Time Shall Reap

by Doris Davidson

  ‘I’m over twenty-one, I don’t need permission.’

  ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like, John. I still have night-mares about the trenches.’

  With all the confidence of youth, John laughed derisively. ‘It’s modern warfare now, David, and it’s the Air Force I’ve joined, not the Army, so I’ll never be in any trenches.’

  The only encouragement he received was from Laura, who was filled with admiration for his bravery. ‘You’ll make a good pilot, John,’ she breathed.

  ‘That’s what I’d like to be, but I’ll have to wait and see what they tell me when I get to wherever I’ve to go.’

  ‘I think I’ll volunteer, too. They’ll likely need girls to do all sorts of things.’

  ‘No,’ David snapped. ‘You’re not going, that’s final.’

  He had not reckoned with his eighteen-year-old daughter’s determination, however, and within weeks both John and Laura were in airforce blue – John doing his six weeks’ training at Padgate, and Laura at Lytham St Anne’s.

  ‘It’ll not be long till John gets home,’ Helen said, one afternoon. ‘It seems a lot longer than six weeks since he went away.’ She couldn’t hide the pride she felt.

  Elspeth, too, was proud of him, and of her daughter, also doing her bit to help win the war. ‘Laura’ll be coming home shortly, as well. She went away the week after John.’

  Helen looked thoughtful. ‘You ken, Elspeth, I was thinking last night about the first time we met – on the train, mind, during the last war? Little did we think that near a quarter o’ a century on my son and your daughter would both be in the Royal Air Force fighting another war.’

  Elspeth knew for certain now, having suspected it for some considerable time, that Helen’s mind had blotted out for the second time the fact that John was not her real son, but it was better to leave well alone, for she had enough worries at the moment without upsetting Helen. David’s nightmares had been recurring more frequently of late, and not only that, his jealousy was getting worse, though he denied that that was what it was. His health was beginning to suffer, too. He was only forty-six, but his hair was completely grey, his forehead gouged by deep furrows. His job, of course, carried much more responsibility since he’d been made manager of the whole shop, and she hoped that he wasn’t overdoing things.

  When John Watson came home on his first leave, he was quite happy to satisfy Jimmy’s curiosity. ‘You should have seen us, Dad, doing our square-bashing in civvies. They hadn’t uniforms to give us for a start, and I don’t think they knew what to do with us. Then we were issued with our kits and they ticked off our names and numbers as we got them, like this.’ Standing stiffly to attention, he barked out a staccato imitation of the sergeant in charge of stores. ‘Two shirts, tunic – airmen for the use of.’

  Jimmy chuckled at the mimicry and the forces’ jargon. ‘Oh, John, what a laddie you are.’

  Helen looked puzzled. ‘Tunic shirts? What’s that?’

  ‘They’re tunic style,’ John said, patiently. ‘They don’t open all the way down the front, and we pull them on over our heads. We got collars and studs, though, and I think we all looked very smart on our first parade after that.’

  ‘Well, you look real smart now, any road,’ Helen smiled, her pride in him making a tightness come in her throat.

  ‘So what happens to you now?’ Jimmy asked.

  John’s eyes clouded. ‘I’m a bit disappointed I wasn’t accepted for pilot’s training, but I’ve applied to train as a wireless operator. I’ll have to pass tests, and if I fail, I’ll just have to be a Sparkie, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s what you should be – you’re a time served plumber and electrician.’ Jimmy couldn’t understand why John was so reluctant to go in for his own trade.

  ‘But I want to be part of an air crew, doing something definite against the Jerries.’

  ‘The lads on the ground do something against the Jerries, and all,’ Jimmy reminded him. ‘They’ve to keep all the aeroplanes checked and repaired, so they’re running smooth. Every single tradesman has his part to play.’

  ‘I know that, but I want to fly.’

  Just days later, Laura was horrifying her mother with tales of the deprivations she’d had to suffer. ‘Fancy having to eat off a tin plate,’ Elspeth moaned, when she learned of the crude arrangements in the Mess. ‘Do you want me to give you a cup and plate to take back with you?’

