Lily's War

by Shirley Mann

  Lily, just before that bomb dropped, as I looked at your horror stricken, naïve face, all the anger I had felt about Kit fell away. It was just like you to get the facts of life wrong and all muddled up. Kit was a fantasy, a really good fun one, but once I realised what you’d been through, my straightforward Lancashire upbringing came to the fore and he became a glam story I will relate to my grandchildren – or maybe not. Anyway, the only thing that matters to me is my best friend. We’ve been through so much, Lily, and one randy American isn’t going to change that. So, let’s put him down to experience and enjoy all those stomach pains . . . you deserve them!’

  I am going home for a bit to recover but I can at least write now. I can imagine all the guilt you’ve put yourself through and all the Mullins drama you’ve been creating but, my daft Lily, we are and will always be the best of friends.

  Love,

  Alice.

  PS. I did meet a rather nice doctor but you’ll have to wait for the gory details about that one. My hand hurts now!

  Lily would have skipped back to Upper Heyford if it had not hurt so much. She felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off her on all fronts. Firstly, whatever the outcome, Danny would know how she felt about him. Secondly, Alice did not hate her and had even met a new man and thirdly, Hilda had written to her telling her that Sergeant Horrocks had been seconded to another camp for a few weeks. Lily found she could smile again. She was surprised how quickly she got back into the routine at camp. At first, the liberation of Paris and Brussels encouraged a feeling that the end of war was in sight, but then the wanton destruction by the buzz bombers meant the RAF were kept incredibly busy. To add to everyone’s consternation there were rumours that an even more destructive weapon was being developed. It was a bomb that made no noise until it exploded. No one knew much about it but it became known as the V-2 and represented Germany’s vindictive revenge for the bombing by the allies.

  The shifts during the winter months of 1944 into ’45 were relentless and everyone was exhausted as the operational stations tried to retaliate. Lily was still struggling with her health and, weakened by the infections, she had lost weight and looked pale. One night in late February, when she was making her way wearily back to the barracks, she bumped into Sergeant Horrocks, clutching her kit bag close to her chest. It was the first time the two women had met since the hospital and both reared up in surprise in the dark.

  ‘So, Mullins, so, you’re still here, causing problems no doubt. Well, I’m back now so you had better watch out.’’

  Lily’s training should have kept her in check but it was one o’clock in the morning after a harrowing shift.

  ‘Sergeant, I know you hate me. I am not quite sure why but I suspect it has something to do with Betty. I am not related to her. I only met her in hospital and I have done nothing to hurt you.’

  Sergeant Horrocks spat out her reply.

  ‘You’re all the same, you girls. You have no morals, no pride and certainly no idea of how to behave. You’re just a slut like the rest of them.’

  Lily stepped back as the sergeant’s spit hit her in the face. The venom in the woman’s words was like a snake’s poison and Lily reached up to wipe the spittle from her cheek.

  She took a pace forward, red with fury and opened her mouth to speak. At that moment, a plane started to weave its way overhead, lurching from side to side as if drunk. They both looked up and their argument hung in the balance as the pilot struggled to re-gain control.

  Lily took a sharp breath and reined in her anger. This woman was her superior. She could never win.

  She turned on her heels, listening to the sirens at the end of the airfield and reminded herself that nothing was important in this war except surviving it.

  Sergeant Horrocks stared after her and then, muttering to herself, marched off on her heels and disappeared into the darkness.

  The following morning, the base was buzzing with the news that a body had been found.

  Chapter 50

  Rumours abounded the next day, but nobody knew the truth. There were police officers all over the camp, taking photographs and notes. Lily, like the others, was checking all the faces and beds to find out who was missing but there was no clue as to who the body was. Hilda said a girl from two huts down had seen a stretcher with a sheet covering a body on it, another girl said she had seen the Company Commander striding through the camp with two MPs and a policeman looking very serious.

