The hours of duty for the three girls were seven a.m. until eleven p.m. with a few hours off during the afternoon. For those whose turn it was to light the boiler, the morning began before six. Their first task was to deliver tea and snacks to the hangars for the men on early shift. The trolley was not easy to push with its small wheels and the occasional expanse of grass, and behind it, Rosie’s small figure was almost horizontal as she struggled to manoeuvre it over the uneven surface. From some directions the cart with its urn, boxes of snacks and cups and saucers seemed to be moving unaided. Men usually saw her coming and ran to help, her shyness making her dread as well as welcome their assistance with its accompanying teasing.
There was a great deal of cleaning to do: besides the piles of dishes to be washed and dried and stacked in their places, there were tables, cupboards and floors to be scrubbed. They were so tired that on their afternoons off they slept. The occupant of the fourth bed in their tent had not returned. Walter had been persuaded by the flirting of the glamorous Kate to find them some extra blankets and they had dragged the beds together for added warmth and slept in reasonable comfort. By the end of their first week they were rested and able to consider going out during their hours of freedom.
Walter came in daily to inspect the books and deal with the money. He attempted mild flirtation with both Kate and Ethel, who played up to him in the hope he might deal kindly with any requests. He often asked for tea and cake and they all insisted that he paid for them as he constantly reminded them that they were on ration the same as the rest of the population and shouldn’t take more than their entitlement.
‘There are perks of the job,’ he said smiling at Kate, ‘if you know the right way about it.’
‘Interesting…’ said Kate.
Ethel refused to go into town. ‘I don’t mind a walk through the fields and into one of the villages, but I don’t fancy town.’
They pleaded, but to no avail. Ethel was adamant. Her worst nightmare was walking along a road and coming face to face with her father. She didn’t know how helpful the service would be if her parents asked to be told her whereabouts. She had lied about her next of kin, giving a completely false name and address, telling the board she had been brought up by an aunt who was now dead. Perhaps they would check, but she depended on there being so many people arriving and departing that checks would be minimal.
Remembering Ethel’s hasty, last minute arrival into their railway carriage, and the way she had held back at each station, Kate and Rosie guessed she was avoiding someone. They had all spoken a little about their families, but Ethel had not been very forthcoming. She was running away from someone or something, rather than joining the Naafi out of a need to support the war effort. But who or what they couldn’t guess.
They got on well but they hadn’t known her long and weren’t sure enough of her friendship to question her. ‘Let’s give it a few more weeks,’ Kate suggested when she and Rosie discussed it. ‘Then, if she hasn’t mentioned it, we’ll be bold and ask.’
‘I agree. We might be able to help at some time, if we know.’
They had been on the camp for a couple of weeks, and when Ethel refused an invitation to go to the pictures with two of the RAF boys it seemed a good opportunity to bring up the subject of her wariness. Kate waited until she and Ethel were alone and asked quietly, ‘Who are you running away from, Ethel?’
‘Running away? Don’t be soft.’
‘Boyfriend? Someone you’ve upset?’ Kate persisted. ‘Come on, we’re stuck here together and we have to be friends and trust each other. And Rosie and I might be able to help if we know the facts. Run away from a boyfriend, have you?’
‘Hardly. In fact my boyfriend ran away from me,’ she said bitterly. She was standing looking out of the canteen window, a duster in her hand. ‘Rosie’s coming.’ She pointed through the window at the hurrying figure of Rosie, pushing the trolley she had taken to the hangars with the mid-morning drinks and snacks. Kate looked through the now clean, shiny windows and waited. Perhaps Ethel didn’t want to discuss the problem in front of Rosie. But when Rosie came she talked to them both.
‘My father is a foul-tempered bully. He’s always fighting, threatening, getting his own way because he’s known as a hard man,’ she began.
‘You mean he hits you?’
‘Not badly, until earlier this year.’ She paused, her mouth working nervously, obviously having difficulty relating the next sentence. ‘My sister Glenys was sixteen years older than me. My brother Sid was fifteen years older. I was a mistake!’
‘Your father took it out on you as if it was your fault?’ Rosie coaxed.
‘No, he seemed protective, but nothing more. I was pushed around a bit when he was drunk, but no, I had a good childhood really. Dad was gruff but never unkind. In fact he ignored me most of the time. Being so much younger than my brother and sister I was protected and loved. It was like having two sets of parents looking after me. Dad was away a lot, long hours driving the lorry, and he was in prison on occasions, for unruly behaviour of one sort or another, mostly fighting. They usually managed to keep me well out of the way when Dad was home and in one of his rages.
