Leaning from the train window, I waved goodbye to Edward, the man I’d been engaged to for less than an hour. The smoke from the engine made my eyes water and I blinked away the little black specks that flew everywhere. I stood for a minute, even after he was lost from sight, wishing he was still with me and reluctant to start my new life without him. Brushing a tear from my eye, I picked up my case and struggled along the corridor, full of conflicting emotions. I wanted to be with Edward, but I’d joined the Auxiliary Territorial Army because I wanted to do my bit for Blighty. Marriage would have to wait. We had our whole lives ahead of us.
But what if he’s killed? a wicked voice inside my head taunted.
‘He won’t be!’ I said out loud, and got a funny look from a woman next to me.
I pushed my way past dozens of soldiers standing in the corridors, several times tripping over their kitbags. Each time, one of them helped me right myself with a cheeky comment or a wink; their cheerfulness lifting my mood. But none of them looked as good in uniform as my fiancé. I’d never called anyone that before, and it felt very special.
With aching feet, I walked the whole length of the train, but there were no free seats anywhere.
‘Come and sit by yere,’ a voice said, just as I was fit to collapse. The girl was about my age and sitting on a case. She greeted me with a smile.
‘Room for a couple of little ’uns like us in this corridor,’ she said. I had to smile back. Even sitting down, it was obvious she wasn’t little. Slim, yes, but a good bit taller than my five foot three inches. She shuffled along, making a bit more room for me to join her. I put down my small case and leaned against it, keeping my handbag on my knee.
‘I’m Bronwyn, from Swansea,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Bet you’d never guess from my accent!’
I shook her hand. ‘I’m Lily, from Oxford. Before you ask, no, I’m not a clever clogs from the university. I bet you can tell that from my accent.’
‘No, you don’t sound like a nob,’ she said, grinning, ‘Where’re you going? I’m off to Aldershot to start ATS training.’
My jaw dropped. ‘You’re never! I am, too. We’ll be training together then. I’m terrified – never been away from home before. I’m so glad to meet you. At least I’ll know one person now.’
The train stopped with a sudden lurch that threw us against each other. We looked up, but no one was taking any notice. ‘We’ll probably be hours late,’ Bronwyn said, ‘timetables have gone haywire since this war started.’
‘Do you think we’ll be in trouble? Can they put us on a charge because we’re late?’
She laughed. ‘Well, they’d have everyone on a charge if that was the case, like. Mind you, we’re not properly part of the army yet, so I don’t know how that works out. No, they must be used to people being late. Anyway, they’re meeting us at the station, aren’t they?’
‘There’s so much I don’t know. Got any idea what you’d like to do once we’ve done our basic training?’ I asked. ‘Not that I think we get much choice.’
‘Oui,’ she said, winking, ‘je veux être un téléphoniste. I want to be a telephonist.’
‘You what? Is that French you’re speaking?’
‘Oui. I speak three languages. English, French and a little bit of Welsh.’ She ticked them off on her long fingers.
‘How’d you do that then? I can only speak English and not always very well at that.’
She ran her fingertips over her light brown cheeks. ‘See this lovely colour? See this crinkly hair I can never do anything with? I owe them all to my ma. She’s from Martinique.’
I tried to remember my geography lessons from school, but came up blank. ‘Where’s Martinique?’
‘It’s in the West Indies, a little island with lots of mountains. The French colonised us, so we speak French as well as the native language. I never learned that though, Ma thought it was better if we stuck to French and English.’
‘But you’re not very dark. Is your dad Welsh?’
She pulled a face. ‘Is. Was. He never hung around long. Like a lot of blokes around Swansea, he probably had a wife in every port. He sailed off into the sunset when I was three and we never heard another thing about him. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.’
I thought we had that in common; rubbish fathers. Mine was horrible and bad tempered, probably because of what he suffered in the first war. My mum had to put up with a lot. But he’d left her not long ago for another woman, and my mum was free of his nastiness at last.
‘So why do you need to speak French to be a telephonist, then?’ I asked.
