Mid-April
A TRAM TRAVELLING along the Walworth Road from the Elephant and Castle came to a stop at East Street. An Army sergeant alighted in company with a young lady, he limping a bit from a gammy knee, she lithe of limbs and colourful of dress, and accordingly a fetching picture of approaching summer on this warm spring day.
‘Old home ground, Emma,’ observed Sergeant Jonathan Hardy, gunnery instructor to recruits at a Royal Artillery training camp.
‘For my family as well as yours,’ said his wife Emma, younger daughter of Lizzy and Ned Somers, and much like her mother in her attractive looks, especially in respect of her chestnut hair and brown eyes. Her face was tanned. So was Jonathan’s. She worked on a farm not far from his training camp in Somerset, and the open air of that rural county had made its healthy mark on them. ‘Mum and her brothers were all born and brought up in Walworth,’ she said.
‘But well gone by the time my family arrived from Sussex,’ said Jonathan, a tough sergeant and playful husband. He was twenty-five, and owned the kind of physique much admired by Emma. It has to be said that he was even more admiring of her feminine line and form. Ergo, what she liked about him and what he liked about her led to very agreeable marital togetherness. They were always able to meet once a week, on either Saturday or Sunday, and to make use of Emma’s room at the farmhouse.
They were an engaging couple, Jonathan’s habit of lapsing into rural Sussex dialect often sending Emma potty, provoking her into having her own back by taking him off or belabouring him with rolled-up magazines. Sometimes, during their moments of agreeable togetherness, a teasing urge to take him off would rise above her palpitations, and she’d say, albeit throatily, ‘Be that your tin leg rattling, Jonathan?’
Jonathan, wounded in action in 1941, had been fixed up with a metal knee joint. It left him with his limp, but he appealed successfully against the possibility of being discharged, and won himself a posting as a sergeant gunnery instructor down in the county he called Zummerzet.
He was on seven days’ leave, and Emma’s employers, a farmer and his wife, had given her the week off to be with her soldier husband. They were presently staying with his parents, having spent their first three days at her parental home.
The light of the Saturday afternoon was kind to old Walworth, softening the smoky grey of its Victorian buildings and brightening shop windows. The main road, bustling with traffic, did not seem to have suffered too badly from air raids, but Emma and Jonathan had come across heavy damage elsewhere. Many streets of solid terraced houses were rent with jagged gaps.
‘Come on, Jonathan,’ said Emma, ‘let’s see what the market’s like these days.’ The East Street market, known as the Lane, was still functioning, despite severe shortages of fruit and vegetables. It had been a favourite pre-war shopping place for Jemima Hardy, Jonathan’s mother, and for Emma’s much revered grandmother, known as Chinese Lady, in long-gone years.
They entered the market. Stalls lined each side of the street, which was crowded with people looking for bargains in the way of domestic items and un-rationed foodstuff. Not that pre-war poverty still existed. No, jobs were plentiful, wages good, but the housewives of Walworth had an acquired addiction for bargains, as well as a great fondness for the market and its familiar stallholders, who had been fighting the trade setbacks of war for four and a half years. Among the crowds were a few American GIs and their Walworth girlfriends, the latter introducing the former to the atmosphere of a cockney market, and the former saying things like, ‘Well, I’ll go to Coney Island on a mule, I got to believe there’s no hamburger stalls?’
Shoppers had their eyes open for fruit, for home-grown produce in the main, since imported varieties were scarce. Bananas, grapes and pineapples were only distant memories, but oranges sometimes miraculously turned up, and whenever they did there was a rush of feet, bodies and wide-open purses, the latter a temptation to pickpockets who had become lamentably operative in the knowledge that wartime purses were more richly laden than in former years. Much to Emma’s delight, she spotted a stall heavy with crates of dates from the Middle East. Two crates were broken open, the dark gleaming fruit standing in square blocks, the stallholder carving out large sticky chunks with a knife.
‘Dates, Jonathan, dates,’ said Emma, ‘let’s buy some.’
‘Right,’ said Jonathan, with the authority of a sergeant, ‘you get a pound, I’ll get a pound.’
People had formed a queue, and Emma darted and joined it. Jonathan followed on.
