Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

by Mary Gibson

  Pat gazed at her sympathetically. ‘Oh, May, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to go on about my troubles. It must be awful, to have your home destroyed… but as I’ve never had one myself, I don’t suppose I can really understand what it’s like.’

  May had gleaned, from a few conversations with Pat, that the girl’s shell had been fashioned by a childhood so different from her own as to seem no childhood at all. With a widowed father in the military, she’d never had a fixed home. Shipped off to boarding school at an early age, she seemed to have put down no roots at all. May, with her inexplicable love of smelly, crumbling, noisy Bermondsey, found it hard to imagine not being attached to anywhere. She’d once shared her nickname with Pat, who’d looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, ‘If you’re a homing pigeon then I must be that bird who never lands at all, a swift, I think it is.’

  ‘Can’t your home be repaired?’ Pat asked, as the two of them sloshed their mops into the full buckets and started mopping again.

  May shrugged. ‘Maybe, but the repair crews are so busy it might not be for a while.’

  May shuddered at the idea of her father still camping in the unheated Southwark Park house during the winter.

  ‘I’m sorry, and there I was complaining about having to stay miles from anywhere. It’s definitely got its advantages…’

  ‘One of them being the stable lad!’

  Again came the slow, secret smile, which robbed Pat’s face of all its harshness.

  ‘Oh, but what about your chap, whatever happened to him?’

  ‘What chap? I haven’t got one.’

  ‘Yes, you have, the one you were with when you found the baby!’ She’d told the tale, one night over cocoa, when they were all swapping bombing stories, but she didn’t remember divulging any more information about her feelings for Bill.

  ‘No, we were just friends,’ she said, rewriting her history, as much for her own sake as to keep Pat quiet.

  ‘Friends!’ Pat swished the mop and shook her head. ‘I don’t buy it. You were always looking out for a letter.’

  May couldn’t think how Pat had come to know her secret. Perhaps she hadn’t veiled her emotions as much as she’d thought, unless… ahh, of course, Emmy. Emmy was a good friend, but she loved to gossip. Not that May minded. What did it matter now?

  ‘Oh well, it’s never going to come to anything. I found out Bill’s got himself engaged.’

  Pat groaned. ‘Oh, you poor thing. God, you did have an awful time at Christmas.’

  ‘I suppose I did. But don’t you think this war makes you see things differently? When I look back on that leave, you know what I think I’ll remember? Going dancing in Tottenham Court Road and learning the jitterbug! And I’ll remember meeting that little baby we saved, me and Bill, and then it’ll be only good memories, as if the rest never really happened...’

  Pat looked at her sceptically. ‘Well, it might be the war, or it might be you’re just an insufferable optimist!’

  ‘Maybe. But there’s one thing I couldn’t feel good about, and that’s Mum. She can’t take much more of London. Me and Peg think she’ll go off her rocker completely if we don’t get her away.’ May hesitated. ‘And actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘Me?’ Pat straightened up, leaning on her mop.

  ‘I need to ask you a big favour.’

  ‘If I owe anyone a favour, May, it’s you,’ Pat said, looking at her intently.

  May explained something of her mother’s plight, while they finished their cleaning duties and then walked briskly back across the frosty gun park to change out of their boiler suits. All the while, Pat listened without comment. They ducked their heads against the chill blast that caught them as they rounded the ablutions block, but once in the lea of their hut Pat stopped.

  ‘Do you fancy coming into town for tea and cake? We can have a better chat there.’

  May agreed, for in the hut or the NAAFI there was always someone listening or ready to chip into any conversation, and it was almost impossible to keep a secret, as she’d just found out. She made a mental note to give Emmy hell later on for sharing her heartbreak with the world.

  Because May had been on fatigues all morning, she was entitled to a half-day pass out of camp, and that afternoon she found herself in a little tea room in Barkingside, seated opposite the one person in her new life she’d been sure she could never be friends with. But this Pat seemed a very different girl from the one who’d accompanied her on that disastrous train ride to Pontefract. And no doubt, she herself was different. Either way, it seemed an odd, topsy-turvey world, where the friends you wanted to keep disappeared and those you never wanted in the first place ended up being the ones who stuck around.

