junior clerk and had been the butt of the jokes of the other men on the Installation. He made all of us laugh at his youthful predicaments, and not much work got done.
I began to put away the papers on my desk, and the other girls slipped on their coats and took out their powder compacts to powder their noses, before going home.
"Is it that time already?" he asked, and looked at his watch.
Yes," I said. "Time to go home." Where do you live?"
"Across the water."
He got up from his complaining chair and helped me on with my coat. "I have to go down town, to get a tram for Orrell Park," he announced, "I'll take you down."
Behind his back, our two male clerks pulled wondering clown faces at me, and I hastily looked away from them. A spurt of anger went through me. They were his friends, weren't they?
Blow them, I thought. I looked up at Eddie and said, "Thanks. It will be nice to have company."
In a steady drizzle of rain, I was mostpolitely shepherded on and off the tram. He insisted on paying my fare, and chatted away about nothing in particular. Then, after a little while, he slowly drew out of me how I came to be working at the Installation.
At the station, he inquired, "Have you got a ticket?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Wait here a minute, then. I have to buy one."
"But you said you lived in Orrell Park," I protested. "That's this side of the river."
"Oh, I'll see you home," he announced airily, "I've nothing on this evening."
"Our house is quite a long walk from Moreton station," I warned him."
His eyes twinkled. "Do me good," he assured me. "Need exercise."
I was embarrassed, and fell silent as we approached Moreton. Since he had come so far, I would have to ask him in, give him tea at least. I hoped fervently that we had some tea in the caddy—and some milk and sugar.
It had rained most of the day, and as we walked out of the station it was pelting down. The darkness was almost absoluteonce we had left the dim Ughts of the railway. I had on a coat and hat, but Eddie had only his battledress and his absurd httle forage cap.
I expressed concern for him. "It's nothing," he said cheerfully. "I won't meh."
To make the walk short, I started down a muddy back lane. We had not gone far before we were splashing through deep, unseen puddles. I apologised. "There's only one house in this whole lane, and we've passed it," I added gloomily. There's absolutely nowhere to shelter." Press on regardless," he shouted over the pummelUng rain.
The water was up to my ankles, and I wondered how much deeper it would become. If the tide were in, the water would not drain until it turned and the little River Birket and its tributary, the Arrowe Brook, could once more flow seaward. I stopped, and said to my almost invisible companion, "Look, I can't drag you through this. You must go back. I'll be all right."
"Good God! I'm not leaving you in this.
a aI'm glad I came." A comforting arm came round my waist.
I was sneakingly thankful that he was there. I was quite frightened.
"I'm going to carry you," he announced, and before I could protest, I was swung up into his arms. "Put your arms round my neck," he ordered.
I obeyed, and suddenly the world became less scary, though wind and rain lashed us. I did not weigh much, but I was surprised that he could carry me so easily. I had not then heard of Commando training; after a course of that a man was either nearly dead or could carry anything.
He made a joke of the whole episode, as he struggled along in the water, which rapidly became knee-deep before we reached the rise on which our decrepit bungalow was built.
He slid me down on to the doorstep, and I could hear him breathing deeply in the darkness, while I fumbled for my key.
It was obvious that nobody else had arrived home yet, and I was trembling a httle. I shivered, not so much with the cold, but with feehngs that I thought I had conquered in the long dark days afterHarry's death. I did not dare look up at Eddie, as I ushered him over the doorstep into our sitting-room, and switched on the Ught. We had forgotten to draw back the blackout curtains before leaving in the morning, and I was thankful that I did not have to switch the light off again and pad round in the pitch black to draw them.
The bungalow was clammy and unwelcoming. Eddie took his forage cap off and shook it. Like his jacket, it was sodden, as were his trousers up to the knees. His feet squelched in his boots when he moved. I kicked off my own ruined shoes, and took off my coat and hat and shook them, regardless of our aged carpet.
