Daisy's Wars

by Meg Henderson

  And she’d been right, too. Eileen was the latest living proof of that. She should add that to her next speech: ‘Look at my friend Eileen, my ex-friend Eileen.’

  She dabbed at her eyes again and the American Major smiled at her. ‘Never mind, honey,’ he said kindly. ‘One day that will be you.’

  Daisy returned his smile, but inside her head she said, ‘Don’t bet on it, sunshine!’

  And it wouldn’t be, it would never be her. Never. She glanced at the Major from the corner of her eye. They all thought they knew women, but they didn’t, and the male chattering on beside her was no exception. All he had was the wherewithal to provide himself with a few luxuries, and he regarded Daisy as one of them, though she saw it differently. These days she knew how to deal with these situations.

  For instance, with the Yank, she allowed him only what she chose to allow him. There was no chance of gaining Daisy Sheridan’s favours with a couple of packs of stockings and a Hershey Bar. Daisy Sheridan was never short of stockings and she didn’t like their Hershey Bars. There was nothing special about their Hershey Bars, yet the Yanks handed them out as if bestowing the purest gold.

  She closed her eyes again to indicate that she would welcome silence from Major – what the hell was his name anyway? she wondered, and smiled to herself. She hadn’t bothered to learn it, not that it mattered. She knew from the moment she’d met him that he would ask her to marry him. It was how all the Yanks operated, and she was tempted to accept with gushing enthusiasm, just to see the look on his face as he backed away in panic, but she would be civil to him until they reached Nottingham. He’d taken her to Glasgow and back after all.

  Eileen and her baby popped into her mind again and she pictured Calli’s handsome young face. ‘Eileen’s lovely boy,’ she murmured.

  Beside her, the Major – she must try to remember his name, she thought, or maybe not, seeing as she had already decided he wouldn’t be around long enough to justify her taking the trouble – said, ‘Boy? I thought you said it was a girl, Daisy?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied quietly. ‘Must be lack of sleep, it is a girl.’

  He had been a lovely boy, Calli, she thought, slipping back into the company of her own thoughts. He had been one of the few males who hadn’t tried it on with her and had looked her in the eye, so he was a hero to Daisy for that alone, even if she’d given him a hard time. She had given Bruiser a hard time, too, but he hadn’t seemed to care, refused to even recognise it because he was so sure she would eventually fall for his charms.

  She wished now that she could have done things differently. Calli MacDonald was different. Just when she had given up hope of ever meeting a male who wasn’t like all the others, along came Eileen’s lovely boy, with his dark brown eyes and matching dark brown curly hair. He’d certainly been a looker, but there’d been something more about him, too.

  Daisy grinned, remembering. Decency, that was what he’d had. No wonder she had trouble putting it into words, it was a long, long time since she had seen it.

  True love, she thought, true bloody love. Everyone seemed to be searching for it, but who needed it? Because Eileen had loved Calli she hadn’t wanted to get rid of his child. Now she was condemned to the dreaded childhood sweetheart. Still, as Daisy had said at the time, with any luck the bastard wouldn’t come back, then Eileen would be free, to an extent at any rate. She would survive the war with Calli’s child but no Calli, though no bloody childhood sweetheart either.

  In the back of the American staff car the Major was gearing up to strike. Daisy sighed and looked out the window. It was always so unoriginal, that was what insulted her, apart from the fact that they tried at all, of course. There was no wit, no finesse, either they weren’t capable of it or didn’t think she would understand it. She had never been able to work out which.

  ‘I was thinking, Daisy,’ he said in a smarmy voice, his attempt at seduction.

  Without looking at him she imagined him twirling his moustaches like a villain from a silent film, if he’d had moustaches, that was, instead of a little bar of stubble under his nose.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he repeated, close up to her left ear, making her think of Dessie, ‘that we could stop somewhere instead of going all the way back tonight.’

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the driver look in his rear-view mirror and grin at her.

