by June Gadsby
‘Is that from Walter, love?’ Jenny looked inquisitively up from her sewing. ‘How is that fiancé of yours?’
Mary put Walter’s letter back on the table.
‘He says he’s looking forward to meeting the Germans soon.’
‘Oh, dear God! Poor lad.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who are your other letters from? They all seem to be from the same person. Nice handwriting.’
Mary looked at the three envelopes, swallowed, gathered them up and smiled at her mother.
‘It’s just a friend, Mum. A … a soldier, you know. Lots of the girls write to servicemen serving abroad. It’s good to make them feel as if they have somebody back home. Letters are important when they’re away from home.’
‘Aye, I can see that, poor souls. But Mary, you wouldn’t … I mean … don’t forget that you’re marrying Walter, now, will you?’
‘Oh, Mam, stop going on about Walter and me getting married. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s late and I’m tired, so I think I’ll go to bed.’
Jenny gave her a funny look. ‘All right, love. See you in the morning, eh?’
There were three letters from Alex Craig. She couldn’t believe it. They were friendly, chatty letters – the kind a brother might send, but he wasn’t her brother. He asked her questions, too. Where was she, what was she doing, was she safe and happy? And, why didn’t she write? He would value a letter from her so much.
Mary started to crumple the letters up, then straightened them out again and hid them beneath the blotter of her leather writing-set that Helen had given her last Christmas. She picked up her pen and wrote: ‘Dear Alex …’ Even the act of writing to him seemed like a betrayal. That would be how Alex’s wife would see it, no doubt. But Mary swallowed her guilt and gave way to the compelling desire to reach out to him, even if it were only a matter of a few hastily scribbled words on a scrap of paper.
As it was, her renewed thoughts of Dr Alex Craig uppermost in her mind, she found it impossible to sleep. However, she told herself, it was because it was so quiet up here, not like the constant hustle and bustle of the great city.
The following morning, she was up early, just as the blackout was lifted. Her mother, always an early riser, was already in the kitchen preparing scrambled eggs from the chickens they kept in the back yard. It would be a welcome change to the powdered egg they had forced upon them in London. You could taste the stuff for hours after eating it.
‘You’re not going out already, are you, our Mary?’ Jenny said when Mary pushed her empty plate away from her and gulped down the last drop of tea.
‘Yes, Mum. I need to get out and walk about a bit. You know, see the place.’
Her mother laughed. ‘Well, Felling hasn’t changed much, love, war or no war. But you enjoy your walk. The fresh air will do you good. You look thin and pale. I hope I can pamper you while you’re home. Fatten you up a bit.’
Her mother fattening her up used to be the bane of Mary’s life. It had turned her into a well-built girl who could have easily lost a few pounds to look and feel better, but Jenny would never see it that way. If people didn’t eat three square meals a day, she thought they were sickening for something.
These days, people were lucky if they could get one square meal a day, now that food was rationed. There was never enough to go around, unless, of course, you paid through the nose to the black-market men who were popping up everywhere.
There had been a lot of that kind of thing in London. Spivs, they called the men who were able to provide just about anything, at a price. Spivs and wide boys. In other words, barrow-boys who were on the make and ready to twist their own grandmothers out of their last penny in order to make money. They usually wore broad brimmed trilbies, jackets with wide shoulders and those awful loud ties. And they had a very persuasive way of speaking.
Mary took a slow walk down to Victoria Square. It looked much the way it had always done, apart from the absence of iron railings. These had been melted down and were now helping to build ships or making guns or plane parts. There was no bomb damage that she could see. Her mother had told her that the nearest they had so far come to being bombed was when they were virtually shaken out of their beds by an explosion in Gateshead a few miles away.
She looked around her at the people who went about their everyday business and wondered if they knew how lucky they were not to be living in the south-east corner of England, which would undoubtedly be the main target area if the Germans ever got through.
