A Silver Lining

by Anne Douglas

Vi’s look was dubious. ‘And Dad? Have you thought what he’d say if you joined the army? He doesn’t think women should go to war.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be letting women really go to war. We’ll probably just be back-up.’ Jinny leaned forward. ‘But it’ll still be worthwhile to join up, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I think it will. Remember, we said it was only fair that women should be conscripted like the men.’ Vi took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. ‘I wouldn’t mind volunteering myself.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘Until I’m officially called up I think I’d better stay with the firm. Since the changeover to uniforms we’ve been snowed under with paperwork and most of the men have gone, leaving you know who to carry on.’ Vi studied her cigarette. ‘Besides, we can’t both leave Dad, can we?’

  ‘Why, I never thought I’d hear you say that!’ cried Jinny. ‘You always say that men should be able to look after themselves and not depend on women to do everything for ’em!’

  ‘I know, but he’s lost May, and if he loses you too he’ll be in a state. It’ll be better if I stay on till I get the call.’

  ‘You’re just a great softie, after all,’ Jinny said, laughing. ‘Now it can be told!’

  ‘None of that!’ Vi grinned and offered her cigarettes. ‘Here, have a smoke to celebrate your new life, eh?’

  ‘No, thanks, I don’t fancy smoking. You know I never have.’

  ‘Wait till you’re in the forces – you’ll be smoking like a chimney! I’m told everybody does.’

  Their talk had been so absorbing it had quite taken their minds off the danger that might be coming their way, but when they tuned into the BBC at nine o’clock, there was still no news of German bombing or invasion, and once again they breathed sighs of relief.

  They were not to know that, within a few short weeks, everyone in the country would also be heaving sighs of relief, for it had become clear that Hitler would never invade Britain. He had gambled on winning a battle of the air in the skies over England, beginning in July and ending in September with defeat for him and his air force. The young British pilots, in their Spitfires and Hurricanes, had brought respite from fear for their countrymen and women, and though their cities had to endure German bombing, they no longer needed to picture German troops marching through London, or, indeed, Edinburgh.

  ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few,’ said Winston Churchill of the Battle of Britain, and the words of gratitude echoed throughout the land.

  But in late June, when Jinny sat with her sister, planning her new future – all that lay ahead. Her immediate problem was how to break the news, first to her father, then to Mr Comrie, that she would soon be going away. In theory, they should be prepared for it, as all young unmarried women would certainly be conscripted sooner or later. In practice – well, in spite of what she’d told Vi, she didn’t know how her news would be taken. With some apprehension, she watched Vi calmly smoking, and decided she must just wait and see.

  Forty-Three

  Jinny told her father first. On the following Sunday, it being a fine afternoon, it was decided she and Josh should take a tram to the Botanic Gardens, stroll round the extensive grounds, maybe look in at the hot houses and have a cup of tea. Finding cafés open on Sundays in Edinburgh was not easy, but it was possible to have tea at the Botanics, even if there probably wouldn’t be anything much to eat.

  ‘Very nice,’ remarked Josh when they were sitting in the crowded tea room, looking out at trees and lawns. ‘I appreciate this – I don’t see enough greenery in my line o’ work.’

  ‘More tea?’ asked Jinny.

  ‘Aye, please. It’s thirsty work, all this walking, and that hot house nearly finished me. Shame Vi’s not with us, though. She should see a tree or two, eh?’

  ‘She’s out with her friend – you know, Marion,’ Jinny told him, knowing of course that Vi was under her orders to be elsewhere while she broke her news to her father. When she had passed him his tea, she cleared her throat and took courage to speak. ‘Dad … there’s something I want to tell you—’

  ‘Oh?’ His dark eyes, so like hers, were instantly alert. ‘Something good?

  ‘It’s just I’ve been thinking – well, no, I’ve decided, really – to volunteer for the ATS.’

  He set down his cup. ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘Decided to volunteer, Dad. Seemingly, they want ten thousand women for the service. The Princess Royal came on the wireless and asked girls to join. For king and country, she said, and I thought … I thought I’d like to do something to help.’