‘When he was away there was only Mam, Glenys, Sid and me. No other family and few friends called. In fact, even when he was home he was rarely in the house. There was the garden where Mam and he worked for hours every day. When he wasn’t driving or working outside, he was at the pub. That was my life and I never thought about the different lives other people led.’ She paused and her two friends waited in silence for her to continue. ‘Then… then something made him really angry, he went wild, forbade me to see Wesley and drove him away. I didn’t believe it at first but Wesley was so frightened by his violence on that awful day that he never came back. He left and joined the Naafi without a word. And soon after,’ she paused again before saying the words that still seemed impossible to believe, ‘my sister killed herself. From then on everything got much worse.’
The two friends muttered conventional words of sympathy and waited.
‘It was the week of my birthday when it started. Something had happened that made Glenys kill herself rather than face it, and no one will tell me what it was. My father came home in a drunken state and attacked Mam and my brother and called me horrible names. Mam wouldn’t go to hospital and refused to say who was responsible, although many guessed. Sid left without telling us where he was going and we haven’t heard from him since. Dad was really out of his mind with rage. He dislocated my shoulder, throwing me against the wall, knocked Wesley almost senseless and beat my mother so I thought she was dead. Then I found my sister in that barn.’
‘You found her?’ Rosie gasped. ‘Oh Ethel, you poor thing.’
‘My father started watching every move I made. I wasn’t allowed to see Wesley Daniels any more though he and I were more or less engaged to be married. If I was seen talking to a boy, the boy was threatened and told to stay away from me. Thank goodness we needed the money and I was allowed to work. Apart from the café I wasn’t allowed out except when Mam went with me, and Mam didn’t want to leave the house. Dad met me from work whenever he could. I didn’t know when, so I was too afraid to do anything except go straight home as fast as I could.’
‘Your mother didn’t stop him?’ Disbelief showed in Rosie’s wide blue eyes.
‘I think she was afraid of upsetting my father even more.’
‘Didn’t you have any friends who would help you?’
‘I thought I had Wesley. I was convinced that once he recovered from the beating my father gave him he’d be back to take me away, put everything right. He and I have been friends since we were about seven years old. I thought I could always rely on Wesley. But after that hiding from Dad he went away too. His mother relented and told me he had joined the Naafi and was serving on a ship but I don’t know any more than that. He probably can’t face me after running away like he did.’
‘So you ran away and joined up and you’re still scared of being found by your father and taken home?’
‘I’m never going back. I’d kill myself first, like Glenys. I want to know what went wrong, what turned our home into such a battlefield, but I’m not curious enough to ever go back. I don’t know where I’ll go on my weekends off, but it won’t be anywhere near my family.’
‘My Nan’ll have you, don’t worry about that,’ Rosie told her fervently.
‘Don’t stay in hiding, Ethel. Come to the pictures. You can’t let him ruin your life. If we see your father we’ll protect you,’ Kate said.
Ethel laughed. ‘You’d run if he said boo! He’s over six feet tall and his red hair denotes his temper. Red hair and temper don’t always go together but in my father’s case they do, believe me.’
‘Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel are on at the pictures,’ Kate coaxed.
‘Nan sent me some home-made coconut ice…’ Rosie added enticingly. Food was always the deciding factor, and they went.
There was a lorry departing when they left the guard house, having declared their intentions; it waited for them around the corner of the lane and gave them a lift.
It was the first of many such outings as Ethel’s confidence grew. They began to know the young airmen, accepted dates, and watched as the planes took off, then with beating hearts counted those returning, dreading the homecomers being fewer than those who had left.
The evenings in the canteen were enjoyable. There was a piano and always someone who could play. Duggie came when he was free and would help a still-shy Rosie to clear the tables and stack the dishes near the sink.
Ethel sometimes stood and watched the young men and wondered how they could appear so carefree when at any moment they could be called to climb into their aircraft and set out to take part in a battle, fight for their lives.
For all three girls the worst time of their day was the early morning. Dressing in the tent, where the heater had gone cold during the night and with not enough time to justify relighting it, washing in cold water and having to wait for that first cup of tea. They took it in turns to get up earlier to walk through the darkness and open the canteen to get the fire lit and the heaters on.
It was an unpleasant start to the day, that solitary walk across two fields, pushing their way through dripping hedges and across grass that was white, stiff and crackling with frost. The camouflaged building offered no light, no reminder that there were people near. The wait for the wood, then the coal, to slowly catch light, warming stiff, painful hands, and the long wait for the kettle to boil for that first cuppa were a constant nightmare. The girls used water from the bad-tempered boiler even though they were not supposed to. Its occasional blow-back, rattling the cups on the shelves, had Walter or one or two light sleepers coming in to complain, with a cup of tea offered to them as consolation.
Another tedious job was filling the boiler and the tea-urn, ladling it in and out with a heavy saucepan. Rosie, being smaller than the others, found it very difficult and had to climb a chair. She was always grateful when one of the lads came to help her. Duggie hadn’t been around for a few days and she wondered if he had been transferred to another airfield.
One morning when it was her turn to light up, it was frighteningly dark, not a glimmer of light from anywhere, no moon, the horizon not yet showing. It was unnervingly still, mist draping the hedges like curtains that refused to open, and Rosie had a creepy sensation that she was being followed.
