broken when Jean asked Diane, ‘What are you on today?’
‘Wireless Operator in signals. They’re a girl short. I just hope my Morse speed is up to it.’
Jean pulled a sympathetic face as she finished sewing on her button and snapped the thread with her teeth. �
�I can still remember my course,’ she agreed. ‘I was terrified I wouldn’t pass the exam at the end of it, with all that stuff about Ohm’s law, the stratosphere, the Appleton layer and then Morse code. Finished?’
Diane studied her shoes and then nodded. Companionably they walked out of the cloakroom together until they reached that part of the building where they had to go their separate ways, Jean into the Dungeon, and Diane into one of the signals ops rooms.
As she walked in, the girl in charge came over to her.
‘Captain Barker wants to see you,’ she told Diane without taking her attention from the girls working on the keyboards, translating the Morse messages they were receiving.
Diane’s heart thumped uncomfortably. The instruction she had just received was unpleasantly similar to the one she had had after the humiliating evening at the Grafton. Then, though, she had known what she was being carpeted for. This time she had no idea.
Thankfully there was no sign of the lieutenant when she knocked on the captain’s open door five minutes later.
‘Come,’ Captain Barker called out, glancing up from the papers on her desk and then smiling when she saw Diane.
‘You wanted to see me, ma’am?’
‘Yes, Wilson. Stand easy. We’ve had a request from our allies for a stenographer to accompany Major Saunders on an inspection of various properties that may be used to house some of the officers of the Eighth Army who are due to arrive here in the next few weeks. Normally, of course, the major would find someone from their own staff to accompany him, but since on this occasion that is not possible he has asked for our help.’
Diane’s spirits sank lower with every word Captain Barker said, but of course it did not do for a Waaf, or indeed anyone in the armed forces, to show any reaction to the orders they were being given by a superior officer, and Diane prided herself on her professionalism when it came to her duty.
‘I see from your records that you are a trained shorthand typist,’ Captain Barker continued. ‘Is that correct?’
How Diane longed to say ‘no’, but of course she couldn’t. Why had this happened to her? Why couldn’t the major have written up his own notes? But of course she knew the answer to that, she decided crossly. The Americans must have everything they wanted – or at least that was how it sometimes seemed to the hard-pressed British forces personnel, struggling to cope with their own work and provide assistance to their allies as well.
The requirements of the Eighth Army seemed to grow with every day that passed, and Diane thought it was no wonder that the British forces were growing increasingly resentful of the priority accorded to their allies. Sometimes it seemed as though the Americans were behaving more like an occupying force than an ally.
‘I appreciate, of course, that this is outside your normal duties,’ Captain Barker told Diane, almost as though she had seen into her head and read her thoughts. ‘But needs must, I’m afraid. Please report to the major at ten hundred hours, outside the main entrance to the building.’
‘How long—’ Diane began, unable to stop herself from voicing the question uppermost in her turbulent thoughts, but the captain shook her head, telling her crisply, ‘For as long as the major needs you. He hasn’t specified how long that will be.’
Diane was too well trained to do anything other than salute smartly. She knew better than to imagine that the major could have specified that he wanted her to accompany him. Group Captain Barker wasn’t the sort to sanction that sort of request. However, half an hour later, when the major drew up outside the building in a US Army Jeep, if he was surprised to find her waiting for him he didn’t show it.
Diane stepped forward, saluting formally before saying crisply, ‘Leading Aircraft Woman Wilson reporting for duty, sir.’
Somehow she managed to withstand his silent cool-eyed scrutiny without betraying how on edge he was making her feel. What was he thinking behind that impenetrable look that shut her out as effectively as a steel door? Never mind that, what was she doing, allowing herself to think of him in such personal terms?
‘Jump in, soldier,’ he told her with a brief inclination of his head as he reached across to push open the passenger door of the Jeep.
Soldier. Was he desexing her deliberately or was his term of address simply American custom? Burying her self-consciousness beneath an outer air of professionalism, Diane approached the Jeep. It surprised her that the major should be driving himself. Taking aside the fact that most of the high-ups used staff cars with drivers, she wouldn’t have thought that he would want to drive on English roads. Those who had heard their allies’ scathing comments about their roads knew the irritated contempt in which the Americans held the narrow winding country lanes and the main roads choked with men and war machinery on the move.
‘Have you been told what this is all about?’ Major Saunders asked her when she had climbed into the Jeep and closed the door.
‘Captain Barker said that you needed a stenographer, sir.’