  ‘For king and country?’ Josh raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s why she wants you to go? All I can say is that half the fellas that went last time for king and country never came back, and the rest were never the same again. I should know; I was one.’

  ‘I know, Dad, it was a terrible war, a terrible waste, but this one is different. We have to fight Hitler because he’s a tyrant; he’s trying to enslave the world. That’s why I want to do my bit.’

  As he said nothing, she went on eagerly: ‘But I won’t be fighting like the men, you know, Dad – no one’s saying that. I’ll just be helping, that’s all, doing back-up sort of jobs.’ She laughed a little. ‘Nothing in the front line!’

  ‘What’ll they say at Comrie’s if you go?’ he asked after a few quiet moments. ‘Why can‘t you just stay there till they bring in this bill to conscript women? You’ll be needed, eh?’

  ‘Mr Comrie’s got a retired accountant to stand in for my boss. They’ll be able to manage without me. And I’m tired of what I’m doing there; I want to do something useful.’

  Suddenly seeming to tire of her efforts to persuade her father to see her point of view, Jinny sat back in her chair and sighed, at which Josh shrugged,

  ‘OK, if it’s what you want – go ahead. Volunteer. Might be for the best.’

  She jolted herself upright, staring at him with large, astonished eyes. ‘You won’t mind, Dad?’

  ‘I don’t say that, all I’m thinking is … it might be a good thing for you to meet other people.’

  ‘Other people? Well, of course I’d be meeting other people!’

  ‘Other men, Jinny.’

  She was mystified. He had never wanted his girls to meet ‘other men’, to have lives away from him – why should he so suddenly have changed? Then it came to her. Because of Viktor. The men she would meet would be soldiers. British soldiers, men Josh might relate to, but that wouldn’t matter. All that mattered was that any man she met in her new life would not be a foreigner who might take her away to live in his country. She would not be lost to her own country, to her own family, to Josh. She could now understand his thinking, but of course he didn’t know anything of her present feelings for Viktor. How could he, when she didn’t even fully know them herself?

  ‘To meet other men is not my reason for joining the ATS,’ she said, a little unsteadily, her heart beginning to ache at the thought of Viktor and how she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. ‘But if you don’t mind me going, it’ll make me feel a lot happier.’

  ‘Aye, well. maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the men, Jinny. It was just a thought. Thing is if you do join the ATS it’ll give you a new life and if that’s what you want, so be it.’ Josh rose to pay for their tea and gave an uncertain smile. ‘We’d best get going, eh?’

  As they returned home, she couldn’t really believe her luck – that she’d so easily got through the hurdle of telling her father her plans. If he liked to think she might make new relationships that would break her attachment to Viktor, best let him think so. If she had no thoughts of making new relationships herself then that wasn’t something he needed to know.

  All she had to do now was brace herself for her interview with Mr Comrie, and hope he would not think she was deserting Accounts for no good reason.

  In the event, he took the news of her intentions so well that she was a little taken a
back. Was she not to be missed at all? But when he expressed surprise at her decision to volunteer for the services, yet no real regret, she knew it was not because her work was inferior, only that he was confident his friend, the male and professional accountant, would manage very well without her. Of course, she should have expected that sort of reaction, Mr Comrie being the sort to believe a man always had a head start on any woman where work was concerned, and she had to admit Mr Lennox was very well qualified and experienced.

  Still, it would have been nice if Mr Comrie had seemed genuinely sorry to lose her. He had said, of course, that her job would be waiting for her when the war was over, and patted her kindly on the shoulder when she turned to leave his office – she must make do with that. At least she could take comfort from the fact that others at Comrie’s seemed sorry she was going – Mabel, for instance, who said Accounts just wouldn’t be the same, and Norah Mackie and Mr Whyte, who were quick to lament over the departure of another familiar face. As for Mrs Arrow and her bakery staff, they made her promise to let them see her in her uniform as soon as she got some leave.

  ‘But no getting wed to some soldier laddie and disappearing altogether!’ Mrs Arrow cried on Jinny’s last day.

