Gracie's Sin

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Lorry?’

  Lou felt her insides shrivel to nothing, knowing it would not be pleasant to see murder done before her very eyes. The silence in the hut was profound.

  ‘Perhaps the state of the lorries aren’t your responsibility.’ Gracie gave a polite little smile by way of apology, if this were indeed the case. ‘But perhaps you could tell me whom I should speak to on the matter, because I really do think that they should be covered.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Oh yes, to keep the rain out.’

  ‘I take it that you don’t like getting wet.’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘How unfortunate for you.’

  ‘Even the other girls who were wearing sou’westers and capes, were almost as cold and wet as we were. And there was absolutely nowhere to sit, or to hold on to. We were falling about like skittles all over the place. There could easily have been an accident.’

  Lou would like to have had something to hold on to right then. This slip of a girl, who had seemed so quiet and inoffensive at first sight, possessed the heart of a lion, no doubt about it.

  Matron’s flabby jowls quivered as she shook her head slowly from side to side in disbelief at such temerity, dark eyes narrowing to pin-points and burying themselves within the folds of flesh. ‘Dear, dear, dear. Now I wonder what we should do about that.’

  Apparently oblivious to the caustic edge to the tone, Gracie calmly suggested that a tarpaulin might be useful. The colour of the woman’s face turned slowly from pink to red, through to dark purple but Gracie seemed not to notice that either. She gave every impression of accepting the thin-lipped smile as entirely genuine. ‘And perhaps seats, or a bench of some sort.’

  ‘Indeed!’ The woman seemed to swell in size, like a bristling cat confronting its enemy. ‘Perhaps you would care to visit my office later, so that we may discuss these complaints in more detail.’ The sweet tone dripped with acid.

  ‘Before breakfast?’ asked Gracie brightly.

  The tone dropped by several octaves. ‘This evening will do very well. After supper. You might even have thought of a few more problems by then.’

  ‘How very kind.’ Seemingly impervious to the undercurrent of danger.

  As the woman half turned away, her expression like carved stone, Lou sprang to life and slapped a hand over her friend’s mouth before, as she later explained, Gracie could put her foot in it again.

  ‘I thought she was jolly understanding,’ Gracie protested as Lou continued to hiss furious warnings at her underneath her breath as they made their way outside.

  ‘Of course she sounded bloody understanding. She’s the sort to smile even as she issues ten lashes.’

  Lou grumbled that PT should stand for physical torture rather than physical training. It seemed to be a form of merciless drill better suited to the marines as she bent and stretched, jumped and pounded, marched and ran. But then hastily retracted these remarks, fearful Gracie might add them to her list of complaints. ‘It’s just that I’m not built for leaping about. Too much wobble. I shall have to buy a more serviceable brassiere. In this one, I’m very likely to knock myself out if I jump too high.’ A remark which left Gracie so helpless with laughter that she tripped over her own feet and fell flat, which did not endear her to the PT mistress.

  Following the hour of torture, there was just time to quickly change and again stand in a shivering line at the basins, before breakfast at eight-thirty. This was followed by a medical; an embarrassing and humiliating procedure in which Gracie was bluntly told that she was really rather small and was she absolutely certain she would be able to cope with the job? She felt devastated, convinced for one terrible moment that she was about to be sent home again, back to the village shop and her warring parents.

  ‘I’m not ill, am I?’

  ‘No, of course not. Fit as a flea, but will you be able to manage to fell trees and manhandle the poles?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’ Gracie stoutly defended herself. ‘I’m really quite strong.’

  ‘This is Tarzan, not Jane, you’re looking at. She could take Hitler on single handed, let alone a piffling little tree.’ Lou put in, hoping to help her friend, and after another agonising moment while the nurse chewed on her pencil, was finally rewarded by a shrug, a smile and passed fit for service.

  A general scrummage ensued as the girls were sorted into squads and issued with the remainder of their working uniform: dungarees, breeches in corduroy for everyday, alpaca for best. Aertex shirts, a warm sweater, long socks and the famous green beret.

