by Annie Groves
‘A bit of a faint?’ June objected angrily. ‘It were you as made me faint, frightening me half to death like that, and me carrying.’
Doris gave an unsympathetic snort. ‘There’s women carrying who go through far worse than that, I can tell you. I did myself—’
‘The news is coming on,’ Sally interrupted her.
All four women fell silent. As if he too sensed the tension around him, even baby Tommy stopped gurgling, but the newsreader made no mention of any retreat by the British Army.
‘You want to be ashamed of yourself,’ June rounded on her mother-in-law, her face bright red, ‘coming round ’ere and frightening folk half to death like that. That friend of yours wants to get her facts right before she goes spreading any more gossip, otherwise someone will be reporting her to Mr Churchill, and he’ll have her locked up.’
‘Don’t tek on so, June. You’ll mek yourself poorly again,’ Sally warned.
‘I’m all right,’ June told her, ‘no thanks to some folk I could name.’ She sniffed. ‘I know you never wanted your Frank to marry me, but he has done and I’ll thank you to remember that in future. Frank isn’t going to be happy when he hears about this, not with me being in my condition.’
June was looking triumphant whilst Frank’s mother’s face was set with anger and contempt.
‘I’ll walk back with you if you like, Mrs Brookes,’ Molly offered, hastily stepping in between them. June might claim that Frank would blame his mother for what had happened, but Molly suspected that Frank would not be happy if a permanent rift were to develop between his mother and his wife.
‘Thank you, Molly, I’d appreciate that. At least one of you has manners.’
TEN
‘It’s true, I tell yer. I heard it from a lad I know down the docks. Navy’s bin sent to Dunkirk to bring home what can be saved of ’em poor buggers, and that won’t be many, not with Jerry and his bloody blitzkrieg after them. Gawd help those poor lads, that’s all I can say – aye, and their families, an’ all.’
‘And Gawd help us,’ Molly’s father said sombrely. ‘There’ll be nowt to stop Hitler invading England now.’
Something in her father’s voice made Molly quickly look up at him. What she saw broke through the protective barrier her grief had made her throw around herself. She went to him and he put his arm around her.
‘Dad,’ she whispered.
Her father was afraid for them, for what might happen to her and to June. She had seen that in his eyes. Her heart started to pound inside her chest as waves of panic and pain seared through her.
‘Not a word about this to our June yet, lass,’ her father warned her. ‘There’s no point in having her frettin’ before she needs to.’
‘No, not in her condition,’ Molly agreed soberly.
‘It ain’t just a matter of that,’ her father said. ‘See, Molly, June isn’t like you. For all that she’s one for telling other folk what to do, she’s not strong like you are. Think on, lass, because, God forbid, if her Frank were not to make it, then June would need you to help her through. If’n your Eddie is lookin’ down from somewhere, watching yer, Molly, he will want ter be proud of you and I know that he can be. But our June …’ He shook his head worriedly.
Molly’s chin lifted. Her father was right. She was strong. Strong enough to bear the pain of losing Eddie and to do whatever she was called upon to do to help others. A new sense of pride and purpose began to fill her, driving out the bitterness that had gripped her since Eddie’s death. ‘Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’m all right now and I’ll do whatever I have to do for our June, if it comes to that.’ Her face suddenly crumpled. ‘But, oh, Dad, those poor boys …’
By the end of that week the whole country was waiting with heavy hearts and many prayers for news of the safe return of the retreating army.
White-faced, June and Sally clung to one another in the kitchen of number 78 as they all listened to the news.
On 28 May it was announced formally that Belgium had fallen to the Germans.
‘I’ll never see my Frank again,’ June sobbed noisily.
‘Our lads will be all right, June,’ Sally insisted sturdily. ‘You see if they aren’t.’
Molly could see that June was struggling to contain her tears and to mirror Sally’s brave optimism, and she went over to hug her, telling her fiercely, ‘Sally’s right, June. You’ve got to be strong for Frank’s sake, and for the baby’s as well.’
