Bluebirds

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Stand still and stop talkin’! When I say right dress – and not before – you put your right arm out and space yourselves so that your knuckles touch your neighbour’s shoulder. That clear, or do I ’ave to say it all over again?’

  At his command they all stuck out their right arms obediently, except for Sandra who put out her left and poked Vera in the eye.

  After that, they formed themselves into threes, with a good deal of shuffling about and abuse from Sergeant Baker.

  ‘Wot a shambles! Never seen anythin’ like it in all me life. Now then, I’m goin’ to try and show you ’ow to stand to attention, if that’s somethin’ any of you are capable of, which I doubt. Stop fiddlin’ with your ’air, you at the back there! Watch closely. You stand on the balls of your feet, ’eels together, feet at forty-five degrees, stomach in, knees back, ’ead up, shoulders back, arms at the side, elbows in, fingers curled with the thumb on the top of the first finger, in line with the seam down your thigh – if you ’ad a seam, that is . . . Attenshun!’

  They struggled vainly to remember it all and to imitate the sergeant’s ramrod figure before them.

  “Orrible! ’orrible! A bunch of ’ottentots could do it better. Well, let’s see if you can stand at ease – that ought to suit the lot of you. Place your left foot to your left, a foot away. At the same time put your arms behind you and bring the shoulders back, placin’ the right ’and in the palm of the left with the thumbs crossin’ . . .’ He twisted sideways. ‘See? Simple. Now, let’s ’ave you doin’ it, just like me. At ease!’

  They tried their best to copy him. Sandra moved her right foot instead of her left and collided with Vera. Somehow their limbs became entangled and they both collapsed onto the ground. Sergeant Baker turned puce.

  ‘Wot do you two think you’re playin’ at? This isn’t a bloomin’ three-legged race! Don’t you know your left from your right?’

  Sandra had grazed her knees and there were tears in her eyes. ‘I’m awfully sorry, Sergeant. I do get them mixed up sometimes.’

  ‘Saints preserve us! And they expect me to drill people like you!’

  He took a piece of chalk from his pocket, bent down and wrote a large white letter L on Sandra’s left shoe and an R on the other.

  ‘Now p’raps you’ll remember. If you can read.’

  He taught them how to turn left, turn right, and about on the spot. They practised the movements many times under his jaundiced eye before, finally, he allowed them to begin marching.

  ‘And I want you marchin’, not trippin’ along like you was all out shoppin’. Heads up, arms swingin’, shoulders back . . . Are you all ready? Listen for my commands and don’t do nothin’ ’til you ’ear them. By the left . . . quick march!’

  Sandra started off on the wrong foot in spite of the chalked letters on her shoes, and kept hopping and skipping along as she tried to get in step. Blood trickled from the grazes on her knees. Enid’s arms and legs moved in stiff and jerky unison instead of as opposites, and Gloria minced along on her high heels, swinging her bottom more than her arms. Winnie, concentrating hard, forgot the cold and felt instead a sudden warm glow of pride as the small band of WAAFS moved together across the vast parade ground. Left, right. Left, right. She repeated the words to herself under her breath. Anne, marching at the front, was finding it easy. She had enjoyed the drill, and that had surprised her. She flung her arms out in time with her marching feet and strained her ears for the sound of the sergeant’s voice and his next command. The far side of the square was approaching rapidly and still she heard nothing. They were within yards of the edge of the asphalt when, at last, she heard his foghorn voice.

  ‘About turn!’

  She turned smartly about to face the other way and the other girls in the front rank turned with her. Those behind them, however, had failed to hear the sergeant properly and the ranks collided in confusion and disarray. Enid was knocked to the ground like a ninepin and lay weeping in a puddle. Sandra’s grazes were now bleeding in earnest and one of Gloria’s high heels had snapped and she was hobbling about, swearing loudly.

  Sergeant Baker, a distant and furious figure, could be heard yelling hoarsely while the raucous and delighted laughter from the airmen at the barrack room windows floated to them on the wind like the cawing of crows.