  ‘No,’ she said lazily, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But you’re not on duty till tomorrow night,’ the Major persisted. He was clearly the kind who believed girls said ‘No’ when they meant ‘Yes’. ‘Surely you’d be fresher if we stopped somewhere.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Daisy replied. She turned to bestow a severe stare on him. ‘What you have in mind isn’t a night of rest and relaxation, is it? But I’m sure you’re a real beast between the sheets, so I’d only end up exhausted.’

  He looked bemused, not sure whether to deny he was a beast between the sheets or to say he intended being a gentleman and would leave her to sleep alone.

  ‘Besides,’ she said, before he could think his way out of that one, ‘I’m emotionally distraught. Didn’t you see me crying? What kind of man would force himself on a lady in distress?’

  ‘I … uh …’

  ‘Is that the American Dream you all talk about?’ Daisy continued, her voice rising with every syllable. ‘Are all American men like you?’

  ‘Well … I just thought …’

  ‘Oh, I see now what you thought!’ she accused. ‘Do her the tiny favour of supplying transport for two old friends to see each other after they’d been through a hard time together, and one’s sure to join you in the sack, that’s what you thought!’

  ‘No, no …’

  ‘You should’ve mentioned it back in Glasgow, maybe the new mom would have been so grateful she’d have obliged! Would that satisfy you, having your way with a mom with a baby at her breast? A mom desperately worried about her husband in danger on the high seas?’

  He couldn’t think of anything to say, so she delivered the coup de grâce. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said tearfully, ‘just stop the car here and I’ll walk all the way back to Langar. I thought you were a decent man, a friend who was prepared to do a favour for another friend without asking for payment of any kind, and now I find out that …’ Here she subsided into sobs. Well, it had to come somewhere and this was as good a place as any. If he accepted her offer she wasn’t too far away from Langar, and she’d find a lift easily, everyone stopped for service-women.

  ‘Now, Daisy,’ the little man said, almost sincerely, ‘you have misunderstood. I was thinking of you, only of you. I was thinking of how upset you’ve been—’

  Clever! she thought.

  ‘—and that what you needed was a good night’s sleep before going back on duty. Not for one minute was I thinking of taking advantage of the situation, and you can take my word on that as an officer and a gentleman.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get a good night’s sleep in my own bed at Langar,’ she explained quietly and primly. ‘Then I’ll have the whole of tomorrow off to relax before I go on duty in the evening. We still have plenty of time to make it back before the blackout.’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed,’ the Major said firmly. ‘My thoughts exactly. Driver, carry on!’

  Which is more than you will, she thought. With me at any rate.

  The rest of the journey passed in silence and when they reached Langar the car pulled up at the gates. The driver came round to open the door for her to get out.

  ‘You’re good, Ma’am,’ he winked at her.

  ‘Sunshine,’ she said, fixing him with a look, ‘I’m the best, I’m the best there is.’

  ‘At what?’ he asked, laughing quietly.

  ‘Now that you’ll never find out,’ she smiled demurely, ‘but you’re free to fantasise.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am!’ he said, chuckling as he saluted and turned to climb back in the driving seat, then he spun round to face her again. ‘I was wondering,�
� he grinned. ‘Just what would it take? I mean, what’s the price?’

  ‘More than you’ll ever be able to afford, sunshine,’ she said casually without looking back as she walked away, ‘even if you live to have millions in the bank.’

  As she walked to the WAAFery to sign in, taking care to enter by the back door, she knew the guards had noted not only her return but the staff car that had brought her back, and they would spread the word around. Another chapter in Daisy’s reputation. It would do her no harm. Now she would go back to the hut and bring the others up-to-date with how Eileen was faring, or at least the sanitised version of it: happy and healthy wife and mother and beautiful baby girl.

