So we are officially ATS EFI now,’ Rosie sighed contentedly, pulling down the jacket and tightening the cloth belt. ‘We’re in the army now,’ she sang in her soft sweet voice.
‘Yes, but I still wonder why we had to do all that PT and misery, and marching in heavy boots and suffering blisters and stiff muscles, just to serve char and a wad!’ Kate retorted, rubbing her still-painful toes. ‘If I’d wanted to march I’d have joined the army sooner. A peaceful war with plenty of fun, enjoying the freedom from the suffocation of Mum and Dad, that’s all I wanted.’
‘Do you regret joining?’ Ethel asked, as she packed the last of Rosie’s Nan’s parcel away in their locker.
Kate looked up, her pretty face showing none of the exhaustion of the past weeks, her blonde hair tied back in a snood, her eyes shining with health and contentment. ‘Not a single minute. And you?’
Ethel allowed a frown to cross her face as she replied, ‘I don’t regret a moment of the time I’ve been with you two, but I wish I hadn’t had to run away from my family like I did. I miss them. Miss belonging to a family.’
‘We’re your family now, Ethel, and we’ll never let you down.’ Ethel smiled at them both, such dear, loyal friends, she was very fortunate to have found them and fortunate too that they had, beyond all expectations, managed to stay together.
Suddenly Rosie sat down, looking at them in surprise. ‘I’ve just realized something,’ she said. ‘Do you know, it’s Christmas!’
Kate wrote Happy Christmas on the mirror with a lipstick and Ethel added an unlikely-looking robin. ‘Happy Christmas, everybody,’ Kate shouted. Turning to her friends, she added, ‘Here’s hoping we’ll spend many other Christmases together.’
‘No doubt about it, we will. Now, where’s Rosie’s Nan’s parcel?’ Ethel said with mock impatience. ‘I want my Christmas cake.’
Not having a family to write to and hear from still hurt, particularly when post arrived and Ethel had to sit and watch while others read their letters and opened small parcels with their touch of home. If only Glenys were alive. Then she could have stayed at home, coped with their father, and she would be celebrating the day with her family. She felt sadness and loneliness filling her heart and forced them away, stopped the thoughts, shaking away the regrets by reminding herself that Dai Twomey was not her father, he was her grandfather. For the first time, another implication of her situation came to her.
‘Hey, I’ve just realized that my name isn’t really Twomey at all! I wonder who I am?’
‘Ethel Question Mark, spinster of this parish,’ Rosie announced.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll be changing your name soon anyway, you only have to decide whether it will be Mrs Albert Pugh or Mrs Baba Morgan,’ Kate said, unaware of the sudden disappointment that crossed Rosie’s face and darkened her bright blue eyes.
‘Neither probably,’ Ethel told her. ‘We’ll lose touch anyway before this lot is over.’
The letters from both men had dried to a trickle and it was weeks since she had heard from either of them. Rosie and Kate tried to convince her that they were forbidden mail during their stay at the training camp but Rosie’s Nan’s parcels had arrived without delay and letters from some of the other young men she and Kate had met and flirted with. Only Ethel missed out when the post came around.
She began to be more and more convinced that her father had been right to suspect her of ‘going to the bad’, as he had put it. She had given in to Duggie and had wanted, oh so badly, to give in to Baba Morgan. The words repeated as a warning came into her head. ‘Men are only after one thing’; ‘men don’t respect women who are too easy’. Loving was forbidden if you wanted to be an acceptable wife, loving was wrong. Men needed love, women had to refuse them. It had once sounded so easy. Why hadn’t anyone warned her that she would want it too? And want it so desperately?
She often dreamed in those half-waking moments before rising, that she would open her eyes and see Baba standing there, or Albert, his severe expression banished by love, smiling at her, wanting her, and her body would begin to respond to the vision. The loneliness that followed was almost too much to bear.
Sometimes she dreamed of Wesley, but Wesley was looking at her in a friendly way, guileless, without an urgent need for her. No desire on his young face. In her mind Wesley Daniels was still that boy who had planned to marry her, a comfortable friendship without the sensations of loving she had since learned. He was a part of her childhood, a pleasant memory of when they were too young to feel the passion which Duggie had awakened in her. Wesley was a vague figure from that other life when the world was small, bounded by how far she could see, or the distance she could walk in a day. A time of innocence when life was so wonderfully simple.
