The Very Thought of You

by Mary Fitzgerald

  He glanced around. The officers who’d joined the Players in the canteen were looking appreciatively at her, and a couple were moving towards them. He cleared his throat. ‘I …’ but he could see that they were no longer alone, so instead he asked, ‘What are you singing tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ She smiled at the young lieutenants who joined them and said, ‘I’ll see how it goes.’

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Fletcher,’ one of the young men said. ‘I saw you once at the Savoy. You were wonderful.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Catherine smiled and shook hands with him and his colleagues. They looked tired and dirty, their hair curling over their collars, and their uniforms, worn every day for weeks, were scruffy and torn in places. The man who’d first spoken to her had a drying scab along his cheek, and another had his arm in a sling. Catherine thought about the shows they’d done in army camps at home, where the troops had neat battledresses and short back and sides. Even at the theatre in Bayeux, the men were clean and looked as though they’d eaten well. This was such a contrast.

  ‘You’ve been hurt,’ she said to the young lieutenant.

  ‘Oh,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. An argument with a Jerry sniper.’

  ‘You got him, though, Danny, didn’t you?’ another boy laughed, and punched Danny on the shoulder.

  Catherine kept smiling, but inside she felt a little sick. Was this how Christopher had been with his friends? Pretending that nothing mattered. Pretending to be brave.

  She had turned her head to see what Robert thought of these young men. He’d fought, she knew that. You didn’t get medals for nothing. But he’d gone, moved away into the crowd and was deep in conversation with Beau.

  Now, getting ready to go on stage, Catherine knew what she would sing first, and having a last quick look in the long mirror that travelled with them, she went outside to find Tommy.

  Della opened the show with her usual upbeat number, belting out the song so loudly that Tommy had to keep his foot jammed hard on the pedal. She high-kicked across the platform and ended her act with a jump and the splits, which drew cheers from the audience.

  She was followed by Eric. The rest of the troupe, none of whom had spoken more than two words to him, watched from the sidelines. As he stepped onto the platform, he passed Robert, who grabbed his arm and spoke quickly into his ear. Whatever Robert said seemed to have worked, because Captain Fortescue’s performance was clean and funny and well received.

  Godfrey followed, his rousing song filling the tent, and during the second chorus, he encouraged the audience to sing along to the familiar words. They loved it. Then Colin fascinated the men with his card tricks and knotted strings that magically fell into straight pieces of cord. At one point, he got so excited with the applause that he reached up with his hand to calm them down and accidentally knocked his wig askew. This drew roars of laughter, the men thinking it was all part of the act, and Beau whispered to Frances, ‘We should keep that in and expand on it. We need a comedian.’

  Finally Catherine closed the first half. She sang ‘You’ll Never Know’, her voice rising into the air and reaching into the hearts of all who were listening to her. She left the platform and walked into the audience, still singing while shaking hands with the soldiers. They were awestruck by her voice and her beauty, and by the words of her song. It meant so much to these men who were away from home and who had so recently been in danger and knew that they would be again.

  Frances saw the officer who had spoken disparagingly of the troupe. He was standing, open-mouthed, against the door of the tent, and when Catherine finished, he cheered and whistled along with everyone else. Idiot, thought Frances. You couldn’t have been more wrong.

  They went into the colonel’s office for a breather between the first and second halves of the show and grinned at each other. ‘It was great,’ said Della, jigging up and down with excitement.

  ‘You all did very well.’ Beau limped in, his face wreathed in a big grin. ‘And, Colin, I was especially impressed with that bit of slapstick. Let’s get together and see how we can combine it in the act.’

  Colin frowned. ‘I didnae do any slapstick, boss. I had a wee accident with the wig, that’s all.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Beau nodded. ‘It was brilliant.’

  ‘A loose definition of “brilliant”, old sport,’ sneered Captain Fortescue, who was sitting on Baxter’s arm, the doll’s head moving this way and that, and its eyebrows jerking up and down.

  Della shot round, ready to say something, but Beau stepped in front of her. ‘Anyway,’ he said, trying to regain his grin, ‘let’s get back out there and wow them again.’

  They did.

