At the Break of Day

by Margaret Graham

  In May his call-up still had not come but the Berlin Blockade ended. Again there was a letter from Nancy talking of Sandra’s new hairstyle, Mary’s new Hoover. The target on the garage door which Frank had repainted for when Rosie came back out. She mentioned Frank’s stress again, but that was all.

  The summer was hot and blistered the pavements. The stall did good business and Jack’s voice was hoarse at the end of each day but his lips were as soft and warm as always, his hands as gentle, his words of love as tender as they had always been.

  And she wrote and told Nancy again that she would not be coming, not yet.

  In July the sugar ration was put down to eight ounces a week, the sweet ration was back at four ounces and there was a further cut in tobacco supplies. Another letter from Nancy told her that Truman had tried but failed to dampen the hysteria which was spreading across America after the latest Soviet spy conviction. And had Rosie heard about the attempt to screen all school books by the House Committee for Un-American Activities? Didn’t they know that Goebbels had burnt books in the streets? Did this always happen after a war? Boy, is that goddamn Local Administrator having the time of his life!

  It’s great that Jack hasn’t been called up. We’re sorry you can’t come. So sorry. But maybe later?

  But Rosie wouldn’t think of this, she pushed it all from her because each dawn so far had brought the knowledge that Jack was next door, so close, so dear and nothing could spoil this love they had. Nothing. Not even absence, nothing.

  They went to Southend with Maisie, Ollie and Lee. They ate winkles and she felt the wind in her hair and heard the laughter of the children who pushed go-carts, racing them, screaming as they won, screaming as they lost and she remembered the feel and smell of the old pram which Grandpa had kept and she missed him. But then she missed him every day.

  She sat with Maisie, their skirts held around their knees, the wind tugging at their hems and sleeves, and they laughed as Jack rolled up his trousers to his knees, then ducked Lee down into the sea, then across to Ollie, who took him and held him.

  Rosie looked at Maisie. ‘So, it’s all right?’

  Maisie took a Marmite sandwich from the OXO tin, squashing the bread together, eating it with small bites. There were teethmarks in the bread. ‘Of course it’s all right, Rosie. Just you wait and see. You mustn’t worry your head about us.’

  But behind the dullness of her eyes there was pain. And Rosie did worry. And all any of them seemed to do was wait. She didn’t ask about the man. She didn’t want to know; all she wanted was for it to be all right.

  She watched Jack again, his strong back beneath his shirt, his pale legs in the rolled-up trousers. She wished they could both be by the lake, lying in the sun, tanned. She wished she could see his body. She wished they could lie together and she could feel his hands on her, his kisses on her breasts.

  That night she clung to him in the yard, tasting the salt on his skin as she kissed him, seeing the pallor of it clear in the late evening light. She gripped his jacket, searching his face. She never wanted anything to come between them. Their love must never die and pain take its place as it had done with his mother.

  ‘I want to sleep with you,’ she said, holding his head close to hers, talking against his mouth, and she felt his arms tighten.

  ‘I want to sleep with you.’ His mouth was on hers. ‘But not yet. There’s time, my love. There’s time.’

  But there wasn’t time. His call-up papers were in the hall when he came down the next morning and in her hall was a letter from Nancy telling her that the last American occupation forces had left South Korea. What would happen now?

  She screwed it up and threw it across the yard because Jack was there, beside The Reverend Ashe, reading out his enlistment notice, and what the hell did she care about Korea, or Truman, or bloody witch hunts which were so far away and which had nothing to do with her or the boy who was now holding her, the lashes of his brown eyes throwing shadows on his cheeks?

  They both cried, there, within the scent of the rose, and Jack felt he couldn’t bear to go and leave her here where he couldn’t touch her, hold her, love her. He couldn’t bear to go and leave his mum whose pain he could still see deep down but couldn’t understand, or Lee who would start school in September without him. What if the shouting began again?

  He left two weeks later, on Thursday, from King’s Cross. Rosie came, but only Rosie. There were couples kissing, crying. There was the rail warrant in his jacket pocket. There were doors slamming, porters pushing through them. ‘Mind yer backs.’

