Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  Sarah had been there almost three weeks when, leaving the factory one day, one of the women at the front of the queue shouted back, ‘Some lucky lass has got a handsome soldier waiting for them.’

  There was a chorus of laughter at that, and they edged further forward and then Mary Ellen, a little ahead of Sarah, suddenly said, ‘Good God, it’s Sam.’

  Sarah stood on tiptoe to see, and when her eyes met Sam’s, she felt her knees go weak. However, when she emerged through the factory gate she saw Sam had his arm in a sling.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘And what on earth have you been doing with yourself?’

  Sam laughed. ‘Well, I’d like to say that I was sporting a war wound, but I’m afraid that I crocked my arm up playing football.’

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ Sarah said. ‘And what are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to meet you, what else?’

  Mary Ellen noticed that while he included her in that answer, he really only had eyes for Sarah and she for him. She remembered her mother saying that Sarah had had a fancy for Sam the first time she had seen him, but she had been little more than a child then. Now, unless she was very much mistaken, it looked as if that attraction was still there. And who was she to get in the way of true love?

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘Dad will be waiting.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course …’ Sarah said.

  ‘Not you,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘You and Sam must have plenty to talk about.’

  ‘Oh, but–’

  ‘Come on, Sarah,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘Haven’t you heard the expression “three’s a crowd”?’

  Sarah was glad of the blackout because she felt the heat flood her face and knew that she would be blushing. ‘S all right, I’ll square it with Dad,’ Mary Ellen said, and she melted into the night, leaving Sarah and Sam alone.

  ‘I suppose you usually go home together?’ Sam said.

  ‘Yes, and Uncle Pat waits for us at the tram station. It’s only just round the corner.’

  ‘So shall we make for the tram then?’ Sam said. ‘Or we could walk – it’s really no distance? But then what am I saying? You’ve had a heavy day at the factory so we’ll take the tram.’

  But Sarah felt as light as air and could think of nothing nicer than walking home with Sam in the concealing dark, so she said, ‘No, really, I’m fine and I’d like to walk. The night is a fine one, for all it’s cold.’

  ‘Then shall we link arms and be warmer as we walk?’ Sam said. ‘And thank God that it was my left arm that I damaged.’ He took Sarah’s arm as he spoke and they walked through the quiet and darkened streets.

  ‘What did you do to damage your arm?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, it was nothing much,’ Sam said. ‘One of the opposing team tripped me up and then fell on top of me, and my arm was twisted awkwardly underneath me. I’ve cracked a bone in it.’

  ‘It must have been sore.’

  ‘I haven’t come all this way to talk about my arm,’ Sam said. ‘And the first thing I must say is how sorry I was to hear about Tony. I wrote to your mother at the time because when Peggy wrote to tell me I was very upset. He was always so full of life.’

  Sarah nodded. ‘He was. And we are getting over it now, because we must, but at home it’s always like someone is missing.’

  ‘I really do understand that,’ Sam said.

  ‘And now your turn,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose you’ve been given a spot of leave because of your arm.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said. ‘Seeing that it was my left arm they put me on clerical duties for a bit. I did it more than three weeks ago. Now, they’ve told me to come home until I have the plaster off, a spot of physio, and then I’ll be back into active service again.’

  ‘I bet Peggy was thrilled to see you,’ Sarah said, and then suddenly stopped. ‘She does know, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Sam said. ‘I stopped by the forge and was able to have a word. Your mom knows too because I went there, and they all know that I was coming to meet you from work.’

  ‘And I am pleased to see you,’ Sarah said. ‘But why did you come to meet me?’

  ‘Well, when I met you last time, you were a young girl,’ Sam said. ‘But I thought of you a fair bit and I wanted to see you grown up to the grand old age of sixteen.’

  ‘And what do you find?’ Sarah asked with a smile.

  ‘That you are not so different at all except maybe more mature, and you have changed your job to one in a munitions factory.’

  Sarah sighed. ‘Yeah, I have.’

  ‘And why the sigh?’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ Sarah said, ‘I think I’ve made a dreadful mistake.’

  ‘Why’s that? Is the work hard?’

  ‘No, though it is boring,’ Sarah said. ‘But it isn’t the work, it’s some of the people I work with.’ She recounted some concerns that she’d already spoken to her cousin about.

  Sam listened without interrupting and eventually Sarah finished, ‘I suppose you think me some sort of dreadful snob.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Sam said. ‘Nor do I think that you’ve made a mistake. You’re doing something the like of which you’ve never done before with the sort of people that you’ve never worked with before, and it will take time to adapt. I felt much the same about some of the men I shared a billet with when I first went into the army. They were all so different from me and I had thought we would never get on.’

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Sam said. ‘I persevered and now I’m the best of friends with most of them.’

  ‘And you think that’s what I must do?’

  ‘I think you should not be so hard on yourself. Just take each day as it comes and in time everything will slip into place. You may find the loudest and most raucous of those woman really has a heart of gold.’

  Sam’s words made Sarah feel a lot better and she decided to double her efforts to get on better with the women she was working with.