Once the training was done, they handed in their ATS EFI uniforms, which would be stored until they were posted abroad. Until then they would return to normal duties.
Before they were posted, the three girls were given leave and, as usual, Ethel tried to pretend she didn’t want to go home with either of them. She mustn’t expect them to take pity on her every time and besides, this might be their last leave for a long while and they needed to spend the time with their families and friends without an extra ‘hanger on’.
‘I’m going to spend the time in London,’ she told them enthusiastically. ‘I’ve heard that there are some really good dance halls and there’s sure to be others there on their own.’
‘Oh no you’re not!’ Rosie and Kate chorused.
‘It’s all decided,’ Rosie went on. ‘We’re having a last fling and we can’t do that without you being there.’
‘Nonsense! I’ll enjoy exploring and I’ll be able to sort out all the best places for when we celebrate our last few days.’
No matter how the others pleaded, Ethel was adamant.
‘Come to think of it,’ Kate said, putting in her last curler before getting into bed, ‘I’d rather be going with you. Imagine, all those beautiful Americans and Canadians there and me not being able to search for my gorgeous rich husband!’
They eventually decided that both Rosie and Kate would tell a small lie and stay only half of their leave at home before joining Ethel in London.
At the railway station they parted after having a snack at the Naafi counter where men and women from all the branches of the services stopped as they alighted from trains or waited to board them.
Ethel planned to go first to the RAF station where she had last seen Albert and try and get news of him. As she stood up and brushed crumbs from her skirt, gathered her luggage and walked away from the counter with a friendly wave, Wesley arrived at the far end, exhausted after a long and danger-filled journey, and asked for tea and a sandwich.
As always when there were Naafi people around he asked whether anyone had seen Ethel and showed her photograph. The girl at the counter smiled and twisted herself around to view it. She frowned. ‘It’s a bit crumpled, ain’t it? But she does seem familiar. I can’t remember whether I saw her today though. We see so many people and for such a short time that it’s all a bit of a blur.’ She laughed again as she topped up his tea, ‘Fact is, I don’t think I’d recognize me own Mum if she came in and ordered. When it’s busy I only see the hand and the money. My ears take in the rest.’
‘Thanks anyway. But do you think you might have seen her recently?’
The girl paused to take another order, smiling at a sailor who ordered char and a wad, handing him the cake and the steaming cup of tea before turning back to Wesley. She shrugged. ‘What difference would it make if I had, eh? This is a place where half the world passes through on their way to God only knows where.’
She handed her next customer his requested doughnut and tea and paused, staring after the tall, thin figure of Wesley. Was that picture of one of the girls from the Naafi she had spoken to, she wondered? No, that would be too much of a coincidence. ‘Now, dearies, who’s next?’ she asked cheerily.
Rosie’s Nan told all her friends about her brave granddaughter and received many gifts of chocolates and sweets to add to her regular parcels, one of which had included the Christmas cake. She feared for her, aware that the Naafi girls weren’t immune to injuries and death. They were never far from the fighting and many had died already. In her rare moods of melancholy she knew that if Rosie died she would regret not showing her the letters.
She opened the drawer and began to count them. Dozens and dozens, all opened and read before being added to the rest in chronological order. There were almost two hundred. She wondered whether her decision to keep them from Rosie had been the right one. She started to write to Rosie, tell her about the letters, but tore it up. She couldn’t do it after all this time. How could she confess to her cruelty? It was too late and the lie would have to remain hidden in her drawer.
The girls’ last few days in London were enjoyable, with dance halls filled with the wildly exciting music, and dancing as they had never seen dancing before. Rosie hadn’t outgrown her shyness completely but the atmosphere of live for today as there might not be a tomorrow, plus the comforting realization that no one would know her, gave her a freedom to enjoy that she hadn’t ever imagined knowing.