  ‘So, I was thinking, if your uncle still wants evacuees for his cottage, do you think he’d consider taking Mum?’

  Pat had taken a bite of her toasted teacake, and it was a while before she answered.

  ‘Brilliant idea!’ she said, her mouth still half full.

  ‘Whoa there, Dobbin, make it last!’ May said, using the girl’s newly acquired nickname. It had turned out that Pat had a very sweet tooth and the war had been particularly hard on her taste buds. She took every opportunity to graze on sweetness when it was available, but when Bee had caught her crunching on sugar lumps from the NAAFI, she’d christened her Dobbin. The strange thing was that Pat hadn’t objected at all, in fact she’d welcomed it, and May knew why, for in the ATS a nickname was more a badge of honour, and the proof Pat needed that she’d finally been accepted.

  Pat chewed thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I’m sure he’ll go for it. The only thing is, you’ll have to explain to your mum that he’s got his funny little ways…’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. My mum’s got a few funny little ways of her own!’

  *

  When they arrived back in camp that evening, they stopped at the army post office. There was a letter waiting for May. The tissue-thin beige paper, and the flowing handwriting were enough to send a flush to her cheeks. She hoped that her face revealed nothing to Pat, but the girl pounced. ‘It’s from him, isn’t it?’

  And May cursed the transparency that undermined all her practised disguise. She nodded. ‘I think it’s from him.’

  ‘I knew it! Don’t worry, I won’t say a word!’

  And May found another reason to be grateful to Pat, her new friend.

  It wasn’t until just before lights-out that she had a few moments alone to read Bill’s letter. She propped a novel on her knees, a strange little tale that Bill had once recommended while on one of their walks around the ruined streets of Bermondsey. It was called The Hobbit, a child’s fantasy she wouldn’t normally read, but Bill told her it had something to say about them and their war. And it hadn’t been hard to see it, as it told of a ruined world, with good and evil lining up on each side, ready for a mighty battle. Yet her war had never felt as clear-cut. Every time she targeted a German bomber she had to remind herself that she was on the side of good, and though she celebrated with the others if there was a direct hit, there was also an insistent, self-questioning voice: ‘How will this ever bring back Jack?’

  But the book seemed a fitting screen as she propped it on her knees, with the letter open between the leaves. Dear May, he’d written

  I was so pleased to get your letter and you mustn’t apologize. It was my fault as much as yours that we lost touch. I was just so glad to know that you went looking for me! And it’s quite a turn up that you’ve actually been to Mum’s and seen Jack, our little war baby. He’s a character, isn’t he? I thank God every time I see him that you persuaded me it wasn’t a cat mewing in the ruins!

  To be honest, I thought you must have long forgotten all about me and our walks. I know what it’s like, once you get BT over with and receive your posting. It’s another world, and our old lives just seem to vanish, don’t they? Thanks for the congrats on my engagement, by the way. It all happened in a bit of a ru
sh, on one thirty-six-hour leave. In fact it wasn’t long after we lost touch that I met up with Iris again. She’s that old flame of mine I told you about. But I wanted to make sure you knew, May, that I really had finished with her long before I went to Garner’s. I don’t want you to think I was hiding anything. The truth is, the only thing I was hiding was how I really felt about you. I think it’s probably wrong to tell you now, but I might die and you’d never know. Do you remember my favourite song? ‘All my life I’ve waited for an angel, But no angel ever came along, Then one happy afternoon I met you, And my heart began to sing a song.’ Well, I think I found my angel that first day we went walking through the ruins. I just wish I’d had the nerve to tell her.

  But perhaps it wasn’t meant to be, May, because Iris came back into my life, just when I thought you’d gone out of it. That’s the trouble with this war. Nothing’s stable or settled any more. You make these decisions, biggest of your life, and you do it in two minutes. But I’ve promised to marry Iris and I’ll stick by that, so I don’t think it would be fair to her if we carried on corresponding. But I just wanted to tell you, May, in case anything should happen to me, that our walks and our talks, well, they meant the world to me.