  The offices of the Falcon Assurance Company overlooked Holborn. From her desk near the window, Virginia Stratton could watch the endless flow of people walking by on the pavement below. There was a new public shelter now, just across the street. She had seen them piling up a thick wall of sandbags against the building and erecting the ‘S’ sign, but so far there had been no air raids, only false alarms, and the pessimists who had said that London would be bombed to bits within weeks of the war being declared, had been made to look foolish. In spite of the sandbags and shelters, the blackout and the barrage balloons, a great many people seemed to be living their ordinary, normal lives, going to and fro from their offices and carrying on business as usual. Her mother kept saying that the war would be over by Christmas, but Virginia was not so sure. She had noticed many more uniforms in the street below the window lately – far more khaki, navy and lighter blue among the civilian clothing. And, if the war was going to end so soon, why were the parks being dug up, the statues all taken away, more and more shelters being built, like the one opposite, and all the children evacuated to the country?

  She stared out of the window. The subject of her wanting to join the Women’s Air Force had not been mentioned again. Mother probably thought she’d given up the whole idea but it had become even more firmly fixed in her mind. She found herself watching for women in uniform among the crowd, and envying them. They walked with their heads held high and with purpose in their step, and she longed to be one of them and not imprisoned in a dreary office. She never saw many in Air Force uniform but there were always a lot in Army khaki. She watched one crossing the street. She looked young and very self-assured. Her tunic buttons and shoes were shiny and her hair was dressed in a beautifully neat roll under her cap. Virginia fingered her own hair and wondered if she could ever make hers go like that. She peered after the girl until she was lost to view.

  In two weeks time she would be eighteen and officially old enough to join up. Several people in the department had gone already. Mr Wilson and Mr Platt had joined the Army and Mr Whicker, who spent his weekends sailing, had gone into the Navy. And Mavis, the junior typist, had announced only that morning that she was going to join the ATS.

  ‘I’m going to do my bit, like they asked,’ she had told the office smugly. To Virginia she had said later in lower tones, and with a huge wink, ‘And it’ll be a lot more fun than working here. Chance of a lifetime, that’s what it is. Aren’t you going to join up, or something?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure yet.’

  Mavis had shrugged and picked at the sleeve of her pink angora sweater. ‘Loopy if you don’t. There’ll soon be no-one left here but old men and Miss P.’

  Miss Parkes, so disparaged by Mavis, spent her lunch hours knitting long scarves for servicemen. She clicked away briskly in her corner by the filing cabinet and the scarves grew rapidly, snaking onto her bony knees. After Mavis had delivered her news she looked up as Virginia went to one of the cabinets and smiled.

  ‘I expect you’ll be leaving us before long, dear. Joining up with all the rest of the young things.’

  Virginia coloured. ‘I’d like to – as soon as I’m eighteen – but . . .’

  ‘But what, dear?’

  ‘There’s my mother, you see.’

  ‘Is she ill then, dear?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Then why can’t you? If you want to. I’m sure you’d be very useful to one of the women’s services. You’ve got a good sensible head on your shoulders. And you’re intelligent and hard-working.’

  Virginia said reluctantly: ‘Mother doesn’t want me to leave her, that’s the trouble. We live alone, you see. Just her and me . . . she r
ather depends on me.’

  Miss Parkes looked over the top of her spectacles. Her hands went on moving busily, the needles click-clicking.

  ‘Is your mother an invalid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, there’s no reason why she can’t look after herself?’

  ‘No . . . the thing is she spends most of her time by herself in the flat. She hardly ever goes out and it’s very lonely for her. She looks forward to my coming home. She got very upset when I told her I was thinking of joining up.’

  ‘I see. Have you suggested she tries joining something like the Women’s Voluntary Service? She’d meet a lot of people and keep busy. It might do her good. Try that as an idea.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Virginia said doubtfully. ‘But I don’t think she’d like it very much. She doesn’t seem to get on with strangers very well. It’s awfully difficult to explain . . .’

  Miss Parkes started on another row. ‘Which service would you like to join?’

  ‘The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, actually, if I could choose. I don’t really know why . . . I’ve hardly ever seen an aeroplane in my life. But I heard an appeal on the wireless for volunteers, and it’s new . . . I’ve seen queues of girls in Kingsway waiting to join every day.’