‘It’s like a clown wearing make-up with a painted-on smile and crying behind it, only in reverse,’ she explained
‘Pagliacci,’ Ethel said.
‘What are you two talking about?’ Kate laughed. ‘We’re here to have fun not talk rubbish!’
Vincent, a dashingly handsome, dark-haired American with undoubted Italian ancestry, danced with Kate three times on their first night and most of the evening that followed. Ethel and Rosie wanted to go somewhere different every night but Kate was smitten and they couldn’t allow her to go out alone in the strange city.
On their last day Kate and Vincent exchanged addresses and promised to stay in touch. On their last night Rosie and Ethel sat up and in whispers shared Kate’s joy as she told them how wonderful Vincent was. They sat and listened, their eyes occasionally dropping into sleep and forcing themselves awake with an alarming jerk, to listen some more. At nine o’clock the following morning they gathered their belongings and reported to the place where they would be told their destination.
They were given a room which they shared with three other girls in what had once been a suite of offices. Told not to unpack as they would be leaving for Dover early the following morning, they ate their supper and lay on their beds trying to sleep. Excitement and apprehension prevented them, those emotions plus the sound of Kate’s scribbling as she wrote a long loving letter to Vincent, which the following morning was immediately confiscated.
They travelled to Dover by train after being warned about careless talk.
‘Spies are everywhere,’ the officer reminded them. ‘A careless word and the ship you’re on could be torpedoed, so, don’t forget—’
‘Be like Dad, keep Mum!’ the girls quoted, from the posters warning against careless talk that were to be seen on every street corner.
‘It isn’t a joke, even if the poster is,’ was the stern response.
They went on board the camouflaged ship with a number of previously unseen ATS EFI, and the male equivalent the RASC EFI, as well as members of other services. The accommodation seemed generous but they soon learned that they were to pick up other personnel en route.
The recreation area, where the Naafi had a small store from which they could buy what they needed, had very little in the way of amusements and as they were laying off about half a mile from the port for seven days they soon began to make their own entertainment. Ethel organized darts matches, and dominoes and draughts came into their own. One man was an expert chess player and he taught a few of the more serious passengers to play.
Ethel read some of the books on board, Kate dreamed about Vincent and bemoaned her luck at finding him too late, Rosie found her way to the galley, learning new recipes and ideas from the seamen who provided their three meals each day, and helping out in the Naafi bar between times.
The throbbing of the powerful engines was the first intimation of their departure and they went on deck and stared across at the receding coast in the cold gloom of the winter evening, with smiles on their faces and fear in their hearts. Now they were really going to war. They each secretly wondered whether they would be up to it.
Apart from going into port and taking on several hundred soldiers who had been stranded after leave and were being taken back to join their unit, the journey was mercifully uneventful. The men recently arrived on board were kept separate from them, using their own canteen and not being allowed to mix. Ethel and the others heard them but their presence was limited to sounds only, the low murmurings of invisible men who were predestinate ghosts, many of whom would soon be dead, Ethel thought with a shiver.
Under cover of darkness, they dropped anchor and the men disembarked, leaving the ship strangely quiet. Wesley went with the first landing party and with five assistants began to prepare food for the men before they found the transport waiting for them and headed for the front line.
Clearing up after the meal they had provided, packing the van in which they would travel from then on, Wesley and his small team got into the vehicle, which was loaded with precious supplies, and set off in pursuit.
Below decks, Ethel was thinking about Albert and Baba, unaware that Wesley, about whom she thought so rarely, had been within yards of her for several days.
Dai Twomey had never before been short of money. His parents had owned several houses and, his father being a builder, they sold and bought making a reasonable profit each time. When they died, he and Molly had purchased the smallholding and instead of building work, which he had never enjoyed, he grew crops to sell door-to-door on a cart or small van and worked as a lorry driver to cover the extra money they needed.
His one extravagance besides the drinking which occupied most evenings was his motorbike. A powerful Vincent, it was one that few men in his situation could afford to own and it was his pride and joy. Since petrol had been added to the list of rationed goods, fuel for the bike had become a problem.