"Take off your jacket and boots, and I'll get a towel for you," I told him.
Though our single towel was not very clean, it was dry. I took his socks from him and wrung them out over the kitchen sink, and wiped his huge boots inside and out with the floor-cloth. I put the kitchen bowl on the floor and he wrung his trouser ends out in that.
I persuaded him to go back into the sitting-room and sit in an easy chair, while he rubbed some life back into his feet.The coal was kept in a lean-to hut outside, and I snatched up the coal bucket and plunged through the back door. My dress was damp already, and it was thoroughly wet by the time I had felt through our small store of fuel for some decent sized lumps. Back in the kitchen, I was thankful to see a bundle of wood chips under the sink; at least, for once, we had kindling. I snatched up yesterday's newspaper from the table where it had been abandoned, and went back to my unexpected guest.
For all his size, Eddie looked strangely young and vulnerable, sitting by the empty hearth, in a khaki shirt with dark, wet patches across the shoulders and army braces keeping up his ill-cut trousers, from under which peeped large red toes.
I knelt down by the fireplace and began to rake out the ashes.
"Here, I'll do that," he said quite gently. "You go and change your frock, and put your hair back up." My hair was straggling down my back because I had lost half my precious hairpins in the wind.
I protested. "I can't let you."
"Oh, go on now. Don't be silly."I went. On my way to the bedroom, which led off the kitchen, I stopped to fill the kettle and put it on the gas stove.
When Mother, equally wet, burst in through the front door, railing against the weather, bringing with her gusts of wind and a dripping dog, who had, somehow, got left out all day, we were kneeling close together on the rug, steaming gently.
I was shaking out my hair, to dry it, while Eddie slowly added coal to the blaze, piece by piece, to obtain the maximum heat quickly. Beside each of us, on the rug, lay half-drunk cups of tea.
The dog shook himself and then ran across the room, to nose in between us, accepting Eddie as if he were part of the family.
As we turned to look at Mother, she stopped half way across the room, her coat slipping off one arm.
She ignored me. "Who are you?" she asked rudely of Eddie.
In one movement, Eddie unfolded his six feet of height from the rug and looked down at her warily. Then he turned to me. I pushed back the hair from my face andscrambled to my feet. I introduced him as a colleague now called up.
"Oh," said Mother. She neither offered her hand nor smiled, but turned and shook out her coat.
I flushed crimson. "Do sit down again," I begged Eddie, as he watched Mother vanish into the front bedroom, which led off the room we were in. "You must get dry; otherwise you'll get a chill."
His face suddenly had a hard, guarded look.
"I think I should be going," he said. "I told Mother I'd be back before eight."
My mother came back into the room. She had changed her dress and shoes and combed her hair.
"Will you stay to tea?" she inquired of Eddie.
It was polite, but most unwelcoming, as if some strange aura was exuded by both of them, to clash and form an instant dislike of each other.
"No, thank you. Mother is expecting me.
He reached for his steaming socks on the fender, sat down and put them on without looking at Mother again. Nickie,the dog, clim
bed over the fender and into the hearth. He was shivering and his wet coat smelled strongly.
Mother said stiffly, "Since your trousers are so wet, I presume you came through the lane. The front road and the main road are clear of water. It was foolish of Helen to bring you out here on such a night."
"I was happy to see her home." He slipped on the sopping jacket, which I handed to him, took his cap and boots from beside Nickie in the hearth, and moved to the front door. He put the still muddy boots on the tiny doormat and carefully laced them up without stepping on to the threadbare carpet. As I watched him, I was near to tears. Yet I was afraid that if I said anything Mother would be ruder still.
"You can get a bus at the end of the road, straight to Birkenhead Park," I whispered, as I opened the front door for him. "Turn left at the gate and then left again."