June gave a hiccuping sob as Molly held her tightly.
At that evening’s WVS meeting, Molly and the others were told that they would be needed to meet the trains coming up from the coast, bringing home the men who had been saved.
‘You must remember that these men will have seen dreadful things – comrades wounded and dying, civilians left behind to face the Germans. They will have suffered and endured things beyond our own grasp, and you may find yourselves having to witness and listen to things they would be too proud to tell their wives and loved ones,’ Mrs Wesley told them, adding, ‘I would caution you all to remember that it is your duty to your country to give our brave soldiers what comfort you can. A cup of tea, a gentle touch, a listening ear – all of these things are important.’
The girl standing next to Molly giggled and whispered, ‘Gawd, I wondered what she was going to tell us we had ter give ’em for a moment.’
‘You will also be required to supply field post forms to those men who have not already filled them in, so that their families will be informed of their safety and whereabouts. There will be nurses and doctors on hand to help those men who need medical attention, and you will direct the injured to the first-aid station.’
‘Have you heard from your brother yet?’ Molly asked Anne after the meeting was over.
Anne shook her head, biting her lip. ‘No, not yet. Oh, Molly, it is all so dreadful. I heard Mum crying last night. I can’t stop thinking about our brave men.’
‘No, neither can I,’ Molly admitted. In her mind’s eye she could see them, line after line of them, waiting patiently and bravely on Dunkirk’s beaches for salvation – or death. She gave a deep shudder. It was too late now for her Eddie, but there were other men who needed her prayers and whatever help those who waited here at home could give them.
A new sense of purpose and determination had filled her these last few days. For Eddie’s sake and in his memory she would do whatever was asked of her to help those men.
You could see it in other women’s faces, Molly thought as she walked home from work with June, carefully slowing her pace to match June’s in the heat of the late May afternoon: that look, that light in their eyes, or lack of it, that said they had received good news – or they had not. Her sister looked drawn and tired, the curve of her belly growing bigger every day whilst the rest of her body seemed to grow thinner.
‘I’m on duty at Lime Street tonight,’ Molly told her quietly as they walked into number 78. ‘Anne ran across at dinner to tell me. They’re expecting the first of the trains, bringing men as has been brought home from Dunkirk back up North to their units.’
‘Frank’s mam’s gone up to the hospital to see if she can do anything to help out,’ June told her. ‘She said as how she couldn’t bear just to stay at home waiting for news. Good for her, I say.’
Molly smiled – maybe the war would bring one good outcome.
‘Oh, Molly, if anything’s happened to my Frank …’ June started to cry helplessly. Molly put down the shopping bag such as every woman carried with her in case she should hear of a shop getting in some extra supplies, and went over to her, putting her arms round her, and doing her best to comfort her.
An hour later, when she came downstairs, having changed into her WVS uniform, she found June waiting for her by the kitchen door.
‘I’m coming with you,’ she announced determinedly, ‘just in case my Frank is on one of them trains.’
‘June, you can’t,’ Molly protested. ‘It isn’t allowed. And besides, in yo
ur condition it might not be safe for you.’
‘I’m only five months, and as for it not being allowed –’ June tilted her chin stubbornly – ‘if my Frank’s on that train then I want to be there.’
Molly shook her head, and said as gently as she could, ‘June, you’d have heard if Frank was back.’
‘Mebbe, mebbe not …’
Molly looked at their father, who was sitting polishing his shoes.
‘Come on, June lass, be sensible. Our Molly’s got her duty to do, and like she says, there’s no sense in you going to Lime Street and wearing yourself out standing around in this heat when like as not your Frank won’t be on t’train. You’d be far better off staying here wi’ me.’
‘Dad’s right, June,’ Molly told her softly. ‘I’ll look out for Frank, I promise, and will send word if he’s on the train. How about that?’
June grudgingly nodded her head and Molly set off, not knowing what horrors might await her at Lime Street.