He often solved this by syphoning petrol from a car during the hours of darkness, placing one end of a tube in the tank of the car, sucking until he tasted the petrol then putting the other end of the tube into his own tank and listening to the satisfying gurgle as it filled.
Since he had given up driving lorries, their lack of money was an increasing worry. Their savings had dwindled to almost nothing, they would soon be living on a daily basis, spending each day money received from what they had managed to sell. Molly worked on their land, struggling to keep up with the work that Dai was neglecting, with occasional help from their son Sid. But unless Dai stopped driving around the country searching for Ethel, they would soon be unable to meet their bills.
Dai knew all this but he couldn’t stop. He had to find Ethel and make sure she didn’t give in to a man. Having a child before a wedding ring was increasingly common as the war dragged on. For her it would be far, far worse.
He kept away from camps after twice being arrested. The fear of spies was growing and he knew that he faced imprisonment without the need for evidence if he were caught near one again, specially if he was struggling with his daughter – granddaughter, he amended with a burst of rage.
Instead, he concentrated on the public houses and dance halls in the towns close to army camps and airforce stations. With controlled and polite behaviour he would engage some of the servicemen in conversation, buy drinks and ask whether they had met his daughter, Ethel. On most occasions the men would clam up, afraid of discussing anything to do with their position in case it helped the enemy. Only once in a while would he find a young man who wanted to talk, and he would show photographs of his ‘daughter’ and describe how much he missed her, but he had no luck in finding her. She seemed to have vanished from the earth.
‘There are thousands of places where she could work,’ one RAF man told him. ‘Wherever you find the serviceman you’ll find the Naafi. She could even be abroad.’
At that point Dai almost gave up. He went outside and stood looking up at the sliver of moon that seemed to be wrapped in white gauze against a navy blue sky, and wondered whether he would ever see her again. Better that he didn’t. He could wash his hands of her, forget she ever existed. He didn’t want to know how she ended up. He had tried to stop her and had failed.
He went outside to where he had parked the Vincent. Beside it was a baker’s van. With half an eye watching the pub doorway, he took out the narrow rubber pipe he used to steal petrol, then hurriedly replaced it as footsteps approached. It was the same RAF man, who said, ‘You might try the CAB, the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. It was set up in 1939 to help missing people to get in touch, or help families who’d been separated or bombed out. They could be a bit cagey as it’s someone serving in the forces like your daughter, but worth a try.’
Thanking him, Dai shuffled off, his heavy boots scuffing through the gravel on the forecourt until he saw the man disappear once again into the pub. He syphoned enough petrol to fill his tank, replaced the petrol tank cover and drove off. Hope was revived. It was time to go home again and find out more about the CAB.
At home, Molly was sitting at the table surrounded by papers. Bills mainly and most of those unpaid. She had managed to keep from her son the seriousness of the situation but unless she had payment for the vegetables she had supplied, and within the next few days, which would enable her to deal with some of the most urgent debts, there was a chance of court proceedings.
Where was Dai? He hadn’t been home for two weeks. He had cleared the ground and planted the last of the winter cabbages and weeded around the leeks and sprout plants and then had gone off again on his motorbike without collecting the money they were owed.
She had tried to collect some of the debts and had managed to retrieve a few pounds, but the work on the land plus managing the house was all she could find time for. Besides, asking for money was something she didn’t find easy to do. That had always been Dai’s job – and few argued when he asked for settlement, she thought grimly.
The sound of his motorbike reached her ears. There was no mistaking its powerful four-stroke engine. Throwing down the pencil she went to open the door.
As usual he didn’t bother to explain where he had been, only that he hadn’t found Ethel. She didn’t waste time arguing or asking questions, she had given up asking for explanations for his frantic search, she just asked him to collect some debts before the situation became worse.
‘I’ll do it first thing in the morning,’ he told her as he poured himself some tea from the teapot in the hearth. ‘I need some cash for work that needs doing on the bike.’
He had been drinking and went to bed almost at once, where he lay on his back, smelling less than sweet, flat out, fully dressed and snoring fit to rattle the roof tiles.