She looked around her but her eyes were unable to pierce the gloom, and the torch she carried, with its thin beam, simply emphasized the darkness. Then near the hedge, a few feet away, she was alarmed to see a white shape moving slowly as she went into the second field. It was the size of a football and was floating about five feet from the ground. Trying not to be afraid, she continued walking. The whiteness was remarkable and she couldn’t think what it could be.
Pushing through the second hedge, she looked around but it had disappeared. She ran the last few yards and locked herself inside the canteen building with a sigh of relief. She saw Walter later that morning and told him about her experience. If she expected sympathy and a promise to investigate she was disappointed. He laughed and told her to take more water with it and stop wasting his time.
Later that day a young man came in for the lunchtime break. Removing a balaclava from his head to reveal a white bandage, he said, ‘Sorry if I frightened you, Rosie. I often go out early and watch the day break.’ It was Duggie.
‘What have you done?’ Rosie asked, at once concerned.
Duggie refused to explain, insisting he had been bitten by a dog.
‘A dog, on your head?’
‘A very tall dog!’ he laughed.
‘Why didn’t you call me, say something?’ Rosie asked.
‘I wanted to but I thought it might frighten you even more.’ He gave a twisted grin and added, ‘I could see by the way you were bent forward and taking great scuttling strides that I’d frightened you.’
‘Nonsense,’ Rosie grinned. ‘I just couldn’t wait to get started on yesterday’s cold ashes!’
She was blushing furiously as he smiled at her and wondered why she had been able to answer to him so freely. She usually avoided conversations. ‘It must have been because he’s very kind,’ she told Kate and Ethel later.
‘Interesting,’ said Kate with one of her broad winks at Ethel.
Duggie appeared twice more on her early mornings, and on each occasion he walked with her and followed her into the canteen, lit the fire for her and dealt with the cantankerous water heater. Once he gave her a bar of chocolate and, starving as she always was, she kept it all day before sharing it with her friends. She had never received a gift from a man before and she marvelled at it, kept the fact that Duggie had given it to her as a secret to enjoy. They chatted easily as they worked, and she learned that he was the youngest in his family, with three older sisters.
As the time for the bandage to be removed drew nearer she knew that it would also mean he would have to return to his place in the cockpit of one of the ferocious little Spitfires and have to get up there and protect the airfield against enemy bombers. That thought frightened her as no other had. Reading about the war in newspapers and even seeing it on newsreels at the pictures was frightening. But the real thing, involving people you knew, liked and cared for, was quite different.
There were air raids on most nights but so far the airfield hadn’t been bombed. The planes were on their way to other targets. Each time the fighter planes took off as the enemy bombers headed towards them, to defend the airfield and also to avoid the bombers catching them on the ground – an easy target.
The area around the town had suffered casualties though, and during their time off they were upset to witness the scenes as people carried what they could from damaged houses, and areas were fenced off and notices were placed warning of buildings in imminent danger of collapse. There was an air raid once as they were heading for their bus and they had to go down a shelter with the rest of the shoppers.
When they emerged they were distressed to see stretchers being carried across rubble-strewn areas that had once been neat and orderly streets. Men were using anything they could find, and in many cases their bare hands, to search the rubble for survivors. A dog wandered around barking occasionally, searching for his home and family. A cat sat on a wall jerkily washing itself, as though to say life goes on and we mustn’t let things slide.
Having overcome their tiredness and settled into the routine of their work, the three girls enjoyed their trips into town. It wasn’t a daily treat as their wages were too low for such extravagance. Rosie and Kate sometimes received postal orders from home, and Rosie’s Nan kept them supplied with food parcels on a regular basis. Kate occasionally treated them to afternoon tea when she had extra cash. She liked dressing up and sitting in a café, looking at the airmen, soldiers and sailors passing by. She enjoyed flirting, but during their visits to town never left them to go out with one of her conquests. They always went back to camp together. Ethel and the shy Rosie considered her a good, reliable friend. She frequently complained abut her lack of money but was generous with her friends when her purse was full.
When their first weekend leave came, Ethel went home with Rosie. Mrs Dreen welcomed her and enjoyed spoiling the two girls with breakfast in bed and silly luxuries, like Christmas crackers she had saved for a special occasion and ‘lucky dip’ parcels containing small gifts of a hand-made handkerchief and a knitted scarf each.
A letter came while they were there. Rosie picked it up off the mat and handed it to her nan after looking curiously at the handwriting. Mrs Dreen hastily pushed it out of sight. ‘Someone I was at school with,’ she explained vaguely.
Ethel imagined having a letter and tried not to think of her own home with its air of fear and anxiety. She enjoyed her days with Rosie but a part of her grieved for the place she called home. In spite of all the problems, she wanted to see her family. She had no news of her brother and there was no way she could receive any.