Women in headscarves, clutching shopping bags, were queuing outside the Co-op. Their faces were serious, their eyes had a faraway glaze to them, their normal chatter was now reduced by the thoughts and the experiences of war.
Mary acknowledged one or two smiles and nods from people who recognized her. She was giving a wave to Walter’s father through the window of his butcher’s shop when she collided with a woman coming out.
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ Mary apologized, bending to pick up a package the woman had dropped.
It was in doing so that she noticed the large flat dress box the woman was carrying, which hid the fact that she was pregnant. The woman muttered something, and adjusted her coat and the box so that her condition was again well hidden. Without a further word, she hurried off, leaving Mary frowning after her, wondering where she had seen her before and why she should behave so oddly.
There was a rapping on the glass window beside her and Mary looked up to see Mr Morgan beckoning. The shop was almost empty of customers, the last one being attended to by Walter’s mother, who looked red-faced and flustered, but pleased to see Mary all the same.
‘Hello, lass,’ George Morgan patted her shoulder. ‘You home on leave, are you? I hear you’ve been in London. What’s it like down there, then?’
‘Oh, George,’ his wife said, pushing by him so that she could give Mary a hug. ‘Let the girl be. I’m sure she doesn’t want to talk about London, do you, pet?’
‘Not really,’ Mary said with a wry smile. ‘I was just thinking that you would hardly know there’s a war on here in Felling. It’s lovely.’
‘Aye, well, don’t let folks hear you say that. They think they’re hard done to, some of them. Have you heard from our Walter, pet?’
Mary nodded. ‘Yes, there was a letter waiting for me.’ She hesitated, not wishing to impart any information before knowing how much Walter had told his parents. With his father’s bad heart and his mother’s nerves, it was probably best they didn’t know too much.
‘He’s going to be fighting the Germans soon,’ Mrs Morgan said, drawing her mouth in and rolling anxious eyes to the ceiling. ‘Our Walter’s not a fighter. I mean, what’s he going to do out there with all the bullets flying and the bombs going off? It’s not right, it isn’t.’
‘I don’t think Walter has a choice, Maureen,’ her husband said with a look at Mary. ‘None of them have, poor souls.’
Mary thought it was time to change the subject and recalled the woman she had bumped into.
‘That woman who went out just now,’ she said. ‘The one carrying the big box…? I seem to know her face, but can’t put a name to it. Who is she, do you know?’
‘Oh, her!’ Maureen Morgan tilted her chin up and gave a disdainful sniff. ‘That’s the doctor’s wife. Young Dr Craig, I mean. They say the higher you jump the further you have to fall, and didn’t she fall flat on her snooty face!’
‘Oh … but….’ Mary remembered Alex’s wife now and her heart sank. He had not mentioned the baby in his letters, but surely he must know. ‘I didn’t realize she was … expecting.’
Mr Morgan moved off to leave the two women chatting about domestic matters. Mrs Morgan gave a smirk and her fingers dug into Mary’s wrist.
‘No, and I doubt her husband does either, but when he gets back, he’s going to have a surprise waiting for him, isn’t he? And you’d be right in your calculations, though she’s trying to pass it off as his, the brazen hussy.’
‘Do you
mean…?’
‘Aye, pet. If that poor lad’s the father of her child it would be some kind of blooming miracle.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IS this the first time you’ve been on board ship?’ the young purser asked Mary.
Mary was leaning on the ship’s rail, gazing out in wonder at the heaving sea as Plymouth and the shores of England disappeared behind them. A few feet away Iris was leaning over the same rail, but not for the same reason. Her face was almost as green as the undulating waters beneath her. She had not been able to utter a word without retching since they embarked on their most exciting posting since joining the FANYs.
The purser had caught Mary’s eye the moment she had ventured outside their cabin, making sure he was always within speaking distance, smiling shyly and looking as if he was desperate to find a way to get to know her without being too obvious. This was the exact opposite to what she had expected, being on a ship full of naval personnel. They had a certain reputation with the ladies that she was hoping to avoid, but the purser had a nice face, so she turned a beaming a smile on him.
