Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

by Mary Gibson

‘All right, girls, let’s not blow his tail off!’ the sergeant ordered.

  May knew her team didn’t deserve the sergeant’s warning, for in action they’d been responsible for more direct hits than any other in the battery.

  ‘Bloody cheek of the man,’ May heard Mac mutter. ‘I’ll blow his damn tail off.’

  ‘Let’s show him then,’ May replied.

  ‘Target!’ The height and range were relayed to them as May concentrated on the moving fingers on the dial in front of her. Calculating wind speed and the plane speed, she set the fuse time.

  ‘Fuse – three oh!’ she shouted the settings to the gunnery sergeant, who relayed them to the guns. The clatter of shells being rammed home was followed by the rumble of the guns wheeling into position.

  ‘Fuse – three oh! Set!’ roared the sergeant.

  And then came the instant of stillness, before May shouted, ‘Fire!’ and the man between her and the guns echoed ‘Fire!’ too.

  In unison the barrels spat flame and thunder into the air. All the girls’ tin hats tilted back as they followed the shell’s trajectory.

  ‘Direct hit!’ the sergeant called as the drogue disappeared from the skies.

  ‘How’s that, yer bugger!’ Mac shouted, and winked at May.

  After firing practice they were dismissed, but as they turned to go, the sergeant called May back.

  ‘What was all that about?’ He appeared furious. ‘Have you got no respect for army property!’

  Now she knew she was in for it. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’

  It was ironic really. May’s instinct had been spot on, but in practice the idea was to approximate a direct hit without actually destroying the expensive drogue. But she was amazed to see the sergeant break into a broad smile.

  ‘At ease, Lloyd, you’ve got a crack team there, smooth as knicker silk. I’m recommending you for another stripe.’

  May flushed with pride. The hard-won recognition made up for all the cold nights on the gun site and all the early mornings on parade. ‘Thanks, Sarge!’ she said, and ran after her friends. But by the time she’d reached the edge of the field they had disappeared. Instead she came face to face with Bill, who was wheeling his bike towards her.

  Her heart lurched. He looked as if someone had died. ‘Have you had bad news?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘Can you borrow a bike?’

  May gave him a puzzled look. ‘Yes, I can get a bike.’

  ‘Fancy a ride up to Hainault Forest?’

  She had the afternoon off now and the day was warm. Besides, her team’s triumph on the guns today, along with her promotion, had filled her with a rare and almost reckless excitement. Whether he was engaged or not, she was going cycling with Bill, and after a brief hesitation she said, ‘Let’s go to the depot. But I’ll have to change first. I’m not going out in these dungarees!’

  Back at the hut she changed quickly into slacks and a pretty blouse. After checking out a bike for herself, they were soon pedalling side by side along the straight road to Hainault Forest. It was good weather for a bicycle ride, with a strong wind behind them, which helped them up the ridge ahead, to where a line of trees edged the forest. She was enjoying the sensation of covering so much ground so effortlessly. Every now and then, as they cycled, Bill would point out a feature in the landscape, an old oak tree standing alone, or a pretty weatherboard cottage, but though she wondered what could have brought him to see her she didn’t probe him about his news.

  They finally stopped outside a small tea room, in a clearing deep in the forest. May’s ears had been ringing from the noise of the guns this morning and, in spite of the earplugs, she sometimes wondered if she’d end up deaf. But now, in the silence of the clearing, the ringing faded and all she could hear was the rustling of leaves as the wind took hold of the trees in a swirling dance. Borne on the wind were the forest smells: leaves and bark warmed by the afternoon sun; sappy grass from a nearby meadow where ponies were grazing. The cordite stench that still clung to her hair was blown away and the world felt so fresh and clean she would have liked to join the ponies who’d decided to roll around in the grass.

  They found a table outside the tea room, which was a popular one, and with tea and cake in front of them May finally asked Bill what was troubling him.

  ‘I had a letter from Mum.’ He took it from his tunic pocket. ‘Here, read it.’

