Jessie did her best to keep her father satisfied with tales of the pranks she and the other girls had played on each other. ‘One time they left my bed out on the football pitch,’ she told him. ‘I had to ask the guards to bring it back in for me.’
‘Those cheeky buggers!’ Mr Ward exclaimed. ‘I hope you got them back for that.’
Jessie reassured him that she was as much of a prankster as anyone else in the battery. ‘There’s a girl in my hut called Mary Natress,’ she told him, ‘and one time we took her uniform, stuffed it with all her kit and laid it out on the bed. Then we put up a sign that read, “Here lies the body of Mary Natress, laid in state upon her mattress.” You should have seen the look on her face when she came in!’
Mr Ward wheezed with laughter, the tears streaming down his face. ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be back in the Army!’ he said wistfully.
While she was on leave, Jessie decided to pay a visit to an old family friend who lived in Spalding. Mrs Billet had known the Wards for years, but when she opened the door and found Jessie on the threshold, she stared at her as if she were a stranger. ‘Oh,’ she remarked, aghast. ‘You’re in uniform.’
‘Yes,’ Jessie replied, not sure what else to say.
‘Well, I don’t agree with it, you know,’ Mrs Billet declared. ‘War is a wicked thing, and I’ve made up my mind not to have anybody in uniform in my house.’
Jessie was shocked at the woman’s unexpected hostility. ‘I’m proud of my uniform,’ she protested.
‘But you kill people!’ Mrs Billet cried.
Jessie drew herself up to her full height, even if that was only five foot one. ‘That’s right,’ she told the older woman. ‘We kill them to stop them killing you. Which would you rather have?’
At that Mrs Billet was rendered speechless, and Jessie turned on her heel and left.
All the way home, she could feel herself fizzing with rage. Night after night she had manned the gun-site across the river from Hull to protect ordinary civilians like Mrs Billet, and at considerable risk to herself. She couldn’t help hoping that the next time Spalding got raided, the annoying woman’s house would be the first to get flattened.
When Jessie returned to Humberside after her week away from the battery, she found the situation there was worse than ever. The alerts were almost constant now and everyone was feeling the strain.
Despite their exhaustion, the girls were still expected to drill every morning, but one day Elsie Windsor reached the end of her tether. ‘I’ve had enough of this!’ she exclaimed suddenly, ‘It’s a load of rubbish!’ Then she stormed off the parade ground in the direction of her hut.
The other girls gasped at Elsie’s outburst, but someone quickly stepped in to fill her place in the ranks, and they carried on as if nothing had happened. No one wanted to draw attention to her behaviour and run the risk of getting her in trouble.
Elsie’s quick temper was well known around the battery. When her boyfriend Stan told one of his mates that they were getting engaged, the other man was incredulous. ‘You’re not really marrying that Spitfire, are you?’ he asked – to which Stan replied calmly, ‘Aye, I am.’
One night, the girls were all sitting together in the NAAFI when Stan came over and whispered in Elsie’s ear. ‘Come outside,’ he told her, ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ They went and sat on a little wall out the back, where he drew a ring out of his pocket.
But just as Stan was slipping it onto Elsie’s finger, the alarm sounded. She flew off to her predictor, pushing the ring up over her knuckle as she ran. She hadn’t had a chance to see it properly yet and was desperate to know what it looked like.
The girls were soon busy dealing with a wave of German bombers overhead, but once the fuses had been set and the guns started firing, Elsie’s thoughts turned again to the ring. There was no light on the gun sight, but one of the predictor’s many windows contained a tiny red bulb, and Elsie held her finger up to it, trying to see by the faint glow. It was useless, though – she couldn’t make out a thing.
The moment the girls were told to stand down, Elsie rushed back to the NAAFI, where she finally got a proper look at the ring. It had been beautifully crafted into the shape of a little flower, and she couldn’t have loved it more.
Jessie, meanwhile, had her own diamond engagement ring to admire, but unlike Elsie she rarely got to see her fiancé’s face. It was hard enough getting any leave at all, and timing it to coincide with Jim’s was almost impossible.
In September 1942, though, Jim managed to pull a few strings and they were able to enjoy a whole week in each other’s company – the first time they had seen each other for more than six months. It was wonderful being together again, even if they had to stay under Jessie’s mother’s roof. But the reunion was over far too quickly – Jessie felt she had barely got home before she was packing up to return to Humberside again, wondering when she would next see her fiancé.
The situation was only going to get worse. Not long after Jessie arrived back at 518 mixed battery, she received a letter from Jim in which he told her that his unit would be shipping out soon, though they hadn’t been told where. ‘I want us to get married before I go,’ he wrote.
Jessie remembered her mother’s stern warning when she and Jim had first got engaged. It would be very unwise to marry before the end of the war, she had told her. But she could hardly deny Jim his wish now, when he was about to be sent far away.
Jessie was an independent woman now, she reminded herself, doing a job that really mattered. She had every right to get married when she wanted to, whether her mother liked it or not. She set about making the necessary enquiries and had soon arranged marriage leave for the beginning of December.
