Liverpool Angels

by Lyn Andrews

  ‘Yer should be ashamed of yerself then! Dancin’ on his grave, yer are, by stickin’ up fer the likes of them!’ the lad who was clutching the waistcoat howled.

  Maggie grabbed hold of his ear and twisted it hard. ‘I know you, Davy Hardcastle, you’ve been in and out of borstal and you’re old enough to be in the Army!’ She released him and turned on another man. ‘And you, Fred Higgins, you’ve come to me often enough in the past for money! And you, and you … !’ She jabbed each man hard on the shoulder. ‘Well, you’ll get nothing more! You can go somewhere else or damn well starve. And there’s quite a few of you who should have joined up too! Why aren’t you in the Army or Navy, Ted Roberts? And you, Tommy Naylor? You’re nothing but cowards and thieves, the lot of you! Attacking a defenceless man and his wife who never did you any harm and using the deaths of the poor souls who drowned as an excuse! Clear off the lot of you! Go on, clear off!’

  She was trembling with the force of her anger but was relieved to see that finally the police had arrived. The crowd, still muttering threats, began to draw back and move away and a very shaken Agnes caught her arm as Maggie glared up at a burly sergeant. ‘It’s about time you lot put in an appearance. Aren’t you paid to keep the peace? You’d better go and see if the Zieglers are all right. I’m going home,’ she announced, turning away. Now that her rage was dying down she felt utterly exhausted.

  ‘God, Maggie, they might have lynched you! I dread to think what could have happened if the police hadn’t arrived,’ Agnes said as they walked back down the street.

  ‘I was too bloody angry to think about that, Agnes. That Hardcastle lad is a bad lot! I’m glad poor Isaac wasn’t here to suffer that! Our John would have been the first to agree with what I did. He liked and respected Isaac and Harold, he wouldn’t have approved of what that shower of no-marks and cowards were up to. And what good will ruining people’s lives and businesses do? It won’t bring any of them back …’ She began to cry softly and Agnes put her arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Come on home, Maggie. It’s been a terrible few days for you and there’s poor Mae to think about now. I don’t know how she’s going to get over this. Stay strong for her, Maggie. That’s what John would want. Stay strong for his daughter.’

  Mae didn’t think she would ever get over it. She would always feel so alone and lost, she thought as she sat in the kitchen with Alice on Saturday almost four weeks later. She didn’t want to eat, she couldn’t sleep, there were times when she felt so angry and others when she felt just numb. She couldn’t believe that she would never see her father again, never hear his voice or see him smile. He didn’t even have a grave; there could be no funeral, and that made it seem worse. Maggie had gone to see the vicar to see if there was some kind of service that could take place as a memorial.

  Alice did her best to try to comfort her and for this Mae was grateful. Alice had loved her father too but not nearly as much as she had. ‘Oh, Alice, I just don’t know how I’m going to carry on …’

  ‘You will, Mae. In a few weeks you’ll be able to … try to accept it,’ Alice replied softly. She felt totally out of her depth for this was the first death in the family she had experienced.

  Mae shook her head. ‘I know you mean well but you don’t really know how it feels, Alice. He was my da … and he’s gone forever.’

  ‘I do, in a way,’ Alice replied sadly. ‘I never knew my da, he left before I was born. At least you had your da for all the years you were growing up, Mae. I never did. And Mam said Uncle John was devastated when your mam died but he got over it. He never forgot her and you’ll never forget him but you’ll get on with your life, Mae. You do have to think about the future.’

  Alice had only been repeating what Maggie had already said but her words stayed with Mae. Her cousin was right; she would have to look to the future, and it was one she would have to face without her father. His death in a way had made her grow up, she thought sadly.

  After her talk with Alice, she’d spent a long night pondering her future but she had at last decided what she must do, what she felt she had to do.

  She had already returned to work for she needed to support herself now she no longer had a father to help, but she broached the subject with her aunt the following day.

  ‘I’ve come to a decision, Aunty Maggie. I’m going to have to stay at my job but I’m going to see if I can train as a nurse now too.’

  Maggie looked at her, horrified. ‘I promised your poor da that I wouldn’t let you do war work, Mae! It was the very last thing we spoke of and I’m not going back on that promise.’