  ‘It’s lovely to have someone to talk it over with,’ she said. ‘I made such a fuss about going into the munitions in the first place, I really feel I can talk to no one at home now about any doubts I might have.’

  ‘You can write and moan to me, if it helps.’

  ‘Write to you!’ Sarah repeated.

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ Sarah said. ‘I mean, I write to Dad and I will to Richard next year, so I suppose I could write to you too.’

  ‘We love getting letters,’ Sam said. ‘Lets us know that we’re not forgotten back home. I mean, Peg writes, and the parents – well, my mom really – and sometimes Peter and Daisy scribble a line or two on the bottom of the letter, but some of the men have three or four women writing to them as well.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want that,’ Sam said. ‘But I would like one Sarah Whittaker to write to me.’ And then he added sardonically, ‘If she would be so kind.’

  Sarah had no time to answer, for the twins had been watching for them, and they were barely on the path before Magda had the door wrenched open and the two of them launched themselves at Sam.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Magda demanded. ‘We’ve been waiting ages. Our cousin Jack is here to see you as well.’

  Sam stayed another two days. He met Sarah every day as she left the factory and they walked home and talked of all and sundry. In fact, by the third day Sarah thought that she knew more about Sam that she had ever known about anyone, and she had confided things to him about her hopes and dreams for the future that she had never given voice to before. Sam listened and never made fun of her. She was very aware of him walking close beside her, which caused her heart to hammer against her ribs so much that she was surprised Sam couldn’t hear it. When he linked her arm as they walked along she felt herself tremble all over.

  Apart from walking arm in arm Sam never touched her in any other way, though Sarah wouldn’t have minded at all if he had. She couldn’t sa
y this, of course, because it would be very unseemly, but she was often a little disappointed when they reached home. Had Sarah been able to see into Sam’s heart, however, she would have seen how hard he battled with himself not to take their tentative and budding relationship any further.

  The way they had talked together as they walked home from the munitions factory until they were as easy with one another as if they were lifelong friends, had convinced Sam that he would have loved to get to know Sarah better, but with the war raging all around them – a war that he would soon be back in the thick of – he felt he had no right to make advances to Sarah in the few days he had here. And on such a short acquaintance he could hardly ask her to wait for him, to be his girl, and so however much he wanted to hold Sarah closer and kiss those luscious lips, he wouldn’t let himself. She had agreed to write and that was all he was prepared to expect of her.

  Once they reached the house the family would claim Sam’s attention, the twins in particular, and though he could no longer do magic tricks with one arm immobilised, he could play most other games and he never seemed to mind being commandered in this way. On his last evening he took Sarah to see The Philadelphia Story, though the invitation was extended to Peggy and Violet too. As Sarah sat beside Sam, he made no move to drape an arm around her shoulders, even in a casual way, nor did he take advantage of the darkness of the cinema to hold her hand.

  That night Sarah lay in bed and faced the fact that however much she thought of Sam, he definitely didn’t feel the same, and she had to accept that. He saw her as a friend and that was all. Her letters to him had to be from one friend to another. This impression was compounded the following morning when he drew Sarah into his arms to say goodbye: his hug was like anyone might give to a friend he was fond of.

  That evening Sarah told her mother that Sam had asked her to write to him.

  ‘And are you going to?’ Marion asked.

  ‘I said I would,’ Sarah said. ‘What do you think?’

  Marion thought about it. She knew Sam to be a decent young man and she knew Sarah thought a lot of him when she had seen him first, and still more than just liked him, if she was any judge. However, she was sixteen and maturing in a world with few young men about so there was little chance for her to have any sort of normal life when she would get to know boys in a more natural way. So Marion could see no harm in their exchanging a few letters, and that’s what she told Sarah.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sarah found that Sam had been right: accepting her work colleagues for the way they were, and doing her best to join in with the banter seemed to make the work easier to cope with. She wrote and told him this. She found it was lovely to write to Sam because she felt she could tell him anything and it was a great help to her to have a friend like that.

  Towards the end of November, Sarah had been working at the munitions factory almost eight weeks. At the very end of their shift a few of woman were approached by Mr Baxter, the big boss, who asked them if they would be willing to work in another area on a different job.

  Sarah wasn’t sure, but Mary Ellen said she had worked long enough at the same thing and Sarah could see her point. She was bored after only a few weeks and she’d hate the thought of doing that job for years and years. When the boss said their wages would rise by five shillings a week, that clinched it for Mary Ellen, and so Sarah volunteered too.

  They started the following Monday morning and this time they were sent to an area to the side of the main factory. They hadn’t been aware that there was any sort of munitions work going on there because the building was a sort of large semi-underground shed so well camouflaged with grass growing on the roofs and sides that if Sarah had taken any notice at all she would have thought that it was a grassy hillock. She was quite surprised when, once down the steps, it opened up to quite a sizeable area. When Mr Baxter told them all they would be making trench mortar bombs down there, Sarah and Mary Ellen’s mouths dropped open for neither had they thought they would be put on jobs like that.