  ‘God, no. They’d all laugh their heads off at me.’

  David saw that his wife and daughter could easily get irritated at each other. ‘John Watson’s home just now, too,’ he observed, in order to lighten the atmosphere.

  ‘That’s right, Laura, you’ll likely see him on Saturday. I think Helen said he didn’t have to go back till Sunday.’

  Laura hoped that her uniform would make John take notice of her, because the wolf whistles she often received proved that it suited her. She had even gone out with several of the young airmen, and she could now fend off even the most amorous flirts. God, how naive she had been with that stupid oaf Gordon before the war.

  On Saturday, when the Fullerton family visited the Watsons, John was out with some of his ex-workmates, and Laura felt angry and hurt. If he couldn’t be bothered to stay in when he knew she’d be visiting, he’d had his chance. But she hid her feelings, and kept Helen and Jimmy laughing with humorous anecdotes of the tribulations of service life.

  Most of her leave was spent just lazing around the bungalow. ‘It’s nice to be idle,’ she told her mother one day, ‘but I wouldn’t like it all the time. I love being a WAAF, and the social life’s great – concerts, dances, dozens of boys. We forget there’s a war on, sometimes.’

  Shortly after going back, Laura wrote that she had been posted to Turnhouse, in Edinburgh. ‘I’m training to be a plotter, and I’ve passed all my tests so far, so your daughter will soon be an LACW (Leading Aircraft Woman). What do you think of that?’

  Elspeth could hardly wait to tell Helen this good news, but Helen had some of her own to pass on. ‘John’s been posted to Lincolnshire to train as a wireless operator, and he says he’s not an AC Plonk any longer, though I’ve no idea what that means.’

  In addition to worrying about her son’s determination to fly, Elspeth was now concerned about her daughter. With all these young men taking her out, would Laura get serious with one of them and end up being left like her mother had been – with an illegitimate child?

  In the dark days of May 1940, David Fullerton became gloomy about the outcome of the war, studying all the reports in the newspapers and listening to the bulletins on the wireless. ‘That’s the finish!’ he exclaimed on the 26th. ‘Our boys have had to retreat to Dunkirk, and they’re being picked up off the beaches. What a terrible defeat.’

  Elspeth tried to cheer him up. ‘But the evacuation’s still going on, and they think they’ll get most of the men off.’

  ‘It’s still a German victory,’ he said, mournfully.

  Her husband was a defeatist, Elspeth thought, but she had to believe that things were not as hopeless as they seemed to be. ‘There’s always dark before the dawn.’

  By the 3rd June, David was jubilant. ‘The paper says it was a glorious defeat, not a real defeat, and ordinary folk in little boats helped to ferry the men across the Channel. Only the British could make an effort like that, and we’ll win this war, I’m sure of it now.’

  At Turnhouse, each aircraft’s position near the coast was plotted, and the approach of enemy planes was tracked, but Laura’s letters home told only about the dances she attended and the various airmen who took her, which made Elspeth worry even more. She had heard rumours of how those RAF boys could charm their way into any girl’s heart, and her daughter would be easily led astray.

  David was more concerned about German activity in the air over Britain, especially after a daylight raid on Aberdeen on July 12th. ‘It was only one bomber,’ he said, that night, ‘and it was shot down, but think of the destruction it cau
sed. They’re saying it had lost its way and shouldn’t have been anywhere near Aberdeen, but I have my doubts.’

  A couple of weeks later, he looked up from the Evening Express. ‘It says here that our losses aren’t as heavy as theirs, but Lord Haw-Haw said on the wireless last night that hundreds of British planes had been destroyed and no German aircraft was lost, and they’re bombing London now.’

  ‘You shouldn’t listen to that traitor.’ Elspeth hated to see him crouched in front of the wireless, lapping up every word uttered by the grating, nasal voice. ‘It’s propaganda and doesn’t mean a thing. If things were as bad as he makes out, we’d have had to surrender ages ago.’

  ‘We’ll have to surrender soon, no doubt about it.’

