by Annie Groves
Sam gave a brief shake of her head. Her lack of a young man had recently become a bit of a sore subject, mainly because her elder brother had given her a bit of a lecture on his last leave, warning her that she should start behaving in a more feminine manner and that she frightened off his friends with her tomboy ways. She had shrugged off his criticism, affecting not to care when the following evening, at the dance he had taken her to, she had been left to sit on her own whilst other girls – girls with curls and soft curves and giggling voices – were surrounded by uniformed young men eager to dance with them. That night, lying in bed unable to sleep, she had been forced to recognise that her youthful daydreams in which she had outshot and outdared Robin Hood, outrode and outrobbed Dick Turpin, to win their admiration and the friendship – daydreams that as she had matured had grown into an unacknowledged belief that one day she would fall in love with a real-life hero whose heart she would win with her prowess and her ability to compete with him – were never going to be recognised and that heroes did not fall in love with girls who matched them skill for skill but instead preferred girls dressed in pretty clothes who stood on the sidelines, watching them admiringly.
Sam had told herself that she didn’t care, and she wasn’t going to change, not even though Rory Blake, the ringleader of her brother’s gang, whom she had secretly admired for years, hadn’t once asked her to dance, and had laughed at her short hair.
Why should she care? She had more important things to do and think about. There was a war to be fought and won, and that surely was far more exciting than having a steady, she assured herself as the welcome smells of breakfast filled the air of the large panelled room they were all filing into.
*
Sally sighed but gave in when she felt Tommy’s eager tug on her arm the minute they drew level with the large furniture van parked outside old Dr Jennings’s house. The back of the van was open and, as they watched, two men lifted out a heavy mahogany sideboard and started to carry it towards the house. If furniture was being moved in instead of out – and very good quality furniture too, by the look to it – then that surely meant that the new doctor was moving in as well.
Virtually anything with four wheels enthralled Sally’s sons, and Harry, restrained in his pushchair, yelled out excitedly, ‘Big car.’
‘No, it’s not a big car, it’s a van, Harry,’ Tommy corrected his brother sternly.
Sally hid a small smile.
‘Come on now,’ she urged her elder son, not wanting anyone who might be in the house to think she was being nosy.
The removal men were carrying a packing case out of the van, and as they crossed the pavement a photograph frame fell out of it, the glass shattering as it lay face up on the pavement.
‘No, Tommy, be careful.’ Sally hurried over to him with the pushchair, warning, ‘You’ll cut yourself.’ Beneath the shattered glass she could see the photograph quite clearly: a pretty fair-haired young woman smiled towards the camera, a chubby blond baby on her knee whilst her free arm drew an equally fair-haired little boy closer to her. Sally had a similarly posed photograph of herself with her own sons, although the young woman in the photograph was wearing far more expensive clothes than she could ever have afforded, she acknowledged ruefully.
She was so engrossed in the photograph that she didn’t see the grim-faced man watching her from the bay window of the house until his shadow darkened the photograph.
‘Daddy,’ Harry announced proudly with a beaming smile for the stranger, oblivious to his glower, as he showed off his newly learned words.
‘That’s not Daddy, it’s a man,’ Tommy corrected him scornfully.
In an attempt to hide her embarrassment, Sally shushed her sons, gasping in protest as Tommy ignored her earlier warning to bend down to pick up the photograph.
‘No. Leave it. Don’t touch it!’
If the Scots accent was unfamiliar, the harsh anger in the male voice was easily recognisable, causing Tommy to draw back his hand too quickly and then whimper as a piece of broken glass pierced his skin.
‘Can’t you control your children?’ he demanded tightly as he bent down to retrieve the broken photograph.
So this was the new doctor Molly’s mother-in-law had told her about. Sally eyed him warily. There was a white line of fury round his mouth; his whole body was rigid with it, Sally saw. He obviously had a nasty temper on him, she thought critically. After all it was only a photograph.