‘You don’t if you stay here, but if you do they might send you to France. Maybe even Paris. I’ve never been further than Cardiff before today.’ She got a faraway gaze in her eye. ‘Just imagine, Paris! I got a book out of the library and it’s tidy, it is.’
I began to think I’d need a translator. ‘Tidy? How’d you mean?’
She laughed and slapped her hand. ‘I forget not everyone speaks like we do in Swansea. Have to watch that. Tidy means it’s really nice. Eiffel Tower, lovely buildings, French food, though I’m used to that because Ma cooks it. Well, her version of.’
I went into a daydream. I’d never been further than London. I remembered learning about Paris at school and looking at the pictures, wishing I was there. I started to dream about a honeymoon in Paris. That’d beat Weston-Super-Mare, which was all most people round our way managed, if that. I knew Edward’s family were a lot better off than ours, but didn’t know if he could afford Paris. I wondered if I’d be able to save something from my ATS pay. We were to get eleven shillings a week and I wanted to send some to my mum regularly. At least our board and lodgings wouldn’t cost anything. Paris…
‘Maybe you can teach me French,’ I said.
The train ground to a halt and I stood up for a minute, stretched my aching back and peered out of the window. It was a dull day, grey clouds seemed to hang lifeless in the air with just the occasional break and blue sky peeking through. All I saw were empty fields bordered by hedges. Snaking ahead, was the front of the train, smoke belching, but no sign of what was holding us up.
Then, with a shudder, the train started again. I staggered and quickly sat down, the hard floor jarring my back. Wriggling to get comfortable, my stomach rumbled, and I got out the packet of sandwiches Mum made me before I left. One was cheese and one fish paste. She’d put in two of her lovely scones as well, bless her.
I unwrapped them. ‘Have you got anything to eat?’ I asked.
‘I did have, but I ate them on the first train. Been travelling for hours already.’ Bronwyn tried not to look at my sandwiches, but I could see she was hungry.
I held the sandwiches out to her. ‘Come on, we’ll share. My mum always makes me too much.’
We sat silently eating, lost in our own thoughts. Bronwyn brushed crumbs off her coat. ‘You sorry to be leaving home?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’ll miss my mum but you’ll never guess what! I just got engaged! I’ve been bursting to tell someone. My boyfriend proposed just now at the station and I said yes.’ I flashed my ring in her face like a right show-off.
She took my hand and studied the ring. ‘Fair play now, that’s a lovely ring. Must’ve cost a bit, mind. You’re a lucky girl.’
My smile said it all. ‘I am, Edward’s lovely. He’s a soldier too, like we’ll be. Well, I suppose we’re volunteers really, but you know what I mean. The ring belonged to his grandmother. But I’ve told him we can’t get married until this war ends, because I want to do my bit and they’ll probably throw me out if I get married, especially if I get in the family way.’
‘That’s for sure, better safe than sorry. I’ve seen too many of my friends get up the duff before they got married. Lads usually cleared off double quick and left them in the lurch, too.’
I blinked hard. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that sort of thing before we’re married.’
She shrugged and reached for a scone. Without thinking I slapped her hand and she dropped the scone as if it would burn her. Then I realised what I’d done. ‘I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have slapped your hand. Of course you can have it. Acting like my dad there.’
‘In my family if you don’t grab food first, you won’t get any. It’s everyone for themselves. Habits take a while to change, but I’ll be glad not to need that one.’
‘You got a lad pining for you back in Swansea?’
She shook her head. ‘No, don’t bother with them much. My mum’s had bad luck with men and it’s put me off. Anyway, what with working in the factory and helping to babysit my little brothers and sisters, there wasn’t much time for courting.’ She took a bite of the scone as if to say that’s enough of that topic.
As well as my mum and Edward, I was missing my best friend Jean. She’d gone to train as a nurse with the Queen Alexandra’s a few weeks back. I wondered if our paths would ever cross before this war was over. Maybe Bronwyn would be my new friend, now we were both training together.