  ‘What about underwear?’ Gracie politely enquired, examining the growing pile.

  ‘Use your own.’

  ‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ Lou murmured, struggling to find a pair of boots which fit her; and an oilskin for Gracie which wasn’t so stiff and huge it swamped her tiny figure. The nurse was very nearly proved right as the mere weight of it nearly had the small girl toppling over, the whole rigmarole made worse by another fit of the giggles. Once they were all kitted out, it was time to pile into the lorry and be taken off for their first day of training.

  ‘I feel like I’ve done a day’s work already,’ Lou groaned, struggling to keep a grip on the sides of the lorry.

  It was exactly the same sort as the one which had picked them up from the station and, before they’d got very far, it again began to rain, the kind of drizzly autumn moistness for which Cornwall is famous. Gracie commented that they’d all be soaking wet before they even got to wherever they were working. ‘It’s too bad, you know. We’re not like the Land Girls who get to work close to a farm. We’ll no doubt be out in the woods all day, where there’s precious little shelter of any kind.’ The other girls agreed, admitting that the vehicle was a death trap. Far too slippy and insecure for safety. Unfortunately, none of them were prepared to be as brave as Gracie and make a complaint.

  ‘And don’t you say anything more either, Titch. For God’s sake, don’t take that woman on. She’s poison.’

  ‘Nonsense, I found her most accommodating. Really Lou, I think you’re worrying unduly. We do have rights you know. And don’t call me Titch.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Whatever was discussed on the question of rights in Matron’s office after supper that evening, Gracie wasn’t saying. Lou could only guess from the tight lines of her small, pale face as she re-emerged, and from her morose silence as she pulled on her pyjamas and climbed into the top bunk. None of this augured well for the future. Lou knew from her experience of working in a factory, that if you rubbed someone in authority up the wrong way, they always got their own back in the end.

  ‘Don’t worry, love. At least you tried.’

  Disappointed and alarmed by the blank wall of indifference she’d experienced, the woman absolutely refusing to allow her complaints to go any further, Gracie snuggled down between the coarse cotton sheets. There was generally a reason, she’d discovered in her limited experience, if someone was being deliberately obnoxious. All she had to do was to discover what it was. The eyes might be gimlet bright but there was something behind them, Gracie was sure of it. A despair, loneliness perhaps, almost fear. She’d seen that expression before.

  Overwhelmed suddenly by tiredness, Gracie knew she’d be asleep in seconds for all there was still a good deal of chatter going on in the hut, as well as stifled laughter. This had been the bit she’d dreaded most, having to share accommodation with so many other girls. As an only child she’d always valued her privacy but, contrary to fears, it didn’t bother her after all. The gossip and giggles made her feel comfortable and secure, seeming to prove she was part of a team, that they were all pulling together. They were a grand bunch of girls, the woods were magnificent and she’d at least survived the first day.

  If she failed to get round Matron, she might try the Supervisor in a day or two, with or without permission. All she had to do was pluck up the courage. Before she knew it, the bell was clanging in her ear and the night was over. Sh
e’d slept like a log and Gracie was up out of bed like a shot, eager to start another new day.

  In the first week of training the new recruits were introduced to the four main sections of work with which they would be faced: measuring and marking appropriate trees for telegraph poles or pitprops, felling with an axe, use of the crosscut saw, clearing and burning the leftover small branches or brash as it was called. They were also given driving lessons so they would be capable of handling a tractor or lorry. The days were long and tiring, the hour of physical training each morning followed by a full day working in the woods which, in addition to instruction in the use of tools, involved learning the different types of trees and timber.

  ‘We’ll toughen you up,’ was the constant cry from the supervisor, from Matron, and particularly from the old foresters who attempted to pass on to them a lifetime’s experience in just one month, laughing at their complaints of aching muscles, blistered hands and sore feet.

  One of these, called Thomas but known as Tom-Tom by the girls because his shiny bald pate resembled a highly polished drum, took quite a shine to Lou. He was always at great pains to show her how to swing her axe, and took particular care to position her legs safely out of harm’s way, whenever she was using the crosscut saw.