He must have seen my distress, because, unseen by Mother, he gave me a careful wink. Then he said goodnight to Mother, and she nodded acknowledgment.As he went out into the continuing storm, I said, "I am so sorry." I felt his humiliation as much as my own. To send anyone out into such weather was unforgivable, but I knew Mother. If once she lost her temper, she could be unprintable.
"Don't worry, luv," he muttered, "I'll be all right."
The storm inside the bungalow broke immediately. Picking up a strange soldier and bringing him home, without first asking, was shocking. Such a common man, too.
The tirade was still going strong when Father and Fiona came home, complaining that Moreton Cross, the centre of the village, was also flooded. They were so wet and miserable, however, that they could not have cared less if the entire British Army had surrounded the house. They were followed by Avril and Edward who had been playing in the homes of friends down the road.
As I lay sleepless in bed that night, with Avril and Fiona tucked in beside me, I burned with shame that anyone could be so discourteously treated. I was thankful that I had kept all knowledge of Harry,my lost fiance, from Mother; I could not have endured such a good man bemg insulted by her.
In the office the next day, I was the object of many jokes and inquiries about Eddie. I replied shortly that he had very kindly seen me to the station.
That made matters worse. The male clerks looked knowingly at each other and suggested, with gusts of laughter, that I had probably had to fight the man off. I was so depressed that I did not answer them.
25
THE next day, my Yorkshire colleague announced, "I'm having a few people in on Sunday, mostly from the Installation, and you're invited."
My second grownup party! After much thought, I chose to wear a black dirndl dress which Harry had brought me. Though its black material was becoming a little shiny with wear, it had a pretty gathered waistline emphasised by lines of tiny embroidery stitches, a pattern repeated round the little collar and the edges of its puffed sleeves.
I was tremendously excited, as I entered my friend's beautifully kept home and was greeted by him and by his quiet, friendly parents. I think I envied him his father and mother more than I have ever envied anybody anything. They seemed so calm and stable.
As I went into the crowded sitting-room, I glimpsed on the other side of it a familiar red face. A scarlet blush suffusedmy own face and neck. Eddie nodded, and grinned at me, so I summoned up a smile, while the other guests swarmed between us.
My busy host pushed a chair forward for me, so I sat down between two girls I did not know and whose names I did not catch when I was introduced, and tried to join in their conversation. But I had little small talk, and was soon lost. They blithely continued their conversation across me. I offered to change places with one of them and the girl accepted effusively. This put me in a corner, where I sat dumbly, except to thank my host when he proffered food and tea. I was a most hopeless guest.
People were standing talking between Eddie and me, but I caught an occasional glimpse of him. He too seemed rather quiet. On his best behaviour, I thought, and wanted to giggle at the idea. He was being amiable to the many people he obviously knew.
He slipped away early, I was told by my host, because he had to return to barracks the next morning.
I must learn how to gossip, make lightconversation, I thought in despair, as I went home in the train. Perhaps if I could find some film reviews and read them, it would be possible to talk about films and film stars with reasonable intelligence. And I must listen to the radio—a lot of the conversation had been about progranmies I did not hear. I listened only late at night when everyone had gone to bed, a time when one could pick up all kinds of strange radio stations—one of my favourites was Schenectady in the United States —and to this day I do not know by what quirk of the air waves I was able to hear them.
Despite my lacklustre performance as a guest, I had, nevertheless, enjoyed being asked to the party. I compared the hospitable welcome to Mother's snubbing of Eddie—and felt sad, because Mother could be a very good hostess when she pleased to be. She was, for example, very pleasant to Sylvia whenever she visited me. I wondered if, perhaps, Eddie really was an incorrigible rogue, and she sensed it.
I was most surprised, a week later, to receive a letter from Dover Castle.
From behind the thick walls of thecastle, Eddie wrote, he was supposed to be guarding the White CUffs of England. In fact, he felt that he was the centre of the buUseye for target practice by the Germans, twenty-one miles away on the other side of the English Channel. The boredom, he assured me, was excruciating, relieved only by the occasional hits and misses of the enemy. He was sure he would be drawing his Old Age Pension by the time the British got down to tackling the German army.
