by Annie Groves
Since she was now taking the emergency services driving course, Molly couldn’t think of any plausible reason for not attending her WVS meetings, so reluctantly on Wednesday evening she put on her uniform and set off for the church hall.
Mrs Wesley acknowledged her presence with a brief nod of her head, and to Molly’s relief didn’t say anything about either her absence or Eddie’s death.
It seemed strange to be back amongst the others, as though nothing had happened. It was hard for her, though, to hear them talking about their menfolk, and as though she sensed what she was feeling, Anne deliberately drew her away from the others when they were having their tea break.
Molly saw the local ARP warden hurrying in and going up to Mrs Wesley, but she didn’t think anything of it until their organiser clapped her hands and called for their attention.
‘Ladies, I’d like volunteers, please, to go down to the docks immediately. A convoy on its way to New York has been torpedoed. Two ships were sunk and another so badly damaged that it has had to turn back with those men who survived. Our help is needed to provide the men who don’t require hospitalising with blankets, hot drinks and whatever other assistance we can.’
‘Come on, Molly, let’s volunteer,’ Anne urged her, already putting up her own hand, but Molly shrank back and shook her head.
‘I can’t.’ Her face was white and she was trembling.
‘Yes, you can,’ Anne told her, grabbing hold of her wrist and lifting Molly’s arm before Molly could stop her.
‘You shouldn’t have done that. I can’t go down to the docks.’ Molly felt sick with shock and anger. How could her friend have been so insensitive? But Anne was ignoring her protests, tugging her with her as Mrs Wesley gathered up all the volunteers. She couldn’t make a scene and refuse to go now, Molly realised, as Mrs Wesley urged them all to hurry, and collect everything they might need.
Willing hands packed blankets into Mrs Wesley’s car whilst the ARP man assured her that a mobile kitchen would be in place by the time they reached the docks.
The dock was already busy with volunteers when Molly and Anne got off the tram. A pilot boat was nursing the dark hulk of the slow-moving merchant ship into its berth. Molly’s stomach churned sickly just looking at it, and then it churned even more when her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw the gaping hole in its side.
How many men who had set out from Liverpool in the convoy would not be coming home? How many on this ship were injured and dying like her Eddie?
A shudder tore through her. She couldn’t bear being here. It was too much. She could see Eddie’s face; she could hear him crying out to her as he died.
‘I can’t do this.’
‘Molly, you’ve got to pull yourself together,’ Anne warned her fiercely.
‘That’s easy for you to say. Your Philip isn’t dead.’ The pain was unbearable. She had to escape it. Dropping the blankets she had been holding, Molly turned to flee, but Anne was suddenly standing in front of her, blocking her escape route.
‘Molly, you can’t leave now. Mrs Wesley will see you.’
‘I don’t care. I can’t bear this,’ Molly wept.
Anne grabbed hold of her and gave her a small shake. ‘Yes, you can and you will. I never thought you would turn out to be a coward, Molly Dearden, but a coward is what you will be if you leave here. What do you think your Eddie would say if he could see you now? He’d be ashamed of you, that’s what – and I’ll be ashamed of you as well. We’ve got a duty to help these poor men, Molly. I know it must be hurting you being here, but running away and feeling sorry for yourself won’t bring your Eddie back. He’s gone and you’ve got to face up to that, and be proud that you loved him and he loved you.’
Molly had stopped struggling as she listened to her friend, and now she straightened up in Anne’s hold, her eyes brimming with tears. Somehow Anne’s words had reached past her pain, and her self-pity.
‘The men are coming off the ship now,’ Anne told her, releasing her.
Very slowly Molly turned round. Hunched, weary-looking figures moved slowly down the gangplanks, the white flashes of bandages showing up starkly against the darkness of their uniforms, the stretcher bearers coming off first. Through her tears, Molly watched as the injured were taken to the waiting ambulances.
‘Come on,’ Anne urged her, bending down to pick up the blankets they had dropped.
Mechanically, Molly followed her, joining the line of WVS volunteers as they waited to offer hot drinks and hand out blankets to those who needed them.