‘Here, mind me eye,’ said a young woman, arriving at the same time. Turning, she found herself looking at a brown-faced and personable Army sergeant. Jonathan found himself close to saucy eyes and a bright orange sweater on which was a gaudy brooch bearing the name of Lola. ‘Oh, howdyerdo, sarge, excuse me hot temper,’ she said. ‘I don’t have no quarrel with the Army. You can queue next to me, if yer like.’ Somehow, she was elbow to elbow with Jonathan, and between him and Emma.
‘You be keen on dates, I reckon,’ said Jonathan.
‘Eh?’ said Lola, nicely made-up, her full-lipped mouth moistly pink.
‘Well, dates be a tidy bit nourishing,’ said Jonathan, with Emma more amused than put out. She knew her country bloke and his tendency to make himself sound like a village yokel. Village idiot, she sometimes said.
‘Here, excuse me for asking,’ said Lola, the queue moving slowly forward and other shoppers joining it, ‘but where you from?’
‘Durned old Army,’ said Jonathan.
‘No, I mean where’d you come from?’ said Lola.
‘Just lately, mostly from down Zummerzet way,’ said Jonathan.
‘I dunno I ever met anyone from there,’ said Lola.
‘Born in Sussex I were,’ said Jonathan, ‘according to my Ma and Pa, and they should know, I reckon.’
‘Crikey,’ said Lola. Emma was splitting her sides, while the stallholder was bawling compliments about his dates as he served customers a pound each. ‘I never heard no sergeant talk like you,’ went on Lola, a young lady given to offering immediate friendship to people in a queue, as long as they were wearing trousers and didn’t have tea-stained whiskers. ‘I’ve met American sergeants, y’know, and me latest is Gus, but blowed if I know where he’s got to this morning.’
‘Gone off, maybe, to find out where the war is?’ said Jonathan.
‘No, course not, he’s in the market somewhere,’ said Lola.
‘Then speaking friendly, like,’ said Jonathan, ‘I join you in hoping he’ll turn up sometime.’
Lola let go a giggly laugh.
‘You’re a card, you are, sarge,’ she said. Yes, he’s that all right, thought Emma, and wait till I get him home. ‘Have you got any medals?’ asked Lola of Jonathan.
‘Only a handful,’ he said, ‘but my three stripes pay better than medals. Did you say if you liked dates?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t be queuing if I didn’t, would I?’ said Lola. ‘Nor waiting twenty minutes to get served. It’s worse than lining up for lunch at our fact’ry canteen.’ The long queue moved forward a little. ‘Here, would you like to come to a party tonight?’
‘Durned if that don’t be real nice of you,’ said Jonathan, noting Emma was struggling to keep her face straight. ‘Might I ask if I could bring a close friend?’
‘Not ’alf,’ said Lola, who hadn’t taken any notice of Emma. Well, she didn’t know the young lady on her right was very well-known to the sergeant on her left. ‘All Army blokes are welcome, and sailors too.’
‘My close friend is a female farmhand,’ said Jonathan, as more people attached themselves to the queue. I’ll give him female farmhand, said Emma to herself.
‘She from Somerset too?’ said Lola.
‘Regular Zummerzet dairymaid,’ said Jonathan, at which point a large body pushed in, a large finger tapped him on the shoulder, and an aggressive voice landed in his ear.
‘What’s your game, buddy?’
Jonathan turned, Lola turned and Emma turned. Emma quivered. A huge American sergeant was eyeing Jonathan with glowering suspicion. Jonathan was hardly insignificant at five feet eleven, and was considered fearsome by conscripted gunners when bawling them out for being on close terms with uselessness, but the American sergeant was six inches taller, broad all over, and decked out with the mountainous shoulders of an American football player.
‘Did you say something?’ asked Jonathan.
‘Sure. What’s your game?’
‘I’m lining up for dates,’ said Jonathan, one half of the queue in front shuffling forward, the other half now held up.
‘The way I see it, buddy, it ain’t dates you’re sold on, it’s Lola.’
‘This lady’s Lola?’ said Jonathan.
‘That’s her, and she ain’t first prize in a Fourth of July raffle.’
‘We met by accident,’ said Jonathan. ‘Well, you never know who you might find yourself next to in a queue.’
‘Don’t get smart.’
Emma quivered again. The GI sergeant’s fists looked as if they could knock large holes in an iron lamppost, and she hoped Jonathan was ready to duck. Lola made herself heard amid the noises of the market.
‘Now then, Gus, leave off,’ she said.
