by June Gadsby
‘Let’s have another go at that knitting,’ she said, picking up her needles and pulling the stitches off so she could make a fresh start. ‘Now, how does it go again?’
‘What do you think?’ Iris linked her arm in Mary’s as she put her question and gave a squeeze.
‘I’m game if you are,’ Mary told her and each gave a nervous laugh as they stared at the mobile recruitment office parked in Victoria Square in front of the Wool Shop. On the side of the van were painted the letters F.A.N.Y. and below it, in brackets: First-Aid Nursing Yeomanry.
‘Well, it was your idea, Mary,’ Iris said, still hanging back. ‘If it doesn’t work, we’ll almost certainly lose our jobs at the Pensions Office, just for being late in this morning.’
‘Oh, Mr Hornby’s not that bad. He’s quite a sweetie, really.’ Mary licked her lips and wondered if it had been such a good idea after all to come here, for her courage was suddenly failing her. ‘You know what he’s like. He’ll roll those wobbly eyes of his and quiver all over—’
‘All that pink blancmange quivering,’ Iris butted in with a shudder. ‘I could have nightmares about that.’
‘Well, are ye’s gannin in or not?’
The coarse but highly recognizable voice behind them made the two friends jump. A figure pushed past them and stood on the wooden steps of the recruitment van with a small, but challenging grin twisting her face.
‘Effie? Are you joining up, then?’
‘Aye, if they’ll have us. Ye divvint have to talk posh to drive and I’ve driven everything from a kiddie car to a hearse, including that thing there.’
Effie Donaldson pointed to a rather scruffy Norton motorbike parked at the kerbside. It had been there when Mary and Iris arrived, but they had assumed that it belonged to one of the local men.
‘You ride a motorbike, Effie?’
‘Aye. It’s me brother Joe’s, but he’s not going to be needin’ it no more. We got the telegram yesterday.’
‘Oh, Effie, I’m so sorry.’ Mary stepped forward, full of sympathy, but the girl backed off stiffly.
‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘He was always a bleedin’ idiot, our Joe. Well, now, he’s a dead hero and folks are sayin’ what a good lad he was. Maybe they’ll say the same about me when I catch a Gerry bullet. At least it’ll be better than laying oot the dead.’
She turned on her heel and marched into the van, her back as straight as a ramrod. Mary and Iris exchanged looks and followed her.
‘If she can do it …’ Iris said.
‘So can we,’ Mary finished for her.
Inside the van, there were two uniformed girls, much the same age as Mary and Iris. They were directed to take a seat on a long, leather-upholstered bench, where they would have to wait their turn to be interviewed. The interviews were conducted in a closed-off section and only a muffled murmur of voices could be heard through the hardwood partition. Once interviewed, the girls left the van by another exit, probably to stop them exchanging notes about the system.
Mary was the last to go through and she was surprised to see that one of the two interviewing officials was Anne Beasley who stood stiffly to attention by the desk and said nothing, keeping her eyes to the front all the time, just like a regular soldier.
‘Sit down, please,’ the older woman behind the desk said without looking up. ‘Now then, I’m sure you want to know all about our corps, the F.A.N.Y. We are, of course, an old established institution, founded in 1907—’
‘Good heavens!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘It’s Miss Croft, isn’t it?’
The woman recoiled slightly, her eyelids fluttering. It was obvious that she had not recognized her old pupil. She looked at Anne Beasley for information, her thin eyebrows raised.
‘It’s Mary West, ma’am,’ Anne said deferentially. ‘You taught us both …’
‘Ah, yes, indeed. Mary! What on earth are you doing here, child?’
‘I want to help my country,’ Mary said, gazing with mixed memories on the face of this woman who had aged so considerably in the years since she had tutored in French and German. ‘I didn’t know you were in the FANYs.’
She saw Miss Croft’s chest rise and fall beneath the khaki tunic, heard a soft sigh, but the face that had always been and still was melancholy, remained bland.
