by Anne Bennett
‘All right,’ Lily began. ‘Why don’t the two of us go into the munitions?’
Aggie stared at her. ‘Lily, I know nothing about making guns and things like that.’
‘I should imagine most of the people in the factories was the same once,’ Lily said. ‘And what they can learn we could learn just as easily. The doctor says they are crying out for people.’
‘The doctor?’ Aggie repeated in surprise. ‘Don’t say he was all for it as well? I’ve heard they can be dangerous places to work.’
Lily nodded. ‘He agreed they was. But he said it was our chance to get out of this. I think he would like to see us respectable.’
‘I dearly wish I was,’ Aggie said.
‘So do I, bab, in my heart of hearts,’ Lily admitted. ‘And, anyroad, I am too old now for the streets, so how about it?’
‘What about references?’
‘The doctor doesn’t think they are too fussy,’ Lily said. ‘You can say you are newly arrived from Ireland after your parents died or summat, and come to stay with me, your auntie, and that we both want to register for war work. Anyroad, if there is a problem, Jane said her sister will vouch for us.’
‘Does Jane’s sister work in one of these places then?’
‘Yeah, she works in a place called Kynoch’s and gets two pounds ten shillings, or even three pounds sometimes, if she puts in a bit of overtime.’
‘It’s good money.’
‘Not half,’ Lily agreed. ‘And that ain’t all, bab.’
‘Oh, come on. What else have you thought up to frighten the life out of me?’
‘I ain’t trying to frighten the life out of you, I am trying to protect you,’ Lily protested. ‘Think on this: however dangerous munitions work is, does it measure up to you meeting up with Finch one dark night? Think what the bloody hell he could do to you the next time.’
Aggie shuddered. ‘Don’t.’
‘You need to be kept off the streets and preferably out of this area,’ Lily said. ‘The place where Jane’s sister works is in an area called Witton, the same place we was at today, and we could get lodgings and live near at hand. Every second person there is offering rooms to let, apparently. That way, while the war lasts, you would be totally safe from Finch.’
‘You don’t know how happy that makes me feel,’ Aggie said. ‘Can we take a dander up to see the place tomorrow?’
‘I don’t mind,’ Lily said, ‘but we’ll have to go on the tram. Thought you was scared stiff of them?’
‘I am nervous,’ Aggie admitted. ‘But I can conquer that. What I have no control over is my fear of Finch. In fact I am bloody terrified of meeting up with him again. How does a short tram ride compare to that?’
‘Huh, well, I know which I’d rather,’ Lily said. ‘All right, you’re on, bab. The pair of us will go up tomorrow.’
They found the Kynoch works on Witton Road, not far from the cemetery, just as Jane had described it to them. Built of brick, it was a low building with huge metal gates at the front.
‘Shall we go for it, girl?’ Lily asked. ‘Go right up this minute and ask if they have any jobs?’
‘What have we got to lose?’ Aggie said.
‘Nothing at all,’ Lily replied determinedly, and she approached the gates with a purposeful air. Immediately a man came out of the little hut at the side of the gate and asked them to state their business.
‘We’re both after jobs,’ Lily said. ‘Any going, is there?’
‘I should think so,’ the man sad. ‘Usually is. You’ll have to speak to a Mr Witchell. Decent enough fellow.’ He unlocked the gate with a large set of keys as he spoke, swung it open for them to enter and locked and bolted it carefully once they were inside. Then he led the way down the alley alongside the factory to a building at the back, and ushered them inside to a small waiting area with wooden chairs around the bare brown walls. ‘Wait here,’ the man said. ‘I’ll see if Mr Witchell is free.’
Witchell was not only free, but he seemed pleased to see them, and when he looked at the forms they both filled in he was surprised that they were both single, especially the younger and very beautiful one.
It was to Aggie that he spoke when he said, ‘We employ a lot of young women here and we often have them no sooner trained than they get married and leave us. I know that you are wearing no ring, Miss Sullivan, but is there some young man in the offing?’