  God, but it was all so difficult at times, and when she thought back to how it had all started it made her feel like crying for real. She looked out at the planes on the airstrip, remembering that when the first Lancs arrived there had been so much excitement. And they were beautiful planes. WAAFs in operational bases knew about planes, and Lancs were so different from the Manchesters that went before them, and with so little alteration, too. The crews had had to learn about them, what they could and couldn’t do, so they’d been flying round the clock doing ‘circuits and bumps’, as the exercises were called, with cross-countries, air-firing, fighter affiliation and all the other necessary ops. One farm worker had been bringing his herd in for milking when he found three of the new aircraft bearing down on him at low level, and he had thrown himself flat on the muddy, cowpat-strewn ground and covered his eyes, unaware whether they were friend or foe. Funny how quickly you got used to such a strange world.

  ‘So how was Eileen?’ Pearl asked as Daisy was unpacking.

  ‘Oh, you know, tired.’

  ‘But the baby? Is she pretty? Who does she look like?’

  Daisy stopped and drew in a breath. ‘Like her father,’ she said quietly, ‘very like her father.’ Which was no more than the truth.

  ‘Will we get pictures?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy said. ‘She’ll be sending some when she’s feeling more like herself.’

  ‘I expect she’s still worrying about her husband,’ Pearl mused, head to one side. ‘Can’t be easy having a brand-new baby and not knowing if the father will ever see her.’

  Yes, Daisy thought, something like that. ‘Well, there are a lot of women in the same boat, aren’t there?’ she smiled brightly. ‘Can’t be easy for any of them. So, anything been happening here?’

  ‘Well, everyone’s hinting that something big is about to happen, no idea what. It could all be rumours, though there does seem to be a lot of moving about,’ Pearl sighed.

  ‘There always is.’

  ‘Yes, but more than normal, more units and squadrons moving south rather than here and there. It’s probably nothing, they’ll move back to where they came from and we’ll still be hearing rumours.’

  Daisy sat on her bed. ‘I sometimes wonder if it will ever end,’ she said wearily. ‘Here we are, the end of May 1944 and we’re still fighting a war that, in September 1939, we thought would be over in no time.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Pearl replied. ‘I often wonder if we’d been told then how long it would go on, would we have been able to take it?’

  ‘It never seems to end,’ Daisy nodded. ‘We hear things are going badly, going well, but I can see us spending our lives like this, making friends who just disappear, talking to boys in the air, avoiding officers in case, we get ticked off for wearing nylons.’

  ‘Trying to find a decent supply of nylons!’ Pearl giggled.

  Daisy reached into her bag, brought out a pile of nylons and threw them to her. ‘Courtesy of a Yank,’ she said, ‘and don’t ask what I did to get them.’

  ‘Oooh, it must have been good whatever it was, or should I say bad? He has been generous beyond all expectations!’

  ‘Oh, and here’s something else he gave me,’ Daisy muttered, ‘another supply of bloody Hershey Bars!’

  Not long afterwards they learned that the rumours of ‘something big’ were true this time. Operation Overlord, the D-Day Landings in Normandy, would be launched on 6th June 1944. It would be the true beginning of the end of the Germans, though the allied casualties would be terrible.

  It would be the usual botch-up. Each landing craft carried fifty-six fully equipped and armed troops onto the beaches, but the weather wasn’t what they had been expecting and the sea had a bad swell, so a great many died by drowning, dragged down by their packs before they could fire or take a shot. The design of the special tanks was faulty, taking many more to their deaths under the sea, and leaving the troops who got ashore unsupported.

  Those who made it onto the beaches fought strong German gunfire that mowed down serried ranks of young men, not counting those who died after stepping on the heavily mined sand. From St-Vaast-la Hougue to Villers-sur-Mer on the beautiful French coastline, Canadian, British and American troops fought their way ashore on the beaches named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. Names that would remain in the psyches of a generation of Americans in particular, because of the high number of casualties they suffered, especially at ‘Bloody Omaha’, where they had to climb high cliffs as the Germans shot down on them, turning the sand red with their blood. There may have been early British resentment about the Yanks being ‘over here’, but when they got ‘over there’ they earned admiration for their bravery, at the heavy cost of so many young lives. And among those supporting the troop landings was the only all-Australian Spitfire Squadron in the UK, who had earlier been sent to the south coast in preparation for the ‘something big’ that was D-Day.