‘It wasn’t something I talked about,’ Miss Croft said. ‘I became a commanding officer during the First World War, but in those days we were involved more in a nursing capacity as well as driving ambulances for the Red Cross. Now, I have been asked to help recruit the new FANYs.’
She went on to explain the essentials of being a member of such an illustrious corps and the rigorous training that was required.
‘Do you have any questions up to now, Mary?’ Miss Croft asked eventually.
Mary looked back blankly and glanced up at Anne Beasley to see if she could see any kind of signal from that direction, but Anne continued to ignore her.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Good, good.’ Miss Croft continued, talking over tented fingers and making it all sound more like a Women’s Institute lecture on economizing in the home. ‘We are looking for drivers mainly on this recruitment operation. Drivers and radio operators. You will, of course, be given some training. However, in view of the pressing circumstances of war, these could well be basic and you might find yourself thrown in, as it were, at the deep end.’ She glanced down at the form Mary had filled in while waiting and tapped her pen on it. ‘Are you a particularly nervous person, would you say?’
‘Not particularly,’ Mary said, not really sure, but she didn’t leap a mile, as her mother and her grandmother did if something went phut beside them.
‘Neat handwriting and, as I recall, you speak French fluently and can get by in German. I needn’t tell you how invaluable you could be to any unit you join. It is highly likely that you will end up by being sent to France because of your linguistic ability.’
‘It’s a long time since I spoke either language,’ Mary informed her.
There was a slight clearing of the throat from Anne, who was beginning to rock slightly on the balls of her feet, her arms tucked neatly behind her back. Miss Croft looked at her and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Anne suddenly bent over the desk and gave Mary a mouthful of rapid French, to which Mary responded without thinking. When Anne switched to German, Mary replied in the same language, but her German was halting and flawed.
‘Thank you, Beasley,’ Miss Croft said and Anne returned to standing stiffly to attention.
‘That was very impressive, Mary. Your French, at least, is still excellent.’
‘I don’t get much opportunity to practise foreign languages here in Felling,’ Mary said with an amused smile, wondering what Harry Hornby would do if she suddenly addressed him in German. Faint, probably.
‘Quite,’ Miss Croft almost smiled back at her, but checked herself and returned to the papers before her. ‘Now, just one or two formalities …’
A few minutes later Mary emerged from the van, her cheeks scorching with excitement. Iris was waiting for her and she could also see Effie Donaldson hovering in the background.
‘Well?’
‘I think I got accepted, but I have to wait for official confirmation. You?’
‘Me too,’ Iris squeaked. ‘I think my dad must have pulled some strings with his Masonic pals.’ Iris’s father was an engineer at Swan Hunter’s shipyard.
‘He must have pulled some for me too, then.’ Mary laughed. ‘I thought you had to come from a better background than mine. Mind you, it is wartime.’
‘They’re probably glad of anything they can get.’ Iris raised her eyebrows, then grinned. ‘Just joking, Mary. Anyway, you’re cleverer than me.’
Behind them they heard the spluttering cough of the motorbike engine revving up, then Effie rode off, her tyres kicking up gravel as she swerved perilously around the corner, her skirt riding up to her skinny thighs.
‘They must have turned her down,’
Mary said, feeling quite sorry for the poor girl.
Iris pulled a face and laughed.
‘Well, they do say that the FANYs come from all walks of life, but I doubt if they’d want to dig down as low as Effie Donaldson, even if her father is an undertaker.’
‘Even so,’ Mary felt the need to defend Effie. ‘She can die for her country as well as anybody else.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ Iris allowed. ‘I’m sorry I said that.’
‘So you should be. Come on, let’s go and break the news to Mr Hornby … and our families.’
‘You’ve done what, our Mary?’ Jenny West’s eyes were out on stalks and already filling up with tears as she took on board what Mary was telling her.
‘I’ve joined the FANYs, Mam.’
‘What in the name of God did you do that for? Frank, did you hear our girl?’