Any one of these men could have been her own dear Eddie, Molly reflected, as weary faces lightened with relief and gratitude.
‘Ta, duck,’ one sailor thanked Molly as she handed him a cup of tea. ‘Blew out the galley, Hitler did. All we’ve had for the last three days is cold food. Mind you, at least we was alive, unlike so many poor buggers. Didn’t stand a chance, they didn’t. Bloody Hitler,’ the man swore, his face darkening.
Molly was trembling so hard that tea slopped wildly from the next cup she picked up, but to her relief the sailor taking it from her did so in silence.
Dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky when Molly let herself into number 78. Before they had parted to go to their homes, Anne had hugged her fiercely and said emotionally, ‘Molly, Eddie would have been so proud of you for tonight.’
Molly’s course ended, and to her relief she was passed as an emergency vehicle driver. She still went to bed every night reciting the names of Liverpool’s streets, which at least helped to stop her from crying for Eddie.
In May the tempo of everyone’s life began to change as the dreadful news came that Germany’s blitzkrieg had resulted in the fall of Norway and Holland and Luxembourg. June and Sally exchanged anxious looks as the three girls sat in front of the wireless one Friday evening listening to the news.
‘Our lads will sort out Jerry, you just wait and see,’ Sally pronounced loyally but with hesitation, causing a sharp thrill of anguish to pierce Molly’s heart.
‘Where are you going, Molly?’ June asked her when she got up and went to the back door.
‘I feel like a bit of fresh air, so I thought I’d go down to the allotment and walk back with Dad.’
She could almost feel the look she knew June and Sally would be exchanging behind her back – a mixture of pity and guilt.
It had been a warm day, and the scent of late spring hung softly on the evening air.
As she approached the allotments she could hear angry raised male voices, loudest amongst them Alf Davies’s.
‘… And I’m telling you that that bloody dog of yours has got to go.’
A group of men were gathered in one of the allotments, Molly’s father amongst them.
‘Take it easy, Alf,’ Molly heard him saying as she approached them.
‘You can’t blame the dog for doing what comes natural, like. He didn’t know that you’d trapped them rabbits for your own dinner, did he?’ one of the men laughed.
Bert Johnson was standing next to her father, his dog at his feet, whilst Alf Davies stood in front of him, red-faced with fury, refusing to join in the other men’s good-natured banter.
‘If he’d obeyed the law then the bloody dog wouldn’t have got me rabbits, would it? No dogs to be allowed exceptin’ for working dogs – that’s what the Government has said. Anyone who has a dog has ter have it put down … and if he doesn’t do it then I’ll tek a gun to the thing meself.’
‘You touch my dog and it’ll be you as is facing the wrong end of a gun.’ Bert’s voice was thin and tremulous, and Molly felt tears prick sharply at her eyes. Why she should feel so concerned for old Bert and his dog she didn’t know. She only knew that somehow Bert’s plight touched a raw nerve with her.
‘Come on, Alf. Leave it be now,’ Molly’s father urged. ‘It were only a couple of rabbits, after all.’
‘That’s not the point. The law’s the law and the law says no dogs exceptin’ for working dogs,’
Alf insisted, plainly resenting the fact that the other men were siding with Bert against him.
Molly shivered, despite the cardigan she was wearing over her short-sleeved blouse, and wrapped her arms around herself. She had never really taken to Alf Davies, nor his wife, if she were honest, and she knew that the couple weren’t popular in the cul-de-sac.
‘Molly lass!’ her father exclaimed, suddenly seeing her.
‘I came out for a bit of fresh air,’ she told him. ‘It’s bin on the news again about the Germans invading Holland …’
‘And that won’t be the end of it, neither,’ one of the other men prophesied grimly. ‘No matter what bloody Chamberlain says.’
Molly shivered again. She slipped her arm through her father’s, turning to frown over her shoulder as she heard Alf continuing to berate old Bert.
‘He can’t really make Bert have his dog put down, can he, Dad?’