  So, I’ll sign off now, May, and wish you a safe war and every future happiness.

  Bill

  May closed the book, with the letter still inside it, and turned on her side. She pulled up the covers over her head. It was the only way she could hide her tears. This was even harder than the day she’d discovered his engagement, for then she hadn’t known he’d returned her feelings. To have found and lost something so precious, in the same instant, was unbearable. It would have been better if he hadn’t told her. But she understood why he’d wanted to. When a walk down any street in any town could end in oblivion, when any ‘goodbye’ could be a final farewell, it was important for a life to be in order. And perhaps there were some secrets that shouldn’t be taken to the grave.

  Her shoulders heaved with the sorrow of it. To have found the one love, for him to call her his angel, only to have that snatched away, before she’d even tasted its sweetness, seemed too cruel. She was shuddering with the effort of suppressing her sobs and, as the bugle sounded lights out, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I’m so sorry, May,’ Pat whispered.

  ***

  Pat arranged everything with her uncle and May’s mother made the momentous move from Bermondsey to Gloucestershire towards the end of January. Mrs Lloyd left her Underground life far behind, exchanging musty, airless tunnels for country air, sharp and clean with winter’s frost when she first moved in and sweet with meadow grass by the time May was due to visit in early spring. Mrs Lloyd was firmly settled into Pat’s uncle’s cottage, and now, with a full week’s leave due to her, May was making the trip to see how country life suited her mother. It was impossible to tell from her letters, which were mostly filled with questions about May’s welfare. What little she said about her new life revolved around the comparative abundance of food, compared to the shortages in London. But there were inklings that she was at least taking an interest in the goings-on at the farm, where the major trained and stabled horses. May had to admit that she was looking forward to the peace and quiet of the place herself. The early months of the year had been gruelling, with winter extending its icy fingers far into spring. She’d had quite enough of washing in mugs of water, and tipping out of the hut in the bitterly cold nights, with nothing but pyjamas under her teddy bear coat and a cold tin hat covering her dinkie curlers. These days, as a practised gun team, they were expected to be out of bed and on the gun field within three minutes of the alarm. Often, there was simply no time to slip on tunic and trousers. Her hands were raw, in spite of the Atkinson’s moisturizer Peggy posted her way, her face chapped and her eyes bruised with tiredness. The idea of sleeping in a country cottage, waking to sun-dappled peace and birdsong, was a fantasy that had kept her going through the dark winter months and she could hardly contain her excitement that it was actually here.

  But Emmy was disappointed. ‘Are you sure you want to waste a whole week stuck in the middle of nowhere? Why don’t you come back to Bermondsey with me for a few days, then visit your mum afterwards? We could go dancing. You need to get out and meet people, May – there’s plenty more fish in the sea, love.’

  It had been impossible to hide her sadness from her friend, but the last thing she wanted to think about now was meeting other men. Her heart was too raw, and however foolish she might seem, it still belonged to Bill. She simply wasn’t interested in anyone else.

  ‘No, Em, I’ve missed Mum so much, and I want to see for myself how she is. Besides, it means I won’t have to do that train journey on my own.’

  Pat was also taking her leave and they’d agreed to travel to her uncle’s together. The newfound friendship had not gone unnoticed by her old workmate, and she knew there was a touch of jealousy in Emmy’s request. But Gloucestershire was another in the long line of unknowns she’d had to face since the war began, and she’d rather not have to travel there alone.

  *

  As the train neared Moreton-in-Marsh, May knew she’d done the right thing. They passed through magical countryside that reminded her of the Shire, in that children’s book Bill had recommended. It was a gilded land, with hamlets of stone cottages snuggling like golden nuggets in the green pockets of enfolding hills. Long low ridges, outlined by stands of trees, fell away to wide valleys, patched with fields of young wheat and burnt-toffee earth. Solid buildings of sun-aged stone dripped with light and radiated warmth. May was again struck by the many stones of England which she did not know. These Cotswold stones were as warm as the Pontefract stones were cold, but both were equally alien to her familiar London brick. Getting out at the station, she was struck too by the quietness of the town. After they’d presented their pass tickets, they crossed the footbridge of the little station and Pat waved to a young man standing by a small trap. He was holding tight to the pony’s reins.