‘Aye,’ said Frank through the open door between the kitchen and the scullery where he was standing in the tin bath washing off the coal-dust of the day. ‘Here was I wishing I had a son to be proud of and me daughter’s proved herself to be a man.’
‘You what, Frank?’
‘Well, ye know what I mean. I’m proud of ye, Mary, lass.’
‘But Frank! She … she’s joined up, for goodness sake. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
‘Aye,’ came the reply through grunts and much splashing. ‘They turned me down, but now this family can hold its head up high, thanks to our Mary.’
‘I didn’t know you wanted to be a FANY, Dad,’ Mary joked. ‘Oh, Mam, stop looking so worried. It’s not as if I’m going to be fighting or anything like that. They just want drivers and mechanics and such.’
‘But they’re all volunteers, that lot,’ Jenny said. ‘What are you going to do for money?’
‘I’ll manage, Mam,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve got all my savings.’
‘But I thought that was for when you got married.’
‘Yes, well …’ Mary wrinkled her nose and avoided her mother’s eyes. ‘There’s plenty of time for that. Right now, helping my country’s more important.’
‘And where will they be sending you? Not overseas, I hope?’
‘We’re going on a crash course at York. After that we’ll be billeted out wherever we’re needed.’
‘Oh, aye?’ Jenny’s chin was wobbling and her eyes were full to the brim with tears. ‘And who’s “we”?’
‘Iris and me,’ Mary told her. ‘And a few others that were taken on today. I saw Pamela Richardson in the queue, and Nancy Walters. I think poor Effie Donaldson probably got the thumbs down, though, the way she rode off without a word.’
‘Who’s Effie Donaldson when she’s at home?’ Jenny said, trying to mask the fact that she was broken-hearted at the thought of her favourite daughter leaving home and doing something other than knitting for the war effort.
‘She’s from Donaldson’s Funeral Parlour, Mam.’
‘Oh, she’s feisty, that one,’ Frank said, stepping into the kitchen in clean long johns and still drying behind his ears. ‘When she was born I think the midwife must have rubbed her down with sandpaper. Rough as they come, but she’s good at her job. It’s not everybody that can lay out a corpse.’
‘Well, I’m glad they don’t take the likes of her on,’ Jenny concluded. ‘I wouldn’t want you rubbing shoulders with common tarts, and may God forgive me for speaking so bluntly and using such language.’
‘Oh, Mam!’ Mary laughed and moved to the door; she hadn’t even stopped to take off her outdoor things.
‘Now where are you off to?’
‘I thought I’d just slip over to our Helen’s and tell her my news.’
‘Well, before you do, and before I forget to tell you, this letter came for you this morning.’ Jenny took an official-looking envelope down from the mantelpiece and handed it to her daughter.
Mary looked puzzled as she stared at the unfamiliar writing and the BFPO postmark.
‘Aren’t you going to open it? I thought you’d be excited, getting your first letter from Walter, wherever he is, bless him.’
‘It’s not Walter’s writing, Mam,’ Mary said, sliding her thumb under the seal and pulling out the single piece of paper that was folded inside.
‘Well, who’s it from, then?’
Mary stared at the short letter, written in a bold, slanting hand that seemed to have been unsteady at the time of writing. She read it quickly, not believing what she saw there, then blinked at her mother.
‘Oh, just a friend,’ she said hastily, aware that her cheeks were colouring up furiously.
Murmuring her excuses, she stuffed the letter in her pocket and rushed out into the darkening night. She knew her way blindfolded to her sister’s and she headed there now, but her mind played over and over again the few words she had read in Alex Craig’s letter.
‘My dear Mary, I had hoped to write to you before now, but things are a bit hectic over here. As I take a moment to scribble these words, men are dying all around me, but I have done my best for them. They say we’re to move on soon and I don’t know where I’ll be or if I will ever be able to contact you again. Forgive me, but I carry the memory of your sweet face with me and it gets me through the long days and endless nights. Perhaps it is foolish, but being able to write to you like this helps enormously. I hope you and the good people of Felling are still safe and will remain so. Things are not so good on this side of the Channel. With fondest thoughts, Alex.
