“I used to be on a gun site here back in 1942. You can still see the Nissen huts; proper little country cottages now—I don’t think.”
The W.A.A.F. gazed out of the window and the two soldiers flicked their glances over the young man, observing everything about him from the hat on the rack above his head to his serviceable socks and new-looking shoes.
“Had your ticket long, mate?” The elder of the soldiers asked.
“Couple of weeks.”
“Got a soft number?”
“Not yet. But it’s early days still.”
“Um.” The younger soldier brought out a fingered packet of gold flake and stuck one in his mouth. As an afterthought, he stretched an arm across to Laura: “Cigarette, Ma’am?”
“Oh, . . . thank you . . . yes, I will. Thank you.” Laura was brought back from her contemplation of the man in the blue suit. Of course that was why there was something familiar about him: the blue suit, the serviceable socks and new shoes, the striped shirt and collar and too bright tie: a demob. outfit, value twelve pounds ten. You saw them everywhere, good clothes but with a sameness which made the wearer as obvious as had his discarded uniform.
The soldier who had given her the cigarette continued:
“Going far, Ma’am?” She warmed again to the use of the word, ‘Ma’am,’ recalling the hundreds of times she had been called that, or had uttered it to her superior officers during the past years. But probably the soldier had picked it up from his American friends.
“No, only to London,” she replied.
“That’s where I live too. No place like it. Know the Angel?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered cautiously, wondering whether she should explain that her home was not in London. The baby on the lap of the woman next her created a diversion by beginning to cry, at first intermittently and then in a long yell of angry discomfort.
“Steady, little ’un,” said the soldier while his companion pulled a comic face to distract the child.
The attention of the carriage was now focused on the mother and children.
“He’s tired, poor sweet,” said the W.A.A.F.
“He’s wet,” said the mother in a weary voice. “I’ll have to change him.” She glanced at the suitcase thrust beneath the feet of the other child.
The older of the two soldiers said:
“Here, I’ll hold him while you get the necessary.” He stretched out lean, strong hands, broad and tanned, but with remarkably clean finger nails. The mother let him have the baby and turned to the suitcase on the floor. While she was opening it and searching for a clean nappy, the soldier deftly stripped off the wet one, letting the baby lie across his knees whilst with one hand he held its tiny feet in the air. His gentleness was amazing and the child stopped crying.
“Mopping-up operations,” said the soldier, grinning at the carriage. The mother looked up to see what was happening:
“Coo,” she said, “you know how to do it. Got one of your own at home?”
“Had,” said the soldier, and his face hardened suddenly, “but a V.2 got him and the wife.”
“That’s bad,” said the woman and continued wearily: “my husband’s in a sanatorium. Got his ticket two years ago, but he didn’t get no better and they sent him away last week. T.B. they said it was. I’m taking the kids to live with his mum, so’s to cut down on the overheads.”
“That’s tough,” said the soldier, “but you’ve got his pension, no doubt?”
“The government won’t give him one. They say it wasn’t anything to do with the army.” She took the baby back and quickly pinned on the clean nappy.
“Not attributable?”
“That’s right. You see, there’s always been T.B. in his family.” She rocked the baby softly in her arms and already it was dozing off.
Laura, listening and watching, felt a sudden panic at the appalling ignorance which allowed people with tuberculosis to procreate without thought. And it would be worse now. War had increased tuberculosis just as it had increased venereal diseases. What chance had science against the complacency of the ignorant?
With both children asleep against her, the woman talked softly to the soldiers:
“Got your tickets at last?” she asked.
They were silent and then they looked at each other and laughed.
“Not yet,” the elder of the two replied.
“Spot of leave, I suppose,” the woman went on.
The younger soldier laughed again.
“Well, some might put it that way,” he said.
The man in the demob. suit leant forward confidentially:
“On the run, pal?”
“Certainly not,” replied the young soldier.
“It was just a case of whether we’d go to Germany again or stay at home,” his companion added.
“So we thought it about time we started trying a bit of that ‘private enterprise’ you keep reading about in the papers.”
“So there we are.” The soldier lighted another cigarette.
“I know,” said the woman, “my Bert did it once but they came and fetched him away.”
The W.A.A.F.’s eyes were wide.
“I’d never dare,” she said, and her voice was envious.
Laura felt shocked. It was somehow wrong that two soldiers—two nice soldiers like these—should be defaulters. During the war, going absent without leave was something to be ashamed of, something that the fighting soldier didn’t do. Or if he did, he came back of his own accord and took his punishment in good humour. There had of course been cases of youths who’d managed to stay on the run for years, real deserters, but they hadn’t been the sort of men these soldiers in the carriage were. At least Laura didn’t imagine they had. Now that the fighting was over she supposed that there were lots of decent men who just walked out of the Forces. Perhaps it didn’t really matter. But she still felt shocked: desertion wasn’t a soldierly act.
The train was rushing forward now, swaying its occupants gently as it sped along. Inside the carriage there was silence. The air was thick with breath and smoke. It was warm and soporific. Laura found herself drowsing. Her eyes closed and her thoughts juggled with the noise of the train, beating disconnected sentences through her mind. On the run . . . on the run . . . on the run . . . said the train and Laura thought: ‘Aunt Bessie’s come to stay for a week; that’s an achievement.’