‘I’ve been on a ferry boat on the River Tyne,’ she told him, ‘but this is a bit different.’
‘You’re not scared, are you?’ he said, moving closer to her so that their elbows touched.
‘Scared? No. I find it exhilarating.’
‘Not like your friend over there, eh?’ He nodded in Iris’s direction. ‘I hate to think what she’s going to be like when we really get out to sea.’
‘Poor Iris, yes.’
‘She’s not the only one. A lot of the sailors who come on board for the first time spend hours puking, just like that, until they find their sea-legs.’
He gave her a wide-eyed stare that made her feel self-conscious, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant to have a good-looking young man to talk to.
‘Well, that’s encouraging, I must say,’ she laughed. ‘So, how long are we going to be on board before we get to France?’
He gave a shrug. ‘That depends on whether or not we meet trouble. These days we have to sneak in by the back door, and even then the Gerry U-boats manage to intercept some of our ships. They’ve got ruddy crystal balls, if you ask me.’
‘Well, let’s hope their fortune teller is on leave today.’
‘You’re a FANY, aren’t you? We’ve shipped a couple of units over to France lately. They’re great girls. You going to the Polish camp?’
He was referring to Coetquidan, where hundreds of Polish soldiers were camped, having escaped capture by the Germans and had managed somehow to make their way to France. They were assembled around the Breton town waiting for transportation to England. In the meantime, FANY units were employed to keep the men happy and sane, so far away from their homeland. Ambulances and mobile canteens manned by FANY girls were much in demand. They brought with them not only the spirit of the Corps, for which they were already famous since the First World War, but also a goodly supply of home comforts.
‘We’ll get our orders when we land,’ Mary said carefully, her training in close-mouthed security coming to the fore.
‘Right.’ The purser straightened and glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the captain’s voice calling him from the steps to the bridge. ‘Looks like I’m needed. Maybe I’ll see you later? There’s a film on in the officer’s mess, if you’re interested.’
‘That’s nice. Yes, I’m sure we’ll all be there.’
‘Yes … right … well …’ He looked slightly crestfallen and Mary wished they had met somewhere on land, on a pier perhaps, with the only things likely to dive-bomb them were the seagulls. ‘Enjoy the trip.’
Mary went to stand by Iris, whose colour was changing slightly from green to grey and pink-tinged around the edges.
‘Oh, God, Mary! This is awful. They didn’t warn us about …’ She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed with difficulty.
‘I must have the blood of an old sea dog in me somewhere.’ Mary laughed gently and gave her friend a hug. ‘I’m really enjoying this. It’s so exhilarating.’
‘We’re not here to have fun,’ Iris said and managed a grin, for she had repeated the words their CO had instilled into them. ‘We’re here to help our country win the war, or so the boss says at every opportunity.’
‘Exactly! But nobody said we couldn’t do both.’
The boss of their unit, this time, was not Anne Beasley, but a rather stern, older woman, who was a stickler for military precision and was sadly lacking when it came to a sense of humour.
‘I’d give anything to be back home right now.’
‘Don’t let our raw recruits hear you say that, Ensign Morrison. You don’t want a mutiny on your hands.’
‘I can’t think why they promoted me like that, Mary.’ Iris looked puzzled. ‘I mean, I’m just an ordinary girl like the rest of our unit, and not all that bright, really.’
‘Go on with you.’ Mary shook her head. ‘You drive that canteen of ours like a demon and you have a photographic memory when it comes to maps. Don’t you realize how valuable that is, to be able to memorize a route like that? I get lost if I turn round in Oxford Street.’
‘Don’t look now, but we’re not in Oxford Street, Mary,’ Iris said, doing her best to keep the conversation light-hearted, despite her innermost feelings. ‘But I am glad we’re still together, you and me and …’
‘And Effie,’ Mary finished for her. ‘Yes, me too.’
‘Oh, God, that Effie will be the death of me.’