  The letter was a short one, beginning with the usual motherly questions about his health, but quickly turning to the state of his heart. May read:

  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Bill, but somebody must. The fact is your Iris has been messing around with GIs over the West End. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, love, if I didn’t know full well it was true. It’s all over Atkinson’s, she’s so brazen about it. I know you would have stuck by your promise to her, even though you’ve not seemed happy with her, son. But I’m not having you wasting your life on someone who’ll do this to you. So, I’m sorry if I’ve spoken out of turn, but it’s only because I know your heart belongs to someone else anyway. It’s not for me to say, but you only get one life, son, and it’s my belief you may as well spend it with the right one.

  All my love, Mum

  May handed the letter back to Bill. Her mouth had gone dry and she took a gulp of tea before speaking.

  ‘Oh, Bill, I’m sorry you’ve had to hear this. You must be so unhappy.’

  He looked at her for a long moment. ‘No, May, the strange thing is, I’m not unhappy at all. I’m relieved.’

  His mother had said that Bill’s heart belonged to someone else, and now the thought brought a flush to her face.

  ‘Relieved?’

  Bill caught her hand. ‘Mum’s always been able to see right through me, May. I showed you the letter because I wanted you to see what the person who knows me best thinks. It’s the truth – all the time I’ve been with Iris, my heart’s been somewhere else…’ His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘It’s been with you, May.’

  May let his words sink in. Then, as if she were slowly unwrapping a longed-for present, she let him glimpse the edges of her joy. She smiled shyly. ‘With me?’

  His eyes alone, full of an anxious hope, were enough for her to abandon all her wary instincts, and with a surge of happiness, she leaned across the table and whispered, ‘And my heart has been with you…’

  ‘Oh, May, I’d kiss you right now, but…’ Bill looked round at the other diners and May smiled at him. In spite of her overflowing heart, he knew her shy ways.

  ‘Come on! There’s something I want to show you.’ He grabbed her hand and left money for the tea and cake on the table.

  She asked where they were going, but he smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s a surprise,’ he told her.

  They retrieved their bikes and wheeled them further into the forest. When they were out of sight of the café, Bill stopped at a spreading tree. It was magically encircled by a perfect fairy ring of large, pale, flat-topped toadstools. She gasped. She’d never seen anything like it. The circle must have been at least twelve feet across and within it was a lawn of springy grass. Enchanted, she walked closer to examine the ring.

  ‘Do you think the fairies live under these?’ she whispered, bending down to look beneath one of the toadstools.

  ‘I expect so,’ he said, obviously pleased with her delighted reaction.

  They dropped their bikes and as he led her into the charmed circle Bill caught her round the waist, and the woodland sounds were replaced by the pounding of her own heart beating against his chest. Then she looked up into his eyes, which in an instant became all the world for her.

  ‘I’ve loved you for so long,’ he said, and brushed her lips with his. It was the softest sensation, yet far more powerful than anything she’d experienced with Doug. It was as if every loving thought she’d ever had for Bill passed between them in that one, brief kiss. And he drew back from her, smiling. ‘You love me too?’ he asked. Tears of happiness caught in her throat, but he wait
ed for her answer.

  ‘Oh yes, Bill, always.’

  Then he drew her down on to the sunlit patch of grass beneath the tree, and their kisses seemed to last forever, the only inhabitants in a magical kingdom of their own creating, where time and war had ceased to exist.

  But what had seemed like an eternity lasted only an afternoon. And though she hated having to leave that charmed circle, May was the first to draw away.

  ‘We’ll have to go, Bill. I’m on duty tonight.’

  He sighed. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I don’t want to step outside, do you?’ She stared out from the fairy ring into the wood as they sat side by side, he with his arm round her, she with her head leaning on his shoulder.

  The sun was lower now, glancing through the leaf canopy, dancing its light over the flat tops of the toadstools, turning them golden.

  ‘We don’t have to leave it. We’ll keep it here.’ And he placed his palm first on her heart and then on his own.

  That night, back at the gun emplacement, the long, fire-breathing snouts of the guns seemed like beasts of another world, massive and ponderous, having very little to do with the new world she’d entered that day, where everything felt as light and pure as angel’s wings. But the dream of love confused her instinct. She miscalculated the fuse several times, and when the sergeant cursed her, she forced herself to suppress her distracting euphoria. She mentally left the forest behind. She couldn’t live there forever, but tomorrow she would see Bill and, for now, that hope of heaven would have to get her through this hell of pounding guns and raining shrapnel.