Got a soft number . . . got a soft number . . . jogged the wheels and Laura was conscious of well-being because her father had suggested that she should—if she wanted—go up to town for a week. That was nothing short of a miracle.
T.B. they said . . . T.B. they said . . . I’d never dare . . . I’d never dare . . . rumbled the train and Laura slept.
She did not awake until they arrived at King’s Cross. One of the soldiers offered to carry her suitcase, but she said she could manage. He went off with his friend who was helping the woman with the children. The W.A.A.F. and the man in the demob. suit had already vanished. The deaf man had a porter.
Laura found a taxi. The situation had improved since she was last in town. Women porters and taxi queues were becoming things of the past. She gave the address of the Reunion Club for ex-service women which was in Seymour Street and sat back to enjoy the drive through London.
The city still looked drab in the late afternoon drizzle, and one was chiefly conscious of the enormous amount of scaffolding there was about the place. London was re-building, but what were the newspapers saying? That if rebuilding progressed at ten times the pace it was, there would still be ten times too few houses. It must be terrible to have no house to make a home in. Laura felt depressed.
She felt better as the taxi passed through Portland Place. The B.B.C. had discarded its blast walls. Funny how one had never really noticed that it had been camouflaged. So much of London had gone unintentionally grey during the war.
Once at the club, her exhilaration returned. She had a tiny room at the top of the building and she bega
n to unpack her belongings with a sense of excitement. It reminded her suddenly of the feeling she had experienced when the black-out was finally lifted. A daredevil feeling because you could leave your windows uncurtained for all the world to look in. You were safe from V. weapons and at the same time protected because other people could keep an eye on you.
She washed, made up her face carefully and went downstairs.
The Reunion Club was run for ex-service women by ex-service women. Laura had joined as a founder member, but had not yet had an opportunity to use it. It might, she thought as she went downstairs, be rather awkward. For all she knew, she could find herself waited on by a fellow officer and taking coffee with a past batwoman. At least that is how the circular announcing the inauguration of the club had read. It sounded very democratic.
Actually it wasn’t a bit like that. The overheads were sufficiently high to warrant a substantial membership fee. Only women in the upper income groups could afford to belong. Almost at once, Laura realized that the staff were very definitely of the ex-orderly category and that the members weren’t. She was relieved and at the same time perturbed because her mind reflected the picture of the soldiers in the train, the woman with the children, the W.A.A.F. and, strangely, Dick Cobb at the Cock and Pheasant with his group of friends from the Training Centre at Little Copse.
It was much too late for afternoon tea. Laura noticed a hatch in the wall through which a waitress was receiving drinks on a small tray. She caught the girl’s glance in passing and ordered a sherry. There was no sherry. Gin, Marsala or Dubonnet were available. Laura chose Marsala and sat back to survey the room. It was newly painted and rather bare. Framed and signed photographs of various members of the Royal family, disguised as members of the various women’s services, adorned three walls. Her Majesty the Queen—not in uniform—held the position of honour over the fireplace as commandant-in-chief of all three services.
There was a green baize notice board by the door, a letter rack, a table with periodicals on it, and a number of arm-chairs, cushions and sundry furnishings reminiscent of those provided in war time by the Duchess of Northumberland’s A.T.S. Comforts Fund.
The room was crowded, and its occupants seemed to know one another well. Laura thought: ‘There isn’t a face I can recognize; how much simpler it would be if we were still in uniform.’
And then someone spoke to her:
“Hello, Watson. It is Watson, isn’t it?” The speaker was an elderly woman with short grey hair, wearing a neat tweed suit.
Laura said:
“Why it’s Senior Commander Hall. How nice to see you again.” With difficulty she prevented herself from adding the prefix ‘Ma’am.’ Geraldine Hall had been a group commander in Scotland when Laura was at the commando training centre. She said:
“I saw your name on the members list, but I don’t remember seeing you in the club before.”
“No. This is my first visit,” Laura replied, and remembered that Miss Hall had been the nicest sort of senior officer. She did something very well too. . . . What was it? Of course, she played the piano; not classic but swing and dance music. At the time it seemed a little out of keeping with an A.T.S. officer of senior rank.
“You remember Prudence Wain?” the elder woman continued, looking towards a table in the corner.
“Why, of course. And there are Jill Fearnley and Mary Summers who were at Nottingham with me, and that girl who used to be the R.S.M. there before she went to O.C.T.U.,” Laura exclaimed.
And quite suddenly the room which had been filled with strange females in strange attire broke into well-known faces with familiar voices and personalities remembered against a background of regimental life.
Geraldine Hall took Laura over to the far table. There were greetings and expressions of surprise and the surreptitious glances which women flicker at each other’s clothes when they are no longer dressed alike.
Mary Summers was now secretary to a nerve specialist; Prudence Wain had a job in an advertising agency. The girl who used to be a regimental sergeant-major had taken up teaching and Jill Fearnley wrote scenarios for a film company. They said:
“What are you doing, Laura?”