  The station smelt of dirt and heat and loss and he held her to him. Breathing in her smell, which drowned out all else, holding her face between his hands, kissing her lips, her eyes.

  ‘Be careful. Come back soon. Come back,’ she said, tasting his lips, but the whistles were blowing now and he heaved his case into the corridor, scrambling in after, leaning out of the window, sharing it with another boy, holding her hand, bending to kiss it, but the train was moving and he was leaving and he let her fingers slide from his grasp.

  ‘Stay with Mum. Look after Lee. Promise me.’

  She was running along the platform now and her lips were smiling and she was nodding but there were tears all over her face, dripping down on to her blouse.

  ‘I love you, Rosie. I love you, little Rosie. I’m sorry I have to leave you.’ He gripped the window. Had she heard?

  The station was still busy, there was another train leaving from the next platform, there were whistles, doors, calls, the tannoy, but all she could hear were his words. I love you, little Rosie. And they were Grandpa’s words too and now she was alone.

  The train picked up speed as it left the station. Jack still waved, though he could no longer see her. The wind was too strong in his face, it made his eyes water. It had made his eyes water when he left for Somerset, leaving his mum behind in the bombs. He was leaving her again, with Ollie. He was leaving Rosie but there was nothing else he could do. He had to go. He had been told to go.

  He drew his head back in, pulled up the window. It was quiet except for the voices along the corridor. He rested his head on the window. There was nothing else he could do.

  He shoved his case back against the sliding door which was open then eased himself into the compartment, between two other boys. The air was thick with Woodbine smoke. He drew out a cigarette and struck a match, cupping his hands, sucking, smelling the sulphur, trying not to think of the oast-houses, the stream where she had paddled, her legs so slim, so brown. Trying not to hear Lee’s laugh, or see Maisie’s smile, Ollie confused, angry.

  He leaned back, feeling the heat of the conscripts either side, hearing their jokes, their coughs, their laughs, and at last he was talking too, pushing them all down deep inside because there was nothing else he could do. Just nothing and it hurt too much.

  And so he listened, but did not really hear, and laughed, but did not really mean it, and talked, but only with his mouth, not his mind. The train lurched and rattled over the points and a boy who spoke with a plum in his mouth sat by the window and told them how he had been a sergeant in the OTC and was going to apply for a commission.

  ‘Frightfully good management experience you know,’ he said. The compartment door slid shut, then open again. A boy looked in.

  ‘Seen Joe?’

  ‘Who’s Joe?’ asked the lad next to Jack, stubbing out the cigarette with his foot.

  The boy walked on. There was laughter in the corridor and a packet of cigarettes was thrown past the door, caught and thrown back and still the train travelled on, roaring through tunnels, shafting out into sunlight, further from Rosie, from Maisie. And he didn’t want to leave them. Didn’t want to be sent to God knows where to do God knows what. He wanted to get on with his own life. But he had no choice, had he? Had any of them? He closed his eyes. There had to be more to life than all of this.

  He thought of the sign, ABSOLUTELY NO JITTERBUGGING ALLOWED, thought of the sign, 12 YE
ARS AND UNDER ONLY, thought of Ollie slapping Maisie, of himself pulling at his father, heaving him out into the yard, wanting to shout at them all to stop.

  But it was all right, he told himself, as he drew on his cigarette, feeling the heat in his lungs, coughing, stubbing it out, leaning back. It’s all right, Rosie’s there. She’s strong, she’ll take my place. She’ll always love me. I’ll always love her.

  He shut his eyes, shaking the thoughts from his head, making himself listen to the talk which was flowing past him. Really listen, hanging on to the words, the jokes, the questions, taking a newspaper when it was offered, reading it, passing it on.

  He talked to Sid, next to him. He was just eighteen, never left his mum before. Never been evacuated. His hands were shaking. Jack, at nineteen, felt old. But they were all the same. None of them wanted to be here. They all had other lives.

  The towns had gone, there was wild free country, not the sloping hills of Herefordshire, or Somerset. He remembered the picture he had unscrewed and sold, the milk chocolate they had been given, the corned beef. He had been sick.

  ‘I mean to say, basic training is absolutely nothing. When you’re experienced, as I am, it’s a doddle.’ The boy with the plum was speaking again.