‘I hope not, Iris. Where is she, anyway?’
‘Last time I saw her she was sitting on her bunk swearing she wouldn’t budge for hell or high water until she could get away from all those men in uniform.’ Iris gave Mary a hard look. ‘And by the way, Mary, I saw you chatting to the purser as if that ring on your finger didn’t mean anything.’
‘Don’t be daft, Iris. He was the one flirting, not me.’ Mary glanced down at her left hand and spread the fingers. ‘In any case, I don’t wear Walter’s ring any more.’
‘Oh, Mary! Why ever not? You haven’t broken up with him, have you?’
Mary gave a slight shake of her head and concentrated on the foamy white wake of the ship streaming out behind them like a fluttering bridal train. She didn’t know if she would ever be a bride, but one thing was certain. Walter would never be her husband. It had taken a kiss from Alex Craig and a long separation to finally make up her mind, but made up it was.
‘Don’t let’s talk about it,’ she said, and Iris knew from the tone of her voice that it was time to change the subject, so they talked about the cinema on board and how they would enjoy watching Clarke Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night.
A few hours later, almost silently, and under cover of darkness, HMS Dolphin docked at St Malo. Iris, Mary, Effie and the rest of their unit assembled until the call was given to mount their vehicles and drive off the ship. During the short voyage their CO, Captain Mountford, had been taken ill with appendicitis and was to be returned to England, leaving Iris in command. With some trepidation, she took the wheel of the leading van, which they had christened Phoebe. Beside her, Mary and Effie sat mute, sharing the same tingling anticipation as everyone else. At long last, they were going to see a different side of the war and the excitement was tangible as if it wrapped itself around them like a thick army blanket. There was underlying fear too, but none of them dared dwell on that.
Iris drove carefully, following the waving hands that guided her down the ramp and on to the dock. From there, more hands waved, beckoning her forward, until one white palm halted their progress and someone approached the driver’s side of the vehicle.
‘Eeh, what is it now?’ Effie complained, then her eyes popped out on stalks as the man in strange, civilian dress, threw them a string of words in rapid French.
‘Mary?’ Iris glanced over at Mary and raised her eyebrows. She knew some French, but the man’s accent was heavy with a patois.
Mary leaned over
and answered him. There was a short exchange, then she nodded and patted Iris’s arm.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘This is our guide, Gaston Frébus. He has orders to ride with us to the Polish camp.’
‘That’s going to be cosy,’ Iris muttered out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Couldn’t we have brought your purser along? This one’s not so pretty to look at.’
Mary saw the Frenchman’s face twitch. Above the large Breton moustache that hung down like a black curtain, his dark eyes twinkled.
‘Tell your friend,’ he said, in perfect English, ‘that it is not how we look, but how we behave that counts in this life.’
‘He’s bloody English!’ Effie swore loudly.
‘And tell your other friend,’ the man said, ‘that we are not necessarily what we appear to be, including the Germans.’
‘I think she’s already finding that out, monsieur,’ Mary said, returning his twinkling smile.
‘Permission to come aboard, mademoiselle?’ He was again addressing Iris.
‘Permission granted … er …’ Iris looked flustered.
‘Just call me Gaston,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to sit up front.’
‘I’ll go in the back,’ Effie decided, already scrambling over into the back of the van. ‘And you drive carefully, Iris. I don’t want me bike to fall over or to have crockery landing on me head.’
‘It’s all very informal,’ Gaston said as he settled himself on Mary’s left.
‘That’s only when the three of us are on our own,’ Mary told him. ‘We come from the same small town in north-east England.’
‘Ah! I thought I detected a regional accent.’ He slapped his hands on his knees and slipped back into French. ‘Alors, mes braves! On y va!’
‘What did he say?’ said Iris, and Mary could tell from the tone that her friend’s jaws were tightly clenched.
‘He says let’s go.’
‘Well, what are we hanging about for, eh?’ came from Effie in the back. ‘Go on, Iris. On yer var … or whatever he said.’