An Army of Smiles

by Grace Thompson

  Their canteen was large too, one of several. One was for officers only and another for PTI, the physical training instructors. ‘Ours is for the real soldiers, the quantity and the quality,’ Ethel insisted.

  The camp boasted its own cinema and the girls looked forward to seeing films without a tedious journey into town. Although having to open the canteen between five and eleven meant it was only possible on their half day off.

  There was more entertainment on the large camp than the others on which they had worked, and besides the organized concerts and film shows, impromptu shows happened most nights. The canteen was busy, noisy and enormous fun.

  To Ethel the ebullience of the men seemed to be forced. They were going off on a journey fraught with danger to meet with an enemy who promised death or injuries and they were putting on an act. She made sure she joined in and helped them face the future in the only way they knew, by pretending that it was all a great, entertaining game.

  It seemed to be a transit camp. Faces they began to recognize disappeared after a few weeks and others took their place. They daren’t ask, as careless talk was considered a danger to them all. There were a few men who stayed longer than the rest; these worked on the lorries, painting them in camouflage colours, and even when the girls went to the huts where they worked with their mid-morning and afternoon trolleys, or drove out in the big van, they weren’t allowed to see the work in progress. They learned that this was because the colours of the camouflage would give away their destination. Khaki, black and green were not universal.

  * * *

  Baba Morgan was sent abroad. His skills were needed in North Africa where Rommel’s Panzer divisions pushed the Allies back over previously won ground, where they regrouped and prepared for another offensive, with Montgomery and Alexander in command since August. The desert was hard on vehicles and with other mechanics from different parts of the country Baba boarded ship for the perilous journey.

  He had written to Ethel but had been unable to tell her his destination. Besides the danger of reporting such information, he hadn’t known himself before setting off through the darkness for an early dawn embarkation. There was no opportunity to phone home, they were watched every moment, the fear of spies learning something to help the enemy was almost comic, until the realization of what careless words might cause came to their minds. They were sailing across seas that hid U-boats and under skies where planes were watching for the chance to destroy them.

  He lay on his hammock and thought about Ethel. He had left messages and hoped that once he was settled he would be able to write to her. He wanted to keep in touch. Although he had addresses for Kate’s and Rosie’s homes, not knowing where Ethel’s family lived made him insecure. It was so easy to lose touch in wartime.

  The ship was a large one protected by destroyers and cruisers which made up a convoy. Besides men and women, they carried vehicles, including tanks to replace those lost in battle, and Baba would go with them and help maintain them. He both feared and wanted to see some fighting. If he were to live through a war he had to have some stories to tell his children. That thought brought him back to dreams of Ethel.

  The food was supplied by what was known as deck messing, with cooks providing the meals, and mess men to carry up plates of food to the recreation area where they ate. In the small recreation area there was a cubby-hole which was used by the Naafi to provide the day-to-day needs of the men. It was there that Baba and two of his friends went to look for some sickness tablets, too embarrassed to go to the sick bay and admit to feeling seasick.

  The tablets were unavailable, and he was sitting there looking glum and wondering how soon he would have to run to the heads, when a voice said, ‘You’re supposed to go to the medics but if you like you can take one of mine.’

  Baba looked up and saw a thin, pale young man holding out a packet of white tablets. ‘Thanks. Do they work?’

  ‘They’re what the army and navy recommend,’ the man said. ‘But please yourself.’

  He spoke so abruptly that Baba was tempted to throw the packet back at him but his need was greater than his pride at that moment and he took the recommended dose and swallowed them with a cup of tea.

  ‘Who was that miserable so-and-so?’ he asked one of the other men.

  ‘Oh, him, you don’t want to bother with him. He hasn’t a civil word for anyone, him.’

  ‘I’ll avoid him in future, don’t worry,’ Baba said. ‘I’d hate to make him laugh and ruin his reputation.’