* * *
‘Wait in here!’ the section leader shouted over the noise of the train pulling out of Aldershot station. ‘We’ve got to wait for our transport, then we’ll all be on our way together.’
She shepherded us into a cold, bleak waiting room. The walls were painted green to waist height then yellow above. Wooden benches lined either wall. There was a fireplace but it looked like it had never warmed anyone. We all took seats and looked about awkwardly. No one said anything for a minute or two, then Bronwyn broke the silence.
‘Hello, everyone, you all going to ATS training?’ she asked.
Some said yes, others just nodded.
‘Well, we’re going to get to know each other. I’ve heard there’s twenty-five girls to a bunkhouse so we’ll probably be sleeping together, too.’
Someone giggled.
Bronwyn grinned. ‘Oops, didn’t mean it like that though. I’m Bronwyn from Swansea and this is my friend Lily who’s from Oxford.’ She waved her hand at me and I was glad she considered me her friend. The girl next to her was tall, taller even than Bronwyn, blonde and what they call willowy. Her clothes were expensive and her shoes very smart and not a bit practical. She was wearing a floral-print dress with padded shoulders, white lace gloves and a little hat at a jaunty angle. In fact, she was smarter than the rest of us put together.
She gave a strained smile. ‘Hello, everyone, I’m Amanda Beauchamps.’
‘’Ere, you the one what’s a lady, got a title an’ that?’ the girl who giggled said. ‘I ’eard a rumour there was going to be a toff training the same time as us.’
‘Wherever did you hear that?’ Amanda said. ‘Loose talk and all that.’
I noticed she didn’t really answer the question, and she didn’t have time to because the door opened and the section leader came back in. ‘Right, everyone, start getting in the lorry out the front.’ Her voice brooked no argument.
Ten minutes later, fifteen of us were in the back of an open-top lorry, sitting on hard wooden benches down the sides. It was a bit cold, but the air was fresh after the stuffy train and waiting room. We passed pretty villages with thatched cottages, ancient churches and water pumps on the village green. We gazed at farms where the farmer calling in the cows for milking, and isolated cottages that seemed like they’d fall apart any minute. Once or twice we smelled bonfires and saw curls of smoke meandering in the air lazily, nonchalantly. The girls from the country took it all in their stride, but us townies kept pointing things out to each other like excited schoolchildren.
Finally, we came to the gates of the training camp. Driving through, no one took any notice of us, they were all far too busy, but we gaped like children in a fairground. Groups of soldiers, sometimes men and sometimes women, were rushing here and there. They unrolled and rolled up fire hoses; they rushed about with food ready to be prepared for meals; they carried buckets from one place to another or swept the concrete with the biggest brooms I’d ever seen; and some rolled big guns from one place to another. Three groups practised marching, each one shouted at by their sergeants. The noise was so deafening I wanted to cover my ears with my hands.
‘Hey,’ I said, ‘some of those girls are wearing half uniform, half their own clothes. What’s that all about?’
‘Perhaps they ran out of clothes that would fit different sizes,’ Bronwyn said, ‘Do you think we’ll ever be able to march like them?’
Amanda nodded. ‘I feel exhausted just looking at them. I wonder how long they give us to settle in before we have to do this lot?’
‘Till six o’clock tomorrow morning, so don’t get too cosy,’ Bronwyn said. ‘I know ’cos one of my friends has been through this. It’s really hard work.’
We climbed down from the lorry and grabbed our suitcases, stiff from all the bumping over country roads. ‘Kitbags from now on, girls,’ the sergeant commented.
We were shown into a big wooden hut that had twenty-five single beds lined up against the walls. They were narrow, about two feet wide. I ran my hand over the bedding waiting to be made up. It was scratchy and uninviting. There was one pillow per bed. The beds had metal folding legs and beside each one was a small cupboard for our stuff.