  In fact, the only thing that fell from the skies was their own shrapnel. They’d shot down no planes, and though it went against all her training, she was glad that no one had died at her hand that night. As they’d lain in each other’s arms earlier, Bill had whispered to her that she was his angel, and she couldn’t bear that those longed-for words should be overshadowed by death.

  *

  Their next meeting was at the slightly less magical Odeon in Gant’s Hill. When she saw Bill waiting for her outside, handsome in his blue uniform and field cap, she wished they’d chosen a less public place for their first real date. They sat through a silly George Formby comedy, which made her laugh, but the flickering images were only the backdrop for the more compelling feeling of Bill’s hand in hers. Then came a short film entitled An Airman’s Letter to His Mother, which sent a chill through her. She hated the thought of ever receiving a last letter from Bill. Although he was ground crew – a gunner armourer not a pilot – an overseas posting with a fighter squadron was never a safe option. And she certainly didn’t want to see fighter boys on the screen putting their lives in danger, however noble the intentions.

  After the film, they walked through the blackout to a nearby pub. Sitting in a corner, their hands intertwined, she confessed to him how she longed to protect their love from the war. He brought her hand to his lips and smiled.

  ‘You really do want to live in the fairy ring forever?’

  And she loved him so much that she allowed herself to seem foolish in front of him, and nodded her head.

  ‘We’ll have to agree on a time and place, where we imagine ourselves both there, and no matter where we are, how far apart, we’ll go there in our minds. It’ll be our safe place, forever.’

  May sighed, relieved that he had understood. ‘All right, before we go to sleep, every night, let’s meet each other there,’ she said.

  ‘And if I’m overseas, I’ll have to work out the time difference. But don’t worry about that – my maths is up to it!’ And he laughed.

  But May didn’t laugh. ‘You’re not being posted overseas, are you? I’m not having that, not now I’ve found you again!’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere! I’m keeping my head down. I’ve got no stripes yet, not like a certain ATS corporal, and my sergeant always says the only sure way to get yourself a posting is by getting stripes or by getting married. And I’m not planning on getting any stripes… so I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance,’ he said with a mischievous smile, which earned him a playful slap from May. ‘But seriously, they need all the armourers they can get over here at the moment, so you’re not to worry,’ he added, squeezing her hand.

  After extracting senseless promises, which she knew Bill might not be able to keep, he took her back to base, where the girls had a barrage of questions ready for her, along with the traditional mug of cocoa keeping warm for her on the potbellied stove.

  In the following weeks, whenever Bill had a half-day’s leave he cycled over from his base, and they would walk in whatever part of the countryside hadn’t been commandeered by the army or the air force. They wandered the paths of Hainault Forest, seeking out their fairy ring and the nearby lake, where they spent the fleeting summer days cocooned in their own world. For them, the future was a country more real than the one they lived in, a place where the fields weren’t zigzagged with new concrete runways, or tangled with barbed wire, and where the blue skies weren’t scarred with the white trails of fighter planes or bombers.

  Pat’s wedding gave her a glimpse of that tomorrow. She was to be bridesmaid, and Bill was invited too. They all took the same train together to Moreton-in-Marsh and it felt like a holiday. But Bill was nervous about meeting her mother.

  ‘What if she doesn’t like me?’ he asked, as the slow train chugged its way westward, stopping at stations thick with servicemen who tried to crowd into their compartment. Fortunately, all the girls had managed to get leave for the wedding, so their carriage was already full to bursting.

  ‘Oh, I can tell you how to get on her good side!’

  Bill leaned forward and was paying such close attention, she felt like one of his armourer instructors.

  ‘Got a pen and paper, want to write it down?’

  ‘I just want to make a good impression,’ he said, his face very earnest. Then, laughing suddenly, he kissed her quickly on the cheek.

  ‘Just give me a clue.’

  ‘It’s easy. When she gives you one of her fairy cakes – which she will – just make a bloody big fuss about how nice they are. It worked for Peggy’s George every time.’