  ‘But I have to do something, Aunty Maggie!’ Mae protested.

  ‘No, you don’t. You’ve a good job and you are already covering for men who’ve gone off and that’s enough. There are Regular Army nurses and auxiliaries – have been since the days of Miss Nightingale – and things aren’t so bad that you have to go too. How can I let your da down by agreeing? ’

  ‘It’s not the same. I want to do something … helpful. What use is sitting at a desk all day typing passenger manifests and bills of lading and invoices? That’s not helping anyone! No, I’ve made up my mind,’ Mae said determinedly.

  Maggie got to her feet, equally determined that she was not going to break her word to John. ‘Then you can just unmake it.’

  ‘Aunty Maggie, I know … Da … would want me to do something for the war effort.’

  ‘What your da wanted for you, Mae, was to keep on working in the offices of the company he had served for all his working life and in whose employment he … died. He was so proud that you had a decent job there and him a mere stoker, you know he was. He certainly didn’t want you being a nurse – a kind of glorified skivvy doing all sorts of dirty and menial tasks.’

  Mae felt resentment rising in her. ‘How do you know that? He never said he didn’t want me to train as a nurse and it can’t all be skivvying.’

  ‘What I know, milady, is that he didn’t want you doing war work. Now, that’s the end of it. I want to hear no more about it.’

  Mae had never openly defied her aunt in her life and old habits die hard, so she pressed her lips together and stormed out of the kitchen. She wasn’t going to give up, she thought. She wanted to do something worthwhile, something she was sure in her heart that her father would indeed have approved of: nursing wounded soldiers.

  When she’d left, Maggie turned her attention to Alice. ‘And don’t you go encouraging her either, Alice. She’s … she’s still overcome by grief, she only thinks she knows what she wants and what I said was true. Our John didn’t want her doing war work.’

  ‘I never said a word to her, Mam, honestly, but it can’t be all that bad. I mean, it’s not working in a munitions factory or anything like that.’

  ‘I’ve heard enough about this, Alice. I don’t want it mentioned again,’ Maggie warned.

  Alice nodded but somehow she didn’t think that this was the end of the matter.

  Alice was right; Mae had no intention of giving up. It seemed even more important to her now. ‘I’ve got to make her see that I want to do it for Da’s sake, Alice,’ she confided as they sat on the tram coming home from work.

  ‘She’ll go mad – she told me not to encourage you,’ Alice replied. ‘But I have to say I’m on your side, Mae.’

  ‘Then I’ll try again after supper. I saw this in the newspaper this morning and it looks as if nurses are badly needed.’ Mae passed Alice the piece she had cut out of the paper.

  Alice read it and nodded. ‘I’ll back you up, Mae, even though I’ll probably get an ear-bashing for it.’

  When the dishes had been washed and put away Mae passed the newspaper cutting to her aunt. ‘They are recruiting girls for the Voluntary Aid Detachment at Walton Hospital tomorrow, Aunty Maggie, so I’m going to see if they’ll take me. I have to do something. There’s nothing I can do now for … Da, but maybe I can help wounded soldiers. Da would want me to be more … independent and do something I believe
in and I just can’t do nothing at all! You can’t want me to stay mollycoddled in that office while men and boys are dying!’

  ‘Mae, I thought I said I wanted to hear no more about this. I promised him and you know how proud he was that you had a good job … He wanted a better life for you, Mae, not—’ Maggie started but Mae interrupted her.

  ‘Aunty Maggie, I … We have to face the fact that he’s … dead and that the world he knew has changed. He … he couldn’t know what this war would do to people, how it would affect their feelings. When you promised him you wouldn’t let me do war work, I know he meant working in munitions or on the docks or railways. In my heart I know he would have wanted me to do something useful to help the wounded. I know he would have been equally as proud of me for that. He wouldn’t want me sitting in the safety and … comfort of that office when I could be of more use in a hospital. He’d be proud that I want to help.’