  ‘It’s Tom!’ Pat said, and the young man waved back. She seemed pleased that her uncle had sent someone to collect them as the farm was near the little village of Bourton-on-the-Hill, a few miles away from Moreton. The young driver helped them up on to the seat and at the sound of the clip clop of the horse’s hooves May smiled broadly at Pat.

  ‘The last time I was this near a horse was a donkey ride on Ramsgate beach!’ As they drove along the high street, May was surprised at how wide and spacious it was; she’d expected nothing more than a village. The honeycomb-and-butterscotch stone buildings on either side had a prosperous, solid air: they were all old, all of a piece, and she felt the very foundations must be made of gold as well. The high street split round a large market hall and they turned down a narrower, steadily rising road. Leaving the town behind, they bowled along hedgerows, frothing with white blossom, and as they passed through the impossibly pretty villages of dusty gold her impression of the place was confirmed. This was another England. As she looked down from her perch, at a chequerboard of peaceful fields and solid church towers, she could almost imagine that, here and now, there was no war waging and no bombs ravaging her home back in Bermondsey.

  The wheels of the trap eventually crunched on gravel and they were on the sweeping drive up to the major’s house. She’d expected a farmhouse, but this was almost the size of the Bermondsey Settlement! They passed between two stone pillars, and a carved sign on one of them proclaimed this to be ‘Angelcote House’. Built of the same butterscotch stone as the villages they’d passed through, it nestled in a crease between two gentle slopes and was cushioned by a backdrop of fresh green trees. The long roof, broken by three protruding gables, topped a façade pierced by a number of irregular stone-mullioned windows. A short flight of steps led up to the front door, over which a pair of curious carved angel’s wings spread protectively. The door was open and standing on the top step stood a lean man, with a long face and straight nose. He raised a brown trilby
hat to reveal a full head of white hair, swept back from his forehead.

  ‘Welcome, ladies!’ he called as he descended to greet them. He wore a suit of checked tweed and a yellow waistcoat, and looked like May’s idea of a country gentleman. She could see no trace of the ‘eccentricities’ that Pat had warned her about, but as they stepped down from the trap, May got a closer look at the major and noticed that on his feet were a pair of embroidered carpet slippers. Not the normal sturdy footwear for strolling around a country estate. But she pretended not to notice as he shook her hand and told her how happy he was that she’d been able to visit.

  ‘Your dear mother. Courageous woman, marvellous! And you two, fine soldiers, both brave women!’ he said, saluting them. ‘I’ve been under fire myself, been under fire, and never let anyone tell you shell shock is malingering. Damned liars if they do! Your mother! Salt of the earth.’

  May hadn’t realized Mrs Lloyd had made such an impression on the major. But she smiled and thanked him, noticing that Pat had fixed her with a look that dared her to show surprise.

  ‘I’ll take May up to the cottage, Uncle,’ Pat said, pulling her by the elbow. And the major turned with a vague wave, padding up the gravel path in the direction of the stables.

  ‘Does he know he’s still got his slippers on?’ was all May said, as they continued along the drive and round the back of the house.

  ‘Probably not,’ Pat said.

  And when May replied, ‘My Granny Byron sometimes pops out in hers – old age must be hard on the feet!’ they both giggled.

  The cottage was set back from the path, hidden behind a little hedge. As they rounded it, May gasped.

  ‘Oh, Pat, it’s so pretty.’ The tiny cottage was chocolate-box perfect, with small, leaded windows, a pretty front garden and a view of a wide valley, spreading out to a distant, treelined ridge beyond. Suddenly she heard through an open downstairs window the sound of a woman’s voice.