‘No,’ Aggie said, proud that her voice held not a tremor of emotion. ‘I was engaged and my fiancé was killed. It was then I decided to do something for the war effort.’
From this Mr Witchell thought that Aggie’s fiancé had been killed in the trenches and Aggie did not put him right. ‘Dear, dear!’ he said. ‘This terrible war, such heartache and tragedy at every turn. My greatest sympathy to you, Miss Sullivan, and how commendable, my dear, that you should offer your services for war work in this way.’
Aggie wondered how Mr Witchell would behave if she were to blurt out the truth. Very differently, she knew, and she felt guilty at taking his condolence at her loss.
Lily, knowing Aggie and how her mind worked a sight better than their prospective boss, saw her flushed face and put in quickly, before he could ask her anything else, ‘As for me, I thought it was about time I did my bit too. After all, we have to support our boys. Can’t fight nobody without bullets and guns, can they?’
Mr Witchell smiled at Lily, but she had achieved her aim and got his attention from Aggie so she had a minute to compose herself. Afterwards, walking towards the tram stop, she said to Lily, ‘When I said that about Alan, he presumed—’
‘Yeah, he presumed,’ Aggie said. ‘That was his problem. You never said a word of a lie, and what’s it matter to him how Alan died? We will work as hard as the rest. You do want this job, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Well, then, keep your lip buttoned,’ Lily said sharply. ‘It’s a bloody jungle out there. Survival of the fittest and all that. Still, no harm done in the end, and we start on Monday morning prompt at half-past seven. Did you see Mr Witchell’s face when we said we could be ready for Monday morning? He couldn’t believe it.’
‘We hadn’t sorted out lodgings then either,’ Aggie said.
‘No,’ Lily said. ‘Nice of Mr Witchell to recommend Mrs Palmer’s in Albert Road to us.’
They had gone straight down after leaving Kynoch’s. The house was neat and well kept. Both Aggie and Lily had been drawn to the woman who opened the door to them, for she had an open, friendly face. She also had a mop of natural brown curls that they were to find she was always complaining about, deep brown eyes, with gorgeously long black lashes, and her cheeks were just dusted with pink. Her smile lit up her face when they explained why they were there. She introduced herself as Polly Palmer, bade them come in, and they stepped into the room.
Two children were playing on the rug by the door. They got up when they saw they had visitors and approached their mother, but while the boy appraised both women openly, his younger sister hid behind her mother’s skirts and put a finger in her mouth. Aggie saw immediately that they had taken their looks from their mother. For the first fifteen years of her life she had been surrounded by siblings and she was drawn to these beautiful children of Polly’s, and so she smiled and said, ‘Hello.’
The boy gave a cheeky grin in return and then, because his mother had told him that they were having lodgers, and he had never seen these two women before, he said, ‘You coming to live in our house?’
‘Charlie, don’t be rude,’ Polly said sharply.
‘I ain’t being rude,’ the boy said indignantly. ‘I’m just asking.’
‘They haven’t even seen their rooms yet, so how can they say?’
‘Would you mind if we did live here?’ Aggie asked, and the boy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I get to sleep in the attic and it’s smashing. It has got a window in the ceiling. I’d hate it if I had to sleep with our mom like Clara.’
Agg
ie bent down and said to the little girl trying to bury herself further into her mother’s skirts, ‘Will you mind us coming to live in your house, Clara?’
She was a lovely child, Aggie thought. Her untamed curls framed her pretty face and her eyes looked enormous. She didn’t take her finger out of her mouth, but she shook her head and gave a shy little smile.
‘I’ll show you to your rooms,’ Polly said, and led the way upstairs with the children bringing up the rear. Aggie and Lily had a room each. The sheets were crisp and clean, and there were plenty of blankets and bright bedspreads. Oilcloth covered the floor but there was a rag rug beside each bed, and they each had a chest of drawers and a wardrobe too.
They were much better lodgings than they had anticipated and both women were delighted with them.
‘We’ll take them and gladly,’ Lily said. ‘I think I can speak for Aggie as well, for I see by her face that she is as pleased as me.’
‘Oh, I am,’ Aggie said. ‘These are wonderful rooms.’