  David was more hopeful by the middle of May 1941. ‘London survived the Blitz and our boys won the Battle of Britain, so the Luftwaffe’s had a slap in the face, and Hitler’ll never dare to invade us now.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Elspeth’s prayers had been for John, but she had consoled herself by thinking that he couldn’t have been involved in the dog-fights over southern England, not being a pilot. Nevertheless, she was always relieved when Helen got a letter from him, and passed the good news on to Laura, whose letters often asked about him.

  When her daughter came on leave, Elspeth took the chance to enquire, ‘Have you a steady boyfriend yet?’

  Laura smiled and shook her head. ‘Nobody serious. They’re all nice boys, and I go out with them if they ask me – we all need some relief from the war. If we don’t see some of them for a while, we think they’ve been posted, and it’s only when we remember that they’d been on the plane that didn’t come back on such-and-such a night that we realize what’s happened. We can’t afford to brood over it, of course, but that’s why I don’t let myself get involved.’

  Elspeth marvelled at her daughter’s calm acceptance of the tragedies that were taking place around her, and felt, sadly, that Laura was growing away from her. What would happen when the war came to an end? She wouldn’t want to come back and settle in a dull office job.

  Laura sometimes wondered about this herself. How could she bear her old humdrum existence after the thrills, sorrow and danger of service life? Apart from the reason she had given her mother, the boys she met were too immature to be serious about, but she was only twenty and could wait for romance, if she ever felt like it. She might try for an interesting career in England after the war, or go abroad – Canada, South Africa, anywhere. The world would be her oyster.

  Flight Sergeant Wireless Operator John Watson was glad he had been posted to dear old Scotland for a while – Scampton had been pretty hectic lately. Bombing German munition barges in Antwerp Basin had been bad enough, but the raids on Bremen and Wilhelmshaven had been worse, and he had often been surprised that he wasn’t scared out of his wits during these missions. Instead, he had felt a kind of exhilarated fascination as the flak burst round them. Even seeing aircraft from his own squadron bursting into flames and plunging down hadn’t made him lose concentration on the job he had to do. It was only after he returned to base that the fear had come, and the realization that they had been fortunate to get back in one piece, but now the crews of the old Hampdens were being ‘rested’ as a reward for all the hours of danger.

  Shutting his ears to the noise in the Sergeants’ Mess, he remembered that his mother had told him Laura Fullerton was still at Turnhouse, and, although he wasn’t long back off leave, it would be good to see a face from home, even if it was only the girl who had pestered the life out of him when she was a kid. He had hated her then, but she had tamed down a bit when she grew older – still a pest, but not quite so annoying. She would have changed, of course, since he’d seen her last, just after war was declared, and she would likely be involved with some officer-type with a big handlebar moustache by this time. Not to worry. He was looking for a more sophisticated girl than Laura Fullerton and he intended to play the field.

  Taking a stroll to the YMCA canteen the following afternoon, he was surprised to find Laura there with two other WAAFs. She was prettier than he remembered, her hair darkened to a rich auburn and cut short so that it curled appealingly round her heart-shaped face. Funny, he hadn’t noticed the shape of her face before. He walked over to their table, smiling.

  ‘Wonders will never cease!’ Laura jumped to her feet. ‘Girls, let me introduce Flight Sergeant John Watson, an old friend of mine from Aberdeen. John – Trish, Wendy.’

  The two girls shook hands then stood up, Wendy saying, ‘We’ll leave you two to talk over old times,’ and Trish winking mischievously as she went out.

  John was amazed at how Laura had changed, but he joked as he sat down, to cover a sudden feeling of shyness. ‘You’ve got them well trained, leaving us alone so tactfully.’

  She gave a wicked chuckle. ‘At one time you wouldn’t have been pleased at being alone with me. You used to moan like billy-o every time I went to Quarry Street.’

  ‘That was when we were kids, and my pals laughed at me for having to play nursemaid to you.’

  ‘You didn’t make a very good job of it, did you? Remember the day I fell out of the tree?’

  He laughed at the memory of Laura howling all the way back to his house. ‘You were showing off as usual. I was kept in for a couple of days after that, you know, and I hated you.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that, but I got a ticking off from my mum and dad, too.’