They went back to camp with a basket of goodies to share with Kate. And when they shared their news of their first weekend home, Ethel was enthusiastic in her descriptions of Mrs Dreen’s kindness.
Money was far from plentiful for any of the girls. Their wages, which were little more than a pound with a few shillings more for Ethel as cook, had to provide for their entertainment and travel during their days off as well as items of clothing. The uniform supplied only included two blouses, a skirt and a jacket, plus the blue overalls they wore while at work. Everything else they had to find for themselves. Ethel had no generous parents to help and for her money was difficult to manage.
She never complained about being hard-up. She didn’t smoke but bought her allocation of cigarettes and gave them one at a time to airmen who were without any. She never wrote letters and she went out only when persuaded by Kate or Rosie to go into town to see a film or have tea in a café; she was still nervous of being found.
Rosie spent money on postage stamps, writing home to Nan and to many of her friends. She went to the town whenever Kate went, and one afternoon was persuaded to buy a lipstick which she put on amid much hilarity by pursing her lips, while Kate was demonstrating the better way. By the time she had blotted it and rubbed it in there was little to be seen.
Regarding money, Kate was different. She was always broke. She wrote several letters each week to her parents and friends, one each Monday pleaded for her parents to give her a ten bob note for the weekend, which they often did. Whenever there was news of a shop receiving supplies of make-up or other toiletries, she dashed into town, usually scrounging a lift from the willing airmen, and bought all she could. Make-up, soap, perfume, curling lotion, plus a secret formula of bleach for her hair, which she did herself. No matter how late they were getting into bed, she never failed to remove her make-up, cream her face and hands and roll up her hair in curlers ready for the following day.
Her looks were her absolute priority and from the pleasure given to the men by her cheerful, saucy attitude towards them, the dedication and expense were justified. Her cheerful face was a tonic to the men on the camp, her flirting a relief from the tragedies unfolding all around them.
Ethel neither received nor wrote letters. She considered writing to Wesley at his home address but the risk of her parents learning of her whereabouts stayed her hand. Whenever new personnel arrived at the camp she questioned them, asking if any of them had met Wesley Daniels, but so far she had not been lucky. Nor was there a simple way for him to find her.
It was easy to get to know some of the young men on the station. Coming in for snacks and for the small items such as combs, hair cream, shaving soap, pens, ink, writing paper and all the other necessities, or just sitting to chat to others during the evenings, their faces became familiar. Some flirted, others just wanted to talk about their families, and the three girls became adept at saying the right thing as they admired photographs of loved ones. Very few grumbled or related their fears, although there were a few who had received ‘Dear John’ letters from girls they had hoped to return to one day. These the girls comforted, listening to their grieved stories and helping them to accept what they couldn’t change.
Duggie, still wearing his white bandage, came often to talk to Rosie, who still blushed when she saw him, sometimes hiding when her embarrassment became acute. He soon learnt the routine and when it was Rosie’s turn to light the dreaded boiler and fill the urn he was often there to give a hand.
Kate had many dates, but with only one evening off each week, it was difficult to fit them all in, so most were refused. She didn’t want to ‘get serious’ she told Ethel. ‘I just want to have a bit of fun and make sure the boys do too. When I marry it’ll be for love but he’ll have to be rich too!’
Rosie refused dates to the few who invited her. She was too inexperienced, and avoided situations she felt unable to manage. The only man she spent time talking to was Duggie and it was some time before she realized he asked more questions about Ethel than herself. She felt a slight disappointment but soon shrugged it aside. Who wouldn’t prefer the confident, outgoing Ethel to someone like herself?
Ethel had plenty of invitations too but she refused them all, although she was getting braver as days passed without a sign of her father. Perhaps she would be safe here after all. She began going out more. Sometimes with one of the girls, occasionally with an airman but only as part of a group, never as a couple.
One day she left the camp alone after the lunchtime shift and walked to the bus stop. It was the first time she had done this and she felt vulnerable. A lorry slowed as the driver recognized her and offered her a lift. She hesitated, then, as she saw the bus approaching she thanked them and said she was meeting a friend on the bus.
‘Why did I do that?’ she asked Rosie when she got back to camp. ‘They were only being friendly.’
‘You’re still thinking about your family, I expect,’ Rosie surmised. ‘Until you find out the reason for their behaviour you won’t be free of fear.’
‘It isn’t that I presume every man is going to be violent like my father.’
‘Not violent, necessarily. It could be because your father forbade you to talk to any male, clearly suspicious of their… non-violent intentions?’ she grinned cheekily, her blue eyes wide.
‘I can’t be that stupid, can I?’ Ethel frowned.
‘Only one way to find out. Next time accept and thank them with a smile,’ Rosie advised.