Since she was under 21, Jessie had to get her father’s written consent to marry, and although she had decided to defy her mother’s wishes, she didn’t want to sneak around behind her back – so as soon as she arrived home to prepare for the wedding she brought the form into the living room where her parents were both sitting, and asked the old man from next door to come and witness it.
Mrs Ward sat silently while her husband signed the papers, but the look on her face revealed the burning fury she was feeling. Never before had she experienced such blatant defiance from her daughter, and Jessie couldn’t help feeling a secret pleasure at her mother’s reaction. Perhaps it would teach her a lesson, she thought – that she couldn’t always get her own way. But in the days that followed, the atmosphere at home was far from pleasant, and Mrs Ward offered Jessie no help with arranging the wedding.
Jessie would have been happy to get married in her ATS uniform, but Jim begged her not to. ‘Let’s do it properly,’ he wrote. ‘I’ve got a suit I can send for.’ So instead she searched her little wardrobe for something suitable. All she had were clothes from before she had joined the ATS, and being in the forces meant she wasn’t entitled to the clothing coupons she would need to buy anything new. In the end, the best she could come up with was a black skirt that was several years old, a woolly jumper she had knitted herself, and her brown lace-up Army shoes.
The night before the wedding Jessie stayed with an aunt who lived near the church in Holbeach, while Jim was put up at her parents’ house – ‘You’ve got your own way, then,’ Mrs Ward told her future son-in-law bitterly.
In the morning, Mr Ward came and knocked for his daughter, offering his arm with a melancholy smile. His happiness was tinged with sorrow at the thought that he was losing her for ever.
It was a frosty December morning but as they approached the old Norman church of All Saints, with its ancient porch and beautiful stained-glass windows, everything looked absolutely perfect. When Jessie and her father walked through the doors, Jim turned at the altar to smile at her – the same carefree smile that she remembered from their first meeting in the drawing room at Bleak House. After those blissful early days of cycling through the countryside together they had been separated for most of the time they had known each
other, but their feelings had never wavered – and right now Jessie knew she loved Jim more than ever.
It was so cold in the church that Jessie had to keep her coat and hat on throughout the ceremony, but Jim didn’t seem to care. He spent the whole time beaming from ear to ear, until finally Reverend Boswell announced, ‘You may kiss the bride.’
After the wedding, there was no party being thrown back at the Wards’ house, so when they left the church Jessie and Jim headed straight for the train station. Her father offered them his hearty congratulations, but her mother said nothing at all. ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ Jessie offered, but Mrs Ward turned away without even responding.
Once Jessie and Jim were safely on the train, he turned to her and said, ‘You know, I think if your dad was a drinker he would go and get drunk about now.’
Jessie felt sorry for her father, knowing that he would be putting up with the frosty atmosphere at home on his own. But as she and her new husband sped away from Holbeach, their arms tightly wrapped around each other, nothing could dent her happiness. They had got what they wanted – each other – and that was all that mattered.
The newlyweds spent their week’s honeymoon up in Leeds, staying with a couple Jim had been billeted with when he had returned from Dunkirk. Knowing he had no family of his own, they had taken the cheerful young soldier under their wing, and when they heard he was getting married they had written to offer him their spare room.
If Jessie had any qualms about turning up at a complete stranger’s house for her wedding night they were soon laid to rest. She and Jim arrived to find a beautiful meal laid out for them in the kitchen, and his friends welcomed her into their home as if they had known her for years. After the fraught experience of staying with her parents in Holbeach Bank, the warm, lively atmosphere was a relief.
In Leeds, Jessie and Jim whiled away their days riding the tram into town, going window shopping, and wandering around the parks and gardens. When they got cold they would head into a café, where they perfected the art of making a single cup of tea last for hours. They had no money to spend, but in each other’s company they felt truly rich.
When the time came for them to return to their respective Army camps, saying goodbye was even more of a wrench than usual. But at least they had a week’s embarkation leave to look forward to before Jim was sent abroad.
Back in Barrow upon Humber, Jessie was touched to find that her fellow ‘ATS tarts’ had clubbed together to buy her a wedding present. It was a beautiful decorative mirror they had bought from Hammonds, one of Hull’s finest department stores, which had been bombed out but was still trading from its basement. ‘It’s probably daft giving you something made of glass around here,’ Elsie Acres told her, ‘but we thought you might like it.’
Recently, Jessie had noticed a new spark in her friend’s eye, and it didn’t take long for her to find out why. Three years after losing her fiancé at Dunkirk, Elsie had finally found love again, with a sailor called Charles who she had met while he was on shore leave in Hull. Jessie could not have been happier for her.
Finally, Jim’s embarkation leave came through, and to Jessie’s relief her superiors agreed to grant her another week off to spend with him before he was sent abroad. With nowhere else to go, they returned to his friends’ house in Leeds, and as before they spent their days mainly just wandering around the city and talking. In the evenings they made the most of the local picture-house, indulging Jim’s love of movies. ‘Who knows whether they’ll have a cinema where I’m going!’ he pointed out. He was convinced that he was being sent to North Africa, since his unit had been issued with a new uniform that included khaki shorts.