She stared down at him and thought back over their marriage, remembering the early years when everything seemed perfect. She had known about his temper before they married, but believed his promises, sure she would help him to keep them. His rages were kept under control by living out in the country, where he saw few people, and working alone, driving lorries from town to town. He was very strong and worked hard developing the market garden. All day and half the night when needed. It was only rarely that he got drunk.
The increase in his drinking was hardly noticed at first, but there was an arrest and a fine, then another and another, until the first jail sentence made her aware of how serious the problem had become. They had been happy at first, building their life together, the children bringing their joy, and although she tried to work out why it had all gone wrong, she failed to understand what it was that drove him into this wild fury that was destroying them all. Now she had gone past attempting to understand. What she wanted now was revenge.
After waiting for several hours, her eyes gleaming with determination, she put on a dark coat and went out to where the bike was parked. Opening the petrol cap she managed to push the vehicle over on to its side. Petrol leaked out and with a piece of a metal shovel, keeping her hands and clothes well clear of the dangerous fluid, she scooped some over the shining machine. Then she dropped a lighted match at the end of the river of liquid.
Startled by the fierce violence of the gush of flames she ran back to the house, heart racing, scrubbed her hands clean, stripped off all the clothes she was wearing for fear of them being contaminated by the powerful smell, and carefully slid into bed without waking him. She didn’t sleep.
Luckily they were too far out of town for a warden to come and complain about the light from the burning bike. No one was likely to see the fire and report it. She got out of bed after a while and through a gap in the curtains looked out, watching the conflagration until the metal glowed and flames died and the dark night and the silence crept back.
The girls’ destination was Egypt and as they disembarked the heat was a surprise. The ship had seemed cool by comparison to the blazing sun and the heat rising from the ground. Mersa Matruh they found enchanting, with its blue lagoon and small neat bungalows. The picturesque scene was ruined by the makeshift stores and buildings all around but their first sight showed them only the beauty of the place. The beauty and the welcome from the men.
When they stepped ashore the men waiting to greet them cheered and ran towards them. To the soldiers they were a reminder of home: pretty girls in their familiar blue overalls, offering char and a wad, would be a scene to warm their hearts.
There was no time to daydream. They were put to work straight away.
Several supply ships had been sunk by enemy action but others were on the way and the stores had to be ready and made secure. Ethel was given a job in the Bulk Issue Stores from where the goods were ordered by the various canteens, the goods made up to be collected and paid for. The canteen was already active but the men had been given leave, so they would take over from the following evening. While Ethel dealt with the orders and managed the money, the Bulk Issue Stores always dealing in cash, Rosie and Kate were kept busy unpacking and stacking the heavy boxes, with a sergeant helping between ticking everything off on a list.
Exhausted, they were then taken to the newly opened canteen and told to prepare food for opening time. ‘If this is how we have to carry on, I don’t think I’ll last the year,’ Kate sighed, referring to their contract for the posting. ‘A year! We’ll be worse off than we were with Walter the Creep!’
‘I don’t mind how hard I work as long as we can stay together,’ Rosie sighed as they washed and changed into their overalls for their first evening session. They began early, and their first tasks as always were sandwiches and teas and coffee, plus the famous Naafi rock cakes.
Four and a half pounds of flour, two pints of water, margarine, tinned milk, baking powder, sugar and dried eggs and twelve ounces of currants went into the mix, plus all the other ingredients that gave the cakes their special flavour. They could have chanted the list in their sleep.
The uncooked cakes had to be exactly one and a quarter ounces each, but after a few weighed for accuracy the girls had quickly learned to use their eye and rarely made a mistake. They managed to achieve the instructed seventy cakes per mix every time. The cakes were washed over with milk before baking to give them a bit of a shine.
‘I wonder how many of these I’ve made since joining up?’ Rosie sighed as they put the last batch into the huge ovens.
‘I wonder how many more we’ll have to make before we finish,’ Kate sighed.
‘I’m getting tired of it all too,’ Ethel confessed. ‘Although I’ve no idea what I’ll do after the war ends. What jobs will be open to someone who can make Naafi rock cakes and has travelled a bit?’
‘Plenty,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘I’d be prepared to cook anything anywhere and that must be useful. In fact, I think I might train properly, become a proper cook before we open our café. What d’you think?’