  Thinking that the age gap had narrowed considerably now that she was twenty to John’s twenty-six, Laura spent the next half hour reminiscing with him about the things he had done to get rid of her, until they sensed that their hearty laughter had made them the focus of attention.

  John turned serious. ‘I’d willingly play nursemaid to you any time now, Laura,’ he said, softly.

  She blushed, but her embarrassment was covered by the arrival of some more WAAFs, one saying, ‘Your shift’s gone back on, Fullerton.’

  ‘Oh, blast!’ She picked up her cap and respirator. ‘I’ll have to run, John, but I’ll likely see you around.’

  ‘Wait, Laura. Can’t we meet properly? We could go to the pictures in Edinburgh, or something.’

  ‘Wizard! I’m off at nineteen hundred hours tomorrow, if that’s OK ...? Meet me at the main gate.’ She waved her hand as she ran through the door.

  When they met the next night, John found it impossible to treat Laura like the other girls he had taken out – it seemed unnatural to flirt with her or to make passes at her. She had been a tomboy as a child, but she had metamorphosed into a beautiful slim young woman, self-assured and, most surprising, sophisticated. Unable to bring himself to take her arm when they were walking, he wondered if she felt as awkward with him.

  Two days later, at a dance in a local hall, he found that she was very popular and didn’t think twice about leaving him on his own. In the old days, he had complained that she stuck to him like glue, but now he felt like kicking her other partners for taking her away.

  Afterwards, they walked back to the aerodrome in silence for most of the way. ‘John,’ Laura said, at last, ‘are you mad at me for dancing with those other guys?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, stiffly. ‘I’m only the poor sap who took you to the dance. An old man like me shouldn’t try to compete with youngsters.’

  ‘I couldn’t refuse, I’d danced with them all before, and anyway, what right have you to be so possessive, John Watson? I bet you’ve danced with hundreds of girls yourself.’

  ‘Yes, but they didn’t go waltzing off with other men. At least they had the good sense to remember their manners.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Sir Galahad,’ Laura said icily, and stalked off in front of him.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ was his equally cold reply.

  Angrily, she kept ahead of him until a motor cycle whizzed past, flinging up gravel from the side of the road. ‘Ouch!’ she yelped, as a piece of grit lodged in her eye.

  John ran
to her, anxiously, but, when he saw her holding her hand up to her eye and screwing up her face, he realized what had happened and took out his handkerchief. ‘Let me try to get it out for you.’

  The pain in her watering eye made her swallow her outraged pride and hold her head up in the pale moon-light, her heart acting strangely when he placed a hand under her chin with his face close to hers. ‘That’s it!’ he said, in a moment, looking carefully into her eye to check that no grit remained, and in the next moment, his arms were round her, and his kiss was all that she had ever longed for in her girlish dreams.

  ‘Oh, Laura, I’ve been wanting to do that all evening,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry I was so touchy before, but I was jealous, and I’ve just understood why. I love you, my darling little pest.’

  Between kisses, she managed to tell him that she felt the same way about him. ‘But I’ve always loved you,’ she added, somewhat ruefully, ‘for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘I suppose I knew that, but I resented having to look after you. You weren’t the easiest of kids to handle.’

  Laura giggled with delight. ‘I bet this is the last thing our mums and dads’ll be expecting.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. They were always pushing us together, so my guess is, they’ll be delighted. It’s funny, I couldn’t stand the sight of you once – I dreaded Saturday afternoons when I’d have you tagging along after me – and it’s taken a war to bring me to my senses.’

  ‘I shouldn’t really say this, I suppose,’ she made a face about it, ‘but thank God for the war. We might have gone on all our lives without knowing how we felt about each other.’

  ‘We’ve wasted enough time as it is, we can’t waste any more.’ With this in mind, he kissed her again ... and again.

  John lay happily wakeful that night. He knew he’d feel like a washed-out rag in the morning, but he didn’t care. Laura! Laura! His heart sang with her name. Of course their parents would be pleased. Elspeth and his mother had likely planned it from the day Laura was born, wonderful, wonderful mothers that they were, and it was the most natural thing in the world for two close families to be united like this.