“Living at home and keeping house for my father.” Laura felt as she had in the old days when people asked her what her army job was and she said: ‘General Duties,’ whilst other women had exciting jobs like tactical control officers on gun sites, or technical ordnance officers.
Geraldine Hall said:
“Like me you’ve gone back to your old life. Mine’s playing in small clubs of dubious character!”
The others laughed.
“Gerry plays at the New Merlin’s Cave in Chelsea. She’s a riot. And she doesn’t do too badly in radio either.”
Laura asked:
“What happened to Pooks Barber?”
“Married. Got her ticket, as they say, in Group 1. You remember the man? That rather wishy-washy little doctor who was M.O. when old Johnson was Commandant.”
Jill Fearnley looked up from her nails which were long and red and received a great deal of attention. She had wide grey eyes and an impudent pale face:
“You don’t by any chance mean Mildred Johnson?” she asked.
Mary Summers, who had a dark subdued beauty calculated to calm the most neurotic of her employer’s patients, said:
“That’s the one. She came to the Training Centre from the Scottish Group you took over, Gerry.”
“I remember the take-over,” Geraldine Hall said dryly, and the other girls laughed.
Laura said:
“Chief Commander Johnson? She was very efficient.”
Jill pulled a face and snorted.
“But she was,” Laura emphasized.
Jill Fearnley folded long, nervous hands together and put her head on one side.
“If ever there were a bitch,” she said, “Mildred Johnson was the Queen Bitch. Oh, I know, she ended up a Queen A.T., too, but promotion always did come to those who could no longer be supported on a human level.”
Laura remembered vividly the woman they were talking about. A tall, thwarted creature who suffered from a bad skin. Unloved and unlovely, but not inefficient. She said:
“The troops liked her, and they always knew best.”
“The troops?” Jill’s voice was scornful. “The troops she dealt with in Nottingham knew her for precisely three weeks. They were recruits and only heard her speech of welcome and her speech of farewell. Then they went to their units. It was we officers who had to bear with her month in and month out. I shall never forgive her for the way she made our life hell in the mess.”
Mary Summers cut in:
“Jill’s right. We can say it now. She treated her officers like convicts. We were never off parade. I put in for a posting in the end.”
“And tell them what happened,” Jill urged.
“Well,” Mary’s lovely, calm face, looked a little wry, “I wasn’t well. The M.O. said I should have a rest from training. I got a certificate and sent it in with my application for a posting. I’m afraid I was a little malicious then.” She paused and smiled.
“Go on,” said Jill.
“I put in my application that, in any case, sarcasm and constant nagging were not conducive to good health or good work. I asked for this to be passed to higher authority.”
“What happened?” They were all curious now.
“She tore it up. I saw it burned in front of my eyes.”
Even Laura was shocked. Gerry Hall said:
“What did you do, Mary?”
Mary’s face grew wryer:
“I was weak,” she admitted. “I should have sent a copy on myself, but I didn’t. I simply said I’d like a job at the War Office. I got it too, on Johnson’s high recommendation. Pure blackmail, I know,” she laughed softly.
Laura said:
“I can’t believe it.”
“It was true.”
“Of course it was true,” Jill added vehemently.
“She was a bully with all the cowardice of a bully when it came to a show-down. God, how I hated them all.”
“But they weren’t like that. The A.T.S. wasn’t like that a bit.” Laura’s voice sounded almost desperate.
“Of course it wasn’t, my dear,” Geraldine Hall spoke softly. “It was a fine organization. I was in it all through, both in the ranks and as an officer. It was big and vital and had magnificent people in it. You’ll always find some individuals who don’t come up to standard, just as you’ll always find some who can’t adapt themselves to community life. Like Jill,” she twinkled across at the impudent face opposite. “But I am quite convinced that not one of us sitting round this table did not benefit in one way or another from having been in the A.T.S. We gained as much as we gave—in some cases more.”
They looked at her solemnly for a moment and then Jill said:
“All right, Jerry. Have it your own way if you like. I’ll admit that even I gained something: the capacity to wait for hours without getting impatient. Does that satisfy you?”
“It wouldn’t satisfy me, but maybe it does you,” Geraldine replied, dryly.
“I think,” Mary Summers said, “that I probably learned more about how to deal with all sorts of people and situations during my three years’ service than I would have in a hundred years otherwise.”
“And I know that I got self-confidence,” Prudence Wain put in. “I can never be grateful enough for that now that I’m back in civvy street, particularly in my madhouse of an advertising agency. What about you, Laura?”
“I don’t know really,” Laura frowned. “I just know that I loved it and I miss it terribly. It was the companionship and the freedom . . .”
“Freedom?” Jill broke in incredulously.
“Yes, freedom. From trivial upsets and fear of the future. I don’t know how to put it really. It was just being one of a lot of people all with a job to do but finding time to enjoy life as well. Not having to worry. Not having to be on one’s guard all the time.”
“Well, that’s the strangest description of the pleasures of army life that I’ve heard yet,” Jill replied.
Wine of Honour Page 7