‘I think it would be fine as long as I don’t have to see another rock cake,’ Kate laughed.
‘Another batch, please, ladies,’ a voice called, and with a sigh, Rosie reached towards the flour bin.
Wesley was close to the front line. His van went back and forward between base and the men, with food and hot drinks. He went as close as he dared to where the men were dug in, in a holding position just behind the line of guns. The noise at times was almost deafening, the planes overhead, the guns of both sides booming and the squeals and thuds as shells and bombs landed close, sending gouts of fire and earth skyward. Debris of destroyed vehicles and ominously still bodies were all around him as he made his way through the medics as they searched for the wounded among the dead.
He was told to go back but, pointing to his ears, he feigned deafness and carried on handing out tea and a wad to anyone who needed them. They thought he was brave but he knew different. They didn’t know the truth, that when pain was involved he was a coward. The bullets and bomb splinters flying around didn’t represent pain, not like having a man in front of you flexing muscles and folding his fists. The danger around him was more abstract and easier for him to cope with, but he was not the stuff heroes were made of, you only had to talk to Ethel to know that.
When the sleepless night had passed, Molly Twomey rose to make a start on her busy day. Closing the curtains, she struck a match and lit the candle that would light her way down the stairs. She moved about as she dressed, trying to wake Dai so he’d be aware of her rising at the usual time of the morning. As she was leaving the room he woke and asked the time.
‘Six o’clock,’ she told him, afraid to look at him in case he saw the guilt in her eyes.
‘Wake me at eight,’ he instructed. ‘I want to go into town and find the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.’
‘What d’you want advice on?’ she asked. Then, as there was no reply, she went downstairs and began cleaning out the grate to light the fire. Her hands shook every time she thought of what she had done. Well, he would never think of her being responsible; she was too much the cowed and submissive wife.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of the postman. She wondered why he had knocked, then realized he must have seen the motorbike. Thank goodness she wouldn’t be alone when Dai was told.
Dai thundered down the stairs still wearing the clothes of the day before, boots unlaced, his red face unwashed, smeared with yesterday’s dirt that had been thrown up from the roads.
He stared disbelievingly at the remains of his beautiful Vincent, then his malevolent eyes stared at Molly. Instinctively the postman moved to stand beside her, although what he could have done to help her against the rage-filled giant of a man he couldn’t guess.
‘Where’s Sid?’ Dai demanded. ‘He’s done this!’
‘He’s at work. He finishes at six but might have worked an extra shift, you know they have to when there’s a big rush on. He’s been nowhere near home since last night.’ She trembled at Dai’s accusation. That was something she hadn’t thought of.
‘He wasn’t at work,’ he said, ‘he was here, doing this!’
‘Of course he wasn’t!’ She was on the point of confessing. She couldn’t allow him to blame their son for this. ‘I did it,’ she said defiantly. ‘I went down, pushed it over and set fire to it.’
Dai turned to her and, holding her by her thin shoulders, shook her angrily. ‘D’you think I’m stupid or something? I know who did this and your attempts at covering up for him won’t work.’
The postman was alarmed at the way he was hurting his wife and tried to intervene. Temper exploded and Dai shouted abuse and hit out at them both. Then, pushing Molly and the postman aside, he lumbered down the path, over the footbridge to where the postman’s red pushbike stood propped against a tree, and rode off.
‘Sid was at work!’ Molly shouted.
‘I’ll give him work! I’m going to show you what a liar he is, my wonderful son! If he hasn’t been there, I’ll find him. I’ll kill him for this,’ Dai called back.
Around the next corner he felt a strange sensation in his head and his heart raced wildly. A car approached and in an attempt to avoid hitting it, Dai pulled on the brakes but nothing happened; he had no strength, his arms felt like paper, his fingers refused to do what he asked of them and his legs were unable to propel him. His eyes seemed unable to see where he was going – with the sound of the angry car driver’s horn filling his head with pain and confusion, he fell off.
‘He’s had a stroke, I’m afraid,’ the hospital doctor told Molly and Sid later that day. ‘We’ll keep him in for a while but then you’ll have to look after him at home.’