  Before Maggie could answer Alice spoke. ‘Mam, I think Mae is right. Sooner or later we’ll both have to register for war work, we won’t have any choice in the matter and nothing you can do or say will change that. When that happens we’ll get no say in where they send us: a factory, the docks, the railways or trams and it could even be a coal yard! You’ve got to admit that nursing is better than a lot of other jobs.’

  Maggie gazed grimly at the two girls but her resolve was wavering. What Alice had said about them being forced to register and go where they were sent was true and Mae’s eloquence and determination had caused doubts to niggle at her. After all, John had only said not to let her sign up to work in a coal yard and indeed if that was where the powers that be decided to send her, Mae would have to go, horrifying though the thought was. He hadn’t mentioned nursing and Mae had said she wasn’t going to give up her job, just train in the evenings.

  At last she relented; Alice’s words had had a very sobering effect. ‘Well, you’re far too young, Alice, they’ll not take you. And I’ll be surprised if they take you either, Mae. I saw that piece in the paper too, they’re looking for girls of twenty-one and over.’

  ‘But I can try,’ Mae said determinedly, thankful that her aunt’s resistance had crumbled. ‘I’ll go after work tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Mae. Even if they won’t take me I can give you a bit of support,’ Alice added. She knew her mam was right, that at sixteen she was far too young and she also knew that she didn’t look very much older than that. But she felt she should stand by her cousin in whatever way she could.

  ‘It’s a bit grim-looking,’ Alice stated as they got off the tram the following evening and gazed across at the big soot-coated building with its tall clock tower. They both knew it had once been a workhouse.

  They entered the main reception area, which was half tiled in green; the remaining expanse of wall was painted in dark green and even the floor was green. ‘It’s for the bugs,’ Alice whispered. ‘It’s a well-known fact that bugs don’t like green.’

  Mae didn’t reply, her gaze sweeping around the room, which was empty except for a nurse sitting at a desk, writing.

  She looked up as the two girls approached. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked briskly.

  ‘I’ve come to see if I can join the Voluntary Aid Detachment. There was an article in the paper asking people to come here today,’ Mae informed her.

  ‘I think you’re both too young,’ the nurse said flatly.

  ‘Oh, I’ve not come to join, I’m only sixteen,’ Alice said a little dejectedly.

  ‘But … but I’m definitely old enough,’ Mae said firmly. The lads had lied about their ages so why shouldn’t she? She was determined now to train and wasn’t going to be put off so easily.

  ‘I’ll fetch Sister Forshaw then.’ The nurse rose, her apron crackling with starch as she moved. ‘If you’d wait here please, Miss er … ?’

  ‘Strickland. Mae Strickland,’ Mae said.

  ‘I didn’t like her much,’ Alice remarked caustically. ‘She looked at us as though we’d crawled out from under a stone.’

  The nurse didn’t return but a nursing sister did; Mae judged her to be in her late thirties and rather strict, the stiff white winged headdress adding to the illusion, but perhaps that was part of her job. ‘Miss Strickland? I believe you wish to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment?’

  ‘I do,’ Mae replied.

  ‘You are rather late; we’ve had a steady stream of people coming to register all day, until six o’clock in fact.’

  ‘I work, ma’am. I’m a typist in the offices of the Cunard Steamship Company. I’m afraid I need to work, but I’m hoping that I can continue to work and train in my time off. We both already have a basic first-aid certificate,’ she added.

  ‘You must address me as “Sister”, Miss Strickland,’ the woman said, not unkindly, and then she nodded slowly. The girl was not of the usual class who had come through these doors today: they’d had no need to work for a living. It was ironic that the girls who had come to register had plenty of time on their hands yet were the very ones least likely to be used to hard, demanding and often menial work. ‘I see. You have no parents?’

  Mae shook her head. ‘My mother died when I was a few days old from childbed fever.’

  She paused as the older woman nodded and murmured, ‘Puerperal sepsis. And your father?’ Sister enquired.

  Mae swallowed hard; it was still so painful and difficult to tell people about her da.

  ‘He was lost when the Lusitania went down,’ Alice put in. ‘I’m her cousin; she lives with us.’

  ‘I see.’ Sister Forshaw’s attitude softened a little although she glanced appraisingly at the younger girl.