‘That’s right. We’ve got a shipload of army personnel, including officers, about to arrive, and since the word “liaison” happens to appear in my title, someone has got it into their head that that means I’m the best person to sort out billets for the officers.’ There was an open mix of irony and irritation in his voice, and this time when he looked at her she could see his annoyed impatience quite clearly in his eyes. That too surprised her. She wasn’t used to hearing an officer express his or her feelings so openly to someone of a lower rank. But then they had all noticed the different and far more relaxed behaviour within the US forces, where the ordinary servicemen never stood to attention when they saw a senior officer, unless they had a specific reason for doing so. No British officer would lean back in his seat in the casual way the major was now doing, but no amount of relaxed deportment could take away the fact that everything about the major warned that he could be a very formidable opponent. Opponent? They were supposed to be allies, Diane reminded herself, wondering if she would have been so on edge if he hadn’t witnessed her making such a humiliating fool of herself.
Somehow she had to forget that, and focus on the reason why she was here. She couldn’t blame him for finding the task he had been given unappealing. It was not going to be an easy assignment, she could tell.
‘The good news is that most of the ground work has been done already,’ he told her, ‘and I’ve been given a list of the places I need to go and check out. The bad news is that they seem to be spread over half of Cheshire, and by my reckoning it’s going to take us the best part of a week to get round them all.’
A week! Diane dipped her head, not wanting him to see how horrified that made her feel.
‘So I guess we’d better make a start otherwise the Eighth is going to find its officers sleeping under canvas in a Burtonwood field. How well do you know this area?’ he asked her.
‘Not well at all, sir,’ Diane replied, sitting bolt upright in her seat and looking straight ahead.
‘OK then, how well can you read a map?’
Now she did look at him. ‘Group Captain Barker said you wanted a stenographer.’
‘So you can’t read a map.’
The irritation in his voice stung Diane into saying fiercely, ‘I can read a map but—’
‘Yeah?’ He pulled in to the side of the road, bringing the Jeep to an abrupt halt, and then turned to her, commanding, ‘Show me.’
As he reached across to remove a map from the shelf in front of her, he was so close that Diane could smell the clean fresh smell of soap on his skin. Immediately she recoiled from it and from him, appalled by the unwanted ache of yearning that had suddenly and violently seized hold of her. Kit…Kit…She closed her eyes. She must make herself remember that what she was feeling was because of him, and not because of this man, who was, after all, nothing to her and never would be. But Kit didn’t want her, he didn’t love her; she was nothing to him now, so she might as well…She might as well what? Throw herself at another man who didn’t wa
nt her, just because he made her remember that she was a woman? Did what she was feeling now help her to understand what happened to those women who took up with men to whom they were nothing? Because if it didn’t then it should, she told herself fiercely. This, what she was feeling right now, was surely happening to her because she had lost Kit. Because she was a woman, and there was a war on, and no one knew what the future might hold, and she was filled with an urgency to live whilst she still could. But not through a man like this one, Diane warned herself.
When she opened her eyes she discovered that her unease was causing the major to give her a hard look as he settled back in his own seat and unfolded the map.
‘OK, now show me where we are now.’
She knew perfectly well how to read a map, but his proximity, coupled with what she had just been thinking, was making it a struggle for her to focus.
‘Are you sure you can read a map?’ she heard him asking drily. Damn him, why couldn’t he leave her alone?
‘We’re here,’ she told him, exhaling in relief as she finally managed to pinpoint where they were, and then realised that her relief had been too soon when he leaned across to look at the map, his thigh touching hers, his arm resting on hers as he moved his finger over the map and told her, ‘The first place we need to look at is here…so we need to drive up toward Burtonwood along this road here that goes to Warrington. Have you got that?’
‘Yes.’ She’d have said anything to get him to move away from her.
‘And once we get to this place here then you’ll need to call out the directions to me. Think you can manage that?’
‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ Diane replied, almost lurching into him as he swung the Jeep round to face the opposite direction.
‘Cut the sirring, soldier – and that’s an order.’
‘Yes, sirrrr,’ Diane threw at him through gritted teeth.
It was six o’clock in the evening but no way was Diane going to point out to the major that her eight-hour shift had ended well over an hour ago. So far they had ‘checked out’, as the major called it, over a dozen of the properties on his list, and with each one, or so it had seemed to Diane, the major’s expression had grown grimmer and his silence more condemnatory. Now, with her stomach aching with hunger, she was beginning to wonder if the major was even human. The joke in the British Naafi canteens was that being on parade for the Americans meant slouching off to the nearest PX to stock up on Hershey bars and the like, but the major had shown no inclination to stop to eat at all. She, on the other hand, was beginning to feel so hungry that she was afraid her stomach would humiliate her by starting an audible protest.