  Two hours later, they were all occupied with the latest batch of rookies and Lily was kept busy frantically pressing the Morse pad trying to keep her crew on course and safe. There were some very dodgy landings and everyone in the control tower held their breath as the two inexperienced pilots followed each other onto the landing strip, bouncing from side to side in the wind.

  At the end of her shift in the early evening, Lily was called in to see the warrant officer. She straightened her hair and her tie as she stood nervously outside the door, waiting to be called in.

  ‘Enter.’

  The officer was sitting behind a big wooden desk with sheaves of paper on it in neat piles. He picked up the one on the top as he acknowledged her salute.

  ‘At ease, LACW Mullins.’

  Lily stared straight ahead, her head held high, but her stomach was turning over.

  He glared at her.

  ‘This is most irregular, Mullins, but you have a visitor. Report to the guard-room. You have thirty minutes. Be back in your barracks ready for tea.’

  Lily clicked her heels together and saluted. He immediately forgot she was there and picked up the second piece of paper off the pile.

  When Lily left the office, she stood for a moment perplexed and then broke into a fast walk. The panic was welling up inside her. Her mum? Dad? What disaster could have prompted a personal visit?

  She hesitated as she reached the guard-room but then took a deep breath and pushed open the door. There was a small group of WAAF telephone operators waiting for pass outs, two ambulance crew delivering their report sheets and standing to the side, shifting nervously from foot to foot, there was a Tommy.

  As she walked in, the man turned around. For a moment, they both looked at each other, and then Lily stepped forwards.

  ‘Danny,’ she whispered.

  He held out his arms to her but then dropped them as she hesitated.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Lily winced. She had imagined this moment so many times in recent weeks but never had she realised how awkward she would feel.

  ‘Hello, Lily.’ The words of delight that he had rehearsed all the way from Portsmouth fell like broken slivers of glass between them.

  She scanned Danny’s face, looking for the familiar smile, the recognisable, cocky confidence of a boy she once knew. Instead she found a man behind an unfamiliar mask.

  ‘I told them I was your cousin, on compassionate leave, due back in Europe in forty-eight hours. Is there somewhere we can get a cuppa?’ He turned towards the door, looking for the NAAFI. He could not stand her stare. He was sure she could see through him.

  ‘I only have half an hour,’ she replied, putting her hand on his arm to make him turn towards her again.

  Danny reared up as if her hand was a hot poker. The proximity of her body was making him shiver uncomfortably. He searched her face as if committing a map to memory and coughed in embarrassment, catching her inquiring look.

  ‘How are you?’ he blurted out. ‘Have you recovered? Your parents told me how badly you’d been hurt in the Paddington bomb.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, just a few twinges now and again. What about you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m OK, I’m actually being shipped back out next week.’

  Lily let a moment’s fear cross her face. ‘Oh, Danny, haven’t you done enough?’

  He turned away and started to march purposefully towards the door. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  She followed him out and he strode towards a low wall near the entrance to the camp. He sat d
own gingerly and looked back at her. He beckoned her to sit next to him.

  ‘I—’ he started but he did not know what to say. He had waited five years to see her again and now he was messing it up. He did not want to talk about his injuries or the shame of how he had got them. He suddenly felt he was not worthy of this young woman and he was sure she was regretting her letter to him. He glanced sideways at her, hardly recognising the young girl who used to stride around the office, trying to look important. Now, she really was important. She looked so smart in her uniform and her waved hair under the cap made her look so commanding and in control. He noticed her tapes – she was a higher rank than he was. A leading aircraftwoman was the equivalent of an army corporal. She had done so well while he had been stupidly putting his military record in jeopardy. She looked pale but very beautiful. How could he ever have thought she would still feel anything for him? He felt his shoulders slump.

  Lily waited for him to speak. Was this the same Danny who had written all those confident letters, who had joked with her but always made her feel secure in his feelings for her? He seemed so distant and she immediately felt he was disappointed in her after all this time. She looked such a mess and touched her hair to try to wind it on her finger back under her cap.