  ‘I can do nothing now for my father, Sister, there isn’t even a grave I can visit, but I want to do something to help the wounded. I feel it is something he’d approve of. And my cousin Edward – Alice’s brother – is serving with the Liverpool Pals.’

  Sister nodded. ‘I can see no problem with you training in the evenings and at weekends. It’s true that the girls and women who have volunteered so far have no need to work but we do desperately need nurses.’ She turned her attention to Alice. ‘And how old are you, Miss … ?’

  ‘Miss McEvoy. I’m sixteen, Sister. I won’t be seventeen until the end of the year,’ Alice supplied. ‘Mam’s already told me I’m too young. I just came along to support Mae,’ she added.

  ‘Indeed, nurses are required to be more mature, to have some experience of life and be able to make sensible decisions, but as you already have some first-aid training I don’t see why that can’t be utilised. We need every pair of hands, so would you be willing to accompany your cousin?’ she asked. It wasn’t usual to take a girl so young – the age stipulated was twenty-one, but she’d already shown some initiative; these were difficult times and if things didn’t improve by the time the girl was fully trained, her services could prove invaluable.

  ‘Oh yes, Sister!’ Alice replied enthusiastically. Mam couldn’t possibly object now.

  ‘Good. I must impress upon you both that this is not a convalescent home; your training will be intensive and very hard work indeed. It should take years, not months, but there simply isn’t the time.’ Sister Forshaw looked directly at Mae. ‘And you do realise, Miss Strickland, that there is a real possibility that you will have to go to France if you are needed? Would that present a problem – financially?’

  ‘I hope not, Sister,’ Mae replied truthfully. She paid her own way at home and had some small savings. ‘If I have to go, what would be provided?’

  ‘Your food and lodgings and travelling expenses; anything else you will have to pay for yourself. Could you manage that?’

  ‘I think so, Sister.’

  ‘Then I’ll take down some details. We provide a uniform, which you will have to pay for, but not all at once. I will expect you to be here by seven o’clock tomorrow evening at the latest.’

  They both nodded. ‘We won’t be late, Sister,’ they promised.

  They dec
ided on the way home that Mae would break the news to Maggie. ‘It will seem better coming from me,’ Mae said firmly, although she was still not looking forward to her aunt’s reaction.

  ‘Well, how did you get on?’ Maggie asked when they arrived home. Agnes was sitting with her friend, reading out a letter she’d received from Harry, which he said he’d written on behalf of both himself, his brother and Eddie as things had ‘become a bit hectic over here’ and they didn’t know when they would find time to write again.

  ‘We’ve to report for training tomorrow night, we’ve to be there before seven,’ Mae replied calmly, taking off her hat. ‘We’ll have to take a sandwich or something as there won’t be time to come home for a meal first and it will be late when we do get home.’

  ‘We?’ Maggie queried, wondering if she had heard correctly. It came as a surprise that Mae seemed to have had no difficulty enrolling and yet they’d stipulated twenty-one in the paper. She’d assured Agnes that she expected them both to come back disappointed.

  ‘Yes, Aunty Maggie. Sister asked how old Alice was and she answered truthfully that she was sixteen, but as she’s already got some basic training Sister asked her would she train too, they desperately need nurses apparently. She didn’t even ask me how old I was.’

  ‘And I said I’d like to, Mam,’ Alice put in.

  Maggie looked at her closely and with some suspicion. ‘Are you sure you didn’t tell her any lies, Alice?’

  ‘Mam! I didn’t! I told both her and the nurse we saw when we went in that I’m sixteen. What Mae said is true but I’m delighted that she wants me too. I’ll feel as though I’ll be doing something useful.’

  ‘They provide a uniform,’ Mae told her aunt.

  ‘And we have to pay for that, but not all at once,’ Alice added.

  There was nothing Maggie could say, although she was far from happy that they’d both been accepted.

  Agnes got up to return home; she’d only popped over with the letter but after Maggie had told her where the girls had gone and her misgivings on the matter, she’d decided to stay and wait for their return. ‘It looks as if you’ll just have to let her go and train, Maggie,’ she concurred. ‘Although I can’t see that it will do either of them any harm and it’s not as if they’re giving up their jobs.’