‘See here, Lola—’
‘And don’t start hollering, either,’ said Lola. ‘There’s people lookin’, and you’re ’olding the queue up. Go and buy some spuds for me mum, and some onions as well, if there’s any.’
‘I ain’t leaving, Lola,’ said Gus, ‘not while—’
‘I don’t want no arguments,’ said Lola, a mere midget by comparison with Gus.
‘I ain’t arguing,’ said Gus, ‘I’m letting this Limey sergeant know he’ll have trouble finding his teeth if he keeps getting fresh with you.’
Restive people in the held-up section of the queue began to complain.
‘Here, what’s goin’ on?’ demanded a plump woman.
‘That’s it, what’s goin’ on?’ echoed a thin one.
‘It’s a Yank, a sergeant,’ said a fretful bloke. ‘A big one.’
‘Well, get ’im out of it,’ said the thin woman.
‘Me at my time of life and my size?’ said Fretful. ‘Ain’t I got enough troubles?’
‘Anyway, leave him be,’ said the plump woman, ‘I like them Yanks, and me daughter’s goin’ steady with one.’
‘Well, that’s her lookout, and someone’s got to shift that sergeant,’ said the thin woman. ‘I ain’t got time to stand ’ere all day. What’s he doing of?’
‘Having a barney with an English sergeant, it looks like,’ said a long lanky bloke, who could see over the tops of ladies’ hats.
‘Can’t they have it somewhere else?’ bawled a fed-up woman.
‘That’s it, somewhere else,’ hooted Fretful, ‘I’ve had enough aggravation round here from bleedin’ Hitler.’
‘There, listen to all that,’ said Lola to Gus. ‘See what you’re doing? Upsettin’ people, that’s what. ’Oppit. Go and get them spuds and onions, or I won’t put me party costume on for you tonight. Go on now.’
What a character, thought Jonathan, talk about the female of the species at five feet four being deadlier than a GI at six feet six.
A shadow flitted alongside the queue, a nifty hand reached, grabbed and snatched. Emma’s precious handbag, hanging from her wrist, went the way of the shadow, which materialized into a fast-running skinny bloke. Emma yelled.
‘Jonathan, he’s pinched my handbag!’
‘And right in front of my fat eyes,’ said Gus, and away he went, Jonathan on his heels. Gus tore holes in the crowds in his bruising chase, holes that Jonathan promptly filled for a split second. He could move fast, despite his tin knee. The slippery bag-snatcher eeled his way towards bomb-damaged King and Queen Street, but something like a tank caught him up and fell on him as he turned the corner. Down he went.
‘Oh, bleedin’ Amy,’ he gasped, ‘someone get it orf me.’
Jonathan arrived.
‘You hurting?’ he enquired, stooping and tugging the handbag free.
‘Course I bleedin’ am,’ panted Slippery Sam, or whoever he was, ‘I got a bleedin’ bus on top of me, ain’t I?’
Gus came to his feet, used one hand to pluck the geezer up and to bounce him up and down on the pavement, feet first.
‘How’s he doing, buddy?’ he asked.
‘You’re giving him flat feet,’ said Jonathan, ‘and I don’t think he likes it.’
Gus dropped him.
‘Oh, yer bugger, now you’ve broke me back,’ groaned Slippery Sam. Gus yanked him up again, planted a boot in his backside and sent him careering. He did a double somersault before he came to a stop, when he then complained bitterly about gorblimey Nosy Parkers interfering with a war-crippled bloke’s way of earning an honest living.
‘Now what’s eating him?’ asked Gus.
‘Lost his teddy bear,’ said Jonathan.
Gus roared with laughter and clapped Jonathan on his shoulder. Jonathan, fortunately, was made of sterner muscle than the bag-snatcher, and he stayed on his feet.
‘Let’s get back to the ladies,’ said Gus.
The date queue was in minor uproar, Emma the centre of it.
‘Did he hurt yer, love?’
‘It’s what the war’s done, you can’t trust nobody these days.’
‘Oh, yer poor gal, have a good cry, if yer want.’
‘Where’d yer come from, love, round here?’
‘Yes, where’d you get yer sunshine looks?’ asked Lola.
‘Somerset,’ said Emma.
‘Crikey, you’re the one?’ said Lola. ‘Well, don’t you worry, our blokes’ll get your bag back.’
‘It’ll come back one way or another,’ said Emma, implying complete confidence in Jonathan and the Yankee man-mountain, although she had an uneasy feeling the skinny thief was slick enough to vanish. The loss of one’s handbag could be the loss of something very personal and private.