The streets were hot and humid, and Molly wished she was wearing something a bit lighter than her uniform. The rough cloth was making her itch, and the heat inside the busy station made her long to be able to remove her jacket, but she must keep it on to identify herself as WVS.
She had to struggle through several groups of people before she saw her colleagues.
‘Has June heard from our Frank yet, Molly?’
‘Mrs Brookes!’ Molly exclaimed as she saw Frank’s mother. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform and was standing with several other volunteers.
‘No, she hasn’t. She wanted to come with me tonight but me and our dad managed to dissuade her.’
‘Best thing if she stays where she is, if you ask me.’
‘Over here, Molly,’ Mrs Wesley called out imperiously.
‘Sorry, Mrs Brookes,’ Molly excused herself, ‘but I’d better go.’
‘Right now, Molly, you can have these forms and some pencils, and when Anne and Mary have given the men a drink, you can find out whether or not they’ve already filled out a form. If not, then you can give them one. Then the men will be taken to the transport that will carry them back to their units, or to hospital if they need medical treatment.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Right then, ladies, is everyone ready?’
Molly gulped and nodded her head.
The first thing that Molly noticed when the train pulled in was the silence. It was thick and smothering, unnervingly so compared to the noise she could remember filling Lime Street when the men had left for the war.
The second was the smell: a sour wave of sweat mixed with the acrid smell of damp khaki and leather, and something else that her mind was already labelling as the smell of defeat and exhaustion.
‘No, ta, luv.’
‘Thanks, duck.’
‘Filled one out already, I have.’
The flattened male voices all held the same tone as Molly followed Anne and Mary down the line. Grey-faced and unsmiling, the men marched towards the exit, something in the hunch of their shoulders tearing at Molly’s heart in a different way from the pain she felt at Eddie’s death. This pain was new, an adult pain, she realised, not for herself but for others, for all that these men had suffered.
‘Have you filled in a field post form yet?’ she asked repetitively, waiting patiently whilst exhausted men tried to focus on the form she was holding and then nodded their heads before moving on.
‘Have you …?’
‘No, and I’m not going to neither.’
‘Johnny!’ Molly stared in disbelief at her ex-fiancé. His face looked thin and his cheeks sunken, his uniform hanging loosely on his tall frame. He badly needed a shave. He swayed slightly as she looked at him and she could smell the spirits on his breath. His right arm was in a sling.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked him as he grabbed hold of her arm to steady himself.
‘I’m alive,’ he told her shortly. ‘Unlike those poor buggers we’ve left behind us.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
He gave her a rictus-like smile and started to shake his head before changing his mind and saying instead, ‘Go on then.’
‘Wait here,’ Molly told him, before hurrying over to Anne to get Johnny a drink and a pork pie.
‘Is there anywhere to sit down?’ he asked her.
‘There’s a bench over there, behind you,’ Molly told him.
She started to turn away, offering a form to the next in line but Johnny grabbed hold of her arm and demanded, ‘Come wi’ us for a minute, Molly.’
‘I can’t, I’m on duty.’
‘Aye, and isn’t it part of your duty to help us poor lads?’ he pleaded with her.
Unwillingly, Molly let him pull her along with him to the empty bench.
‘’Ave you had any news from Frank yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Molly told him, ‘but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that he’s all right, and Ronnie Walker too. We’ve been praying for all of you,’ she told him quietly.
Johnny started to laugh bitterly. ‘’Ave you, an’ all. Well, it’ll tek more than prayers to help them as we’ve had to leave behind – some of ’em dead and left there to rot, and others …’ A dark, brooding expression hardened his face. ‘I’ve seen things that no man should see, Molly – no, and no woman hear about neither. Things as you wouldn’t imagine even if you was in hell. Men blown up and lying there wi’out their arms and legs, their bellies ripped open and their guts spilled out, screaming to be put out of their misery. I put a bullet in the head of one of them, poor sod, and kept one for meself as well, just in case.’
