She had difficulty in following everything he was saying but she remembered the Depression in America: the photographs in the newspapers of the destitute queuing for soup, the homeless huddled in packing cases, the veterans marching in Washington. America had recovered – just as Britain had recovered from the Slump. Somehow she had never thought of the fit and free-spending young men she had seen strolling about the village as being the children of that dreadful time. ‘But, it’s not like that any more, is it?’
‘No, ma’am. Things got better. Dad gave up the farm an’ got work in Henryetta. Me an’ my two brothers all volunteered soon as we declared war. We’re doin’ OK now.’
‘The three of you? Your mother must miss you.’
‘She passed away when I was four. Don’t have no memory of her – not to speak of.’
‘How terrible for your father!’
‘Sure was, ma’am. But like I say, we came through.’
‘Where are your brothers?’
‘Jack – he’s the oldest – he’s with the Marines in the Pacific. Don’t know where exactly. Frank – he’s the middle one – he’s a gunner with the One Hundredth Bomb Group, in Norfolk, England.’ He grinned at her. ‘An’ I’m here.’
‘So you’re the youngest?’
‘Yes, ma’am. An’ the dumbest. Least that’s what Jack an’ Frank always tell me.’
‘Another sandwich, Corporal?’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ It disappeared in a trice. ‘England’s sure not the way I pictured. I figured it’d be all lords and sirs, an’ folks like that. Everyone talkin’ like they was royalty, livin’ in castles an’ goin’ round with their noses in the air. Only mostly it ain’t like that at all. An’ I hadn’t figured on it bein’ such a little place. No bigger’n Minnesota, they say. Everthin’ so close together an’ real small.’
‘Really?’ Miss Cutteridge had only the vaguest idea of what he meant. Americans must have the strangest ideas about England. And where was Minnesota? ‘Will you have some sponge cake?’
‘Sure thing.’
She undid the paper frill and cut a hefty slice. ‘If you would pass your plate, Corporal . . .’ She put the slice onto the plate, together with one of the cake forks, and handed it back to him. He picked up the little silver fork and looked at it, puzzled.
‘I’m supposed to use this, ma’am?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Wouldn’t want to do the wrong thing. Only it ain’t like we eat back home.’
She cut herself a small piece and picked up her own fork. He had put the plate back on the chair arm, still balancing the teacup on his knees, and was stabbing at the sponge which kept falling off the prongs; she pretended not to notice. ‘What sort of work do you do at the aerodrome, Corporal?’
‘I’m with the Signal Company, ma’am. Telephone engineer. You see some guy up a pole, it’s me. The RAF left us an underground network but we’ve had to set up a whole lot more lines. More of our guys arrive, more we need. We’ve got miles of field wire strung all over the base, an’ switchboards connectin’ everythin’ to everythin’. Works real well now.’
‘How interesting.’ She put her hand on the handle of the teapot. ‘More tea?’
‘Sure.’ He stood up to pass her his cup and saucer and knocked the plate off the chair arm. It hit the brass fender in front of the fire and broke into three pieces, scattering the remains of the sponge cake. ‘Gee ma’am . . . I’m real sorry.’ He had flushed scarlet to the roots of his hair and looked stricken with horror and embarrassment.
Miss Cutteridge was equally horrified, but tried not to show it. She said valiantly, ‘It doesn’t matter, Corporal.’
‘Heck, it does, ma’am. That’s a real nice china plate. I can see that. Where could I buy another for you?’ He picked up the pieces and stared at them miserably.
‘I’m afraid you couldn’t. Not in wartime, anyway. They don’t make things like that now.’
‘Maybe I could mend it for you . . . so’s it don’t show.’
‘I don’t think that would be possible.’ The poor boy seemed even more anguished. ‘Please don’t worry about it.’
‘I’d sure like to try.’
In the end he took the broken pieces away with him, wrapped carefully in newspaper. At the door, she said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name, Corporal.’
‘Bilsky, ma’am. Joe Bilsky. Thank you for the tea, ma’am. I sure appreciated it.’
‘You’re welcome to come again, if you’d care to.’