But while Jim wondered what his own posting might have in store for him, he worried about Jessie’s safety after he was gone. She had told him about some of the horrors that the girls from the battery had seen in Hull, and he knew that her job on the gun-site was a hazardous one. The ATS had already lost a number of ack-ack girls to enemy action – in Great Yarmouth, 25 young women were killed when they suffered a direct hit during a German raid.
When Jim told Jessie of his fears, she was resolute. ‘You know I wouldn’t want a job in an office,’ she told him, before adding, more gently, ‘but I wish you wouldn’t worry.’ She was aware, though, that this was easy for her to say, since Jim’s job as a cook was hardly dangerous.
When the time finally came for Jessie to see Jim off at the station, he pressed her to him like she was the most precious thing in the world. ‘Just take care of yourself,’ he pleaded, ‘and be careful.’
‘Don’t worry, I will,’ Jessie promised. ‘However long you’re gone, I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.’
Jim nodded and smiled at Jessie. Then he stepped onto the train, waving as it disappeared into the distance.
A few days later, the phone rang in the battery command post. ‘Can I speak to my wife, please?’ Jim asked the girl who took the call. ‘I’m shipping out tomorrow and I want to say goodbye.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he was told, ‘but we don’t allow personal calls. I can let her know you rang.’ She went off in search of Jessie to pass on the message.
‘Can I speak to him?’ Jessie asked her, when she was told that Jim had called. She didn’t like the thought of him setting off without hearing her voice one more time.
But the other girl was adamant. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but you know the rules.’
After Jim’s departure, Jessie did her best to throw herself back into life at the gun-site, glad that her work was so absorbing that it distracted her from the pain of separation. It was a tough job but she loved it, and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
It was just a question of waiting, she told herself. Who knew how long the war might go on – it could be another ten years. But she and Jim would sit it out, like all the other young couples up and down the country who were desperate for their lives together to begin.
Once Jim had arrived at his new posting, his beautiful letters began arriving several times a week. Although he couldn’t reveal his location, Jessie guessed that he must have been right about going to North Africa. He often mentioned how warm it was outside – ‘a bit too warm, though I never thought I’d say that!’ as he put it in one letter – and he wrote vividly about the beautiful butterflies that fluttered around the camp. ‘I wish you could see them,’ he told Jessie.
Jessie spent her 21st birthday on guard duty, alone in the little sentry-box near the camp entrance. It was hardly the most festive way to celebrate the big day but she didn’t mind, and when she returned to her Nissen hut that evening, she found her bed festooned with cards from her colleagues, not to mention an extra-long letter from Jim.
Among the birthday cards, Jessie found one from her father, and opening it she noticed, without much surprise, that her mother hadn’t even bothered to sign it. Although Jessie always addressed her letters home ‘Dear Mum and Dad’, she hadn’t heard from Mrs Ward since the wedding.
Jim, by contrast, wrote religiously every other day – which made it all the stranger that, after her birthday letter, Jessie didn’t receive anything from him for over a fortnight. She knew that sometimes there were hold-ups with post from abroad and just hoped that her letters to him weren’t being delayed as well. ‘You know what it’s like,’ one of the sergeants told her, ‘you’ll probably get a whole bundle of them arriving all at the same time.’
One day, Jessie was sat writing to Jim at a table in the battery rest-room, a small wooden hut near the camp offices where it was possible to get a bit of peace and quiet. As she looked up from the sheet of paper in front of her, she caught sight of movement outside the window. It was one of the camp’s regular dispatch riders, running towards the offices. That’s strange, she thought – he normally comes in the morning. What could have brought him over at this time of day?
Jessie went back to her letter, but after a few minutes she was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. An orderly sergeant wa
s standing on the threshold. ‘Private Winkworth, you’re wanted in the administration office,’ she told her.
Jessie shoved her pen and paper into a pocket and followed the woman outside. What could anyone want with me? she wondered, hoping that she hadn’t done anything wrong. ‘Hello?’ she called, as she stepped inside the office. ‘I was told somebody wanted to see me.’
Another sergeant, who was seated at a desk, looked up at her, and Jessie noticed she had something in her hand. ‘This letter came for you,’ she said. ‘The dispatch rider just brought it in.’
Jessie took the envelope, noticing as she tore it open that it was stamped ‘Army Records Office’. She pulled out the sheet of paper inside and unfolded it.
‘It is my painful duty to inform you …’
Jessie’s breath caught in her throat.
‘… of the death in action of your husband, Private Cecil James Winkworth.’
Jessie stood rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed on the piece of paper in front of her. ‘This can’t be true,’ she murmured. ‘It can’t be true.’
But there in black and white was Jim’s service number, 1507435, and the details: ‘Army Catering Corps, attached 67th Field Regiment RA’. There was no mistake – that was Jim all right.
Jessie forced herself to read down to the bottom of the page. ‘His Majesty and the unit send their condolences on your loss,’ the letter concluded. There was no further information on what had happened to Jim, but his date of death was listed as 25 April. That was Easter Sunday, Jessie realised – more than two weeks ago.
The Girls Who Went to War Page 11