A different section leader appeared as we were getting settled in. ‘Welcome, everyone,’ she said, ‘I’m Section Leader Johnson, but you can call me Miss Johnson. Male army officers will be taking you for square bashing, PE and most lectures. You must be sure to use their rank when speaking to them. I’m going to be looking after you for the next six weeks. Any problems other than missing your mums, come to me and I’ll see what I can do. Now, make yourself at home and let’s meet outside in five minutes to get your medicals done and then collect your uniform.’
I nodded to Bronwyn and we headed towards the beds nearest the wood-burning stove which seemed to be the only source of heating in the hut.
‘Must be a bit different from what Lady Amanda’s used to,’ she whispered.
I put my finger to my lips. ‘Shh, it’s not what I’m used to either. We’re not posh, but I haven’t got any brothers or sisters so I’ve got the box room to myself.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘And you think you’re not posh! I share a bedroom with two sisters and a brother. We all sleep in the same bed, top to tail. It’s a double, mind. They wriggle something terrible and the boys can fart for Wales. We keep each other warm in winter though.’
Some girls were looking around the room with dismay, while others were already unpacking and trying to fit all their stuff into their little cupboard. I noticed the time. ‘We’d better go!’ I shouted.
‘Okay, boss!’ someone shouted back. ‘You goodie two-shoes or something?’ But it was said with a laugh.
Miss Johnson was waiting outside for us.
‘Before we go to the medical officer and then the quartermaster for your uniforms, let me show you the ablutions. That’s what the army calls the bathroom,’ she said. ‘This way.’
It was a long, cold room with twelve washbasins and three toilet cubicles.
‘Where’s the bath?’ Amanda asked with a frown.
‘No baths, you have to manage with the sink,’ Miss Johnson said.
‘What, strip wash in front of everyone?’ Amanda was blinking rapidly.
‘No privacy in the army, dear.’
Immediately there was a groundswell of complaints, including from me. As poor as my family were, we gave each other privacy, even in the days when we had to use a tin bath in the kitchen. I quailed at the thought of stripping off in front of everyone. Then I thought of the men fighting in the war. They had much worse things to worry about. I decided to just get on with it and not worry about my modesty. After all, we were all girls.
The medicals and injections were brief, but meant a lot of waiting around. That gave us a chance to get to know each other better. I quickly found some girls I liked and a few I decided to avoid.
We needed a sense of humour when we got our uniforms. Each of us got two pairs of striped pyjamas, two bright green cotton vests, two pairs of Lisle stockings, two pairs of sturdy brown shoes, three shirts that were rough enough to make us itch all the time, ties, and a terrible skirt. None of us were asked what size we were; the clothes were just handed out like potatoes sacks and fitted about as well.
A girl called Mavis tried on the skirt and it immediately fell to the ground. Someone else couldn’t get hers over her hips. ‘Here, have mine,’ Mavis said, holding her skirt out to swap, but they were all the same size so it didn’t work. We laughed all the time, but the biggest laugh was the knickers; khaki with legs that came to our knees with elastic round the bottom.
‘They’re passion-killers if I ever saw anything,’ Mavis said, putting a pair on her head and dancing round the room, elasticated legs flying around like floppy dog ears.
‘Who needs passion?’ Bronwyn muttered.
Next we were handed an ugly tunic. ‘Cor, this is bloody awful,’ Mavis hooted, ‘no one’d know we had knockers wearing this!’
I wasn’t used to such talk and I was a bit shocked, but Mavis was so lovely it was impossible to take offence. The tunic was straight up and down with a pretend belt but no belt buckle. Silly. We got a shiny ATS badge, a khaki cap, and a quite nice khaki raincoat. To my surprise we also got a knife, fork, spoon and a tin mug. ‘Make sure you wash them after every meal, and bring them with you every time you go to the canteen,’ the quartermaster said. Finally, we got a kitbag to put it all in.
Amanda was touching the fabric of the skirt and jacket as if it was something sent down by the devil. I was used to jumble sale clothes converted to fit, so wasn’t too upset. Bronwyn though, seemed happy.
‘There’s lovely,’ she said, holding the garments against her, ‘never had so many new things in my life.’