  Sid leaned forward. ‘What’ll we do then?’

  ‘A bit of marching, a bit of polishing. Getting fit, improving ourselves, you know.’

  But they didn’t, not yet. All Jack knew was the ache inside, the loneliness of it all, the missing. What was Rosie doing now? What was Maisie cooking for tea? Had his bed been folded and taken from the kitchen? Was Ollie drunk?

  The train pulled into the station at a platform which held kiosks selling books and sandwiches and tea, but Jack moved past with the others, his case heavy in his hand, banging against his leg, but this time there was no gas mask.

  They hurried along, Sid beside him, skirting through the others, keeping ahead of Nigel, the OTC Sergeant, trying to lose him in the crush. They headed towards the branch line and the train full of conscripts. They tried one door. A boy with a crew cut and no front teeth leaned out.

  ‘Sorry, cock, full up.’

  They moved on to the next and the next and by now Nigel was with them again and Sid cursed. Jack winked, opening a door, throwing his case in, Sid’s too, Nigel’s too. Whistles were blowing, boys were leaning out of windows whistling and shouting, and then they were in but there were no seats. There was singing though, and rampaging up and down the corridor, and Jack remembered how they had pretended to cry on the evacuee train as they passed through stations so that the onlookers got their money’s worth.

  The moors stretched either side and there was beauty in the sky, in the bleakness of the dales, the scattering of sheep, the heather, the short-cropped grass. But Rosie wasn’t here, Maisie wasn’t here, and it was fear as well as loneliness that stirred him now because Sam and Ted had told him too much about the Army.

  In the station yard there were lorries backed up with their tailboards down. They heaved their cases into these now and Sid lit a cigarette, his hand shaking.

  A Corporal pacing backwards and forwards glanced at his millboard, then shouted at Nigel to ‘get his bleeding legs working and hurry over’. Then he turned.

  ‘Put that ruddy fag out, you ruddy nig.’

  Jack turned, and his eyes met those of the Corporal.

  ‘Got anything to say, nig?’ the Corporal shouted at Jack. ‘Got any comments to make, any suggestions you would like me to send back to Mother?’

  Jack shook his head as Sid stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette, put it back in his packet.

  ‘You see,’ the Corporal shouted, stabbing a finger at Jack and Sid, ‘we don’t like dirty ’abits in the Army. We don’t like people bringing their nasty little ways in with them. Put that bleeding fag over there, in that bin.’

  He pointed towards a bin fastened to a lamppost over by rusty railings near to the station entrance.

  Sid stumbled towards the tailboard, jumped down, ran across, and picked out the cigarette from the packet, but his hands were shaking so much that they all fell into the bin. He reached down, then saw the Corporal, looked again at the cigarettes, and ran back, pushing himself up and into the truck.

  ‘You’d better get yourself back down and go and fetch those cigarettes, hadn’t you? You forgotten there’s shortages? Or maybe Mummy lets you have hers.’

  Sid moved to the tailboard again, hunched down beneath the lorry roof. He ran back, picked the cigarettes out, brought them back. They were stained, dirty, smelling of old fruit.

  The Corporal nodded and turned, calling, ‘Come along please, Mr Sanders, Mr Nigel Sanders, or Nanny will be cross. Come along. Don’t be afraid. You’re only leaving civilisation behind. You’re not humans any more, you’re nigs.’

  Sid was shaking and Jack felt anger drown his fear as when the Billeting Officer in Somerset had separated two sisters, sending one to the town, the other to a village. There was nothing any of the children could do. There was nothing he could do now. Nigel hoisted himself up and the lorry rumbled away from the station yard.

  They drove into the camp and a wooden barrier fell behind them. Jack felt trapped, lost, but so did the others, he could tell from their faces, even Nigel. They passed bleak married quarters, barracks, squares, huts, black stencilled notices, and then they stopped, jumped out, listened to the shouts of the Corporal, watched the spittle on his chin, the red cheeks which reddened, the eyes which narrowed.

  They were lined up, their suitcases still in their hands. They were marched, out of step, to their barracks. They left their cases, turned, marched to the quartermaster’s stores.