  ‘No fear of that!’ Jinny answered.

  And, of course, no one mentioned Viktor.

  Forty-Four

  The worst goodbyes were to her family, events having seemed to move so quickly that no sooner had she been accepted for the ATS than she was ready to go, those last kisses and hugs with her dad and sisters bringing tears to her eyes but quickly over and her new life coming up fast.

  To begin with, as had been explained to her, there would be four weeks’ basic training at one of the many camps, with an issue of uniform, or as much as was available, as there were usually shortages of various items. There would also be injections and checks for hair lice and social diseases – ‘Nothing personal!’ the woman officer who had been informing Jinny of what lay in wait for her had said with a laugh. ‘We just have to be careful, you know.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Jinny had agreed, blushing, and thinking she’d be glad when all that was over. Where would she be sent first was the question. It turned out to be a training camp near Berwick-upon-Tweed, so not too far away. She might have had to go anywhere, from Aberdeen to the south of England.

  Even though easy to reach, it was daunting to arrive at the spartan camp and meet up with a crowd of strange young women, all eyeing each other up and down before being directed to an army hut where they collected bedding and made up their own beds.

  Surely she would never get to know any of these girls, thought Jinny as she and the other ‘rookies’ struggled to put together the three thin mattresses that made up what were known as ‘biscuits’, the look of which boded ill for comfort.

  Her eyes went over those girls nearest to her – the tall, thin one with glasses, for instance, and the little, snub-nosed, sandy-haired girl who looked quite petrified; the couple of blondes who had already gravitated to each other, and the plump, cheerful young woman who had declared that if she could sleep on that terrible ‘biscuit’ on her bed, nothing would surprise her more.

  Oh, but there were so many others, all speaking with different accents, all wearing different clothes: some smart and expensive, others shabby and well worn – all, except maybe the little sandy one, trying to put on a good front and at least finding something to laugh about when they tried on their army underwear.

  ‘Help, will you look at me in these khaki knickers?’ one of the blonde girls cried. ‘I bet even my old granny wouldn’t be seen dead in ’em!’

  ‘Well, let’s hope we’re not either,’ the tall girl with glasses retorted. ‘Actually, I think the shoes are the worst – talk about clodhoppers!’

  ‘And they’ve run out of khaki stockings,’ the plump girl reported. ‘We’re going to look a bit odd in uniform wearing the ones we came in, eh?’

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ snapped the woman sergeant overseeing their uniform allocations. ‘The main thing is to remember to look as smart as possible with whatever you’ve got. Buttons polished, shirts and skirts ironed, hair neatly tucked into your cap. And not too much make-up!’

  ‘Oh, dear, I’m not looking forward to the drill,’ Jinny heard someone whisper, and as she was rather apprehensive about that herself, she was relieved to know they would not begin square-bashing until tomorrow. For now, they could go along to the cookhouse for a break, try what tea tasted like in enamel mugs and chew on the thickest ham sandwiches they had ever seen.

  All very wearying, that first day, but at last, when they gathered in their off-duty room, some names began to be attached to the girls around Jinny, making her feel a little more at ease.

  The tall, thin girl was Brenda, who had been working in her father’s pharmacy and would eventually train in pharmacy herself, while the blonde couple were Georgina and Verity, not known to each other but with the same idea that being in the ATS would be ‘fun’. ‘Hope you’re not disappointed,’ commented Molly, the plump one, adding that she wouldn’t mind a bit of fun herself, although her reason for volunteering from her office job was because she wanted to contribute to the war effort.

  ‘That’s a bit like me,’ said Jinny, giving her name and explaining her background, and as Molly grinned and shook hands, she felt she might have already have made a friend, if only for four weeks.

  Although there was a wireless and a gramophone in the off-duty room, most of the girls were so tired they didn’t mind being told to go to bed, where they would learn the worst about their mattresses when they tried to sleep. Next day, there’d be PT and various lectures, as well as the dreaded drill – better be prepared.