‘He might think he can, but I reckon between us we can find a way to keep the dog out of sight until he’s calmed down a bit,’ her father comforted her, patting her hand. She had become so thin and pale since Eddie’s death, her once-ready laughter now silenced. He ached with sympathy for her, but he knew from his own experience that only time could soften the sharpness of her pain. She was so young that she was bound to feel it all the more keenly, but young enough, he hoped, to find happiness with someone else – although he knew he could not tell her that.
That night Molly couldn’t sleep. The scented sweetness of the night permeated her bedroom as she lay awake listening to the soft wuffling sound of June’s breathing.
She and Eddie would have been married for nearly two months by now. Eddie … Eddie … She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, longing for the relief of tears. Somehow, these last few weeks, she had found it impossible to cry properly for Eddie, as though everything inside her had dried up into a barren emptiness.
It was Pete Ridley, the milkman, who brought the news, leaving his horse to make its own ambling way down the road with the milk cart, as he paused to tell everyone, shaking his head and saying as how it were a crying shame. Molly stood as whey-faced as blown milk, listening to him telling her father that old Bert had been found dead this morning, having shot his dog and then hanged himself.
‘That dog were closer to him than many a man is to his missus – closer. Meant the world to him, it did. Of course, I blame that Alf Davies, allus threatening to have it put down. Well, now poor old Bert’s gone and done the job for him. Aye, and finished himself off as well.’
Suddenly Molly realised that she was crying. Great choking sobs tore at her body, making her chest heave as she wept for old Bert, who had not been able to go on living without the dog he loved. But she had to live without Eddie, and she wept for him, and for all those men who would die, and all those women who would have to go on living without them.
Molly wasn’t surprised to hear her father saying later that week that he had heard that Alf Davies and his wife had decided to move out of the cul-de-sac and rent somewhere else in another part of the city.
But the gossip about Alf Davies was soon forgotten in the excitement of Mr Chamberlain stepping down as Prime Minister and Winston Churchill taking his place.
‘Now we’ll show Jerry what’s what,’ John Fowler beamed, coming round to talk about the latest news with Albert.
Unlike Mr Chamberlain, the new Prime Minister did not minimise the danger of Hitler or the German blitzkrieg.
* * *
‘Here, listen to what it says ’ere,’ Jean called out sombrely, causing the other girls to leave their machines and cluster around her as she waved the latest copy of the Picture Post in the air. ‘It says “The Darkest Day of the War, Arras and Amiens fall to the Germans.” Where are they when they’re at home?’
‘France, yer dafthead,’ Irene told her sharply. ‘Go on, what else does it say? Oh, give it here and let me read it …’
Molly listened, aware of but somehow unmoved by what she was hearing, as though set apart from the anxiety of the other girls. After all, what did it matter now to her what happened? It couldn’t bring Eddie back.
She was the only person who wasn’t tensely waiting for every fresh news bulletin, though – she knew that. You could feel people’s tension, and see it in their faces. Only she seemed to be immune to it, sealed off from it by her bitterness and grief.
‘My father says that the Germans won’t take France because the BEF is sure to hold them back,’ Anne told her that evening as they left their weekly WVS meeting.
‘I hope your father’s right, Anne,’ Molly answered. ‘There’s enough good men dead already.’ She yawned loudly. She hadn’t been able to sleep for the last few nights, and when she did she dreamed of old Bert and his dog, the animal howling mournfully until suddenly it wasn’t the dog she could hear but Eddie, crying out to her in agony.
Her loss had begun to sharpen the softness of her smile and to strip the flesh of her girlhood from her bones. She had retreated to a place inside herself where she could shut out everyone else, a place where she could mourn Eddie and the loss of her own future. The girls at Hardings whispered when she excused herself at dinner, not knowing what they could do to help their friend.
‘I hope that Dad is right as well,’ Anne agreed. ‘What with our Richard in France and Philip too …’ She took hold of Molly’s arm, her eyes dark with fear. ‘Molly, I’m scared for them.’ The two girls looked at one another, and then Anne shook her head and said firmly, ‘Just listen to me! Our Richard would give me a right telling-off if he could hear me.’ But nevertheless there were tears in her eyes and Molly could feel her trembling.