  Catherine sang ‘Long Ago and Far Away’ and saw Robert leaning by the entrance, his eyes fixed on her. She turned her head and sang a few lines directly at him, before looking back to the rest of the audience.

  ‘Wonderful!’ the soldiers yelled, and, ‘More, more!’ and when Catherine beckoned Della and Frances onto the stage, they went wild. It was hard to get them to calm down, and although both Beau and Tommy tried to hush the audience, it was Della who yelled, ‘Shut the hell up!’ and who finally got them to be quiet.

  They sang ‘Don’t Fence Me In’, wearing the cowboy hats that Della had managed to buy from a theatrical costumier in London. The audience loved it, and after a nod from Beau, Della had a quick word with Tommy and he struck up with ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’.

  ‘Just wonderful,’ said the colonel, when the show was over and they were in his office having a drink. He’d produced two bottles of whisky, which they were drinking out of tin cups. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful we are. These lads have had a hard time, and we’ll be going forward again next week.’

  ‘How far away is the front?’ asked Tommy. ‘I mean, are the enemy close?’

  ‘No, not that close,’ the colonel smiled. ‘No need to worry. They’re at least ten miles down the road. The next village is liberated, and the one after. They’re in the one after that. We’ll be clearing them out soon.’

  Frances thought of the bullet holes in the walls of the village they’d come through. That’s what’s going to be happening there, she realised, and how many of the young men who’d whooped and cheered tonight would be injured or even killed? It was a very sobering thought and she sat down, suddenly very tired.

  ‘There’s food for you in the canteen,’ announced the colonel, ‘and then we can put the ladies up in the first-aid tent. There is a regular tent with the men for the gents.’ He looked at them anxiously. ‘It won’t be what you’re used to, being show business people, but it’s the best we can do.’

  ‘We don’t mind at all,’ rumbled Godfrey, knocking back his whisky and holding out his glass for another. ‘We’re just glad to do our bit.’

  Later, the girls settled into their cots in the first-aid tent. It had stopped raining, but the ground was very muddy all around and their shoes sank into it.

  ‘We’ll have to get gumboots, you know,’ said Frances. ‘It’s going to be like this everywhere we go.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Della yawned. ‘You organise it.’

  Catherine lay thinking about Robert, to whom she’d had no opportunity to speak. He hadn’t joined them in the colonel’s office after the show, and neither had Eric Baxter. That was odd too. And as she was thinking about it, Frances said, ‘Where d’you think Baxter went? I didn’t see him. Did either of you?’

  ‘No,’ said Catherine. ‘You wouldn’t think there’d be anywhere for him to disappear to around here.’

  ‘He’ll be doing some buying and selling,’ snorted Della. ‘Mark my words.’ She yawned again. ‘Christ, I’m tired.’

  ‘Well, get some sleep,’ Frances said. ‘We’ve got a ten o’clock start tomorrow, so there’ll be time for whatever breakfast they can give us and a bit of a wash.’

  When they got into the bus the next morning, they found that Beau had organised overnight alterations. With the help of the soldier
drivers and a couple of volunteers, he had removed the four back rows of seats and begged three camp beds from the quartermaster. They were complete with sleeping bags and a sheet that could be hung from screwed-in pegs to provide some privacy for the girls. The hampers had been squeezed into the luggage compartment at the side of the bus, and he’d even found a little collapsible table for the card school.

  ‘We should have thought all this out before,’ Beau grumbled, when Frances had exclaimed in delight over the arrangements. ‘We really are bloody amateurs when it comes to touring.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘It’ll do fine. If you men don’t mind mucking in with the military.’

  ‘Of course we won’t,’ he grinned. ‘They’re all geared up for men. It’s the women who are a bloody nuisance.’

  ‘That was simply tremendous,’ said Della, climbing into the bus and then hanging out of the door, laughing and waving to the soldiers who’d come to see them off. ‘What could be better?’

  ‘Well, this could,’ smiled Catherine, looking with delight at the new interior of the bus. ‘Beau,’ she called, ‘you’ve worked miracles.’