  ‘Don’t worry about oversleeping,’ the corporal who was supervising them said with a laugh. ‘I’ll be in early to call you – “Wakey, wakey, rise and shine” – and that means your shoes!’

  Forty-Five

  Jinny’s bed was at the end of the hut, next to that of the little sandy-haired girl, who had said scarcely a word since she arrived and seemed most desperately shy. Poor kid, thought Jinny, resolving, once they were in their issue pyjamas, to speak to her before ‘lights out’.

  ‘Hello, I’m Jinny Hendrie from Edinburgh,’ she whispered across. ‘Are you settling on all right?’

  The girl gave a timid smile. ‘Oh, hello. I’m Sukie Woodman, from Worcester. I thought you were Scottish – I could tell by your voice.’ She hesitated. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m a bit scared. I’ve never been away from home before.’

  ‘Nor me. I bet most girls here haven’t, unless they were away at school, or something.’

  ‘Bet those blonde girls were.’ Sukie murmured. ‘They don’t seem a bit worried by anything.’

  ‘That’s blondes for you.’ Jinny smiled. ‘But it’s a bit of a shock for most of us, being here, I’d say. Still, we volunteered, eh? Can’t complain.’

  ‘I never thought what it would be like. I just wanted somewhere to go.’ Sukie shivered a little and tried to draw her thin blanket more tightly over her, but it was clear that she’d already found that nothing stayed tightly around the ‘biscuits’.

  ‘I live with my auntie,’ she said after a moment. ‘Me mum and dad are dead, you see. And it looks like me job in a shoe shop’ll not be lasting much longer – the manageress says there’s not enough work for both of us now, and Auntie’ll never want to me to stay if I can’t pay me keep.’

  ‘Oh, surely—’ Jinny began, but Sukie shook her head.

  ‘No, no, I had to find somewhere else and when I heard the ATS wanted volunteers I thought it’d be for me, but now I’m worried I won’t be able to keep up and they’ll throw me out.’ In the gloomy light of the hut, Sukie’s hazel eyes were large and woebegone. ‘Then what I’ll do, I don’t know.’

  ‘They won’t throw you out,’ Jinny declared. ‘No need to worry about that. They need you. And you’ll be fine – remember, none of us knows anything. We’re here to be trained
and once you’re trained you’ll be posted and do a good job, I promise you!’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘Certainly do!’

  ‘Lights out!’ called the corporal. ‘Everybody try to get some sleep. Need to be fresh as daisies tomorrow, eh? Goodnight, all.’

  Well, she’d done her good deed for the day, Jinny thought as she listened later to the sound of Sukie’s regular breathing. Fingers crossed, all would go well for that poor girl who’d so far had so little good luck.

  But what of herself? As she lay awake in the long dark hut, shifting uncomfortably on her ‘biscuit’, aware of strangers all around and that home was much farther away than just a trip from Berwick might seem, Jinny wondered. Had she done the right thing, giving up all she knew in order to do something that might or might not be useful? Tears pricked her eyelids as she thought of her usual nights spent sharing a room with dear, prickly Vi. Of her father, back from work, in his chair smoking his pipe and sounding off about items in the newspaper. Of May, away from her old home, yet still so often popping in, always ready with a sympathetic ear, even with such real fears of her own about Allan.

  Why had Jinny left them? To have a change from Comrie’s? Well, in spite of Mr Comrie being so indifferent to her leaving, she’d been doing a good job there and she should maybe have continued to do it, until her conscription came. If, in fact, it ever did. The government hadn’t even got a bill together, had they?

  Round and round her thoughts whirled, until suddenly – it seemed no time at all – she opened her eyes and it was daylight.

  ‘Wakey, wakey!’ the corporal was crying as girls were leaping out of bed, complaining that they hadn’t slept a wink, hurrying to wash and dress in their new uniforms, trying to be ready for all that lay ahead.

  Maybe things didn’t seem so bad as in the night, Jinny decided. She too hurried around, pausing to smile at Sukie and wave to Molly. She too was asking what was for breakfast in the cookhouse along with everyone else. And how the devil did you get these ‘biscuits’ to stay together?