  There were counters, Corporals shouting, battledress, beret, boots – some that fitted, some that did not.

  ‘What a shame, poor little boy wants Mummy to change them? Tough shit. Wear ’em.’

  More kit was slapped down and they stuffed it into drab-green kitbags, collected their mattresses, which they draped over their heads, then hauled the bag and blankets to the barracks. Heard a siren. Reported to the cookhouse for tea as their Lance-Corporal ordered. Were sent back for wearing civilian clothes. They changed. The Lance-Jack laughed, standing in the corridor to his room. They were too late for tea. Jack felt anger come again but it mingled with strangeness, fear, loneliness, all of which he had felt before in Somerset. Rosie had felt it too. Little Rosie.

  They marched back again to the barracks, to the thirty wire-framed beds, to the windows which were nailed down and unopenable. To the stove which would have been too small to heat Grandpa’s shed, to the tall metal lockers beside each bed, to the stone floor which struck chill into them, although it was August and hot.

  They were given pen and paper to write to their families.

  ‘To say that you’re having a lovely time,’ the Lance-Jack said, walking up the centre of the room, looking them up and down. They were hungry, lying on their beds in prickly khaki, feeling in their pockets for change to go to the Naafi.

  Jack wrote home, saying he was having a lovely time, saying his clothes would be sent back, saying it was just like being evacuated and that had turned out all right, hadn’t it? No problems, he wrote.

  He wrote to Rosie, saying that he loved her, that he would be home for two days at the end of basic training, in two months, that she must look after Maisie, please, and Lee, and herself. Please.

  As he, Sid and Nigel walked to the Naafi and bought a sandwich and a beer, he thought of Elsie, the fat farmer’s wife in cords who had lit an oil lamp each evening so that he would not be afraid of the shadows in the old farmhouse. The smell of it had eased into his room from the landing. The others were silent too, sipping their beer which dripped on to the formica table. Their thoughts were elsewhere too.

  They bought boot polish before they returned to their billet and all night long they bulled their green-corroded brasses, rubbing with emery paper for hours. Their hands grew cramped and stiff, their necks too, from bending. Ther
e were Woodbine stubs in the tin ashtrays on the two tables, there was a sourness in their mouths, a loneliness in their eyes which were heavy-lidded, tired, unsure. And always there was the radio playing, but there was no jazz.

  Sam, from Liverpool, brought out a candle and a spoon, and heated the handle, rubbing it over the dimples of the boots, squeezing out the oil, rubbing away the waterproofing with it, but who cared? It would make them shine.

  He showed them how to spit, then rub the polish which they had all bought in the Naafi round and round. It produced a shine. A bloody shine, and so they all did the same or ironed their boots. They laughed and swore and said they weren’t afraid of the Lance-Jack, or the Corporal, or the Sergeant, but they were. Finally at 0400 hours, they slept, though the radio still played through speakers controlled by the Lance-Jack. In their sleep they rocked to the rhythm of the train, to the lurching of the truck, to the voice of the Corporal.

  They were woken at 0530 hours. The Sergeant screamed ‘Wakey Wakey’, and thumped his swagger stick along the end of each bed, swearing, tipping every other metal locker over, standing over the spilled contents, calling them whores who had turned the place into a bordello, telling them their kit would be stacked properly or they wouldn’t live long.

  Jack shaved in cold water, and dabbed at the cuts which ran red. He thought of Butlins but he didn’t smile. Hi-di-bloody-hi, he thought. His eyes were red and sore, his hands and shoulders ached and he hadn’t even dreamed of Rosie in that brief hour of privacy, he had been too tired.

  Nigel’s face was without cuts. He had no need to shave. The cat calls followed him out but he flicked his towel over his shoulder and smiled, walking away, giving a royal wave. They had to fold their sheets and their blankets just right. Put back the lockers, just bloody right.

  Then they were out, into air which smelt sweet, into a summer day where birds sang, and Jack had forgotten for hours that anything pleasant existed. They marched with knife, fork and spoon held in one hand behind their backs as the Corporal ordered them to, but were screamed at because they were not swinging the other arm. No one had told them.