We went off to the canteen and all sat together on a long table. An ATS woman came over with two big trays of food. We struck lucky – it was sausage and mash. Mavis leaned over to the next table where a bunch of soldiers were eating. ‘Hey,’ she complained, ‘how come they get more than us?’
The server shrugged her shoulders. ‘Men get more,’ she said and headed back to the kitchen.
‘That ain’t fair,’ Mavis grumbled.
‘I’m going to miss my mum’s cooking,’ I said as we sat down on the long tables. Our eating irons, as we had to call them, clattered loudly and the noise of about a hundred and fifty people eating and chatting was deafening.
Mavis spat out some greens. ‘Wish it was my mum’s cooking, too. She never made me eat greens. Nasty things!’ She turned to Amanda. ‘Your family have a cook, I suppose?’
Amanda blushed again. ‘I’m afraid we do. Her name is Betty. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her when I was younger. My parents only believed in seeing their children at teatime for about an hour.’
‘Blimey, you must hardly know them.’ Mavis said, her eyes wide.
Amanda looked down, her hands resting on the table. ‘That’s true, but Betty was always so friendly and kind. You’ll be surprised to know I’m not a bad cook. She used to teach me when I escaped from my nanny.’
I thought how different we four were. Me, with a loving mum. We were poor but never so poor we were hungry. Bronwyn sounded like she’d been hungry a lot of the time and had a lot to put up with. Mavis’s family were poor too, but they sounded a good laugh. And Amanda, well, Amanda’s family were something else altogether.
No one moaned about lights out at ten, and a lot of girls were asleep even before then. As soon as the lights were off, we took down the blackout blinds to get a bit of fresh air.
I was exhausted from the day, which had been so different from anything else I’d ever experienced. The emotion of getting engaged; leaving Edward; meeting Bronwyn, Mavis and Amanda; and finding my way round this strange new place had taken its toll. I longed for sleep. But when I sat on the mattress I got a nasty surprise.
‘Blinking heck,’ I said, ‘this mattress is made of straw!’
‘And the pillow is made of rock,’ someone called back.
I took out the picture of Edward, kissed it and put my engagement ring on my finger for the night. Although I was exhausted, it took me a long time to get to sleep, I kept thinking about Edward and hoping he was safe. We’d had so little time together and I didn’t even know where he was posted. We could be sent to the other ends of the earth for all I knew. My thoughts were interrupted by someone a few beds down quietly weeping. I crept out of bed and went to her.
‘Missing home?’ I asked. ‘I am. I’ve never been away before.’
She gave me a wan smile then, without a word, buried her head in her pillow. I took the hint and went back to my bed where the rhythm of Mavis’s gentle snores helped me drift off to sleep.
* * *
Next day we were woken at six o’clock. For a minute when I forced my eyes open I couldn’t think where I was. No familiar box room; no Mum opening the curtains for me. The noise of the others clattering about the hut soon snapped me back to reality. Several rushed off to the ablutions clutching their dressing gowns round themselves; others got dressed as quickly as possible trying not to show their all to the room. They wriggled out of their pyjama bottoms and into their passion-killers while still under the covers, then tried to hide as they dressed their top half. It was like trying to change into your swimming costume at the beach, only protected by a small towel. I tried not to look, but of course I saw some of it, and it would have been funny if we weren’t so cold. I wondered how bad the hut would feel in midwinter and I was grateful to know we would be moved on by then.
Our first job was to clean the hut, even though it seemed perfectly clean. We scrubbed the floors, polished the windows and dusted the metal bits of the bed until the whole place shone. Only then were we allowed to go to breakfast.
‘We’ve got a lecture next,’ I said as we sat down with our porridge and tea.
‘Cor, what about?’ Mavis wanted to know. So did we all.
We soon found out. It was how to recognise an officer, who to salute to and how to salute. We had to stand there in row saluting again and again until the sergeant was happy we’d got it right. Then we learned how to recognise the different bugle calls, from Reveille to Last Post. We’d soon find that the most popular bugle call was the one letting us know the mail had arrived. Finally, we had a general knowledge quiz. I was convinced I’d done badly at that one. ‘Right, you lot,’ the sergeant said when we’d finished. ‘Just time for an hour’s square-bashing before you eat. Meet outside in twenty minutes.’