‘Yours used to be my room,’ Charlie told Aggie. ‘Only Mom cleaned it up for you, like.’
‘Cleaned it up!’ Polly repeated. ‘I’ll say I cleaned it up. It was like a tidal wave had gone through it.’
Aggie laughed. ‘Well you did a good job of it, anyway. What rent are you asking?’
‘Does five shillings each sound all right to you?’ Polly asked. ‘You would have breakfast and an evening meal for that too.’
‘I think that is very generous,’ Lily said.
‘Are you sure that that is enough?’ Aggie asked.
‘Quite sure. And now if that is settled maybe we should go downstairs to have a cup of tea to seal the bargain.’
It was as Aggie was following Polly and Lily down the stairs that she felt her hand grasped gently and, turning round, she saw Clara’s little hand in hers and a tentative smile playing around her mouth. Aggie felt her heart turn over. She held Clara’s hand a little tighter as she remembered her earlier life with her brothers and sister, which had been ripped from her.
Polly said she didn’t mind if they wanted to push the two beds into the one room and make the other room into a sitting room that they could use in the evenings. She also told them about her husband away at the Front, and how she worried about him and missed him because they had never been apart before.
Both Aggie and Lily heard the loneliness in her voice so Aggie was pleased when Lily said, ‘If it’s all the same to you we’ll leave things as they are. I think I would rather stay down here in the evening, that is if you don’t mind, of course.’
They saw the relief in Polly’s face and weren’t surprised when she said, ‘Oh, I don’t mind. Not in the slightest. Tell you the truth, I would be glad of the company.’
‘Oh, I think we’ve fallen on our feet right and proper this time,’ Aggie said as the tram rattled along the rails. ‘They’re so lovely, both Polly and her children.’
‘Yeah,’ Lily agreed. ‘About time summat went right for us, I think. And I watched you with them kids, Aggie. It’s a bleeding shame you ain’t got a man of your own and a houseful of nippers ’cos you’re a natural.’
‘I don’t think I could ever have children, Lily,’ Aggie told her. ‘Look how many men I have slept with over the years, and there has never been a sign. Most of the girls had to get themselves seen to – and more than once, some of them – but I never did. I always thought that when I miscarried that time I damaged something. I didn’t bother about it then. It was better that I couldn’t get pregnant. It was when I thought I would be marrying Alan that I thought of it again.’
‘You might be right about damaging yourself,’ Lily said. ‘But I doubt Alan Levingstone would have wanted kids at his age, anyroad.’
‘Maybe not,’ Aggie said. ‘But I bet he would have given me children if I had wanted them badly enough, because Alan loved me with every shred of his being.’
‘You’re right there, girl, anyroad,’ Lily said. ‘Some silly bugger once said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Not so sure of that myself. No time to ponder it now, though,’ cos this is our stop and we have packing-up to do.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Aggie with a grimace. ‘I can pack up the last fifteen years of my life in no time at all.’
They were ready to go by Sunday morning, but weren’t due at the Palmers’ until the afternoon. Lily suggested they buy a paper and see what was going on in this war that they soon would be making detonators for. Working and living in the club, Aggie had been shielded from much of it. She had no idea of the extreme poverty of many people and how the sight of the telegraph boy struck terror into many a heart. Lily, living where she had been, knew a little more, but neither woman had the least idea of the battles raging and the condition of the average soldier’s life in the trenches.
However, on Saturday, 1 July, the Battle of the Somme began in France. Newsreel cameramen and photographers were allowed on the battlefield for the first time, thereby bringing the horror of it into people’s homes in a way that had never been done before.
Aggie and Lily spread the papers out before them and even with the grainy newsprint pictures the brutal bloodbath was easy to see. They saw the limbs of half-submerged and very dead soldiers, peeping through the slurry and mud of the trenches, men lying on the blood-slimed battlefield with their legs shot from under them, or impaled on wire, and soldiers continuing to run towards their enemies’ guns over the bodies and bits of bodies of those who hadn’t made it.