  Miss Parkes, surprisingly, stopped knitting. The mass of khaki wool lay inert on her lap. She looked up at Virginia earnestly. ‘If you want my advice, dear, I should go and join the Air Force as soon as you possibly can. It’s a chance to do something else with your life . . . see a bit more of the world . . . meet all sorts of different people . . . do some really interesting, useful work. You shouldn’t spend your youth keeping your mother company, or working in an office like this with a whole lot of old people like me; not if there’s a good alternative. So long as your mother can look after herself and get out and about there’s nothing whatever for you to feel guilty about. That’s the way I see it. And I speak from experience. I spent years living with my mother, for much the same sort of reason, until she died recently, and every day I came to work in this office. Look at what has happened to me. Or not happened, I should say. Life has passed me by. If I were your age again, I’d join up like a shot . . . and I shouldn’t let anything stop me. Just find the courage, if you can, to do what you want to do. You’ll live to regret it, if you don’t.’

  She picked up her knitting again, the unexpected exhortation finished. Virginia went on with her work. Mavis, if she had heard Miss Parkes, would have been equally astounded; she would probably, being Mavis, have cheered.

  The tube was even more crowded than usual that evening, and Virginia had to strap-hang most of the way to Wimbledon. She walked in the pitch darkness up the hill from the station to the flat in Alfred Road. Her torch battery was wearing out and gave only a glimmer of light but she knew the way so well that it scarcely mattered. Her mother was in the sitting-room, sewing, and she began complaining at once about Mrs Barton who lived in the flat upstairs.

  ‘She has her wireless on far too loud. It’s so inconsiderate . . . I’ve told her so several times but she still takes no notice. I had to speak to her again about it today. Do you know she had the effrontery to suggest I should help her in some canteen . . . I told her that, as it happens, I do a great deal of work knitting for the forces, and I can do that perfectly well here in my own home. The war will be finished by Christmas, in any case. I’ve no intention of becoming involved with people like Mrs Barton . . . such a common woman. It’s quite bad enough having to live cheek by jowl with someone like her . . . were you going to say something, Virginia?’

  ‘No, Mother . . . no.’

  ‘You looked as though you were. Will you turn on that other lamp, please. I can’t see properly.’

  On the nine o’clock news that evening it was announced that negotiations between Finland and Russia had broken down. The Russians were accusing the Finns of firing on their border patrols. More trouble seemed to be brewing in the cold wastes of Northern Europe. And Christmas was only six weeks away.

  Three

  DEAR KEN, I hope you are well . . . Winnie chewed the end of her pencil, thinking hard. I hope your mother is well too. That was a lie. She didn’t really care if Mrs Jervis was well or not. Maybe it was wicked to think like that, but she couldn’t help it. Ken’s mother was the only person in the world whom she almost hated. It wasn’t just because she was always so sharp-spoken and critical, no matter how hard Winnie tried to please her, but mostly because of the way she treated Ken. She was always going on and on about how delicate he was, making him out to be a useless invalid. He was a bit liable to catch chills and get bad chests, that was true, but Mrs Jervis made things much worse for him by the way she behaved.

  I’m sitting on my bed in our hut writing this letter and it will soon be time to put the lights out. It’s very cold in here, even though we have two coke stoves. They don’t seem to give out much heat and everyone crowds round them so you can’t get near them anyway. I’m enjoying the work in the Orderly Room . . . That was a lie too. She wasn’t enjoying it at all. It was very dull and she hated being cooped up indoors and hardly ever seeing an aeroplane at all. You wouldn’t believe the number of forms that have to be filled in. There’s hundreds of them with different numbers for all sorts of different things. You can’t do anything in the Royal Air Force without filling in a form for it.

  The RAF corporal in the Orderly Room who had taught her the procedure seemed like an old man to her. He had gone through it all slowly and patiently.