  Wesley Daniels heard the comments, shrugged and walked away. He didn’t see Baba take out a pad and begin to write to ‘My darling Ethel’.

  The attacks began on the second day, enemy planes diving down and dropping bombs on the armada of ships, the outer circle of destroyers and corvettes fighting back with guns and depth charges and torpedoes, the small protecting the larger ones. Two ships were sunk, with some of the the survivors being brought on to the ship where Wesley and Baba worked alongside each other, helping the men to climb aboard and making them comfortable in the limited spaces they found for them. Between battles they worked with the medics dealing with the injured.

  In spite of his surliness, Baba couldn’t help admiring the man who worked all through the night without a break. When he wasn’t in the sick bay he was supplying food for those needing a reviving drink and a snack, or cleaning and tidying the area in which he worked, preparing for the next time his services were called upon.

  Although they stood side by side for minutes on end and even washed down a survivor together, the man hardly spoke. Baba went on chatting and in an attempt to make the man laugh he asked a question and answered it himself then asked another question, but Wesley didn’t respond.

  Baba was curious. He couldn’t be much more than twenty yet he had the expression of an old, bitter man who had seen much suffering. He was brave too, going out on deck to bring men to comparative safety while planes dive-bombed and fired at them.

  Was he stupid, he wondered? Or was he so sickened by the carnage he had witnessed that he wanted to die? That thought as he stared at the man made Baba shiver.

  Later that morning, while carpenters, blacksmiths and plumbers worked at repairing the damage, Baba went on deck. He had no business being there, but by carrying a piece of plywood and a hammer he was presumed to be part of the workforce and was ignored.

  ‘Who’s that miserable bugger in the Naafi then?’ he asked one of the joiners.

  ‘Miserable he might be, but he does more than his share,’ the man replied aggressively.

  ‘I was wondering why he does so much? Something wrong with him, is there?’

  ‘Listen, mate, everyone on this ship does more than he has to. It’s called survival!’

  ‘Keep your hair on. I was only going to say he’s a hero, even if he is a strange bloke. And I worked all night too, so cut the criticism, right?’

  In his anger, his Welsh accent became more pronounced and the man stopped what he was doing for a moment and said with a grin, ‘All right, Taffy! Where are you from?’

  ‘Cardiff.’

  The man held out a hand. ‘Llanwonno,’ he said.

  ‘Where the ’ell’s that?’

  An argument ensued on the best part of Wales to live, a quiet friendly valley town or what he called the wild Welsh metropolis and when Baba returned to his quarters he realized he might have made a friend but still didn’t know the name of the miserable hero.

  The chippy’s name was Lionel Clifford and over the next few days he and Baba spent some of their spare time together. When items began to disappear they shared disapproval of such a person, stealing from his mates, and joined in with others trying to think of ways of catching the thief. Neither said it aloud but both glanced at Wesley from time to time, a silent accusation of which he was aware.

  Wesley was the ‘odd-bod’, an unknown factor at a time when people shared their thoughts, and it was easy to imagine the taciturn man having a grudge which he was repaying
by petty theft.

  Wesley didn’t join in the discussion about the thefts. He rarely spoke and few bothered to speak to him. That was how he liked it. The little Welshman could try all he liked but Wesley had no intention of making a friend of him or anyone else. He’d let them down if it came to it, like he’d let Ethel down.

  Facing bombs and bullets was easy, it was abstract violence, not like a personal attack on him by someone who had reason, real or imagined, to hate him. One man against another he couldn’t face. Sometimes he saw men fighting each other, anger sparked by some accusation of cheating at dominoes or something equally unimportant, and he would feel his stomach turning to water and his heart racing with fear and he would have to go out and take deep breaths of air to calm the terror of his memories. He would relive the fist coming towards his face knocking him senseless, feel the boots kicking him, and see again the red angry face of Dai Twomey leaning towards him, large and throbbing with fury, threatening him, laughing at his puny efforts to defy him.