  She had to disturb the silence.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Danny.’

  ‘Yes, Liners seems like another life.’

  They glanced at each other and for a second their eyes recalled the past that they shared.

  ‘I wonder what Mr Spencer would say if he saw us now,’ Lily attempted a smile. ‘I wonder if we’ll be able to go back there, when . . . when this is all over.’

  ‘I wonder if we’ll want to.’

  Lily felt a rising panic. This was not the romantic reunion she had imagined. Danny felt like a stranger and now he was regretting coming to find her. He had not mentioned her letter.

  Danny was beginning to feel beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. He had so wanted to return a war hero, standing proud knowing he had done his bit but all he had done was be a naïve fool and end up abandoning his comrades, leaving them to fight while he sat on a wall in Oxfordshire talking to a stranger. This was not the little girl who needed his protection, his advice or his help. His mind was racing but no words came out of his mouth. He could have kicked himself. He had been up at dawn, hitched all the way to London, through the devastated capital and out to Oxfordshire in such excitement. His back was killing him. After her letter, he had been so excited, envisaging meeting her again, practising what he would say, how he would fold her into his arms as she sobbed with relief at seeing him.

  ‘Danny,’ she finally ventured, unable to bear the tension, ‘it is so lovely to see you.’ Her voice started to break but Danny did not look up, he was too busy examining his boots.

  ‘Yes, well, I happened to be in the area so I thought I would call in.’ He stood up quickly, looking towards the road for a passing truck that might offer a potential lift and an escape route before he broke down and destroyed the last vestige of pride he had left.

  She felt her heart plummet and looked up at him in horror. Surely this couldn’t be it? It was as if her life of the past three years was passing before her eyes. Doug, Ted, Kit. What had seemed like growing up experiences now made her feel like a harlot. It suddenly occurred to her that he knew all about her lurid past, that, somehow, he could see the guilt on her. She wanted to reach out and hug him, feel his arms around her, his voice telling her he loved her and that when the war was over, they would be together. Instead, he straightened his uniform and coughed again.

  ‘I had better be on my way. I need to be back in Portsmouth by midnight. Remember me to your parents.’

  Lily found it hard to speak, opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Lily.’ For one, brief moment, his eyes seemed to envelop her in affection but then the mask came down again.

  ‘And you, Danny. Write to me, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, if you want me to.’

  ‘Of course,’ she blurted out in desperation.

  ‘OK. Well, so long, Lily, it’s been good to see you.’

  ‘And you, Danny.’

  He walked away. It was the longest walk of his life.

  Chapter 51

  The baked beans were awful, dry and congealed but Lily could not taste them anyway. She felt utterly desperate. She thought back to all the times she had been offhand with Danny and bile rose in her throat. She thought she was going to throw up.

  Hilda tried to talk to her about the drama taking place in the camp but there was no response. She just sat playing with her fork, prodding the beans as if they were her enemy.

  For so long, Danny had been like a lighthouse for her: solid, dependable and always there. She had felt so secure, basking in his obvious admiration and had had no doubts that, now they were older, that admiration would turn to love. The soldier who had visited her earlier had been a stranger, untouched by her and even by life, she thought, remembering his cold expression and short sentences. He had lost all his fun and excitement but worse than that, he was obviously disappointed in the girl Lily had become.

  She looked up and caught sight of herself in the window. No wonder he didn’t want any more to do with her. Her eyes looked haunted and were surrounded by dark shadows. The long shifts and her injuries had taken their toll. She looked terrible. She suddenly pushed her chair back, scratching the floor and making the whole room stare. With wild, desperate sobs, she fled from the table, forgetting her irons and mug. Hilda automatically picked them up and thoughtfully looked after her friend as she stumbled out of the room.