  ‘There’s a correct form for every occurrence you can think of,’ he had told her, ‘and ones for some you can’t. And every one of them’s got a number that you’ve got to learn. That way you can put your hand on the right form for the job straight away. For instance, these are 143s,’ he had picked up a sheaf of forms. ‘They’re for Service Railway Warrants. These over here are 2084s – they’re Billeting Forms. Then you’ve got your 551s, Report of Accident, your 1771s, Travelling Claims . . .’ He had worked on steadily through the long list. ‘You’ll have to learn them all and know how to fill them in properly. It’s not difficult but it’s got to be done according to Regulations, see?’

  Ken wouldn’t want to hear about all that . . . there was nothing very interesting about a lot of numbers. Winnie racked her brains. She looked across at the two circles of girls sitting close round the stoves. The officer in charge of us is always trying to make things better for us. She got us some chairs for this hut and a kettle and teapot so we can make tea on the stoves. And some of the civilian people who live near here have given a whole lot of things for our recreation hut – curtains and armchairs and a carpet, and things like that. One of them gave us an old gramophone and some records and somebody sent an old wireless. It didn’t work very well at first but one of the RAF men has mended it and now we can listen to the news and everything.

  Winnie lifted her head again, searching for more inspiration. The girls are all very nice. That was another lie really. Some were and some were not. Ruby, two beds away, for instance, was horrible. She pushed and shoved her way around the whole time, ate disgustingly with her mouth wide open and never bathed or washed properly so that she smelled worse than any farm animal. But she didn’t want to tell Ken about her. Or about how stuck-up and unfriendly Susan could be. Or how Pearl used swear words all the time. Or how Maureen was always grumbling and complaining. Or the way Gloria went out with lots of different airmen . . . There was no sense in telling him any of that. He’d want her to come straight home.

  She pulled up the collar of her dressing-gown round her neck and blew on her cold fingers. She could hear Susan, in the nearest group, telling Sandra all about a dance she had once gone to in a big country house. Sandra was listening to every word and kept on asking questions, as usual. Maureen, beside them, was knitting one of her ever-lasting garments, this time in a dreary grey, and she was wearing a very sour expression on her face from over-hearing Susan. Gloria was filing her nails, her back turned to Maureen.
Pearl, who had washed her hair, was curling it up with pipe cleaners and, Anne, her mouth full of hairpins, was showing Enid how to do her hair up with an old stocking. She had cut the stocking in half and tied it round Enid’s head. Winnie watched as she brushed the hair upwards and then tucked the ends into the stocking, into a long roll, and fixed it cleverly with the pins. She thought Enid looked a lot better without that lank hair hanging down each side of her face, and her Terry would be pleased if she didn’t have to have her hair cut. Not that Enid seemed to talk quite so much about Terry these days, or about what he might think of everything . . . not nearly so much as she used to do.

  Winnie sucked the end of her pencil for a moment and then bent over her writing pad again. We get paid every fortnight. We have to march into the room and go up to a table one at a time and say the last three figures of our numbers. Then we have to take the money with our left hand. The first time I said thank you, but we’re not supposed to. There are all sorts of funny customs in the Air Force.

  Maureen was saying something crotchety to Susan and Susan was looking down her nose at her as though she’d just crawled out from under a stone. Nobody liked Maureen, she was such a sour-puss. After the first Pay Parade she had been as bitter as anything.

  ‘Do you all realize that we’re only paid two-thirds of what they give to the airmen, even though we work just the same hours. And I’m much better at my job than they are.’

  Anne had laughed. ‘Well, I’m not, so I can’t really complain.’

  Maureen had rounded on her. ‘It’s nothing to you what we’re paid, is it? But I have to send money home. So does Gloria. Several of us do. Every penny counts with us. We don’t get it sent by our mothers like you. You might remember that.’

  Anne had flushed, and said nothing more.

  The food’s all right. We have things like bacon, eggs and chips, baked beans and kidneys on fried bread, meat pies, toad-in-the-hole and lots of steamed puddings with custard. We’re all putting on weight. She wouldn’t mention the gristly rissoles, the faggots, the semolina pudding or the frogspawn tapioca, or anything of the things that made her feel sick to look at, let alone eat. We still haven’t got any uniform, except some of the girls have been given shoes because they had only high heels or sandals. Gloria had made a great fuss about the black lace-ups from Dolcis.