  His legs moved as though running although his feet didn’t leave the deck. He coughed up bile and stifled a sob. Without doubt when he met Ethel’s father again he would run, leave her to her father’s anger and fail her again.

  * * *

  Kate had to drive the van. It was something she had tried to avoid, but since the foolish drive from town on the night they had taken the car belonging to Rowan Fotheringay, Ethel and Rosie had tried to persuade her to take a few refresher lessons and drive the van which went around the camp taking food to the workshops and garages for the men and women who worked there. Once their supervisor understood that she had a driver’s licence he insisted on her using her knowledge and, as well as driving the van herself, she was told to teach Ethel and Rosie until an instructor could find time.

  The practice took place with an embarrassingly large audience in the waste ground beyond the target area, the soldiers both encouraging and jeering good-naturedly as she ground her way through the gears and jerked heavily on the brakes.

  To Kate’s surprise and relief, after a few minutes of instruction she managed well. The voice of her former instructor at the time of her eighteenth birthday came back to her and she drove around, turned and reversed without any serious problems.

  ‘It’s when I get into the driver’s seat on my own that the panic will start,’ she confessed to Rosie.

  ‘I’ll be with you,’ Rosie said in surprise.

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Well, er, I’ll help you scream,’ Rosie promised.

  The three girls had often considered applying for overseas posting and something happened one day that made them decide that it would be a good move. They were in the town looking for somewhere that promised more than beans on toast or dried egg to ease Rosie’s hunger, when they saw Ethel’s father. He was sitting in a café looking out of the window. There was a cup of tea in front of him and rolled up beside it a newspaper.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Ethel gasped as she stopped and pulled back from where he could see her.

  ‘Didn’t that farmer tell you he’d given up his job and was spending his time looking for you?’

  ‘But how did he find me and why, for heaven’s sake, does he want to find me and drag me home? What have I done?’ Ethel sobbed.

  It was when they were back in camp preparing to open the canteen for the evening that Rosie said, ‘Why don’t we apply for overseas? We often talk about it and if your father is near and likely to cause more trouble, now is a good time.’

  ‘Won’t you be scared, Rosie?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Of course I will, I’d have to be stupid not to be. I’ll be sick on the ship, Nan’s parcels will be ages finding us and Hitler will be trying to kill us off. Of course I’ll be scared. But we’ve been lucky so far and with the men and women out there facing day after day of fighting, I think I’m brave enough to do my bit. What about you two?’

  They filled out their application and within weeks, at the end of November, they were told they were being sent to Scotland.

  ‘Scotland? Why Scotland?’ Kate wailed. ‘It’ll be perishing cold and I’m not allowed to wear my fur coat or my angora wool jumpers.’

  ‘And your eye-shadow will get frosted and pull all your eyelashes out,’ Ethel teased.

  ‘And your pancake make-up will crack and look like wrinkles,’ Rosie added with a laugh. Then she looked serious as she added, ‘And I bet there won’t be enough to eat.’

  They set off by train with tickets in the form of travel warrants and a voucher to buy food which, Rosie sighed, ‘Won’t last us till we get to Crewe, wherever that is!’

  They were fortunate that a parcel had arrived from Rosie’s Nan two days before they were to leave and Ethel and Kate hid it in the hope that Rosie would be able to leave it until they reached their training camp. Rosie had been right, their travel pack and warrants were used up before they were halfway there and the parcel was ransacked with enthusiasm.

  The cold hit them as soon as they alighted from the carriage. The platform was not crowded and they stood shivering and wishing they hadn’t come, waiting for someone to approach them and tell them where the transport was waiting.

  ‘I hope it’s a lorry and well warmed for us,’ Rosie shivered.

  ‘I don’t mind if it’s a horse and cart as long as it gets us to our warm hut in record time,’ Kate replied. ‘I hate my nose being red. Don’t I look a mess! My hair needs washing and curling and I long for a soak in a hot bath.’