Gathering her now sobbing son into her arms, she retaliated protectively, ‘If you hadn’t scared him half to death by shouting at him like that he wouldn’t have touched it. He’s only a little boy. He didn’t mean any harm. You should know what they’re like. After all, it looks like you’ve got two of your own.’ She looked meaningfully at the photograph.
The expression of bitterness and loathing he gave both her and the boys shocked Sally as much as though he had physically struck her. He was a doctor, a father, and yet he was looking at her and her boys as though he hated them.
It took one of the removal men’s brisk, ‘Where do you want this, guv?’ to break the tension that that sprung up between them, allowing Sally to turn on her heel and hurry away.
What a dreadful man he was, not fit to step into the old doctor’s shoes at all, and the way he had looked at the two poor innocent boys … like he hated them, Sally thought indignantly, relieved to see that Tommy’s cut had stopped bleeding. And just because little Tommy had touched his precious photograph. She knew his sort, the sort who looked down on her sort. Well, he could look down on her all he liked but she was not having him frighten her little boy like that, she decided, her maternal ire aroused.
She had almost reached the end of the street and some compulsion she couldn’t resist made her turn to look back the way she had come, her heart jolting against her ribs when she saw that he was still standing there motionless, watching them.
‘S’pose he thinks we aren’t good enough to touch his precious kids, not even in a ruddy photograph,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Stuck up, that’s what he is, and no mistake. All that posh furniture, and them kids dressed up like little Lord Fauntleroys!’ She had been able to tell just from that one brief glimpse at the photograph and the contents of the van that that been on view that Dr Jennings’s replacement could provide his wife and children with a far better standard of living than that that his patients were able to enjoy.
‘You’re late.’
‘Sorry, Patti,’ Sally apologised breathlessly as she hurried onto the stage. ‘My Tommy cut his finger, and then …’ She stopped when Patti raised her eyebrows and tutted sharply, ‘Yes, we can all see that, there’s blood all over your sleeve.’
Sally sighed. None of the other Waltonettes had children so how could she expect them to understand? She sensed that Charlie was beginning to think that he would have preferred to take on a stand-in singer without children had he had the choice. She was lucky to have this well-paid source of extra income, she reminded herself, even if the money wasn’t regular, and she certainly couldn’t afford to lose it by offending Patti, no matter how much she resented the other girl’s high-handed and unsympathetic attitude.
‘Come on, let’s get on with it,’ Sybil demanded impatiently. ‘My new chap’s taking me out later.’
‘If by your new chap you mean that fella wot was buying you drinks the other night, Syl, I’ve got news for you,’ Shirley chipped in. ‘He lives two streets away from me and he’s got a wife who’ll be down here telling you wot’s wot if you don’t watch out.’
‘He never said owt to me about any wife,’ Sybil bridled.
‘No, well, they never do, do they?’ Shirley countered drily, ‘but you’ve bin told now. Three kiddies, he’s got, and another on the way.’
‘His wife’s welcome to him,’ Sybil announced after she had digested this news. ‘I didn’t think much to him anyway, so he’s no loss to me.’ Sides, I’ve heard that there’s some more of them Yanks due to arrive soon. Handsome lads
, they are, and free spending too.’
‘Come on, you two, stop wasting time and let’s get practising.’
Patti might be the lead singer but she was older and not as pretty as either Shirley or Sybil, and Sybil had told Sally when Patti’s back had been turned that she reckoned that Patti was jealous of them.
‘It’s me and Shirl that the chaps come to see, not ’er, and she knows it. Past it, she is, but she won’t admit it, allus banging on about how she could have been singing with the BBC lot but for her feeling she owed it to Charlie to stick with him.’
‘She’s got a good voice.’ Sally had felt bound to defend the older girl.
‘Not as good as yours, it isn’t,’ Sybil had surprised her by saying. ‘Not that that will do you any favours in her eyes. You want to watch out, Sally, otherwise, she’ll be getting jealous of you and then she’ll be tricking you to make it look like you’re out of key. Done that a few times to Eileen, she did, until Eileen got wise to her.’
