Unanimously, we pressed him to give Alan the tablets.
Within two days, Alan was nearly free of fever, though weak; and we were the first family in our village to bless the names of Fleming and Florey, the discoverers of penicillin.A long-distance telephone call at the office brought me into touch with another group which was sometimes sick.
"Could you get over to Doncaster tonight?" asked Eddie, without preamble. "I've got to bring another POW up for treatment, and I could spend all day there ..."
"But Doncaster's in Yorkshire. I'd have to travel right across country overnight."
"I know, but I won't get any leave for months."
The ears of my colleagues had pricked up, and grins of amusement spread from face to face.
I blushed with annoyance. Then I asked, "Where shall I meet you?"
"If we arrive first, we'll be in the General Waiting Room, provided some blasted MP doesn't get over-fussy. If you arrive first, wait in the Ladies' Waiting Room."
I hesitated, and a very humble voice at the other end of the phone pleaded, "Please, Helen."
When the office manager had received the call, he had, of course, recognised the voice, and had actually said, "Hold theline, Eddie." So everybody knew that I felt strongly enough about the man to make one of the more difficult train journeys in the north, overnight, to see him. Gleefully, they spent the day telhng me horror stories about him and his unknown brother.
I escaped at lunchtime and went to the Post Office to withdraw all I had saved, and to telephone Fiona to say that I would be away overnight.
"You haven't got any night-clothes, and Mother will think you are spending the night with him."
"I won't be staying anywhere. I'll be travelling both nights. And I've got makeup with me."
"Well, I'll tell Mother," Fiona promised, "But I think you're dotty."
In the early hours of the morning, a disconsolate German prisoner of war, so young and so drawn of face that pity immediately welled up within me, and a sleepy Eddie with a chin frosted with golden beard, his uniform crumpled, sat on a bench outside the General Waiting Room, both of them slouched forward, arms resting on knees.Even the prisoner seemed glad to see me, because both their faces Ut up, as I was carried towards them by a surge of luggage-carrying passengers. They both sprang up, and Eddie clasped my hand and put an arm round my waist as he turned to introduce me to his companion, who clicked his heels politely and bowed. The prisoner was muffled up in pullovers and, with his greenish coloured trousers, could have passed as an Englishman in a reserved occupation.
"The porter says there's a little cafe across the road which serves breakfast," announced Eddie, and hustled the pair of us through the station barrier.
Except for a cup of tea on a Manchester railway station, while I waited for a connection, I had had nothing to eat since the previous day's lunch, and I went happily with my odd companions into the steamy little cafe.
In good English, the prisoner said that, to give us a little privacy, he would sit at the next table, where Eddie could see him. He smiled at me, and added, "I only wish my girl were here, too."
I laughed, and said thank you, andthought that, judging by his emaciated frame, it would be a miracle if he ever saw his fraulein again.
"TB," Eddie told me, as he seated me in a worn wooden chair. "In the lungs. I've brought him for treatment."
Sick or not, even the prisoner ate a hearty breakfast of porridge without milk or sugar, scrambled dried egg on cardboardlike toast, and two pots of weak tea. I doubt if the fat, languid woman who waited on us realised she was dealing with an enemy prisoner.
It was a memorable meal. Eddie cheered up immensely, once he had been fed, and, while he drank his last cup of tea, he held my hand under the table, and talked about a film he had seen.
I omitted to tell him of my struggle to get there, of being faced with having to change stations in Manchester in the blackout, and being unable to find a taxi.
A kindly Flight Sergeant in charge of some eighty men had realised my predicament and inquired which station I wanted. When I told him, he bundled me into the double-decker bus waiting for his contingent, and up the stairs. "Hey, you," heordered an aircraftsman, "you look after her." The aircraftsman got me a seat and stood hanging from a strap by me, as if he were afraid the rest of the grinning, teasing gang with us would rape me.
At the other end of the bus trip, the Flight Sergeant came up the stairs and said that he would be handing over the men to another Flight Sergeant. "So you wait while everybody gets off and he's real busy. Then you slip off quietly."
This I did and passed unnoticed into the station.
I eased myself on to the train for Sheffield, where I expected to change again. This train was filled with troops being moved overnight, presumably because they were less visible at night. The less the enemy knew about troop movements the better it was. The only light on the blacked out train was given by miserable blue bulbs which made it impossible to read. The soldiers seemed tired, too.
Just outside Sheffield, the train stopped, because the city was being bombed. The passengers, at first, did not know where they were, and we sat uneasily listening to the roar of planes. The lights went out.
Planes swept along the railway track and between the scream of the bombs coming down and their explosion, came the sharp rat-tat of machine gun fire. I sat, terrified, with my face pressed into my lap, between two soldiers cursing softly into their own laps, while machine gun bullets whipped along the side of the train, and somewhere further in front of us glass shattered as a windowpane was broken.
I thought the men might panic and try to get out of the train, since the railway line was an obvious target.