  ‘Thought you’d approve,’ he said awkwardly. Catherine wondered if Robert had spoken to him and pointed out that he was in danger of losing the trust of his company. Whatever had happened, he seemed to be back with them these last two days.

  ‘Anyway, we have to get going,’ he said. ‘Where are the drivers?’

  They were climbing on board, arms full of more equipment. ‘Thought you’d like these, sir,’ said Corporal Trevor, the one in charge. He had a small paraffin stove, a kettle and a couple of storm lanterns. ‘It’s best to be prepared.’

  Walter was carrying a box containing biscuits, tea and sugar, and eight tin cups. ‘We noticed, sir, that you hadn’t brought any provisions with you, so we took the liberty.’

  Beau was very grateful. ‘That’s incredibly generous of the commanding officer,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure to thank him when I next see him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, sir,’ Trevor grinned. ‘He doesn’t exactly know.’

  ‘Aha,’ bellowed Godfrey from his seat next to the table, where the cards were already being dealt, ‘nothing like a bit of pilfering from the stores. It’s what we all did in the first show. And, Beau, dear boy, very well done.’

  ‘A matter of opinion, old fruit,’ Captain Fortescue’s voice came from where Baxter was sitting on his own in the seat behind Walter. He had a new kit bag clutched in his arms, which he wouldn’t let out of his sight. ‘Not much fun being all squeezed up, I’d say.’

  ‘No danger of you being squeezed up, Baxter,’ said Della, her voice dripping with poison.

  ‘Stop it, Della,’ said Beau, and tapped Trevor on the shoulder. ‘Time for the off.’

  For the next three weeks, it was shows every day. Many were at much smaller camps than the first one, and often there wasn’t time to put on the full performance, or space to change out of their uniforms, but they clambered up onto makeshift stages and performed to the best of their ability. In most places, there wasn’t a piano, but Tommy accompanied the singers on the guitar, with Colin giving rhythm on the drums.

  The girls slept happily in the bus and got used to diving behind bushes for the necessary comfort breaks. They made themselves tea and washed their underwear in a bowl that they’d begged from a quartermaster sergeant, along with a collection of gumboots. It was, as Della put it, ‘almost fun’, and the days slipped away as they criss-crossed backwards and forwards along the front line.

  After nearly a month of touring, they turned up at a small camp in the middle of a forest, where they had to perform on the back of a lorry. Della could only sing, but was a knockout, perched on the lorry with her skirt hitched up her thighs and her cap at a saucy angle on the back of her head. When Catherine sang, a soldier spontaneously accompanied her with his clarinet, which had been with him throughout the invasion.

  ‘I know you,’ said Tommy, shaking hands with the young man afterwards. ‘Weren’t you with Geraldo, or one of the bands at the Criterion?’

  ‘I played everywhere, mate,’ the soldier grinned, ‘until I was called up. I even played for Miss Fletcher here, with Bobby Crewe’s Melody Men, although I bet she doesn’t recognise me.’

  ‘Let’s ask her,’ said Tommy, and called, ‘Catherine, Catherine, come over here.’

  She looked over from where she was signing autographs, and smiling goodbye to the soldiers, she went over to where Tommy was leaning against the side of a tank chatting to the clarinettist. ‘Hello,’ she said to the soldier. ‘I must thank you for accompanying us. You played so well.’

  ‘D’you remember him?’ asked Tommy excitedly.

  She shook her head, puzzled. ‘I don’t think so. Have I met you before?’

  ‘Gino Olivero.’ He put out his hand for her to shake. ‘I played with Bobby Crewe in 1938 for a week. You were singing.’

  She frowned, trying to think back. ‘Did you replace Pete Lincoln when he had bronchitis?’ She clapped her hands. ‘Yes, you did. I remember you now. Bobby was really pleased with you. Didn’t he ask you to come back?’

  ‘He did,’ grinned Gino, ‘but I’d already signed a contract to go to the States with a big band. I came home when war was declared and was immediately called up. That was nearly five years ago: no wonder you didn’t recognise me.’

  ‘You’re a sergeant now,’ said Tommy, looking a touch enviously at the white chevrons on the man’s sleeve. ‘You must have seen it all.’