‘Ready, girls? We’ll start off with “Sunshine” and then go into “Apple Tree”, OK?’
‘I don’t know why we’re singing about ruddy sunshine when all we’ve had for days is rain,’ Shirley grumbled under her breath, but Sally could already feel the weight of her problems slipping from her shoulders for a few precious minutes in the joy of singing, her spirits lifted by the music. Singing was her special precious something that enriched her senses, although she would have died of embarrassment if she had ever had to explain to anyone just how she felt about it.
‘Thank heavens that’s over with,’ Sybil grimaced. ‘Patti was in that sour a mood she could have curdled milk. Where you off now then, Sally? Back to them kids of yours?’
Sally shook her head. ‘I’m doing a night shift at the factory. I had to swap a shift with someone else to get time off to rehearse.’
Sybil wrinkled her nose. ‘I dunno know why you do that factory work. I mean, it’s not as though you have to, wi’ you having them kiddies.’
Sally didn’t say anything. What could she say, after all?
*
‘And you, Grey, you’re to report to the quartermaster’s office. They’re short of a couple of clerk stenographers down there.’
Sam’s heart sank. Of all the bad luck. Working in the quartermaster’s office had to be the most boring job in the barracks. The last thing she’d joined up for was to spend the war typing out lists of supplies; typing of any kind was bad enough, but this …
‘Dismissed.’
Miserably Sam fell into line with the other girls, her attention momentarily distracted by the roar of a motorcycle as a dispatch rider swept past them, the wheels of his motorcycle sending up a spray of water from the puddles. A dispatch rider – now there was a job that would have appealed to her, Sam thought enviously. She could ride a motorbike, after all, having ‘borrowed’ Russell’s – without his knowledge. She wouldn’t even have minded being sent to work with one of the ack-ack gun teams, not that girls were actually allowed to fire the guns. Anything would have been better than Supplies, and the typing of tedious lists. Sam longed for the excitement of tracking enemy targets, breaking enemy codes, doing something that made her feel that she had a real part to play in winning the war.
‘I’m glad that we’re going to be working together, aren’t you?’
Mouse’s timid comment made Sam’s heart sink even further. She had nothing against the other girl, it was just that she simply wasn’t her sort.
Deysbrook Barracks had originally been a Territorial Army hall and store, which, like so many others, had been extended to cope with the extra demands of the war. The quartermaster’s office was housed in a new concrete building, beyond which lay a vast area of what looked like Nissen huts, stores and storage bays serviced by its own delivery yard. The arrangement of the buildings had created a wind tunnel effect that filled the yard with cold salt sea air, accompanied by a droning buffeting noise from the wind itself, and Sam was not surprised to see Mouse shiver miserably and huddle deeper into her greatcoat.
‘This can’t be the right place,’ she protested, when Sam pushed open the door labelled ‘Quartermaster’s Office’. The rough concrete floor was so cold that Sam could feel its chill right through the soles of her shoes. The air smelled slightly damp and rank, and the single bulb dangling from a cable and swinging in the draught from the door did nothing to enhance the surroundings.
On a notice board were pinned a raft of MOD leaflets and warnings, but no one was sitting behind the battered desk, and Sam, peering into the dimly lit hinterland of shelving behind the desk, was unable to see anyone.
She was just wondering what they should do when a tall fair-haired man, wearing the insignia of the Royal Engineers, and his sergeant’s stripes, appeared out of the murky shadows behind the desk.
‘Privates Grey and Hatton reporting for stenographer duties for the quartermaster’s office, Sarge,’ Sam told him smartly. ‘But we can’t seem to find anyone to report to.’
‘The quartermaster’s been called away. He should be back soon.’ The sergeant had an unexpectedly kind face, and an injured hand, Sam noticed, which probably explained why he wasn’t on active service.