In no other raid had I ever felt so helpless. Confined in the non-corridor train, with blinds drawn over painted windows, the dim blue lights turned off, the heavy breathing and muttering of the men round me, and the smell of the sweat of fear, I felt trapped. Every minute seemed hours long, every bullet seemed destined for our crowded little compartment.
Very slowly, the train began to back, its wheels squeaUng. After a Uttle while, it stopped. The noise outside was more distant, and within, a collective sigh of relief went up, as we slowly straightened ourselves.A pair of army boots was vaguely outlined in front of my face, as the man travelling in the luggage rack above me also sat up. '"Ave a dekko, Joe, and see where we are," a disembodied voice urged.
The soldier next to me heaved himself up, brushing my face with coarse khaki. He wound down the window and looked out. Immediately, there was a rush of fresh air into the tiny compartment and a gUmmer of light, probably from the moon.
Feet crunched along the track outside, and Joe shouted down, "Where are we?"
"Near Sheffield."
"Are we going in?"
"Na. They'll reroute us."
Panic struck me. Where would I end up? The man outside had stopped by the door, to answer Joe, so I tugged at the overcoat in front of me, and whispered. Ask him how I'll get to Doncaster." Lady here wants to know how to get to Doncaster."
"Tell her to stay on the train. That's where you're going."
It seemed as if we spent hours backing and shunting and then slowly making our way to Doncaster. The ten or so men in our compartment grumbled steadily about being hungry and thirsty; and I was thankful when a faint light through the painted windows told us it was morning, and I heard the women porters shouting, "Doncaster, Doncaster, all change."
I wondered what had happened to the train I was supposed to have changed on to in Sheffield. Perhaps it lay burning, amid twisted railway fines and shattered glass from the railway station roof.
I shivered. It was comforting to hold Eddie's warm hand, and see the light of nuschief dancing in his greenish eyes. His attitude was different at this meeting, more easily friendly. I caught the prisoner viewing us with amusement, and felt shy and reticent. With a sudden pang, I remembered Harry's remark about my being as distrustful as the ship's cat. A
nd yet, I reminded myself, I had come on a long and difficult journey, very much on trust, just to spend a few hours with the soldier holding my hand.
He was saying casually, "I must have been nuts to ask you to come—but I'm glad you did."
I waited at the gate of the hospital, whileEddie delivered his prisoner. The man had fahered, as we marched him between us through the streets crowded with people going to work. I said impulsively to Eddie, "He's very sick. Let's go more slowly."
Eddie had stopped inmiediately, and the prisoner had leaned thankfully against a soot-encrusted stone wall, to get his breath. After that, we proceeded at a gentle amble. I did not talk to the prisoner and neither did Eddie. At the gate, however, I had said, "Auf wiedersehen."
He gave a small mocking salute, and trailed up the path, beside Eddie.
Eddie and I spent the morning in a windswept park, with last winter's leaves whirling round our feet, as we walked. He talked and I listened. After the usual groans about the High Command keeping the Army penned up in Britain for years, he began to talk about his childhood and his home. "My Dad died when I was twelve," he said. "Lucky for Mum, we owned the house, and there was a little money and her Widows' Pension." He grinned. "She's had her hands full with my brother and me. But once we were
both earning, she didn't have to worry so much about money."
Is your brother married?" No." He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Neither of us will get married while the war is on—wartime marriages never seem to work."
I thought of my parents' unhappy wartime union, and repUed, "I think you're right."
He looked at me in surprise, the heavy, fair eyebrows nearly shooting up to touch the cowHck of golden hair sticking out from under his forage cap.
"I thought all girls wanted to get married, regardless."
"Not this one," I replied, feeling a glint of amusement. I had told him long ago that I had lost a fiance in the Atlantic, so after glancing at me, he said dryly, "I suppose not."
It began to rain, so we scuttled back to the little cafe where we had had breakfast, and ate a mysterious stew with mashed potatoes for lunch. Then we enquired about a return train for me. There was one at 4.30 p.m., which meant that, barring air raids, I would be home by bedtime.The train Eddie would catch went in the early evening.
As we wandered out into the light rain, I reaUsed that Eddie's army greatcoat was getting very wet. I was better clad, in a macintosh, though my feet were wet. Nevertheless, we walked on for a little while, until I saw, peeping above a row of shops, a church spire. I caught Eddie's arm, and asked, "Do you mind sitting in a church?"
"No." He laughed.
"Well, it would be dry, and we could talk if we are very quiet."
The small Anglican church was open. A fat woman in a big black apron was placidly polishing the pews at the front.
We slipped into the cold gloom of the back pew. While Eddie put his arm round me, the fat woman surveyed us unsmil-ingly, and then went back to her polishing.
Behind the thick stone walls, it was incredibly quiet, and as we sat cuddled together, the peace of it washed over us, two tired people stepping out of the hurly-burly of the war for a few minutes. We did not talk much, yet there was no sense of boredom. Occasionally, he would shifthimself and hold me more tightly. I wondered if he felt the rising sense of passion that I did, and the unspoken question was answered when I looked up, because he bent over me and kissed me.