  ‘D’you think they’ll allow us more than the regulation depth, just this once?’ Ethel wondered hopefully.

  Two squaddies marched up then and shouted their names, to which they answered, adding impatiently that they were cold and would they please show them to the transport.

  ‘Transport? Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ was the reply.

  ‘Blimey. For a moment there I thought Walter was back!’ Ethel groaned as they made their way out of the small station.

  They didn’t take notice of his actual remark, only the expression that had been so familiar to them when Walter had been their problem, so they were surprised to see an empty road with no sign of a vehicle of any kind.

  ‘Where’s the lorry?’

  ‘Back at camp, girls. We’re marching.’

  ‘Marching?’ Kate couldn’t have been more horrified if they’d told her to take all her clothes off. ‘How far?’ she demanded, while Rosie and Ethel stared open-mouthed at the grinning soldiers.

  It was almost three miles and the soldiers set up a fast pace. Sweating, with blisters already broken and bleeding, sticking their skin to their stockings and stockings to their shoes, they arrived and had to salute the guard post as they went through the gates. ‘Longest way up and shortest way down,’ they were reminded.

  The hut was in darkness and once the door closed behind them they switched on a torch to see two rows of beds each with an occupant.

  ‘Can we put the light on to unpack our things?’ Rosie asked in a whisper.

  ‘It’s after lights out,’ was the reply.

  ‘Too bad!’ Ethel felt for a switch and flooded the long narrow room with light. ‘I can’t take my coat off, I’m freezing,’ Rosie said. ‘Can you shut the windows, Kate?’

  As Kate went to close the row of windows behind heavy blackout curtains she was told to stop. ‘Windows are to stay open and the heater goes off at six o’clock,’ one of the girls said in a bored voice.

  Fully dressed, with their greatcoats over the thin blankets they had been given, they curled up with feet tucked inside their skirts, arms up inside their sleeves, and slept.

  To their continuing surprise they were treated as army recruits, running, marching, physical training – and most of these things wearing very few clothes. They had been told what to expect but had not taken the warnings seriously, believing that as ATS EFIs they were still Naafi girls and nothing more.

  The food was not plentiful and they had to queue fo
r the platefuls that were handed out to them without a choice. They were so hungry they ate everything; once, Rosie dared to rejoin the end of the queue and go around again to receive a second small afternoon offering of a sandwich and cup of very strong tea. The assistant looked at her suspiciously and asked if she had been there before.

  ‘No,’ Rosie lied, her big blue eyes wearing a look of innocence, ‘you must be thinking of yesterday – the days go so fast when you’re enjoying yourself, don’t they?’ Suspicion still clouding the assistant’s eyes, Rosie received her extra helping, but she didn’t dare try it again.

  They were also trained in the use of guns, the instructor explaining that in the event of their being involved in fighting, they would stand beside the soldiers and fight alongside them.

  ‘All this so we can serve char and a wad? What a way to run an army,’ Ethel sighed.

  ‘We’d have been better off tackling your dad, rot his socks,’ Kate said gloomily.

  ‘But imagine going abroad! No one I know has ever been abroad,’ Rosie said, encouragingly. ‘Once Nan’s parcels reach us we’ll be fine.’

  Two weeks after they arrived, they were able to look with amusement at the shock on the faces of newer arrivals and consider themselves soldiers.

  * * *

  The ship on which both Wesley and Baba travelled was attacked again as they approached their destination. Bombers dived down at them and the guns fired back. Baba was ordered to stand close to the guns and assist with the supply of ammunition. At first he felt vulnerable on deck with bullets flying and bombs falling, as though he were in the middle of a crazy thunderstorm with explosives instead of rain and hail. As the attack intensified he soon became so involved that he no longer felt afraid, he was just there as part of a team doing what had to be done. It wasn’t until it was over that the shock hit him and he felt himself shaking with delayed fright.