  But first they were taken to the cloakroom, where brand-new navy-blue boiler suits were ready for them, made for women. ‘Look how fitted they are,’ Mary Ellen said, spinning around in front of Sarah. ‘They give us a waistline and a bust.’

  Everyone saw that for themselves. Even Sarah thought the boiler suits did look quite fetching, and it was nice to wear new clothes and not think half a dozen or more people had worn them before you.

  ‘I don’t go a bundle on these bloody turbans, though,’ Mary Ellen said, pulling hers over her tousled curls. ‘How about you?’

  Sarah slipped her turban on too, and wrinkled her nose as she looked in the mirror. ‘They’re not very flattering, are they? But then I suppose they’re meant to be functional, and at least it keeps the hair in place, especially when we’re not allowed to wear grips.

  ‘Yeah, and I reckon it’s going to be a lot more dodgy here,’ Phoebe said. ‘Have you seen the shoes we’ve got to wear?’

  One of the women picked up a shoe and exclaimed. ‘Hey, they’ve got steel toecaps!’

  ‘My point exactly,’ Phoebe said.

  ‘Well, I suppose they know what they’re doing,’ Mary Ellen said uncertainly.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ another woman called out. ‘Let’s just worry about getting the job done and picking up a big fat wage packet at the end of the week.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘And talking of wage packets, ours will be cut soon if we don’t get down on the shop floor sharpish.’

  She spoke sense, for by the clock on the wall it was nearly half-past seven. Before they began work every day, the boss told them, they would have to call at the nurse’s station where they’d get a small glass of brown liquid to drink, which would keep their lungs clear from the TNT they would be working with. It wasn’t pleasant but no one objected. As Phoebe said, ‘I don’t want my lungs buggered up. My dad had a dose of that in the last war.’

  Sarah wondered what exactly she had let herself in for. The first thing they were shown was how to make ‘the biscuit’, which she found was TNT and nitrate mixed together. They had to carry this mixture in hundredweights and tip it into the ferociously hot boilers, which they had to feed constantly. When it reached the right consistency it went into trays to cool down, while they started making another biscuit. The cooled cooked biscuits were then broken into pieces and put into the bomb casing, and then boiling TNT poured in so that it would fill up between the bits of biscuit inside.

  It was hot, heavy and exhausting work. The girls quickly found that they could wear nothing underneath the boiler suits but their underwear, and even then often the sweat ran from them.

  Sam’s letters, though, bucked Sarah up, though she could tell him nothing about her new job, but she was looking forward to Christmas when she would have the money to buy nice presents for everyone, just as long as things were getting into the shops in the first place.

  She was compiling a list on the first Sunday in December, and half listening to Variety Bandbox on the wireless when the programme was interrupted by a new’s flash.

  ‘Reports are coming in of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a United States naval base and home of the Pacific Fleet. The attacks were sustained and prolonged, and there are initial reports of much lost of life and destruction on a grand scale …’

  The report ended and the Whittakers and their lodgers all looked at one another.

  ‘America will be in the war now, I’d say,’ Peggy said.

  ‘Can’t see how they can stay out of it,’ Marion replied. ‘Some would say about time.’

  ‘Yes, but I wonder how it will affect us,’ Peggy said.

  ‘Well, it will be an escalation, no doubt about it,’ Richard answered. ‘But on the other hand it is better to have America on our side as not, I think.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll give you that,’ Peggy agreed.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ said Marion, trying to cut through the doleful atmosphere, ‘it is nearly Christmas and it might b
e Richard’s last at home for some time so I think we should all try and enjoy it, especially as it will be just us this year and our first Christmas without Tony.’

  That thought sobered them all, and the Whittakers all wished that Peggy and Violet weren’t going home for Christmas. The twins in particular were very disappointed.

  ‘Mom said that if I don’t go home soon, she’ll forget what I look like,’ Peggy said.

  ‘And my eldest brother, Bobby, is eighteen just after Christmas,’ Violet said, ‘so I think I really need to be there this year.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sarah said. ‘Is your mother upset that your brother will be old enough to be called up?’

  ‘I suppose she is a bit,’ Violet said. ‘Probably in her heart of hearts she hoped the war would be over before he was sucked into it.’

  ‘I think most mothers hope that,’ Richard said. ‘But the reality is every boy turned eighteen is needed.’

  ‘Yeah, Mom sees that. And she tells me in her letters which boys have already been called up from the village and farms around. There only seems to be young boys left at home now.’

  ‘I bet they’re all really looking forward to seeing you,’ Marion said.

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing them too,’ Violet said, ‘for all I will miss you here.’

  ‘And we’ll miss you,’ Marion said. ‘This is something I’ve been thinking about for some time – when you come back, why don’t start going out again, to the pictures or dancing? I know you stopped all this when Tony died, but stopping at home is not going to bring him back and it’s more than time you all took up the threads of life again.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be lonely, though, Mom if we went out?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘No,’ Marion said. ‘I’ll find plenty to do, don’t worry, but it would please me to see you all going out and enjoying yourselves more.’

  ‘All right,’ Peggy said, ‘but just for now we’ll content ourselves with going to the Christmas Dance.’