The polishing lady had reached the matching pew to ours on the other side of the aisle, and Eddie said heavily, "I suppose we'd better get over to the station. We might get you a seat, if we're there early."
I nodded, and he kissed me again, and this time I kissed him back. The polishing lady clucked, presumably at the length of the silent kiss.
I slowly slipped from his encircling arm on to the faded embroidered hassock in front of me. I closed my eyes and prayed intensely for the safety of one Private Edward Parry.
A small thud beside me. To my utter astonishment, Eddie knelt beside me, put his arm round me again and closed his eyes. Perhaps this tough, hard-headed man realised that, once the Second Front was opened, the odds for him were not very favourable. And like many another unbe-hever, he turned to the faith and hope hismother had taught him as a child. I put my arm round him.
He did not kiss me goodbye. But a new relationship had been established. I was bewildered by it, uncertain that anything would come of it. And was not even sure that I wanted it to flower.
34
IN a wooden hut, which stood apart from other buildings on the Installation, dwelt two laboratory assistants, fondly known to the Payroll Department as the lab assists. They checked the quaUty of the oil and petrols being imported. They also obhgingly filled our cigarette lighters with some of their samples. The petrol was of such poor quality that we used to lay bets on how many strikes our lighters would need before they flared. At all times of day, these technicians made tea on their bunsen burners, and anybody was welcome to a cup.
They swore soulfuUy that they were both dying of loneliness, because the wife of one and the fiancee of the other were in the Forces.
In despair, they began to plot how to get their womenfolk home on leave, so that infants might be fathered and the mothers discharged into civilian life. They had long conversations on the efficacy of everythingfrom garlic to ginseng to increase the chance of a pregnancy, and offers of help from the other male members of the staff were plentiful.
The female staff asked if anyone had inquired of the ladies concerned whether they wanted a family—or the concomitant discharge.
Our inquiries were met with deep scowls.
The ladies were shipped abroad for the duration, and, despite embarkation leave, their husbands' efforts came to nought.
One fine spring day there was a sharp explosion. We all leapt to our feet wondering which way to run; an explosion in a petrol installation is not an event which one stops to watch.
A girl ran to the window. "It's the lab," she shrieked.
Flames engulfed the only entrance, and two tattered figures flew through them, to roll on the ground outside, to put out their burning clothes.
The men in our department tore out to help the technicians, and the fire alarm went.
The Installation had its own auxiliaryfire brigade and the flames were soon put out. The poor scorched young men were rushed to hospital.
The burns were fortunately light, but they were extensive, over their faces, heads, necks and hands. Though painful, their injuries were not serious, and they returned to work swathed in bandages, looking rather like a couple of Air Force pilots caught in the flames of their shot-down plane.
That was it. They had a wonderful time. The general public thought they were, indeed, injured air crew, and nothing was too good for them. No tram conductor would take a fare from them. They rode free. They had only to go into a pub and, with pitying glances, the barmaids would shove full pints of the best ale across the counter to them, and refuse payment. Cigarettes rolled out from under shop counters. Cinemas? Theatres? The best seats at no charge.
"We tried to explain to everybody," they assured us, in chorus. "But it was no good. Everybody thought we were being modest. So what could we do?"
Even when the bandages were off, it wassome time before their hair, eyelashes and eyebrows grew again and their skin looked normal, so they enjoyed several weeks as heroes, while we teased them unmercifully.
When they looked quite well again, they returned to making cups of tea and trying to seduce us into visits to drink it.
When repairs to their hut were made, nobody considered the wisdom of supplying them with two exits; employee safety was not high on the list of wartime priorities. So short were we of timber and spare parts that it was always averred that, apart from the personal ingenuity of our invisible manager, the Installation was held together by bits of string and chewing gum.
Unlike the lab assists, office boys were called up at s
eventeen and a quarter. They were usually Grammar School boys, who came to us at sixteen. They were not quite so knowing or so worldlywise as the over-ailed products of the elementary schools, who formed the outside staff.
We had one amiable roly-poly of an office boy whose innocence was so great that he became a target for the workmen.One man said to him, pointing out of the window, "You see that big crane on the dock? Well, it isn't a crane. It's the new fog lifter."
The boy looked at his instructor open mouthed. "You don't say?"
"Yes. Invented by a chap who works in the docks. When they get a bad fog, they attach the hook to it and simply roll it up. Works like a charm, I tell you. Super magnetic, that hook—that's the secret of
it."
"Well, I never!"
Another day, the foreman borrowed his services and sent him speeding from workshop to workshop on the Installation to borrow a left-handed spanner. Another time, they sent hun to the garage where the big Scammell lorries were repaired, for a long stand.
"Mr. Jones wants a long stand," he told the foreman there.
"All right. You just wait here."
A wearisome hour later, he was told he could go back to Mr. Jones.
Lime Street at Two Page 23