Soldier Girl

by Annie Murray

  ‘See? Told yer, daint I?’ Molly said loudly. Her legs were shaking so much she could hardly control them, but she wasn’t going to let anyone see that.

  ‘Private Fox!’ the corporal stormed at her. ‘Silence, or you’ll be on a charge! This is your last warning!’

  Molly stared at her feet, blushing mutinously. Her insides were churning with dread. This was even before the free-from-infection inspection. That was bound to be even worse.

  When they got in for the free-from-infection they were told, ‘Right – strip – down to your pants and brassiere!’

  There were cries of consternation all round.

  ‘Oh no – they don’t mean it!’

  ‘Surely they’re not going to herd us in like cattle . . .’

  ‘. . . and the doctor’s a man!’

  Fingers shaking, Molly unbuttoned her tunic, trying, this time, to do what the likes of Win were doing – to obey orders and suffer in silence. But there was a sick twisting in her stomach and her hands were cold and clammy. She felt very small and frightened, and was worried someone would notice. But as the recruits laid their items of clothing one by one on the wooden chairs, attention was diverted to a commotion going on further along: Honor had slithered to the floor in a faint. Win, Ruth and some of the others rushed to her aid. Molly quietly peeled off a stocking. She could smell sweat – hers and other people’s. For a moment her legs gave way and she sat heavily on the chair.

  ‘You all right, Moll?’ Cath whispered.

  ‘Yeah, ta – just getting my other stocking off.’ She wrenched the corners of her mouth up. She didn’t show weakness – not her, not Molly Fox!

  In those moments she was back in the doctor’s brown waiting room in Vauxhall, sitting beside Jenny Button, aged nine, terrified, but with the old dull ache deep in her guts. There and then she had wanted desperately to pee, and she had to go to great lengths to hold it in.

  ‘You can’t keep going on like this,’ Jenny Button had said. It was during that brief, heavenly time when she had lived with Jenny and Stanley. Of course the wet sheets had shown Jenny there was something wrong, and she had taken her to see the doctor. Molly had stunk of urine for years – was known for it at school, where the other kids taunted her and didn’t want her too near. Even now, she felt she wanted to scrub herself repeatedly, to banish that stink. But no one had ever asked what was wrong or what it felt like, not up until now. It had come and gone, the pain, the burning when she passed water, the urgency, so that often she couldn’t hold on. Iris screamed at her for wetting the bed, but it had never occurred to her to ask the reason.

  By the time they were called inside, Molly was hopping from one foot to the other, but she hadn’t dared say anything. In the doctor’s frightening room, with its big desk, his books and instruments, the rubber tube of the stethoscope winding down his chest like a creamy white snake, she hadn’t been able to hold on any more. The warm, stinking liquid had coursed down her legs, gathering in a cloudy yellow puddle.

  ‘Oh,’ Jenny Button had exclaimed, mortified. ‘I’m ever so sorry, Doctor. She’s got a bit of a problem – that’s why I’ve brought her.’

  The doctor was a small, bristly-haired, sagging man in a tweed suit. He was also, as Molly was to discover, a miracle of kindness. He was one of the people who had given her faith in life.

  Looking over his pince-nez at the mess on the floor, he cleared his throat and said, ‘Yes, I see. Well, that’s no good . . . Molly, is it?’ And his crumpled face lifted into a smile. Seldom in her life had Molly ever seen such a kind face. Enchanted, despite her clothes turning cold on her, she smiled back. But it didn’t stop the trembling which seemed to take over every part of her.

  ‘Now, what I’m going to ask you to do, my dear, is to take off those wet things and hop up on this little bed behind here’ – he indicated a drab curtain – ‘and we’ll see if we can sort out what’s going on.’

  Jenny Button made an encouraging face at her and Molly staggered off behind the curtain, her teeth chattering. As she struggled to tug her clothes off, she heard the surgery door open and the murmur of the doctor’s voice. A moment later, he appeared beside her.

  ‘That’s good – that’s very good,’ he said softly. ‘Now – if you could just hop up on here.’

  Lying on her back, Molly was overcome by tremors. She felt confused. The doctor was being kind and she didn’t believe he would hurt her, but her body was in the worst panic she had ever known. Her breath came in panting gasps. She saw the doctor frown as if in puzzlement.

