The Grafton Girls

by Annie Groves

‘They don’t need encouraging to do that,’ another girl informed her grimly. ‘If you ask me, they’re making themselves far too much at home here as it is. I had to go to one of these dos last month, and I ended up pinned in a corner by a young airman who couldn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “no”, and kept on telling me how he was going to win the war for us. Bloody Yanks.’

  Two Royal Navy men in full dress uniform were standing either side of the double doors leading into the Commander’s private office sitting room, whilst a senior Wren was waiting with a checklist to tick off the girls’ names.

  ‘Good,’ she said when everyone had been ticked off. ‘Now before our guests arrive, I’d just like to say a few words. You’ve all been put forward for this duty because you are considered to be the right sort of people for it. And make no mistake about it, making sure our American allies are made welcome is an important duty. But just as important is your duty to your uniform, and that duty commands you to remember that you may well become the standard by which these young men will judge your fellow countrywomen. Young American men behave in a manner which to us seems far freer and easier than we are used to from our own men. American men and women go on dates with one another from a young age, and are used to having friends of the opposite sex. It is easy sometimes for us to misunderstand this behaviour and to read into light-hearted comments something that is not meant. An American serviceman may pay you compliments and call you “sweetheart”, but that is just his way. It does not mean that he is ready to call any marriage banns.’

  Dutifully the listening young women laughed.

  ‘Unfortunately there are some young women in this country who have not properly understood the differences between American ways and our own, and because of that they have earned for themselves a rather bad reputation. Suffice it to say that here at Derby House we expect our young women to reflect only the very best kind of behaviour. You are here this evening to represent your service and your country.’

  She gave them a brisk nod and then turned to the two naval ratings, instructing them to open the doors.

  Diane took a deep breath and then, keeping her head up, followed the other girls into the room.

  A group of senior officers was standing in the middle of the room, engrossed in discussion, the braid on their uniforms shining dully in the overhead light.

  ‘Lord, look at all that egg yoke,’ the girl next to Diane, who had introduced herself as Justine, murmured wryly, referring to the gold braid that denoted the seniority of the officers. ‘Not many Senior Service in evidence,’ she added. ‘Mind you, it’s hardly surprising in view of what’s been happening over the weekend. Plenty of RAF, though, and a good few American top brass as well.’

  ‘What are we supposed to do now?’ Diane asked uncertainly.

  ‘You’ll be allocated a naval rating to act as a waiter and then it will up to you to circulate, make sure all the invitees have a drink and someone to talk to. If you get stuck for something to say just ask them about their mum -much safer than asking if they have a girl,’ Justine advised.

  Diane started to nod in response when her attention was caught by the familiar features of Major Saunders. Her heart sank.

  Justine, seeing the direction in which she was looking, told her, ‘That’s Major Saunders with the Commander. He’s the main liaison officer for the Americans. Have you met him yet? If not, I’ll take you over and introduce you. You’ll see him around here quite a lot. He co-ordinates the groups of Americans coming from Burtonwood to see the way in which the Western Approaches Tactical Unit, works,’ she added.

  ‘No, no, it’s all right. I…I have met him,’ Diane stopped her quickly.

  ‘Good-looking chap,’ Justine commented. ‘Pity that he’s married.’

  The doors were opening again, this time to admit the young Americans who had been invited to the party.

  ‘It looks like it’s the aircrew lot tonight,’ Justine told Diane. ‘Pity, I’m not really in the mood for American fly-boy bragging at the moment.’

  ‘Surely they don’t do that? Brag, I mean?’ Diane queried. ‘After all, if they’re only just arriving they won’t have flown any real missions yet.’

  ‘That doesn’t stop them,’ Justine assured her. ‘You wait and see.’

  Diane was beginning to suspect that her companion wasn’t very keen on their American allies, but before she could say anything to her the other girl had turned away to speak with someone else.