The outer door to the office opened and the young Royal Engineer who came in announced anxiously, ‘Sarge, them sleepers you wanted have arrived and they’re unloading them in the yard, but Corp Watson says you’d better get over there fast, before some other ruddy unit nicks them.’
It was a good five minutes after the sergeant had gone before the door opened again, this time to admit a short red-faced captain with greying ginger hair. He gave both girls hostile glares before stamping over to the desk.
‘Privates Grey and Hatton reporting for duty to Captain Elland—’ Sam began.
‘I know what you are. What I don’t know is why the ruddy hell I’ve been lumbered with you. ATS, women in uniform and taking on men’s jobs. No good will come of it.’
Sam longed to defend her sex and her uniform, but for once caution won out over pride and she managed to swallow back the hot words she itched to speak. There were some men – older men in the main, like this one, but not always – who refused to accept that women had a vitally important role to play in the war. No one could be in the ATS for very long without hearing at least one of the crude insults that were bandied about as to the purpose of the women’s uniformed service.
‘Done any stores work before, have you?’ The captain shot the question out at them.
‘We were told we’d be working as stenographers, sir,’ Sam informed him.
‘Stenographers! What in the name of God is the War Office doing sending me stenographers? This is a barracks, not ruddy Whitehall. I’ve got two battalions to keep equipped, never mind the rest of them the War Office has seen fit to land us with. A stenographer is as much use to me as a pea shooter is to a Spitfire pilot.’
Sam could hear Mouse’s audible indrawn sob, but she was made of sterner stuff and automatically she stiffened her spine and straightened her back.
‘Come with me.’ Captain Elland threw the order at them, turned on his heel without waiting to see if they were following him and marched into the sour-aired gloom behind the desk at such a pace that they were almost in danger of losing sight of him.
Down between rows of rough shelving stacked with clothing and equipment he led them, finally coming to a halt outside an open doorway behind which lay a space more the size of a cupboard than an actual room. In it was a single desk with a chair either side, a typewriting machine and a telephone. The desk itself was stacked high with piles of paper. One single bulb illuminated the windowless and almost airless room On the wall opposite the door Sam could see what looked like a plan of the stores, individual buildings listed by number and the separate rows of shelving within those buildings listed by letter.
‘Right,’ said the captain, indicating one of the thick piles of pieces of paper. ‘These here are the sheets that come in whenever we get a deliver
y. No driver leaves my yard until his delivery has been checked off, and if I find you letting them go before you’ve done that you’ll be on a report so fast your feet won’t touch the ground. Once it’s checked off, the stuff has to be taken to its appropriate storage area, and then once it’s there, it gets checked again, and only then do you put the list in this pile here,’ he indicated another pile of papers, ‘so that one of my lads can check you’ve got it right. Then you make a copy of it and you put one copy at the end of the shelving the goods are on, you put another copy in the file marked Shelving Number whatever, and you give my sergeant a copy so that he can give it to me, and heaven help you if I find out that all these lists don’t tally up when I do my checks. Anyone coming into the stores for anything, no matter what it is, has to sign for what gets taken and you have to put a mark on the lists to show what’s gone. Savvy?’
Savvy? Of course she did! Sam gave him a seething look of indignation as he turned away from them, her face burning a dark angry red when she heard him mutter insultingly, as he walked away, ‘ATS. Bloody officers’ groundsheets, that’s what they are!’
Sally knew that a lot of the girls didn’t like working the night shift, but she didn’t mind. For one thing it meant that she could have time during the day to be with her boys, and for another it meant that she could bargain for extra nights off when she needed them to sing with the Waltonettes, by offering to do other girls’ night shifts.
The changeover of shifts meant that there was the usual hectic busyness outside the factory, with those women arriving for work pouring off buses that were then filled up by those waiting to leave.
‘War work, I’m sick of it,’ one of the women on Sally’s shift grumbled as they changed into their overalls and got ready. Sally, like most of the women with longer hair, covered hers with a turban to keep it safely out of the way of the machinery.