  ‘Now, there really is no need to be afraid,’ he told her. ‘I’m not going to do anything to hurt you, my dear. We just need to sort out this nasty infection you’re carrying about with you.’

  Molly tried to nod, shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘Now there, it’s all right.’ He spoke so kindly, and to her astonishment, tears filled her eyes and coursed down her cheeks so fast she scarcely knew what was coming next; in a second, she was sobbing violently.

  ‘There, there—’ The doctor didn’t ask her why she was crying, to her relief, as she had no idea herself. He laid a hand on her chest and patted her soothingly, while his other warm hand pressed on her lower belly. Molly gasped.

  ‘That hurts, doesn’t it? I thought so.’ The feel of his hands was comforting. Her storm of crying began to calm. He asked her questions, about how often she had to pass water, how it felt. Then, calmly he asked her to open her legs. He looked down at her carefully, just for a moment.

  ‘That’s all – sit up.’ From his pocket he took a clean cotton handkerchief. ‘Now – wipe your face. You may keep the handkerchief.’ His kind face looked down into her tear-blotched one. That was still, to this day, her one hanky. She had vowed to keep it for ever. ‘You’re going to get better,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for you to be suffering like this. I’m going to prescribe some medicine, and your kind friend will look after you. But it’s important that you keep clean down there – so make sure you wash, won’t you? And . . .’ He hesitated. In the gentlest, quietest of voices he added, ‘No one else should ever be touching you down there, because that’s not right. Do you understand?’

  Molly gazed back at him, wide-eyed. What was he talking about? She didn’t think about night-time things, about William Rathbone and his dirty, poking fingers in the daytime. She pushed them out of her mind. Was that what he meant? But how did he know? Could the doctor be God in disguise? She nodded obediently.

  ‘Good girl.’ He reached out and patted her head.

  To her astonishment, when she walked round the curtain, there was no sign of the puddle on the floor and instead, on the chair, there was a little pile of dry clothes.

  ‘Here are a few extras we found,’ he said.

  Jenny Button was effusive in her thanks. ‘You’re so very kind, Doctor.’ There were tears in her eyes. In a tone which seemed to have added meaning, she went on, ‘I’ll try to keep her with us for as long as I can. But she isn’t my daughter . . .’

  That week was the most delicious Molly could ever remember. On the doctor’s instructions, Jenny Button insisted that Molly go to bed while she was dosed with the powder the doctor had prescribed, and fed tasty broths with Jenny’s fresh bread. All that week she lay as if in heaven, the smells from the bake house in the yard drifting up to her window, with a picture book Jenny had bought for her and two knitting needles and some scarlet wool to try out her fledgling knitting skills. Never had she known comfort or kindness like it. She had lain, staring dreamily at the light changing on the bedroom wall, in ecstasy, and it was the most acutely happy memory she had.

  And when, at last feeling better, she had to go back to Iris and Joe, and Old Man Rathbone was in any case already heading into his last illness, she hissed at him when he shuffled over to her bed.

  ‘No – you’re not to. The doctor said! Keep away, or I’ll tell!’ And to her amazement, after staring down at her through the gloom, he turned away and climbed groaningly ba
ck into his bed.

  Even though the Vauxhall doctor whose name she never knew had been her first kind touch, a touch and understanding which strengthened her like wire, the old shaking still got the better of her now.

  The medical orderly was a man – also kindly – and straightforward, dark-haired, quite young. When she appeared, quivering, in the little examination room, he said, ‘It’s really all right you know. I’m sorry we have to put you through all this. Army regulations and all that.’

  He put her at ease. She didn’t feel prickly or angry, even though he was so well-spoken. She didn’t even feel like flirting with him. He was a doctor and well-educated. It somehow put him in a different category.

  ‘I know,’ she said, hugging herself. ‘S’all right. You’ve got to do your job.’

  ‘Sorry about this—’ He pulled on the front of her knicker elastic and accidently let it go with a snap which made them both laugh. ‘Sorry!’ he said again. ‘I say, you really are trembling a lot. Is it that cold in here?’

  ‘N-no,’ she tried to say.

  He tapped her back and chest, looked down her throat and made her hold out her arms, hands stretched open.

  ‘Ah – now, what have we here? Had this long?’ He stared into the crooks of her elbows, at the red, raw skin.