  *

  Word went around the camp like wildfire. The dead body was Sergeant Horrocks. She had been found with some pills she had apparently stolen from the medical centre. When Lily heard she felt a shockwave ripping through her body for a moment but very soon guiltily realised there was also a certain relief that the woman could no longer make her life a misery. Amidst so much death, ‘Horrible Horrocks’s’ apparent suicide seemed a disgraceful waste of life and apart from a vague disquiet about what had made her so desperate, Lily did not feel able to mourn too deeply and she very quickly went back to analysing the dreadful reunion with Danny. In a state of numbness on domestic night, she polished the floor around her bed as normal almost oblivious to the high-pitched excited chattering that was going on around her as the rest of the hut mulled over the news. A door opened and the noise was immediately quelled.

  ‘LACW Mulllins, report to the Company Commander immediately.’

  The Duty Officer stood over her and Lily looked down to notice the woman had a scuff on her left shoe. She almost reached out and polished it but then vaguely remembered she was supposed to spring to attention and salute.

  She followed the officer, watched with interest by the rest of the hut.

  Under normal circumstances, Lily would have been shaking as the Commander told her to enter but, enveloped in a blanket of misery, she was only a mildly surprised to see Marion standing to attention facing the large walnut desk.

  ‘Dismissed, LACW Hill.’

  Marion saluted, turned on her heels and with a knowing look at Lily, swept past her and out of the door.

  Lily stood to attention and tried to concentrate.

  ‘Mullins, this is Inspector Bailey. He is here to question you about the death of Sergeant Horrocks.’

  At this, Lily jerked her head back. His words pierced her apathy and brought her up sharply.

  ‘Me, sir?’

  ‘Yes, we believe you were the last person to see her alive.’

  Marion’s smug face suddenly made sense. She must have seen the sergeant with Lily and reported it to the Commander.

  All thoughts and worries about Danny vanished from Lily’s mind. This was serious. A woman she had hated and one who had hated her had died and as she looked from the inspector to the commander and back again, it suddenly dawned on
her that she was suspected of having something to do with her death.

  ‘I bumped into Sergeant Horrocks on my way back from my shift, sir.’

  ‘Did she speak to you?’ The inspector’s eyes narrowed.

  The memory of that last exchange came back to Lily like a Pathé News clip, the anger, the venom and the near physical attack.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  Lily looked in desperation at the two men. Lying was something she had never been able to do and she had no choice but to tell them the truth – and all of it.

  It took Lily an hour to go through the story of Sergeant Horrocks and her relationship and by the time she had finished, for the first time, she realised how bizarre it must have sounded. She also knew she was criticising a senior rank but she had no option as there was really no cause that she was aware of that could have prompted the hatred she unwittingly engendered in the dead woman.

  As she described the final scene, she swayed on her feet and the Inspector reached forward to take her arm.

  ‘Sit down here,’ he said, more kindly than he had spoken before.

  She glanced at the commanding officer and he nodded his permission, passing her a glass of water from the sideboard.

  She sipped it and looked up at him.

  ‘What will happen now, sir?’ she asked fearfully.

  ‘We have several other people to question and then we will get back to you.’

  Lily’s heart sank. Sergeant Horrocks was dead, she was not going to be able to corroborate Lily’s story. If they spoke to Marion, she would take any opportunity to land her in trouble and would make it look as if Lily was lying and that she was somehow complicit in a woman’s death.

  ‘You may go, but you are confined to camp until this matter is concluded,’ the Commander said.

  Lily nodded and stumbled out of the room.

  Back in the hut, she was greeted with silence. Marion had been standing in the middle of the floor and Lily knew she had been regaling them with speculation and rumours about her. It occurred to her that rushing out of the mess in tears had added fuel to the fire but she had not wanted to discuss Danny with any of them. She got ready for bed in silence and climbed under the blanket. It was almost time for lights out and Lily couldn’t wait for the lamps to be extinguished so she could vanish into her own thoughts without anyone watching her. She closed her eyes and longed for Danny, for Alice’s common sense and for a hug from her mum. The tears fell hot and fast and it was all she could do to not cry out loud but the rough blanket heaved in jerks as she caught the sobs in the back of her throat.