  ‘Ah, Wilson, there you are, good.’ Diane turned when she heard Group Captain Barker addressing her, and then wished her superior had approached someone else when she saw that one of the uniformed men with her was the major.

  ‘Diane, by all that’s holy, it is you, isn’t it?’

  Diane’s eyes widened in surprise as she focused on the familiar face of the man who had stepped out from behind the major.

  ‘Charles! Oh! I mean, Wing Commander,’ she managed to correct herself, her face burning.

  Charles Seddon Gore, or ‘the Wing Co’, as Kit and the other flyers had called him, was a hugely popular character amongst the men, and Diane knew that Kit admired him tremendously. He had first seen action in the First World War as a seventeen-year-old, and had been shot down over the Channel during the Battle of Britain. The last Diane had heard of him was that he had been rescued but had been badly injured and his days of flying missions were over.

  ‘Oh, I say, you are a sight for sore eyes.’ He was beaming at Diane now. Turning to the men with him, he explained, ‘This young lady worked at the base in Cambridgeshire where I was stationed before I had to bale out over the Channel. Probably glad to see the last of me, and quite right too. A flyer who has to ditch his plane and jump into the drink is a damned nuisance.’

  ‘We were all delighted when we heard that you’d been rescued, sir,’ Diane told him truthfully. ‘You were missed very much by all those who knew you.’

  ‘Mm. And that young man of yours – still flying, is he?’

  Diane felt her heart do a steep dive. ‘So far as I know,’ she confirmed woodenly.

  ‘Must say that I’m surprised he’s let you come so far away from him. Would have thought he’d have had that wedding ring on your finger by now. I know I would in his shoes.’

  This was awful. Diane kept the polite smile plastered on her face, desperate to avoid further talk of Kit.

  ‘So you were saying, Wing Commander, about the risks involved in daylight bombing raids on German cities…’

  Five minutes ago she had been hating the fact that the major was here, but now she was more grateful to him than she could ever have imagined, even if his timely rescue of her was totally inadvertent.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Risky business. Even with our new Lancasters.’

  ‘But, sir, the American Air Force has some new strategies and equipment, and with those and the surprise effect of daylight bombing raids…’ one of the young American airmen burst out eagerly. ‘I mean, look at the success of the American raid on the German-held Dutch airfield over the weekend.’

  ‘Two planes lost and one damaged out of six.’ The wing commander looked grave. ‘Too much show and not enough result, if you ask me, Airman.’

  Diane couldn’t help but feel sorry for the young American, who was now blushing. Sympathetically she moved closer to him when the wing commander turned away to talk to someone else, chatting lightly to him whilst he composed himself.

  ‘I guess I said the wrong thing, didn’t I?’ he admitted ruefully as the wing commander and the other top brass – including the major, much to Diane’s relief – moved away.

  ‘Daylight raids are a bit of a sore point for us.’ Diane explained. ‘We’ve lost a lot of good men that way.’

  ‘I guess you Brits aren’t too pleased about us coming here and trying to tell you how to run your war.’

  ‘You’re our allies, we need your help, and we are grateful to you for it,’ Diane answered him tactfully, changing the subject to ask hi
m, ‘What part of America are you from?’

  Fifteen minutes later she knew everything there was to know about Airman Eddie Baker Johnson the Third and his family. She had heard about his parents, especially his father, Eddie Senior, and his mom and his two sisters. She had heard too about the small town in New England where the family lived, and the fact that Eddie had planned to follow his father into the family business before the war had come along. It hadn’t been hard for her to recognise Eddie’s homesickness and loneliness, and so she had let him pour out his heart to her whilst she listened, and in listening realised that she felt immeasurably older than this young man, who was, in reality, less than half a dozen years her junior. But then that was what war did to you.

  ‘I guess I’ll feel better once we start flying proper missions,’ Eddie confided. ‘Gee, I can’t wait.’