When she next went into town, determined to take Rosie’s advice, her resolve was wasted. The bus came before there was any sign of a vehicle leaving the camp. It was on the way home that she was offered a lift. Losing her nerve in a way she couldn’t explain, and which made her angry with herself, she thanked them and shook her head.
There had been an air raid which she guessed might have delayed the bus, and as she watched the lorry disappear she wished she hadn’t been so foolish. She tapped her cold feet impatiently, hugged her shoulders for warmth. Where was the bus? After ten minutes she knew it wasn’t coming and, aware she would be late for her shift, she began to walk. Rain began, slowly at first, then in an increasing downpour that threatened to soak her to her skin. The lorry had stopped somewhere and it overtook her again just outside the town. The driver slowed and repeated his offer of a lift. Without thinking she shook her head and waved them on. There was a corner not far off and as the lorry slowed to take it a man jumped off the back and waited for her.
‘I know a short cut,’ he said after introducing himself as Dave. ‘You’ll be late on shift if you take the road.’
He led her along the road then cut through a hedge and began to walk at the side of a ploughed field. Once out of sight of the road, he put an arm around her and tried to kiss her. His face was rough and his breath was tainted. She pushed him away and he pleaded, then grew angry.
‘Ice maiden they called you. Did you know that, Miss Frosty Ethel Twomey? There’s bets on for who’ll melt you, but I don’t think I’ll bother to try,’ he shouted as she hurried away from him, across the field in the direction of the camp.
What is the matter with me? she asked herself as she walked across fields of soggy, beaten-down grass. Her feet were so cold she couldn’t feel them. Her uniform skirt was already soaked and sticking to her thighs at every step. Kate managed to stay friends with the boys who tried to go further than she wanted. She had the skill to deal with these incidents in a friendly way. Even Rosie managed to keep her dignity and smile her way out of embarrassing teasing and the occasional stolen kiss. Why did she have to lose her temper and make a fool of herself? It would probably have been nothing more than a kiss, a hand to hold, a moment’s fun. Now she had added to her reputation as an ice maiden. She thought of her father and blamed him for her inadequacy with men. Blaming him wouldn’t help her now. She had to deal with it, face it and overcome her stupid attitude or she was in for a miserable war.
The walk was longer than she had imagined, as twice her progress was restricted by barbed wire and she had to make a detour. Her legs and feet were painful and stiff with the cold, her forehead was hurting with the icy wind that blew the rain against her face, tormented her and tangled her hair. Discomfort and anger at her stupidity made her brown eyes look heavy against the paleness of her skin.
Without waiting for explanations, Rosie ran a bath, the maximum five inches. It was not enough to thoroughly warm her, the water was tepid, the bottom of the bath never really warming up. Walter heard the geyser roaring and the water running as he passed the window and shouted in complaint. ‘This isn’t the time for bathing. Don’t you know—’
‘—there’s a war on,’ the others finished for him.
They were still sleeping in the tent, which they had made more comfortable by the addition of a second heater and more blankets, when December came. By this time they were well in control of the job and each girl had settled to do the jobs they did best. So it was a surprise when Walter Phillips came in one day to warn them not to be sloppy and to make sure everything was in good order.
‘What d’you mean?’ Ethel demanded. ‘What’s wrong with the way we do things?’
‘It’s good but it’s got to be better because the Area Manager’s on his way.’
The three girls looked at each other and groaned.
‘No afternoon off then,’ Kate said.
‘At least we can ask about getting out of that damned tent,’ Ethel added. ‘It’s winter and soon we’ll have snow and the tent will be like an igloo. Can you imagine tunnelling out through six feet of snow one morning?’
‘We’d better ask Walter for a compass!’ Rosie joked.
The arrival of Albert Pugh was an anticlimax. Instead of the dragon roaring complaints, he walked in unannounced and didn’t introduce himself, just called them outside to see the arrival of their new accommodation. A small building built of arched corrugated iron was being lowered from the back of a lorry to be placed on the ground. It was in sections and, before the afternoon was over, the team of engineers had it erected and complete with beds, lockers and a stove.
No one seemed to be in charge, the group of men all worked together, each doing what was necessary to get the job done. Albert Pugh was simply one of the gang, serious and hardworking.
‘Blimey, all this done and no foreman with a whistle!’ Kate teased. ‘There must be a war on!’
‘I bet all this is getting done in a rush so the visiting Area Manager doesn’t come here and find us poor helpless girls sleeping in a tent,’ Ethel said loudly.
‘I am the Area Manager,’ the serious-looking individual who had been working all afternoon told them. ‘And I have been trying since before you arrived to get this hut delivered.’
‘Thanks,’ the girls muttered.
‘Is it bomb-proof?’ asked Ethel with a grin.
‘You’ll go into the slit trench wearing your tin helmets as before,’ he replied.
‘No sense of humour,’ whispered Kate sadly.
Albert Pugh surprised them even more the following morning by being at the canteen before them, having the fire in the range blazing merrily and a kettle boiling for their cups of tea. When Ethel filled the trolley and set off for the hangars with tea for the engineers and ground staff, he went with her.