‘But I can’t,’ Molly tried to explain. ‘How can I look after him and keep the market garden running and everything else I have to do? What would we live on?’ Then she whispered, half to herself, ‘Where’s our Ethel? She has to come home and help me, he can’t harm her now, she has to come home.’
Two weeks later Dai was carried into the house, a young land girl was promised to give much-needed help with the vegetable crops and Molly stared angrily at her husband. For the first time since they had married she told him what she thought of him.
Once she began it poured out of her. She went on, hour after hour, listing all the resentments that had been suppressed over the years. Sid listened but didn’t try to stop her. She deserved this moment. When she had finally exhausted herself and the words had dried up she realized that even though she was facing months, perhaps years of looking after him, she was going to enjoy it. Her revenge would be something to savour. If only Ethel would come home.
Post was unreliable although the authorities realized the importance of the letters from home. Sometimes letters arrived that had been written several weeks before, many ended up at the bottom of the sea. Although none got through to Ethel, she never gave up hope; she continued to write to Albert and, although she thought it was useless, she wrote to Baba Morgan, wondering if she would ever see him again.
Albert wrote to her often and his letters were becoming more affectionate. As her letters to him dwindled and finally ceased altogether, he wrote more often, presuming that she was not receiving his and was perhaps believing he had tired of the correspondence. He had to keep on writing and hoping that his letters would eventually catch up with her. He couldn’t lose her now. He cursed himself for hesitating too long.
Baba wrote to Ethel and Kate and Rosie but again, due to the many changes of address, these had so far failed to arrive. Only letters from Kate’s parents and Rosie’s Nan got through. And letters to Kate from Vincent.
When she was handed her mail with his neat writing on the envelope, which had been opened and on which several sentences had been blue-pencilled out, she would read and reread them and would eventually surface with such a vacant and dreamy look in her eyes that she earned the nickname Day Dream, which didn’t offend her at all.
‘That’s what I do most of the time I’m awake, daydream about when Vincent and I meet again,’ she told them. ‘And at night I dream some more. If only we could wangle some leave and I could see him again…’ And off she would go into another daydream.
Wesley’s letters from home reached him. His mother wrote regularly and somehow, with all the comings and goings, the secrecy of the journeys and routes and destinations, the efficient organization dealing with the mail found him. It was in a letter from his mother that he heard about Dai Twomey’s stroke. He wrote back telling his mother that if there was any way she could contact Ethel she should do so and tell her what had happened.
She could go home now. From the sound of it, her father could no longer threaten her. For himself, he didn’t think he could ever face the man again no matter how weak and ill he had become. His humiliation wouldn’t go away that easily. He would see it in the man’s eyes.
If only he knew where to find Ethel. He was on a few days’ leave and with others he volunteered to travel as extra guards with the goods sent out from the Bulk Issue Stores.
Less than twenty miles away from the ship in which Wesley sat and dreamed of her, Ethel and Rosie were setting up the counters ready for the evening opening of the canteen. They had been moved twice. Now the battle for North Africa was won, the bases were constantly moving and they moved with them. They were situated in a small garrison from where men and tanks still went out to mop up small pockets of resistance and gather in the prisoners.
Tonight there was to be a concert. The band, which was made up mostly from men and women in the camp, was practising and the piano was played by a shy young girl who worked in the kitchens. Kate was turning the pages of her music.
They were told that a train-load of supplies was due in and when called the band players went to help with the unloading and storage. As the canteen emptied, Kate and Ethel approached the piano and with the pianist’s willing accompaniment they began to sing. Others heard them and they were invited to join the rest of the amateur performers that evening.
They were unable to leave their place during the concert but they sat on the counter during a lull and leaned towards the band and sang a few choruses, with Rosie singing silently between them.
On a brief respite from his duties, Wesley and others came in, stood and watched for a while then went to bed. His tired eyes didn’t wander to the kitchens where Ethel was stacking used plates ready for washing. He watched Kate and Rosie for a moment wondering whether there was any point showing them his snap of Ethel but he turned away. The chances of them having seen her here were so slight it was hardly worth thinking about. He and his men were too tired to enjoy the entertainment and tomorrow they had to leave before first light. Rest was more important than entertainment or false hopes. He left as Ethel came out of the kitchen area and went among the tables to gather more dishes.