Seeing Anne so distressed pierced the protective wall Molly had built around herself. She reached out to Anne and hugged her reassuringly. ‘Try not to worry,’ she said. ‘I know it isn’t easy but, Anne, you have to believe that they will be safe, for their sakes. Try to tell yourself that they’ll be home soon.’
‘Oh, Molly, I do hope they will. I know it sounds silly but, do you know, I have to look at Philip’s photograph now to remember what he looks like.’
Comforting Anne made her own pain lessen a little, Molly recognised as she did her best to calm her friend’s fears.
She had promised to call in at Sally’s on her way home so that she could walk back with June, who was now spending most of her spare time there.
Sally and June were laughing together when Molly walked in.
‘Oh, Molly, there you are. Me and Sally was just saying that we could do with you getting started with a bit of knitting for these two,’ June laughed, patting her belly.
The sound of their laughter and the sight of their happiness brought a resurgence of Molly’s pain. ‘Is that all you can talk about, you two – babies, and how your Frank and Sally’s Ronnie are going to push Jerry back to Germany single-handed?’ she demanded bitterly.
June flushed and looked shocked. ‘There’s no call for you to act like that,’ she protested.
‘We just thought that doin’ a bit of knittin’ would give yer sommat to take yer mind off … everything … but if you feel like that then you do not have to bother,’ Sally said huffily.
‘Do you really expect a bit of knitting for someone else’s baby is going to take me mind off losing Eddie?’ Molly laughed mirthlessly.
June looked uncomfortably at Sally and then shook her head. ‘Molly, we all know what you’ve bin through, but carrying on like this isn’t going to bring him back—’ She broke off as there came an urgent knock on the door. Looking worried, Sally got up to answer it.
‘I thought you’d both want to know,’ Frank’s mother breathlessly announced as Sally invited her in. ‘I’ve just come from Mill Road Hospital – I’ve got a friend there, one of the sisters. She’s got connections, like, and she’s just told me that she’s heard that orders have gone out to our lads that they are to fall back. May God help them.’ Doris Brookes’s voice quavered slightly, and June, who had stood up
when she had seen her mother-in-law, gave a small moan, and collapsed in a dead faint.
Immediately Doris reverted from anxious mother to professional nurse, instructing Molly to help her get June into a sitting position with her head between her knees, and commanding Sally to go and get a bowl.
‘Like as not she’ll be sick when she comes round,’ Doris pronounced matter-of-factly.
‘Will she be all right? Only she said as how she felt a bit faint, like, when she got here,’ Sally informed them worriedly.
‘She’s not said anything about any bleeding or that, has she?’ Doris asked, frowning.
Sally and Molly shook their heads.
‘Well, that’s all right then. No, I reckon it’s just a bit of shock done it. Allus bin a bit highly strung, your June has, Molly. If you had a bit of cork we could burn, that’d bring her round,’ Doris announced, as she took the bowl Sally had brought her, adding, ‘Put yer radio on, will yer, Sally, just in case there’s bin any more news. It’s all right, lass,’ she told Molly bracingly as she saw her expression. ‘Like I said, your June has allus bin one for a bit o’ drama, and I warned my Frank so when he first said as how he were walking out with her. I told him he’d be better off walking out wi’ you! “You’ll end up having to fetch and carry for her, our Frank,” I told him, but he wouldn’t listen.’ Doris patted June’s hand. ‘She’s coming round now …’
June moaned faintly, slowly lifting her head. ‘Oh, what’s going to become of me and the baby if anything should happen to Frank? I told ’im all along not to join up.’ She gagged suddenly, giving Molly just enough warning to get the bowl in front of her before she was sick.
‘Oh, I feel right badly,’ June sobbed.
‘Come on now, that’s enough of that,’ Doris told her briskly. ‘Bawling your head off like that isn’t going to help anyone. How do you think you’re going to go on when you go into labour if you carry on like this after a bit of a faint?’