‘Whatever’s that?’ asked Amanda.
Mavis was sitting next to her and nudged her in the ribs. ‘You come from a different world, you do. It’s learning to march in step – like we saw yesterday when we was coming in the lorry.’
A blush crept up Amanda’s neck. ‘I’ve got a lot to learn. You’ll have to bear with me. You girls have got more experience of life than me.’
‘Not all of it good,’ Bronwyn said, her mouth downturned, ‘think yourself lucky.’
Amanda smiled at her. ‘I know I’ve been lucky, although being expected to marry the man your parents choose isn’t fun. One of the reasons I joined up was to avoid being married off to Sextus – the biggest, stupidest man I have ever known.’
Mavis’s jaw dropped. ‘Cor, I can marry whoever I like as long as he’s not a crim, an’ even that’s a possibility as long as he’s not violent. Why’d they want you to marry such a prat?’
‘Money. You’d never believe it was 1940. Some families still expect the gel – that’s what they call us, gels, not girls, ladies or women – they expect us gels to marry some rich man who can bolster her family’s coffers.’
‘What’s in it for him, then?’ I asked.
‘His people wanted him to marry into a titled family; it makes them look good. My mother was all ready to arrange the wedding. She wanted a big county affair. I had a lucky escape. Sextus and his parents will never forgive me.’
‘How did you persuade your parents to let you sign up, then?’
‘I didn’t. I knew they’d never agree. Women in our family never do any sort of work, much less join the army. I told Mummy I was playing tennis with friends and sneaked off to the recruiting office. I can be very determined if I need to be.’
Mavis gave her a little hug. ‘Blimey, who’d’ve thought I’d one day be sitting next to a swanky girl like you and chatting like we were friends.’
Amanda squeezed her hand. ‘We are friends, Mavis. You too, Lily, and you, Bronwyn.’ She leaned over to be closer to Bronwyn and spoke quietly. ‘Have you noticed those girls over there keep avoiding us? Wherever we sit, they go somewhere else. Is it because of my title, do you think?’
Bronwyn laughed, ‘Amanda, cariad, I love you dearly, but it’s not about you. It’s because of me.’
Amanda put her hands over her heart. ‘No, surely not, why ever would they?’
I guessed what Bronwyn was going to say. Earlier, when we were cleaning, I was near the other clique and I heard them say things like ‘darkie’ and ‘half-breed’ and giving Bronwyn dirty looks.
‘It’s because of my colour, Amanda,’ Bronwyn was saying, ‘they hate me because of my colour.’
Amanda’s hands went to her face. ‘But that’s silly. You didn’t choose your colour. Now Sextus – he’s chosen to eat too much and get fat as a pig and to stay stupid.’ She puffed up her cheeks and lolled out her tongue. The combination of her educated voice and silly face had us all in giggles – she had broken the moment. ‘Let’s stick together, us four,’ I said, ‘all for one and one for all. If them girls, or anyone else tried to get funny with any of us, we’ll take care of it.’
I put my hand in the middle of our little group and everyone put their hand on top of mine.
‘It’s a deal,’ Bronwyn said, giving me a wide smile. ‘Come on, time for square-bashing.’
Square-bashing would have been a lot easier if I knew my left from my right. I kept turning the wrong way and earning sniggers from everyone else. After the second time, I got snarled at by Sergeant Terry too. He was a big man with a huge moustache and a nasty attitude. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he didn’t think women should be in the army.
‘Now, Volunteer Baker, what hand do you wear a wedding ring on? Not already married are you?’ he said with a sneer.
I straightened my back and looked him in the eye. ‘Not married, but I got engaged two days ago.’ I instinctively held out my left hand. There was no ring on it. We weren’t allowed to wear them on duty, so it was with my things in the hut.