When months passed and he still had no news of Ethel, Albert began to worry. It was impossible to find out where she was stationed. With the war continuing almost world wide, she could be anywhere or she could be dead. With all the talk of spies, and notices being painted on walls all over Britain demanding a ‘Second Front Now’, the veil of secrecy had become even thicker and impossible to break.
He remembered then that he’d been given the addresses of Kate’s and Rosie’s families and, finding the addresses neatly written in his diary, he wrote to them both asking if they could tell him her present address. It was obvious – he hoped – that the loss of contact between them was because he was writing to the wrong place or had misremembered the numbers and letters that made up the forces’ postal information. A mistake in the number could mean that the letter ended up in lost letters and was eventually destroyed. The addresses were deliberately obscure to prevent the enemy from learning the distribution of the fighting men and women.
He received a reply within days from Rosie’s Nan, who told him she couldn’t help. She sent him a cake as an apology, but said she had promised Ethel not to disclose any information about her to anyone. He then wrote again, including an unsealed letter to Ethel, asking Mrs Dreen to readdress the letter to her. The letter was brief, asking only whether she was well and asking her for her address if she wanted to hear from him.
The ship containing the mail bag in which the letter was carried was sunk just outside the docks. But when Rosie heard from her Nan, she was told about the letter from Albert and with Rosie’s Nan having an address where she could reach him, Ethel wrote to him at once. She was still feeling dreadfully homesick and not hearing from either Albert or Baba was making it worse.
The Baileys, aware that Ethel would not know about her father’s stroke, wondered whether they should write to her via her friend. Once again it was Rosie’s Nan who passed on the information. Because of moving around, weeks passed before they were in contact again and Ethel learned about her father’s serious stroke. It was almost the end of 1943 when she received the news and was told they were again being posted.
Her first thought was to apply for leave but as they were down for transfer there was no chance of being allowed home. Besides, she knew that once she went home she and Kate and Rosie would be separated and might never get the same posting again. Her need to see her mother was strong, but the close friendship between the girls and the responsibility they all felt for their involvement in the Service To Those Who Serve, was stronger.
‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ she joked as she explained her feelings to the others. ‘Remember miserable Walter Phillips? That was his mantra.’
‘What’s a mantra?’ asked Kate.
‘A thing Spanish women wear on their heads.’
‘No, silly,’ Kate laughed. ‘That’s a mantilla.’
‘No it isn’t. That’s what they put in ice-cream.’
Laughing at their nonsense, then sobering, Ethel asked, ‘I wonder where the war has taken the old misery?’
‘I don’t care as long as he keeps away from us,’ Kate said. ‘It’s my Vincent I want to see.’
‘You do? Why didn’t you tell us?’ Rosie teased.
‘Vincent. I’ve just remembered, my father’s motorbike was a Vincent.’ For some reason this was funny too.
Remembering the motorbike and its powerful engine that seemed to reflect the strength of her father, Ethel thought about home. She had been away a very long time, so much had happened, and she was overwhelmed with homesickness. It surprised her and she tried to hide what she considered her weakness from her friends.
It wasn’t her family she missed, she tried to convince herself, it was just a place to call home, now she no longer had The Dell to return to. Once she had left the service and set herself up in a place of her own, she would soon build a life for herself. It would be filled only with people she loved. Rosie and Kate for a start. And Rosie’s Nan, and Mr and Mrs Banner. They were the nucleus from which she would start again. She tried not to think about Baba and Albert.
The Allies had landed in Sicily earlier in the year and once a base had been achieved and the communications ship had landed its cargo of radios and telephones and all the essentials for allowing contact between the commanders of the battle fronts, the Naafi was there providing hot food and drinks for the thousands of men piling on to the beaches, establishing a base and spreading out to drive out the enemy.
It was to Italy that Ethel, Kate and Rosie were told they were to go. But it was not to be.