By the time she stumbled through Helen’s door, she had so many conflicting emotions rushing around inside her she burst into bittersweet tears and nearly frightened her poor sister to death.
‘Mary! What on earth is wrong?’
‘Everything!’ was all Mary could say.
Three months later, in a windswept field hospital in northern France, Alex was washing the blood of a young soldier off his hands, wondering if he would ever manage to get a proper night’s sleep. The lad was just twenty years old and talking volubly about how lucky he was to be among the wounded. He couldn’t wait to get back home and take his girlfriend ice-skating. They hadn’t told him yet that even if he survived surgery he would never walk again, for he had spinal damage and had lost the use of both legs in the explosion that had blown out the brains of his best pal, whom he had tried to save.
Alex had lost track of the time he had been in the field hospital. It felt like a lifetime. During the first couple of days he thought he would never get used to seeing so much human destruction. He did what he could. It was never enough. On the fourth day something took over inside him, an anger like an inner strength that shut down his nervous system and put his emotions on hold. From that moment on he was able to cope and do his job almost like an automaton.
He grabbed what little sleep he could get between batches of injured servicemen being brought in by the Red Cross ambulances. It was never enough, but during those precious minutes of sleep or half-sleep, his mind turned to pleasanter things. Memories of his childhood home on the west coast of Scotland, the happy days spent there before he went to medical school, the short time he had spent in his uncle’s Felling practice.
He forced himself not to think of Fiona. He did think, however, about Mary West and wondered what she was doing, what she thought of his unforgivable behaviour that night of the benefit when he had lost his head and kissed her. Had his profound sense of loss and loneliness driven him to do such a thing? It seemed like the right thing to do at the time and she had responded, oh, so sweetly. He saw her gentle face and bright eyes and smiling mouth, not only in his dreams, but in flashes as he cared for his patients, trying desperately to remain impersonal.
The sound of vehicles, struggling with deep, throaty roars over the rough terrain outside penetrated his thoughts, together with his ward sister running between the tightly packed beds calling his name.
‘There’s another batch of wounded arriving, Captain Craig, sir,’ Sister Grace Forsyth told him.
‘Where t
he hell are we going to put them, Sister?’
‘We’ve got a spare ambulance. The FANYs are kitting it out to take the walking wounded to the next field site. Orders to break camp are expected at any minute. It’ll be a crush, but until we can get an extension for this circus tent, it’s the best we can do.’
‘How many moves have you made so far, Sister?’
‘Four, including this one,’ she replied.
‘In how long?’
‘In almost as many weeks.’
‘Good Lord, Sister. Does Hitler have a crystal ball or something? Is there a spy in the unit perhaps?’
Grace Forsyth shrugged her shoulders and stared at his Adam’s apple. He noticed how her hands bunched into fists and that she stuck them behind her back as if to hide them from sight.
‘The Germans are strong in this part of France, sir. They’re on the march and they’re knocking our units out as fast as they set up camp. It’s a war, Captain Craig. Somebody wins, somebody loses.’
‘And at the moment it would seem that the Germans have the upper hand and all we medics can do is patch up the suffering they inflict on our boys.’
‘Yes, sir. I’m afraid that’s the way it is.’
Alex doused his face with cold water and scrubbed his skin dry as Sister Forsyth went on giving him the latest progress reports on the more seriously ill and wounded in their care. The tent hospital was an expedient affair and could be dismantled and moved easily enough with the help of the troops who were attached to the unit. He wondered how long they could keep one step ahead of the advancing Wehrmacht. Things already seemed too close for comfort.
The hospital was draughty and never warm enough and the surgeons often had to work with hands that were blue with the cold, warmed only by the blood of their patients. There was never enough space, staff, instruments or medicines. Equipment was basic and very often archaic, and there was insufficient food to go around.
‘Damn the bloody Germans!’ he spat out, then, turning, he got his eye on a blond-haired boy as young as the private soldier he had just finished patching up.