Despite the happening and its aggravation, no-one had vacated the queue to go looking for a copper. The acquisition of ripe and luscious dates kept everyone standing their ground.
A woman said suddenly, ‘They’re coming back.’
‘Yes, that’s them,’ said the plump woman, ‘and look, they’ve got the handbag.’
Gus and Jonathan arrived, and the return of the handbag delighted Emma and struck a happy note throughout the queue.
‘Any damage?’ asked Lola.
‘Not to the handbag,’ said Jonathan, and Lola eyed Gus suspiciously.
‘Gus, you ain’t done for the bloke, have you?’ she said. ‘You ain’t put him in hospital, have you?’
‘Treated him gentle,’ said Gus.
‘I bet,’ said Lola. ‘You bent me mum’s best iron saucepan just by takin’ hold of it. Still, I suppose the bloke deserved a broken leg. Well, here we are at last.’
The four of them had reached the stall. The crates of dates had diminished, but the stallholder sold each of them a pound of the imported fruit. They moved aside, grouping on the pavement, and Gus large-heartedly referred to Jonathan as his Limey buddy.
‘And I’m forgetting about you going after Lola,’ he said.
‘Big of you,’ said Jonathan, ‘except I’m an innocent party.’
‘You got three stripes as an innocent party?’ said Gus, and roared with laughter again.
‘Well, he don’t wear them upside-down like you do, so stop making loud noises,’ said Lola. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Emma, ‘you really a dairymaid like your friend mentioned?’
‘No, I’m his wife,’ said Emma, ‘and when I get him home I’ll give him a reminder of that.’
‘Crikey, and there was me starting to fancy him,’ said Lola. Gus emitted a growl. ‘Oh, me Yank’s off again,’ she said, ‘I’d best take him home to me mum. She’ll quieten him down. He’s a bit noisy sometimes, and I dunno why he calls me Lola when me name’s Ada. I kept telling him, but he still went and bought me this Lola brooch, the daft haddock. Still, a girl can’t help liking him.’
With that, she and Gus parted from Emma and Jonathan on friendly terms.
‘Well, my word,’ said Emma, ‘weren’t they an entertaining couple?’
‘I think Lola wears the trousers,’ said Jonathan, as they resumed their stroll through the market. ‘Or could it be her mum?’
‘Whatever, you and Gus did a lovely job rescuing my handbag,’ said Emma, ‘but I owe you a wallop for getting too close to Lola’s sweater.’
‘Came up and bumped into me when I wasn’t looking,’ said Jonathan.
‘Giggle, giggle,’ said Emma, and laughed. There was an atmosphere of cheerfulness throughout the market, much to do with the people feeling the worst days of the war were over, and that the Allies were now powerful enough to get the better of Hitler and his formidable armies.
Emma and Jonathan ate a date each, then found a stall where they bought a lettuce, a bunch of spring onions, a cucumber and some radishes. They took them home, along with the dates, to Jonathan’s mother in Lorrimore Square on the border of Kennington.
‘My, my,’ said Mrs Jemima Hardy, rosy-cheeked and contentedly buxom, ‘the dates be a treat, Emma, and it were thoughtful of you to get the salad items too.’
‘Only too pleased, Mum,’ said Emma, ‘but I nearly lost my handbag.’ She recounted details of the snatching of her handbag and how Jonathan and a big American sergeant took only ten minutes to get it back.
‘Well, Emma, there be some of our own people who pester us even in a war like this,’ said Jemima. ‘But then there’s other people, like the American sergeant, who make up for the kind we can’t abide. And then there’s the war itself, it’s better news these days, and making you and Jonathan think about going out one day to look at houses to give yourselves an idea of the kind you’d like to have come the end of the war. That be a happy thing for a young couple, thinking about their future home. It’s turned in our favour, the war, so your dad says, Jonathan.’
Jonathan reckoned the most significant turning-point had come when the Eighth Army finally and decisively defeated General Rommel and his Afrika Korps at the end of 1942. Prime Minister Churchill had said that that victory was only the end of the beginning, but couldn’t hide his satisfaction and optimism.
And that had been eighteen months ago. The country had made more progress since then, and it was bound to be ready now with the Americans to open up the Second Front. That, thought Jonathan, might be the final step towards the end of this durned old war.