  ‘Years.’

  ‘Just eczema? I don’t think it’s anything infectious, luckily. Here’s some cream for that. Otherwise you look in pretty good health.’ He jotted notes. ‘Where’re you from?’

  ‘Birmingham.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Molly wasn’t sure what ‘ah’ meant.

  ‘Right – that’s all. Dismiss!’

  She groped her way back to the chair where she’d left her clothes and sat shakily on it. Thank God he hadn’t found anything awful! On the other side of the room, Honor was slowly dressing, facing away from Molly, showing a long, white back. Corporal Morrison stood at the edge of the room, pressing the end of a pen to her lips as if it was a cigarette.

  Molly felt exhausted suddenly, and bewildered. The doctor had been as kind and nice as anything, but what was this quivering ghost within her that kept coming back to haunt her?

  ‘You all right?’ a voice asked, making her jump, so that she felt caught in the raw. Win’s wholesome face was looking down at her.

  ‘Course I’m all right,’ Molly snapped. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I only asked,’ Win said tartly. ‘There’s no need to take it as an insult.’

  ‘Poking her nose in as usual,’ Molly muttered as Win walked away. But she felt small and ashamed, because she knew that Win meant to be kind.

  ‘Right – outside in threes!’ Phoebe Morrison let out her usual cry, and they all jumped to obey.

  As they got themselves organized amid the comings and goings of the camp all around them, Molly saw a figure she recognized coming towards them, carrying a shovel. Without thinking, she called out, ‘Eh – Billy, it’s me, Molly – over ’ere!’ She waved frantically.

  ‘Silence!’ Swelling with fury, their Corporal left the front and strode round to the side of the gaggle of women. ‘Private Fox – I might have known.’ She came up close so that Molly could feel her hot ashy breath. Close up, her skin looked tired. ‘You carry on like this and you’ll be heading for a charge. D’you understand?’

  ‘S’pose so, yeah.’

  ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’

  ‘Yes, Madam!’ Molly couldn’t keep the sarcastic tone out of her voice.

  ‘Yes, Corporal!

  ‘Yes, Corporal!’

  Phoebe Morrison stared forbiddingly into Molly’s face for a few more seconds, then turned on her heel. Molly saw that Billy had stopped and was watching the whole event, grinning. She raised her thumb at him, just in time, before Gorgon Morrison turned round again.

  Ten

  The next days were full of activity, for which the new recruits were frogmarched from place to place. Daily square-bashing led by members of the male battalions was inevitably a shambles to begin with, which could only improve in the face of much yelling of commands and daily practice.

  Molly didn’t find the drill itself difficult to master, but she got strict tellings off for messing about and behaving flirtatiously towards the drill sergeants. On the second day, stationed in the second row of the squad, she called out, ‘Ain’t you got nice big muscles then?’ to the solid young sergeant. This caused much tittering in the ranks.

  ‘Silence on parade!’ the young man bawled, scowling and trying to see who had shouted out. Molly offered him a wink as his eyes met hers. He gave her a contemptuous glare before continuing, ‘Left wheel, quick march!’

  As a number of them drilled the women, each of them had to learn who the troublemakers were. Cath, who enjoyed mischief, usually giggled along at Molly’s antics, but somehow never got into trouble herself.

  On the third day, Molly called out again, this time to a very tall fellow who was standing before them, ‘’Ere – you’re a nice big one, ain’t yer?’

  There were scattered giggles as the man blushed, but he couldn’t see who had actually shouted at him.

  ‘Who said that?’ he demanded, irritated.

  There was silence. Molly stared innocently ahead of her.

  ‘Are we going to stand here all morning, ’til I get an answer?’

  Molly could hear some impatient mutterings behind her. ‘For goodness’ sake . . .’ and ‘Why doesn’t she just grow up? Wasting everybody’s time . . .’

  Unpopular as ever, Molly kept quiet and the sergeant gave up. But afterwards, some of the others gave her snooty looks. Then she ran into Ruth, soon after, in the ablutions hut. Ruth stared stonily at her, her protruding teeth making her look rabbity, a blush seeping through her cheeks. What the hell’s she got to go all red about? Molly wondered. ‘Summat the matter?’ she asked, hand on hips.