  Not that Daisy knew anything of this. They were all too busy with their own responsibilities to take much notice of what was happening elsewhere, and she had placed Frank Moran behind one of those doors in her mind marked ‘Not to be thought about’.

  The news came in a letter from Mar. That young Australian chap, the one Dotty had been keen on, had survived all the way through till the end of August and then been shot down. He was badly burned and had been taken back to a hospital in southern England, apparently, not expected to live. ‘And to think he survived the Battle of Britain, too. There’s just no justice, my dear Daisy, is there? Are we likely to be seeing you soon?’

  The words hit her like a brick between the eyes. She felt dizzy and sick and wanted to get up and run, but her legs wouldn’t move. So what do you do when your bluff’s been called, Daisy Sheridan, not just knocked about a bit in a Mayfair flat, but actually called? He was going to die. Dead, like Calli and Bruiser, that kind of dead, the forever kind. Do you sit here trying to work out your options? Well, there aren’t any. Dead, that’s what he’d be. Try to push that door in your mind shut now that it was pushing against the famous Daisy Sheridan determination. Why? What do you have to gain?

  Get up, Daisy, move. Dead. OK, first breathe deeply and calm yourself, panic never achieves anything. Now put on the mask, the calm one that people can’t see through. D-Day is over, you’ve got more leave to take, that’s all you’re doing, taking leave that’s due to you, no one needs to know anything. Mar would help, but you can’t tell Mar, what with Dotty being besotted with Frank. Not to worry, any one of the boys will give you a lift to London, they’d pay to do it and there was always someone going there. The hospital is no problem, it’s only some place outside London, there’s bound to be someone else who’s going that way, lifts are easy to come by. It’ll be easy. But what about Dotty? Well, nothing Daisy could do about that. If he was going to be dead for her he’d be just as dead for Dotty, but she had to see him, and sort things out with Dotty later.

  She told the nurses at the hospital she was his fiancée, but when they led her to his bed she didn’t recognise him. What she could see of him was covered in black skin, but, as he had written to her, Spitfire pilots got the worst burns because they sat behind their fuel tanks, surrounded by them, too. He was full of shrapnel as well, and deeply unconscious.

  ‘You’re sure this is Frank?’
she asked a nurse, and the nurse nodded. There were no points of reference. His skin, where it wasn’t burned black, was red and oozing, and his hair had gone. She pictured him in her mind, the tanned, fair-haired, blue-eyed war hero, and couldn’t see anything of him in the body in the bed. The smell was indeed awful. It smelled disconcertingly of roast meat, but she remembered what Dotty had said – a smell was just a smell, so what? And what was it Dotty said about hearing? That it was the last thing to go, that even when someone was dying they could hear. So talk to him.

  It wasn’t easy. She was still far from sure it was Frank, and even if it was, what could she say, especially now?

  ‘Frank, it’s me, Daisy. Bet you didn’t think you’d see me again. If I remember rightly, the last time we talked you were angry, you called me a whore.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I just want you to know, I’m not. All those stories you’ve heard about me? Well, they’re not true, I just let people think they are to, well, to keep them away from me. I did go to all those parties in London, but I didn’t participate, if you see what I mean. But I was seen there, so that was good enough. I’ve only, you know, done it once, and I didn’t do it, he did.

  ‘It was my brother-in-law, he raped me, and next day I left home and joined up. There. I’ve never told anyone that, apart from Mrs Johnstone, and she’s dead now.’ She paused, near to tears. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this, there’s no point, is there? I suppose I wanted you to know because I did everything I could to discourage you and maybe you thought it was something about you, but it was something about me. I wasn’t ready to let anyone close to me, Frank, but if I had been, it would have been you.

  ‘And the Yank at the flat? Well, he was an American pilot who’d been shot down. He was very sick. Mar asked me to take him to London to see the sights. There was nothing going on, we didn’t sleep together, he was too ill, apart from anything else. All I did was look after him like a child. I was angry with you, that’s all.’

  It was all coming out in a rush, but there wasn’t the slightest movement or alteration in his breathing.