Though pets were strictly forbidden in the Castle, two friends and he had, to alleviate the dreariness of their days, adopted a family of three kittens born in a local pub.
Most armies have an enormous capacity for collecting pets of every kind, and Dover Castle would indubitably have resembled a zoo, had the ban not been in force.
The problem, wrote Eddie gravely, was to smuggle their newly adopted family into the castle. This required careful study.
The three soldiers went to town to shop. They returned with a paper bag and two boxes from the bakery—a uniform usuallybeguiled under-the-counter goods from a shopkeeper, and they had been successful. As they went through the guard room, a lovely smell of newly baked buns issued from the bag, and a mild scuffling from the baker's cake boxes went unnoticed by the bored guards.
It was the first time, said Eddie, that he had ever owned a mewing spongecake!
Feeding the little family had its own difficulties.
"It is not easy to smuggle rice pudding —or fish," he informed me. "Even if you can find a piece of greaseproof paper to wrap it in. My pockets are a disgrace to the British Army. However, Timoshenko and Voroshilov are both gaining weight. We are a little worried about Zhukov."
There were, of course, inspections to be avoided. The Corporals or the Sergeant would roar through the damp, stone rooms, swearing that the whole place smelled as if every randy tom in Dover was prowling the place. The kittens, hastily deposited in a long-forgotten dungeon, howled unheard.
Once, when he had gone down to retrieve the little prisoners, he found onlytwo. Trying to find them by the Ught of matches was not easy, because they scampered about so fast, and one had apparently escaped when he opened the door.
After a frantic hunt, it was eventually found in the kitchen, the centre of a circle of admirers, as it cleaned up a saucer of food.
Eddie and his friends decided against demanding the cat back, because they did not want to draw attention to themselves or to the other two members of the family. He justified their desertion of their small friend by saying, "The cooks could always say that they needed a cat down there, because of the rats and mice. He's found himself a job!"
I had never before received such an amusing letter. In a quiet spell in the office, I concocted as lively a reply as I could, and thus a sporadic correspondence grew up between us. At f
irst, so low an opinion did I have of myself, that I assumed the letters were not for me alone, but to be shared with his friends in the office. Then, though still very light-hearted, the letters became more personal and I kept them to myself. The adventuresand narrow escapes of the kittens and their owners kept us going through most of the winter of 1941^2, and helped to divert me during the hardships of coal shortages, failing electricity, autumn air raids, illness in the family, and very depressing war news.
By spring, Eddie was voicing in his letters the general frustration felt by the British Army at the lack of action. He wrote about the frayed nerves and irrita-biUty of his friends, and, as the Germans continued to use the Castle as a target, their depression at being holed up in such a cold, damp place.
I knew what cold, damp and frustration could do to a person, and I was able to commiserate.
In the early spring, he came, unheralded, to see me while on leave. We spent several hours drinking half-cold coffee in an unheated cafe in Hoylake, while I listened sympathetically to his woes.
At one point, he said, "I'm worried about my mother. She's not very strong, and she's living alone. Our house is fairly large and it needs more heating than thecoal ration will stretch to. I'm trying to get a new electric fire for her."
This was very different from the man who strode round the Installation, swearing like an infuriated Arab or even the soldier who kept cats and, at the same time, wanted to cut the throats of German gunners.
Afterwards, when I had seen him off on the train, a little comforted, I hoped, I walked slowly home.
I thought of two little boys being brought up fatherless, by a mother trying to keep some sense of discipline in them. As they grew up, I ruminated, they would assert their independence, endeavour to untie themselves from her apron strings. And they might easily do it by overemphasising their masculinity. Put one of those boys into the world of oil companies, where toughness is all, and you would have Eddie, determined to show that nobody was going to kick him about. I wondered suddenly what his mother was like.
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