  ‘Well if you must know,’ Ruth spluttered in her strangulated voice, ‘I really think it’s a bit thick of you to keep causing trouble during drill. No one finds it amusing, you know. It’s really rather childish of you.’ Her face was ablaze. Ruth was clearly not used to having it out with people.

  ‘D’you think I give a monkeys what you f***ing well think?’ Molly sneered. Somehow when she was talking to these posh girls, more bad language seemed to crash out from between her lips than at any other time. And Ruth was just odd. ‘Some of us can ’ave a bit of a laugh, even if you can’t, yer po-faced cow!’

  Ruth made a distasteful face and turned away. ‘It’s no good talking to you, I can see.’

  ‘Why – ain’t I good enough for yer then?’

  Ruth turned again, as if stung by this remark. For a moment she seemed at a loss, her basic politeness clashing with her anger. ‘It’s not that . . . it’s just . . . why must you be so coarse all the time?’

  ‘Maybe that’s just the way I am,’ Molly snapped sulkily.

  ‘Well just . . .’ Ruth shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Some of us don’t like it, that’s all.’

  ‘Well maybe “some of us” will just have to lump it.’

  Molly stood watching as Ruth walked out of the ablutions hut. She’d had the last word, and that was the way she liked it. She stuck her tongue out at Ruth’s back. In the quiet, amid dripping taps, she found herself longing for a drink, a lot of drink, to blot it all out.

  There were dental examinations, kit inspections – Molly fared very well with this, and received surprised praise from the Gorgon – and gruesome lectures about venereal disease, through which, surprisingly, the wilting Honor – who had quickly become known as ‘Beaky’ – sat with unruffled calm, while Lena turned green and had to put her head between her knees.

  That week, the only time they were to be allowed out was on the Sunday for church parade. Molly wasn’t bothered by this. The camp contained more male servicemen than women, so as far as she was concerned there was plenty of scope for excitement. She knew Billy was interested, for a start – they just needed to find a way to meet
up.

  In the meantime she quickly learned more about the other girls in Hut J, either through conversations she had with her friends, or overheard among others. Win, as expected, had spent seven years in a girls’ boarding school and had been about to embark on her teacher training when she joined up. Ruth had a place to read natural sciences at Cambridge which she planned to take up once the war was over. Of Honor they still knew very little except that she came from a wealthy farming family near Banbury. Lena was the third in a family of six children.

  ‘Our Cissie – that’s my big sister – ’as been wed for two years now. Our mom wanted me to stop home and look after all the others but I down’t like all that – I wanted a job. I mean it’s not that I’m not fond of the little bleeders but I’m not their mom. ’Er was always making me stop home from school; course we daint want our Paul, that’s me elder brother, stopping home, him being the boy. And the way our dad was . . .’ She didn’t say more, but an expression of loathing passed over her face. ‘Then our Paul went off into the Merchant Navy, I couldn’t believe it when ’e said ’e was going. I never thought ’e’d go and leave me . . .’ She sounded almost tearful saying this. ‘And I thought, well I ain’t stopping ’ere, not with ’im gone. Soon as I could I went off and got a job in a big house out at Darlaston – you know, in service. I s’pose I’d’ve done better in a factory. The money’s better, ’specially now. But they were all right, it wasn’t a bad place to work, but one day I’d just had enough skivvying – I gave in my notice and signed up with the army. I don’t like stopping anywhere too long, me. And I worry about our Paul. I wish ’e ’adn’t gone and left . . .’

  Molly was disappointed in Lena. She had thought, being fellow Midlanders, that they’d be friends, but Lena was a cheerless person who spent an awful lot of time mooning over her brother. It was Cath who Molly found she spent more and more time with, and they laughed a lot together. Cath was the seventh of nine children from a farm near Waterford.

  ‘Nothing was ever the same after Mammy died,’ she told Molly sadly one evening, perched on the edge of Molly’s bed. ‘She took sick when I was fifteen. It all happened so fast, and then she was gone.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve only brothers – all the other eight – and of course the eldest ones had the farm. The rest of us, well . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Daddy was a lost soul without Mammy. She was the heart of the house and the farm. It was all so sad, everything about the farm just felt so deserted and haunted. Even the horses missed her – they used to call out for her at first! I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could . . .’