‘That’s nice of you, ma’am, only I’d feel real uncomfortable. But I’ll do the best I can with your plate an’ bring it back.’
She shut the door after him and fetched a brush and dustpan to clear up the crumbs of sponge on the floor. What did the plate matter? It was really of no importance at all. She felt sorry for the young man; he had been quite distraught. Sorry for the father, too, so far away in Henryetta, Oklahoma. The father who had somehow brought up three motherless sons through the Depression. Come through, was the way Corporal Bilsky had put it. They’d come through. It was a good-sounding phrase. Both British and Americans would understand it perfectly, for once. God willing, they were going to come through together.
Tom hoisted the old wooden yoke across his shoulders and set off down the street, the two empty water buckets dangling and clanking from their chains. Dawn was coming up, the pale sky streaked with dark clouds, and Meg was out on her milk rounds with her horse and cart, filling the jugs left out on doorsteps. She gave him a smile and a wave as she ladled milk from a churn. He waved back. He liked Meg. She always gave Mum a bit extra and didn’t charge for it. Some women were already at the water tap and he had to wait his turn, shivering in the cold, while they filled their buckets and gossiped. He never understood why women had to spend so much time talking to each other about nothing.
‘Morning, Tom.’ Old Mother Becket, who was one of the worst, had spied him. ‘How’s your mum?’
‘She’s all right.’ He wouldn’t have said if she hadn’t been. Not if he didn’t want the whole village to know about it.
‘Doing a lot of washing for those Americans, isn’t she? Taking on more than she can manage, I reckon.’
He would have liked to tell her to mind her own business but he said nothing and set his first bucket under the tap.
‘How many’s she doing for now, then?’
Nosy old cow. ‘Don’t know.’
‘Fifteen, I heard. She’ll kill herself, if she’s not careful. Though I dare say you need the money.’
The first bucket was full and he started on the second one.
‘When’s that dad of yours coming home, then?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Still working on the aerodromes, is he? I’m sorry for your mother with him being away so much and having to cope. Keeps her short, does he?’
He turned off the tap, pretending he hadn’t heard, bent his head and shoulders under the yoke and started back down the street. She called after him. ‘Kill herself, she will, your mum.’
The full buckets weighed his shoulders down and he walked slowly and carefully down the street so that the water didn’t slop over and get wasted. When he reached the cottage he shuffled in sideways through the front door and round the kitchen table into the washhouse at the back, where his mum was laying the firewood under the copper. Alfie was playing with Nell who was crawling around the floor. He let the buckets down and he and Mum hefted one up between them so’s they could pour the water into the copper.
‘Chop me some more wood, will you, Tom? There’ll not be enough.’
He went outside to the shed where the pile was kept that he and Alfie collected when they went out sticking – gathering up all the dead wood they could find. Not that Alfie could carry much and he, himself, couldn’t carry as much as Dad could yet, but, between them, they managed to keep the pile in the woodshed going for Mum. He took the axe from its corner and chopped up another lot to go on the copper fire. A
lfie came to the shed door.
‘Can I do that?’
‘Don’t be stupid, you’d go and cut your toes off.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. Go on. Give me a turn.’
He didn’t bother to answer Alfie either, same as Mother Becket, but saved his breath for chopping. When Dad was home he sawed up big logs, but he wasn’t strong enough to manage the saw himself yet. Maybe next year, when he was ten. ‘You can help me take this lot in, then.’
The two of them carried armfuls of sticks into the washhouse. Mum had lit the fire and the water in the copper was beginning to warm up. She was sorting out the Yanks’ laundry: the whites to go into the copper to be boiled up with Reckitt’s blue, the rest in the dolly tub with warm water drawn off the copper, to be scrubbed on the washboard and worked with the dolly. After that Mum would rinse it all in the tub outside, put it through the mangle and peg it out on the line to dry. It took ages and made her hands go all rough and red and he could tell how tired she was by the end of washdays. Sometimes when she sat down in the evening she could hardly get up again. He thought anxiously of what Mother Becket had said.
‘Can I help with anything else, Mum?’