  ‘Soppy old man. He must be sixty if he’s a day,’ Lou would chuckle, but then would flirt outrageously with him, giving him cheeky winks over the heads of the shorter girls.

  ‘You’re incorrigible,’ Gracie chuckled, but Lou replied that a friend might come in useful one day. In fact, she had a particular day in mind. The very first that Gordon could manage to get a pass and come over.

  ‘You won’t find me chopping or sawing then. Bet your sweet life on that.’ Her face softened, and she hugged herself in excited anticipation, making her full breasts jiggle enticingly so that Tom-Tom, watching from a few yards away, very nearly walked into a tree. ‘Ooh, I can hardly wait. I haven’t seen my lovely Gordon for a whole week. It’s mortal agony.’

  At the end of the day the work wasn’t over even then. The girls were given lectures on hygiene, first aid and fire fighting. They were told how timber was a vital munition of war to provide pitprops used in the production of coal, railway sleepers and even telegraph poles. They discussed how the Women's Timber Corps had proved those pessimists and cynics wrong who’d believed women could never replace the young woodsmen and foresters who‘d been called up. On the contrary, they were playing an important role in the victory of production.

  At first the old foresters did the felling and a huge shire horse dragged the felled trees into a nearby field where it was the task of the timber girls to cut them into carefully measured lengths. They soon learned the importance of well sharpened saws and axes, how they must never drop them and must always carry an axe with the cutting edge downwards.

  ‘Too easy,’ Lou announced, after a few days of this. ‘Why do we only get the boring part? I want to fell trees, not just slice them up.’

  Feeling adventurous, she asked Tom-Tom's permission if she could give it a go herself.

  He was doubtful, as was Gracie but, undeterred, Lou lifted the axe and made the first swing, missing the tree completely and ending up with the four and a half pound axe buried in the ground. When he had stopped laughing, Tom-Tom again demonstrated the correct procedure, the stance, the right swing, the angle of each cut and Lou teasingly plonked a kiss of thanks on his whiskered chin. But even with Gracie’s help they made little progress upon the thick sturdy trunk, and he returned some time later to find them both leaning against it.

  ‘What are you two up to now?’

  ‘Trying to push it over.’

  Shoving back his hat, he scratched his head and softly muttered, ‘Why need England tremble?’

  Despite the wet weather which continued throughout that week, they were a cheerful bunch and as they bumped along in the truck Lou and Gracie were relieved to discover that the other girls came from similar backgrounds to their own. They’d been hairdressers, clerks, shop assistants, typists, many from industrial towns, so working outdoors was a new experience for them too.

  Freckle-faced Tess was their blunt talking, oil-streaked, unsympathetic driver. She’d worked in a wool shop before the war but now, at only twenty five, had gained considerable experience driving for the Timber Corps. Her first task each day was to start up the lorry using its winding handle, since it was too ancient to boast a self starter. No easy task. Lou readily took on this job so that Tess could sit behind the wheel and be ready to pump the pedals when the old engine burst finally into life. Woe betide anyone who was slow at jumping aboard before she set off. Tess waited for no one.

  Someone would choose a song, Off To Work We Go being a favourite, and Buttercup, as the lorry was fondly named, would finally cough, lurch forward, and bump along the deserted lanes in time to the rousing singing of it’s happy occupants. It was not always so straightforward, sometimes it would splutter to a halt, the engine dying after only a mile or two and the passengers would have no option but to walk the rest of the way, while Buttercup followed on later, in her own good time.

  But walking or riding, there was always time for talk, or a ‘bit of crack’, as Lou called it, and as they talked, the girls grew closer.

  In their particular squad was Enid, who hated to get her hair messed up and, like Lou, was desperate to know when they might have a bit of free time so she could sneak out to meet her sweetheart. Lean and wiry Jeannie, a talkative Scot who always carried a packet of cigarettes in her dungaree breast pocket, though she only ever smoked half a cigarette at a time, carefully returning the dog-end to the packet with fingers stained yellow from the habit. Then there was Lena who rarely stopped complaining for more than five minutes together. If the September sun shone she complained it was too hot to work. When it rained, she moaned about the mud – she particularly objected to the mud, but also the pay, the hard beds, her aching back and anything else which displeased her, even accusing people of borrowing her soap without permission.