  Diane could see and hear the dreams of heroism and glory in his eyes and voice and her heart felt heavy. He had still to learn what so many thousands of their own young men – and women -had had to, and that was that war brought devastation and death, ruined bodies and ruined lives; that it brought far more pain and fear than glory. It changed your life for ever. But she could not tell him any of this, she knew. It was something he would have to learn for himself. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help comparing him with the young men she had known in Cambridgeshire, young men with old eyes and searing memories. She grieved for them and she grieved for him too, and for the innocence he would surely lose.

  ‘Sir…’

  The speed with which Eddie suddenly saluted and the respectful tone of his voice caused Diane to turn round to see who he was addressing, her expression giving her away, she suspected, when she realised that it was the major.

  His ‘Dismissed, Airman,’ had Eddie giving her an apologetic look before obeying him and heading off in the direction of the bar, leaving her on her own with the major.

  ‘I thought it was the US cavalry that rode to the rescue, not its army,’ Diane commented grittily, before adding, ‘There wasn’t really any need, you know. He was perfectly safe, if a little homesick.’

  ‘I’m sure he was but, as it happens, he wasn’t the one I came over to “rescue”.’

  His comment was so unexpected that Diane was shocked into looking up into his face, something she had tried to avoid doing since her unfortunate experience with the falling ladder. Now that she was looking at him, though, she realised that he had the most unusually intensely focused and compelling gaze. So much so that she couldn’t seem to drag her own away from it.

  ‘I can’t imagine why you should think it necessary to rescue me,’ she managed to say. The single raised eyebrow made her continue defensively, ‘I was enjoying listening to him talk about his family. He’s homesick and unsure of what the future holds. If I had a younger brother his age I’d like to think that someone, somewhere would take the trouble to listen to him—’ She broke off when she saw he was frowning.

  ‘You’re saying that,’ he told her, ‘but it’s no secret to those of us who have been here for a while that you Brits resent our presence.’

  He was looking at her as though he was waiting for her to deny that. Well, she wasn’t going to. Listening to Eddie had brought home to her something she hadn’t recognised before, and it was something that her own innate sense of honesty was compelling her to admit.

  ‘Yes, in many ways we do,’ she agreed. ‘People talk a lot about how war unites those fighting on the same side, but they don’t often talk about the way in which it separates us. You are our allies, we know we need your support, but at the same time…’ She paused and shook her head. ‘At first when you came over, I admit that listening to you Americans irked me. Your manner seemed boastful and arrogant; you seemed not to know or care about what this war meant to us and had done to us. Where we feel like a…a doomed generation, you all act like…like victory is just going to drop into your hands. But now I realise that I felt like that because I was envious; envious of your confidence your enthusiasm, and your energy. You still have something that we’ve lost,’ she sighed. ‘This war has drained the youth and optimism from us. Whilst all of us were in the same boat it didn’t matter because it wasn’t noticeable, but now that you are here we can see it and it makes us feel—’ Diane broke off, her face suddenly flushing with self-consciousness. She had said far more than she had intended to, but talking with Eddie had brought home to her how very much the war had changed her and her perceptions, and inwardly she was mourning that youthful part of herself that she, along with so many of her peers, had lost.

  ‘Makes you feel what?’

  She had been so lost in her thoughts that the major’s prompt startled her. How on earth had she got involved in a conversation as deep as this with him – a man she barely knew, whom she certainly did not like and who she was pretty sure despised her? She shook her head and would have walked away if he hadn’t reached out and put his hand on her arm. Even through the fabric of her jacket she could feel the strength of his hold. In another life, a life before Kit had broken her heart, she might have interpreted the sensation his touch was causing her as one of interest and approval. But that was impossible. He was a married man and she was a woman with a broken heart.

  ‘Tell me.’

  How commanding he sounded. And yet his voice was so low she had to lean towards him to hear it.