‘Is there anything you want to report?’ he asked.
‘Not now we have somewhere warm to sleep and to spread our possessions.’
‘I’m really sorry about the tent. These buildings are slow to come and they’re allocated according to need.’
‘That puts us in our place then, doesn’t it?’ she retorted.
‘You should have been allotted extra pay, hard-living allowance. I’ll see if I can claim back pay for you.’
She glanced at him, his face shadowed in the gloom of the early morning. He looked sad and she at once apologized.
‘Sorry, I’m sure you’re doing your best.’
‘He was in Norway,’ one of the men told her later.
‘During the evacuation?’
‘They were trying to repulse the Germans but were attacked while they were still unprepared.’
‘They were overrun?’
The man nodded his dark head. ‘Several of the Naafi staff including his two best friends were injured. Naafi men stood beside the soldiers and helped fight their way through as they got away in front of the German invasion. He saw much of the fighting, some terrible deaths, and he’s finding it hard to forget.’
Ethel saw Albert later and mentioned the tragedy of Norway, believing that it was better to talk about things rather than keep them burning away inside.
‘Don’t forget,’ she said. ‘Why should you forget? Just make sure you remember the good times as well as the tragedy at the end.’
He told her that one of the men had been blown up as he ran in search of bread, only yards from where he himself had been standing. Ethel listened, saying very little, just trying to make him believe she understood.
‘It should have been me,’ he said more than once.
She spent several hours talking to the sad, subdued man who seemed to carry such a heavy burden. She even told him about Wesley and the death of her sister, managing to extract from him the fact that he had no girlfriend. She wondered afterwards why it had been important. He was comforting, telling her to let go of the past, think positively about the future. ‘That’s especially important now,’ he reminded her. ‘To look back just distorts everything. We have to go on, accepting what happens and believing that the future will be good. Forget who you used to be, and the problems that person had to face. Think of the woman you are now, not the same, I’m sure. You’d deal with those problems differently now, wouldn’t you?’
She had to agree about that. She was stronger, better able to cope. Although thoughts of her father in one of his rages still made her quiver.
After a week Albert left and Ethel was sorry. She was beginning to think that if anyone could make her forget the misery of her home life, he was the one to do it. As well as sadness there was kindness in his face and his thoughtfulness had already been revealed to them. He had made sure their supply of dry kindling was topped up and had helped move the heavy tables when they were giving the place their weekly extra clean, tackling the corners and getting into awkward places with scrubbing brushes.
Talking to Albert had helped her to open up to others and she began to accept more invitations to go to the weekly concerts and dances with Kate and Rosie. The weekly dances were popular – even those who couldn’t dance enjoyed the cheerful atmosphere. On duty or not, they all helped set up the counter ready for when the men came back. They would be selling snacks and tea and coffee, and, with everything ready, they felt able to spend an hour or two at the concert or dance. Until one day when they had arranged to go to the concert with Duggie – now minus the head bandage – and a couple of his friends. Walter arrived and told them firmly that the concerts were not for them.
‘You have to get the canteen ready for when it’s over,’ he said emphatically.
‘We’ve done all that, you miserable worm,’ Ethel protested.
‘There’s always cleaning to do. The cupboards could do with a scrub. I noticed spilt sugar – that will encourage mice. Cleanliness is our priority.’ The girls looked at the spotlessly clean shelves, the shining glasses and china and the well-scrubbed tables and floors, then each with one hand on a hip they looked at him with tightened lips.
‘And while I’m here,’ he went on, avoiding their eyes, ‘I might remind you that you aren’t getting the right number of cakes for the ingredients you’re given. There’s too much margarine going on the sandwiches too. We are rationed, remember! And we have to make a profit. It goes back into the fund for more facilities for the armed forces. You aren’t here for fun!’
‘I’m surprised he knows the word,’ muttered Kate.
While laughter echoed across the field from the Friday night concert, Walter gave instructions.
‘Flat baking tins lined with pastry, mixed fruit soaked overnight and spread over it evenly. You’ll cut it into thirty-two pieces and sell it at twopence a slice. Right?’
‘Right, Walter, we’ll do that first thing tomorrow.’
‘You’ll do it now. The fruit has to soak overnight, you aren’t deaf as well as lazy, are you?’
‘What?’ Ethel said with a look of gormless innocence.
‘I’m going into town and I want the pastry made and the fruit in soak when I get back at ten thirty, right?’
‘There’s no way it’ll take three of us to do that,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll do it. Go and enjoy the rest of the concert and tell me all about it later.’
It was that evening Ethel began to get to know Duggie. He had kept seats for the three girls but as the time approached for the curtains to open, he’d had to give them up. He stood against the wall still hoping that the girls would appear. As the curtains opened jerkily on the first singing group, he sat near the end of a row and settled to watch the performance.