Molly swallowed against the sour sickness threatening to overwhelm her. Inside her head she could see the most dreadful and unwanted images, but she fought them down and waited silently. Wasn’t this what Mrs Wesley, obviously more informed than they had known, had warned them to expect?
‘There was one lad with us, only seventeen – and he nearly made it, an’ all, and then the bloody Luftwaffe came strafing us like we was vermin, shooting us down as we stood in line. Got it in the leg, he did. Shot off right to the hip. I used to go down the abattoir after school to earn a bit of pocket money – screamed just like them pigs did there, he did, only his screaming didn’t stop. We took him to the first-aid station they’d got set up on the beach. I heard the nurse asking the doctor if she was to give him some morphine and he told her, “No, give him heroin instead.”’
Molly looked at him.
‘He wasn’t going to be coming back, see. They knew that so they give him sommat as would stop him from knowing about it.’
‘What … what happened to your arm?’ Molly asked him jerkily when she was physically able to speak.
‘Nothing much. Just a bit of Jerry shrapnel – first-aid lot have taken the worst of it out.’
‘Molly, what are you doing?’
Molly stood up guiltily as she saw Mrs Wesley hurrying angrily towards her.
‘Thanks for that, missus,’ Johnny told her, giving her back the now empty cup and winking at her like the old Johnny as he too stood up and started to limp painfully, something Molly was sure he had not done when he had dragged her with him to the bench. ‘Your lot are doing a hell of a good job for us lads,’ he told Mrs Wesley with a soulful look.
Immediately Mrs Wesley’s stern expression softened slightly.
‘Come along, Molly, we need those forms,’ she told her.
ELEVEN
‘Molly … Dad …!’
June’s scream brought both Molly and her father running to the front door where June was standing holding a telegram, tears pouring down her face.
‘It’s Frank.’
Molly fought the sickening lurch of her stomach.
‘He’s safe. He’s safe! He’s somewhere down south and he’s all right. Oh, I’m so happy.’ June was laughing and crying at the same time, whilst their neighbours, alerted by the noise and knowing that June was waiting to hear about her husband, were opening their own front doors to see
what was going on.
‘She’s had news then?’ Daisy called across.
‘Frank’s arrived in England, Daisy. June’s just had a wire from him,’ Molly called back.
‘Oh, thank the Lord for that,’ Elsie breathed, her head poking over the fence. ‘I were that worried for her.’
Now that they knew the news was good, Daisy and Pearl both came across the road to hug June, whilst Elsie reached for Molly’s hand and gave it a gentle pat, telling her quietly, ‘You’re a good kind lass, Molly. Our Eddie would be proud of you.’
‘I knew all along your Frank would be back safe and sound,’ Pearl pronounced. ‘Has Sally Walker heard from her hubby yet?’
June shook her head. ‘I don’t know …’
‘Frank’s mam will be glad to hear the good news,’ Elsie broke in. ‘Will she get her own wire, June, or are you going to go up the cul-de-sac and tell her, like?’
‘I’ll go up later. I’m all of a shake, what with seeing the telegraph lad and thinking it were bad news.’
‘I’ll go up later and tell Frank’s mam, if you like,’ Molly offered.
June gave her a grateful look. Molly knew that her sister still hadn’t forgiven her mother-in-law for her sharp words at Sally’s.
‘I’ll call in on Sally as well and see if she’s heard anything, unless you want me to hang on until you’re feeling better so that you can walk up with me?’
‘No, you go, Molly. This heat is really getting to me and me ankles are swelling up that big I can hardly walk.’
‘Are you two going down the Grafton tonight?’ Pearl asked. ‘Only I’ve heard as how they’re putting on a bit of a special night on account of Dunkirk, like.’
‘Our Molly can go, if she likes, but I won’t be going,’ June answered for both of them.
‘I’m on WVS duty down at Lime Street again tonight,’ Molly told her. She hadn’t said anything to anyone about seeing Johnny, although she didn’t really know herself why she had not done so, unless it was because of the horror of the verbal picture he had drawn for her.