‘God, it’s awful,’ Aggie said. ‘The younger officers who came to the club were all damaged in some way. One had a tremor that he couldn’t control and he felt so embarrassed about it, as if it betrayed some weakness in him. And there were some with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes that they were afraid to shut, for they said if they did they relived the terrible carnage all over again. Most of them were unable to share the memories with anyone, partly because they had been told not to worry the people back home and partly because what was happening was so shocking. Yet their pain and the horror of it all were written over many of the faces. Most drank too much, of course.’
‘And who can blame them?’ Lily said, shaking the paper angrily. ‘It says here twenty-one thousand allied soldiers were killed at the Battle of the Somme in the first hour.’
‘Dear God, such numbers don’t bear thinking about,’ Aggie said aghast. ‘How can you even visualise such numbers?’
‘All we can be grateful for is that none of our loved ones are caught up in all this,’ Lily comforted her.
‘You can say that again.’ Aggie sighed with relief, little knowing that her youngest and headstrong brother, Finn, had been one of the Somme’s first casualties and his body left in a foreign field.
EIGHTEEN
It was Sunday, 9th July 1916, and the three Sullivan men were just finishing the milking when Tom, glancing up through the open door of the byre, saw a boy in a uniform of sorts clatter across the cobblestones on a bicycle. He saw him throw this down before the cottage and take a telegram from the bag around his shoulders.
None of the Sullivans had ever received a telegram, but Tom remembered Joe had said that was how the army informed the relatives if a man was missing or dead. His mouth suddenly felt very dry.
He looked back into the byre, where his father and brother were tipping milk into the churns, and called out, ‘There’s a boy here with—’
He got no further, for they all heard Biddy give a sharp cry of distress. Tom, bursting on to the yard, saw the boy standing apprehensively before the open cottage door. He looked thankful to see Tom, and he said, ‘She sort of fell over when I gave her the telegram.’
‘It’s all right,’ Tom assured him. ‘I will see to her now.’
As the relieved boy mounted his bike, Tom turned to his mother. She was kneeling on the floor, keening in deep distress, the tears pouring from her eyes and a crumpled buff telegram clutched to her breast. His father and Joe were at his h
eels.
‘What is it?’ Thomas John cried, but in his heart of hearts he knew.
Tom didn’t answer his father, but instead lifted his mother to her feet and, putting his arms around her, led her to one of the easy chairs pulled up before the fire, saying, ‘Come on, Mammy, don’t take on like this.’
He was moved by the bleak expression in his mother’s dark eyes. ‘Oh, Tom,’ she said, and handed him the telegram.
He scanned it quickly. ‘It’s Finn,’ he said to his father and Joe, standing staring at him.
‘Well, of course it’s Finn,’ Thomas John snapped. ‘I haven’t a rake of sons in the British Army. Is he dead?’
Tom nodded and Thomas John felt a deep and intense pain inside him at the loss of his youngest son. ‘Ah God,’ he cried. ‘What a tragic waste of a young life.’
Biddy began crying afresh and Tom busied himself making tea so that none would see his own wet cheeks. As the eldest he remembered Finn from the day that he was born. He recalled the cheeky grin he had and how funny he had been as a wee boy. He would trail after him all the time, and plague him to death with questions. What he wouldn’t give to hear those same questions now, he thought as he handed out tea, noting that Thomas John’s eyes were glittery with unshed tears and even Joe’s were brighter than normal.
No one went to Mass that Sunday, but they sat on and talked of Finn, their memories punctuated with Biddy’s sobs. ‘I will have nothing of his,’ Biddy said suddenly, ‘not even a grave to tend.’
‘Well, that’s the way of it in wartime,’ Thomas John said brusquely. ‘And you won’t be alone either. There will be many families, both sides of the Irish Sea, mourning the loss of a loved one this day, I’m thinking.’
‘Maybe, but that doesn’t help me.’
‘Nothing will help,’ Thomas John said. ‘Nothing but time.’
In the end, because Biddy was incapable, Tom and Joe made a stab at making some breakfast for them all, though his mother could eat none of it and even Tom had little appetite.