  The swaying of the warm carriage made her sleepy and leaning her head on Bill’s shoulder, she closed her eyes. Mention of George had set her thinking of her sister. Poor Peggy, ousted from her home, living with Dad in the ruin of the old house and dreading having to send her baby to live with their mother in the country. Peggy had paid a high price for following her heart. But it was only now she had Bill that May realized what Peggy must have gone through, being married to a man she hadn’t loved. And she realized that her sister had tried to warn her. She would always be grateful to Peggy, for urging her to keep looking for Bill. For as much as he had found his angel, May knew that she had now found hers.

  25

  ‘Always Together, Whatever the Weather’

  Summer 1942

  She had Jack’s eyes, bright jewels that shone out of the darkness as Peggy leaned over the cot next to her bed.

  ‘Are you hungry again?’ she asked her daughter wearily, to be met by a small protest which Peggy knew would soon rival an air-raid siren if left unanswered. Pearl had already earned herself the same unflattering nickname of ‘Moaning Minnie’. Peggy’s worries about the house hadn’t gone away, and she fought a constant battle to keep this little corner of the downstairs dry and warm. Though it was now summer, embers of last night’s coals still burned in the grate, for they needed a fire to keep the chill damp from the walls. But with fuel getting scarcer, soon they simply wouldn’t be able to keep a fire going all the time. She lifted Pearl to her breast and, as she nursed her, stroked the little cap of silky black hair she’d been born with. Harry had written that it was a family trait and that, like little Jack’s, soon the black hair would disappear to be replaced by pale blonde.

  ‘I love your hair, whatever the colour,’ Peggy crooned to her baby. ‘And we’ll have your photograph taken soon, to s
end to your daddy, so he can see just how beautiful you are.’ The bright eyes opened wide for an instant. ‘Yes, he’ll be so proud of you.’ She smiled at her daughter, who hiccupped loudly. Peggy patted her back till a little milky froth bubbled from her rosebud lips.

  ‘Good girl.’ She yawned, gently laying Pearl in her cot.

  Tomorrow they were going to Moreton-in-Marsh. Though the constant hammering of the Blitz had passed, nothing on earth would induce her mother to return to Bermondsey. So, if Mrs Lloyd wouldn’t come to see Peggy’s baby, then the baby would just have to go to her. She’d even managed to persuade her father to leave guarding the house and come with them. These past months he’d protected the place like a battered guardian angel in an old tin ARP hat. But even with new windows in the downstairs rooms, the house had been open to the elements for so long that it was crumbling with damp. The upstairs floorboards were slowly rotting and if the roof wasn’t repaired soon, she feared the place would be declared unfit. Then, like so many other Bermondsey families, they’d be traipsing from rest centres to temporary accommodation, with nowhere to call home.

  She listened to the wind, snuffling around upstairs, wheezing its way down through cracked plaster into her room. She hated the sound, for it resembled George’s laboured breathing and always managed to stir up her half-buried guilt. Sometimes, as now, the wind would bring down plaster in dusty trickles. She brushed away a gritty handful that had covered her face and turned over to check Pearl, who’d begun to cry. Peggy put out a hand to pat the baby back to sleep, but her palm closed instead over a jagged lump of ceiling plaster. She leaped up, fumbled for the lamp switch and froze. Blood stained the cot pillow, and there was a scarlet thread oozing from Pearl’s forehead.

  ‘Oh, my poor baby!’ Peggy snatched Pearl from the cot. The child’s face crumpled as she gulped in enough air to fuel a nerve-wrenching wail. Frantically brushing off the pinkish gravel from her baby’s head, Peggy examined the cut just above her eye. She hastily dipped a handkerchief into the jug on the washstand, and dabbed at the cut. It didn’t seem deep, but Pearl struggled and screamed until Peggy felt like crying herself. She was a bad mother; she’d always known she would be. Why else had it been so hard for her to have a child? It was nature’s way of telling her she couldn’t do it. She’d been selfish, thinking she could keep such a fragile little thing safe in a place like this. The house was a ruin, and as a mother, she was a disgrace.