  ‘I have, mate,’ Gino grinned, ‘but I’d rather have your job, any day.’

  Suddenly, in the distance, there was the rattle of gunfire and Gino looked round. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, and then dragged Catherine towards a sandbag-covered trench. ‘Get in there, quick.’

  Soon she was joined by the rest of the troupe, Della giving little squeaks of fright as she was manhandled in by a couple of squaddies. ‘Keep your heads down,’ one of them grunted, and Beau, who had struggled in, shouted, ‘For God’s sake, put on your tin helmets.’

  ‘We can’t,’ Frances shouted back. ‘They’re in the bus.’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ said Tommy, and started to climb out of the trench.

  ‘Come back,’ Beau yelled. ‘It’s too bloody late now.’

  A big gun started up with a boom, boom, boom. It was very close and Catherine put her hands over her ears as the whole trench reverberated to the sound.

  ‘Oh my God,’ wailed Della, and Frances put her arm around her and held her close, and Catherine moved towards them so that the three girls sat on the muddy floor of the trench in a tight huddle.

  ‘Just as well we didn’t put our frocks on,’ said Frances, trying to calm Della. ‘It would have been hell trying to get the mud out of them.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Della muttered. Then, as another huge boom shook the trench, she burst into tears. ‘I hate this,’ she cried. ‘I bloody hate it.’

  The boys were sitting in silence, all of them smoking furiously, and Tommy lit another cigarette and, with a shaking hand, passed it to Della. ‘Here you go, girl,’ he said. ‘Have a drag on this.’

  The gunfire rattled above them for another five minutes and then there was silence. Frances held her breath, waiting for the next explosion, but nothing happened. To her astonishment, she thought she could hear birds twittering in the trees above them, and from all around them came the noise of men talking and laughing.

  An officer jumped into the trench. ‘Excitement over, folks. Come on out.’

  It was almost the same scene as it had been when the firing began. Frances could see no damage, but spent cartridge cases littered the ground, and the smell of cordite hung in the air. ‘What was that?’ she asked the officer. ‘Who was firing?’

  ‘Oh, it was some Jerry platoon,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Got lost probably and barged into one of our outposts. We’ll know in a minute when the men come back.’

  As he spoke, a group of men walked out
of the trees, one of them carrying a body dressed in German uniform over his back.

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ whispered Catherine, but she watched as the soldier gently put the body on the ground and called, ‘Medic!’

  ‘Captured a live one, then?’ asked the officer.

  ‘Yes, sir. The others are dead. He’s got a bullet in his thigh.’

  The German opened his eyes and gazed up towards the soldier who was bending over him. ‘Kaput,’ he said urgently. ‘Kaput.’ He looked very young, almost like a schoolboy, and there, lying on the ground, he raised his trembling hands above his head.

  ‘It’s alright, boy,’ said the soldier who’d captured him. ‘The doc’s coming to look at you.’

  The medic arrived and did a cursory examination. ‘Broken femur,’ he said. ‘Will need surgery. I’ll organise an ambulance.’

  ‘Good,’ the officer grinned. ‘Bind the bugger up in the meantime and then I’ll have a few words with him. Be nice to know where Jerry is heading.’ He turned to Beau. ‘Your officer, Major Lennox, is it?’ He nodded to where Robert was standing, examining a map with their drivers. ‘He thinks you should get your skates on. Back the way you came, I imagine. We don’t know what the buggers are up to.’ He grasped Beau’s hand and pumped it up and down. ‘Very good of you to come and all that – the men really enjoyed it – but now I think you should get the hell out of here.’

  With a last look at the injured soldier, who widened his eyes in amazement when he saw the women, the company left.

  ‘Tin hats on,’ said Beau firmly, when they were back on the bus. ‘And keep them on.’

  Robert was in the bus with them, this time, leaning over the driver and pointing out the route. For the first time, Catherine noticed that he had a revolver in its holster on his belt and that the drivers had stacked their rifles on the floor beside them. Strangely, she felt quite safe. Robert wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

  Frances sat with Della, still holding her hand. ‘Have I made an awful fool of myself?’ Della sniffed.