  She wanted to refuse but instead she heard herself saying unsteadily, ‘I don’t know. Tired and old; envious of your energy and enthusiasm, resentful of the loss of our own; angry because you think you can do better than we have without knowing what we have done and how much it has cost us. Oh, so many things. In comparison to you we look and feel so tired and old, even though in terms of years we’re still young. It’s as though we’ve lost something. Somehow we’ve become separate from one another, in so many different ways, our men away at war, whilst we are here, those who are engaged in the business of war here at home, and those who aren’t, men and women, children and parents, husband and wives…’

  ‘Is that why your engagement broke up?’

  Her head jerked up her eyes widening. ‘How do you—’

  ‘I overheard you talking about it earlier in the Dungeon.’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask my ex-fiancé,’ she told him curtly, pulling away from him. Somehow their conversation had taken an unexpected and very dangerous turn.

  She knew that this was not the sort of behaviour or the sort of conversation Captain Barker had had in mind when she had told her that she was putting her name forward for this extra duty. A sense of despair and loneliness filled her. She felt wretchedly aware of how alone she was, something that the major, with his wife waiting at home for him, would never be able to understand.

  ‘Your wife must miss you,’ she said, recognising immediately from his expression that he hadn’t welcomed her comment.

  ‘She knew she was marrying a soldier.’ His voice was clipped, warning her that she had overstepped the mark.

  ‘You don’t like it when I ask you personal questions – well, that works both ways,’ Diane told him.

  ‘You were happy to talk to your colleagues about your engagement,’ he responded.

  ‘That’s different,’ Diane protested. ‘I was talking to a friend, you and I aren’t…’

  ‘You and I aren’t what?’ he challenged her.

  Something very odd was happening, something totally unexpected. Something she needed to bring to a halt right here and now before it went any further.

  ‘You and I aren’t anything,’ Diane answered flatly, ‘and now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and mingle.’

  She didn’t give him the opportunity to stop her, slipping away before he had time to respond.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘Who’s the broad, Mancini?’

  Myra flicked a deliberately snooty look at the airman who had asked the question. When Nick had announced within a couple of minutes of them meeting up that he had arranged to see ‘a
couple of guys’ at a bar close to Lime Street Station, she hadn’t been too pleased but she had hidden her displeasure. However, whilst she might be keen to make a good impression on Nick, she certainly did not feel similarly inclined where his fellow American friend Tony was concerned.

  The minute the other man had come swaggering into the bar, Myra had experienced a sharp sense of antipathy towards him, and she had sensed from the look he had given her that it was one that was returned. Now, with his back to her, he was talking about her as though she wasn’t there, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was still not one hundred per cent sure of Nick, she would have made it clear to both of them that Tony’s company was not something she wanted. Tony was short and square, with sallow skin and a hooded, somehow reptilian stare that made her want to shiver.

  ‘She’s my new girl, aren’t you, babe?’ Nick answered, grinning at Myra as he put his arm round her and gave her a hug. ‘The other guys in the platoon understand when a guy has the hots for a girl and wants to get a bit of time with her, and they don’t mind covering for me,’ he told his friend.

  ‘The MPs are pretty keen,’ Tony commented.

  ‘They ain’t too bad if you know how to handle them,’ Nick responded with a wink, before removing his arm from Myra’s shoulder and telling her, ‘Why don’t you go and powder your nose or something, sugar, whilst Tony and I discuss a bit of business? We won’t be too long – just fifteen minutes or so – and then I’ll take you out for dinner.’

  She was being told to make herself scarce, Myra recognised, and she could guess why. She wasn’t so dim that she hadn’t heard about some of the Americans supplying black marketeers with goods from the American bases’ PX stores. Personally, she didn’t give two hoots about Nick being involved with the black market. She had already noted the spivs clustered round the bar and had guessed that this must be one of their favoured meeting places.

  There were two other girls in the small ladies’ room already, both peroxided blondes with over-made-up faces, one chewing gum whilst the other smoked a cigarette.