‘Volunteer Baker, whatever makes you think I’m interested in your love life?’ he shouted. ‘Just remember that’s your left hand and you’ll stop wasting so much valuable army time.’
It worked. I never marched off in the opposite direction to everyone else again.
After our dinner, or lunch as Amanda called it, we were handed buckets, scrubbing brushes and mops.
‘Right, you so-called soldiers,’ the sergeant said, ‘as of now you don’t walk anywhere – you march. And that’s whether you’re on your own or in a group. Hear me? You march. And you don’t talk when you’re marching.’ He paused to make sure we’d heard. ‘Anyone heard talking when you march does twenty press-ups. Got it?’
We all nodded, wondering if we’d made a terrible mistake signing up.
‘So you’ve all got it? Now march off to the latrines and make them shine!’
Amanda, who’d been doing a brave job of not complaining about anything, stopped short in the door of the latrines. Her nose wrinkled. ‘Ugh, it stinks. What a horrible thing to have to do.’
Bronwyn laughed. ‘Think yourself lucky. Where I live there’s one toilet for twenty families. It’s in a wooden, spider-infested little shed. I’d rather have this luxury any day, even if I do have to clean it now and then.’
‘Sorry,’ Amanda murmured, picking up her mop she headed for one of the three toilets.
The job didn’t take long between the lot of us – the whole bunkhouse full. We were almost finished and most girls had left the room when Dorothy, one of the girls who was rude about Bronwyn, walked past us. Without a glance our way she pretended to trip and split filthy water all over Bronwyn’s shoes, muttering ‘Monkey’ under her breath.
‘Oy,’ I shouted grabbing her arm, ‘apologise! You did that on purpose.’
‘Oh yes?’ she said with a sneer. ‘Prove it!’ And with that she turned and stuck her tongue out at Bronwyn. As she turned back, I held out my foot and she went flying, getting some of the dirty water on her uniform.
She stood up and glared at me. ‘You did that on purpose!’ she hissed.
‘Oh yes?’ I said, mimicking her tone. ‘Prove it!’
When she’d gone, I took out my hankie and handed it to Bronwyn so she could dry her shoes a bit. ‘Bronwyn, I’m so sorry that happened to you. What a horrible person she is.’
Bronwyn’s shoulders and back looked tense enough to be made of wood. Her mouth was a tight straight line and her eyes narrowed. ‘When you’re my colour you get used to things like that.’
‘That doesn’t make it right,’ I said. I tried to give her a hug but she was too rigid.
‘No, it blinking well doesn’t. We’ll have to watch out for that Dorothy and those cronies of hers,’ she said.
We soon got into a routine of cleaning, square-bashing, PT, eating and sleeping. But the fifth day was something different.
Sergeant Terry called us to line up immediately after breakfast. ‘Right you lot, today you’ll be tested to see what jobs you’ll be sent to when your training is finished. Get yourself over to G Block now. Quick march!’
My stomach did a flip. I wasn’t so scared about the tests because I’d done some exams not long before, but I worried I’d be given some horrible posting and be separated from my new friends.
‘What do we get tested on?’ Mavis wanted to know. ‘I never did very well at tests at school.’
Amanda smiled at her. ‘It’s nothing like school. We’ll get tested on all sorts of things. Things like how to solve mechanical problems…’
Mavis sighed with relief. ‘I’ll be okay at that, I used to help my brother fix cars.’
‘Then we get recognising shapes, spelling, written communication…’
Mavis groaned. ‘That’s me out then, I’m hopeless at writing letters. Always got terrible marks for English at school.’
‘What about maths?’ Amanda asked her.
‘Well, I can do money and I’m a whiz at doing the score at darts. Does that count?’
There was a fair bit of waiting about as we went in and out of different test rooms. I got to sit with Bronwyn for a while. ‘Get your shoes dried okay?’ I asked. She just gave a little shrug. ‘Just as well they gave us two pairs,’ she said. ‘I’ve stuffed newspaper in the wet ones. Mind you, both pairs give me blisters.’ She took a shoe off and rubbed her heel. ‘Lily, you never told me what you did before you signed up. I worked in a factory.’