‘You could look after Nell a minute. Keep her away from the copper.’
He picked up his baby sister reluctantly. As usual she stank and she was getting heavier. When he shifted her onto his hip she grabbed a handful of his hair in her fist and pulled it hard so it hurt. He was glad he’d be going off to school in a minute.
‘Someone at the door, Tom. Can you answer it?’
Still holding Nell and with Nell still holding his hair, and with Alfie following, the way he always did, he went to the front door and opened it. Lieutenant Mochetti stood there, a jeep parked behind him.
‘Hi, Tom. How’re you doing?’
‘OK, thanks.’ He wished he wasn’t carrying the baby, like a woman. Nell let go of his hair and started crowing at Ed, who tickled her under her chin. ‘Hi there, Nell, sweetheart.’
Alfie stuck his head round. ‘I’m Alfie.’
‘Hi, Alfie.’
‘Got any gum, mister?’
‘Sure, kid. Here, catch.’
Alfie went and dropped it, of course. ‘Thanks, mister. You a pilot?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Thought so. You’ve got wings on.’
The lieutenant grinned and ruffled Alfie’s hair, even though he didn’t deserve it for being so cheeky. ‘I’ve brought a couple more bags of laundry for your mom, Tom. Think she can handle it?’
He nodded. Mum never said no to work.
‘I’ll fetch them in, then.’
Tom went on holding Nell while the pilot swung the bags out of the jeep and carried them into the washhouse. ‘Brought something else for you, Mrs Hazlet,’ he told Mum. He went outside again and came back with a big cardboard box that he put on the table. He began taking things out of it: packets of Oxydol and Rinso, tins of fruit and spam, a jar of peanut butter, a great big bag of sugar and several bars of soap. Alfie started touching everything while Mum stood there with her hands pressed tight to her cheeks.
‘Oh, sir . . .’ She picked up a bar of soap and held it to her nose. ‘It smells lovely. Thank you. I’ve never smelled anything so nice.’ Alfie was sniffing away at another bar like a bloodhound.
The Yank pressed something else into her other hand. ‘We figured you could do with an advance.’
‘But this is much too much, sir.’
‘We don’t reckon so. Keep it.’ He closed her fingers over the pound note. ‘And the name’s Ed, not sir. Here, kids, this is all for you.’ Out of the same box came bars of chocolate and candy and packets of chewing gum. Alfie was grabbing everything he could and stuffing it into his shorts pockets. Ed tossed a Tootsie Roll to Tom who caught it and held it safely out of Nell’s reach. ‘You going to school today, Tom? Because that’s where I’m going too. I’m supposed to tell you kids all about the United States of America. Want a lift?’
Alfie was made to go in the back while he sat up front in the jeep, beside the lieutenant. The bell was ringing out from the belfry as they went roaring down the high street, zipping past old Mother Becket who flattened herself and her buckets against the wall and shouted something rude. Ed changed gear and spun the wheel with the flat of his hand to take the corner into School Lane. ‘Haven’t seen you up at the base lately, Tom.’
‘Haven’t been there for a bit,’ he said casually.
He didn’t have much chance to see the planes in term-time, with it getting light so late and dark so early, and with all the homework and helping Mum, too, but he’d managed to go up there once or twice at the weekends. Mother Becket would have been even angrier if she’d known it was her eggs he’d taken up to the radio-shack Yanks last time. He’d pinched a dozen of them from her henhouse one night and carried them off in a pocket he’d cut into the lining of his coat. This time, instead of a penny an egg, he’d traded them for cigarettes – two packets of Lucky Strikes worth sixpence each. Then he’d sold those in the village for ninepence. The Oxo tin was getting a lot fuller.
They drove up to the school when everybody else was going in. Dick, Robbie and Seth stood with their mouths open as the jeep came to a halt right outside the gates. Tom jumped out nonchalantly, pretending not to notice them. ‘I’ll show you the way,’ he said to Ed, and he led the American fighter pilot proudly in through the BOYS entrance with Alfie swaggering along behind.