There were still a few seats available and Kate and Ethel split up, promising to meet afterwards to walk back to their new hut together. Ethel found herself sitting next to Duggie. In her determination to live down her nickname of ice maiden, knowing he was a friend of Rosie, she talked to him as though he were a friend. They commented on the acts and she offered him one of the cigarettes she habitually carried.
He took one and offered to light hers. She explained that she didn’t smoke, but kept some for when the airmen were broke and in need of one.
At the end of the evening, he asked her to meet him the following week at the dance.
‘I don’t think I can.’ Excuses were buzzing around in her head. What would Rosie think?
‘Please. I don’t know a soul here, and,’ he teased, ‘I miss my sisters something chronic.’
‘What about Rosie?’ she asked. ‘I thought you and she were friends.’
‘We are. I help her when I can. But I don’t feel anything more than friendship, whereas with you that could easily change…’
She thought of Wesley and hesitated, shook her head, but then changed her mind. A dance – learning the steps so familiar to the other girls – would be fun, and her life had certainly lacked fun.
Wesley had left her, abandoned her to a violent father who had almost pulled her arm out of its socket, and a mother who was too weak to help her. Without an explanation he had walked away, leaving her with a father whose heart was inexplicably filled with hatred.
Then the momentary resentment faded. She told herself she loved Wesley and he loved her. There were so many unexplained things connected with her sister’s death. Wesley’s disappearance was only one of them. She hadn’t heard from Sid up to the time she had left home. There was so much she didn’t understand. Albert had advised her to put aside the past but how could she until she knew all that had happened? There would be a good reason for Wesley leaving her without a word. She had to trust him. He would explain when they met. There was no harm in meeting Duggie and she would tell Wesley all about him.
‘Please come,’ Duggie pleaded. ‘It’s only a dance.’
‘I can’t dance.’
‘I’ll teach you.’
‘As long as Walter Phillips isn’t around I’ll try,’ she promised, knowing it was unlikely. ‘But I’ll have to be like Cinderella and run away before the end. We have to be ready for customers who come for late-night snacks. Hungry lot, you airmen.’
Over the following days she worried about the dance. She didn’t want to go. Her enforced new courage was leaving her. She couldn’t dance and no amount of confidence would make that sorry fact go away. She would be unsure of herself, and make a fool of herself, embarrass Duggie. Going to the dance with Rosie and Kate was one thing. Watching others, enjoying the atmosphere and the music. It was different altogether to go with Duggie. It was a proper date and Wesley wouldn’t like it. And there was the need to tell Rosie, and that was something she didn’t want to do. She couldn’t go, she wouldn’t go, but what excuse could she invent?
During an afternoon off when the weather was dry and pleasantly sunny, the three girls went into the fields and gathered holly and ivy and decorated the canteen as well as they could in preparation for Christmas. On another day, they went into town and bought Christmas cards. For Ethel the occasions were melancholy. Apart from Kate’s parents and Rosie’s Nan, she had no one to whom she could send a card.
Christmas had never been fun in the Twomey household and the only happy memories were of visits to the Baileys’ farm to see the cheerful, overheated room with its great log fire and the decorative displays taken from the hedges. And to admire the tree, under which there were always gifts for herself and Glenys and Sid.
New arrivals came fairly frequently as the losses of both men and machines meant the need for replacements. One of the first things the new recruits suffered was a medical examination and batch of injections, and sometimes they reacted badly. The girls had their first experience of this the night before the dance. That evening, a line of young men stood in front of the bar, flirting and making jokes, when without warning, as Ethel began to hand them their food, one disappeared. Then another. She jumped up and looked over the bar and saw they had fallen to the floor in a faint. Before Ethel could get around to see what was wrong, another had keeled over. Some of the ‘veterans’, who were all of twenty-two years old, explained to them that the injections they had all been given were beginning to take effect.
The stricken airmen were helped to chairs, heads on folded arms resting on tables, hushing their apologies, trying to make them less embarrassed. Duggie stayed for a while and, in a lull, Ethel said, ‘Better forget the dance tomorrow night, you’ll need to look after this lot.’ She was relieved. There was now no need to explain to Rosie she was going on a date with her friend Duggie.
‘Nonsense, I’ve been looking forward to it for days,’ he said, rubbing a finger slowly down her cheek and staring into her eyes in a way that made her body respond in an alarming manner.
She told Rosie about her date but not who she was going to meet.
Albert came on a brief visit to check the stock and inspect the books. She was about to climb a ladder to replace a bulb and he took it from her and did the job for her. Then he relieved one of the girls of the job of moving heavy tables to wash the floor, promising to return to put them back in their places.
‘Decent bloke,’ she overheard one of the other assistants remark. ‘Always willing to muck in, do more than he’s paid for.’