‘Me too,’ I said, ‘I sewed buttons on men’s shirts, and two evenings a week I was usherette at the Dream Palace. But I went to evening classes and learned how to type and passed the Pitman’s exams in English and typing.’
Bronwyn struggled to get her shoe back on. ‘What, did you get an office job then?’
‘I got really lucky. The manager at the Dream Palace wanted to work a bit less and asked me to be his assistant. I loved it and I got to work with my best friend Jean.’
I paused for a minute. ‘Bronwyn, can I ask you a favour?’
‘What’s that then?’ she asked.
‘Would you teach me French? You speak it and Amanda said she can speak schoolgirl French. If I can learn it and we’re lucky enough to get telephonists posts, we could go to Paris together. Of course, they may not let us, but we might be lucky and I like learning new things.’
‘Me? Teach you French?’ she said. ‘You know I speak it with a West Indian accent?’
‘Does that matter? Can people understand you?’ I asked.
‘I suppose they can,’ she said. ‘Okay, it’ll give us something to do when we’re not cleaning latrines. Want to know the word for toilet?’
I grinned at her.
‘It’s toilette. See! Easy-peasy.’
That was the beginning of my French lessons. I soon wished all the words were as easy as that one.
The aptitude tests that day were a real mixture. We were tested on aircraft recognition, hearing, fitness and nerves. ‘Can we ask for the job we want?’ I asked the tester.
She carried on with her writing. ‘You can, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get it,’ she said.
At tea that evening, I asked the others what jobs they wanted to do. About a third wanted to be ack-ack girls helping to man the guns, some wanted to be drivers, three wanted to be motorbike messengers, two wanted to be cooks, two wanted to be orderlies and me, Amanda, Bronwyn and Mavis all put down to be telephonists. Mavis liked the idea of learning French too, so Bronwyn and Amanda taught us every spare minute. We had the names of things in our bit of the hut labelled with their French names and sometimes, when they felt mean, Amanda and Bronwyn only spoke to us in French and we had to guess what they were saying.
Most of us in the bunkhouse spent the last half-hour or so before lights out writing letters to our family and friends or reading letters we’d received. My mum wrote a couple of times in the first week.
Dear Lily,
I hope you are settling in well there and that they are feeding you properly. The house seems very empty without you. After all these years of three of us, your dad leaves and then you, so I’ve only myself to please. It seems very strange, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.
I’m getting used to work at the Filling Factory too. You have to be ever so careful because filling the bombs with explosives is so dangerous. You have to concentrate the whole time and it gets very tiring. But it was tiring being a char, although that was my body that got tired, this is more my mind. But I’ve already made some good friends there and we’re going to the flicks tomorrow so that’s something to look forward to.
You know I told you that a man at work kept asking me out? Well, I went for a drink with him a couple of evenings ago. Alex, his name is, and we got on really well, found lots of things to talk about. If I’m still meeting up with him when you get your weekend leave perhaps you could meet him. I’d like to know what you think of him. Isn’t that funny, a mum asking her daughter for approval about a man, it should be the other way round! But you’ve got your lovely Edward. I hope he’s keeping safe and writing to you often.
I’m really looking forward to the end of your training so you can come home for your weekend leave.
Love, Mum x
I read and reread her letter so often, it was in danger of falling apart. I hadn’t heard from Edward yet and guessed that must mean he was abroad somewhere. Each night I prayed that he was safe from harm.
* * *
Getting ready for bed a few nights later, I sat in my striped pyjamas and reached in my cupboard for my photo of Edward and my ring. I found the photo straight away, but couldn’t find the ring. Telling myself not to panic, I took everything out of the cupboard, shook everything and then put them back in. Wondering if I’d absent-mindedly put it in my soap bag I looked there, but no luck.
‘What’s up?’ Bronwyn said from her bed.
‘I can’t find my engagement ring!’ I said, my voice several pitches higher than usual.
‘Let me help,’ she said and we went through everything together.
It had gone.