  ‘Goodness Lena. You’re not accusing me, I hope. Why would I use your lovely Lavender soap when I’ve got me own best coal tar?’ Lou said, her face deadpan.

  Lena frowned, not quite sure whether her leg was being pulled or not. ‘I really do think people should respect other people’s property, that’s all.’ She brushed a fleck of mud from her nose, thrown up by the lorry’s wheels. ‘One has to have standards and I really can’t cope with all this - this - ‘

  ‘Weather?’ A burst of giggles all round.

  ‘All right. Make fun if you must. I’ve only saying...’

  ‘We know what you’re saying Lena. Put a sock in it, lassie,’ Jeannie tartly informed her. ‘Ye’re not the only one suffering here. I'd gi’e me virginity, if I still had it, for a guid long soak in a hot tub.’

  More snorts of laughter at Jeannie’s bluntness, while Lou glanced anxiously at Gracie who was taking all of this in with a worrying expression of concern. ‘I hope you aren’t considering tackling Matron again. Personally, I’d rather face an enemy tank.’

  Gracie merely lifted her pale eyebrows, flicked back her long blond hair and said not a word. Nevertheless on the fifth day, which again poured with rain, an awning for the lorry was indeed provided, as well as wooden benches around each of its four sides. Tired of being blocked by Matron, she’d approached the supervisor directly who had apparently been unaware of the problem, or so she claimed, and was only too happy to put it right. Flushed with pleasure at this small victory, Gracie was given a rousing cheer and treated as a heroine, for all she apologised that she’d got nowhere over the mattresses. Matron was adamant. The “biscuits” would stay.

  Lou was astounded and hugely impressed. There was more to this girl than met the eye. However, there remained the danger that in bypassing Matron and achieving her object, this might well inflame relations with the woman still further.

  At least the food is good,’ Lou had remarked on the first day as she’d bi
t into a hefty cheese sandwich. ‘What a treat. I love cheese. Haven’t had any in ages.’

  The girls’ appetites, already healthy, grew day by the day and lunch was always a welcome break, time to find a quiet spot under a tree, occasionally to be warmed by the pale autumn sunshine when there was a break in the showers. It was an opportunity to put their feet up for half an hour, to get out their packets of sandwiches and thermos flasks of tea.

  The second day Lou had again welcomed the cheese sandwich, and on the third. Even on the fourth day as Lena was loudly complaining and asking for sardines, she’d stoutly devoured it without comment. By the end of the week though, as she opened yet another packet of cheese sandwiches, she began to think that, for once, Lena might have a point. ‘Oh no, not cheese again!’

  ‘As agricultural workers we’re allowed extra cheese,’ Tess explained. ‘So that’s what we get. Cheese, cheese and more cheese.’

  ‘One can have too much of a good thing,’ Lou groaned, biting into the thick crust with a grimace of distaste.

  At the start of the second week Lou came to regret her objection to cheese when she opened up her lunch packet to find a kipper, complete with bones and tail, stuck between the two slices of bread. ‘Lord, I can’t eat this.’

  Some of the girls valiantly tried, picking out the bones with painstaking care. Lou tossed hers into the hedge and, grabbing Gracie, made her do the same. ‘Come on Titch, I spotted a pub down the road. Let’s sweet talk good old Tom-Tom into keeping an eye out for the Super, while we go and get a proper feed.

  Keeping a wary eye out herself for the supervisor, Lou threaded her way through the trees, Gracie close behind. Reaching the edge of the woods unobserved, the two girls lay flat on their stomachs and wriggled through a gap in some prickly hawthorn bushes, squealing in agony every time they were stabbed by the sharp thorns. Giggling uncontrollably by this time, they slithered and rolled down the high Cornish hedge, lost their footing and cannoned right on top of a rider and bicycle that had just soared round the corner.