The dance was held in a rather primitive hall that was in serious need of repair. There was no band that night, only a young pianist who played without music, competently dealing with all requests, sometimes singing as well. The hall was hot and crowded, the people more than the heaters contributing to the heat, and the smiles on the young faces reflecting their usual determination to have fun.
Air raids were always a regular part of their nights. It was unusual not to be woken two or three times and have to leave their beds and make their way outside, where the planes had already taken off and were going into the attack. They donned their heavy coats and tin helmets and dropped down into a slit trench and watched the air battles taking place. It was late December, as German bombers set fire to London with parachute mines followed by hundreds of incendiaries, that the first bombs fell on the airfield.
The screaming of engines, the rattle of anti-aircraft guns and the occasional crunch of bombs exploding filled the night, and searchlights lit the scene to help the gunners. Outside, with no escape from the noise and the terrifying battle taking place above them, the girls crouched in the slit trench but were unable to resist looking up into the dark skies. A voice frequently told them to ‘Keep yer heads down unless you want shrapnel ruining yer lovely faces, girls.’ When the raiders were overhead and earth erupted in huge moving mountains around them, they didn’t need telling. They felt as vulnerable as the men in the planes once incendiaries had fallen to light the field like day. The raid was more alarming now they knew many of the pilots in the air.
A stick of bombs fell, straddling the buildings, landing either side of the terrified girls. The sound of engines filled their ears, and they covered them in a futile attempt to deaden the sounds. The flames of several fires lit the airfield, and the madness went on and on, then seemed to die down a little. They cautiously removed their hands from their ears and heard footsteps running towards them. There was a lull as planes moved away from their vicinity. Then, as they heard the guttural sound of a plane increasing its speed, coming down and down, filling their heads with terrifying noise, to which was added the unmistakable squeal of a falling bomb, a flying figure landed on top of them just as the second of another stick of bombs fell.
‘What’s that?’ Rosie’s quivering voice asked. ‘Ethel, help me, I think there’s a body landed on top of us.’
‘Hello, ladies, what a wonderful place for an unscheduled landing. I’m George Morgan. Who are you?’
Slowly things became quiet as the flames flickered and died and the planes disappeared from the skies. Stiffly, Rosie, Ethel and a tearful Kate emerged from the filth of the earth and rubble with which they had been half buried. The young man who had arrived so unexpectedly and who Rosie had first thought to be a dead body, stood up and helped them out of the trench. Not waiting for explanations, the three girls hurried to the canteen and began making a brew. The trolley was quickly stocked, and the canteen filled up while the newly arrived George Morgan helped Rosie manoeuvre the trolley between bombed buildings and piles of rubble as she went around the airfield providing food and drink to the men sorting out the chaos of the raid.
Teams of men, each man knowing exactly what was expected of him, swung into action. Rosie and George Morgan went from group to group with reviving cups of tea and snacks. No money changed hands, this was an emergency – ‘and if that Walter Phillips complains, I’ll chuck him down one of the craters,’ Rosie said.
Rosie had never seen a dead person, and the sights and sounds from the wounded, and the unnerving stillness of the bodies from which life had gone, terrified her at first. The cries of the trapped and the wounded, and the low groans of the badly injured were something she knew she would never forget.
Bundles of what at first looked like carelessly abandoned clothing revealed themselves to be people, their positions, the angle of head and limbs, leaving her in no doubt that they were dead. She was afraid to pass the first victim they met, lying in a place where they had to step over him, manoeuvring the trolley around his inert form. It was as though turning her back on him and walking away was disrespectful as well as bringing inexplicable fear. She was shaking. Her legs threatened to let her down. When she spoke her voice was unrecognizable. Her thoughts were in turmoil. She should be helping these people but didn’t know what to do.
What was she doing here? She had never wanted so much to wake up and find it had all been a nightmare and to see Nan waiting to soothe away her fears.
It was George Morgan who reminded her firmly but with kindness that the sad victims were friends and were no more to be feared than they had been the hour before.
‘We should be helping them,’ she sobbed.
‘We are. We’re doing what we do best. Let the medics help them and we’ll help the medics.’
Jokes and encouraging remarks from George Morgan helped as the large number of injured and dead became apparent, as did his strength when the trolley got stuck. He wasn’t tall but surprisingly strong, and Rosie was grateful for his assistance. He would stop sometimes to help a group of men to move an obstacle, and return to the trolley to deliver more food and drinks. They were kept so busy there wasn’t time for her to feel shy.
They ran back and forward to the canteen replenishing the urn and the food, while others made sandwiches and even baked a few scones to help the dwindling supplies.
George Morgan introduced himself properly as morning broke after the disasters of the night.
‘George Morgan, ground crew,’ he said offering a hand.
‘George, welcome. You’re a hero.’
George shook his head. ‘I’m no hero,’ he said, his Welsh accent strong. ‘It’s them boys have that title.’ They all looked up into the skies and wondered fearfully how many of their boys would fail to return.