The schoolroom was straight out of the Charles Dickens novel he’d been made to read in high school. Gas lamps hanging from the ceiling, high-up windows, desks and benches at least a hundred years old, big-faced clock on the wall, a blackboard pegged on an easel, slates and chalks, china inkwells and nibbed pens for dipping in them . . . Ed looked round for the cane and, sure enough, there it was suspended from a hook on the wall behind the teacher’s desk. The only thing missing was the dunce cap.
The headmaster who had greeted him was a dead ringer for Mr Squeers. They’d kicked off with prayers and a hymn and then Mr Squeers introduced him.
‘Lieutenant Mochetti of the United States Army Air Force has been good enough to spare time to come and tell you something about his country, and to answer any questions you may have. Sensible, intelligent questions only, please. All sit.’
They were somewhere between six years old and eleven, boys and girls, all looking up at him, waiting for him to say something smart and he didn’t know where the hell to begin. He laid his cap on the teacher’s desk.
‘OK kids, hands up who knows anything about America?’ Several hands shot up. He picked on the nearest.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Michael, sir.’
‘So, what do you know, Michael?’
‘There’s lots of Red Indians there, sir.’
‘Sure, we’ve got them.’
The boy said eagerly, ‘Have you ever killed any, sir?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, I come from New York City and there aren’t any Indians there. And nobody kills them any more. They live in reservations now. That was in the old days when pioneers were settling all over the country and sometimes it was on Indian territory.’ He picked up a piece of chalk and drew a rough map of the Unites States on the blackboard. ‘See, you had different tribes living all over. The Cherokees here in the Carolinas and Tennessee. The Apaches down here in Oklahoma and New Mexico – now they were real mean.’
Another hand waved at him urgently. ‘Did they scalp people, sir?’
‘Sure did. Same as the Sioux further north up here in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas . . .’ He filled in some more on the map. ‘Those guys were pretty unfriendly too. The Navajo out in Arizona and New Mexico weren’t so bad. If you got caught by Indians, you’d want it to be the Navajo.’ He picked on another hand. ‘What’s your question, kid?’
‘Have you ever met the Lone Ranger, sir?’
‘He’s not real. He’s just in movies.’
The boy looked
crestfallen. ‘What about Silver and Tonto?’
‘Sure, there’s a real horse but Tonto’s just an actor, same as the Lone Ranger.’
‘Roy Rogers is real, though, isn’t he, sir?’ somebody called out.
‘Yep, he’s real all right. Before you ask, though, I’ve never met him.’
‘Are there still lots of cowboys out West?’
‘Sure, kid. They’re still riding around, herding cattle and lassoing steers. We don’t need them near so much because of railroads and refrigeration, but they’re still there. Only they don’t have shoot-outs any more or fight the Indians. OK. Next question.’
‘Can you tell us about the gangsters in Chicago, sir?’
He was going to be a real disappointment to them. ‘Never been to Chicago myself, but as far as I know there aren’t gangsters there any more. Not like the bad old days, at any rate. Not since they caught guys like A1 Capone and John Dillinger.’
A cute little girl with ginger pigtails had her hand up. Her name was Jessie. ‘Please sir, do you know any film stars?’
‘Well, I met James Cagney once.’ It was true, he’d come into the restaurant on 53rd street. Mom had gone into a swoon.
‘What was he like, sir?’
‘A real nice guy.’
‘Have you ever been to Hollywood?’
‘Sorry, sweetheart.’
As the questions went on it gradually dawned on him that, to these English kids, America was what they saw in the movies and the things they read in comics or in Wild West books. Sure there was a big map of North America hanging on the wall and they’d learned something about US geography and the climate and the crops, but the rest was dreams. Same as we get it wrong about England, he thought. Just the same.
Tom had his hand up.
‘Make it an easy one, Tom.’
‘Please, sir, can you tell us about the Lightning. What’s it like to fly one?’
He grinned. This was something he could handle. ‘It’s great, kid. Just great!’ They wanted to know all about how fast the P-38 could go, how high it could climb, how many guns it had . . . He had fun telling them.
Our Yanks Page 13